Eyes Full of Darkness [3/?]
Title: Eyes Full of Darkness
Pairings: Nishin (Nishii Yukito/Akutsu Shintarou), others TBA
Genre: AU
Chapter Rating: PG.
Word Count: ~2700
Summary: Akutsu takes the boy to the hospital and finally starts to learn who he is.
Notes: I accidentally started crying near the end of writing this chapter and it's because of Haru Doko. Shin baby made a really touching speech at the end of that and he made one here too! Well. YMMV on this one.
In other news I have a plot now :|b
←To Chapter 1 Chapter 2
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Chapter 3: Do you see yourself when you see me?
Akutsu shifted restlessly in the waiting room chair. The stupid nurses hadn’t let him go with the boy, who he had mentally taken to calling Shion 2, and forced him to wait outside. He wanted to explain to them that he should accompany him so that he could protect him if someone came in and tried to kidnap him, or at the very least so that they could be kidnapped together, but he didn’t want to tip them off in case some of them were agents that would spread the word to evil doctors who would probably poison the helpless boy or use him in an evil medical experiment (although that might be mixing plotlines a little too much, so he decided it wasn’t likely). Also he had a bit of a hard time talking to women, and the skeptical eyebrow raise one of them had given his Mai shirt hadn’t helped matters.
He dug his phone out of his pocket and played with the straps on it for a few seconds before flipping it open and checking the internet. There was nothing much new, just a lot of people whining because Ani*Kan had been pre-empted by the explosion story. One person had commented “Mysterious explosions? It’s like something out of Eva, maybe the world is ending www” but then a whole bunch of others had started in on him for always preferring grimdark scenarios and never enjoying anything lighthearted and fun and for living ten years in the past and for daring to compare something as mundane as the apocalypse to their immense feelings for two-dimensional characters, so he just stopped reading after a while. He checked a news site instead, and didn’t get much more information other than that it had happened at approximately the same time Shion 2 had gotten to his house. He wondered if it was connected, and came to the conclusion that when Shion 2’s friend had betrayed him, he had been saved by a third party, and those two people had continued fighting in a long, drawn-out sequence that probably consisted of the opening scenes, although that wouldn’t become obvious until well into the series. Furthermore, observing this conflict, a fourth person with an entirely different objective had seen the opportunity to take out two obstacles at once, which resulted in the explosion. He decided that could be a pretty promising setup, and would leave a lot of room for interesting developments.
He changed positions and decided to text Shion 1. Maybe he’d already been taken hostage or something and the bad guys were using him to track his phone and he would have to grab Shion 2 and make a break for it. There was just no telling what could be happening off-screen.
Shion’s reply came normally enough. “Finished cleaning up. Mata came out after you left and freaked out lol”
He analyzed it for the possibility that Shion had left a coded warning or plea for help, but decided it was completely normal. He wrote back, “Heeyyy, you might want to avoid that guy for a while if you don’t wanna end up as Those Two Guys. Or being shipped. Or both.”
“XDDDDD Groooooosssssss. Lol omg can you imagine the doujinshi?” Shion replied almost instantaneously. Akutsu decided that he had probably already given it a lot of thought. He personally hadn’t considered the fandom aspect that much in favor of trying to get the plot sorted out, but figured it would be fine as long as they realized that canon was canon (HA) and provided he didn’t get too woobified.
“You’re going to go to Comiket and end up buying all these really sketchy ShioMata doujins and security will come after you and tell you to leave because you aren’t allowed to cosplay in that part of the hall, but you’ll just be your normal self,” he responded. The only reply that got was an “XDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD LOOOOOOOOOOOL” so he decided to leave it at that and put his phone away.
He got up, stretched his legs, and glanced furtively around the room. It was deserted, as was the nearby nurse’s station. He decided to wander casually towards the hallway they had taken Shion 2 down. He continued to wander through it, glancing at the name tags by each door. He stopped by the one that said Tsuchiya on it. He wondered how many Tsuchiyas there were in all of Tokyo, and decided that for simplicity’s sake, there could only really be two, and one of them was just temporary. He pushed the door open.
As expected, Shion 2 was lying in the bed, hooked up to a lot of machines. Akutsu was very impressed to find that the heart rate monitor looked and sounded exactly like it did in anime. He pulled a chair up next to the bed and took his hand, because that’s what you did when you visited sick people. At his touch, the boy opened his eyes. “Hey, Shin-chan.” His voice sounded weary, but it was stronger than before, and he no longer had to struggle to keep his eyes open. “Thanks for bringing me here.”
“Sure,” Akutsu said. “Thanks for being alive.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” There was something playful in his tone that led Akutsu to wonder if this might just all be a lead-up to some kind of romantic comedy. He had mixed feelings about that, so he decided to answer with brutal honesty.
“It means that if you were dead, things would be really hard to explain, especially to Mr. and Mrs. Tsuchiya. And I might feel compelled to try to take revenge for you, but since at that point I wouldn’t know anything about you at all, I wouldn’t have any idea where to start. Then some sketchy guys might show up and offer to help and train me in the ways of… whatever it is you do that leads to you getting shot, and of course I’d agree because who’s going to say no to that? And then I’d become really strong and badass and I’d fight the guy who they said was the one who got you, but then maybe it’d turn out that it was all a lie and they were the ones who had you killed and they’d come and shoot me in the back and I’d have a heroic breakdown and the guy who I tried to kill before would have his friends come and save us at the last moment. Then after moping around for a while, your ghost could come visit me and forgive me for my mistakes and then I’d resolve to take the organization down and we’d all attack that place and make them pay for their crimes!”
Akutsu realized he was standing up and almost shouting, so he quickly sat back down and tried to look solemn and hospital room-y again. The boy laughed. “You’re so funny. Were you always this funny?”
“Um. Maybe? Probably.” Seeing the chance to get some information, he said, “If you were to give me a time frame, I could tell you for sure.”
He looked at him appraisingly. “You just can’t wait to know, can you? I can’t tell you. I really can’t. I’m sorry.”
“Not even a hint?” Akutsu asked, disappointed.
“Well…” The boy rolled over and pulled back the hair covering the side of his head. A strangely shaped earring dangled from his ear. Akutsu reached out for it and pulled it gently towards the light. It was a stone of some sort, worn smooth over time, with a single rough edge. As he let it swing back, the light hit it in such a way that it shone with a bright green light for a brief moment. Akutsu frowned. “You get anything?”
Akutsu continued to frown. “I… Nothing. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’ve got about five different scenarios running right now that would explain it, but… I don’t remember anything.”
He didn’t seem upset over that. “That’s okay. Since it’s you, you’ll definitely remember eventually.”
“Even if you can’t tell me about that… can you at least tell me who you are? I-I mean, you don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to, but… you said you were going to tell me about how you got shot, right? I could really go for some exposition.”
“Oh, yeah!” The boy lowered his voice to a whisper, and Akutsu leaned in conspiratorially. “The thing you should probably know about me is… I’m actually an assassin.”
“Ooh,” Akutsu said, impressed despite himself. Demon hunters were one thing, but assassins were basically the evolved form of ninjas, and it was hard to get much cooler than ninjas.
“I’m not sure how much I can tell you, or how much you’ll understand - I don’t get half of what goes on, myself - but what it comes down to is that the Japanese government as you know it has essentially no power whatsoever. Instead, most of the decisions are made by a council of five. The thing is… obviously none of them trust each other, so that’s where people like me come in.”
“They hire you to kill the other ones?”
“Yeah, and as bodyguards and stuff. So anyway for the last 30 years or so, this one guy was basically in control. He would have the rest of the council killed off one after another if they disagreed with him, so if you wanted to live, you’d do as he said. He finally died last month, of natural causes.”
“You didn’t kill him?” Akutsu asked.
The boy tilted his head to the side. “Well… some of us might have helped the process along, but it was mostly natural. Anyway, with him finally gone, the other four members got together to decide what to do about the heir he had named. They decided that to break up the power that faction had amassed over the past decades, it would be best to have him killed as soon as possible, to throw them into chaos. There’s some rule that says you have to give them a certain amount of time to adjust and to get things in order before you can make attempts on their life, and that time was finally up. My partner and I were assigned to run the mission, but…”
“Ooh, let me guess. After months - no, years of observing him, your partner ended up falling in love with him and couldn’t bring him or herself to kill him, so then they shot you instead! Right?”
“Yeah! How’d you know?”
“Lucky guess,” Akutsu said, and mentally awarded himself several hundred points. “So now what? Are you going to have to go back and protect your boss from the traitor and the other guy? Is he or one of the other guys going to try and punish you for failing?”
He shivered slightly. “No, I… I think it’ll be all right now. My master’s not the sort that lets his people get hurt, so he’ll protect me. I’m sure.”
“If you’re sure. You can always move in with me and be my primary love interest but accidentally attract a whole bunch of other assassin dudes too until it becomes a really weird harem show,” Akutsu offered. He was liking where this was going so far but felt it only polite to suggest a lighter option just in case.
The boy laughed confusedly. “I’m not quite sure what you mean by that? Anyway, I shouldn’t go back to your place anymore, next time somebody might be tracking me and they might try to hurt you or your friends.”
“My friends might be okay with that,” Akutsu theorized. “They’re kind of both really really M. And you’ll protect me, right?”
“I…” His brow furrowed and he could barely bring himself to meet Akutsu’s gaze. “I’ll do anything I can to protect you. Even if that means never seeing you again… I’ll do it.”
“No no no,” Akutsu said quickly. “There’s no need for something like that. Anyway, you can teach me how to be an assassin too! I can be your new partner or something! We can… I dunno, fight oppression and, uh, ensure some great economic policies for the future or something!”
“Shin-chan, no. You can’t. That’s impossible.”
“Why? I can do anything if I set my mind to it. All I need is a chance and someone to help me out a little bit. And you can give me that! You can help me change my future!”
“I don’t want that to be your future, though! The life I’ve lived up until now… I wouldn’t wish it on anybody, especially not you.”
“But things are changing, right? It’s going to be different from how it was. Anyway, I don’t care about the danger. It’s like Shion said, nobody lives forever. I could spend my whole life as an otaku, arguing with idiots on message boards and spending the entirety of my disposable income on figurines, or I could have an adventure, with you. I know which of those I’d rather choose.” He squeezed his hand tightly.
The boy hesitated. “But…”
Time to play his ace. “Besides, you just said you want to protect me, that you’d do anything to do that, right? Why can’t I do the same? Even if I don’t remember… I know you’re someone important to me. And it’s painful for me to see you like this, hurt and half-conscious and… and betrayed like this. I want to protect you too. I want to help you in whatever way I can. Even if I get hurt, it’ll all be worth it if I could make you happy for even just a moment.”
He was quite impressed to see the boy’s eyes fill with tears. After sniffling for a few minutes, he couldn’t hold it in any longer and started crying. “Shin-chaaaan, you shouldn’t. You don’t… I…” He sobbed loudly. “You’re too niiiice, h-how could you even s-say something like this to someone you don’t even knoooow?”
“I know you now. And I knew you before. And I want to keep knowing you forever and ever, as long as I can. Don’t you feel the connection between us? Destiny brought us together tonight. I have to believe that was for a reason. Won’t you believe in it too?”
That was too much for him. Overcome, the boy all but threw himself into Akutsu’s arms and continued to sob. In no time at all, the front of his shirt was soaked. He patted him on the back and did what he could to comfort him, which admittedly wasn’t much. At long last, he had calmed down enough to ask “Is this really what you want?”
“Absolutely.”
“Th-then… if you’re sure… I’ll see what I can do.” He looked up at him and his eyes began to fill with tears again. “You deserve much better than me. You deserve so much better than me.”
“Shhhh. I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Akutsu wiped away the tear that had been about to fall from his eye. “Now then, you need to get some rest. I’ll be here, so when you’re feeling better, let me know and we can go home, okay?”
“…Okay. Okay.”
“I… need to call someone, so I’ll be right back,” Akutsu lied. Well, technically it wasn’t entirely a lie, because he did need to call Shion and tell him that he was going to be an assassin, but mostly he just wanted to jump around and yell and throw things around in excitement, because really. He was going to be an assassin. “So don’t worry and go back to sleep, all right?”
“I will.”
Akutsu was halfway out the door and halfway into the start of a victory dance when one last thing occurred to him. “Uh… by the way… what is your name exactly?” In retrospect, asking that sort of undermined his entire speech a bit, but he couldn’t keep calling him Shion 2 forever, and it would just keep getting more and more awkward from here on.
The boy finally smiled, albeit hesitantly. “Yukito. My name’s Yukito.”
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AN: anybody want to take any guesses as to who's on the council, etc? 8]
Next Chapter→
Pairings: Nishin (Nishii Yukito/Akutsu Shintarou), others TBA
Genre: AU
Chapter Rating: PG.
Word Count: ~2700
Summary: Akutsu takes the boy to the hospital and finally starts to learn who he is.
Notes: I accidentally started crying near the end of writing this chapter and it's because of Haru Doko. Shin baby made a really touching speech at the end of that and he made one here too! Well. YMMV on this one.
In other news I have a plot now :|b
←To Chapter 1 Chapter 2
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Chapter 3: Do you see yourself when you see me?
Akutsu shifted restlessly in the waiting room chair. The stupid nurses hadn’t let him go with the boy, who he had mentally taken to calling Shion 2, and forced him to wait outside. He wanted to explain to them that he should accompany him so that he could protect him if someone came in and tried to kidnap him, or at the very least so that they could be kidnapped together, but he didn’t want to tip them off in case some of them were agents that would spread the word to evil doctors who would probably poison the helpless boy or use him in an evil medical experiment (although that might be mixing plotlines a little too much, so he decided it wasn’t likely). Also he had a bit of a hard time talking to women, and the skeptical eyebrow raise one of them had given his Mai shirt hadn’t helped matters.
He dug his phone out of his pocket and played with the straps on it for a few seconds before flipping it open and checking the internet. There was nothing much new, just a lot of people whining because Ani*Kan had been pre-empted by the explosion story. One person had commented “Mysterious explosions? It’s like something out of Eva, maybe the world is ending www” but then a whole bunch of others had started in on him for always preferring grimdark scenarios and never enjoying anything lighthearted and fun and for living ten years in the past and for daring to compare something as mundane as the apocalypse to their immense feelings for two-dimensional characters, so he just stopped reading after a while. He checked a news site instead, and didn’t get much more information other than that it had happened at approximately the same time Shion 2 had gotten to his house. He wondered if it was connected, and came to the conclusion that when Shion 2’s friend had betrayed him, he had been saved by a third party, and those two people had continued fighting in a long, drawn-out sequence that probably consisted of the opening scenes, although that wouldn’t become obvious until well into the series. Furthermore, observing this conflict, a fourth person with an entirely different objective had seen the opportunity to take out two obstacles at once, which resulted in the explosion. He decided that could be a pretty promising setup, and would leave a lot of room for interesting developments.
He changed positions and decided to text Shion 1. Maybe he’d already been taken hostage or something and the bad guys were using him to track his phone and he would have to grab Shion 2 and make a break for it. There was just no telling what could be happening off-screen.
Shion’s reply came normally enough. “Finished cleaning up. Mata came out after you left and freaked out lol”
He analyzed it for the possibility that Shion had left a coded warning or plea for help, but decided it was completely normal. He wrote back, “Heeyyy, you might want to avoid that guy for a while if you don’t wanna end up as Those Two Guys. Or being shipped. Or both.”
“XDDDDD Groooooosssssss. Lol omg can you imagine the doujinshi?” Shion replied almost instantaneously. Akutsu decided that he had probably already given it a lot of thought. He personally hadn’t considered the fandom aspect that much in favor of trying to get the plot sorted out, but figured it would be fine as long as they realized that canon was canon (HA) and provided he didn’t get too woobified.
“You’re going to go to Comiket and end up buying all these really sketchy ShioMata doujins and security will come after you and tell you to leave because you aren’t allowed to cosplay in that part of the hall, but you’ll just be your normal self,” he responded. The only reply that got was an “XDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD LOOOOOOOOOOOL” so he decided to leave it at that and put his phone away.
He got up, stretched his legs, and glanced furtively around the room. It was deserted, as was the nearby nurse’s station. He decided to wander casually towards the hallway they had taken Shion 2 down. He continued to wander through it, glancing at the name tags by each door. He stopped by the one that said Tsuchiya on it. He wondered how many Tsuchiyas there were in all of Tokyo, and decided that for simplicity’s sake, there could only really be two, and one of them was just temporary. He pushed the door open.
As expected, Shion 2 was lying in the bed, hooked up to a lot of machines. Akutsu was very impressed to find that the heart rate monitor looked and sounded exactly like it did in anime. He pulled a chair up next to the bed and took his hand, because that’s what you did when you visited sick people. At his touch, the boy opened his eyes. “Hey, Shin-chan.” His voice sounded weary, but it was stronger than before, and he no longer had to struggle to keep his eyes open. “Thanks for bringing me here.”
“Sure,” Akutsu said. “Thanks for being alive.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” There was something playful in his tone that led Akutsu to wonder if this might just all be a lead-up to some kind of romantic comedy. He had mixed feelings about that, so he decided to answer with brutal honesty.
“It means that if you were dead, things would be really hard to explain, especially to Mr. and Mrs. Tsuchiya. And I might feel compelled to try to take revenge for you, but since at that point I wouldn’t know anything about you at all, I wouldn’t have any idea where to start. Then some sketchy guys might show up and offer to help and train me in the ways of… whatever it is you do that leads to you getting shot, and of course I’d agree because who’s going to say no to that? And then I’d become really strong and badass and I’d fight the guy who they said was the one who got you, but then maybe it’d turn out that it was all a lie and they were the ones who had you killed and they’d come and shoot me in the back and I’d have a heroic breakdown and the guy who I tried to kill before would have his friends come and save us at the last moment. Then after moping around for a while, your ghost could come visit me and forgive me for my mistakes and then I’d resolve to take the organization down and we’d all attack that place and make them pay for their crimes!”
Akutsu realized he was standing up and almost shouting, so he quickly sat back down and tried to look solemn and hospital room-y again. The boy laughed. “You’re so funny. Were you always this funny?”
“Um. Maybe? Probably.” Seeing the chance to get some information, he said, “If you were to give me a time frame, I could tell you for sure.”
He looked at him appraisingly. “You just can’t wait to know, can you? I can’t tell you. I really can’t. I’m sorry.”
“Not even a hint?” Akutsu asked, disappointed.
“Well…” The boy rolled over and pulled back the hair covering the side of his head. A strangely shaped earring dangled from his ear. Akutsu reached out for it and pulled it gently towards the light. It was a stone of some sort, worn smooth over time, with a single rough edge. As he let it swing back, the light hit it in such a way that it shone with a bright green light for a brief moment. Akutsu frowned. “You get anything?”
Akutsu continued to frown. “I… Nothing. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’ve got about five different scenarios running right now that would explain it, but… I don’t remember anything.”
He didn’t seem upset over that. “That’s okay. Since it’s you, you’ll definitely remember eventually.”
“Even if you can’t tell me about that… can you at least tell me who you are? I-I mean, you don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to, but… you said you were going to tell me about how you got shot, right? I could really go for some exposition.”
“Oh, yeah!” The boy lowered his voice to a whisper, and Akutsu leaned in conspiratorially. “The thing you should probably know about me is… I’m actually an assassin.”
“Ooh,” Akutsu said, impressed despite himself. Demon hunters were one thing, but assassins were basically the evolved form of ninjas, and it was hard to get much cooler than ninjas.
“I’m not sure how much I can tell you, or how much you’ll understand - I don’t get half of what goes on, myself - but what it comes down to is that the Japanese government as you know it has essentially no power whatsoever. Instead, most of the decisions are made by a council of five. The thing is… obviously none of them trust each other, so that’s where people like me come in.”
“They hire you to kill the other ones?”
“Yeah, and as bodyguards and stuff. So anyway for the last 30 years or so, this one guy was basically in control. He would have the rest of the council killed off one after another if they disagreed with him, so if you wanted to live, you’d do as he said. He finally died last month, of natural causes.”
“You didn’t kill him?” Akutsu asked.
The boy tilted his head to the side. “Well… some of us might have helped the process along, but it was mostly natural. Anyway, with him finally gone, the other four members got together to decide what to do about the heir he had named. They decided that to break up the power that faction had amassed over the past decades, it would be best to have him killed as soon as possible, to throw them into chaos. There’s some rule that says you have to give them a certain amount of time to adjust and to get things in order before you can make attempts on their life, and that time was finally up. My partner and I were assigned to run the mission, but…”
“Ooh, let me guess. After months - no, years of observing him, your partner ended up falling in love with him and couldn’t bring him or herself to kill him, so then they shot you instead! Right?”
“Yeah! How’d you know?”
“Lucky guess,” Akutsu said, and mentally awarded himself several hundred points. “So now what? Are you going to have to go back and protect your boss from the traitor and the other guy? Is he or one of the other guys going to try and punish you for failing?”
He shivered slightly. “No, I… I think it’ll be all right now. My master’s not the sort that lets his people get hurt, so he’ll protect me. I’m sure.”
“If you’re sure. You can always move in with me and be my primary love interest but accidentally attract a whole bunch of other assassin dudes too until it becomes a really weird harem show,” Akutsu offered. He was liking where this was going so far but felt it only polite to suggest a lighter option just in case.
The boy laughed confusedly. “I’m not quite sure what you mean by that? Anyway, I shouldn’t go back to your place anymore, next time somebody might be tracking me and they might try to hurt you or your friends.”
“My friends might be okay with that,” Akutsu theorized. “They’re kind of both really really M. And you’ll protect me, right?”
“I…” His brow furrowed and he could barely bring himself to meet Akutsu’s gaze. “I’ll do anything I can to protect you. Even if that means never seeing you again… I’ll do it.”
“No no no,” Akutsu said quickly. “There’s no need for something like that. Anyway, you can teach me how to be an assassin too! I can be your new partner or something! We can… I dunno, fight oppression and, uh, ensure some great economic policies for the future or something!”
“Shin-chan, no. You can’t. That’s impossible.”
“Why? I can do anything if I set my mind to it. All I need is a chance and someone to help me out a little bit. And you can give me that! You can help me change my future!”
“I don’t want that to be your future, though! The life I’ve lived up until now… I wouldn’t wish it on anybody, especially not you.”
“But things are changing, right? It’s going to be different from how it was. Anyway, I don’t care about the danger. It’s like Shion said, nobody lives forever. I could spend my whole life as an otaku, arguing with idiots on message boards and spending the entirety of my disposable income on figurines, or I could have an adventure, with you. I know which of those I’d rather choose.” He squeezed his hand tightly.
The boy hesitated. “But…”
Time to play his ace. “Besides, you just said you want to protect me, that you’d do anything to do that, right? Why can’t I do the same? Even if I don’t remember… I know you’re someone important to me. And it’s painful for me to see you like this, hurt and half-conscious and… and betrayed like this. I want to protect you too. I want to help you in whatever way I can. Even if I get hurt, it’ll all be worth it if I could make you happy for even just a moment.”
He was quite impressed to see the boy’s eyes fill with tears. After sniffling for a few minutes, he couldn’t hold it in any longer and started crying. “Shin-chaaaan, you shouldn’t. You don’t… I…” He sobbed loudly. “You’re too niiiice, h-how could you even s-say something like this to someone you don’t even knoooow?”
“I know you now. And I knew you before. And I want to keep knowing you forever and ever, as long as I can. Don’t you feel the connection between us? Destiny brought us together tonight. I have to believe that was for a reason. Won’t you believe in it too?”
That was too much for him. Overcome, the boy all but threw himself into Akutsu’s arms and continued to sob. In no time at all, the front of his shirt was soaked. He patted him on the back and did what he could to comfort him, which admittedly wasn’t much. At long last, he had calmed down enough to ask “Is this really what you want?”
“Absolutely.”
“Th-then… if you’re sure… I’ll see what I can do.” He looked up at him and his eyes began to fill with tears again. “You deserve much better than me. You deserve so much better than me.”
“Shhhh. I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Akutsu wiped away the tear that had been about to fall from his eye. “Now then, you need to get some rest. I’ll be here, so when you’re feeling better, let me know and we can go home, okay?”
“…Okay. Okay.”
“I… need to call someone, so I’ll be right back,” Akutsu lied. Well, technically it wasn’t entirely a lie, because he did need to call Shion and tell him that he was going to be an assassin, but mostly he just wanted to jump around and yell and throw things around in excitement, because really. He was going to be an assassin. “So don’t worry and go back to sleep, all right?”
“I will.”
Akutsu was halfway out the door and halfway into the start of a victory dance when one last thing occurred to him. “Uh… by the way… what is your name exactly?” In retrospect, asking that sort of undermined his entire speech a bit, but he couldn’t keep calling him Shion 2 forever, and it would just keep getting more and more awkward from here on.
The boy finally smiled, albeit hesitantly. “Yukito. My name’s Yukito.”
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AN: anybody want to take any guesses as to who's on the council, etc? 8]
Next Chapter→