Yami No Matsuei Fan Fiction / Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ Living Shinigami ❯ Birth of Shinigami ( Chapter 18 )

“Living Shinigami”

Chapter Eighteen

Birth of Shinigami

Duo didn’t know exactly what Kurikara had been so insistent on having Mao tell Wufei, but the wide-eyed glances he kept getting from his comrade gave him a pretty good idea. His third father had not kept his claim secret from him during his yearly visits. When it looked like Mao’s storytelling was over, he met Wufei’s glance with a small smile and nod.

Kurikara’d made the details of his oath quite clear to him when they were away from the others, making sure he understood the parts that he hadn’t needed to when he’d been only six but were now important as he was of age. The dragon had not only sworn his service, but that of his descendants as well. Wufei’s. Things would certainly be different from here on.

He made eye contact with Mao, the elder Chinese man taking the cue to move away as he slowly headed toward Wufei. They didn’t speak until Duo’d comfortably arranged himself on the wall beside the other pilot.

“I take it that your grandfather told you about when I was younger,” he said, trying to break the ice.

Wufei nodded. “To think, I’ve fought beside you for years and never guessed that you were anything but human, much less the chosen son of King Enma himself.”

“Doesn’t mean that I’m anything but the same guy you chased around the safe houses or read with during the war,” Duo said firmly, rubbing his temples. “So don’t you dare start treating me any different. At least not when we can avoid it.”

“Good, because I’m not about to start bowing down to you or calling you ‘my lord,’” Wufei said with a smirk, shoving his friend’s shoulder gently. “So, how exactly were you born? Well, maybe not the ‘how.’ From the sounds of it, no one’s quite sure. Tell me the events.”

Duo grinned, stretching. “Now that I can tell you. Mind you, everything I know about then in second hand. I don’t exactly remember, since I was a baby and all. But my fathers did tell me much of the event.”

Flashback:
Tsuzuki rested his spread hand against the glass, gazing in awe and joy at the infant floating within the tank, eyes closed in the restful sleep of pre-birth. “Hello, Hijiri-kun.”
Slight arms encircled his waist from behind and a forehead was pressed between his shoulder blades. “Tomorrow, Asato.”
"Aa, Hisoka,” he murmured softly, laying a hand on the small pair clasped over his stomach. “Just one more day.” He pulled his husband around to hug him to his front. “We’ll be parents soon.”
“He’s beautiful,” Hisoka whispered, the soft glow from the heating lamps reflecting from his eyes. Behind them, a door opened, the sound accompanied by the soft ‘hoot’ of an owl. “Thank you, Watari.”
Just let me be the kid’s godfather and we’ll be even,” the blond scientist said, stepping up next to them, eyes on the tank as well. “My best work to date, I should think.”
Soft laughter bubbled up from the three, only to have it freeze in their throats as a presence entered the room. They knew that power; it was what gave them life.
Within a moment, the three were on their knees, their faces close to the floor. “Enma-dono.”
Silk whispered as the kami moved, close enough that they could feet the brush of the cloth against their fingertips. “My children, what have you done?”
If they had been beating, Hisoka and Tsuzuki’s hearts would have stopped when Enma stepped away from them and there was a shattering of glass.
The synthetic embryonic fluids washed over their hands, warm against their chilled skid. Inside their heads ran a mantra of no, no, no…
Enma stared at the child lying on the bottom of the broken tank. His hand slowly came down to still the tiny heart. The dead could not be allowed to create life. But them the infant’s eyes opened, Enma’s fingertips only a breath away from its chest.
Caught in violet, the god couldn’t move. There was something in those eyes that was more than simply a human child, even one created by his precious shinigami. His hands changed path and intent; instead of killing the infant, he lifted it into his arms. Content, it fell back to sleep.
“I will take him with me,” he said, tearing his eyes from the child. “Asato, Hisoka, come to my hall in ten days. Wataka, you shall not attempt to create life again.”
“Hai, Enma-dono,” the three intoned, Tsuzuki’s voice cracking. He was sure that Hijiri would be killed at the very least, their own punishment aside.
-
Child in arms, Enma willed himself back to his halls, ignoring the servants who rushed around him to worry over his abrupt departure. He summoned one forward and handed the infant to her. “Wash him and return him to me.”
The woman bowed and vanished into the hallways. He was approached by his head of staff, who bowed deeply before speaking. “If it is not too daring to ask, Enma-done, the boy…”
“His name is Hijiri, the child of two of my shinigami,” Enma said, closing his eyes in thought.
The other man’s eyes widened. “How can that be?”
The god sighed. “I wish I knew.”
Hijiri had been wrapped in a tenshi’s robe by the time his newly appointed nurse carried him into Enma’s audience chamber, where was holding a meeting with a pair of Chinese shinigami.
“This one apologizes for her lateness,” the nurse said, bowing humbly. “We thought it best to feed him as well.”
Enma lifted an eyebrow. She of all people should have known better than to give the food of the kami to a mortal. There were reasons many of their servants had once been mortal.
“There was no change in his spirit, Enma-dono,” she said, correctly reading his glance. “He is as he was.”
“He is beautiful,” one of the shinigami, Chang Mao, said, openly staring at the impossible child. Hijiri laughed, as though able to understand the praise, eyes too focused for a newborn looking at the man before a pudgy hand reached out. After receiving a nod from their lord, Mao extended a hand to the child, smiling when his pinky was firmly grasped. “He’s the same age as my grandson.”
While the child was fawned over, Enma allowed himself to sink into his own thoughts. A child of shinigami who was supposedly mortal but ate their food without effect, all the while trapping even the kami with those eyes. What had his children created?
When he held out his arms, the nurse placed Hijiri in them. Immediately, the child latched onto Enma’s kimono, clinging to him with more than an infant’s strength, body and spirit.
Forcing back any outward reactions, he dismissed the three. Once they were gone and he was alone with the boy, Enma allowed some semblance of wonder to enter his eyes. Not since the birth of Izanagi and Izanami had he sensed the same power in a child.
“Asato and Hisoka may be your parents by birth, but you will be my son as well,” he whispered, laying a hand over Hijiri’s chest. His soul was warm.
-
Tsuzuki and Hisoka were terrified as they kneeled in wait for Enma-dono to arrive in his audience chamber. They were dressed in formal kimono, curtsey of Yuma and Saya, who were overjoyed at being allowed to dress Hisoka up, uninformed of the reasons why.
Outside of the three who had played a part in Hijiri’s ‘birth,’ only the Gushoshin knew about him. The idea was for one of them to simply carry him into the office one day, or for Watari to bring him out of the lab, and shock everybody. Especially Tatsumi and Terazuma.
The two shinigami bowed low as the doors finally opened and Enma entered, a servant behind him.
“Asato, Hisoka,” the kami greeted gently as he took a seat. “You may look at me.”
They rose up onto their knees, eyes still slightly lowered. Hisoka risked a glance up, and gasped. Following his husband’s stare, Tsuzuki had to hold back tears of relief.
Smiling gently, Enma waved the servant forward to hand him the infant. Hijiri woke up and giggled, waving his arms at the god. “It has been decided that you may keep your son on the requirement that he is brought here for ten days every year around the anniversary of his birth. Raise him well.”
Decorum aside, the couple couldn’t help but to grin and cry in pure joy and relief as Hijiri was placed in their arms. Two pairs of violet eyes met, one curious while the other held only love.
The infant was quiet as his parents returned to the ministry, nearly invisible among Hisoka and Tsuzuki’s sleeves as both held him, beaming down at the perfect bundle.
As fortune would have it, Terazuma and Wakaba were the first to notice them in the busy office building. The genki blonde bounced up to them. “You’re already back? How’d it go? Are you going to tell us why you were summoned?”
Smiling, Hisoka stepped away from his husband, their son cradled in his arms. Seeing him, Wakaba’s mismatched eyes went wide and she let out a squeal of delight. Curious, Terazuma stepped cautiously forward, watching that he didn’t come into contact with Kurosaki.
Just as he paused to stare in shock at the wrapped infant, its eyes opened. The shinigami’s yell could be heard all the way from the living world.
“You spawned?!”