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theotpauthor · 7 years

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Ons ships week day one: royalty

“So you’re my husband to be?” Shinya laughs, but there’s anger hidden in the curve of his smile.

“It would appear so,” Guren responds, grinning in a way that let him seem wide and open: weak. Without another word Shinya slips his arm around Guren’s waist (bastard) and they both smile convincingly for the cameraman hired to commemorate their first meeting.

Guren’s hand moves to the others hair; from the photographer’s picture it would look like Guren was just ruffling it in amusement.

He twirls a clump between his fingers, pauses, then yanks painfully. Shinya’s smile doesn’t falter, but his fingernails are suddenly digging into Guren’s hips.

The magazine pronounces it love at first sight. Guren leaves the burnt remains of the article on Shinya’s pillow as an early wedding gift.

“Thank you so much for what you left on my pillow last night, Guren,” Shinya announces loudly later, amid the servants pretending not to listen. “But I’m really surprised—who knew the son of the prestigious Ichinoses would be into something like that!”

The back of Guren’s neck grows warm but luckily his face stays blank. He plasters on a smile. He thinks back to the clothing Shinya had ‘gifted’ him—the outside was the fanciest and the most beautiful silks but the inside coarse and chaffing.

“Yet the gift you granted me weren’t at all surprising about you, taking into account the rumors,” Guren retorts. There’s a flash of anger in Shinya’s eyes that is covered by loud laughter.

“I only hate you a lot!” Shinya chirps that night, in the bed they have to share, and all Guren notices is the tone he says it in—aggravating but cheerful enough to seem teasing to anyone spying.

“Trust me, husband, when I say I love you as much as you love me.”

“How kind.”

Guren’s birthday hypothetically passes without much fanfare, as the Hiragis didn’t think it was for another four months.

He had planned to spend the day signing legal papers and stoically dealing with Shinya’s bullying and passive aggressive remarks, so of course he’s woken by loud horns, blaring streamers, and Sayuri quite literally jumping onto him.

“Happy birthday!” she chimes, practically screaming into his ear, but Guren has a hard time focusing on that when Sayuri is digging into his stomach and it’s a bit hard to breath.

“Isn’t this great?” Shinya drawls, eyes glinting, clearly not happy to have been fooled. He does, however, look amused at Guren’s plight. “Now we can all celebrate your birthday together, dear.”

Oh, fuck you, Guren thinks, but out loud he only replies

“Well, sweetie, I don’t think the day part of today starts for another couple of hours.”

“It’s eight in the morning,” Shigure informs him, pleasing Guren slightly with the way Shinya jumps at her sudden appearance. “We thought letting you sleep in would be for the best.”

Affection curls in his chest, so he focuses on Shinya’s smug, irritating grin to force himself to frown.

“You should be working on your training,” he admonishes, but his voice comes out happy despite it. Shinya’s blinks, the glinting in his eyes fading.

“We would never miss your birthday!” Sayuri exclaims, hand darting to her chest. Guren glances away politely and says,

“Well, would you mind getting off me? I am a married man after all.”

“In an arranged marriage,” Shigure says softly, eyes narrowed.

“Married’s married,” Guren waves away. Sayuri doesn’t get off but she does flop down, stretching over the comforter like a cat.

“We bought a cake!” she interrupted, a large toothy smile on her face, but Guren’s known her long enough to know she’s trying to prevent a fight.

“We bought two cakes,” Shigure corrects. “And we cooked one.”

“. . . Thanks,” Guren mumbles, resolutely not looking at Shinya, who’s leaning against the doorframe with a thoughtful look on his face. He walks to the dining room and he can feel Shinya boring holes into his back as he goes.

“So you do have redeeming qualities,” Shinya says, later when the lights are dim and people couldn’t hear them. Shinya still doesn’t drop the fake smile.

“Sure,” he says noncomittially. “But the jury’s still out on you.”

“Maybe when it’s my birthday you’ll meet my friends and have a huuuuge epiphany where you realize I’m the perfect human being.”

“Doubtful,” Guren deadpans. “Who even are your friends? Actual friends, not political connections.”

There’s a pause, which was expected. And then Shinya answers, which wasn’t.

“Mito Jujo,” he offers, “and Norito Goshi. They’re good people.” Another pause. His voice was softer now. “You’re friends seemed like good people too.”

“They are,” Guren confirms, and can’t keep the affection from his voice.

Guren finds a magazine that claimed to have inside details about the deteriorating relationship between the Hiragi and Ichinose, so he snarks and insults the author in the margins. Then he leaves it on Shinya’s pillow, thinking he would be amused by it.

The next day Guren puts on his clothes and pauses when he realizes the material doesn’t scratch at his skin.

The next few months pass agreeably, which Shinya’s bullying turning more teasing and kindhearted than cruel. Guren stops trying to make him look like an ignoramus in front of his adopted family.

Then one day Shinya laughs, not that fake laugh he uses for politics or the cruel one he uses when he’s insulting someone. No, it’s a true laugh, one that brightens his eyes and makes his whole face light up with happiness and Guren’s heart does funny things in his chest.

Shit, he thinks.

“I never hated you,” Shinya admits one night. “Just the idea of you—the person I was forced to be together with and love. I hated it.”

“I hated you,” Guren replied honestly, heart thumping, thinking of lilac hair that didn’t seem to shine quite as much anymore. “But not because of who you are. I just hated that you weren’t someone else.”

Shinya doesn’t reply, and when Guren looks over his eyes are closed. It might be a lie, but if it is Guren lets him have it.

Guren leans back and let’s himself fall.

Shinya’s past comes out, a horror story of experimentation and children murder and shattering innocence.

More importantly, Shinya is whimpering, sobbing, and still smiling like somehow it’ll distract Guren from everything else.

Shit, Guren thinks, heart thumping a bit. He replies,

“Geez what a kid. Crying over such a cliché story.” Guren doesn’t look at Shinya when he says it, but he tears off the blanket hanging on the back of the couch and throws it at him. “Grow up, baby.”

“Your actions don’t match up with your words, ya know?” Shinya teases, leaning back a bit. Unlike Guren he’s not scared of eye contact, and a small spark of rivalry makes Guren glance back—only to get lost in blue eyes and regret it all of a sudden.

Shinya, blinking slowly as a smile crawls over his tear stained face, unfolds the blanket without breaking eye contact and throws it over both of them.

“Here,” he announces, leaning in. Guren refuses to move back out of sheer stubbornness, and he can feel Shinya’s eyelashes on his check. “Now we can share, hmm?”

(Maybe he stayed still out of more than a rivalry.)

They fall asleep like that.

Guren’s heart keeps up its stupid gymnastic routine every time Shinya walks into a room, and eventually Guren decides enough is enough. He steps in front of Shinya, stares him in the eyes, and tries to force Shinya to understand without saying a word.

“Yeeeess?” Shinya asks, clearly wondering why Guren had stopped him in the middle of the hallway.

“I love you,” Guren forces out, voice a bit stunted.

“What about Mahiru?” Shinya asks, frozen, chilled. It shouldn’t surprise Guren that he knows her name, that he knows their past, but it does.

“What about her?” Guren asks, and Shinya’s eyes narrow, so he adds, “I haven’t seen her for almost 15 years. I’m not pathetic, you know.” I’m not in love with her anymore, you know?

“You’re a god damn dick,” Shinya tells him, the faux innocence and joy for once gone from his voice. A second later he grabs Guren’s shirt and kisses him fiercely.

“Fucking finally,” Mito says from the couch.

“That’s only been coming for forever,” Norito adds.

“Congratulations, Master Guren!” Sayuri chirps, and Shigure nods beside her. Guren flips them all off. His hand falls quickly, as he’s still kissing Shinya and it makes it hard to concentrate on other things.

The large smile on Shinya’s face makes it worth it.

#gureshin #shingure #onsshipsweek #guren ichinose #shinya hiragi

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swanfrcst · 7 years

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between the moonbeams

fandom: owari no seraph | gureshin | ~4k words

summary: the hiiragi’s reign must end – and this duty rests in guren’s hands.

a/n: late entry for @onsshipsweek day one: the past & royalty & falling into darkness ||| this is a vague royalty/assassination plot au...give me the gureshin angst

content warnings for: character death (lol)

(this will be posted on ao3 after it’s beta-d and fixed up a bit but i wanted to get it out for the week before it was SUPER late...)

NOW:

“Are you ready?” Shigure asks quietly, carefully.

Guren cannot see her face behind the thick black mask she wears, but her tone carries her worry well. Worry about too many things to properly articulate in the sharp, curt way Shigure often does.

“As ready as I’ll ever be,” Guren responds. He slips on his own mask, securing the straps behind his ears. One last check of the knives hidden in the folds of his clothes, the homemade bombs strapped snugly to his waist, the sword sheathed tightly to his side.

A quick glance to the four people standing beside him reveals that they are all standing at attention, waiting for Guren to give the command. There is tension between them, borne from urgency and determination. Guren inhales and wonders if he will be sending all his friends to their deaths.

“Operation Namanari, begin.”

Inside the castle, the hallways burst with light and cheer. Hiiragi Tenri’s party is bustling with exotic foods and upbeat music, nobles dressed in rich silks and gleaming gems coasting room to room. Shinya keeps his smile bright throughout the entire evening, making small talk with various men and women and bowing politely whenever he passes one of his older brothers.

It’s not until Mahiru appears at his side, beautiful silver dress trailing behind her like swan feathers, does Shinya realize how tired he is.

“You look a little worse for wear, brother,” Mahiru says. And what a hypocrite she is, Shinya thinks, for Mahiru’s still got her royalty smile painted prettily on her lips, even when she is talking to him.

“Well,” Shinya replies, letting himself relax for the first time that night, carefully rolling a glass of sparkling wine between his fingertips, “I’m not the best people pleaser in the royal family.”

Mahiru cocks her head, considering Shinya first and then the crowd around them. There is no one paying any attention to them, and there was still some time until the planned speeches and banquet party. Humming lightly, Mahiru daintily places a gloved hand on Shinya arm, smile shifting into something more organic, more real.

“Shinya,” she says, “Won’t you accompany me to the courtyards? It looks like both of us could use some fresh air.”

Immediately recognizing the spark of adventure in her eyes, Shinya barks out in laughter. “It would be my honor.”

BEFORE:

Shinya sticks his face through the gilded iron bars of the fence and says, “You know that commoners aren’t allowed this close to the castle without permission, right? You should leave before my father catches you.”

There is a startled cry and the boy who had been furtively crouching behind a bush raises his head above it.

“What’s it to you?” he snaps defensively, and Shinya notes with curiosity the smudges of dirt and mud on the boy’s cheeks and the way leaves and sticks have become matted in his dark hair.

“I’m a prince, duh,” Shinya replies. “And you’re trespassing on my house.”

The only reason Shinya is at the castle’s back gate is because he is awfully bored after having escaped the pesky private tutor. Besides, Shinya is practically last in line for the throne anyways, and all his siblings know he couldn’t really care less about being a king. In the end, it’s up to Kureto and Mahiru can fight it out. But for now, Shinya is too young to understand what exactly it all means.

Shinya also hasn’t seen anyone outside of his family or the castle staff before, which is why he decides to stay and talk to this strange boy instead of running away and alerting a guard.

Surprisingly, the boy doesn’t cower in fear or run away. Instead, he glances around quickly before stepping out of the bushes with an angry glower. Shinya supposes it is meant to be menacing, but as someone who has lived with Hiiragi Tenri for eight years, the boy’s expression is simply amusing.

“Listen, you,” the boy hisses in a quiet rage, “I don’t need a stupid prince to tell me what to do! I can go where ever I want and do whatever I want and you can’t stop me!”

What is his problem, Shinya wonders, and falls into silence, staring at this strange boy who spouts strange things and is somehow not afraid of anything.

The boy snarls in response to Shinya’s silence and raises his face to glare at Shinya. His eyes are dark and alight with passion, but it is markedly different from the ambition often reflected in brother Kureto’s gaze. Shinya immediately decides that he’s made a new friend.

With this epiphany in mind, Shinya smiles and waves at the boy, who stops growling in confusion. “Wait here,” Shinya says, and runs off before the boy can respond.

Shinya heads straight for the pathway hidden behind a ring of large stone sculptures and a thick grove of trees. There’s a hole in the wall blocked by a big rock, the hole big enough for Shinya to squeeze through. As long as he’s not gone for too long, this secret should stay with him for years to come.

For now, he just wants to meet his new friend. So Shinya squeezes his eyes shut to prevent bugs from getting on his face and painstakingly shimmies through the hole, carefully pushing the rock back as much as he can once he crawls out. The strange boy watches him this entire time, tense but anticipating.

Brushing off the dirt on his knees and elbows, Shinya confidently marches toward the boy, who quickly turns around, making sure his back isn’t facing Shinya – a motion Shinya takes note of. But these mysteries he can solve later. After all, Shinya’s got all the time in the world.

“Hello,” Shinya says, putting on his brightest, most charming smile. The roughness in the boy’s expression fades a little, as if he’s letting his guard down.

“My name is Hiiragi Shinya.” he continues, “Would you like to be my friend?”

NOW:

Guren glances up at the full moon, frowning. Perhaps it would have been better to wait until there was less moonlight – less chance of them being seen. But Hiiragi parties were a rare, exclusive event, and Guren did not have limitless patience. By this point, it was now or never.

At his side, Goshi reaches out and taps his shoulder twice before flashing Guren a thumbs up and slipping away into the shadows. Shigure and Mito had already left earlier, each of them fulfilling their part of the plan.

After Goshi leaves, Guren presses his back against the rough, tall wall surrounding the Hiiragi castle and counts his breaths, marking the seconds that pass by. Accompanied by nothing but the moonlight and the white noise of crickets singing, Guren manages to still his movements and let his thoughts wander. All at once, the sword by his side seems heavier than normal, as if reminding him of the weight his actions will carry.

( There was once a time where Guren had stood next to the youngest Hiiragi prince as an equal, kissed his scrapes and bruises until the young boy had shed tears from laughter rather than pain, held his hand under the midday sun and the starlight from a new moon. There still are times when Guren wakes up to the memory of a warmth pressed against his side, the echoes of kisses fading from his cheeks, his neck. Once, he wakes up with tears in his eyes and a name on the tip of his tongue. )

But of course, duty outweighs love, and Guren has had years of practice shutting away his heart.

On their way to the courtyard, they pass by a lone servant carrying a tray of food through the hallway. Her dark blonde hair is tucked neatly into a small braid, and when she sees them approaches, immediately begins to kneel.

“No, no,” Shinya cries, a little flustered, although the serving girl seems more affected, judging from the way she trembles, “it’s quite alright, please stand.”

“Mahiru-sama, Shinya-sama,” she whispers, “Please excuse me.”

Mahiru, however, has stilled, carefully watching the girl as she slowly rises to her feet, head bent and eyes averted.

“What’s your name?” Mahiru calls out. The servant flinches.

“S-Sayuri, my lady,” she says, still refusing to meet Mahiru’s eyes.

“Mahiru,” Shinya asks, “What in the world are you doing?”, because Mahiru’s got that look in her eye that spells nothing but trouble.

“Oh, nothing you need to worry about,” the princess says, brushing off Shinya’s concerns with a wave of her hand before turning back to the servant. “Sayuri, darling, won’t you accompany Shinya and I? Just bring that tray of snacks with you, it’ll be appreciated.”

Of course, the serving girl can’t refuse, so she bows and follows Shinya and Mahiru into one of the Hiiragi family’s many courtyards. This one has a curved koi pond in the middle of the grassy space, a cobblestoned path winding through the trees planted against the wall.

Humming cheerfully, Mahiru carefully gathers her dress and walks along the edge of the pond, peering at the fish that flit about. The moon reflects on the surface, casting glowing silver ripples across the dark water.

The courtyard is far quieter than the commotion inside, and Shinya sighs deeply, stretching his arms out. “Finally,” he says, laughing, “I have escaped.”

Mahiru scoffs. “If only.”

(There is a rustle in the treetops, and a startled bird squawks and takes flight. “A squirrel?” Shinya asks carelessly, following Mahiru around the pond. She shrugs. Both of them ignore Sayuri, who has fixed a sharp look onto what seems to be empty space.)

The two siblings stand before one of the stone benches lining the pond, Shinya brushing away the dust and grass before gesturing for Mahiru to sit down. She smiles sweetly at him, waving Sayuri over and plucking a small pastry from the plate. Shinya sits next to her, stretching his legs out in a manner very unbefitting of royalty. The two let the blessed silence wash over them, basking in the moonlight.

“Say,” Mahiru muses suddenly, breaking the silence. She carefully smooths out some wrinkles in her dress, flicking away imaginary lint. “This would be a perfect night for an assassination, wouldn’t it?”

Shinya, who has just taken a bite of a small slice of pie, chokes. It takes a bit of sputtering and sipping from a glass of water offered by Sayuri for him to recover. Meanwhile, Mahiru still wears the same amused expression, as if she is in on some secret Shinya doesn’t know.

Perhaps she is – Shinya wouldn’t be surprised.

“You shouldn’t speak like that, sister,” Shinya says, although it is more of a reflexive response than anything.

Mahiru coughs softly, and Sayuri says gently, “Is there anything you need, Mahiru-sama?”

“Oh,” the princess says, “I’d like one of the specialty rolls brother Seishirou has been raving about. Get some for Shinya as well.”

Sayuri sets her platter of food down and bows deeply before quickly walking away. Watching this quaint exchange, and observing Mahiru’s nonchalant demeanor, Shinya suddenly has a very bad feeling about what the rest of the night holds.

THEN:

“Guren, where have you been all day? I already told you that today we were going to meet an important ally, how could you forget?!”

As Guren steps through the foyer of the safe house, he rubs his face and does his best to ignore Mito’s snarls grating at his eardrums. She is standing in front of him, arms crossed and brow furrowed, but Guren realizes he barely has the energy to care.

“Something important,” Guren says flippantly, pushing past Mito and walking toward the kitchen. “Narumi and his men can wait.”

“They’ve been waiting!” Mito screeches, pivoting sharply and storming after Guren. “You realize they are the only viable providers of the materials we need? Do you want to throw our entire operation into jeopardy?”

Guren ignores Mito’s ranting and goes straight to the bedroom, locks the door behind him. Eventually, she falls silent and leaves, no doubt to fume some more elsewhere. If it were at any other time, Guren would feel guilty and irresponsible – but –

Shinya finds him in their regular meeting spot: a small, hidden alcove about a mile from the castle. He’s smiling ear to ear, a cloth bag in one hand and a wine bottle in the other.

“You’re extra smiley today,” Guren notes, swinging down from his comfortable position wedged on the branches of a tree. “What’s the occasion?”

“Well,” Shinya says, gesturing for Guren to come closer, “it’s not every day that you ask me to meet you, so I thought I’d celebrate you finally deciding to take the next step in our relationship!”

He is joking, Guren knows, but Guren’s throat still closes with the knowledge of what he is about to do. But he is careful to let none of it show and playfully hits Shinya’s arm instead.

“What relationship?” Guren says with a small smile, “I only keep you for the food you bring me.”

Shinya nods knowingly. “Of course. Who knows what kind of food you commoners eat every day? It’s about time you treat yourself.”

Saying so, Shinya waves the bag in Guren’s face and sits, placing the bottle of wine next to him as he opens the bag and begins to carefully take out the prepackaged snacks inside. Guren, however, stays standing, even when Shinya looks up expectantly.

“What’s wrong?” Shinya asks, “Are you ok?”

Guren is so, so careful to make sure that his expression stays neutral, as if he didn’t quite care about what he would be saying next.

“Shinya,” he begins, watching as Shinya recognizes the change in atmosphere and sets the package in his hands down. “We should end this.”

“End this? Are you afraid of being caught?”

“No, it’s just – there is no point in us meeting any more. In fact, there was no point in the first place. It’s time to move on.”

A lie, a lie, a lie, but who is Guren to tell?

NOW:

Guren hears “I’d like one of the specialty rolls – “ and immediately tips his head up and left, waiting for the visual signal. Already, the palms of his hands are sweating, almost soaking through his gloves. In the corner of his eye, a shadow shifts; one of Shigure’s throwing knives streaks silently through the air and lands snugly in the dirt next to his feet.

Bending down to pocket the knife, Guren flashes a hand signal in Shigure’s general direction. Then, he sets his shoulders and begins to climb the wall. The rough stone digs into his hands, and even his gloves aren’t thick enough to stop the chill from slipping past the fabric. Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending how he looks at it), the climb is longer than expected and he has the time to really stop the slight tremors in his arms that aren’t caused by physical exertion.

He reaches a dip in the wall, where the surface has been smoothed out by wind and rain, and swears under his breath. Now he has to carefully shift to the side, searching for a better path. Even in the darkness, Guren can feel Shigure’s eyes on him, tracking his movement, ready to provide assistance if needed.

But Guren knows that if he does not climb over this wall himself, he will never be able to carry out the task he has been assigned. So he grits his teeth and pulls himself over the final stretch of concrete and stone.

Once his vertigo settles, Guren takes in the courtyard below him. There is a grove of trees in front of him, effectively shielding him from Shinya and Mahiru who are sitting in a stone bench facing away from him and toward a small fish pond, idly chatting about kingdom affairs.

Guren can’t see Shigure, but he knows she is positioned to his right, knives and wire traps at the ready. Behind him is Mito, crouched on top of the wall with a quiver slung over her shoulder and a taunt bow ready to fire. She’s got a bottle of oil and a flint stone by her side as well, along with sheets of flammable cloth.

This is for the greater good, Guren repeats in his mind. This is for the greater good –

A flash of silver whistles through the night, moonlight catching off the polished metal of Shigure’s knives as they shoot past Shinya and Mahiru. Six, seven, eight of them find spots in the dirt, in the cracks of the stone path, in the barks of trees. Another flick of the wrist, another five, six, seven slip out of the trees, and this time, the razor-thin wires attached to each knife flash in the moonlight.

Shinya’s eyes grow wide, and he leaps to his feet, ready to flee (or fight? he doesn’t know).

“Mahiru,” he says urgently, “Mahiru, what – “

Sayuri closes the courtyard door behind her and peaks down the hallway, listening for footsteps. When she hears none, she quietly bolts the door shut and wedges a block of wood in the gap between the lock.

Then, she pats down her dress and quickly walks away. The blades hidden in the sleeves of her uniform press against her skin – a reminder.

THEN:

The talk of the city is this: Mahiru is getting married.

A political marriage from the looks of it, betrothed to a prince of a neighboring country, a country with access to certain natural resources that the Hiiragi kingdom lacked.

But when the Hiiragis do their annual parade around the capitol to celebrate King Hiiragi’s birthday, Mahiru sits upon her carriage dressed in lavish robes and with a satisfied smile dancing on her lips. Guren stands among the gathered crowd, watching along with the rest of the city as the Hiiragi royal family passes through.

Curiously, the moment Mahiru turns her head in Guren’s direction is the moment when the sun sparks off the edge of the carriage, momentarily blinding Guren. He curses silently and brings his hand up to shade his eyes, but when his vision clears, Mahiru is looking away and the carriage has passed.

No matter. Guren has gotten what he came for, and quietly slips away through the crowd.

A few days later, Hiiragi Mahiru knocks on the door of the safehouse listed on the letter she’d received. The door swings open to reveal a timid-looking girl who bows when she sees the visitor.

“Come in,” Sayuri says, “Guren has been expecting you.”

Mahiru stays for less than half an hour. When Guren walks out into the living room, Mahiru, dressed in a simple cloak and body void of any makeup or jewelry, seizes him up and smiles unkindly.

“So you’re the man who has my brother in the depths of misery,” she says, voice carefully flat.

“It was a mistake,” Guren replies with just as much emotion. “And I think we both know that duty comes first.”

After this exchange, Mahiru listens carefully to Guren’s plan and agrees to it with little resistance. Before she leaves, she turns to Sayuri and says, “I will be seeing you soon, then.”

Sayuri simply bows and the door closes behind Mahiru, her footsteps fading away into the night.

NOW:

Mahiru sits on the stone bench and does not move, even as a knife flashes right in front of her face, narrowly missing her nose, even as Shinya jumps up and cuts his arm on a taunt wire stretched through the air. She is calm, eyes fixed on a point in the distance.

“Shinya,” she finally says, “If I were you, I wouldn’t move.”

And Shinya freezes because this is the voice Mahiru uses when she is deadly serious, when she expects complete compliance and nothing else. But why?

Suddenly, Shinya feels something shift underneath his feet, and a tremor shakes the earth. Shinya leans down to steady himself against the bench, swearing under his breath as the invisible wires leave cuts on his cheeks, his arms, his shoulders. Then – there is an ear shattering explosion and part of the castle goes up in flames.

“What is going on?” Shinya screams, planting his feet firmly into the ground as another explosion rattles the earth. Ash has begun to float from the interior of the castle where the explosions had gone off, the wind dusting black flakes of burnt material onto the grass.

Still, Mahiru sits calmly, hands folded neatly in her lap, hair still pinned perfectly with not a strand out of place. This image is so unbearable wrong, and dread begins to pile low in his stomach. Shinya ignores the fact that there are razor sharp wires hovering by him that could kill him in an instant and steps forward to grab Mahiru roughly by the shoulders.

“Mahiru,” he hisses, and Mahiru slowly meets his eyes. “Explain.”

A flicker of weariness reflects in her eyes. “I am sorry, Shinya,” she says quietly, even as another explosion echoes through the night. “But this is for the best.”

“For the best? What best? Why is this happening?”

But before Mahiru can answer, and arrow streaks out from the shadows, lodging itself neatly into Shinya’s shoulder. He yells in pain, stumbling backwards, even as another knife sparks through the air, a warning.

An assassination, Shinya thinks through the haze. But why? Who?

And why does Mahiru not care at all?

Through the crackle of flames and the chaos from the castle in front of him, Shinya hears the soft tap of something – someone – landing on the grass behind him. Mahiru turns her head, eyes widening a fraction, but Shinya doesn’t notice. Instead, he turns around, slowly, as carefully as he can with an arrow in his shoulder.

There is a person, dressed in all black, face covered with a mask that is flat and dull and catches no light at all. The person lifts their head up, seemingly glancing over Mahiru first, then Shinya, and just as Shinya is about to open his mouth to speak, another explosion drowns out his words.

The last thing Shinya sees the masked figure, framed by the light of the full moon, and the silver glint of a blade as it swings down, down, down.

AFTER:

Guren stumbles out of the smoke, into the streets of a city that was far too active for this early in the morning. But it’s to be expected – the Hiiragi castle is in flames and no one knows why.

Turn left, pass three alleyways, another left – into a small medicine store and down the staircase into the storage cellar he runs, pushing open the hidden door and finally coming to rest before a group of people gathered in the secret room. Standing at the end of a wooden table is a man, tall and slim, with pale white skin and an unsettling smile. He watches Guren as he catches his breath.

Sayuri and Goshi immediately come to his side, checking for injuries. Guren knows that Mito and Shigure will be here soon as well.

“You did it,” the man says. “I didn’t think you could, considering – “

Guren barks out a peal of laughter, rough around the edges and sharp in the middle. He pulls off his mask, peeling off his gloves. Sayuri quickly takes them.

“It hardly matters now, does it?” Guren sneers. “We’ve completed our part of the mission, and that is the end of our association with your rebel group.”

The man only smiles, hands clasped behind his back, unperturbed. “So be it,” he says, “I wish you luck in your future endeavors, Ichinose.”

Behind Guren, the door swings open, and Mito and Shigure step into the room. They do not close the door behind them. Guren takes a deep breath, straightens his back.

“Let’s go,” he says, and leads the way out into the darkness.

#onsshipsweek #owari no seraph #ichinose guren #hiiragi shinya #gureshin #guren squad #hiiragi mahiru #swankitty writes #this is like...the least shippy thing ever i am so sorry hey i tried #also this entry was not SUPPOSED to be this late but then again it wasn't supposed to be more than 1.5k SO...rest in pieces

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