Chapter Text
*~*~*
The Blue King had no daemon.
That was the rumour anyway, and while he may not have started it, Saruhiko generally blamed Misaki for how it had been perpetuated into the Red Clan's rabble—and from there to the streets at large. He was certainly the one who shouted the loudest when it came to that particular story.
Munakata Reisi had been chosen as the Blue King not long after HOMRA had rescued Anna and Scheherazade from their captors—a few months at the most. But it had been almost half a year before anyone from HOMRA had actually met him, as he'd not deigned to follow up on the connections the Blue Clan had had to that incident; or at least, not so that he'd made any move to contact Anna.
Given what Saruhiko would later learn about the man, in all likelihood he'd sorted that out without bothering her. He probably wouldn't have seen the need.
As for how they finally had met him, it had been one of the last relatively cool days of the year before summer took its hold, and Saya had been in one of her increasingly frequent manic states; scampering along Saruhiko's shoulders and around his torso—down his arm and onto Kusanagi's bar then back up the other arm and onto his head, claws pulling on his hair as her tail knocked his glasses askew.
He remembered grabbing her, and throwing her onto the seat of a nearby booth.
"Would you stop that?!" he'd snarled.
She'd hissed right back and extended her frill, raising herself up on her hind legs. He'd clicked his tongue and turned his head away, but hadn't been able to ignore the stunned looks Misaki and some of the others had given him for his action.
"What?" he'd asked them, trying not to snap. "It's a reptile thing."
That had always been and to some extent remained a good go-to excuse for strange behaviour. In defiance of the diversity of the natural world, 46% of daemons worldwide—according to WHO statistics—were mammals. A further 31% were birds. Only 9% were reptiles and Saya was the only one in the inner circle of HOMRA—rare enough that Saruhiko could make up whatever he wanted about her and have the average Red Clansman believe his lies.
Not too surprisingly, Kusanagi had been an exception. He had more than two brain cells to rub together for one thing, and had simply pretended not to see what Saruhiko had done, wiping a glass nonchalantly while some of the others had been exchanging worried looks. But his daemon Chiaka, a large grey monkey, hadn't been able to keep the disapproval from her eyes; leaping from the other side of the bar and onto Kusanagi's shoulder as if to hint at them as to how a human and a daemon should act. Saruhiko had just scowled at her.
Then Misaki's wolverine Kiallanta, who everyone called 'Kiki'--impulsive and reckless as ever--had run past the stool he'd been sitting on towards Saya and Misaki had followed her up until he reached Saruhiko.
"What the fuck're you talking about, a reptile thing?" he'd yelled, shoving Saruhiko hard enough to bruise, though Saruhiko had doubted he'd meant to.
He hadn't understood it then and only had the casual musings of a man of questionable character now to shed any light on it, but his body had been feeling weaker and weaker toward the end of his time with HOMRA. Even small things like Misaki had been leaving their marks.
Misaki hadn't left it there of course.
"You don't just throw your daemon at the wall like that, Saru—I don't care if she's a reptile, or a snake, or a..."
"Spider?" Saruhiko had offered. "Slug? Centipede?"
"Cockroach?" Saya had added, frill going down but her body still on her hind legs.
"Quite. Snakes are reptiles, by the way—just so you know, Mi-sa-ki."
"Shut up, Saru!" Misaki had cried, fists clenching. "The fuck's your problem anyway?!"
Saruhiko remembered feeling his teeth start chattering together as he'd grinned.
"There's no problem, Misaki," he'd replied. "Saya and I were just playing."
"How is that playing!?" Kiki had demanded, and Saruhiko hadn't answered, because there was a certain etiquette about talking to other people's daemons—trust Misaki and Kiki not to observe any such etiquette—and just then he hadn't wanted to put in the effort of analysing what any reply might have said about his relationship with the oversized weasel and her human.
Saya had been under no such constrictions.
"Aww," she'd said, and finally dropped onto all fours. "Did Kiki want to come and save me? Poor, fragile Saya—tossed about by her unruly Saru. Were you going to give me a kiss and make it all better, Kiki?"
Kiki had always been less prone to shock at the things Saruhiko and Saya said when they were trying to get a rise out of her and Misaki. She must have been where Misaki kept his higher brain functions.
This time she'd just growled and backed away. Saya had jumped off the seat and back up Saruhiko's leg, her tail flicking Kiki as she ran past her.
Saruhiko remembered that little slice of everyday HOMRA hell in surprisingly vivid detail.
Anyway, that had been when the door had opened, and stopped any response Misaki might have made.
The man who'd entered the bar had been young—twenty or so, with bleached hair and no immediately visible daemon. Not a bird or a medium to large daemon then, Saruhiko had deduced, and probably not a fragile one since he wasn't wearing a protective case to hold an insect; though not everyone did that, and it could have been a case small enough to hide.
His clothes had been simple and stained, he'd had a smirk that kept trying to grow into a grin—like he had some big secret he just couldn't wait to tell everyone, and he'd sat at the bar almost like he'd owned the place. Though no one had said anything or even made much movement before he opened his mouth, there had been an instant and unmistakable dislike for him from everyone in the room. Even Saruhiko.
Especially Saruhiko.
"Bourbon," the man had said, drumming his hands against the top of the bar.
Not unnoticeably, Kusanagi had winced at the man's dirty fingernails striking his precious rosewood. Chiaka had given him a worried look.
"Four-fifty," he'd said, as he'd turned to get the bottle from the shelf.
"You'll give it to me for free when you hear what I have to say," the man had replied. His grin could not be contained from that point onwards.
A smile of a very different sort had appeared on Kusanagi's face. He'd given the other Clansmen a pointed look that told them not to make a move until he'd given his explicit orders to do so. At the same time, Chiaka had jumped off his shoulder to go upstairs and rouse Mikoto from his afternoon nap—she could go quite far from her human without trouble, so she often performed these tasks. Kusanagi had then poured the bourbon.
"Oh?" he'd said. "I'm intrigued. You have some sort of information you believe would be of use to me? A new cocktail you've heard of? A particularly fine wine—"
The man had chuckled. "I won't string you along," he'd interrupted. "What I have is primarily of interest to your Red King, not his bartender."
Next to Saruhiko, Misaki had tensed up. The other five Clansmen who'd been present hadn't been able to hide their own reactions, less pronounced than Misaki though they were. Saruhiko had just rolled his eyes.
"You want to see the Red King, do you?" Kusanagi had asked, putting the bottle back on the shelf. "I don't know about that. He doesn't see just anyone."
"He'll see me," the man had said. "My name's Ishitaka Kenji, and I'd like to give him some information about SCEPTRE 4."
At that point Kusanagi's head had tilted in interest. He'd slid the glass across the counter without looking at it and glanced off to the side.
"SCEPTRE 4, huh? We hadn't heard much from them lately. As I understand it, they finally got themselves a new King."
Spitting his drink back into his glass with laughter, Ishitaka had wiped his sleeve across his mouth and laughed again.
"Oh, they've got a King all right," he'd said. "Let me tell your Suoh Mikoto-san a few things about this guy. You've already had a little skirmish of sorts with that lot; I know, because I was one of that Gold bastard's subjects."
He'd waved his hand, and the alcohol in his glass had come twirling up into the air, forming a sphere that floated above his hand before he'd poured it back into the glass, never once touching the liquid.
"You're a Strain," Misaki had observed, gritted teeth pulling themselves apart.
"I am that," the man had replied with a wink.
On Saruhiko's shoulder, frill folding out to brush against his hair, Saya had dug her claws in and hissed, but Ishitaka hadn't seemed to notice.
Then two things had happened close enough together in timing that Saruhiko couldn't remember which came first; the bell over the door had rung again as Totsuka and Perikhadi had brought Anna and Scheherazade back from a shopping trip, and Suoh Mikoto had followed a scampering Chiaka down the steps from his room, Kol lumbering and yawning behind him.
He remembered that when Chiaka had leapt back onto Kusanagi's shoulder, the first thing she'd said had been "Welcome back."
"We got Anna some very nice new shoes," Perikhadi had said, peeking out of the left-hand pocket of Totsuka's jacket.
Anna had started running towards Suoh almost as soon as she'd spotted him, but just as she'd passed the bar she'd stopped, turned around and tilted her head, looking at Ishitaka with both recognition and curiosity. He'd given her a wave.
"This gentleman seems to have been a fellow patient at that hospital," Kusanagi had said—not the most subtle way of asking Anna to confirm, but polite enough not to get their guest riled up.
After a slight pause, Scheherazade had run up Anna's shoulder in gecko-form and Anna had nodded.
Kusanagi had smiled, but coming from him it had meant next to nothing.
"I believe he has something to tell the Red King."
Suoh Mikoto had already thrown himself down on the couch; that look like he'd been lobotomised in his sleep plastered on a face Saruhiko couldn't bear to look at for too long. He'd pulled a bent cigarette out of his pocket and lit it with his fingers—nearly setting his hair on fire in the process and apparently not caring.
Such was the man who had become Misaki's idol.
Sure, he was slightly more impressive when he hadn't just woken up; but even then, it wasn't like Suoh Mikoto the man was anything special—having a male daemon excepted. It was the power from the Dresden Slate that people flocked to. Suoh hadn't even asked for it, let alone earned it, and that went for the adoration of his subjects as well as his powers.
At any rate, he'd barely raised his eyebrows at Kusanagi's words. Anna had sat down next to him and Scheherazade had climbed over her lap and onto Kol's head. Suoh had glanced at the little girl's daemon briefly.
"She's a lizard today, then?"
"Hn." Anna had nodded.
"What's that like?"
There'd been a pause.
"Cold."
Saruhiko had clicked his tongue and scowled while Saya opened her mouth as if hissing, but hadn't actually made a sound. He was pretty sure Misaki had spared him a worried look, for the second or so the incident had kept his attention.
Ishitaka meanwhile had noticed that the Red King wasn't paying him any attention. He'd gulped down the bourbon and slid off the bar stool to approach the King, giving him a wave, then an awkward bow, then another half-wave.
"Suoh Mikoto-san?" he'd asked. Suoh had just stared at him so he'd continued, "My name is Ishitaka Kenji, and I'd like to show you something—a, uh, demonstration—so you know the information I'm going to give you can be trusted."
Most would have said Suoh continued to stare blankly at that point. Saruhiko didn't miss how the Red King had checked for Kusanagi's approval at that point.
Ishitaka had cleared his throat.
"You five—" he'd said, addressing the Clansmen milling around in the background but not looking at them. "Mix your daemons up so I don't know whose is whose. Hide them from me if you can."
The five men had reacted in different ways, tensing up, leaning back, cringing—but each of them had checked Kusanagi's opinion on the matter one after the other and had taken the slight inclination of his head as approval.
"This is exciting," Totsuka had said, coming to sit at the bar one space over from Saruhiko. "Do you think he'll do a magic trick?"
"Maybe he'll make them all disappear," Saya had whispered in Saruhiko's ear. He'd forced himself not to flick her face.
Hesitantly, each of the other Clansmen had left their daemons in the booth they'd been sitting at and approached Ishitaka. Bandou and Fujishima had been the most brazen; the former filled with false bravado, the latter probably genuinely unafraid. Kamamoto had been somewhere between confused, scared, and more interested in the manjuu bun he'd been eating, while Dewa and Chitose had been the most reticent. Dewa had even begun glowing red when Ishitaka had reached into his pocket.
He'd only pulled out his daemon, of course. It had been a strange-looking thing; at first Saruhiko had thought it a black hamster or some type of rat, but it had actually been a mole—a star-nosed mole, with an anemone-like snout at the end of its face.
"This is Tef," he'd said. "Tef, what kind of daemons do these guys have?"
Oh, now, this is interesting, Saruhiko had thought, because right then it had become pretty clear where this demonstration was going to go, and in all likelihood what 'genuine information' he was going to give them. He'd even sat up a little straighter in response.
The daemon had stuck her little head out and wiggled her strange nose a little. Daemons, as a rule, didn't have all the specialised skills of the animals they'd taken the form of; but not only were there exceptions to that rule, there were also instances in which a daemon had unheard of capabilities.
First, Ishitaka had held her out towards Fujishima, and she'd been fast when she'd said—
"Mammal. Cervidae." Then there'd been a pause of no more than half a second. "One of the Muntjac species—probably Indian."
Indian Muntjac deer. That was Fujishima's daemon all right, not that Saruhiko could have told you that despite hanging out at the same bar as her and her human for the better part of a year. He'd have had to actually care to find out the species' actual name, and knowing it was a small deer had been more than enough for him.
Ishitaka had held Tef out to Bandou next. This time she'd been even faster.
"Corvid—carrion crow."
Saruhiko had always thought it was a raven.
Tef had turned her nose towards Kamamoto next and hesitated, then scratched her head with her huge paws and said, "Pri—no. Marsupial. Koala."
The koala's nickname was 'Naru', Saruhiko had known that much, but then Kamamoto had been a more permanent fixture around Misaki than some of the others, and there was only so much he could wilfully ignore.
"Feline," Tef had said a moment later, sniffing at Dewa. "Hmm. Medium-sized—serval, probably."
Another cat. It had given Dewa some level of standing in HOMRA, having the closest daemon type to the King's.
Chitose was surveyed last, and Tef had said, "Hare," without a second thought, following it up instantly with, "New World variety—scrub hare," which from the expression on Chitose's face had been something even he hadn't known.
Totsuka had actually clapped. "Well done!" he'd told the pair. "Five out of five!"
Ishitaka had smiled briefly, but that had quickly dropped when he'd noticed the lack of expression on the Red King's face. Bandou's carrion crow had flapped onto Bandou's shoulder, followed by all the other daemons dashing out to rejoin their other halves, except Naru, who'd just climbed on top of the seat and let Kamamoto pick her back up. Ishitaka had approached Suoh again, but not too close, his eyes wandering back to Kol's huge frame every few seconds.
"Tef can tell what anyone's daemon is. Anyone's. Doesn't matter if they're hiding up their sleeve or in the nearest closet to try and fool people: she knows." He'd paused. "And I hear you lot don't get along well with SCEPTRE 4."
"What has that got to do with anything?" Misaki had snapped, moving closer to his King himself. It had made Saruhiko sigh, but no one except Saya had noticed.
"Well," Ishitaka had replied, "what do you know about the Blue King? I mean—he's your enemy, right? You've already fought with his Clan and from what I hear the last Red King killed the last Blue King. I was thinking you'd probably want as much information about him as you could get."
At that point Kusanagi had come out from behind the bar as he answered—
"At the moment all we know is his name. The Gold Clan have been rather meticulous when it comes to protecting the identities of Kings—presumably to keep their families safe. I'll admit I have found myself confounded, but when it comes to information I'm interested in learning about the Blue King, the identity of the daemon he keeps so close to his chest that no one's seen it isn't top of the list."
"Even if he didn't have a daemon at all?"
A hush had descended over the room. The cold kind.
Even Suoh's eyebrow's had risen, and the cigarette he'd been about to take a drag from had stopped halfway to his mouth. Even Kusanagi's normally unflappable exterior had taken on a look of shock. Even 'everything will work out' Totsuka had appeared momentarily haunted.
Even Saruhiko had finally swivelled around on his barstool to pay complete attention.
"Th-that's stupid!" Misaki had shouted, the first to break the silence. "Everyone has a daemon, you probably just didn't see it!"
"I told you," Ishitaka had said. "Tef always knows. Everyone's daemon leaves a kind of impression on them, and he didn't have one at all. No daemon; no impression of a daemon, nothing. And if you'd met him up close and personal like I have—when he was trying to lock me back up in a lab, by the way—you might not be as surprised at the thought that he didn't have a soul."
"I'll interrupt you there and make a guess," Kusanagi had said. "That's why you're here. You want our protection."
Ishitaka had ignored Kusanagi, but got on his knees before Suoh.
"I would do anything," he'd confirmed. "Seriously, that old fart running things in his tower isn't going to touch your little princess here, but he's given out orders for a lot of the rest of us to be 'recalled' and... well. There was an... incident... earlier today."
"There were a lot of police in moving about the city," Totsuka had commented.
"I'm sure there were," Kusanagi had said, waving his hand dismissively. "What interests me is why you in particular have been recalled."
Ishitaka had not been able to hide a frightened look before he'd schooled his features, putting Tef back in his pocket.
"Well I didn't exactly volunteer for the project; they already had me in holding. But you have to understand, that was nothing—you know what these people are like when you have powers like we do and you put one toe out of line."
"And what line was it exactly that you put your toe out of?"
Kusanagi's question had caused an expression of physical pain to appear on Ishitaka's face. Saruhiko had pegged from the beginning that the man was nowhere near as confident as he'd appeared when he'd ordered his drink, but now he'd begun to see how truly desperate Ishitaka was. Whatever he'd gotten himself into with the Blues, it had been bad.
Not that Saruhiko had seen it as any of HOMRA's concern. He'd just been preparing for that anyway because HOMRA was stupid, and stupid people got involved in things that weren't their concern all the time. Saya's tail had curled around his neck on the inside of his collar just then; that's what she did when they were beginning to get nervous.
"It was nothing," Ishitaka had repeated, standing up again. "But you know the Blues—they're fucking fascists! They just want to control everything people do; especially Strains. And that King of theirs has really jumpstarted things, brought in a whole bunch of new people and has them dividing up the city for surveillance; everywhere that isn't the territory of another King. Fucking creepy fucker; he's got these dead eyes and as I said—no daemon."
The growing panic in Ishitaka's tone had done little to impress Kusanagi.
"I have to say, Ishitaka-san, your reticence in regards to how you first ended up in SCEPTRE 4 custody is not exactly filling me with confidence as to how far we can trust you."
Ishitaka had groaned.
"I may have stolen some shit, all right? It was kid's stuff—really, but that's not why I'm here. There was another guy at the hospital where they were keeping me and your princess; same-sex daemon, so you can imagine they were real interested in him."
In defiance of the 0.01% average rate of same-sex daemons that the general public held, it had been Saruhiko's understanding that Kings had them at a rate of over half. Both the then-current Green King and Colourless King had also had male daemons, and while the Gold King didn't, rumour had it the Silver King had a male songbird of some sort. Having Scheherazade had been one of the things that had put Anna on the radar of those people.
On the other hand, they also comprised up to 15% of the general Strain population, so there were no guarantees. Ishitaka had continued.
"Anyway, he seemed to know what he was doing, so when we got out I stuck with him for a while and... well... things have gone kind of... bad."
That had been an understatement, to say the least, because at that moment the door to the bar had been flung open, hard enough that it had crashed against one of the booths, and a Blue Clansman in full uniform had burst into the building sword-drawn, followed swiftly and then overtaken by his daemon.
"The fuck!?" Misaki had yelled.
HOMRA called the Blues 'dogs' for more reason than just contempt for their adherence to authority—they did indeed, almost to a man, have daemons that were canines of one type or another; usually domestic dogs at that.
It had been difficult to think of this daemon as 'domestic' though. A thigh-high, sleek and snarling lupine beast with ash-grey fur and—as if in solidarity with her Clan—icy blue eyes. A Siberian husky. Her piercing gaze had fallen on Ishitaka immediately and she'd frozen.
"Ishitaka," her human, a tall brunet, had spat.
"Shit!" Ishitaka had responded, stumbling back far enough that the husky daemon was closer to Suoh than to him, even if the Red King wasn't actually acting as a barrier.
Misaki had, faithful as always, begun to make his stand for the Red Clan, with "Do you Blues really think you can waltz in here—" when the husky had cut him off.
"Shall I call them, Akira?" she'd asked.
"Hey!"
The Blue Clansman had clenched his fist around the hilt of his sword. Maybe it had just been that Saruhiko had been closer, but he'd been surprised that even someone like Misaki hadn't seemed to recognise the cold fury that had been in that Clansman's eyes. Fury that had spoken of someone in no mood to listen to HOMRA bravado.
"Do it," he'd ordered his daemon.
With that, she'd thrown her head back and howled.
It had been a haunting sound, filling the room and with the door open probably the next few blocks around the building, stunning most of the gathering. From his position right next to Totsuka, Saruhiko could literally see him and his daemon stop breathing until the long howl was done.
At that point, Suoh Mikoto had stood up from the couch.
"Oi," he'd said. "What do you think you're doing?"
To the credit of the Blue Clansman, he'd stood his ground and stared down the Red King—although maybe that was as much a credit to his stupidity as it was to his bravery. As Misaki loved to demonstrate with annoying frequency, the two often went hand in hand. But the Blue had also flinched like he'd only just realised who he was standing in front of.
He'd taken a deep breath and visibly struggled to find the right words before replying, "This man is being taken into custody." He'd pointed at Ishitaka with his sword.
"Oh yeah?" Misaki had said. "And who told you you were going to do something like that?"
The Blue had shifted his stance a little, grit his teeth and re-tightened his grip on his sword, but he hadn't said anything. Saruhiko had seen him begin to realise what he'd got himself into, but hadn't bothered to draw his own weapons until he'd heard another voice yelling from outside.
"Hidaka!"
Looking towards the sound, Saruhiko had seen a second Blue Clansman approach from the street through the open door. The new guy had released his sword as he ran—though under his breath so Saruhiko hadn't heard his name. At his side had been a Great Dane, probably almost as tall as Misaki. The Clansman himself had hardly been petite.
The Great Dane had bounded in first, prompting most of the daemons to draw back, though Kiki of course had jumped forward and growled, and as you'd expect from a dog of that breed the second Blue's daemon had backtracked a little, even from the much smaller wolverine. Her human had also remained further back than the first, closer to the door and with his sword by his side.
"Hidaka," he'd said, glancing around. "The Captain said we weren't supposed to go into the bar even if—"
"He's right there, Gotou!" 'Hidaka' had snapped. "And he knows where Takashima is!"
"I don't!" Ishitaka had protested, arms held up as he'd backed right up against the wall and quickly searched for the door. "I have no idea where he is, I swear—"
"You've been living with him for months!"
"That doesn't mean I know where he is now! What, you think he's just hanging around our apartment? I can give you the address—"
"But you know where he would go!"
"I have no fucking idea! I swear, man—I had no idea he was going to do what he did, no fucking clue!"
"Don't you give me that, you son of a bitch! One of our Clansmen is dead! Murdered by your friend!"
That had caused a hush.
Even Misaki, who'd always been the first to play into the stupid Red-Blue rivalry that was apparently a long-standing feature of their Clans, had gotten this dumb, empathetic look on his face when he'd heard the Blues had lost one of their own. His eyes had slid from right to left, taking stock of the positions of the other members of HOMRA before falling on Saruhiko.
Saya's little claws had dug in.
"Why did he look to them first?" she'd whispered.
"Shut up," he'd hissed back.
Meanwhile Ishitaka had been stumbling for a reply to Hidaka's violent accusation, and somehow ended up deciding, "It was an accident—he was aiming for your King!" to be the best choice, because clearly he was also an idiot.
"Kenji!" groaned his mole daemon, who had still been in his hand. She'd sounded pretty desperate, and why wouldn't she have been?
"You're coming with us, Ishitaka," Hidaka had growled, "if I have to cut down every Red between us to get you." His daemon had emphasised him with a vicious snarl.
Hearing that and seeing the man start to glow blue had quashed any feelings of sympathy the rank and file of HOMRA might have had for the Blue Clansmen. Not that they'd had any reason to protect Ishitaka, but when a member of SCEPTRE 4 began talking about cutting them down with his sword outstretched it gave rise to certain hostile feelings, and Misaki had been the first to power up red, followed swiftly by Kamamoto and Bandou.
Totsuka had stood up hastily.
"Perhaps if we all calmed down and talked this over..." he'd begun.
"Hidaka, think about this," pleaded the other Blue. "We've already lost one comrade today—"
"I'm going to give you one chance, Ishitaka," Hidaka had snapped, interrupting and ignoring his colleague all at once. "Where. Is. Takashima!?"
"I don't know!" cried Ishitaka.
In the corner of his peripheral vision, Saruhiko had just been able to see Saya licking her lips as she'd leaned forward towards the action. He'd expected a battle, and honestly hadn't known whether he should let the others take care of the two Blues they so clearly outnumbered and let Saruhiko get back to not giving a shit, or if he should attack first, from behind, and maybe alleviate some of the tension that had been all but crippling him for weeks.
However, he never got the chance. Of all people, Anna had then injected herself into the proceedings.
"Takashima Natsuhiro?" she'd asked, small voice sounding so much louder than it should have.
Hidaka had done a double take like he hadn't noticed she'd been there before, as most of the eyes in the room drew her way. Hidaka's had swiftly turned back to Ishitaka's though.
"What do you know about it?" he'd asked. Some of the rage in his voice had disappeared, probably in recognition that he'd been talking to a child.
There had been a beat then. A short moment of silence as Anna had hesitated, then filled before she could say anything by a new voice.
A new voice that had come from right. Behind. Saruhiko.
"Miss Kushina has met him before."
There'd been no warning. The doorway into the bar had been right in his line of sight, and yet there hadn't been so much as a Blue blur coming from that direction before the voice spoke.
Saruhiko had yelped and tried to turn around and jump away at the same time, predictably losing his balance and able to get his first look at the Blue King, Munakata Reisi, standing over him as he fell backwards towards the floor of the bar.
Well. This will be embarrassing, he'd thought.
He'd been more right than even that, because in another seemingly motionless movement, the unknown Blue had caught him before he'd even fallen below waist height, and held him with a strange and cryptic smile for what had felt like the longest moment in the world, effortlessly avoiding getting too close to Saya as he'd done it.
For Saruhiko it had felt like his heart had stopped beating. Somehow he had known at once that this was the Blue King. It hadn't been any striking similarity to Suoh Mikoto, not by any stretch of the imagination, but then they hadn't been entirely dissimilar either. That force, the force that both of them exuded from every plane and contour of their bodies was like nothing else in the entire world. The difference was that Suoh was a firestorm, an explosion—his was an intensity so overwhelming that you couldn't even look at him for too long.
The Blue King was more like a whirlpool; a vortex. He didn't blast you away. He pulled you in. Ishitaka must have been blind to have thought the man's eyes looked dead.
On the other hand, as Ishitaka had claimed, from what Saruhiko had been able to see the man indeed had no daemon.
In the very next moment he'd lifted Saruhiko up and deposited him back on one of the bar stools, then gone so far as to casually brush his shoulders and arms off while Saruhiko had been too stunned to protest and Saya had clung to his chest too fearfully to even puff her frill out. Munakata had said nothing at all to him, but his eyes had lingered on Saruhiko's before he'd turned to face Suoh—and if he hadn't broken that contact there was a part of Saruhiko that was afraid he wouldn't have been able to do it himself.
"My apologies for the intrusion," he'd said, unfailingly polite. "I am Munakata Reisi, the fourth and Blue King and head of SCEPTRE 4. That man," he'd pointed at Ishitaka, "is a person of interest in an investigation and I should be pleased to take him off your hands, Mr... ?"
"Oh, you don't know?" Suoh had said, smirking and obviously not believing that to be the case.
Munakata's smile had grown bigger. His gaze had slid from Suoh's face towards Kol, and he'd tilted his head slowly as he'd scoured the huge lion with his eyes.
"I suppose I could make a guess so long as I had the assurance that you would not consider that to be rude?"
"He is a stickler for propriety, our Mikoto," Kusanagi had said dryly.
As Munakata had sought out Kol so too had Kusanagi and Chiaka been conspicuously seeking out Munakata's daemon, and as Saruhiko had before them, they'd come up empty. He'd just seemed completely alone.
"Captain," the second Blue had said, worriedly. His Great Dane had let out a very quiet whimper.
Munakata had given him a short, slow nod. "Forgive me, Gotou-kun. I must say I had wanted to visit my patronage at this place for some time, and I'm sorry that it has to be under these circumstances, but I'm afraid I must be taking Ishitaka-san into custody now."
If Ishitaka had seemed scared before, trying to melt himself through the back wall to get away from Hidaka and the husky, then he'd been positively petrified once Munakata had looked in his direction—frozen stiff and barely breathing.
As seconds had passed without anyone saying anything, Ishitaka had finally gathered the strength to slowly turn his head, inch by inch towards Suoh and croaked out—
"Please, please don't let him take me! He's not human—"
"If I could stop you there, Mr. Ishitaka," Munakata had interrupted, "and perhaps bring to attention something you seem to have overlooked. Mr. Takashima's personality profile was well-documented by the Gold Clan and as you can imagine I have been studying it extensively. As you have been living with him for some time, I imagine you also have a relatively accurate estimation of his character. What do you think he's going to do to you once he finds out this conversation took place?"
Ishitaka's eyes had already been starting to tear up at that point, but when that thought was put in his head—and clearly it indeed hadn't been there before—they somehow twitched even further open. Munakata had continued;
"I don't expect you can count on the Red King to protect you from a teleporter twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. I've had the chance to peruse his file also and I got the impression his attention span wasn't quite that long. No offence," he'd assured Suoh.
Suoh had shrugged. "Oh? Sorry, I wasn't paying attention."
"—and you of course have my word that no harm will come to you within the confines of SCEPTRE 4's territory. Other than that I'm afraid you really have no choice."
"I don't know anything!" Ishitaka had whined, looking desperately about the room.
"He's nearby," Anna had said, abruptly. "Watching. He won't come close while he's here."
Hidaka had drawn himself up.
"Where nearby!?" he'd demanded, only Munakata had held a hand up and stopped him.
"Thank you, Hidaka-kun, but I'd rather not involve Kushina Anna in this affair," he'd said, for what could have been many reasons.
At any rate, Anna hadn't spoken again until after the Blues had left. Meanwhile, Munakata had continued to try and bring Ishitaka to him quietly.
"And I'm not surprised that Takashima is watching. Now, he can't get into my headquarters undetected, but I'm afraid it would be a simple matter for him to teleport into this bar and take you, Ishitaka-san. I don't believe for a moment that you know nothing at all about this."
There had been a tense silence.
"If you want my opinion," Kusanagi had said to Ishitaka, returning to his spot behind the bar and polishing a glass as he'd spoken, "I'd take what's being offered. I don't think we can help you."
As much as that had been a genuine piece of advice for Ishitaka, it had also been a summation of Kusanagi's opinion on the matter for Suoh's sake; and like a good puppet-king Suoh had casually sauntered back to the couch and lit another cigarette. Munakata had watched him the whole time, then watched Kol when he lay down at Suoh's feet and yawned, not turning his head away from Ishitaka but keeping his eyes locked on the other King and his daemon until they'd been settled.
As for Ishitaka, that had been the point he'd given up; and not that Saruhiko hadn't understood the logic behind coming here in the first place, but it had still been a stupid idea on Ishitaka's part—gambling his safety on the idea of a rivalry between two people who had never actually met before that day.
Still, when Hidaka had made to move forward to collect Ishitaka, and the other one, 'Gotou', followed; Kiki had blocked their path with a growl, reminding them that SCEPTRE 4 did not have free reign within HOMRA territory—certainly not within their headquarters, if that wasn't too sophisticated a term for Kusanagi's shitty bar.
So Kusanagi had jerked his head towards Munakata and, reluctantly, Ishitaka had stumbled over. He'd actually seemed relieved that Hidaka and Gotou had intercepted him as soon as he'd passed Misaki and Kiki, as though afraid that Munakata, apparently having no daemon of his own, would want to steal his like some ancient youkai folk-tale. Or what did they call them in Christian mythology? Nephilim?
It didn't matter. Despite what the mole had said, Saruhiko didn't believe the Blue King had no daemon. He was probably keeping something like a bee in a case in his pocket. That was the kind of thing he'd have expected from a Blue King—a Queen Bee directing her workers, keeping the hive running smoothly with a sword for her stinger. Maybe the mole just wasn't as good at identifying daemons that weren't warm-blooded.
Speaking of which, Saya had been unusually quiet since the Blue King had stepped onto the scene. A quick glance revealed, to his unnerving, that she'd seemed fixated on Munakata. Her frill had been extended to its fullest and she'd been staring at him like she was hypnotised, still clinging to Saruhiko's chest.
Saruhiko had promptly flicked her in the face and shrugged off the ensuing jolt of pain he'd felt through his own body from their connection. She'd shaken herself and crawled quickly back onto his shoulder, and only then had the tension begun to leak out of the room.
So, finally, Hidaka and Gotou had lead Ishitaka out of the bar without further comment, though the husky had lingered for a moment to give them a parting growl, and Ishitaka had given the Red Clan one last look of helplessness before he'd been taken back out onto the street.
Good riddance.
Then Munakata had given them—and by 'them' one was to understand 'Suoh'— a shallow bow.
"My sincere apologies for any trouble you or your Clan may have been caused because of this matter;" he'd said, insincerely. "I am truly grateful for the assistance."
"What assistance?" Suoh had asked with a snort.
Munakata had just tilted his head a little and kept smiling.
"I am very pleased to finally be able to meet you, Suoh Mikoto. I hope we can become good friends."
Yeah. Saruhiko had been starting to see why everyone was afraid of this guy. Everyone except Suoh, who'd just looked at him like he'd made a terrible pun.
"Stay for a drink next time," offered Kusanagi, who'd been doing a better job than the others to hide how disturbed he'd been, but hadn't been able to stop Chiaka from crouching down behind his back with fearful uncertainty.
"I look forward to it," Munakata had replied cheerfully, turning back towards the door as he spoke.
He'd deliberately caught Saruhiko's eye on his way out, and unless Saruhiko had gone completely insane and was hallucinating, had winked at him.
And then, like rain into the ocean, he'd vanished.
~*~*~
The next meeting of HOMRA with SCEPTRE 4 and Munakata Reisi was destined to be a whole three-and-a-half hours later, but with no way of knowing that the whole incident had almost immediately been treated like some kind of once-in-a-lifetime supernatural encounter.
Which, to be fair, it had been. It wasn't as though Kings and Clans were a part of most people's everyday lives.
"He had no daemon!" Misaki had whimpered, becoming the first to break the long silence that had followed Munakata's departure. Kiki had been pressing herself against his leg nervously. "No daemon anywhere around him..."
"Oh, come on Yata—of course he did," Bandou had said, shrugging his shoulders uncomfortably so his crow had to adjust her position.
"Did you see one!?" Misaki had yelled at him.
The way Bandou had averted his eyes may as well have stood in for a 'no'; he hadn't bothered to actually say it before he'd qualified, "No one doesn't have a daemon—even if you don't see them right away."
"Maybe he's a vampire?" Saruhiko had suggested slyly.
As he'd hoped, Misaki had actually taken that suggestion seriously, his eyes widening.
"I thought vampires all had vampire bats for daemons!" he'd exclaimed.
"Only in the movies, Mi-sa-ki."
"Thank you, Fushimi-kun," Kusanagi had cut in, giving Saruhiko a disapproving look. "But vampires only exist in movies period, so I think we can safely write that one off. The most likely explanation is, as Bandou suggested, that his daemon simply remains out of sight. I know that guy's mole had a rather impressive ability, but if you think about it, all your daemons are warm-blooded. Chiaka and I may not be daemon analysts but we got a distinctly cold impression from the Blue King, and that mole probably doesn't have as much experience with that kind of thing."
That had been precisely Saruhiko's thoughts on the situation; but hearing it come from Kusanagi had made him instinctively want to disagree, and he'd very quickly wondered why, if that had been the case, the mole had received no impression at all, rather than simply an unfamiliar one.
"Did you notice anything about him then, Fushimi-kun?" asked Totsuka.
Saruhiko had not, however, cared to actually discuss those thoughts out loud. He'd clicked his tongue in annoyance at Totsuka's question and shrugged. "I don't know. He—"
With there really having been no point in continuing, he'd cut himself off and stopped talking. The others never paid attention to anything he said anyway. It had been no surprise when they hadn't pressed him further.
"He definitely wasn't dead," Saya had whispered. Saruhiko hadn't given her a response either.
"You don't think he's severed, do you?" Kamamoto had asked.
The room had gone very quiet then. As far as Saruhiko had been able to see, everyone except himself had looked to their own daemons as if to reassure themselves they were still there, and Anna had even taken Scheherazade off her shoulder so she could hold her closer, at which point Scheherazade had promptly shifted into a snowy-white ferret and curled around her arms.
In Saruhiko's opinion severance was a short-sighted and stupid explanation for Munakata having no visible daemon, for the simple reason that the man had seemed reasonably sane, but what really annoyed him had been the way everyone had clammed up as if talking about the subject would make it suddenly happen to them. Bunch of babies. And there a lack of propriety would have been the one thing he'd have expected from a gang of worthless thugs that wouldn't have annoyed him.
Typical, really.
"People generally don't survive long after an amateur severance," Kusanagi had said quietly. "And generally don't remain sane after a... well, I hesitate to call such a procedure 'professional', but an intercision, anyway. The only thing that seems to help is if the human and daemon are reunited reasonably soon afterwards; then even if their bond is broken they can still function within normal society—but if that had been the case we would have seen his daemon with him anyway."
Kamamoto had looked like he'd regretted bringing it up, and somehow everyone's eyes were being pulled towards the floor as if out of respect for all those people who had nothing to do with them who had been severed, and who they shouldn't have been able to care less about.
"Could have been a bird," offered Chitose. "Waiting outside on the roof. Then we wouldn't have seen her. Or him, I suppose."
"But if that was the case why wouldn't the mole have been able to tell?" Dewa had asked him.
Suoh had then proved he'd actually been paying attention to what had been going on by exhaling some smoke and muttering, "Don't suppose you could get to work on finding out what the deal really is?" to Kusanagi. "If not to stop these guys worrying about it, then so I get to see the look on his face when I ask for his daemon by name next time I see him?"
Kol had yawned for what was probably the fiftieth time that day. "That sounds fun," he'd said.
"What it sounds," Kusanagi had replied, smiling, "is extremely rude. But yes, I will be looking into it. Right now I'm more concerned with this Takashima person. Do you know if he's still outside, Anna?"
Anna had shaken her head.
"He moves... differently to other people," she'd said. "Like I can only see him out of the corner of my eye. If I try to look straight at him... he's gone."
"A teleporter, Munakata said," mused Kusanagi. "Would explain why he's having difficulty getting his hands on him. I suggest we stay out of it though."
Tapping some of his cigarette ash into a tray, Suoh had said, "Not my problem," and that had been the end of that topic.
Talk had soon moved onto the subject of the other two Blues and their daemons, whether they'd been 'worthy opponents' or not, whether the Blues in general were anything to worry about or not, how great and awesome HOMRA was and how special they all were for being part of it and by that time Saruhiko had long tuned out.
He'd wondered, though, if they'd had these kinds of conversations at SCEPTRE 4. Not the part where they'd discussed the nature and abilities of potential enemies, that he'd have expected from any organisation with potential enemies, but the whole circle-jerk shtick that Misaki insisted on not only being a part of, but being the lead proponent of.
"He might as well say it," Saya had whispered to him. " 'Things are so much better now I'm not stuck with just that loser monkey for company'."
"Shut up."
It had also occurred to him that he rarely said anything else to her but 'shut up' in those days. But she just hadn't been able to quit, hadn't been able to help herself—day after day, he doesn't care, he doesn't care, they don't care, does he even see us anymore, they never really did, did they, why are you even still here?, and he'd preferred telling her to shut up to asking the natural follow-up of where else would we go?
And getting the only answer he could think of.
Had they been just as eager to bluster about how great they were in SCPETRE 4? Just as ready to fall down at the feet of their King and lick his shoes like... well, like dogs.
No, he wouldn't have thought so. A man like Munakata, for all Saruhiko had only spent all of ten seconds interacting with him at that point, had blatantly not been the type men would fawn over. At least not the way Misaki did Suoh. He'd just not seemed accessible in the same way.
"Didn't I tell you, Saru? Didn't I say? 'He might look like he likes you, but I know she doesn't like me'."
What had Saya even been talking about then? Hadn't Kiallanta tried to come to her rescue just within the previous hour? Had Saya just been trying to pick where she knew it would hurt him?
"Shut up," he'd told her, again.
It had been starting to get much too hot in the bar.
"No one really like me, do they, Saruhiko?" she'd continued. "Not even you. You know what that means, don't you?"
Her tongue had flickered out.
A frill-necked lizard's tongue shouldn't have been able to do that.
"Shut up!"
The room had gone still.
Shit.
The others had heard him that time.
And, without fail, Misaki had been the first to respond.
"What? Do you have some kind of problem with what I'm saying, Saru? You think Mikoto-san couldn't take on another King—any other King—and win?"
Damn it. What had that little idiot even been blathering about?
"Oh, is that what you were saying?" he'd asked. "All I could hear was this unintelligible grunting and growling sound—"
"Fuck it, what's your problem, Fushimi?" Dewa had suddenly snapped, his serval batting her tail angrily. "You've been like this all day, is it your time of the month or something?"
The ensuing look of complete bewilderment on Misaki's face had been every bit worth the insult.
"Mm, maybe," Saruhiko had answered. "Just so you know, Misaki—he's talking about how I transform into a werewolf with every full moon."
"Fushimi-kun," Kusanagi had said—a warning.
Though really, who the fuck had he been to start giving Saruhiko warnings about how he spoke to Misaki? Everything had been fine between them before HOMRA. Honestly, in Saruhiko's opinion Suoh and Kusanagi and hell, even Totsuka, should have flicked Misaki away as you would an annoying insect the minute he'd started hanging around them like an over-eager puppy, as if they hadn't had enough devotees as it was. Should have seen what they were ruining by encouraging this.
Right. As if they'd have cared.
It had been right about then Saruhiko had become uncomfortably aware of the knives in his pockets, and when an image had appeared right before his eyes, unbidden, Kusanagi's precious imported counter with blood dripping down over the sides in little rivulets, he'd decided he'd had enough.
And he hadn't even been sure whose blood he'd been imagining. Kusanagi's, Suoh's, Misaki's...
His own?
"Whatever," he'd said, standing up from the bar. "It's past Saya's bedtime. I'm going to take her home so she can have her beauty sleep."
He'd said it with a chuckle, because everyone knew reptiles were hardly considered beautiful. He'd also gone straight for the exit without looking back because if he was having uncontrollable visions of blood it was probably the best move to make all round. If nothing else it would have alleviated the awkwardness that had clearly been making more than just Dewa uncomfortable. Even Fujishima and Kusanagi, who Saruhiko had thought of as generally unflappable, had been noticeably tense; the latter continuing to polish an already polished glass, the former's daemon pawing the floor nervously with her hoof.
It had been no surprise to Saruhiko at least that their beloved Red King hadn't seemed to give a single shit, and the lion could have been asleep for all he knew. True, Saruhiko wouldn't have expected anyone to care about this crap, but usually when Kusanagi interfered Suoh would at least pay attention. Not that it had mattered, with him being out the door in five seconds.
As he'd reached for the knob to the door so he could close it behind himself, he'd heard Misaki call after him, "Wait, what if it rains—?" just before the door had closed, and with considerably more force than had been necessary.
And that had been that.
He remembered sighing with relief. Even then, it had begun to become far less painful to be away from Misaki altogether than to be in his presence only to be deliberately ignored in favour of those worthless cretins.
He had thought it deliberate, somehow. Not even Misaki could have been stupid enough not to realise what he'd been doing, he'd told himself. Almost as if he'd wanted Saruhiko to go away, really. Almost like he'd just been laughing at him.
That one thought had almost made him turn around and go back inside, because if Misaki thought he'd quietly slink off and die, and leave him to frolic with the rest of those worthless punks then he'd been even stupider than Saruhiko had ever realised.
But then, sometimes Saruhiko just thought crazy things like that. He'd invariably blame Saya for it, though that was kind of crazy too when you took into account they were the same person.
No doubt she'd been working on the next verbal needle she was going to poke him with as he'd wandered away.
It hadn't been a cold night. Rain had been expected earlier but never showed, despite the week before having been like a monsoon, and there'd been no sign of it approaching as Saruhiko had been leaving the bar. The only other person on the street had been an unusually innocent-looking hooker with a black cat daemon in her arms; probably waiting for Chitose as her kind had never flocked to the area immediately outside the bar for cruising purposes. She'd given him a welcoming grin, and a wave, and he'd completely ignored her. She should probably have counted herself lucky he hadn't flashed a knife at her or something.
"Where are we going, Saru?" Saya had asked him. Taunted him. "This isn't the way home."
What home? he'd wanted to reply. But what would have been the point, when she'd already known what he was thinking? When she always, always knew what he was thinking because she was him?
So he'd said nothing and kept walking.
The streets immediately surrounding the bar had been oddly empty, even in retrospect there seemed no reason for it, though he supposed the most likely explanation had been the activity of the Blues that day. He hadn't ended up going into the city, but given his later experience he could imagine the less than 'upstanding' element of the citizenry who'd made up the bulk of that area had been having second thoughts about leaving their shitty apartments.
Still, it had been an odd thing. And they'd just met a man who'd apparently had no daemon, so they hadn't exactly been their best at ease.
There hadn't been any wind either; it had made the place seem still, like the world had stopped turning and everyone on it had disappeared.
Sometimes he might have liked to think that that was indeed the case.
But that day, the person he'd really wanted to just disappear had been—
*~*~*
"Pardon me, Ni-san."
*~*~*
It had happened like a cobra-strike.
Or rather, like an eagle ambushing him from above.
For the second time that day an unfamiliar voice had come from behind him without warning. This time Saruhiko had not even had the time to cry out and fall over himself like a fool, the man who'd suddenly appeared behind him had circled one arm around his chest, trapping his arms against his sides, and used the other to clap a leather glove-encased hand over his mouth, preventing him from making a sound.
The very speed with which what happened then had happened had been dizzying. One moment he'd been walking an empty street, the next the street in front of his eyes had blurred and spun around until everything about his environment except the sky was gone. Without the time for more than being briefly startled, he'd been the one who'd disappeared.
................................................................................................................................................................................................