[Closed]

[smokeeasy]

Characters: smokeeasy, its_a_hobby, and thedeathjr
Location: Shinigami's room, Shibusen
Rating: PG
Time: August 29, early morning. (Backdated.)
Description: After the failed attempt to burn the souls, Badou and Al take the best course of action they have left.


Anyone who thought that it was easy keeping an all night vigil in the desert had clearly never done it. It hadn't seemed right to just walk away and leave the souls burning behind them though. So the motley trio had sat down to wait.

Eventually, Badou had closed his eyes for three or four hours, but he hadn't really slept. Sitting with his knees drawn up and head resting on folded arms, he'd dozed, opening his single eye every now and then. Until he woke more fully to notice the fire burned down to embers, the sun's first rays just peeking over the eastern horizon, and one of their number having departed sometime in the night.

But when he and Al made their way over to the now-extinguished pyre, they found the souls still there, nested in little piles of ash which dusted their surface, still unmistakably round and red, even beneath their dusty gray frosting.

The ensuing silence was long and heavy with the weight of failure. But at length Al and Badou talked. They couldn't bury the souls now--that seemed even less of a solution than it had before. Merely entombing them underground would, it appeared, only preserve them their in their current state. And who knew who might come digging for them.

And so finally they settled on the only option they seemed to have left.

Weary, worn, and defeated, they collected up the souls and trudged back to the city, to Shibusen, where they headed to the entrance to Shinigami's room; the same place they'd been led on the morning of the Colorado mission.

Using one of their communicators, they rang for Death the Kid's attention. Not because they trusted him, but just because they had no choice, and the only thing that seemed worse than their situation at the moment would be to try again on their own and fail.

Comments

[its-a-hobby.livejournal.com]

Even without the physical effects of exhaustion, the night's venture had left Al feeling as mentally worn down as Badou looked. Maybe thinking the souls could be put to rest by normal means had been too much to hope for, but the fact that they were tangible enough to be touched and eaten had made him optimistic.

But perhaps what was most surprising of all was the degree to which Badou was willing to go to find an alternate solution. For the longest time Al had only had Ed to back him up in situations like this, but apparently his partner wasn't the sort to do anything important halfway. Not that Al disagreed; it wasn't enough to stand against the practice of eating souls without doing something about it, even if this particular something happened to have led them to Shibusen's doorstep with more questions than answers.

Al gave the souls he was carrying an apologetic look, holding them with the sort of gentleness he normally reserved for small animals. If anyone would know how to help them, surely it had to be the city's newly appointed 'god of death'. Until then he waited in silence. There'd be plenty of time to talk later, when, if luck was on their side, their options would look a lot less bleak.

god sorry this is so late guys. Thank you so much for your patience. m(__ __)m

[thedeathjr.livejournal.com]

It seemed like there was always something new for Kid to deal with. Ever since he became the head Shinigami, the work never stopped. Did his father have to deal with this kind of work on a daily basis? How did he even answer half of these questions? Kid had always found himself taking a good amount of time trying to solve the endless amount of problems. Even now, there was one coming over to greet him that morning.

However, he was awake and ready for it. After straightening his tie, and making sure that last piece of hair was set straight, he turned to face the entrance, waiting for his two visitors to arrive. He could not help but admit how nervous he was.

After all, these weren't his people. They were people brought against their will to do his bidding. Kid wanted to get to KNOW them beyond just this leader/unwilling follower level, and this was a good chance. He wasn't going to waste it.

Now my turn to apologize. We are the slow team \o/

[smokeeasy]

With a deep breath and a final glance up at Al, Badou stepped into the room still wondering if this was the right choice.

He'd seen Death the Kid before, of course--seen him make his announcement and revelation at the ball after Adachi's defeat, and he'd spoken to him briefly over the network. But there was something different about coming to meet with him like this when new Shinigami was all on his own. He seemed so small, so young. However tidy and formal he might look, he couldn't be much more than Nill's age. Though really, Badou supposed, Al wasn't much older than that either. (The thought made him feel strangely out of place, like for a moment he didn't know what he was doing.)

Coming to stand in front of Death the Kid, Badou looked at the couple of souls held cradled in his arms. Like Al, he carried them gently, like small sleeping creatures, though they didn't feel like they were sleeping or like they were alive. He suddenly felt keenly aware of just how heavy everything felt--the souls, his limbs, even an indescribable something deep in his chest. He hadn't had a cigarette in almost an hour, but at the moment he didn't even care. He was worn out, exhausted, and he'd past his wits end somewhere back in the desert on the walk back to the city that morning.

He knew that one of them should say something. They needed to explain why they were there, what they'd tried to do, or just ask for.... For what? Badou wasn't even sure anymore.

"We, uh..." He looked up at Al, asking silently for help as he realized he had no idea what to say.

*Maintains tradition.*

[its-a-hobby.livejournal.com]

"We're sorry for just showing up like this," Al picked up where Badou left off, taking a step forward. Formalities came first, but unlike his usual dealings with Shibusen, this time Al was being genuine. It was a little strange; as the organization's head, Kid should have probably been the primary target of Al's resentment. But for some reason that didn't hold true. Maybe it was his conversation with Liz, or the knowledge that despite his power, deep down Kid was just a boy who'd lost a parent and been thrust into a role he wasn't prepared to deal with. At any rate, Al certainly found him more sympathetic than the likes of Spirit Albarn and the rest of the staff. It was complacent attitudes like theirs that had left him and Badou with no choice but to come here in the first place.

"You're the only one who might be able to help us." Al lifted the souls, but they hardly needed emphasis. "We tried to do something on our own, but..." Well. No need to elaborate when Kid had most likely seen the network post himself.

"I know it's not what you're used to, but this isn't the way we want to become stronger. Isn't there anything that can be done other than just leaving them like this? Even if they don't look like it now, they were human once. They deserve better."

=we're cool-

[thedeathjr.livejournal.com]

"No, its fine. " He kept his gaze at Al with a twinkle in his eye. That suit of armor was so nice to look at...ahem. But even such a spectacle could wait for now. This was a more important matter at hand, and even though his symmetrical obsession was something he couldn't overlook, these souls couldn't be ignored either. That wasn't something that Kid was going to do. So yes. Suit has to wait. Sad. "I have no qualms over you being here. In fact, I'm glad you came here on your own."

He looked at the souls, rubbing his chin. "Even if they were human once, they aren't now. I am not sure if there is anything else we can do for them once they stray off the path and fall into that kind of madness. But, at the same time..."

Kid wasn't sure how to finish that sentence. On one hand, he knew that souls were important in the growth of a weapon. On the other, the heart of these guests were in the right place. They wanted to give the souls a proper place to rest even though the souls can't ever good back. How can he reply to a thing like that?

Super cool. Yup yup.

[smokeeasy]

Badou was instantly glad that he'd let Al do the talking. His partner had found words which were far more eloquent and succinct than anything he could have come up with himself even if he'd been fully rested and supplied with a fresh stock of nicotine (which he wasn't).

Of course, without knowing about Al and his bodyless armor, Death the Kid couldn't be expected to know just why this meant so much to either of them. In fact a part of Badou wished that the young Shinigami could understand just that, but without a need to disclose Al's secret. And obviously that would be impossible.

"You're supposed to be like a Death God, right?" There was no accusation behind the question, just a genuine appeal for help, however uncouth it came out sounding. "I mean even if you're just a little one still growing into your old man's shoes. There's gotta be something that you do with all the regular human souls, yeah? The ones that no one's allowed to eat. I mean, you've gotta deal with those one too, right? You must have some place you...I dunno, you put them. Or something you do to release them and let them rest in peace, yeah?

"Can't you do that with these ones too? I mean even if they are kinda bad seeds."

[its-a-hobby.livejournal.com]

Al tried not to look dejected by Kid's response, taking some small comfort in the fact that he at least hadn't seemed shocked by their concerns the way so many others had. But if even the Shinigami could see where they were coming from and still found the situation to be hopeless...

Badou managed to rekindle some of Al's optimism, and he nodded his agreement. "Right. I understand that it's hard to have much sympathy for the kishin eggs, but it's consuming human souls that made them this way. If we were to eat them or do nothing, wouldn't that be condemning all those innocent people to suffer indefinitely?"

In Al's eyes they weren't just dealing with the five kishin eggs, but also the fate of the hundreds (?) of human souls that had allowed them to reach that state. Logically he understood that this world was not the same as his own, but he couldn't stop himself from making comparisons to what was familiar. Nearly everyone back home who'd encountered the Philsopher's Stone had insisted it was nothing more than mindless energy, but Al'd seen undeniable proof otherwise. If even that tiny rock still possessed sentience, couldn't the same be said for the kishin eggs? It would certainly explain how they were driven to varying degrees of madness.