bottan | Deanon Clampkink meme: Monochrome (Reply)

Title: Monochorome
Pairing: KuroFai
Rating: NC-17
Warning: Rape, violence, blood. Angst, angst, angst. And when I wrote this, I really thought the full moon rose only once a month in Shura to indicate the time for battle. Alas. Did I mention angst?
Summary: Fai is losing himself in Shura and he doesn't know why he's letting these things happen to him.

Author's Note: This was originally written for the Clampkink anon meme (over there it was titled "Black"), answering the prompt of Fai being raped in Shura. Rape is a touchy topic and doing it justice is hard. I wrote and rewrote it too many times to count (and in the end just threw everything together and crossed the 80% of it out I deemed unnecessary), but even weeks later, I feel that this version doesn't express everything I wanted to say. I wrote this for violent!Fai towards the end, mainly.

Shura was a world of white and black. They fought under the full silvery moon and the blood that slickened Kurogane’s blade and smeared Fai’s fingers was of such deep red color that it was almost the same color as the dark sky overhead.

It was a desperate world in which war reined for centuries to fulfill the narcissist wish of a single emperor. In which women grew up without a father, watched their men fall in battle and raised their sons in order to carry them to their graves. It was a land filled with turmoil and tension and sometimes so close to the outbreak of a riot that the anger of the population lay in the air like the promise of thunder.

To Fai, it was a world in silence and isolation. Standing beside his fellow soldiers, never being able to understand a word, deaf and mute. And even though the days in Shura were hot and the nights mild, sometimes he felt icy wind on his face. And when trying to make friends with his comrades it was like climbing that too steep, frozen wall, his fingers bleeding from the effort.

It was the second month, when it became Fai’s personal hell. Shortly after the full moon, in those days in which all of them were still on the edge. The days, in which killing and the stench of blood and guts was still fresh, and in which they watched the dead bodies of their comrades, piled up on wooden carts pulled by giant reptiles, leaving towards the city.

They grabbed him from behind. Fai hadn’t spoken in such a long time that his body had even forgotten how to scream. Out of his wide open mouth there rose nothing but a strangled choke and another man was in front of him, grabbing the back of his head and pressing a wet, foul smelling piece of cloth into his mouth. He was pressed down to his knees and then there was rough, black cloth around his eyes. The world fell into darkness.

Fai panicked. His first impulse was to bring them all down and run. And later he would wonder why hadn’t done just that. Maybe it was the shock. Maybe trying to act inconspicuous had become part of his nature, carrying out commands without even the possibility of talking back. Maybe it was the fact that he recognized the boy holding him down. That he remembered the face of his mother, of his little sister. Of his dead brother.

He let it happen. His pulse was hammering in his head when they pulled him with them, but he didn’t struggle. Hands were fisting into his clothes, a door was opened, they dragged him in by the neck of his shirt so that he was stumbling forward.

His hands were pulled up on his back and for a moment panic rushed back and he really tried to free himself, until they hit him with something hard across the back of his head and sharp pain shot up through his body. He moaned and sagged to his knees.

Hands pushed him down farther and there was the cool fine line of a sword against his pulse. They loosened his uniform pants and pulled them down and it was mere moments, before he felt something hard pressing against his behind.

And only when one of the men pressed into him, he suddenly grasped with analytical clarity what was happening. He pressed his eyes shut in the darkness, his cheek plastered to the cool, sticky tiles, the stench of kitchen waste in his nostrils.

And he let it happen.

He let it happen.

It hurt so much that tears welled up in his eyes and his legs were shaking. That he felt like being ripped open. After a moment, hot liquid trickled down his thighs and he didn’t know if it was semen or blood.

He finally remembered how to scream. Cloth in his mouth, hands on his body. Feeling detached. He screamed until his throat was raw and waited for it to be over. And it felt like it would never end.

They had the decency to untie his hands before running. And then Fai was alone with his own harsh breathing and the stench of garbage and feces. He pressed himself up into a crouch, trembling. He winced as his anus ripped open and blood started trickling along the cheeks.

His hands were shivering so hard that he couldn’t loosen the knot at the back of his head. He panicked and one of his nails tore, before he could yank the blindfold off his face, then the cloth from his mouth and he almost desperately hurled the gag to the ground.

And he breathed and shivered.

He came to his feet stumbling, feeling numb though he was in pain and searching for his trousers. Dressing. And grabbing the doorframe for support on his way out.

He lost his ways two times before reaching the dormitories. When finally cold water ran down his back, he felt weak and dirty. He stayed in the showers until his fingers were blue and his teeth were chattering.

The coldness didn’t leave him for weeks.

His nightmares in Shura were fueled by the steady breath rising from the bed next to him, the one three beds down to the left, the one across the room. The faces of the men that looked him into the face with steady, unmoving eyes the next day, by the laughter when he turned his back on them.

He dreamed a lot of Fai. He was at the tower and a snowstorm was all but pressing him down on his knees. Fai’s lifeless body was falling and being ripped up into the sky by the wind and then falling again, being toyed with by the force of nature. And Yuui stood and watched and he wanted to scream for help, because when Fai it the ground he would be dead. And then he remembered he couldn’t scream, because he was deaf-mute. And he could do nothing but watch, for hours. When he woke up in the early hours of day, he was soaked in sweat and breathing harsh, mouth opened to a silent scream.

It was not like Fai could talk about what had happened. It was not like he was in any position to just deal with them. To stop them. It was not like he couldn’t understand how the attackers were young and stupid and much too used to violence. How life in the military pressed them into a position that explained their behavior.

And maybe that was just what he told himself when he let them take what they wanted again. And again. And with each day he understood himself less. Days and nights blurred into a gray mass and he stopped caring about what happened to him. And sometimes he didn’t know who he was anymore. Didn’t know, if he was the one falling to his death or the one watching the others fall.

When training hand to hand combat, he almost killed a man. For a moment there was absolute silence around him. And then the man started screaming. Fai watched the blood on his hands and medicals rushing for the faceless soldier. It was Kurogane who pulled him away from the training grounds and into the empty dormitories. He was cursing viciously when he led Fai to his bed and made him sit down. And talked in a low voice that Fai couldn’t understand. But he stayed. When Fai pulled into himself, drawing his knees up and curling into a ball. When his breath came shallow and slow. When he closed his eyes and tried to make sense of what had happened.

And from that point, Kurogane wouldn’t leave his side anymore, day and night. And the men didn’t come back.

In the following night the full moon stood high over their heads and Fai fought like a berserk. He and Kurogane rose up to be generals of Ashura. They moved into special quarters. And for the first time in weeks Kurogane’s breath was the only thing he could hear at night. Fai slept dreamlessly.

Fai didn’t believe his eyes for a moment, when Syaoran and Sakura had appeared in the middle of the battlefield. They had been waiting for six months. And during this battle there was a feral smile on his lips, while he and Kurogane mowed down their enemy.

When they had enough room to move again, in a gallop they drew back into the hills, coming to a stop by Ashura’s side to overlook the situation. Breathing hard Fai let his eyes wander across the field.

And stopped cold, when he recognized somebody he hadn’t seen in three months.

Something inside him froze.

He had thought the man was dead by now. He must have been the last one of the three.

It was an automatism when he reached behind his back, pulling an arrow out of his quiver. He nocked it, lifted it, pulling back the bowstring, and aimed. Slowly. He knew that he wouldn’t miss.

Someone grabbed at his arm.

Fai blinked. Being pulled back to reality he stared at Kurogane.

“Not now, idiot,” Kurogane said with a growl.

Fai couldn’t help but burst out laughing. He opened his mouth and nothing but air escaped his lips. Cleared his throat. His voice was so raw and insecure that he almost didn’t recognize himself: “Kuro-pon, I missed being able to understand your insults.”

Kurogane looked just as surprise as Fai had felt a moment ago. Then he looked back down on the battlefield and to the body that Fai’s arrow would have pierced.

“Soon,” he said.

Reality shifted and for a short moment something was pulling on Fai’s gut, as though he was falling. Then they were back on steady ground. The castle hovered high above them, a silhouette against the bright moon. Fai shuddered and nodded jerkily.

They hadn’t needed words to communicate, before they came here. And after all but seven months of fighting side by side, they could read each other’s movements effortlessly.

The man tried to scream, but Kurogane could be stealthy, if only he cared to. Fai couldn’t help but admire the way the ninja took the soldier out, soundlessly and before the man had the chance to even wake halfway. With a nod of his head he motioned for Fai to lift the lower half of the limp body and together they carried it away from the dormitory and out of the castle walls.

If somebody saw them, they looked the other way. Nobody wanted trouble with Ashura’s strongest generals.

A small road led them into the woods and into the underbrush until they reached a small clearing. Far enough away to make muffled screams unheard. They had tied up and gagged the unconscious man and they waited. Kurogane had retracted into the shadows, leaning against one of the trees silently. Melting into the darkness until Fai all but forgot about him.

Fai stood in the middle of the clearing. The moon would be full by tomorrow and it illuminated the scenery as bright as day. Wind ran through the trees and had the leaves whispering anxiously. Wet grass against his ankles. His back straight as his bowstring and the lifeless body under him on the ground. Shura was a world of black and white. It consisted of unfulfilled dreams and the imposing promise of death.

The man woke slowly. He blinked. Then tore open his eyes when he realized he was tied up and threw himself around, a muffled noise rising from his throat. He sat up, being hindered by the ties around his arms and legs – and froze, when his eyes fell upon Fai.

The archer smiled thinly.

Wind caressed his hair and cheeks. He reached behind, the feathered shaft of an arrow whispering against his fingers. He drew back the heavy bowstring with a creaking noise. No need for aiming.

Animalistic fear shone in the soldier’s eyes.

The arrow hammered down with the force of the all but non-existent distance, driving down deep into the man’s shoulder and pushing out through his back.

He screamed. The smell of blood hung in the air.

Fai pulled out a second arrow, nocked it and pulled it back. The snarl of the bowstring, a thick thump in the silent night, same spot, another scream.

Fai fired a third time and he heard the shoulder blade crack over the man’s whimpers. Then he moved on to the knees. First the right one, then the left one. He shot until pieces of the shattered kneecaps fell into the grass. Then moved on to another spot and fired until it was broken.

The screams hadn’t stopped for a while and they were raw and almost inhuman by now. The man was hunched over, crying, breathing hard, a bleeding cripple. Fai decided to end it. He aimed and noticed that the man’s torso was blocking his path. He lowered the bow, stepping closer. He put a boot on the man’s shoulder and he screamed and screamed and Fai pressed him flat on his back until the arrows coming out of his shoulder were being pushed against the ground and backwards out of the flesh.

Fai let his boot rest on the man’s heaving chest, drawing back the arrow and aiming straight down.

It drove down between the man’s legs and the raw, sobbing scream died in the soldier’s throat when he finally fell unconscious.

The moon was high and bright and the man’s face pale and splattered with blood. Fai wondered what he himself had looked like after those nights. Just as pale. Broken. He had killed his brother. He couldn’t kill his king. He had killed countless men in this war. Just another notch in his belt. As he had been another notch in this boy’s belt.

Fai reached back and into empty space. All of his arrows were gone. He threw his bow into the soft grass and grabbed the shaft sticking out of the boy’s genitalia. He needed two tries, as it had gone deep into the ground, before he could rip it out. Droplets of blood hit cheeks and they were warm and cooling fast. He lifted the arrow up with both hands, light reflecting from the bloodied tip, and drove it down into the boy’s heart with his bare hands. The body twitched spastically for one last time and then lay still.

Time stood still and the wind was cold as ice.

There were hands on his shoulders and he was pulled back tentatively. Fai breathed. And sobbed brokenly. It was only now that he noticed the ceaseless stream of tears spilling down his face.

He watched the broken, bloodied body, out of which arrows stuck pointing towards heaven. Then it blurred behind the hot haze. Fai closed his eyes and cried silently, shivering.

“He deserved this,” he whispered around a raw throat. And he was glad that Kurogane didn’t understand him this time. He didn’t even know, if he believed himself.

Shura was a world of black and white. The body left a trail of black blood in the silvery, sweet smelling grass and Kurogane’s eyes were of a deep black when they threw the body off the cliff and watched it vanish in the gaping depth.

The walls between the dimensions were thin here, like the boundaries of dreams –and once they were back to travelling with the kids and Mokona, one could almost believe that Shura had never been real. Fai could talk and laugh once again as though nothing had ever happened. And only sometimes, at night in another, foreign world with the full moon high above and Kurogane somewhere behind him, watching him out of the dark, Fai would remember how deep his sins were running.

And it made him understand that he never truly left that cold place at the foot of a tower. And when he would look down, he couldn’t tell if the blood on his hands was his own or that of the bodies piling up under his feet.