#//Tended to show up sometimes during their knight days at the others & ESP in his first few months as Cavalry Captain

[dutybcrne]

Kaeya wasn’t one to really get angry as a kid, but the very few times when he genuinely did, it was extremely obvious to everyone, in the way he carried himself.

[nightmare-the-cat]

War Dogs

I do a bit of world building

Gen does a bit of pining

……….

The sunlight was fading in the distance, colder weather bringing longer nights. Gen had taken to leaning on the railing of the old playground to observe this phenomenon once its timing began lining up with his walks back home.

Beni called him sentimental. Gen thought she was talking out of her ass. Watching the light fade from the world at this vantage point was breathtaking, the skies bleeding into ever darker colors until the pitch black of night completely took hold…

Made some of those more painful Corrupted raids worth the trouble.

“Why am I not surprised to find you here?” Gen stiffened as a warm hand landed on his shoulder to accompany the rhetorical question, before Guren emerged at his side to share in leaning on the old metal bar. He was staring ahead, indigo eyes focused on the setting sun in the distance. His expression itself was soft, relaxed-a rarity these days. Warm light kissed his tan skin, giving him an almost magical glow, like something out of a fairy tale. “Still, it’s as beautiful as I remember. The view from here”

“Yeah…”

Gen wasn’t really looking at it anymore, though.

A comfortable silence filled the air, Gen having to resist leaning into the warmth radiating off the shorter boys body. The sun continued sinking below the horizon, evening winds of autumn tugging at their clothing and hair. Gen could hear the silent melodies these seasonal winds produced, a symphony of life preparing to endure the coming winter. It was then when the winds were their most intense, their songs harsh and commanding, a stark reminder of how much power nature still held over all life on the planet.

Gen had a feeling he was the only one who truly understood the wind, to experience these melodies in their purest form. An invisible power that impacted all, no matter how big or small, gentle enough to provide a cooling breeze in summers, or raging tempests in temperatures below freezing.

He once tried to explain these concepts to the other knights, and Beni, but Guren seemed to be the only one who truly understood what he meant. Toxsa was far too calculative in mind, Chooki, too energetic and straightforward. Ceylan didn’t care much for the whimsical, and Beni was too logic oriented to wrap her head around the concepts-assuming he was just waxing poetic at the time.

Guren was different-never dismissing the abstract, but never trying to force it to conform to logic either. He accepted things as they were, preferring to take them in at their purest, in a sense. He asked how the winds sang about oncoming storms, or thier melodies during dry spells. Gen could never really give him a logical answer, but Guren understood anyway.

Even without the weird ESP being in play.

In fact, Gen was ninety percent sure Guren grasped abstract concepts better without direct contact with thoughts of the person explaining them.

It was probably why Guren viewed that ability as a curse. As he explained it, he never had peace when it switched itself on-the thoughts of himself and the other knights spilling into his head unobstructed. Even the thoughts of Beni, the lucky one between the two of them, who managed to sever her connection to Vanetta’s Core before the merge with her soul passed the point of no return, sometimes slipped through, though much quieter than those of the knights. Guren would get no peace unless he was completely isolated from those he held dear, but tended to show up to school with those telltale green eyes anyway. It was a silent suffering-one that may have stayed a secret if Guren wasn’t so open with the team.

Unlike someone else they knew…

“Maybe we should use this place for the next meeting” Guren murmured, breaking the silence as the last light of day sank below the horizon. “It’s better than those abandoned buildings, at least-and much more quiet than the main park”

“Meh-I’d say the roof of my apartment complex is better suited. Nobody cares to go up there” Gen murmured, their current problem of displacement having forced many relocations in the past month. “I’ve been monitoring it for a while-even set up a weird little chair sculpture a few weeks ago. It’s been left undisturbed”

“Maybe… this search for a new meeting place has been nothing but a drag” Guren mused, his expression having tensed a bit from talking about the teams situation. It was an understandable discomfort-he’d been the one who discovered the truth. The fact that all their souls had been sold and butchered-forever bound to servicing the balance of energy in the universe…

It felt like a sick joke.

Gen hadn’t believed it at first. He’d so desperately wished it was a stupid half-baked prank conceived by Ceylan or Toxsa that had pulled Guren in. The crushing pain in his chest when Guren had snatched his Core Brick and smashed his boot down upon it-that was impossible to deny.

Gen wasn’t sure what happened next-he’d been in shock. He only knew Guren had taken the other three Knights somewhere, and when they’d returned…

Well, the scorched beret clutched in Guren’s shaking hand probably said enough.

“I have to ask…” Gen found himself speaking, the memory having brought the words to the surface. Guren tilted his head in Gens direction, his gaze not really leaving the skyline, even though the sun was long gone. “The old man… what happened that day?”

“… He was in on it” Guren answered after a moment, his expression unreadable. “ALL of it. He viewed this fate, of our souls split clean in two, our humanity stolen away, an acceptable price for the continued existence of mankind”

His expression hardened.

“We decided if that choice wasn’t ours to make, then destroying the Guardian’s Portal wasn’t his” Guren spat, lips curling back into a snarl for the briefest of moments, before smoothing out into something more neutral. “If it isn’t obvious, that thing stopped being necessary a long time ago, we were only conditioned to use it so the Gaurdians could keep an eye on us-and call upon us whenever it struck their fancy, should their planet not do so itself”

Guren finally turned his head to meet Gen’s gaze.

“White tried to stop us-and he ended up hospitalized from the incident” there was a slight tug at the corners of Guren’s lips, almost as if he was suppressing a smirk, but there was no way of confirming it. “Dad visited him-told him to leave the city and never come back, or he’d take a monkey wrench and finish the job the portal failed to do himself”

“… Your dad really said that?” Gen asked, a bit disbelieving, considering how mild and kind Guren’s father had been in their interactions before. “Wait-why would he even-“

“Dad was the guy who built the back up plan in Benham Tower” Guren explained, gesturing in the direction of the glimmering spire, bathed in artificial light. “The Gaurdians told him the bare minimum to gain his trust, so he would do their dirty work for them here on earth. If he had known everything, I’m quite sure he’d have never brought me here”

“…. So the Black-“

“Yeah, the Black Key lock was also him” Guren chuckled, positioning himself so the railing was at his back, still supporting his weight. “He knew a lot-just not the most important bits. Well, not until he found me right after I’d given myself a nasty shock-dropped my Core Brick in the tub while wrestling a certain cat of mine into his yearly bath”

The redhead chuckled again, the sound entirely devoid of humor.

“I can’t imagine that was pleasant” Gen muttered, a bit concerned with how detached Guren seemed from such an experience. “You must have been drowning on air-how on earth did you piece together what was happening while being deprived of oxygen?”

“I didn’t. Max did” Guren hummed, a bit of amused relief seeping into his tone. “Turns out those old wives tales about cats being able to see human souls may have had a nugget of truth to them-otherwise I couldn’t tell you how he figured out that my Core Brick being submerged was behind my sudden asphyxiation. The little bastard actually dove into the bath for the first time EVER to get me out”

Gen couldn’t help but snort at the story, embarrassing as it was morbid.

“Yeah, I know, hilarious. Dad found me gasping for air on the floor, dry as a bone and clutching a wet Core Brick, and put the pieces together” Guren hummed, his smile becoming much more genuine. “He was PISSED, and stayed mad. I was genuinely surprised when he actually came back from that hospital visit-I was SURE he was gonna be arrested for murder”

“All of us should be so lucky-to have a dad like that” Gen chuckled, the image of Guren’s mild mannered, bespectacled father caving the old man’s face in with a wrench tickling the funny bone in the most morbid of ways. “I guess we know where that temper you developed came from”

“HA! No. That came from mom” Guren replied, amusement spread across every bit of his beautiful face. “She threatened to strangle a guy with his own intestines once, when I was real little. Nobody saw the rage coming, she had such a kindly face…”

The smile vanished. Quietly, Guren turned back around, bangs obscuring his eyes as the moon, a waxing crescent, began to emerge in the inky black sky. He produced his Core Brick in a practiced, fluid motion of the hand, running his thumb down the side.

“It’s probably for the best she never had to see me become this” the redhead murmured quietly, a gentle night breeze lightly tousling his hair. With minimal hesitation, he drew his arm back and flung the brick as hard as he could into the darkness. The telltale glimmer of red light came a moment later, and Guren produced the brick again, like it had never left his grasp.

“How much do you think that would hurt if the Core hit the pavement?” Gen asks as Guren wound up another throw.

“A lot, if I had it my way” the redhead muttered, flinging the Core into the darkness once again, this time with much more force. “Dropped it off the school roof once-it’s just inside the “respawn” distance. Stupid things are somewhat immune to fall damage”

“Not shock resistant though-that boot you slammed into me hit like a truck” Gen murmured, watching Guren repeat the throw again. “You’re pretty reckless when it comes to your own well-being, you know that, right?”

“Better I experiment myself and report results than letting you all learn the hard way” the redhead replied, twisting his wrist and flinging the brick like a frisbee that time. “Toxsa’s been experimenting too-pairs up with Ceylan for it sometimes. He’s much more shock resistant than the rest of us”

“I would’ve assumed it was Chooki” the dark brunette hummed in an attempt to lighten the mood, bringing a little smile to the other boys face.

“He can certainly give you a shock with those knuckle stingers” the redhead joked, producing the Core again and tossing it up in the air. “Beni suspects they might be venomous-she’s getting pretty pissed he won’t give up a sample for verification”

“Not surprised-Beni’s always been fascinated with poisons and venom. I’m pretty sure she’d make a killing in pest control with what she’s concocted with her dads old chemists set” Gen muttered, shuddering at the memory of the feral rat who’d made the grave mistake of ripping into Beni’s favorite cookies. “She made a mouse EXPLODE-even keeps the skeleton on display as a kind of trophy”

“I always wondered why she had that thing on the tea table-she puts it in goofy poses every time I come over” Guren chuckled, catching the Core and tossing it up again. “Ceylan likes glaring at it from the upper level”

“Better that than a repeat of the whole gerbil fiasco” Gen hummed, smiling a bit as he saw Guren’s expression soften again. “Or worse-that squirrel thing. I’m pretty sure you traumatized those kids”

“Yeah-having a prey drive is NOT fun, I don’t know how you haven’t snapped” Guren chuckled, subtly licking his lips. “I will admit-the squirrel tasted pretty good. I don’t think dad would approve of me experimenting with rodent meat in the kitchen, though”

“You’re always welcome to use mine-it’s practically untouched” Gen hummed, stretching luxuriously to loosen up after standing in the same position for so long. “Just-don’t pop the eyeballs like tic-tac’s, I only needed to see that once”

“Dude, you’re missing out. I’ve been eating eyeballs since I was six-there pretty good after a good broiling” Guren argued, pushing off from the railing, tucking the Core back away as he motioned for Gen to follow him. “They’re like if chocolate was a type of meat-“

“Guren I swear to Christ I will throw up if you dare finish that statement” Gen chastised, trotting after the redhead and giving a little slap to the back of his head. “Oh fine-I swear you’re such a baby when it comes to gore…”

The pairs voices faded away after that, leaving nothing but the sliver of moon as company for the forgotten playground

…………

@skittykat501 @kazumahashimoto