Chapter Text
There was a distant sound of a bell in Fuyumi’s ears, and a feeling of pulling herself up. The scene of a classroom sat ahead of her like a tv screen, and as it scrolled forward there was the vague sensation of limbs moving and swinging. Faces came up on the screen that she had the impression of talking to her, but the words melted and flowed over her ears before they could reach her brain. A few worried faces were placated with words she didn’t remember saying, and there were comments to a concerned teacher she didn’t remember making. It was for the best. She had enough people worried about her lately and all the attention did was make guilt squirm in her guts and tighten her throat.
She just wished she remembered what she said. It was so hard to keep track of what to say to people to sound consistent when this happened.
The floaty feeling wasn’t letting up, but she could hear the crunching of boots on snow and felt some warmth on her skin. She must be walking out to practice. The sun must be finally coming out today, she thought with a little distant happiness. It had been so gloomy all week and everyone could use some cheering up. Maybe she could go for something at the drinks machine on the way to practice. It’d be nice to have something to take away the cold that seeped in everywhere this time of year. It stung a little more now that the house was so much emptier.
—
Fuyumi found her hands around a hot chocolate, sat on the bench in the garden.
It was a place she didn’t come to much these days. The quiet gave her the room to think and that didn’t do her emotional state any good. Her head was not good company. But the warmth in her hands, the soft breathing next to her and the sounds of the city off in the distance took the edge off the silence and made her feel rooted in place. Looking to her side, she could see little Natsuo was fast asleep leaned up against her with his empty cup tucked in the snow. She must have brought him out here after talking mister Untenmaru into letting them stop by a vending machine on the way home.
Probably. She hoped.
Lately she would sit down in class only to find herself home the next moment she looked up, having drifted off for what she later found out was hours, and memories of what she had been doing was washed away in her head like she had woken up from a dream.
She had gotten so spacey lately it was embarrassing, and it was costing her grades. Those first late assignments had stung. What kind of ditz just… forgot an entire class? She was lucky dad was busy with Shouto all day and that the principal had been understanding with how she had been struggling at home lately. She would have to suck up her embarrassment and text the class president again to see about getting notes she could take home tomorrow. Who knows how much of the lecture today she zoned out on.
She pushed those little worries down when she heard a stirring and looked down to see Natsuo with a faint chocolate mustache on his upper lip. The sight brough a giggle up from her. He always rushed through sweets like this so fast, she thought fondly as she used the napkin around her cup to wipe the smear from his face. Her heart lifted in her chest to see him like this, a silly little kid who could fall asleep on his big sister, not red faced and crying or sullen in his room, or yelling at dad again who had his back turned to the both of them. She made this little thing happen for him.
Feeling the heat and weight of her own cup, she was surprised to find there was still quite a bit left in. It was strange, she thought, she’d have expected to drink more of it by now if she had picked these up on the way to pick up Natsuo... she shook the thought off by bringing it to her lips, the taste and pleasant heat took the edge out of the cold winter day. She could sit here all night, she thought… but then Natsuo stirred against her side. Oh well, she could finish it later. It wouldn’t do to leave her baby brother out here.
—
Fuyumi carried Natsuo to bed stepping as gently on the steps as she could. She smiled fondly at the sleeping face of her little brother as she tucked him in, gently closed the door and let her hand linger on the wood. The smile melted and ran down her face at the thought of many times she had come in through this door hearing his sniffing and crying these days. Natsu needed more days being a little kid again after that horrible night. It had cut out something from all of them, but Touya was a bigger piece in Natsu’s life than he had ever been in Fuyu’s no matter how much she tried.
So many training sessions she was never allowed in came between them when they were little kids, and even when the day her dad took him out to the hospital ended those he was just so angry and sad all the time. The few times he did talk to someone it was almost always Natsuo. A wall had been built between the two of them she couldn’t push down.
She felt stupid about not pushing on it harder, now.
A twisty feeling gets a hold on her throat and crawls up to sting the corners of her eyes. She lifts her hand from the door and pinches her nose, breathes in, and breathes out. Repeats a few times. She wasn’t helping anyone by stewing on this. Thinking about it was just going to upset her more and she didn’t need to cause a fuss. Someone here had to be the steady one. She just needed to get herself together.
Getting some work done would be good for her. She walked off to the kitchen as quickly as she could without waking anyone up, slipped on some gloves and mindlessly started scrubbing off the usual dishes that stacked up on the maid’s off days. The rhythm was easy to get into, and she started humming to herself as she went through the routine. Doing something with her hands made it easier to keep her head on track, and was an escape she reached for more and more these days. It made her feel miserable, sitting around being more useless than she already was. Doing something small like this, even if it was just a household chore, made her feel like she was good for something. It was easier to handle these little things than the big problems in this house. How her mom kept trying for so long she didn’t know. She missed her so badly. She tried, but was hard to keep up with everything these days, especially after Tou-
Fuyumi hissed as a burning feeling lit up her skin through the gloves. Looking down, she could see a glassy coating of ice frosting over her gloves from the fingertips to her wrist.
Dammit, she hadn’t slipped like this since she was a toddler. Flexing her hands made pins and needles cut through her flesh, but the ice wasn’t too thick this time, thankfully. She didn’t know if she would be able to handle waking up dad around this late at night just because she got too in her head. He had more than enough to worry about already.
Fuyumi stripped the gloves off and ran some warm water over her hands as she tried to wring feeling back into them. It had always hurt after she used her ice, and even when she set aside hope of using it the thought of what she once felt for it stung her regardless. She had wanted the ice her mother had, even more than her father’s fire. She loved the gleaming ice castles and pretty snowflakes Rei would make for her when she was little, and hoped she would get her mother’s ice so she could make things with her too.
The memory of the moment sat like a photograph in glass, the proud look on her mother’s face slipping off as Fuyumi began to panic and cry at how the pretty ice she wanted to show her mom was hurting her. Rei had gone so still. Guilt was clear as day in her face when the specialist told her that her body was built to handle high temperatures, and that her ice would dangerously lower her body temperature if she used it much at all.
Fuyumi never willingly used it again. That pained look in her mother’s eyes as she cried from the pain made her feel worse than any lecture or scolding ever had. She would rather cut off a fingertip than be the reason for that pain. She had only ever seen that look on her mother’s face before when… when Touya kept burning himself no matter how much his family loved him.
A wobbly laugh escaped her despite herself. It was so funny. The wrong quirk for the wrong body, that was the curse of their family wasn’t it? She could feel the tears hot on her face as her weak hold on her composure crumbled. Her own ice would freeze her to death, but she could stick her hands on a burning stove and barely feel a tickle. The unfairness was so absurd that she couldn’t stop a giggle at the thought of it all.
Little Fuyumi who never touched her ice, and big brother Touya who couldn’t stop sticking his hands into the fire. Why couldn’t he see how much it hurt everyone around him to keep chasing it? How much it hurt her to watch him keep going until his skin was red and raw and mom had to ice him down? Why didn’t he care what it was doing to their family? Why did he keep reaching into that awful flame over and over and over until it burned him up!?
The board was rough on her knees when she fell to the ground, and the awful laughing stopped. She sucked in a harsh breath, her icicle nails digging into her sides. She can’t keep doing this. She felt like she was coming apart at the seams and she was going to wake someone up if she started crying louder than she was already and the thought of that alone had her feeling like she couldn’t breathe- She needed to get some air.
—
Fuyumi was thankful her father was busy enough that a little outing like this wouldn’t get noticed.
The night’s air was cold, but she had put on enough layers that it didn’t bite so bad. The too-old mittens were tight, but she wasn’t willing to go without them. Her hands were freezing enough as it was. At least the little warmer pouches in them were helping the worst of it. Fuyumi kept around a few for little slip-ups.
She looked down from the edge she was sat on. Cars drove by, the trails of their headlights lingering in her vision with little speckles left behind.
…
She knew it was stupid to come out this late. It was a bad idea to be out this late in town, but she couldn’t handle one more minute in that house right now. Not one minute more in that kitchen, hands freezing in the same sink next to the stove her mother threw that kettle from. The halls were just as cold as it was up here, and the living room where she saw the news hit the tv still had Touya’s ghost in every corner. One by one, every room of the house she had grown up in turned to alcoves of a mausoleum. The people she loved turned to sand and slipped through her fingers.
A sudden hot anger welled up in her chest, and she clenched her fists so tight they shook. Why did everyone around her keep tearing themselves apart, cracking at the seams under the pressure, with her helpless to do anything but watch it happen?
She wished she had the power to do something, anything that could change it.
She rubbed at her temples in frustration. At the very least it would be nice to do something about feeling so shit about it that she had a freakout over doing dishes. Everything just kept piling up and she didn’t know how to handle it better than she was already. She couldn’t even control her-
“You mean to jump, little girl?” a rough voice asked, cutting through the rut of words in her mind.
A spike of adrenaline shot through Fuyumi as she startled at the voice from behind. She turned back to face whoever had come up here. God, please don’t let it be a hero or a cop, her heart couldn’t take the thought of having to explain this to her father.
But… it didn’t look like either of those.
What had to be the tallest woman Fuyumi had ever seen loomed on the rooftop behind her (How long had she been there? Fuyumi hadn’t heard anyone open the door on the roof access). Moonlight illuminated messily cropped brown hair. She looked terribly strong, wiry muscle cutting an imposing figure in what looked like a hakama and an old fashioned haori hung over a torso bare of anything but the worn bandages binding her chest. The right sleeve flapped empty in the breeze, and her free hand sat lazily on her left hip. She looked at Fuyumi with lazy, absent curiosity.
Fuyumi felt her face redden. “Oh- no no no! I was just-”
“Just what?” The stranger cut in, then yawned, showing prominent canine teeth that gleamed white in the moonlight. Her accent was odd, she wasn’t sure she’d ever heard one like it before.“You looked like a jumper to me.” she said with a disinterested drawl.
Fuyumi bristled a bit, feeling the need to defend herself. “I just needed some time to think to myself,” she said, adding “It’s easier to think straight here than home.”
The stranger tilted her head curiously at her, but then straightened her head back up. “Mm. It’s as good as anywhere. Doesn’t look like it’s doing much for you though.”
Well, that was embarrassing. Did she really look that big a mess?
“Is it that obvious?” Her friends hadn’t said anything more than the usual today, and she had practice with showing a brave face. Maybe not as well as she hoped…
“Yeah.” Ouch, definitely not. This person really didn’t mince words.
“Uh, well, sorry.” Fuyumi cringed. Why was she sorry? It’s not like this stranger owned this roof. She tried to push to another topic. “What are you doing up here?” The few times she had come up here it had been empty at this hour.
“Gonna meditate,” the stranger said, sitting down with her shins folded over one another.
Oh, was she going to get in the way? “Would you like me to get out of your way? I don’t want to distract you.” She should go, too. She didn’t want to be missed. If she got unlucky she could give her poor brother a heart attack.
“Do what you like.” she said bluntly, closing her eyes and laying her palm on her shin.
At least she wasn’t being a nuisance. She should still leave, though. It was really starting to get late. Just needed to get herself together and get back to the train stop before she had to wait another half hour.
…But maybe she shouldn’t leave. She wasn’t sure about when the last time she talked to anyone outside of school was. Meditation was supposed to be good for stress too, wasn’t it?
Her nerves still came over her despite the thought, this woman was pretty intimidating. It didn’t help that Fuyumi really didn’t like being a bother even to strangers. “Do you… would you mind-”
“Spit it out, little girl.” the woman said with a clear annoyance in her tone.
“Ah- sorry! C-could you show me how to… meditate?” She cringed a bit at how she trailed off on that. Was this weird? It felt weird.
The stranger slowly cocked her head, clearly having not expected her to ask that. “…why?”
“I- um! I just have a lot on my mind lately, and it’s making it harder to just- you know, get through the day” she stuttered out. It was a little shameful to admit, but it wasn’t like she had healthier options lined up for her.
“And why would you want to learn meditation from someone you just met on a roof?” the stranger asked, in a tone of voice that sounded as if she was asking a small child why they were sticking their hand in a desk fan.
Because my mother was put in a mental institution against her will and I’m afraid of what would happen if I told anyone in my family I wanted to do therapy, Fuyumi resolutely did not say.
“Ah, I just don’t want to make my family worried. They’ve got enough to worry about already.” The lie came easily to Fuyumi’s lips, helped by not being all that far from the truth.
The woman looked confused at her for a bit, then threw her head back and laughed a short scratchy laugh that startled Fuyumi. When her laugh petered out, she turned back and said “You’re a liar,” reddening her ears with indignity. “I can tell. Pretty good liar for your age, but I’ve been lied to by better. I don’t care what the real reason is though, sure. Could be a decent laugh.”
Relief hit Fuyumi. She didn’t care for being called a liar, but she wouldn’t look the gift horse in the mouth. “Oh, thank you so much!” Maybe she could handle this away from her family after all.
The stranger nodded. “Mm.” But then she looked at her with a bit of a mean smile and said, “Don’t thank me just yet.”
The stranger sat up, and stretched her arm behind her head. “Come here in the evening tomorrow. Don’t ask me about hours, you’re easier to find than me.”
She then turned to the street, got a running start and Fuyumi couldn’t help the scream she covered up over with her hands when she leapt from the roof.
But she didn’t even drop, streaking across the gap to the building across the street without any struggle. It had to have been at least a twenty-five meter gap!
Looking at where she had leapt from, Fuyumi saw spidery cracks radiating from where the stranger’s foot had struck the ground, as if she had shot a pile driver into it…
She wondered if she should be more worried about this than she is.
—
“The viscera of warships was splattered over heaven like some dreadful god had set the skies ablaze. The fifth fleet was a pyre in heaven, ashes falling upon us as though the stars themselves had been torn from the firmament and cast down to scorch the world. Soldiers and knights who had flocked so ardently to the king’s banner were frozen alongside the peasants at the sight of it, staring in horror at the ruin of the crown ship of the fleet. A flash lit the land up like a bolt of lightning, and when our eyes could bear to see again we saw the ruin of her, rent in two like gore carved by a devil risen from hell… a deserter stayed with my household in the aftermath for seven turns. He was a shaken and tremulous thing, eyes hollowed by sights he had drunk to drowning. It was from him that I learned it was that blow that felled the king.”
-The March of Starving Men, fragment.