The Shadows We Bear [Part X / ???]
Basic premise for those who do not know: this fic is set the the world of theskytides, an AU panfandom RPG set in a steampunk line in which it is totally a fandom of its own. Miles Edgeworth (from the Ace Attorney series) and Hijikata Toshirou (from Gintama) happen to be the first mate / boatswain respectively in of one of the ships in the game. In this story, Hijikata has something of a... crush towards Edgeworth that he has never told anyone, though he is aware. Which of course, will only lead to nothing but trouble...
Parts: Part I | Part II | Part III | Part IV | Part V | Part VI | Part VII | Part VIII | Part IX | Part X | Part XI
THE SHADOWS WE BEAR
TST!Shadowverse fic : Part X
It was a while-and both teenagers had recovered enough to move up and towards the other two by then-did Edgeworth finally start to regain consciousness once again, signalled by the shifting of his brows and the faint groan that escaped him as sense started to rush back into him.
Having still been holding him, Hijikata was the one who had noticed the man arising back from being knocked out. “Edgeworth!” he exclaimed out before thinking, looking with worry as the silver-haired man stirred. The dark-haired man watched as he blinked, eyelids fluttering as those familiar dark grey eyes focused back into existence and looked dazedly at him.
“Hi... Hijikata,” he gasped out.
A relieved look crossed the boatswain’s face at that (a fact that stunned him somewhat-this was the first time he had seen the other like this) and the ghost of a smile could almost be seen on his face before he raised his head up and spoke. “He’s alright.”
Edgeworth followed his gaze upwards to see none other than his cousin and that brunette friend of his looking down at him from above-the brown-headed kid was grinning, while Souji himself had a small smile on his face. It took a bit for him to realize after that that he was on the ground, though there was something warm around him instead of the cold hard wood that parts of him felt freezing slightly though his clothes. He cast his glance to the side to see that there was an arm around him-Hijikata’s arm. The samurai was holding him in his arms.
Though as soon as he had seemed to realize that though, the swordsman only made a sound and quickly shifted around so that was now helping him back up from the ground. Both men stood up, the wood creaking slightly below them as they did so. His head felt a little giddy immediately once they got up, but Hijikata held him tightly and it only took a moment before the dizziness faded.
“...you alright ?” came the quietly concerned voice of the other man.
The silver-haired man started to turn around to respond that he was fine, but then stopped when he caught sight of the figure that was standing some distance away from them. It was him-the other him; the him that had said all those things that he didn’t want to hear, didn’t want anybody to hear at all but still had. And now that other him was standing there quietly, and he could feel those golden eyes looking at him with a soul-piercing gaze.
Instinctively, Edgeworth found himself shrinking back against the other man’s hold. “Hijikata-”
Instead of him however, it was the voice of his cousin that cut him short. “Miles, you have to face it.”
“But those things that it said-”
“Are fine,” the teenager’s voice came from behind him, and Edgeworth felt the other’s hand grasping him by the shoulder. He turned to the side to look at the understanding look that was on Souji’s face. “They’re fine, Miles. They’re all just a part of you. It’s not the whole deal.”
Hijikata could feel a nervous shake from the other man as he took a glance at the thing before looking back at the teenager, the tone of his voice decidedly edgy. “But all those things-”
Now it was the brunette’s turn to cut in. “Seesh, didn’t Souji already tell you? It was just your emotions going haywire.” The other teenager stepped in besides his companion, glancing at him before facing the silver-haired man with a small shrug. “Happens to even the best of us.”
“It’s not like anything’s going to change,” came an unnaturally quiet voice on his other side, and Edgeworth turned over to see the boatswain glancing away from him and towards the nearby wall, and the grip that he had on him had loosened enough for him to break free if he needed to.
Souji’s voice brought the man back to his relative. “He’s right.”
Yosuke spoke up once more. “Now, uh, as much as I’d like for you guys to continue we’d better just-you know, wrap it up?” he went, making a gesture towards the Shadow that was still there. Edgeworth glanced towards it, feeling his gut churning about as he looked at those eyes that seemed to be looking straight at and deep into him, as if it was seeing everything that he had been trying to hide from the world, from himself. And with how it had gone on earlier, perhaps it was.
He glanced down towards his cousin again, and the silver-haired teenager closed his eyes and nodded. “It only ends once you truly accept it.”
Edgeworth closed his eyes at that, letting out a breath he didn’t know he was holding in and took a step out away from the rest of them. There was an abrupt shift in the atmosphere when he did so, and he suddenly felt alone again, even if the other three were right behind him. Part of him wanted to curl up once again, to huddle up and give into his fear like he had always done before, but he knew nothing would come from it. So instead he only steeled himself from within and started to walk towards his other half, the sound of his boots echoing within the room.
The Shadow only kept its gaze at him even as he walked, eerily silent as it watched his every movement with those yellow eyes. Edgeworth forced himself to stay on his course even as he walked, pushing down the anxiety and nervousness and fear that was welling within him. Even if he wasn’t aware of it properly, instinctively he already knew-this was his shadow, the ugliest side of him that he knew of, and now he had to meet it face to face.
There was a pause when he came up-close to the other, silent as he looked at it before he finally spoke. “I... I admit it. I am scared,” he started, voice weak with uncertainty. “Up until today, DL-6 has never been solved and I... I am scared that I might’ve killed my own father that day.” His hand twitched there and then, an instinct to grip his arm in an attempt of protecting himself, but Edgeworth made himself not to-he couldn’t be weak now, or otherwise things would never be right again. “But there are many things that aren’t known even until today, and no matter how I try it’s impossible to know what actually happened on that incident... and I refused to accept the fact that there was the possibility that I might have killed him with my own hands back then.”
No response came from the Shadow, but its face had turned into a strange expression of melancholy that only seemed to ping somewhere deep within him.
“So all I did was to... to blame the pirates. To blame them for being the ones who killed my father.” His voice faltered at that, and for that one moment Edgeworth could feel like he was that scared little boy all those years ago yet again. “I blamed them for having turned against him, blamed them for bringing down this sort of suffering on me when my father did nothing to deserve this murder-and I did nothing to deserve this kind of fate.”
“Miles...” started Souji, but the man only ignored him and forced himself to continue on.
“When von Karma took me in... I really couldn’t tell why he had done it then,” the first mate went quietly. “Well, I still don’t really understand, but nevertheless he took me in when I had nobody else. He wasn’t the kindest person in the world, but still... he raised me up regardless. And even if while I didn’t like him in the beginning, at least...” he paused to take in a deep breath, “at least he was still there for me, in one way or another. And he made me feel that I was... wanted, at the very least. That at least I had someplace in the world.”
“And when I grow up, I’m going to prove myself worthy of his eyes,” finished the Shadow before him, its voice sounding exactly how he was back when he was a kid.
Edgeworth swallowed hard it was getting harder and harder to go on, but still... like Souji had said, he needed to do this, unless they wanted a round two of that mad disaster. “I wanted to prove to him that I was something-that I could be just like him, that I could be someone who was worthy and well, perfect. But the more I tried... the more I realized that it was impossible. I couldn’t be like him no matter how much I did, no matter how much I tried. I couldn’t change the fact that I’m from Vohemar, that I betrayed my own people and now I hunt them down. I couldn’t change the truth that I could never be perfect, and I hated myself for that.”
Despite himself, Yosuke had a grimace across his face. “Remind me never to be a pirate.”
“It’s not about the fact that my father was a pirate,” the silver-haired man remarked back in turn, blinking back to his Shadow again. “It was the fact that I was helpless-helpless to do anything, helpless to change anything about me. No matter how I try, there will always be people who look at me with different eyes and people who’ll always talk behind my back. I try my best to ignore them, but unconsciously, I always tried and prove them wrong instead when I had the chance to.”
He paused again in order to take a shuddering breath to calm his nerves. “I suppose... I was angry that I was so helpless against the voice of the citizens, that they all looked at me with those eyes and whispered those words whenever I turned. So I used the pirates in order to channel my anger. I hunted them down and executed them with zeal in order to appease myself, to make myself feel slightly better than before. But I guess... it never really worked. I only got angrier at myself instead, and then when that happened I only hunted down more pirates... it became nothing but a vicious cycle by itself.”
“I guess what I’m trying to say is...” he looked at the Shadow, letting out a loud exhale before speaking again. “There’s... there’s a lot of things within me that I can’t change, no matter how much I try. I can’t change the fact that I’m Vohemaro. I can’t change the fact that perfection is something that’s beyond me. I can’t change the fact that I... I might have really killed my father back then. But still... there is the fact that I’m still here, and there’s the fact that I still do have something before me... even if it’s not the future that I expected back when I was a child.”
There was a moment of quiet contemplation after that, and then the man looked eye to eye with his Shadow. “So... yes, I suppose you are me, the part of me I refused to face and pretended that didn’t exist. There’re many things about myself I know I’ll never be able to change no matter what, and I still fear for the reality of what happen in DL-6. But still... I’m here, and as long as I’m here I’ll continue on with what I have and what I can get.”
Upon hearing those words, the Shadow seemed to break into a smile and nodded, closing its eyes as a gentle light blue aura started to surround it. The figure started to fade from the bottom, breaking into bits and pieces that seemed to rearrange itself from above, transfiguring into something new altogether. The darkness turned to light, and in a few seconds there was a new figure that floated before him; it vaguely resembled a warrior-one that was trained for battle-and it donned a velvety red yukata at the top, the collar splaying open just a bit to reveal bits of bare skin, and its pants more or less were black hakama that wasn’t so spoofy as they usually tended to be. It had a coat around the clothes, a simplified (and significantly less foppish) version of the coat it had back as a Shadow. It also had dark, sweeping black hair that was tied into a ponytail, and the bangs fell over the dark red mask that it wore, golden eyes glowing now gently from within.
There was a pause as the Persona glanced down at its new user a slight nod coming from it as its eyes flared before it burst into light and a stream of shards that floated gently down towards the man’s body. Edgeworth felt a sudden burst of warmth enveloping in and around him as the power swept into him, and he heard a voice quietly whispering into the deepest recesses of his mind.
I art thou... and thou art I. Thou hast accepted thyself and faced thy darkest self. Now thou shalt be granted thy power of Persona-thy power which heeds to the name of Mushashi.
Then the power withdrew from him and the next thing Edgeworth could feel was a sudden, intense dizziness that overcame him. He took a few steps backwards before promptly tumbling down, and the other three only hurried to him as he fell. Hijikata was the one who caught him again, holding the other in his arms as he silently looked at the exhausted man with obvious concern.
Yosuke was the one who broke the silence. “Well... we’d better get out of here. All of us are pretty much worn out by everything.”
The boatswain turned towards the brunette at that, looking at both him and his companion for a moment before he nodded in agreement. Finally, this whole thing was now over.
Parts: Part I | Part II | Part III | Part IV | Part V | Part VI | Part VII | Part VIII | Part IX | Part X | Part XI
THE SHADOWS WE BEAR
TST!Shadowverse fic : Part X
It was a while-and both teenagers had recovered enough to move up and towards the other two by then-did Edgeworth finally start to regain consciousness once again, signalled by the shifting of his brows and the faint groan that escaped him as sense started to rush back into him.
Having still been holding him, Hijikata was the one who had noticed the man arising back from being knocked out. “Edgeworth!” he exclaimed out before thinking, looking with worry as the silver-haired man stirred. The dark-haired man watched as he blinked, eyelids fluttering as those familiar dark grey eyes focused back into existence and looked dazedly at him.
“Hi... Hijikata,” he gasped out.
A relieved look crossed the boatswain’s face at that (a fact that stunned him somewhat-this was the first time he had seen the other like this) and the ghost of a smile could almost be seen on his face before he raised his head up and spoke. “He’s alright.”
Edgeworth followed his gaze upwards to see none other than his cousin and that brunette friend of his looking down at him from above-the brown-headed kid was grinning, while Souji himself had a small smile on his face. It took a bit for him to realize after that that he was on the ground, though there was something warm around him instead of the cold hard wood that parts of him felt freezing slightly though his clothes. He cast his glance to the side to see that there was an arm around him-Hijikata’s arm. The samurai was holding him in his arms.
Though as soon as he had seemed to realize that though, the swordsman only made a sound and quickly shifted around so that was now helping him back up from the ground. Both men stood up, the wood creaking slightly below them as they did so. His head felt a little giddy immediately once they got up, but Hijikata held him tightly and it only took a moment before the dizziness faded.
“...you alright ?” came the quietly concerned voice of the other man.
The silver-haired man started to turn around to respond that he was fine, but then stopped when he caught sight of the figure that was standing some distance away from them. It was him-the other him; the him that had said all those things that he didn’t want to hear, didn’t want anybody to hear at all but still had. And now that other him was standing there quietly, and he could feel those golden eyes looking at him with a soul-piercing gaze.
Instinctively, Edgeworth found himself shrinking back against the other man’s hold. “Hijikata-”
Instead of him however, it was the voice of his cousin that cut him short. “Miles, you have to face it.”
“But those things that it said-”
“Are fine,” the teenager’s voice came from behind him, and Edgeworth felt the other’s hand grasping him by the shoulder. He turned to the side to look at the understanding look that was on Souji’s face. “They’re fine, Miles. They’re all just a part of you. It’s not the whole deal.”
Hijikata could feel a nervous shake from the other man as he took a glance at the thing before looking back at the teenager, the tone of his voice decidedly edgy. “But all those things-”
Now it was the brunette’s turn to cut in. “Seesh, didn’t Souji already tell you? It was just your emotions going haywire.” The other teenager stepped in besides his companion, glancing at him before facing the silver-haired man with a small shrug. “Happens to even the best of us.”
“It’s not like anything’s going to change,” came an unnaturally quiet voice on his other side, and Edgeworth turned over to see the boatswain glancing away from him and towards the nearby wall, and the grip that he had on him had loosened enough for him to break free if he needed to.
Souji’s voice brought the man back to his relative. “He’s right.”
Yosuke spoke up once more. “Now, uh, as much as I’d like for you guys to continue we’d better just-you know, wrap it up?” he went, making a gesture towards the Shadow that was still there. Edgeworth glanced towards it, feeling his gut churning about as he looked at those eyes that seemed to be looking straight at and deep into him, as if it was seeing everything that he had been trying to hide from the world, from himself. And with how it had gone on earlier, perhaps it was.
He glanced down towards his cousin again, and the silver-haired teenager closed his eyes and nodded. “It only ends once you truly accept it.”
Edgeworth closed his eyes at that, letting out a breath he didn’t know he was holding in and took a step out away from the rest of them. There was an abrupt shift in the atmosphere when he did so, and he suddenly felt alone again, even if the other three were right behind him. Part of him wanted to curl up once again, to huddle up and give into his fear like he had always done before, but he knew nothing would come from it. So instead he only steeled himself from within and started to walk towards his other half, the sound of his boots echoing within the room.
The Shadow only kept its gaze at him even as he walked, eerily silent as it watched his every movement with those yellow eyes. Edgeworth forced himself to stay on his course even as he walked, pushing down the anxiety and nervousness and fear that was welling within him. Even if he wasn’t aware of it properly, instinctively he already knew-this was his shadow, the ugliest side of him that he knew of, and now he had to meet it face to face.
There was a pause when he came up-close to the other, silent as he looked at it before he finally spoke. “I... I admit it. I am scared,” he started, voice weak with uncertainty. “Up until today, DL-6 has never been solved and I... I am scared that I might’ve killed my own father that day.” His hand twitched there and then, an instinct to grip his arm in an attempt of protecting himself, but Edgeworth made himself not to-he couldn’t be weak now, or otherwise things would never be right again. “But there are many things that aren’t known even until today, and no matter how I try it’s impossible to know what actually happened on that incident... and I refused to accept the fact that there was the possibility that I might have killed him with my own hands back then.”
No response came from the Shadow, but its face had turned into a strange expression of melancholy that only seemed to ping somewhere deep within him.
“So all I did was to... to blame the pirates. To blame them for being the ones who killed my father.” His voice faltered at that, and for that one moment Edgeworth could feel like he was that scared little boy all those years ago yet again. “I blamed them for having turned against him, blamed them for bringing down this sort of suffering on me when my father did nothing to deserve this murder-and I did nothing to deserve this kind of fate.”
“Miles...” started Souji, but the man only ignored him and forced himself to continue on.
“When von Karma took me in... I really couldn’t tell why he had done it then,” the first mate went quietly. “Well, I still don’t really understand, but nevertheless he took me in when I had nobody else. He wasn’t the kindest person in the world, but still... he raised me up regardless. And even if while I didn’t like him in the beginning, at least...” he paused to take in a deep breath, “at least he was still there for me, in one way or another. And he made me feel that I was... wanted, at the very least. That at least I had someplace in the world.”
“And when I grow up, I’m going to prove myself worthy of his eyes,” finished the Shadow before him, its voice sounding exactly how he was back when he was a kid.
Edgeworth swallowed hard it was getting harder and harder to go on, but still... like Souji had said, he needed to do this, unless they wanted a round two of that mad disaster. “I wanted to prove to him that I was something-that I could be just like him, that I could be someone who was worthy and well, perfect. But the more I tried... the more I realized that it was impossible. I couldn’t be like him no matter how much I did, no matter how much I tried. I couldn’t change the fact that I’m from Vohemar, that I betrayed my own people and now I hunt them down. I couldn’t change the truth that I could never be perfect, and I hated myself for that.”
Despite himself, Yosuke had a grimace across his face. “Remind me never to be a pirate.”
“It’s not about the fact that my father was a pirate,” the silver-haired man remarked back in turn, blinking back to his Shadow again. “It was the fact that I was helpless-helpless to do anything, helpless to change anything about me. No matter how I try, there will always be people who look at me with different eyes and people who’ll always talk behind my back. I try my best to ignore them, but unconsciously, I always tried and prove them wrong instead when I had the chance to.”
He paused again in order to take a shuddering breath to calm his nerves. “I suppose... I was angry that I was so helpless against the voice of the citizens, that they all looked at me with those eyes and whispered those words whenever I turned. So I used the pirates in order to channel my anger. I hunted them down and executed them with zeal in order to appease myself, to make myself feel slightly better than before. But I guess... it never really worked. I only got angrier at myself instead, and then when that happened I only hunted down more pirates... it became nothing but a vicious cycle by itself.”
“I guess what I’m trying to say is...” he looked at the Shadow, letting out a loud exhale before speaking again. “There’s... there’s a lot of things within me that I can’t change, no matter how much I try. I can’t change the fact that I’m Vohemaro. I can’t change the fact that perfection is something that’s beyond me. I can’t change the fact that I... I might have really killed my father back then. But still... there is the fact that I’m still here, and there’s the fact that I still do have something before me... even if it’s not the future that I expected back when I was a child.”
There was a moment of quiet contemplation after that, and then the man looked eye to eye with his Shadow. “So... yes, I suppose you are me, the part of me I refused to face and pretended that didn’t exist. There’re many things about myself I know I’ll never be able to change no matter what, and I still fear for the reality of what happen in DL-6. But still... I’m here, and as long as I’m here I’ll continue on with what I have and what I can get.”
Upon hearing those words, the Shadow seemed to break into a smile and nodded, closing its eyes as a gentle light blue aura started to surround it. The figure started to fade from the bottom, breaking into bits and pieces that seemed to rearrange itself from above, transfiguring into something new altogether. The darkness turned to light, and in a few seconds there was a new figure that floated before him; it vaguely resembled a warrior-one that was trained for battle-and it donned a velvety red yukata at the top, the collar splaying open just a bit to reveal bits of bare skin, and its pants more or less were black hakama that wasn’t so spoofy as they usually tended to be. It had a coat around the clothes, a simplified (and significantly less foppish) version of the coat it had back as a Shadow. It also had dark, sweeping black hair that was tied into a ponytail, and the bangs fell over the dark red mask that it wore, golden eyes glowing now gently from within.
There was a pause as the Persona glanced down at its new user a slight nod coming from it as its eyes flared before it burst into light and a stream of shards that floated gently down towards the man’s body. Edgeworth felt a sudden burst of warmth enveloping in and around him as the power swept into him, and he heard a voice quietly whispering into the deepest recesses of his mind.
I art thou... and thou art I. Thou hast accepted thyself and faced thy darkest self. Now thou shalt be granted thy power of Persona-thy power which heeds to the name of Mushashi.
Then the power withdrew from him and the next thing Edgeworth could feel was a sudden, intense dizziness that overcame him. He took a few steps backwards before promptly tumbling down, and the other three only hurried to him as he fell. Hijikata was the one who caught him again, holding the other in his arms as he silently looked at the exhausted man with obvious concern.
Yosuke was the one who broke the silence. “Well... we’d better get out of here. All of us are pretty much worn out by everything.”
The boatswain turned towards the brunette at that, looking at both him and his companion for a moment before he nodded in agreement. Finally, this whole thing was now over.