Submission #21 -- Octantis, "Companion"
.
Title: Companion
User ID: Octantis
Rating: G
Characters/Pairing: Kusanagi, hints of Kusanagi/Nekoi
Warnings: Potential spoilers up to where CLAMP went on hiatus.
Summary: For the sake changing of the earth, he was destined to become one of the ones to destroy it and was thus fated to face against the one he loved.
For the sake changing of the earth, he had been destined to become one of the ones to destroy it and was thus fated to face against the one he loved. When their Kamui specifically told Kusanagi to destroy the second last kekkai, he knew there was a catch. He had hoped there would never be the day when he would have to go against the little missy after realizing that she was one of the Dragons of Heaven.
As he set to work destroying the buildings however, he knew he had no other choice but to face her when a kekkai was raised. Kusanagi could see the confusion in her face when she caught sight of him, but her inugami had instantly grasped the situation and became hostile. It had been a long and unpleasant fight when both parties were reluctant to go all out against each other, but when Kusanagi finally made the difficult choice between sacrificing what was most important to him or sacrificing what was going to change the earth, the kekkai was destroyed with the victor determined.
The Kamui of the Dragons of Heaven had not been able to prevent the Kamui of the Dragons of Earth from destroying the last kekkai in Tokyo and thus, Japan was demolished as the conflict between the two “Kamui”s reached its conclusion. In the wake of Japan’s destruction, the ripples of change gradually affected the rest of the world and the earth was devastated as chaos and turmoil ran rampant. Billions of people died when sea levels rose, prolonged droughts occurred and violent earthquakes rendered massive chasms across areas where many people lived.
Ten years have passed since then, he had spent it wandering the earth and it had been ten years since he’s returned to Tokyo.
Kusanagi hopes that the arrival of another spring will have paved over more of the destroyed city as seeing the wreckage reminds him of the painful past and his choice.
It was true that change had arrived, but was it worth it in exchange for the many lives that were lost?
With such consequences laid out before him, Kusanagi wonders whether he would have made the same choice back then. He doesn’t feel the satisfaction that he thought he’d feel when the earth changed and feels predictably empty as this is what he expected when he made his choice.
Birds twitter high up in the trees and the odd squirrel carrying a mouthful of nuts dart across his path as it heads towards a taller tree where its home and family wait for its return. He instinctively heads towards a ruin that was still recognizable despite how well nature had slowly broken it down and covered it with a thick layer of grass and weeds.
He thinks back to the time when he could give her a call if he wanted to talk and they were able to spend time together without having to worry about the end of the world. The moments he spent with her were short and far between, and he knew they had to break off their connection before he got too emotionally invested. However, they had wormed their way in until they became almost too precious to him and even then he had not wanted to fight her.
Kusanagi had chosen to sacrifice his important person but he had been unable to deliver the last blow, so the Angels’ Kamui had stepped in. All because of that last choice he had made, it had rendered him powerless to save her. Nekoi had lain there in his arms, fragile and broken, looking up at him with acceptance. The both of them had made their own choices, and she had forgiven him for his choice. She mentioned that her only regret was that she had not been helpful enough to the Seals’ Kamui and that she never regretted meeting him. Then she had just smiled almost sleepily at him at him and would’ve seemed like she had fallen asleep if she didn’t have gaping hole in her chest to prove otherwise.
He tries to imagine her with him as he carefully avoids the crumbling parts of the ruined building and reaches the highest point of it. He gazes down at the flooded parts of the once busy city, the ruins reflected in the still water. What were once residential buildings were now covered with flourishing shrubs and flowers, the larger rubble providing good shelter for small animals. He likes to think that Nekoi will enjoy the view with him, that the aftermath wasn’t as bad as she thought, but he knows that this was not what she had wanted to protect.
He still remembers the words he had told the little missy about how one should not kill others because no matter who it was, there would always be someone that would mourn for them.
How those words came back to haunt him now.
A small clatter of dislodged rubble behind Kusanagi causes him to swiftly turn round, instantly alert and prepared for danger. He doesn’t expect to see an underfed grimy Husky puppy slowly limp towards him and he softens his stance when he feels no animosity directed towards him in his surroundings. He can no longer hear the voices of the animals after he had made his choice, but anyone with half a mind would be able to see that the puppy was exhausted, hungry and hurt. The puppy reminds him of Nekoi’s Inuki and he digs around in his pockets for some leftover biscuits and rips the sleeve of his jacket to produce makeshift bandages for the puppy.
The puppy hungrily gnaws away at the biscuits that Kusanagi placed on the floor, and quickly polishes them off while making snuffling noises of appreciation. It silently stays still when Kusanagi carefully does a makeshift splint on its injured back leg.
Kusanagi smiles at the antics of the puppy when it sticks its nose into his discarded jacket, sniffing around for more tidbits. He wishes that he brought more food with him but he hadn’t planned on staying around for long. He pats the puppy one last time, picks up his jacket and turns to leave.
The puppy whines and when Kusanagi makes no move to stop, it determinedly trails after him. He hadn’t expected the puppy to follow him and wonders what is preventing him from just leaping off back to where he had decided to stay for the night.
Despite how hard he tries to lose the puppy though, it always finds him in the end and Kusanagi didn’t have the heart to turn it away when they arrive at his hideout for the night with the puppy a little worse for wear.
Kusanagi feeds it a broken down protein bar - protein bars had become a staple food supply after the flooding of arable land - and it seems to enjoy it a lot more than the biscuits. Kusanagi sighs to himself as he watches the puppy settle down in a corner and it seems to know about his soft spot for small animals, because it made no move to leave the next day. He tells himself that as soon as the puppy is healed, then he’ll leave and return to his wandering ways.
It takes nearly a month for the puppy to heal and Kusanagi had resisted giving it a name, but by then, the puppy had somehow wriggled its way into his affection, and he couldn’t bring himself to be parted from it. The puppy helped fill up a bit of the empty hole he had been feeling since long ago and he found that he was starting to let some of the feeling he kept tightly locked up out instead of holding tightly onto them forever. He sighs resignedly to himself, unsure if he likes the change or not, but decides that since he missed the company, the puppy might as well come along with him.
He doesn’t even need to consider what to call the puppy.
“Inuki,” he says.
The puppy just looks up intelligently at him and almost appears to grin.
---
Title: Companion
User ID: Octantis
Rating: G
Characters/Pairing: Kusanagi, hints of Kusanagi/Nekoi
Warnings: Potential spoilers up to where CLAMP went on hiatus.
Summary: For the sake changing of the earth, he was destined to become one of the ones to destroy it and was thus fated to face against the one he loved.
For the sake changing of the earth, he had been destined to become one of the ones to destroy it and was thus fated to face against the one he loved. When their Kamui specifically told Kusanagi to destroy the second last kekkai, he knew there was a catch. He had hoped there would never be the day when he would have to go against the little missy after realizing that she was one of the Dragons of Heaven.
As he set to work destroying the buildings however, he knew he had no other choice but to face her when a kekkai was raised. Kusanagi could see the confusion in her face when she caught sight of him, but her inugami had instantly grasped the situation and became hostile. It had been a long and unpleasant fight when both parties were reluctant to go all out against each other, but when Kusanagi finally made the difficult choice between sacrificing what was most important to him or sacrificing what was going to change the earth, the kekkai was destroyed with the victor determined.
The Kamui of the Dragons of Heaven had not been able to prevent the Kamui of the Dragons of Earth from destroying the last kekkai in Tokyo and thus, Japan was demolished as the conflict between the two “Kamui”s reached its conclusion. In the wake of Japan’s destruction, the ripples of change gradually affected the rest of the world and the earth was devastated as chaos and turmoil ran rampant. Billions of people died when sea levels rose, prolonged droughts occurred and violent earthquakes rendered massive chasms across areas where many people lived.
Ten years have passed since then, he had spent it wandering the earth and it had been ten years since he’s returned to Tokyo.
Kusanagi hopes that the arrival of another spring will have paved over more of the destroyed city as seeing the wreckage reminds him of the painful past and his choice.
It was true that change had arrived, but was it worth it in exchange for the many lives that were lost?
With such consequences laid out before him, Kusanagi wonders whether he would have made the same choice back then. He doesn’t feel the satisfaction that he thought he’d feel when the earth changed and feels predictably empty as this is what he expected when he made his choice.
Birds twitter high up in the trees and the odd squirrel carrying a mouthful of nuts dart across his path as it heads towards a taller tree where its home and family wait for its return. He instinctively heads towards a ruin that was still recognizable despite how well nature had slowly broken it down and covered it with a thick layer of grass and weeds.
He thinks back to the time when he could give her a call if he wanted to talk and they were able to spend time together without having to worry about the end of the world. The moments he spent with her were short and far between, and he knew they had to break off their connection before he got too emotionally invested. However, they had wormed their way in until they became almost too precious to him and even then he had not wanted to fight her.
Kusanagi had chosen to sacrifice his important person but he had been unable to deliver the last blow, so the Angels’ Kamui had stepped in. All because of that last choice he had made, it had rendered him powerless to save her. Nekoi had lain there in his arms, fragile and broken, looking up at him with acceptance. The both of them had made their own choices, and she had forgiven him for his choice. She mentioned that her only regret was that she had not been helpful enough to the Seals’ Kamui and that she never regretted meeting him. Then she had just smiled almost sleepily at him at him and would’ve seemed like she had fallen asleep if she didn’t have gaping hole in her chest to prove otherwise.
He tries to imagine her with him as he carefully avoids the crumbling parts of the ruined building and reaches the highest point of it. He gazes down at the flooded parts of the once busy city, the ruins reflected in the still water. What were once residential buildings were now covered with flourishing shrubs and flowers, the larger rubble providing good shelter for small animals. He likes to think that Nekoi will enjoy the view with him, that the aftermath wasn’t as bad as she thought, but he knows that this was not what she had wanted to protect.
He still remembers the words he had told the little missy about how one should not kill others because no matter who it was, there would always be someone that would mourn for them.
How those words came back to haunt him now.
A small clatter of dislodged rubble behind Kusanagi causes him to swiftly turn round, instantly alert and prepared for danger. He doesn’t expect to see an underfed grimy Husky puppy slowly limp towards him and he softens his stance when he feels no animosity directed towards him in his surroundings. He can no longer hear the voices of the animals after he had made his choice, but anyone with half a mind would be able to see that the puppy was exhausted, hungry and hurt. The puppy reminds him of Nekoi’s Inuki and he digs around in his pockets for some leftover biscuits and rips the sleeve of his jacket to produce makeshift bandages for the puppy.
The puppy hungrily gnaws away at the biscuits that Kusanagi placed on the floor, and quickly polishes them off while making snuffling noises of appreciation. It silently stays still when Kusanagi carefully does a makeshift splint on its injured back leg.
Kusanagi smiles at the antics of the puppy when it sticks its nose into his discarded jacket, sniffing around for more tidbits. He wishes that he brought more food with him but he hadn’t planned on staying around for long. He pats the puppy one last time, picks up his jacket and turns to leave.
The puppy whines and when Kusanagi makes no move to stop, it determinedly trails after him. He hadn’t expected the puppy to follow him and wonders what is preventing him from just leaping off back to where he had decided to stay for the night.
Despite how hard he tries to lose the puppy though, it always finds him in the end and Kusanagi didn’t have the heart to turn it away when they arrive at his hideout for the night with the puppy a little worse for wear.
Kusanagi feeds it a broken down protein bar - protein bars had become a staple food supply after the flooding of arable land - and it seems to enjoy it a lot more than the biscuits. Kusanagi sighs to himself as he watches the puppy settle down in a corner and it seems to know about his soft spot for small animals, because it made no move to leave the next day. He tells himself that as soon as the puppy is healed, then he’ll leave and return to his wandering ways.
It takes nearly a month for the puppy to heal and Kusanagi had resisted giving it a name, but by then, the puppy had somehow wriggled its way into his affection, and he couldn’t bring himself to be parted from it. The puppy helped fill up a bit of the empty hole he had been feeling since long ago and he found that he was starting to let some of the feeling he kept tightly locked up out instead of holding tightly onto them forever. He sighs resignedly to himself, unsure if he likes the change or not, but decides that since he missed the company, the puppy might as well come along with him.
He doesn’t even need to consider what to call the puppy.
“Inuki,” he says.
The puppy just looks up intelligently at him and almost appears to grin.
---