Gods of Love (Making)

by NinjaWind

Summary:

It was the end of summer and Benimaru and Toji lived through some wild six or so months since Toji came crashing down to their place after the Great Fire caused widespread death and destruction.

The following months wouldn't be any different. No, they would be even wilder because their secret relationship came out among other things.

Notes:

Read Part 1 first. Or don't if you want to be as confused as possible 👌

We're back with theses idiots! So what will happen now? Remember the timeline I made around chapter 20 of GoWaD? That's still on but with the changes I made along the way. Now for Part 2 though I have one challenge I made for myself: be concise! I wrote Touch/Killed with that mantra and I think it turned out better like that. For GoLM I want to be on point as well especially with my bi-weekly update schedule (every Thursday, maybe Friday if I'm late, like today.) (First chapter is a bit rambly, though. Old habits die hard.)

That said, let's enjoy the shenanigans of these tall (small), dark and handsome dudes together. More tags will follow as the story goes on.

Chapter 1: Easy Going

It was strange how easy it was now to read through his manga. He was flipping the 250-year-old pages without shaking hands smudging the ink and ripping the paper apart. Some pages were unreadable from his previous attempt though and some were entirely missing just like a few volumes. There was also that one volume that had exploded into a thousand pieces after he threw it at Benimaru but someone had gone through the ordeal of salvaging what was salvageable of it.

Rin died in the underworld and Sesshōmaru couldn’t revive her again but his mother was touched by his change of heart about humans and revived Rin herself. So in the end, not only was the human child vulnerable and without power but so was the almighty demon. What saved Rin and also Sesshōmaru was their bond and his dedication to her.

Tōji didn’t know if reading this would’ve helped him get through his depression. Maybe the act of managing it by itself would’ve helped. He knew though that in the future he could always go back to this and calm himself down by going through it again and again. He just needed to make sure that his manga collection survived his reading habits so he finalised his letter to the Tokyo University to please put some resources into copying and printing the old picture books. Asakusa is willing to send people over to help with that task, he wrote and it wasn’t even a lie.

The people here were metaphorically riding his dick nowadays. They did nearly everything he told them and were just on this side of worshipping him. After their spectacular fight, Tōji had expected that of course. You don’t just fight the god of these people into a draw and not get your feet kissed. Soon he realized though, that what the people were doing was a bit too much. They were a little too eager to get close to him, too keen to fucking touch him and Tōji could still not believe that it took him three days to realize that they knew.

They knew that he stuck Waka’s dick in his ass!

Couldn’t they have at least caught them when Tōji was the one doing the fucking? Technically they did exactly that though because it wasn’t like Benimaru could move his hips during their post-fight passionate and near delirious lovemaking; it was Tōji who did the fucking but it was still in his own ass.

Whatever. He could live with it. The reason why it had taken him three days to find out that their secret had come out was that Konro had immediately imposed a neighbourhood-wide ban on talking about the topic. The Lieutenant of Company 7 knew what Tōji thought about that and how far his ears could hear. Good thinking on Konro’s part but it wouldn’t have been needed at all if that romantic hadn’t decided to get drunk on “love” as he called it, and alcohol as Tōji called it. 

“Ghrhrhr…” Tōji caught himself growling because of that topic again and he contemplated finishing his letter with “Mistress of Shinmon Benimaru” as some people were calling him when he went out for some air but he successfully held himself back. This letter wouldn’t be signed by him anyway as he wasn’t affiliated with Company 7 but by Konro because Benimaru was still indisposed.

Thinking of that bastard, Tōji went out of the study for some sightseeing; a sight that just like Inu Yasha brightened his mood immediately: fucked up Shinmon Benimaru who was still on bed rest.

“Looking good today sunshine!”

“Fuck off, you saw me 3 hours ago!”

Their fight had been last week and Tōji was elated to say that he healed about 12 times faster than Mr. Grumpy Pants who got upgraded to Mayor Grumpy Pants because of it. Now, Benimaru still healed faster than a normal human and even a normal pyrokinetic but that was expected. That there was someone out there who healed even faster than that had insulted Benimaru’s ego phenomenally though. Tōji’s body wouldn’t even scar while Beni’s arms would’ve small scars from the metal rods used to fixate his broken bones.

Okay, Tōji might scar a little on his left side. The regenerated hole that Gojō had blasted into him was just this much weaker than his normal skin, muscles and bones should’ve been which translated into his healing process slowing down, itchy wounds and skin that would definitely turn yet another shade of pink in the future.

But his lover didn’t need to know that.

“Hey, wanna go out on a walk?”

“If you ask me that one more time I will kill you.”

“Come on! The last time I asked was yesterday.”

And they had the same teasing argument about it as well which led to the same outcome as right now: Tōji’s new yukata catching on fire around one shoulder. This time he ignored it though because his new bandages were fireproof.

“Just so you know, the people constantly ask when we’ll go out together. They’re really invested in it even. The new celebrity power couple: making hot fire together, looking hot together and sending the Imperialists into a frenzy because we’re disrespecting their god and religion by crossing dicks every so often.”

“I’m fucking you. Just so you know.”

“The last 3 times we did it you fucked fuck all, you invalid. Can’t even move your upper body enough for some half-hearted thrusts.”

Now was the time when Tōji should leave the room because the rest of his yukata also caught on fire but the joke was on Beni because all of Tōji’s bandages were fireproof. His hair was not though so he put his hands on his shoulders to beat out the flames there while he left, laughing loudly. And on fire. Next, he went to his own room to get his money box and count its contents which he hadn’t done in ages.

On top of his old money, several new envelopes were inside; a few from Ryōga for his frog swallowing money and a big one from Konro for his duties as a maid. That fucker probably paid for the days when he was sick and away as well and he was sneaky enough to mix his wage with money that other people gave him. Now he had no idea how much En was unearned on his part which meant he couldn’t give it back.

He could assume that Konro paid him for every single one of his sick/leave days though. He could count them and give him the corresponding money back but while Tōji had enough goodness and ethical standards inside of him where he could think about doing something like that, he was also enough of a bastard where he would never do something like that.

Thoughts count too though, so he stacked his money bills after fanning himself with them in the moderate heat of late summer.

Next, he went to the neighbours where the hikeshi were having a meeting with Konro to distribute the tasks for today. Why they didn’t do that inside the Watch could be explained by the day after Tōji’s and Benimaru’s fight. Those two had enough of their wits together at that time to not fuck while people stood outside their door but not enough not to moan like whores while the house was moderately full.

Out of respect for their privacy, any meetings were held somewhere else since then but Tōji knew that was bullshit. Nearly no one around here had yet truly accepted the fact that their precious and borderline asexual and aromantic master fucked and that led to many people being weirded out or having crises of other sorts.

Many of the men also lost the ability to look Tōji in the eyes but that would fade at some point he was sure because Tōji wouldn’t stay his nice and sunshine-smile self that much longer. He had a big ass house to keep up and those men became pigs during certain alcohol-infested events. If they didn’t lose their cooties by the next one Tōji would clean the floor with them again.

“Konro, I finished the letter about our preservation project.”

“Good, let me see.” You would never guess that Konro was someone who suffered from tephrosis with how happy and full of energy he was right now. Not to forget his demeanour that was day-in-day-out bursting with pride and arrogance because of his “matchmaking skills”. Tōji had been fast to remind him that he had a freakout when he learned that his 20-year-old baby boy planned to have sex for the first time but in a true older brother and fatherly fashion he had forgotten his shortcomings completely by now.

“Your plan to expand the hikeshi to female pyrokinetics was well received by many,” Konro said while he tried to read Tōji’s handwriting. It wasn’t that it was bad, it was just an old way of writing with the angles, thickness and overall proportions of the characters being different making reading it a bit of an ordeal. Which was perfect for Asakusa’s image actually; Konro had already thought of reviving these individualistic ways of writing. 100 years ago the Empire had pushed through a standardized reform of handwriting and never had it been a better time to push back against that than now.

“Would really love to see the ones who don’t approve of that.”

“Don’t bother with them,” Shinbeita said from the side. His enormous form was hunched over several sheets of paper he retrieved information from to put it into a chart. “But I do have to say that ‘well received by many’ is a bit optimistic. I mean that in the sense that yeah, someone might like to see women protecting Asakusa but that person wouldn’t exactly encourage their daughter to join.”

“I get what you mean.” Sometimes Tōji felt like he should write an essay or two about gender roles in Asakusa even though he didn’t have any qualifications for it except having read a book about feminism once and coming from a culture where the gender roles were different. Okay, maybe he did have a unique way of looking at things which made him see stuff someone born and raised here in Asakusa wouldn’t. “I’m not bothered by that, it’s expected. I’m simply pleased that we have the first curious letters from women and the parents of girls about it.”

“Speaking of which.” The letter he was reading was short, so Konro was finished at a reasonable time. “Remember Murata Kanao?”

“No.”

“She’s that girl you saved from under the rubble after the Great Fire.”

“Ah… I never really met her though.”

“That’s fine. Her cousin who takes care of her now came to me when she heard of the new hikeshi division that’s planned. She asked for Kanao to be evaluated on her pyrokinetic abilities.”

“Yeah, that’s what this first phase is about or did you just want to inform me about her specifically?”

“Yes, but not only because you and Waka are her saviours. The thing is that Kanao has become disabled after surviving inside that cupboard. Her brain had been deprived of oxygen for some time but her cousin only mentioned memory problems in that regard. Physically her muscles suffered in that heat as well and she has to use crutches to walk around.”

“Hm.” Now if this had been a random adult woman Tōji wouldn’t have hesitated to say in the driest terms that she wasn’t qualified to become a hikeshi, at least not while still recovering physically. But an old sensation of feeling pyrokinetic energy inside a destroyed house emerged in his mind. Even though that girl wasn’t present, Tōji felt like he should say his piece with more empathy. “It sounds tough for her for now. She can still come to make potential future plans for herself, though.”

“Those were my thoughts as well but her cousin insisted on more.” Konro looked out of a window while he was in deep thought for a moment. Tōji raised an eyebrow trying to come up with the reasoning that cousin had used. “She said that Kanao's survival is proof that her pyrokinetic abilities deserve to be supported and fostered even when she can’t fulfil all the required skills of a hikeshi.”

…Tōji had to admit, that was a powerful statement. He went through it a few times but didn’t find a single fault in it. “Saying it like that shows us that Asakusa doesn’t have a proper pyrokinetics school, only a half militarized and gendered one.”

“I guess that’s one way to describe the hikeshi apprenticeship but I thought the same. That’s something else we can bring to the city council for consideration; just a school or two to teach proper pyrokinetics but without the expectation that the children have to join us in the future.”

“Yes.”

With that, Tōji nodded his head, waved with one arm and turned to leave but Konro stopped him.

“Wait, Tōji, if you don’t have any other plans, could you meet with the family this evening? They wanted to talk with you and Waka in person.”

“Like, I can but why me?” Konro raised an eyebrow at that question and two pictures appeared in front of Tōji’s mental eye. One was of their fight and the other was sex. “Ok, I can understand them wanting to talk with me as I’m one part of the Strongest Duo equation now but I do hope that they don’t see me as Benimaru’s paramour who has to be appeased as well.”

The room they were all in was pretty quiet until now with everyone working through documents but the moment Tōji said that he was their Master’s lover some people stopped breathing, several hearts skipped a beat, and at least one person choked on his spit. Tōji should work another reaction into his next sentence somehow.

“Don’t worry about that, it was my idea. They had already expressed an interest in showing you her skills at some point but I told them that you were pretty good at reading and evaluating ignition abilities so I offered for you to take the first look at her fire. You know, because of how well your eyes can see that.”

Konro said that with a raised eyebrow, the implication about Tōji’s ability to see pyrokinetic energy. They had explained that to the Lieutenant a few days ago with Tōji going into detail about how his spot removals worked and why he always needed Benimaru with him. They had wanted to use ice packs once which forced Tōji to come up with a clever excuse on why he needed Waka specifically for it. Now Konro was developing plans to treat the other people in Asakusa who suffered from ash sickness.

“Yeah, I’ll look at her. This evening?”

“Around 20:00.”

“Good but until then, I need to change Waka’s bandages.”

Another wave of gasps and skipped heartbeats. These people were too funny. Tōji said his goodbyes and went back to his home. That meeting with the Murata family would be soon and until then he should at least change his burnt yukata but when he looked at a random clock he realized that… it was only 14:00!

‘What the – but I did so much stuff today!’

Tōji woke up, lazed around in his room, made breakfast, cleaned around the house, read Inu Yasha, showered, fed Benimaru brunch, read some more, wrote his letter to the Tokyo University, annoyed Benimaru, counted his money, went to the neighbours…

This was the most productive day he had in months and it was still 2 PM! How? How was it possible to experience the opposite of losing time? And why was his sense of time so off balance in the first place? Is this another thing depression did to you? Throw your senses out of whack just because you’ve been productive?

Tōji sighed and looked around the entrance area to find something to do for the next six hours. He found the shoe racks to be messy but that was dealt with five minutes later. Now what? Tidy up the entire Guardhouse? For all his desire to get back into working properly, he was still Fushiguro Tōji, a man who rather didn’t work when he had the choice. For today specifically, his motivation to do some cleaning had been zapped because mentally the day had nearly been over.

So… what else was there to do for the next hours…

There was something he had pushed back the whole time he was back here again. Something that was both frightening but also important to him. There was no better time to deal with that than now. With a heavy sigh, Tōji pulled off his shoes and went to his room for money. Then he went out to the markets to buy needed ingredients.

The people saw him and talked about him; the people didn’t see him and still talked about him, all of which Tōji heard.

Their topic of conversation was surprisingly varied though, Tōji had been sure that 70% of them would talk about the sex positions between him and Beni which wasn’t the case. They still talked about the two of them but it went in all directions from homemaking to domestic and foreign politics. Some xenophobia in regards to himself appeared here and there even though most people believed that he was Konro’s son. Homophobia was also present but even that was varied.

Some people said that Waka shouldn’t have that kind of relationship at all, while others said that he should’ve hidden it better. Some on the other hand didn’t approve of it overall but they liked how it made the Empire mad. Tōji would’ve liked to say that he didn’t care about those opinions but the truth was that he became incredibly attached to this strange place and post-apocalyptic world. He would’ve preferred those kinds of comments not to exist at all but he could live with them.

It wasn’t like the people said that to his face; they talked about those things amongst each other with no one knowing that he could hear them. Those voices also wouldn’t gain any kind of traction or widespread recognition among the wider populace; most people were still riding his metaphorical dick with their enthusiastic greetings, presents, forced small-talk he couldn’t escape from, reduced prizes on their goods he could definitely have more of and just their general happy attitude around him.

Except for that old man who came up to him with a cane in hand which he pointed at his face while loudly telling him to have a sex change so Waka could’ve some super babies.

All the consternation Tōji had after Benimaru killed a grandma in the retirement home with his vandalism flew out of the window at lightning speeds. Unfortunately, Tōji was sure that he wasn’t in the position yet to be celebrated when he accidentally (or more like “accidentally”) caused people to die, so he let that old man live for now.

Back from the markets, Tōji checked on Benimaru. He didn’t put any thoughts into that action though, he simply put his groceries on the kitchen counters, prepared tea, sliced pears and before he could blink he was in Beni’s room giving him those things. Only after Benimaru said his thanks while putting his book down did he realize how naturally that had come to him. Previously he would’ve thought twice about doing that for him unprompted but now… now it was different.

He wanted to give his boyfriend nice things while he recovered.

And then he became embarrassed by his own affectionate actions and left with the (true) excuse that he had other things to do. Back in the kitchen, he prepared desserts with more force than necessary. The fruity kinds though, he took care that he didn’t make unhealthy calorie bombs that would poison your liver with sugar when you ate too much of them in a short amount of time.

And these things being eaten in a short amount of time was exactly what would happen to them…

…because Tōji called one of the hikeshi to him to bring Hinata and Hikage back to the Guardhouse. The girls had been sent away from their home so Tōji could’ve one stressor less in his life while it went to shit but when he had run away the girls stayed away too and even to this day they still lived with the neighbours. If Tōji decided to be an asshole about that, he wouldn’t care but he decided against that and now he felt guilty.

Which meant he had to bake sweets to make the girls happy.

He could already hear them bothering their future father loudly but when he entered Benimaru’s room he saw that the man was actually quite pleased with the girls running around his walls (literally, because they had activated their fire cloaks to jump everywhere they wanted.) He probably lived through their energetic movements right now as immobilized as he was with his broken rips and broken arm.

“I brought something for everyone,” Tōji said as he walked towards them. In his hands was a platter with small fruit tarts that he put on a low table beside Benimaru. Surprisingly, the girls didn’t throw themselves at that plate to gobble the sweets down like starving rats. Either they had been taught some actual manners since he last interacted with them properly or they were infused with one specific manner called “Tōji is a sick sad fuck and you should behave while around him”.

Not important right now; Tōji put one tart into their waiting hands after they sat down in front of him, then he gave Benimaru one that he ate with his functioning arm.

“Dinner comes first, you savage,” said his lover to his face before biting into the tart.

“I don’t see you refusing the dessert to stay civilized!” A shrug was his only answer on that front and really, did he truly expect Benimaru to be anywhere near civilized? The guy was probably in flower petal withdrawal at this point. Tōji should throw some on him just to see if he would eat them immediately.

“Can I get another one?” – “Can I get another one, too?”

What politeness those two ruffian girls showed right now. It was their calm and well-mannered behaviour that had him see Megumi and Tsumiki for a second when he turned around to give them what they had asked for. Tōji remembered that moment in the kitchen after his second wedding when his children had hidden under a table to eat the sweets from the day before. Other memories also came to him, most often when they were at the dinner table or when he or his wife had brought them a present.

Megumi and Tsumiki would sit just like that, sometimes with their hands in the air waiting eagerly for whatever their parents would give them.

Beautiful memories, far removed from his nightmares of the melted hands of his children coming out of his shadows to accuse him of killing them.

He gave Hinata and Hikage their tarts and he gave Benimaru another one as well but not before calling him a savage. Just as he had predicted, the entire platter was empty in just five minutes. He still had some hidden in the kitchen though but those would only come out after dinner. They needed to make sure not to become complete barbarians.

“Hinata, Hikage,” Tōji said before the girls started to jump around. “Would you like to… live in the Guardhouse again?” For various reasons, he was nervous about getting an answer. Would those two be angry at him that they had to leave in the first place? Would they prefer to stay with the neighbours? Would they only come back when Tōji left? Or would their presence set Tōji on edge again?

“Yeah!” – “Yeah! I want my room back!” – “And Waka has to do our hair again every morning!” – “Yeah!”

“…all right. I’ll inform Konro.”

In the end, it was that easy; their acceptance and Tōji’s acceptance. For the him that existed now at least. Tōji took the empty platter, said goodbye and left the three pyrokinetics (a little family) to do what they wanted. On the way to the kitchen, he realized that he could also do what he wanted. It would involve this Guardhouse and its stupid master but he was still free to do everything his heart desired. Tōji felt free in a way he hadn’t in years.

Chapter 2: High Emotions

Notes:

This one is Beni-centric and deals with some complex emotions someone in love for the first time has to deal with.

I haven't managed to create the timeline yet but we'll get there eventually!

Benimaru had never been this hurt in his entire life. Consequently, he had never truly understood how much it sucked. He was bedbound for the first week; an annoying experience when it came to having to piss and shit. When it was time to walk again, his torso was as stiff as a board with all his broken ribs and bruised muscles and spine. His left arm would also be held together by metal rods for at least another month until they could be removed and that was with his faster-than-average healing.

He had also never used painkillers in his entire life but now here he was having gone through all sorts of them, from morphine to ibuprofen until he could manage the last bit on his own.

At the same time, his boyfriend was one happy peach, frolicking in their garden with his burns healing at an unbelievable and envious rate. When they performed their last attacks against each other, Benimaru had thought that they stood on equal grounds, that the injuries they inflicted would be equally distributed among them. Fat chance; with how fast Toji was back on his daily bullshit, it was obvious to everyone with eyes that Benimaru was more heavily injured.

This would mean though that Benimaru… lost.

Somewhat. The fight itself was still a draw but the things afterwards also counted, especially in the public perception. Now, normally Benimaru didn’t care much about that, but when it came to being the Strongest, he had to admit that his ego could barely take that threat against it. He was surprised at himself at how much that bothered him. Being unbelievably strong had just… always been his character but Toji was putting that into question now.

As a child, he was strong; as a young teenager he had surpassed his father and with him everyone in Asakusa; as an older teenager, he was classified as a one-man army by the Tokyo Empire. He was then the Strongest Pyrokinetic (Firefighter) on Earth.

And here came Toji, shaking his steadfast perception of himself and that after getting out of an illness that snake had suffered for months! Benimaru was sure that he would've lost if they had fought right after Toji travelled here from his dimension! Hell, Benimaru would’ve also lost if he hadn’t managed to understand pyrokinetic energy as the basis of his powers during the time Toji had disappeared!

All of this only meant one thing. Training.

Better and heavier training than he had done after the Great Fire.

And luckily, Benimaru had a boyfriend who was perfect for that just like he was perfect for bouncing on his cock about every day. That snake should count himself lucky that he was somehow both the trials in his life but also its solutions. During the second week of his recovery, Benimaru got up to get his body back into shape to start with his new training regimen but also so Toji would stop insulting his (non-existent) sex performance all the time.

Beni would’ve gotten angrier at Toji for his constant teasing and being somewhat stronger than him if not for several facts that made him more endeared instead. 1) Toji being mentally and physically better compared to the time from before. 2) Their relationship having deepened which felt like a natural outcome of everything they had before. 3) The daily sex. Couldn’t complain on that front at all. 4) The work of Company 7 not suffering even though Benimaru was unable to do his duty.

Just last month that would’ve been half a catastrophe as it was Benimaru who fought and killed the infernals while the hikeshi had only a protective and clean-up role. At their best, they could hold an infernal at bay until Benimaru came flying to them. But after Toji had disappeared, he and Konro had decided to make some changes inside the Neighbourhood Watch which included giving the hikeshi an active role in the fight against infernals.

The implementation of that measure had been half-baked because their fight took place so fast after Toji came back but it was still there and Benimaru could proudly say that his men did a good enough job with it. Like right now, when five hikeshi had an infernal wrapped in Haijima-issued lightweight steel cables while they painstakingly pulled it towards the Watch after a two-kilometre march through Asakusa.

In the end, you could make all the plans in the world and train every last hikeshi to be an effective infernal killer but all that still didn’t mean anything when the people turned into infernals wanted to be killed by Benimaru.

“Getting the infernal here took too long again! How often did it escape this time!?”

“Just… three times, Waka…”

“That’s still two times too many! I’ll send all of you off to weight training!”

This time, Benimaru had managed to walk out of the Watch to await the hikeshi and their unwilling former citizen on the street. Getting it to the backyard turned out to be too destructive especially when Toji would only watch from the sides with a milkshake in hand while Beni’s men were whipped around and about. Like this out on the open street, they had more control over it and Benimaru could get closer to kill it with his hand instead of a fire blast.

A district mayor came with them to tell Benimaru who the infernal once was and what their last wishes were. A few more hikeshi threw additional steel cables on the infernal to hold it still while Benimaru walked over to it. He could feel it, the pyrokinetic energy it gave off together with its fire and heat but his senses were pretty weak on that compared to feeling his own energy.

He touched the shoulder of the person who had once been a young woman writing poetry in her free time after a hard day at work in the fields. Like never before Benimaru could touch the new life form that had been born out of his citizen and under all that fire he felt energy lines crisscrossing all over its body.

Benimaru was able to extinguish the fire of any infernal. It had always taken a bit more effort to do it because of the all-encompassing nature of their fire which he now realized was because of the energy pathways in their body going everywhere. Like now though, he didn’t do that because there was no point in it. With one thrust of his right hand engulfed in flames, he killed the former farmer and poetry writer.

All this time he could hear anguish screamed out into the world. That faded now with the infernal turning into ash. The cables were loosened but before that monster in front of him completely crumbled to the ground, a part-time poet rested her head against his shoulder in relief.

A priest came with an urn to collect her ashes and announce the time for her funeral. 

Now with the infernal of today dealt with, his men could finally take a break and rest their strained muscles after that hard march towards him. Benimaru on the other hand felt energized like he hadn’t in days all thanks to one epiphany he had just now.

“One of you!” He said to everyone gathered around him which included not only the hikeshi, the mayor and the Shinto priest but also his neighbours and other people who came with the infernal. “Bring me that whor–“ With an audible snap Benimaru shut his mouth at the last second but everybody understood what word had left his mouth. Some snickers went around while Beni berated himself for calling his boyfriend a whore in public. Again.

Before their relationship came out, using that word had been unproblematic (to Beni, not to Toji and definitely not to Konro) but now, after everyone knew that Toji was a sexually active man, “whore” carried negative connotations that even Benimaru’s thick skull understood especially when Asakusa’s de jure leader used it. Until now, Beni had been mostly shielded from what his citizens thought and said about his relationship. He was only confronted with their most positive reactions.

But there had been one instance where the wind carried a conversation from the other side of the Watch over to him. Just two men, one of them Shinbeita, talking about the things they had heard in the city. It should’ve been nothing worth remembering; just one of his men saying to another what they had heard someone else say in the streets. Something that wasn’t even that bad, otherwise those two wouldn’t have even talked about it so casually anyway.

“Someone was sure today that Toji sleeps around. Probably in Tokyo with how often he went there and how he decided to go there during his crash, too.”

A baseless statement that was immediately refuted by Shinbeita much to the other hikeshi’s agreement. Even Benimaru’s first thought had been that a simple announcement from him on how their relationship was monogamous would throttle those kinds of opinions in Asakusa in a heartbeat.

But then came the anger.

Anger at whoever had said that; anger at that statement itself; and unbelievable anger at the thought of Toji sleeping with someone else. He had never even entertained that scenario before, not seriously at least because what did he care if his sex partner had other things going on? But that had changed. They were now lovers. And Benimaru set his clothes on fire with how angry he was at all of that.

And he had no idea how to deal with it. His chest felt constricted while he tried to get his fire under control because what impression would it make when he lost his shit over that? He was already a hothead who didn’t think things through before going on destructive rampages but he didn’t want to be a vengeful and jealous fury on top of that, too!

A good answer to his problem didn’t come to him so he made use of an easy answer and grabbed a sake bottle that was on the shelf full of gifts to his right. He drank that alcohol in one go and immediately his mood shifted to its happy drunken state but even in that he knew that he had a massive problem if he could be set off this easily, this fast and this strongly over a relatively benign remark.

One day and several burned clothes later, he swallowed his pride and asked Konro for help. Unfortunately for Benimaru’s mood, his friend was happy and enthusiastic about this disturbing development in his life.

“Oh, Beni! Never would I have thought that you got to feel these emotions while still in your 20s! While still being 20 even! You really fell for Toji!”

“No!” was Benimaru’s immediate and contrarian answer. “I’m not in love with him!” was his follow-up but… weren’t those strong emotions he felt the other day… indicative of that? No, they couldn’t be! How did such furious anger fit with something like love? Even his father, who was an absolute brute in everything he did in his life, wasn’t ever angry when it came to his mother. If at all, the jealousy he felt should prove that he was far removed from being in love and he told Konro as much.

(He left the part where he felt bad about thinking that out.)

“Listen, Benimaru. Emotions are first and foremost not something you can easily categorize into good and bad.” Konro had come to Beni’s room while he was still bedbound. He had brought tea, a tray with a light lunch and some Toji-made snacks in a box with him. “It’s what you think and do with them that’s important. So you felt angry on behalf of Toji for someone suggesting that he slept around and you felt angry at the thought of Toji sleeping with someone else.”

“Someone else who is also a man, not a woman. Just wanted to clear that up.”

“Ah, good to know but… are you really sure about that?”

Benimaru had once said that he didn’t care if Toji slept with women… now with an image in his head planted by an unknown person from Asakusa, he realized that wasn’t true. “…no.”

“So you have two different reasons for your anger. That’s important to understand when you want to deal with it constructively and before you ask – NO – you can’t punch yourself out of this one.”

“See me try.”

“Then we’ll see each other every few months back here again because the root of your problem doesn’t get resolved.” Konro was strangely calm while he talked about this. Was that from his whore-side where he entertained strange long-distance relationships with prostitutes Benimaru had only recently found out? Did Konro even have hands-on experience with this or was he just romantically reciting things from Harlequin books?

“Imagine Benimaru, that you can’t write. You can mostly but not always get around that by having others write for you or by avoiding situations that need anything written down. But you can also learn how to write, then 99% of any future complications of your illiteracy get resolved immediately. At first, that hill looks enormous and steep and there is a prize in the form of activation energy to pay that takes more effort than your current illiterate self expends on any given day but the result will be better for you and Toji.”

“…what if learning to write won’t be possible because I have a disability?”

“Do you have one?” Konro refilled his cup of tea before cutting his lunch in biteable sizes and picking them up with chopsticks to give them to Beni. “Because if the answer is yes, we would need to have a completely different conversation. But if it’s only about the fear of having trouble controlling your emotions then tough luck Waka because you will have to throw yourself into learning, understanding and dealing with them.”

Gone were Benimaru’s hopes of getting an easy and digestible answer. The good answer turned out to be… doing emotional work on himself… but also stopping his name-calling of Toji. He was already missing the days when he could call Toji a whore without others taking it seriously. Maybe at some point in the future, he might be able to do so again when their relationship had settled down in the minds of everyone.

Right now though he had something to discuss with his lover and that had to do with the way infernals were made up. Those energy pathways he had felt just now were interesting and he was sure that Toji knew something about them. There was also something from a few months back when he had asked about ghosts walking down the streets past you. Since training his energy, Benimaru did have a better feeling of those ghosts but by the time he remembered that he could investigate them, he had to lift his ass to shit in a pan.

That was over now thankfully and not long after he had sent some people to get Toji to him, that whore finally came back to the Guardhouse.

“I was shopping. Not even for an hour. Why the fuck would you need me back here so fast again?” They were alone in one of the common rooms and Benimaru was sitting on one of the only couches they had in the Guardhouse to take it easy on his back.

“I have a question.”

“That question has cost you a good dinner!”

“Tt. Send some of my men out to get the needed groceries!”

“No chance! I haven’t made up my mind on what to make yet because I wanted to let inspiration hit me while shopping!”

“Are you allowed to be this bitchy to your boyfriend?”

“When my boyfriend throws stones in my way, then yes!”

“Fine! …I’m sorry.”

Those wide eyes of Toji were uncalled for in Benimaru’s opinion. They made him feel… incapable somewhat; like they shined a heavy light on the mistake he just made of ignoring his boyfriend’s time as if it meant nothing compared to his. He would much rather have Toji ignore everything to do with his blunder for now.

“What did you want to ask?” And Toji was good at that actually. It was after Benimaru had declared them to be boyfriends during that dinner conversation a few weeks back that he realized how proactive Toji was this entire time in making him feel comfortable in their relationship. Not during their everyday interactions, of course, those were always marked by low-level antagonism expressed by shit-talking and throwing hands, but during the times when they had sex.

Toji was careful not to exacerbate any negative feelings or outcomes of their sexual encounters. Of course that was in part to keep his standing in the Watch positive but it also helped Beni in dealing with his first fuck buddy, especially through his hot-headedness. Now Toji put that care into the romantic part of their relationship as well and this time… Benimaru understood his naiveté about how romances worked and that Toji was compensating for it on Beni’s behalf.

“Have you ever touched an infernal? Or one of those ghosts?”

“Hm.” Toji knew what he was talking about but his gaze went upwards while he took longer than normal to answer him. “Yes to the second. Those ghosts walk around on many streets.” It was good to know that, but Benimaru had no idea how he should take that now.

“I’m guessing they’re made of pyrokinetic energy but the energy lines in their ghostly bodies go everywhere, right? For today’s infernal that was the case.”

Toji closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He answered in an untypically demure voice while going through his long hair with his fingers. “I should’ve said this earlier… at least a few days after it happened some time ago. Maybe you realized it as well with what you saw and pieced together.”

Toji was regretting something. Was it selfish and un-boyfriend-like to feel good because of that? Konro said to get to the root of his feelings to understand them better so what was the cause of this feeling? That he liked how Toji cared about them enough to bother with regret? Something he only allowed himself to feel for people he liked and respected?

“I have no idea what you’re talking about. I haven’t pieced anything together. I just thought those ghosts and the infernals have something in common.”

“…forgot with whom I was talking for a second. Your brain power probably goes towards keeping your injuries at the perfect temperature to make them heal faster.” Benimaru would’ve liked to make a good comeback, but Toji was infuriatingly right about that. Luckily his lover didn’t make any further comments, “The ghosts are made of pyrokinetic energy that crisscrosses their bodies, the same as the infernals. You’ve come this far so what’s the next logical step in thinking this through?”

Benimaru rolled his eyes and groaned. “Can’t you just say it? Why do I have to attend private school lessons again?”

Now it was Toji who groaned. “You can be lucky that you’re strong and have intelligent people around you! Anyway.” Toji got grim and looked directly at Benimaru’s eyes, something he had been avoiding at the start of this conversation and now Beni realized why that was. “The ghosts cause spontaneous human combustion.”

Benimaru was taken aback at that statement. He truly had not thought about a connection like that even though he had just killed an infernal. Spontaneous human combustion was simply part of their lives like the sun rising so he normally didn’t waste too much thought on that. This was an extreme revelation though. And Toji had…

“Why did you keep that to yourself?”

“I… didn’t want to explain what pyrokinetic energy was… and the more time went by the less I wanted to explain why it took so long to come out with it. Then the summer started and I didn’t care anymore.”

“I get that.”

But… if the ghosts consisted of pyrokinetic energy… then how did that work… where did they come from… has anyone ever made a theory on that… shouldn’t it make a difference for normal humans… could Benimaru make a difference… Toji probably couldn’t…

“Agh!” The groans wouldn’t stop today it seemed; too much thinking of all the possibilities and explanations about SHC was going around his mind but Benimaru also thought of a woman resting her small scythe and sitting down to think of haiku. “Start with dinner with whatever we have. I have to think about this.”

Toji agreed even though he gave off an angry sound at the mention of dinner. He informed Benimaru of a meeting he arranged with the second-generation pyrokinetic Kanao while he carried him and his couch on one arm to the kitchen. There, Benimaru had all the time he needed to think his thoughts without Toji having to sit and wait for him until he came up with something worth speaking out loud. With every rice washed and vegetable cut, more and more conclusions and questions crystallised themselves in Benimaru’s mind.

“Your body disrupts my energy so much that I can’t control it anymore. Have you tried that with a ghost?”

“Yes, but while it did disrupt their pyrokinetic energy, unlike you, they gained back control of it. I think that’s because they are the energy while for you it’s merely your plaything.”

Benimaru rested his broken arm on the armrest and his head against the backrest. The next question he asked had the potential to erupt in a serious accusation of blame.

“Do you think I could stop a ghost?” Because if Benimaru could then Toji would have sentenced tens of hundreds of people to die by combustion.

“As long as you can’t take control of someone else’s energy, you can’t.” Beni was glad to hear that for the reason that there was nothing that Toji had done that was worthy of blame but that answer was also disappointing because it meant that Benimaru couldn’t stop SHC from happening.

“I can take control of their heat, though. Shouldn’t energy control be in there as well?”

“Hm… I haven’t seen you use it often enough to have a solid opinion on it. Maybe you can learn that at some point but until now you only push foreign cursed energy away.”

“Cursed energy?”

“Sorry. Slipped out.”

“So, the gateway to hell behind the butcher’s shop. You didn’t think of a way of closing that, did you?”

Toji burst out laughing at that question and accidentally dented a pot in the process. “Next you’re going to ask a blind man about colour theory. No wait! I’ll get my shovel out and start digging!”

Benimaru had to snicker at that as well. “If there is anyone on earth who could do that in a timely fashion it would be you. Maybe we’ll even find the place where Konro ended up before you appeared here.”

“Interesting thought. But in my opinion, that place and where these ghosts come from are… interdimensional. I say this because I’m an interdimensional traveller so why wouldn’t they be, too?”

A thought-provoking argument. “Just so you know, being attacked by beings from another earth was one of the most popular theories of human combustion and the Cataclysm about 170 years ago.”

The simple dinner without any fish and meat was getting ready while Benimaru and Toji talked with each other, completely at ease and happy to be in each other’s company.

“I don’t think that other dimension is as far away as mine though,” Toji continued their conversation after s short pause. “The ghosts I followed until they reached a human all had the same body type as the human that got turned. I’m speaking from tall, skinny and fat people but also from children and babies.”

That was an image Benimaru didn’t know he would detest immediately. What Toji said next was equally as disturbing.

“The butcher’s shop isn’t the only place where that gateway to hell exists. In Tokyo, I’ve encountered two more.”

“…and the ghosts travel across the wards I presume?”

“Correct, so whatever we come up with to deal with them it will have to include your arch nemeses as well.”

“Agh. But only as a last resort.”

“Fine by me Benimaru. Your meeting with Kanao by the way, it’s so you can see her malfunctioning pyrokinetic ability up close.”

“Malfunctioning!?” That had Benimaru lift his head and throw a glare at Toji’s back. “All the well wishes to that girl but why should I bother with her? Do you know what we normally do when someone has a problem like that? Tell them to do something else in their life!”

“From what I heard, there is a method to force an ability to work normally again.”

“And the moment we use that method with a 30% chance of success on a girl you can throw all your feminism out of the window! That kind of torturing and half-naked training in public for everyone to see will create an extreme conservative backlash across all ages in Asakusa!”

“Huh? Waka, since when are you able to think things like that through?” Toji’s question was extremely mocking and Benimaru had the impression that his boyfriend asked about that method only to see if he could find the flaw in it. Well, he did, so Beni earned himself a blowjob in his opinion.

“You knew that so why did you still call her for a meeting with me? Especially when it’s obvious that her cousin wasn’t honest with her disabilities.”

“Because her ability malfunctions in a specific and interesting way. I want to see if you can spot it. Maybe you’ll get the same brilliant idea as I did.”

“We’ll see. Whore.”

Notes:

I wanted to write another paragraph or two but my eyes are falling shut and I can't think normally anymore :D

Chapter 3: New Teacher in the House

Notes:

Just so you know, the plot of this chapter has been planned since the beginning one and a half years ago :D

This evening, the second-generation pyrokinetic girl Kanao came to the Watch to be assessed by Benimaru. He still wasn’t sure about her, especially after learning that her ability was malfunctioning but Tōji didn’t do and arrange things without a deeper thought behind it, so Beni told himself to be open about the girl. He still remembered coming to save her, lowering her body temperature and flying her to the specialized hospital for pyrokinetics in Tokyo. Her dead brother was also vivid in his memories.

“Thank you, Waka, for allowing us to come to you.”

“It’s my duty.” And Benimaru took that duty seriously which his citizens saw and loved.

Right now, they were in one of the living rooms where Beni had forced himself to forego his couch and sit on the ground but not in a respectable position because his back would hate him when it was time to stand up again. But everyone always respected him (except Tōji) regardless of how he sat or didn’t so it was no problem.

“Good morning, Waka! Nice to meet you! I-I mean good moreving… evening!”

Benimaru did not comment on Kanao misspeaking. It could be her brain damage, it could be shyness, it didn’t interest him as everyone had a few quirks. For her test, they had candles between them which Benimaru lit with the flick of his finger. Before nearly dying, Kanao could create rings of fire with pre-existing flames. A boy from her neighbourhood liked to shoot fireballs at her which she caught in the air and turned into hula-hoops to dance around and mock him, or so she told Beni albeit with a few more speech hiccups along the way.

“She was also able to change the colour of the fire from dark orange to dark red,” said her cousin, who at this point was more a replacement mother to Kanao.

“Heat manipulation explains how you survived so long under your house.”

Kanao’s face crumpled drastically at the direct mention of her house and all her family that died inside of it, her smiles returned immediately though. Maybe showing so much and so intense emotions from one second to the next was part of the disabilities she dealt with now? The way she had tears running down her face before she was all smiles again when Benimaru stroked her head in comfort made that assessment sound true.

“Turn these flames into rings,” Beni said to her and Kanao tried – really tried – to do exactly that. The three candles were ten centimetres apart each and she should’ve been able to connect the fires and create a ring at least 50cm in diameter. She couldn’t. The candle closest to her left hand had its fire grow and try to go up and to its right to the next candle. The middle candle had one part try to go left to connect with the other fire there; just two cm were between those flames before they could become one. To its right the middle candle tried to push a tendril of fire to the last candle but that one only reached a length of three centimetres. The last candle barely flickered with no fire going in any direction at all.

Kanao’s right side, her right arm or right part of her brain, was the one that was broken and couldn’t produce her second-generation ability anymore but her left side could also be damaged. The problem was that she most likely needed both arms to perform her ability, which was more prevalent in second generations. Beni could try to teach her to form her rings with only one arm but that might take a long time for a subpar outcome.

It looked grim for Kanao but… neither she nor her cousin saw it that way going by their happy faces and high expectations. Their belief that Benimaru, their Master of the Watch, the Strongest Pyrokinetic on Earth, could help Kanao succeed in her rehabilitation was steadfast and unshakable. His fight with Tōji had probably cemented that idea because who else was there to help with malfunctioning pyrokinetics than him, the person who had brought the Sun down on Asakusa while fighting his paramour?

This small family in front of him expected so much from Benimaru but… he wasn’t sure he would be able to deliver. Second generations didn’t suffer from the ash sickness but their abilities could still die with overuse and that was ostensibly what had happened here, just one side more than the other. So what now? How could Benimaru still help here? What had Tōji seen that he let this meeting happen?

“I want you to concentrate on controlling these flames. Don’t stop that.”

“All kay!”

The fire of the candles to Kanao’s left burned brighter for a few seconds before the first completely burned out with the second just barely flickering along before it burned on its own again.

“I! I-I’m sorry! That’s–“

“I did that, don’t worry.”

Benimaru should’ve told the girl that he would overpower her ability with his own, then she wouldn’t have become that distressed so fast but he couldn’t change that now. He had pushed his pyrokinetic energy into Kanao’s body to asses her energy pathways – her meridian network – to see if he could find something that could be healed. Benimaru also touched her hands up to her arms, shoulders and neck to get a good feel for where exactly the damage was.

Her right shoulder. Her meridians had atrophied there; that was also the arm that had turned completely stiff while holding her dead brother for two nights and one day. Benimaru concentrated his energy in those specific places to see if he could… widen those pathways or something similar but while a few of them were able to let greater waves of energy through one or two of those meridians started leaking and worst of all, Kanao started twitching.

“That tingles,” she said and Benimaru stopped his attempt at finding something anywhere in the vicinity of a cure for her. This was a hopeless endeavour but worse was the hope put on him to correct this. This… was a failure on his part, he couldn’t help this in a way she or her guardian wanted to be helped…

“Have you seen it, Waka?”

Benimaru’s face twitched in surprise at Tōji standing in the doorway. He had not felt or heard him come here which was impressive as that door had been closed so that snake had managed to open it without anyone noticing. What was also surprising was his statement that there was still something to find with Kanao.

Benimaru tilted his head while thinking about this while Kanao and her cousin greeted Tōji who greeted them back. Something rectangular came flying towards him then and Beni caught one of their acupuncture needle sets.

“You think you can use them on your own or do you need my help?”

Benimaru didn’t even understand what he was supposed to do with these and he would’ve said so in not-so-nice words if he didn’t have guests but the time not wasted on trash talking actually went into thinking and look, Benimaru did understand now what he should be doing with the needles.

“Get over here. My fingers are not used to small and precise things.”

Pyrokinetic acupuncture. No, that was already a thing and something completely else. Pyrokinetic energy acupuncture. Yes, Benimaru should get a prize for creativity naming.

Tōji came over and sat down at Kanao’s right after asking her to pull her robe off so they could get to the skin of her shoulder. “We have two problems here, right Waka?” Did they? Was there more than the faulty meridians in her shoulder? Beni hated it when Tōji forced him to use his brain but in front of these two of his citizens he couldn’t start an argument about that, he already felt guilty about not being able to help them so no, he had to push his brain cells together and be smart.

What other problem was there with Kanao? She was only able to control the fire of the left candles while the right one only moved erratically as if the wind was blowing back and forth. Now that he thought about it, she had no control of that fire. Benimaru had felt her pyrokinetic energy make contact with the first two flames and spark into her ability but not with the third; the last flame never became part of her Fire Ring technique at all while she tried it.

So why did it flicker? There was no wind in this room but the fire was still moving around… was it because her atrophied pathways were still letting enough energy through them that it could leave through her fingers and affect the fire? Not in a controlling-the-fire way but in a pushing-the-fire way because the essence of pyrokinetic energy was to interact with fire and heat.

Now Benimaru got it. It wasn’t only the reduced flow of her energy because of her damaged meridians; Kanao also had damage inside her brain that prevented her from activating her ability on her right side. Even if they got her meridians functioning, she wouldn’t be able to take control of any fire with her right hand as long as that specific damage wasn’t dealt with either.

“Yes, we have two problems. Let’s start with the first one. Kanao, describe to me how it feels to use your ability on your right side compared to your left.”

“Ähm… it feels like not enough, ähm… my right hand doesn’t have enough… shubidishuu, like strength, ya know! I mean, Master Shinmon Waka. Ähm, Master Waka.”

Tōji was preparing the needles with an antiseptic he pulled out of his yukata where he normally pulled out the lube so that distracted Benimaru the tiniest bit but he understood what Kanao tried to tell him. She felt her reduced energy flow through her right arm and hand but unfortunately, just getting the output of that back up would not help her in activating her ability, so…

…wait a moment…

…she felt her energy? Hmm… Benimaru couldn’t tell how common that was or wasn’t in people dealing with their broken pyrokinetic abilities but maybe they could work something out with that?

“Give me a needle,” Tōji said while he wiped Kanao’s shoulder with the antiseptic. Benimaru grabbed one of them held it out for Tōji to take, got a glare in return, then he put his energy inside the needle and gave it to his boyfriend then. He tried to picture in his mind where exactly that needle would poke through while Kanao and her cousin were watching in anticipation and trust in whatever they were doing.

Benimaru was also full of trust because it sure as hell wasn’t understanding that occupied his mind right now. After some stabs though Beni finally got the picture: Tōji was blocking the broken meridians off from Kanao’s energy flow so that the better working meridians could channel her energy up to her fingertips before they leaked out or dissipated inside her arm. And he used Beni’s energy to do that.

After nine needles, two of which were in Kanao’s neck not far from her carotid artery, Tōji deemed his job done and encouraged her to try her fire rings again. Benimaru set the left candle alight and Kanao put her hands up to control the fire.

The result was the same as before: the two left flames were affected by her second-generation ability but without the corresponding right half of it no rings were formed. Kanao’s face fell when she couldn’t do it but righted itself immediately again with her typical look of hope and trust in her Master. Benimaru was pretty sure now that she had a problem with her brain-body signalling or emotional regulation or what else existed in that realm.

“How about your shubidishuu feeling?” Beni asked and Kanao’s face lit up in wonder.

“It’s nearly the same like with my right hand! I mean left hand! They’re nearly the same now!” But after she said that she became incredibly sad and misty-eyed. “But why doesn’t my technique work?”

“Your technique, hä?” Tōji put his hand under his chin and pretended to think about that question while he was only reminiscing about his home world where that word was used more often than here to describe supernatural abilities. They both knew what the problem was; brain damage but did they have the means to correct that? If they could correct it in a mechanical fashion like now, how would they do that inside her head?

“Oh, I know!” Kanao said, jubilant once more. “You can put a needle in my brain!”

Tōji started laughing at her idea and Benimaru had no problem believing that his boyfriend had imagined doing just that but that was still an unworkable idea. “I mean,” that fucking snake said though while picking one of the needles up. “I won’t have any problem getting this through your skull but unfortunately it’s not long enough.”

“Not long enough,” Benimaru repeated annoyed and threatening because under his watch none of his citizens would get their bones stabbed through with acupuncture needles. “Do you have a better idea than that?” And Beni was sure that Tōji did have one because that snake had seen the defect of her ability activation when he had talked with the pair a few days ago, there was no doubt of that.

“All right, so!” Tōji had more than one idea because he started to lift his fingers to count them. “First! You come here every day and just re-learn to use your ability. Me and Waka will let your chi flow so you have more to work with and then you start rewiring your brain with training until it works properly again!”

That was an acceptable offer and Kanao and her cousin were nodding along because the setup itself was exactly what they had wanted: her becoming (at least a precursor to) a hikeshi and coming here every day for training was exactly that. The problem was that they had no idea about a possible success rate. Her ability was half but more importantly symmetrically malfunctioning so it was better than normal ability loss at least but still, a recovery in the next few years was not more than 15%.

“And here’s my second option that we can use with the first one!” So Benimaru was really interested in what other things Tōji had cooked up. “Waka tries to remote-start your right side ability and we hope very hard that it works and that it works permanently!”

…but what the fuck was Tōji talking about!!??

“What the fuck are you talking about? I can’t do something like that!” And of course, two hopeful, trusting and now awed eyes were watching him while completely ignoring his protests. “All three of you listen closely especially you Tōji. I can stop any pyrokinetic from using their ability. Up until now, there was no one strong enough to overpower me in that regard. But I can’t control or use someone else’s ability.”

Kanao’s face went through so many emotions while he talked that Beni didn’t bother keeping track of them. If that girl reacted to every conversation like that then Benimaru would most likely avoid looking at her when she did start coming to the Watch every day.

“Now, now, Waka. I didn’t say that you should control her ability, just that you should help start it.”

Benimaru could do nothing but shake his head at that answer. “Did all those milkshakes in the last weeks fry your brains? That’s the same ludicrous bullshit!”

“Not when you know how a defibrillator works.” Benimaru would love nothing more in that moment than to rip that shit-eating grin right off that smug face. “Do you, Waka?” That Tōji was still talking politely with him didn’t change that desire at all.

“If I may, a defibrillator stops a heart with an irregular rhythm with electric shocks so it can start beating anew with a regular rhythm,” the cousin said and okay… Benimaru understood where Tōji was going with that but there was one giant hole in that idea.

“Ok, but a defibrillator can’t shock a heart back to life that has stopped beating.” As far as analogies went, that titbit should’ve been more depressing but Benimaru should stop forgetting that Tōji planned everything through with meticulous detail before acting out any ideas. Sometimes that was just tedious to witness because Beni’s brain only went ‘punch’ and ‘set on fire’ but other times he wanted to kiss Tōji instead when he was all intelligent.

“We don’t know if this will work like a heart or not, so we’ll have to try either way but even if that won’t work I still have a third option we can go for!”

So, full of new anticipation but also needle-free, Kanao scooted over to injured Benimaru’s uninjured right side so he could put his hand on her head and try this restart a second-generation ability bullshit. He felt the energy pathways inside Kanao’s brain and the idea was, as Tōji told them, for Benimaru to push all of her “chi” as they called it now, out of her brain to force a change inside her energy centre.

(Chi as a concept was easy to understand in Asakusa as most people already believed in it even though it was in a spiritual sense completely separate from their fire abilities. Crossing Chi and pyrokinetics together though was easy because of that and might have even been attempted in the last two and a half centuries.)

Benimaru pushed his energy inside Kanao and they all saw how she lost control of the candle flame in front of her left hand immediately. Afterwards, Beni pulled his energy back out and hoped that her body would activate the right side of her ability… it didn’t work on the first try but they also didn’t expect a miracle. Tōji came closer as he had a better feel on energy and meridians (and brains) so Benimaru could refine his approach to a hopefully better outcome.

But after the second, the fifth and the tenth try her ability still didn’t activate. She had no problem channelling her energy to her fingers as the places where Tōji put the needles inside of her meridians were still blocked with Benimaru’s energy, but once her energy left her fingertips she couldn’t take control of the fire in front of her right hand. She could not produce the spark needed to activate her rings.

Kanao and her guardian cousin were disappointed in that outcome and so was Benimaru. He was also disappointed in himself though. What if… this could be something he could train? He could help hundreds of former pyrokinetics in Asakusa. But what if it wasn’t something he could train? Then he couldn’t help at all.

“What was your third idea?” he asked Tōji but he wasn’t sure it could be something better than their first and second ideas. If at all, it was probably a makeshift solution just like the first where they couldn’t tell if there even was a recovery rate at all.

“Easy! But first I have to check on a special skill Kanao needs to have.”

Everyone perked at that but Benimaru did raise an additional eyebrow, too. Tōji grabbed Kanao’s right hand and held it up to inspect it. “You’re going to use your hand for your ability the way you normally would. All right? Start and stop when I say it.”

“Yes!”

“Now… and stop. Again. Stop. Now with only your fingers.”

Tōji instructed Kanao to basically let her energy flow out. There was no fire between them so trying to activate her ability wasn’t even in the equation anymore, so what was he trying to achieve? When Tōji wanted individual fingers to shoot the pyrokinetic energy out though, Benimaru got the idea… then he was in the mood again to kiss Tōji on his lips. That guy deserved it for today.

“I want you to only use your index and middle finger for your chi. The other fingers and your palm are off-limits. Try to do that but first, Waka will help with feeling the correct shubidishuu. Waka!”

Tōji took Benimaru’s hand and put his fingers on various places around Kanao’s wrist and the back of her palm. Beni pushed his energy into only the locations where he had direct skin contact with Kanao which blocked most of her meridians which weren’t that many as the ones in her shoulder were still blocked. Now, her energy had to go through her index and middle finger.

“I think I… I think I get it! That’s my… ähm, m-my shubidishuu…”

That 12-year-old girl was mildly embarrassed to use her nonsense word she had made up on the spot because she couldn’t get her brain to spit out a real word on time. But what else was she supposed to do after the strongest fighters on earth started using it in front of her?

Benimaru meanwhile honed his senses into Kanao’s hand to feel how she used her energy. He couldn’t slack off on that front, he needed to get as good as Tōji there. The small skill test was soon over though and his boyfriend came to a conclusion about his third idea on what to do with Kanao’s future as a pyrokinetic.

“All right. So here is what we’re going to do.” Tōji sat back on his ass and put his hands into his sleeves. “We will make a weekly training plan so you can come here and try to activate the malfunctioning part of your Fire Ring ability. At the same time, you will train your left side to activate your ability on its own but the most important part is this:

“Kanao, you will become my personal student and I will teach you how to use your chi together with acupuncture to treat tephrosis and other pyrokinetic illnesses.”

Stunned silence was left after Tōji presented them with his third idea on what to do with Kanao. Even that girl herself had her face frozen instead of going through several emotions every few seconds. But then her face lit up and she started to beam, just like her cousin.

“Re-really? I get to be your student?”

“Yes, and he will help too of course.” Tōji pointed one lazy thumb at Benimaru and the pair in front of them nearly lost their shit with how excited they were at that prospect.

“Oh, thank you, Waka! And thank you Tōji-san!”

“Yeah, no problem.” Benimaru had to say, this meeting went better than he had imagined seeing as the problem that was before them was nearly unsolvable. Thinking of Konro’s illness and how they’ve been treating him for months, it was also a huge relief to know that Tōji had decided to tackle tephrosis for everyone else as well. They had once asked Tōji to administer his wonder treatment on others but they had never pushed him to do it.

Now they knew that Tōji on his own couldn’t treat tephrosis or anything else related to second and third-generation abilities; he needed Waka to supply him with pyrokinetic energy but now that part could become the duty of the first female trainee of the Neighbourhood Watch of Asakusa.

“Give it your all,” Benimaru told Kanao while stroking his hand through her hair again. The girl started crying immediately before being grateful and then crying again. Beni knew that he would’ve some great trouble interacting with her regularly but this once he sucked it up.

(A few hours later, because Tōji had been such a good boy that day, he also sucked his cock as a big reward to the new teacher in his household.)

Notes:

The girl Toji and Beni saved was always supposed to become Toj's pyrokinetic energy student. The brain damage part was also always there, I just had no idea how to implement it until I started this chapter so the no-emotional-filter disability came to me as part of the scene and because I was reminded of a Nightwing fic from ages ago.

One other scene related to her that's been on my mind since the beginning is her and Toji going to Tokyo on a request to help a tephrosis sufferer on the brink of death. Funnily, this chapter where Toji turns into a teacher accidentally coincides with the last chapter of Bandaid where Megumi also wanted Toji to become a teacher at JJ High :D

So, what comes next? Toji going to Tokyo to check out the nightlife? But being hella disappointed at the hetero scene and seeking out the homo scene then???

Chapter 4: Futile Search for Fun

Notes:

The beginning was supposed to be a short and funny argument and then it turned a little more serious and way longer. In other news, water is wet.

Out of the Guardhouse, many different changes were coordinated that affected the entirety of Asakusa. Most people were willing to go along with them even though some were mumbling amongst themselves how the hikeshi for example looked a bit too much like they tried to emulate the Fire Force structures. But Tōji’s and Benimaru’s fight was still fresh on everyone’s mind so they let it be. That’s how exciting and mind-shattering it had been.

Tōji was completely back to doing his housework at this point and he loved throwing his accumulated money at things to buy. Sometimes he also got stuff for free with his charming smile and his reputation as a formidable fighter (and being Waka’s boyfriend/mistress). He also got a bigger room but before he managed to put his futon in there, he already put his entire wardrobe, CD and manga collection as well as his guns inside which turned out to be more than he thought. (Over the last half a year, he had put some of his stuff all over the Guardhouse which he now got back. Add all the presents he got from everyone and his new room was full immediately.)

So his futon stayed in that small storage room but so did his lube and condoms and everything else to do with that activity. Yes, Tōji dedicated an entire room to his sex life and only his sex life (and sleep) which he felt was the proper way to do things. Konro on the other hand, felt that he should’ve just moved to Benimaru’s room instead of keeping that tiny one but Tōji assured him that this constellation was better… because he and Beni still needed a bit of distance between them.

Konro just shook his head at that explanation and mumbled something about “two steps forward, one step back”. Instead of apologizing for saying that after he remembered that Tōji could hear him though, he doubled down and repeated himself loudly, self-assured and a little angry.

“It’s two steps forward and one step back with you two! And that’s still an improvement somehow!”

“I’m a grown man who knows what he’s about and how to navigate actual relationships! This is for the best.” Tōji couldn’t let that stand though so that was the beginning of an argument he started with Konro right then and there on their porch.

“You should navigate your relationship with Benimaru and not around him!”

“I’m not going to take relationship advice from a guy whose romantic adventures only happen in brothels and through letters!”

“That kind of relationship is completely different from what you two have! Your passion needs to come from physical closeness!”

“Physical closeness??? Benimaru needs prep time for a simple kiss! And he barely cuddles after sex! When I move into his room now he’ll either kick me out two days later or he’ll find himself a new room to sleep in!”

“I know that he’s still new to this but that’s where your part comes in! You’re supposed to show him how a romantic relationship works! And that includes teaching him–“

“I am not going to teach him relationships! At least not to such a degree as you want! I’m feeling like a poor woman now who got married to a man-child she’s supposed to raise into a man because his parents abdicated any responsibility of making an adult out of their male offspring!”

“Benimaru is an adult! He had to be since he was 14! He takes care of Asakusa’s security and cultural unity, sometimes all on his own and through severe hardship! He’s not a child!”

“Except when he’s a boyfriend! Or God forbid a husband!”

“I never said that he didn’t have… gaps in his adulthood!”

“Yeah, but you are saying that I should fill those gaps!”

“You’re his lover!”

“I’m not a patch-up doctor!”

“Is it so insulting to have a virgin boyfriend? One who has to learn how to navigate a relationship, physical intimacy and emotional connections? Is he not worth the effort?”

“He is worth such effort but me not moving in with him is part of that effort!”

“How does that even make sense!”

“I’m giving him space to get to know me and learn this physical intimacy stuff on his own!”

“You can’t let this be dictated by Beni’s learning tempo! It will take a decade!”

“Don’t worry, I don’t have the patience to wait for him for an entire decade! One year tops!”

“No! That’s still too much time!”

“I’m not going to do this in two weeks!”

“What’s so bad about two weeks!”

“Next year!”

“Next month!”

“Next spring!”

“This autumn!”

Belatedly, Tōji and Konro realized that they had a massive audience for their argument. Right in their garden, the hikeshi, the new hikeshi trainees, male and female, and to top it off some neighbours, were avidly watching their back and forth, breaths bated and heads turning non-stop towards whoever was speaking at that moment. If Tōji hadn’t been the master of his body, he would’ve turned red in the face because of embarrassment. Later, he would’ve turned red in the face because of anger while screaming at the crowd.

“If even a single one of you talks about any of this I’ll rip your tongues out!”

The hikeshi and most of the neighbours believed that threat immediately. The trainees and some unfortunate (fortunate?) neighbours though took that as a light-hearted joke from cute Tōji-kun. Some of them even started to make suggestions on how to deal with the room business and others took sides on who was right and wrong about that entire ordeal.

Two narrowed eyes later the people who knew™ took the people who didn’t and dragged them away from the backyard before something bad happened with Waka’s monster of a boyfriend and maid.

“I wanted to know what Chōji had to say,” Konro said frustrated but Tōji had enough Konro-style meddling in his relationship for today, so he went over to his friend and pointed a sharp finger right in his face (which he gradually took down while talking because he found it to be too aggressive a gesture.)

“Listen here, Konro! Do not be one of those people who abandon their responsibilities about their charges, or one of those who can’t get their noses out of other people’s business because of some romanticised version of how a relationship is supposed to be run. Everything we talked about here, at least 90% of it, is about Benimaru’s shortcomings. Go to him first before you bother me because you think I’m easier to deal with and convince.”

Tōji was just about to tell (threaten?) how he had a really bad pride issue and contrarian side to him that sometimes got out much to everyone’s misfortune but he didn’t have to as Konro breathed out, let his shoulders fall and took Tōji’s hands (one of which had just been somewhere near his face) in his own.

“I’m sorry, Tōji. You’re right.”

“…”

Tōji searched his memories of the before times about someone as sincere while apologizing to him as Konro was but outside of some cut-off recollections with his wives, nothing came to mind.

“For most of Benimaru’s life, I was completely resigned to him staying in that pre-puberty mindset of being single until he decides to do something about that while 35. After you two happened I was confused and shocked at first but now I’ve been trying to push you towards the ultimate conclusion of your romance I know will come at some point but… I want it to happen right now…

“So I’ll apologize again. However much I think you two are idiots about this, it’s still your choice to be as… slow as you want to be with it.”

“Thanks… for stopping your meddling.” After getting over the initial shock of someone apologizing to him, Tōji got happier with every second which was in no small part aided by Konro still holding his hands. What was that fluttery feeling somewhere around his chest? The kind of happiness that only comes when you’re being loved? If this continued Tōji would puke because of how much his body was not able to handle it.

So he steered the conversation in a direction to something he wanted to talk about for a while now and this was the perfect opportunity for it.

“So, me and Beni and physical closeness next year?”

“That’s…” You could see the slight pain that Konro went through while answering that question. “Yes… next year.”

“And that romantic date you’ve been planning for us for weeks that is supposed to start at the Watch, then go through the streets of Asakusa towards the ancient buildings, take a tour to the temples and shrines, have its zenith at a specific open-air restaurant and end with a floral arrangement by the lake; that one is also next year, right?”

“Bu-… that’s… Tōji, please!” Tōji couldn’t help himself but feel pleased when he finally – after weeks of trying, both he and Benimaru – managed to find an excuse to not go through with that date! Konro had become insufferable after he got to the planning stage where they had to choose three sets of kimono and yukata for that “date”.

“You just said you won’t push us anymore. So deal with our training dates until next year.”

Konro’s slight pain from before turned into a full-blown ‘I’m dying from tephrosis’ pain but with gritted teeth and tears in his eyes he finally but oh so regrettably agreed to postpone his perfect date plans.

“Next… next year then… but promise me!”

Now Tōji was the one feeling regret because he couldn’t say no to his one true friend in this world and agreed to go through with that “date” at some point in the following year.

“It’s a vow,” he said to show that he too could sacrifice a few things here and there for friends and family… like his dignity. A twitch went through Konro’s body after he said that but it morphed into a bright smile immediately with Konro gripping his hands harder and shaking them, too.

“I’ll make it the most memorable day of you living here yet. And… with you and Beni having grown closer by that point it will go over well as well!”

“…are you saying that you believed the date would’ve gone tits up with the original execution date of next month?”

“You did not have to use the word execution just now but yes, I planned for every eventuality like buildings on fire and upturned houses. Hopefully, some of those plans can be scrapped until next spring.”

“Next autumn would b–“

“Next spring. See you later, Tōji.”

Konro just used his “I’m ending this argument with my victory by just walking away” method he constantly used on Benimaru and Tōji had to say, it was really effective…

…though not as effective as the fucking cursed energy driven binding vow Tōji had just accidentally imposed on the both of them! How did that happen? And was Konro twitching for half a second a result of that? Tōji had no cursed energy in his body but it still existed somewhere even if it was 100% suppressed, otherwise, Tōji couldn’t have gotten himself his curse pet and he couldn’t have made any other kind of binding vow in his life either which he did often enough.

But Konro didn’t have cursed energy, he had pyrokinetic energy… and still, it worked? But without Konro taking part in the vow apparently?

The laws of the universe dictating binding vows probably implemented this one like a vow Tōji would’ve used on himself without Konro being an active participant. Would that be the norm with all people from this world or was it only like that because Konro was a pyrokinetic? If it was the latter, then Tōji should never make a vow like this with a normal human in case cursed energy sprang into existence in that other person.

That would be catastrophic. Tōji had no doubt that cursed energy would spread like a disease before it changed the power dynamics in Tokyo completely. Benimaru was the strongest pyrokinetic on earth and it would be fatal if that were to change. But other than that…

Tōji just made a binding vow with himself about how he would go on that fucking date with Benimaru that Konro would arrange at some point in the next six months. He did plan on doing that anyway when he agreed but now he would get physically punished if he were to refuse instead of only feeling immense guilt for disappointing his friend.

Anyway, after that partly serious and partly funny argument, Tōji finally went out shopping that day to buy himself western-style clothes aka Tokyo clothes to go to Tokyo without anyone immediately seeing that he was an Asakusan citizen resident. His personal training lessons with Kanao would start at the beginning of next month after she went through her specialized training to hopefully get her pyrokinetics to work again. Until then, Tōji wanted to do something he yearned for quite some time now: going clubbing.

And he had to do that in Tokyo because Asakusa was… pretty strange in that regard. Either the things Tōji associated with club culture were changed pretty significantly or they were missing entirely… like dedicated clubs, discos, bars and everything in between. The people here did party but that was mostly among friends in someone’s backyard. Bigger gatherings and parties were around specific events like anniversaries, holidays and births of babies. Not to forget that the Asakusans pulled out history books from the Edo period to emulate that ancient kind of celebration which was completely alien to Tōji.

In other words, simple clubbing for the fun of it with dancing, loud music and cocktails (and drugs) wasn’t a widespread thing here, which was why Tōji wanted to try his luck in bigger Tokyo. Not that he was overly fond of dancing and loud music and he didn’t drink alcohol or do drugs anyway but… he was missing the ambience and the familiarity of places like that.

(Tōji had met his first wife at a party and he had also killed a few people at those places, too. Good times.)

So now here he was, in the evening, dashing through the Asakusa streets so no one would see him leave and accuse him of being an Imperial sympathizer.

(His boyfriend of course knew where he went. Benimaru had graciously given him permission to mingle with the Imperialists because of his special background and cultural upbringing so he wouldn’t feel displaced and isolated in his day-to-day life in Asakusan society. To date, that was the most sophisticated diss Benimaru had ever handed to him and Tōji regretted giving him books about social ostracism and whatnot. Who knew that Beni would actually read, understand and ultimately use them against Tōji? Truly diabolical behaviour right there.)

Tōji decided to try his luck in Shinjuku and not even the proto-pyrokinetics walking and flying around everywhere could stop him from that. He and Benimaru had yet to try killing them but that undertaking wouldn’t take much longer anymore as Beni was perfecting his control over his pyrokinetic energy every day (while reading books to absorb knowledge he could use to insult Tōji with.)

Not long after Tōji found his first club to try out on a normal to affluent street. There was no bouncer and it wasn’t overly loud but a quiet place was the perfect start to go memory-gazing before the real parties started. First, he observed the people going in and out though, to look for expected social behaviours and in-group dynamics. When he was sure that his waltzing inside was fine he did so with confidence and curiosity.

The inside was well-lit, everything seemed orderly, some women danced to the side of him but the club had more rooms than open spaces, so Tōji went from room to room to check everything out but only after sitting at the bar, drinking whatever was fruity and listening in on conversations happening all around him. One guy sat down beside him and started asking about Tōji’s muscle workout routine after he saw his biceps through Tōji’s open jacket and sleeveless black shirt.

Tōji bullshitted an answer about boxing and lifting weights and afterwards, he went around the club but without being able to go into every room. Then he met that guy’s friends who were also interested in workouts and that was how his first excursion for the night went: calm, because there wasn’t much going on and entertaining, because people worshipped his body.

It wasn’t exciting though, neither on the clubbing side nor on the illegal businesses side, so off he went to the next club.

He wanted to find one that was bigger and hopefully had a bouncer or two but while he walked through the streets the memory gazing he was after already started. These streets… were named after the original Shinjuku streets. They also had the same layout but everything on them was completely new and different. Sometimes he came by a spot where they had made sure the building on top had the same ground plan as from before the Cataclysm but the building itself was smaller, the façade was different and overall everything there was more steampunk and early 20^th century than futuristic or at least modern.

Sometimes Tōji came across a building where the bottom part had survived the apocalypse. They built something new on top but the change in architecture was obvious and in some cases even emphasized. Standing in front of structures like that made Tōji feel like the time traveller he was though his brain couldn’t wade through the conflicting images and knowledge of everything having gone backwards. Technology, the human population…

He found himself a bigger club with music that was loud enough that normal people could hear it in the streets and there were even people outside checking the people wanting to get in. Those were Blue Stripes though and not the kind of burly bouncers Tōji had expected. Were they on active duty right now? Was this part of their job?

Well, the hikeshi did something similar as they had a good presence during big social gatherings so maybe that was how things were run here as well? An infernal could appear everywhere and cause big damage and injury in an establishment like that. Tōji observed the people going in and out again until he was sure that he didn’t need an invite nor did he have to adhere to a specific dress code.

Outside of his clothes not being immediately flammable of course. No one was allowed to bring alcoholic or other fire-empowering beverages, but Tōji had no problem smelling the capitalistic opportunity behind that. He also heard many people say how that club was one of the best in Shinjuku and competed with the good ones in the rest of Tokyo so he was expecting a decent if not even good time inside of there.

How wrong he was.

Everything was as it should be. If the music wasn’t bad (Tōji hadn’t yet gotten used to this new-fangled kind of music these people in the future composed; apparently they incorporated western classical music into it and he wasn’t a fan) he could’ve even believed that he was back in his time and on his earth.

The drinks were all right, too even though the prices were inflated but that was like an ingrown toenail you got used to over the years. They had enough good-tasting non-alcoholic options that helped Tōji entertain himself for more than an hour while he waited and hoped that things would get better inside here but they didn’t… nothing improved… what was going on here? Why were these people…

Segregated into men and women staying on opposite sides of the place, occasionally looking at each other and waving but otherwise not daring to make proper contact? Sometimes a couple, and with his good eyes Tōji saw that they were always married or at least engaged, met each other in the middle of the dancefloor to show off their skills. Sometimes other couples followed them but then there was nothing for a while again!

They didn’t even do drugs in here!

Tōji had a vague memory of an American high school movie he watched while cleaning his guns where they had a party in their sports halls or something and the boys and the girls stayed at opposite walls and talked amongst each other until a boy was brave enough to break the ice and start dancing like a hooligan, after which everyone joined him. Why was that happening in an actual dance club? With adults? In one so big and famed even? Tōji was puzzled about that while sitting there and watching everyone not dancing and not having the fun they were supposed to have until it finally clicked in his mind.

Christians.

The American kind specifically. Tōji got up to date with how the people situation after the Cataclysm was in Tokyo and from where all the refugees came and US-American refugees were among the most that managed to come to what was left of Japan. They managed that because someone they later called a hero captained every ship he could find on the open hot seas until they found land that wasn’t burning.

And most people on those ships were American Christians and look how this place ended up now: with an Imperial religion that was about 90% Christianity with Jesus’ name filed off and the rest supplemented with Shintoism. And apparently, US-American attitudes on how one should party but without sin survived until this day.

Great. What should Tōji do now? Become the Anti-Christ so people could start dirty dancing and snorting coke off tits in every club and disco he went to? He didn’t even who or what that was… maybe Benimaru was the Anti-Christ to these people? Funny if true but what wasn’t funny was how Tōji’s dreams of re-experiencing the leisure time from his youth went up in smoke.

Watching Benimaru read a book while he played with his pyrokinetic energy through his fingers was more exciting than sitting in this club and watching grown adults fear that their asses might accidentally touch each other while they slow danced on their own on an empty floor. With Benimaru he could also have sex but here in this place there wasn’t even one dumb couple trying to have sex in the bathrooms he could listen to.

…maybe this was just an exception? The other clubs might be better than this sin-free version but the first one he went to was also like this! He hadn’t seen it immediately because that club was separated into different rooms on different floors but now he understood the system they were operating under: gendered party rooms! That was why he couldn’t get into every room!

This wasn’t good. First, Asakusa didn’t give him what he wanted and now Tokyo, too but he should try one more time! Maybe his fears will be squashed and the next club will have stranger-on-stranger dancing and groping in front of everyone who looked? Tōji wasn’t even interested in something like that but here he was, wanting to at least see debauchery right in front of him.

He listened around until he got the name and then the address of another club-like establishment that had the reputation of being wild and he went there hoping desperately that it was true. It wasn’t. Whatever these people thought of as “wild” was anything but, it was the same bullshit but look there! You didn’t need to be married or engaged to dance on the dancefloor! This club also accepted boyfriend and girlfriend to meet in the middle of the room after getting away from the male and female walls!

Wild!

And the parties stopped at 2 am when the clubs closed without exceptions!

Tōji went out on the streets again to contemplate death by political upheaval after he started his own club with strippers and dance competitions and free condoms in the bathrooms and DJs and Hip-hop music. And cocaine. Before he started to debate whether he should do that in Tokyo or Asakusa, though, he had an idea born from his experiences as a young and hot 17-year-old.

Tōji had gone swimming back that summer, directly to South Korea and further south until he landed in the Philippines. He went to various places in each country, met Shiu for an assassination job and did some other fucked up stuff as his form of teenage rebellion (killing his father wasn’t enough). But now Tōji had two ideas on how he could get out of this Christian club business. Two ideas on where to find the debauched clubs.

In his youth, Tōji had learned that if the club life of a specific country and culture wasn’t to your liking, then you simply had to go to the clubs of an ethnic minority. Get away from the leisure lifestyle of the majority and find fun with the one from others. Tōji had found himself in various businesses run by ethnic minorities during his cross-Asia trip. They had always been enjoyable and more often than not the fun he found there was different than what the rest of the country did to get it.

The problem was that after 250 years of oppressive rule by the Fire Church, there were no ethnic minorities left in Tokyo except for Asakusa. No other identity survived that time, the people in Tokyo were all Tokyo citizens with most of the descendants of the refugees not even knowing from which part of the world their forefathers came from. They were all pseudo-Christians now.

But there was still hope for Tōji’s idea because there was another kind of minority that could be oppressed but could never die out. A social minority and a really specific kind at that. Yes, Tōji had the perfect plan now and laughed at himself for how funny it turned out to be and where it would lead him in his quest to find the dirty and sinful clubs he was after.

It was time to find the queers.

Notes:

Oh, yes. This is the start of Gay Icon Toji I talked about... last year. And yes, Toji will drag Benimaru to one of these queer clubs at some point. And that side character who bullied Shinra in training school will be in the closet while still going to these clubs but incognito. He'll get a crush on Toji.

In the meantime, I've written two one-shots for the JJK Gotcha for Gaza if you're interested.

This one is YutaMaki, where Yuta gets used to his superhuman girlfriend during a training session during the timeskip.

This one is Gojo and Megumi father/son bonding after Megumi finds out that he wasted so many thoughts and emotions on a father who had been dead for ten years while ignoring the one who was there the whole time.

Chapter 5: Meditation with the right music

Notes:

Guess what, I wanted to add a sex scene at the end of the chapter but there wasn't much time left after reaching nearly 5000 words. Which means that next chapter will be only about sex and I'm going to put some effort into that one :)

After too many months of slacking off on that front, Benimaru finally decided to get back into his meditation routine. He went outside to his backyard, looked for a sunny spot that wouldn’t be covered by shadows anytime soon and sat down in kiza position before closing his eyes and trying to relax. He needed a calm mind and body to start his meditation fully.

Buy it, use it, break it, fix it,
Trash it, change it, mail – upgrade it.

Beni let his chi (all right, his pyrokinetic energy but for meditation he’ll still call it chi) flow throughout his body before he breathed the first superfluous batch of it out. Since having a better understanding and control of it he didn’t need to do that often anymore – his fix-it technique for when his inner fire hadn’t been let out in a while and was building up inside his lungs until they started to burn. He let his energy flow out in bigger quantities during normal non-training days which solved his breathing-out problem on its own most of the time.

Charge it, point it, zoom it, press it,
Snap it, work it, quick – erase it.

But for his meditation, he needed to go lower than that, to normal human levels of chi, which meant that he had to push even more energy out. His body not only produced extreme quantities of pyrokinetic energy, but it was also able to contain a large amount of that as well which was too much for a normal pyrokinetic to handle. Usually, he only expelled what him uncomfortable but now everything in excess needed to go.

Write it, cut it, paste it, save it,
Load it, check it, quick – rewrite it.
Plug it, play it, burn it, rip it,
Drag and drop it, zip – unzip it.

So, with years of practice on that front, Benimaru relaxed and pushed his chi out, relaxed some more before breathing out more of it, then he stretched and loosened muscles, checked his clothes so they would be in proper order and breathed out his final batch of chi before sitting down in lotus position. The next part was to calm and slow his mind and body down to a near standstill of all its functions before he could start from zero with his meditation building on top with every breath he took in.

Lock it, fill it, call it, find it,
View it, code it, jam – unlock it.
Surf it, scroll it, pause it, click it,
Cross it, crack it, switch – update it.

First, he breathed out to get down to Zero, then he breathed in to reach his peace of mind. That was one part of his meditation, the other was to maintain that peace of mind.

Name it, read it, tune it, print it,
Scan it, send it, fax – rename it.
Touch it, bring it, pay it, watch it,
Turn it, leave it, start – format it.

Sometimes, you need to start the entire process from the beginning though. It happens. Benimaru had kinda forgotten his meditation techniques and how to perform them properly but that was nothing that couldn’t be fixed with the correct breathing. He was also out in the open with a cool late summer breeze blowing his hair calming him down. There were also the distant yet familiar noises that Asakusa made in this part of town that reached his ears and transported him to his favourite mindscape when meditating (which was coincidentally, this backyard of this part of Asakusa.)

Buy it, use it, break it, fix it,
Trash it, change it, mail – upgrade it.
Charge it, point it, zoom it, press it,
Snap it, work it, quick – erase it.

Sometimes, it took a bit more than breathing techniques though to calm down and stay calm for your meditation. Sometimes, your environment wasn’t suited to it after all. But Benimaru was a stubborn goat at the worst of times and when he said that he wanted to meditate right now, in this spot, at this hour, then he would do so because he had the physical and mental capabilities to shut off his environment and meditate everywhere he pleased. He was the Master of the Watch. He was the Strongest Pyrokinetic in the entire world! He could mediate wherever and whenever!

Write it, cut it, paste it, save it,
Load it, check it, quick – rewrite it.
Plug it, play it, burn it, rip it,
Drag and drop it, zip – unzip it.

Meditation! Breathing in and out! Meditation! IN and OUT! Lotus position! Asakusa noises! Fresh breeze! Late Summer! Meditation! IN AND OUT! INANDOUT!

Lock it, fill it, call it, find it,
View it, code it, jam – unlock it.
Surf it, scroll it, pause it, click it,
Cross it, crack it, switch – update it

No one can distract Benimaru from his meditation! He was the Master of Meditations!

Name it, read it, tune it, print it,
Scan it, send it, fax – rename it.
Touch it, bring it, pay it, watch it,
Turn it, leave it, start – format it.

…

…

Yes, as Benimaru thought just now, meditating was easy for him even though he was a little out of pract–

Technologic

“WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU LISTENING TO, YOU FUCKING WHORE!”

“They’re called Daft Punk, bitch! And stop screaming! Some people want to concentrate here!”

What followed that proclamation coming from a world-travelling prostitute aka Benimaru’s boyfriend, was that particular part of the backyard plus porch going up in flames and Tōji breaking through a wall of the Watch to tackle Beni before he shot into his new room where Tōji had put his CD player and newly brought clothes inside. What followed that was a street brawl that every hikeshi, trainee and even Kanao helped to put out by dousing the fighting pair with water through several hoes.

They needed to be fast about that before the neighbours tattled to other neighbours and passers-by. In less than five minutes a huge crowd could gather around the lovers and Benimaru, Tōji and Konro had all ordered that to be prevented at all costs. Konro had also ordered Benimaru and Tōji not to fight unexpectedly outside of their training schedule but the Lieutenant could only order around so many people and those two were definitely not among them.

Luckily, the fight found its conclusion fast with Beni’s hands in a death grip around Tōji’s throat. What looked brutal and concerning for those who had never seen it before was quite a normal sight for those who knew the tells of a serious and less serious fight between them. Benimaru wasn’t using any fire while Tōji was laughing at his boyfriend’s face and smearing mud all over it.

20 minutes later after a shower and shower sex, Benimaru wanted to go back to his meditation as Tōji had finally shut that despicable music off but one look at his burned backyard made him consider his plans for the day. Yes, he still had enough time to order his men (and future women) to clean that mess up while he went to the kitchen to get himself something to drink.

“Give me that,” he said to Tōji before grabbing his banana milkshake with milk-ice cubes in it. It was refreshingly cold and tasty as long as Benimaru ignored the fact that he was drinking milk.

“You get diarrhoea from that! Give it back!”

“I don’t get diarrhoea from this, where did you get that idea?” Of course, Benimaru hadn’t forgotten that day when they had their argument about milk but he did want to forget about his time on the toilet afterwards. “The poison commonly known as lactose is weaker than me and my digestive tract. Also bananas are my favourite.”

Tōji growled as his answer before turning around and making himself a new milkshake, this time with a fruit mix because he didn’t have any bananas anymore. Beni wanted to try that one but one glare from his boyfriend made him stick with his own. Soon, the pair left the kitchen and because he had nothing better to do Benimaru followed Tōji upstairs to his new room.

“We already had sex, why are you coming after me?” was the expected question from Tōji, after which one hikeshi was embarrassed quickly, turned around and took another stair to where he wanted to go.

“My favourite meditation location burned to the ground for some reason, so I have time to burn some time before I go back to it.”

Before Tōji answered him, he glared at him first. “You could’ve said that you wanted peace and quiet, I would’ve turned the volume of the music down.”

“I literally said to you: ‘Tōji, I’m going to meditate.’ What was ambiguous about that?”

“Your location maybe? Since when do you go to that spot to meditate? And since when do you need that much quiet to do it?”

“Your music was outstandingly detestable and I always meditate where the sun is the brightest and at this time of the day it’s the spot under the former window of this room.”

“Wow, should I have known that? You only meditate in the morning, am I at fault now because you decided to do that in the afternoon for the first time? At a new place? That I didn’t know about?”

Now it was Benimaru who growled but he had to admit, Tōji wasn’t wrong about what he said. For Beni, meditation didn’t have a set hour but since The Fire, he did mostly do it in the morning before starting on his daily tasks and duties. So yes… Tōji was kinda right about not knowing about his sun-depended meditation locations when no one ever bothered to tell him.

“Okay…” So now Benimaru had to man up and apologize. “My bad…” At least they had sex afterwards though. “But you still heard me down there, so let’s say that mutual mistakes have been made.”

“You–“ Tōji ground his teeth before thinking about it and coming to the same conclusion. Yes, he did hear Benimaru under his window after he had told him that he would go to meditate. He hadn’t bothered to ask him what he was doing in that spot just like Benimaru hadn’t bothered telling him why he was exactly there, so yes: some miscommunication had happened on this day but look, they acted like adults about it.

(After going for each other’s throats first.)

Now that that was over, Tōji went over to the new hole in his room and shouted down to the workers fixing the backyard that they should better not forget his part of the wall. He got a resounding and afraid “Yes, Sir!” before he turned around and picked up his gun collection that had fallen to the ground from their hooks. Benimaru meanwhile was looking at Tōji’s clothes many of which were on hangers.

There was the kimono Benimaru had bought him last week for the next festival. The boyfriend of the Master of the Watch needed to clothe himself better from now on and that dark blue kimono with highlights that went from grey to gold was just perfect for that. And because he knew that after a while Tōji would feel stuffy inside a layered garment like that he also bought him a new yukata in similar colours he could change into. At some point though and not too early during the festival.

But then, after Benimaru was done admiring his skill in buying perfectly fitting and beautiful clothes for his lover, he saw other clothes on the side that still needed to be sorted. Those were Tokyo clothes but that wasn’t unusual, Tōji had bought himself some right from the beginning. What was unusual though were… the cuts? The outlandish styles? The garish colours? What the fuck was he looking at here?

Beni pulled one thin fishnet-like fabric from the pile because he thought those were women’s stockings but it was actually a shirt that would be extremely tight and see-through if Tōji were to wear it. Then he pulled out what he thought were knee-long pants for a young child but after he unfolded those he saw that they were pants made for an adult ass that only went down to mid-thigh length. Then he pulled out black shoulder-length gloves, then he pulled out more and more of those… those…

…whore clothes!

“What the fuck have you bought yourself?! Do you want to open your own club after the Tokyo ones weren’t for you? And is that club going to be a strip club? Or a bathhouse?!”

“Oh, please, I have no time or the patience to open my own club.” Tōji put his last guns on a table and went over Benimaru and the pile of… prostitute paraphernalia if one wanted to call it that. And Benimaru definitely did. “And no, before you ask, I don’t plan on wearing all of that. I just grabbed a bunch of stuff to sort through later. Didn’t want to do that 5 minutes before closing time especially when the owner looked like he was about to do his next drug fix.”

Benimaru could do nothing but shake his head. What was Tōji planning again? Even if he were to throw the most egregious stuff from this pile away he would still have plenty of things left over that showed skin and was tight and was… too sexy for him to wear! “I think you need to ask for permission before you saunter around in these skimpy outfits.”

“Like, your permission or what?” Tōji asked partly seriously but mostly jokingly.

“Yes, my permission because you can be the second strongest fighter in all of the world as much you want but the moment you walk around in this–“ This being the extremely short pants that Benimaru held in front of the proper and multi-layered kimono which made their size and fabric difference comically huge. “–your reputation in all of Asakusa will go down the drain in a heartbeat.”

“Are you saying,” Benimaru did not like the grin on Tōji’s face, “that I can walk around in those hot pants when you officially give me permission to do so?”

Fuck, Beni hadn’t been clear enough with his formulation. He looked at the “hot pants” again and tried to imagine Tōji walking around in those… through the Asakusa streets… in full view of everyone else… with the fishnet shirt? He gritted his teeth thinking about that but as it turned out, his consternation was for a multitude of different reasons the first of which was his pride. This was a Tokyo whore outfit and not an Asakusa one.

Second were those freshly born feelings of embarrassment of his boyfriend walking around like that… but he could get over them at least, he was sure. He was the Strongest, Tōji was the Strongest, they could shape the entire world to what they wanted but the other and protective side of Benimaru didn’t want Asakusan culture to be changed drastically, so Tōji shouldn’t actually be able to walk around freely like that without getting scorned. Why did that man constantly put his love for Asakusa to the test in that weird thought-provoking way?

The third reason why Benimaru was against this skimpy outfit being worn by Tōji was because the thought of others seeing him in that and finding him sexy infuriated him. Everyone was allowed to find him sexy but no one was allowed to find him sexy in sexy clothes except for Benimaru. Now that he visualized and categorized his feelings, he only needed to express them and his thoughts in a productive and understanding fashion while meeting Tōji halfway and compromising with him.

So Benimaru threw the hot pants at Tōji after setting them on fire, and then he threateningly put a finger up to point in his boyfriend’s direction.

“Just so you fucking know, if you want to walk around like a whore then you will do that in Tokyo and not here and I will be the one to decide which of these pieces of filth you’re going to wear and which not!”

A grin stretched over Tōji’s face while he lazily swatted the literally hot pants away that came flying at him with the back of his hand. “Do I need to show you how they look on me first before you make your decision, Waka?”

“Yes.”

“All right, fine by me.”

So that was it. A successful communication with his boyfriend over a sensitive matter. Yes, Benimaru was good at this boyfriend stuff; he was a good boyfriend who explained his boundaries and accepted his partner’s wishes to meet him halfway. He should get a medal or at least a blowjob for his mature relationship skills.

“Good.” Now Benimaru adjusted his uniform and tried to gauge if his men outside could’ve heard them but they were busy hammering what sounded like 100 nails a minute into wooden planks so their conversation had been safe. “I think after you sprang that filthy clothes business on me and me dealing with it so well, I should get a reward for it.”

“I didn’t spring anything on you; you followed me to my second room and rummaged around my stuff but sure. At least that explaining the filthy clothes business is over now.” Benimaru was already getting excited with Tōji agreeing to the blowjob but… there was still a hole in the wall. Still, they could– “No. I still have to sort my stuff and my guns and you have meditation to attend to. And we also did it already 20 minutes ago. The full yard even.”

“Then it would be no problem for you to do it again.” At Tōji’s unimpressed eyebrow, Benimaru relented after a big sigh. “Just to remind you again, you were the one who made me into a sex freak.”

“I’m not a god, I can’t create something out of thin air that wasn’t already present.”

“Tt.”

An hour later, Benimaru was back in his backyard again. He had brought a wooden mat with him to sit on without getting the freshly ploughed earth on him. The sun was still shining and would be warming him for at least two hours, so he had enough time to start and finish his meditation. With the correct mindset, correct position, and correct breathing techniques, coupled with expelling his excess chi out and without any abnormally bad music playing in the background, he was quick to reach his equilibrium and calm his mind and body.

(For a few minutes, that “Stuff It” music tortured him again but he managed to banish it from his inner ear. Then those filthy clothes assaulted him but he put those into his mental trash bin. The hot pants he had burned crawled out of that though and cried about why he didn’t have Tōji put them on first before setting them on fire (preferably while Tōji still wore them so his ass could slowly come out). Before those hot pants could become an issue though, Beni managed to put them back into the trash.)

After 20 minutes (longer than it should’ve taken,) Benimaru was finally meditating. His mind and body had become one and his chi an extension of both. He felt the flow of his energy inside his body better than ever before and his senses correspondingly were finer and more sensitive as well. The movement of the sun was his only guide of time and the entirety of his backyard and parts of his house and the street were his domain.

He changed from feeling everything with the energy he let go from his body to feeling every foreign energy, movement from the air, vibrations on the ground, smells of existing things, and sounds reaching his ear after calling his energy back. It was a feeling of freedom for him, where he could intimately sense his environment through various methods. With his pyrokinetic energy knowledge, he also found the necessary vocabulary and ideas to explain and understand the foreign energy signatures that constantly appeared everywhere around him.

Not long before the sun reached a place from where a shadow would be thrown on Benimaru, meaning that his meditation would soon be over, Tōji came to the backyard. He was still such an anomaly in Benimaru’s perception and no amount of pyrokinetic energy fine-tuning and mastery would ever change that.

Benimaru could feel the vibrations from Tōji’s walk to a pile of wood that was once their old fence. He could smell the shampoo he had used during their shower that wafted over to him through the air. The sounds he made, however small they were, were also intimately familiar to Beni. But when it came to sensing Tōji’s body with the extension of Benimaru’s senses – his energy – there was nothing. Nothing but a negative space occupied by one alien man.

Benimaru had long since accepted that though – accepted him even when it sometimes felt like he wouldn’t be able to ever come truly close to Tōji because… where would he get closer to when there was nothing in front of him sitting on burned wood? But just as Tōji started to talk, Benimaru discarded his lacking observation of his boyfriend. He didn’t need to see and feel everything about him. That wasn’t how they worked and limiting his perception to only the things his pyrokinetic energy conveyed would be like trying to live with only his sense of smell.  

He also liked being surprised by Tōji all the time.

“The strongest cursed technique in my family is a summoning technique that uses shadows as its medium. The strongest summon in that technique has never been tamed before but witnesses to its power describe it as a god descending on you. You remind me of that being right now.”

Benimaru was still meditating but he was at the end of it where he slowly came back to fully interact with the living world again after being an observer of it for more than an hour.

“How come?” he asked Tōji, his eyes still closed and body still in lotus. Controlling shadows and summoning otherworldly beings to do your bidding weren’t concepts that existed in their fire-based power system. Benimaru was curious where Tōji saw any similarities especially right now while Beni was meditating and not at any other time.

“Because of the dharma chakra behind you.”

Benimaru was ready now to leave his meditation but Tōji’s comment had him keep it for a little while longer. It – his body in its perfect ebb and flow of chi. He still opened his eyes though, wanting to see Tōji while they talked about this but after the first rays of light brightened his vision, an old memory of his father came back to him.

In that memory, Benimaru had also just opened his eyes to the sight of his father sitting in front of him. They had been in the middle of meditation just like now and normally at the age of 12 there wasn’t much complaining from his father anymore about his form and concentration. During that time though Hibachi had his eyes raised while looking over Benimaru’s head.

“That’s not normal fire you have there and the shape is peculiar too. I would ask how you managed to create it but I have a feeling you won’t be able to answer me.”

Benimaru rolled his eyes at his father; give it to him to be his most encouraging self. That he was right and that Benimaru had no idea how to explain anything to him especially not when he had no idea what he was talking about, was unimportant. But getting thrown off his meditation by that question had him at least realize that something had flown around behind his head. Flown wasn’t the right word though, it had been something that was attached to his back and sat there like a tiny sun behind him.

Years later, Benimaru understood what his father had talked about and what Tōji was currently commenting on. Beni's chi expanded from his body during meditation, creating meridian pathways and extending his soul outward. For some reason, that extension took on the shape of the dharma wheel. Don’t let it be said that his deification in both the Buddhist and the Shinto communities came out of nowhere or only because he was super strong.

Now, Benimaru opened his eyes to see Tōji leaning his head on his pulled-up knee with a curious look on his face. He was looking at the wheel behind Beni which at his current age was not far from being as tall as him when he was on his feet. Like always, the wheel’s centre was right where Benimaru’s head was, but unlike during other more specialized meditation and training sessions, the dharma chakra was less full of energy and didn’t have its corresponding fire with it. Even those were extensions of Benimaru’s meridian system.

Not many saw the difference between his normal fire and this expanded version of his soul. His father had seen it with one glance and Tōji now too.

“Does the strongest summon in your family walk around with this too?”

“Precisely. Directly over its head and the wheel has a function in its cursed technique, too. When it turns it means that it has started to adapt to its opponent’s techniques.”

“Sounds like a power that should be feared, especially when your world’s “techniques” can go really crazy.” His meditation was over now but Benimaru kept his wheel at his back. It had no real function other than standing there keeping his chi flowing. “There won’t be any ability coming out of this one,” he said in the end because Tōji had that half-evil grin on his face; like he was cooking something crazy.

“Are you sure?”

Benimaru narrowed his eyes at him. “Yes. I would’ve been the first person to sniff out any new abilities from my own abilities.”

“Weeeeell.”

Oh, what a statement. Now Benimaru was curious about his idea too.

“Have you tried turning the wheel?”

…but there went his curiosity.

“No? You see exactly how the dharma is constructed, how should I turn that around? Turning my head around a full 360° might be easier.”

“Is the half-god telling me there is something he can’t do?” Tōji got on his feet and walked over to Beni to inspect the fire construct consisting of Benimaru’s extended meridian network up close. He stepped to Beni’s side and put his finger on his neck before pulling it down along his spine going over the meridians that were under Beni’s skin. When he was at a point where the meridians went out of his body, Tōji stopped a few millimetres away from touching them.

A shudder ran down Benimaru’s spine. That felt awfully close for someone who didn’t have pyrokinetic energy that could touch him. Then again, Tōji’s body disrupted his pyrokinetic energy control, so what would happen when…Tōji put his hand directly on top of his energy pathways?

Which the fucker did immediately of course and the result of that came pretty fast too. Benimaru’s wheel crumpled after just three meridians were… not destroyed or cut but simply interrupted in their normal energy flow. He didn’t try to stop his wheel from falling apart so in two seconds it did just that. Benimaru stood up afterwards to meet Tōji’s calculating eyes head-on lest his boyfriend’s ideas get out of hand.

“Don’t think too much.”

“But I’m perfectly capable of doing that, unlike some others I know.”

“Stop thinking then. There is nothing constructive that could come out of your mouth.”

“Really? Then how about–“

“When you say turn your wheel–!”

“–turning your wheel.”

“Fuck you.”

Benimaru still tried though because of course he did. He had no idea how he should do it or if it would even lead to anything but because Tōji wanted it Beni spent a few meditation sessions every now and then to try to turn his dharma chakra around. It would take him more than a year actually but then he would manage that impossible task.

But in that process he would injure his meridians so catastrophically that he would bleed pyrokinetic energy out for weeks, rendering him sick in a way he had never been before. The massive amounts of energy he would lose wouldn’t just disappear though. No, those would attach themselves to a proto-infernal while it walked along the Asakusa streets to its destination in Tokyo near the Special Fire Force Training Academy.

There, it would turn its victim not into a normal infernal but into a fire demon that would attack the trainees of the Academy until it killed them.

Notes:

Yes, Toji in skimpy outfits because how else are you going to approach the queers? The checking out the filthy clothes part was a new idea that came with the flow of the story while writing this chapter. The part with Beni's dharma wheel otoh has been cooked up way back during those 2 or 3 nights when I created the entire story from scratch. I wanted to add that scene in Part 1 already but I either forgot it or the surrounding scenes didn't feel right. So here it is now with a preview to next year when that Oni created from Beni's PE attacks Shinra and Arthur while they're still trainees.

Will they survive???

Or will someone come and save them?

Chapter 6: Bonding Activity

Notes:

I think this is the shortest chapter I ever wrote for my Toji/Beni fics but it couldn't be helped. The week was hectic and for vaguely school related reasons I have to sleep and wake up early now. Sigh...

But for the beginning of this chapter, I tried to write about less than ideal attitudes people can have in their relationships. Like misogyny that kreeps up in various forms. I had to rewrite many sentences though because I couldn't get the words right. Let's say this is a more or less clumsy attempt at trying to write what I wanted to get across. With practice though, I'll write better versions of this in the future :D

Benimaru insisted on keeping his wardrobe in check and Tōji was happy to oblige. It was strange in a sense though to deal with that kind of… paranoia? Jealousy? Father instincts to prevent your daughter from becoming a slut? It wasn’t something Tōji had ever been confronted with; if at all, he saw it with how his female cousins were treated by their mothers and fathers regarding how to dress and act in public.

Tōji also got talks as a child and teenager, but those were about being a disgrace as a sorcerer and not applicable here. In normal non-sorcerer society, he saw identical attitudes to Benimaru’s, but again those were directed at women and girls, not at a 100 kg muscular man in his late 20s. But Tōji knew why he had to deal with this issue now; it was because of his boyfriend...

…and his abysmal social integration due to various reasons.

Any other man that Tōji would’ve started a relationship with in Asakusa would not have dared to treat him how you would treat a woman because of his obvious and bulging masculinity and age. Keeping her clothes in check; expecting to be socially higher to her in all situations; expecting deference during decision-making, and expecting to be always the top during sex because sexual positions reflect political and societal positions first before they were about pleasure... no one would just accidentally apply all of that to Tōji, but here they were.

Benimaru’s problem, when it came to things like this, was that his head wasn’t screwed on right while he was a child, something that only somewhat got better while he grew up.  His other problem was that he was the strongest person in Asakusa since he was young, after which his status only grew higher when he took the title of Master of the Watch. In short, Benimaru already had problems integrating into the society around him and his own physical power prevented him later on from experiencing things like the expected hierarchy of individuals inside various groups.

Because he was always the highest person in any group except when his father was around.

The guy straight up had no idea (among other things) that he was supposed to see men and women differently in many aspects of life – he also had a problem seeing the boundaries between groups of people and how they should be treated – which was why it was so easy for him to constantly talk to and expect things from Tōji that one would normally expect from a woman in Asakusa. He had never gotten the memo that you shouldn’t treat respectable men like women if you didn’t want to socially lower their status.

Of course, it got way more complicated than that. Add them being gay to the mix and Benimaru was sure that Tōji turned into a woman socially; something that was explained by his minimal exposure to Asakusan queer culture but Asakusan society that treated women less than ideally didn’t help there either.

If Tōji had been someone else, he would’ve been offended by this kind of treatment but in reality, he found it endearing because ten years ago he was in the same shoes as Shinmon Benimaru. He also had such a bad, and more importantly sexist, upbringing that he didn’t know how to treat a woman right. What he thought of as normal was abusive and what he thought of as good was the minimum of good behaviour at best or still abusive at worst.

Every time he thought back to those times, he couldn’t believe how his first girlfriend and wife had the patience and compassion to deal with him until someone passable as a boyfriend and husband came out at the other end. There had been something inside of him she saw and wanted to nurture… and even though it didn’t stick with Tōji after her death – much to the tragic end of Tōji’s fatherhood and however much he fucked up Megumi’s and Tsumiki’s lives – Tōji believed in what his first love believed in…

…so he was sure he could do that whole relationship thing once more in his life.

And if that meant showing his current lover some patience and compassion while he grew into being a good boyfriend instead of being a cross between a “you won’t go out dressed like that” father and a part-time misogynist, then so be it. Besides, Tōji had a front-row seat to see what the women here had to deal with and his inner feminist that started to grow slowly rejoiced at that.

So what to do with Benimaru now? The man was eying him suspiciously over dinner after interrogating him about his whore clothes again. Tōji assured him that he wouldn’t try to walk around in Asakusa in nothing but his spare red hotpants but he couldn’t resist making a quip about that.

“I mean, hotpants have way too much cloth around the ass. What I should be walking around in would be the fundoshi underwear, right?” Benimaru was deliciously narrowing his eyes at him, the spark of anger just in the air but unable to be lit because Beni was wearing that kind of underwear right now. “My ass cheeks can’t be seen otherwise. I need a tight. White. Rope that goes directly between them and nothing else. Wouldn’t want to disturb the sensibilities of the Asakusan people by walking around in anything other than a loin cloth, right?”

The soup inside the spoon Benimaru was holding started to boil while they held a staring contest over dinner. Tōji was all smiles however and deliberately turned his head away to end that contest while putting some meat on Hinata’s plate. Benimaru hissed hot air out between his teeth which meant that he had trouble coming up with a comeback to Tōji’s hot pants/ass-free underwear comparison.

“Wearing fundoshi,” was what Benimaru finally tried. “Is about practicality. Your ‘hotpants’ are a fashion statement.”

“Really?” Tōji just shook his head at that subpar retort. “I think I can do a lot of practical things in my hotpants. They’re really useful for yard work or pushing stuff around. No superfluous fabric to deal with and I would get a tan around most parts of my body, too.”

“Why bother with pants at all then?” Hikage asked confused. So they had managed to stop cursing in front of the girls but they had not managed to stop with the inappropriate topics yet. This one wasn’t so bad though. “How would you get a tan on your whole body with pants on?”

“That’s a good question,” Tōji said just to drive this argument further and bother Benimaru some more with it. “Now, outside of going fully naked and getting lots of people angry with me, I guess the fundoshi would be better again to walk around in because they have, you know, less cloth, especially around the ass which would be better for a tan. Right, Waka?”

Benimaru’s eyes were narrowed once more while Konro looked up at the ceiling in exasperation before pulling a wet tissue box from a nearby cupboard and wiping away the soup splatter from Beni’s table that came from his boiling bowl. “You will not wear Tokyo whore clothes in Asakusa,” was the grandiose finish to this funny debate at the end because Beni couldn’t think of anything else to say on the matter.

Tōji knew though that his last statement was genuine and not a throwaway line. Benimaru hated the Empire that much and couldn’t even stomach their way of clothing.

“What… have you two been talking about here in the last 20 minutes?” Konro finally asked as no one had bothered to tell him about any of this argument and why should they? They shouldn’t and couldn’t rely on the Lieutenant to bail them out of every relationship problem they had. Besides, Tōji and Benimaru had this one under wraps; they only needed to reach its endpoint, even if the road was a little rough.

And with what Tōji had planned for the evening, that road wouldn’t be rough any longer.

“We were just talking about the new clothes I bought. Some of them will get thrown out and Beni and I chose to do the couples thing and decide together which will stay and which won’t.”

“Ah.” As expected, Konro was first pleased to get a proper answer, then he became extremely happy about what Tōji had said just now. It was the ‘couples thing’, otherwise known as a romantic undertaking. “Oh. That’s good to hear! Doing things together and making decisions as a complete whole is what every couple should strive for.”

“Of course, they should.” Benimaru hadn’t stopped glaring at Tōji yet, otherwise he would’ve rolled his eyes at Konro. “Now bring me more soup.” He said to his boyfriend then, all authoritative and patriarchal.

Just this morning, Tōji thought how inept Benimaru was in his understanding of social dynamics and while that was true, sometimes he also deliberately pulled his inner misogynist and homophobe out just to make a point or annoy him with it. Today, Tōji couldn’t be annoyed by anything though.

“Of course, my dear Master. Would your Humbleness like anything else this evening?”

“Yes. A Milkshake.”

And sometimes – but you had to be careful not to miss it – Benimaru apologized to Tōji about a less-than-ideal thing he just said to him half a minute ago. Dairy products and chocolate were his go-to options to do that and again, Tōji found it endearing how Benimaru failed in his good boyfriend conduct but then tried to right himself immediately even with clumsy methods.

Experience told Tōji that in a few years, the both of them would stop being so abrasive towards each other and things like eating food Beni didn’t like but requested anyway because Tōji liked them would become a fond memory. He had lived through that once and he liked to imagine living through it again.

Tōji brought milkshakes from the kitchen for himself and Benimaru. Konro and the girls got another dessert and soon, their last meal for the day was finished and then… Tōji said goodbye to his friend and pseudo-adopted children after throwing them out of the house for the night. The Watch was now a no-go-zone for everyone except Benimaru and Tōji himself.

Because now some whore clothes choosing had to be conducted and that would not be a kid or adult friendly affair.

“What the-! Where is everyone?” Benimaru later asked confused after getting out of the shower. Looks like Tōji hadn’t bothered telling him about their evening plans that conveniently usurped their old plans of having a Company 7 meeting. He also didn’t bother answering him. He rather laid down on his futon he brought over from his first room to his spacious second room, while reading a BL manga and swinging his legs back and forth.

His naked legs, fitting his naked arms and his naked upper body. His lower body was not naked though because ill-fitting red hotpants were dangerously stretched over his ass. Tōji would not be able to do any yard work in them without ripping them apart after the second time he bent down but who cared? Benimaru wouldn’t allow him to keep those pants out of pure pride alone anyway. The question was if he would set them on fire like the other pair and if Tōji would still have them on while he did that.

“Is this supposed to be a joke?” Benimaru asked angrily and frustrated from downstairs while going from room to room. Tōji felt how a few minutes later a shot of pyrokinetic energy went upstairs to Tōji’s small room, the place where they normally had sex. Beni’s energy went still for a few seconds when it didn’t catch any anomalies though; Waka was obviously confused, but then a wave of his energy swept over the entire Guardhouse and only then did Benimaru find out where Tōji really was.

It was funny how he stomped his way up the stairs afterwards, so funny even that Tōji couldn’t read his story anymore. For show, he still held his manga in his hands while Benimaru loudly pushed his door to the side, screaming about the meeting they were supposed to have in 20 minutes.

“What the fuck are you thinking sending everyone away! The house should be full of my hike-…”

And there Benimaru’s composure went right out the window the same way his pyrokinetic energy lost its cohesion and started to fall towards the ground. Tōji on the other hand, kept his wits about himself and pretended to read on. “Hm? The monthly Fire Force meeting? Wasn’t that rescheduled to tomorrow,” he asked faking nonchalance.

“Yes.” Not that Benimaru believed him for one second. “I wonder who could’ve ordered that rescheduling?” Tōji wasn’t looking at Benimaru right now but he could hear how his lover’s muscles contracted and relaxed and how his teeth ground against each other while he unclenched his jaw. “It had to be done on short notice because just an hour ago I was asked if I wanted salted sardines for the meeting.”

“Huh? Strange.” Tōji was, of course, still swinging his clothes-free legs back and forth. “Normally Konro is way more responsible about your schedules and so on. He would’ve cancelled it two days prior at least.”

“Right? It’s nearly like someone other than Konro cancelled the meeting.”

“Really?” Tōji turned a page of his manga even though he hadn’t read a single word on the previous side just so he could pause their conversation for a second to annoy Benimaru. “But who could have the authority in Company 7 to do something like that? Shouldn’t it only be the Captain and the Lieutenant with that kind of power?”

“…you fucking–“

And that was the moment when Tōji’s hotpants caught fire because he reminded Benimaru that someone who was not part of Company 7, aka the prestigious and traditional Neighbourhood Watch, was able to just cancel their meetings without prior approval. As if that person was not only not part of them but also extremely high on the food chain even though they shouldn’t be on that chain at all. It was as if that person was someone right beside Benimaru and Konro, able to order the hikeshi around as they pleased. Even though that person wasn’t part of the Watch.

Even though he was only a maid.

“If you think that you–… don’t you dare to do that aga–“ But alas, poor Benimaru was unable to get angry about his authority being undermined (again) because Tōji’s ass was slowly getting freed from its fiery confines and Benimaru knew – since the moment he stepped into this room and saw their sex futon on the ground – what this entire thing was about.

The fire that slowly consumed his hotpants was just hot enough to warm Tōji’s balls but those two also thanked Benimaru for every thread that was coming loose now because those pants had been three sizes too small. Tōji still pretended to read while keeping a close feel on Beni’s energy which looked like it was just swaying around like normal but the concentrated pockets of it around Beni’s groin and hips told a different story.

“Fuck this!” Benimaru said at last and walked over to his irritating yet sexy boyfriend like a man on a mission. “You’ll get what you deserve!” he said knowing full well that Tōji would understand it in the exact way he meant it. And Tōji did… but he was here to be an ass about it to practice good relationship bonding with his one and only lover.

So right when Benimaru wanted to pull his bathroom yukata off to do some unspeakable things to Tōji’s ass, Tōji sprang to his feet, ripped his flaming garment off, threw it at Beni’s face and went behind a partition he had brought up from downstairs. Said partition was conveniently placed in front of Tōji’s wall of new and old clothes with the so-called “prostitution paraphernalia” in an easy-grabbing distance.

As expected, Benimaru nearly lost his shit but he had enough control over himself not to set the room on fire while blind. No, only what was left of the hotpants went up in a ball of black smoke but Beni was still ready to throw a fireball in Tōji’s direction after he was able to see again. He had his energy ready and formed, too but it all fell off his arms when he saw which partition Tōji had put into his room.

“…I can’t believe that you put my mother’s beautiful room divider in here!”

“What? Performance anxiety in front of Mommy?” Tōji was lazily changing into tonight’s first outfit for his catwalk while hiding his body from his boyfriend’s sinful eyes. “I always pegged you as a momma’s boy but don’t worry, I won’t ruin you too badly for her.”

“Oh, please.” Benimaru was forcefully trying to get his energy and himself under control after he realized what was happening here. Tōji still felt his impatience but also his rising lust and anticipation. When he looked over the partition to see what Beni was up to, blazing eyes greeted him before a dangerous grin stretched across his face.

“Let’s see then,” he said while slowly walking towards the opposite wall and slowly sitting down and leaning against it. “Which piece of fabric will get my approval to be worn on you and which will burn like the imperialists need to?”

“You can count yourself lucky that talk about murder and manslaughter turns me on,” Tōji said before stepping away from the partition and showing off his first extravagant and sexy outfit for the night.

Notes:

So next chapter will directly go into the sex part :D
Also, if there is a specific outfit you have in mind that Toji should wear for his *presentation*, tell me.

And up until 15 minutes ago I had accidentally written paraphilia instead of paraphernalia :O
Luckily that word looked strange enough that I looked at it more closely in my last edit :D

Chapter 7: Battle of Minds (and bunnies)

Summary:

Benimaru gets to decide which one of Toji's new "clothes" he gets to keep.
The show has a predictable end where both win but it's definitely Benimaru who loses it along the way.

Notes:

The sex chapter! And the rating that gets up!

Thanks to Liujiu20 who linked a phenomenal fanart that immediately found its way right into this fic including a link so that everyone can see it because my description doesn't do it justice.

“And? What do you think? Is this one exciting for our Highness?”

“…what the fuck am I supposed to think about a fursona?”

Benimaru was excited at how this evening turned out. The boring company meeting was replaced by his personal sex show. Okay, it was a few steps removed from a sex show as Tōji would only show off clothes and not sex toys and/or positions, but it was still close enough and sex would be happening either way. Beni’s heart was already heavily pumping blood into all his extremities.

If only Tōji hadn’t come out from behind the beautiful antique room divider dressed like a cross between a muscular slut and a rabbit.

“Why did you put bunny ears on?” Benimaru asked indignantly but he was mostly confused. That had to be some Imperial idea of what sexy was supposed to be because dressing up as animals was definitely not seen as sexy in Asakusa. Tōji, who had put some effort into presenting himself (what with his tight fishnet stockings dangerously stretched over his muscles and the black… suit-like thing on top that left his arms bare), glared at him now because the first part of his show was apparently a flop.

“Come on now! Don’t tell me the Playboy Bunny doesn’t mean anything here anymore!”

“That word doesn’t ring a bell and I find animals either tasty or annoying but not sexy.”

“Oh, but you know what a fursona is?!”

“Yeah? Those are humanoid animal spirits.”

Tōji gave him a very intense “are you bullshitting me glare” but Benimaru was undeterred. He relaxed against the wall he was leaning on, stretched his legs out and put one hand inside his yukata. Slowly a grin spread on his face while his eyes went over the non-bunny parts of Tōji’s outfit. Now that the confusion about that was over, he could appreciate the rest of it, especially the fishnet stockings.

“I should introduce you to our tailor. That thing was not meant for someone your size.”

“Ha.” Tōji had a short laugh before he pulled the bunny ears off his head and tossed them to a corner in the room. He did the same with the bunny tail that was on his ass but not before turning around. Benimaru wasn’t making a joke about their tailor because Tōji barely fit into that getup, especially around the part that went over his ass like underwear and connected with the top half. If Tōji still had his original weight from before his summer depression, he wouldn’t have fit in there at all.

Now though his boyfriend continued his show, his back still turned towards him but his ass on proud display. Tōji also went with his fingers through his long hair which fell back on his nearly bare shoulders one strand at a time much to the fast beats of Beni’s heart. Yeah, without a doubt, Benimaru was getting into this but he could contain himself for now.

“So, babe. What about the rest? We’re still doing our romantic bonding activity, right?”

“I like how that black suit leaves your shoulders bare for the most part but the underwear-like bottom just looks strange.”

“Figures when you don’t even know the Playboy Bunny. So what about–“

“The stockings stay. As long as they survive your legs that is.”

Tōji did some poses while they talked and if Benimaru had been more into the outfit he would’ve had trouble keeping his boner at bay. But he was good which pleased his ego because getting him worked up until he lost control was definitely one of Tōji’s objectives today. He would’ve still preferred it if his boyfriend changed in front of him and not behind the room divider of his mother though. Soon, the black suit flew towards the other bunny parts but the stockings went into a different corner of the room, right under Tōji’s gun collection.

Suddenly another pair of bunny ears and a bunny tail flew into the disposal corner. Looked like Tōji had one more bunny getup in his arsenal he needed to adjust now.

What Tōji wore next wasn’t a cohesive outfit but simply different articles of clothing to show them off. He had a grey jacket with many pockets and chains hanging off it over a fishnet shirt that needed some adjustments because it was obviously meant for a thin woman with big tits. His pants were ripped-up jeans with their holes haphazardly (at least to Beni’s eye) stitched together. The verdict for this one?

Benimaru did not care for the jacket and the pants were an eyesore and belonged to a beggar, so if Tōji wanted to keep it, he was under no circumstances allowed to ever be seen by an Asakusan with it. The fishnet shirt? Appointment with the tailor first thing in the morning.

All the clothes flew to their designated corners with the ones Benimaru didn’t care or was ambiguous about decided by Tōji what to do with them. He didn’t want to deal with the ripped jeans either, so they landed in the bunny corner. The jacket together with the fishnet shirt went to the approved stuff.

Many more articles of clothing were judged like this. Tōji would wear a few of them at the same time, and Benimaru would give his verdict but not before having Tōji show off all of their angles. Then Tōji would disappear behind the divider, throw the clothes this way and that and appear again with a new set some more of which would hopefully fall under what Beni viewed as sexy.

And many of those pieces of whore clothes he did view as sexy.

At some point, Tōji also started to layer them on top of each other, so Benimaru’s wish of seeing Tōji pull them off came true somewhat much to the detriment of his dwindling heat control. Tōji knew how to move his body while he removed a tight dress shirt just to show off a contraption underneath that consisted more of belts than cloth, and he knew to rotate his ass while lifting his leg to pull some baggy pants off to show off leggings he could easily wear under the kimono Beni had brought him recently.

“Something tells me you have experience in doing a striptease.”

“Maybe I’m just a natural?”

“Or more likely you did this at some point in your past? Don’t worry, I’m not slut shaming you.”

“Of course not, Shinmon Benimaru would never do that.”

Benimaru was this close again to lose control. That shirt consisting of belts… he needed to be the one to open it but no, Tōji had to go back behind the divider! With an agonized exhale of blistering hot air, he watched as the open belt shirt flew around the room to the approved pile. At least he had a second chance with that at some point in the future… but nearly none of the next set of clothes shown to him got approval after those belts even though Benimaru became more and more agitated.

The room had reached higher than normal temperatures at this point and it was solely Tōji’s fault. Benimaru could barely keep still while that ass turned around after his last display to show off the very last clothes for their romantic bonding. If Beni hadn’t been able to control his heat his cock would’ve poked its head out of his yukata 20 minutes ago, and if Beni didn’t have his giant pride telling him not to lose to Tōji he would’ve forgotten his heat control and pulled his cock out with his hands instead.

“I can hear your teeth from over here,” his cheeky boyfriend said from behind the room divider. If Benimaru hadn’t been that pent up by this point he would’ve said something in return but instead, he ground his teeth one more time. One leg was going up and down and he seriously wondered if he was allowed to burn the rejected pile of whore clothes just so he could do something productive with his energy.

“Waka, I have to confess,” was the next thing Tōji said, still hidden from him. The moment Beni had seen his mother’s divider in here he knew that Tōji only put it up as a guaranteed unsurmountable wall between the two of them. And he was right, Benimaru would never burn that but he would burn Tōji if whatever he said now was worthy of a fiery punishment. “I cheated.”

Taking in deep warm air, holding it for a few seconds and letting blazing hot air out again. Beni did that two more times before he deemed himself calm enough to comment on that particular phrasing Tōji used against him. The guy absolutely knew what he was doing.

“And how exactly did you cheat, you fucking whore?”

One amused head with only the eyes visible poked out from the upper part of the room divider, mirth basically following suit and spilling over. Benimaru saw one tiny pink bow tied to Tōji’s hair which he nearly set on fire but Tōji swatted his energy away without a care in the world.

“I secretly went out to Tokyo again.”

“…” Did he have to stretch his cheating joke to new lengths? “And what did you do in Tokyo?”

“I sniffed out a gay man.”

“…and what did you do with that imperial gay man?”

“I told him to bring me to a special place. A place that would satisfy my needs.”

…Benimaru was so fucking close to standing up, walking over to his infuriating boyfriend, and fucking his ass behind the room divider, all of that spurred on by sexual frustration, anger and jealousy. But he couldn’t do that because he knew Tōji was egging him on with how he phrased his secret little trip. This was a battle of willpower on Benimaru’s part and sheer annoyingness on Tōji’s.

“And? Were your needs satisfied? By your cheating?”

“Well, my needs have been satisfied but you have to know, I only cheated for you.”

Now Benimaru’s hands pushed against the wall and the ground so he could get up as fast as possible to fuck manners and fidelity right into Tōji’s mouth but he forced himself to sit down again, knowing that he nearly lost the mind battle against his maddening boyfriend. But he would win. And he would be rewarded with phenomenal sex for it.

“So tell me, Maid of the Shinmon family, what exactly was your cheating about?” Benimaru heard Tōji chuckle before his head disappeared behind the divider, already on the move to present his last assortment of clothes. Truth be told Beni didn’t think anything spectacular would come from that even if it was an entire full-body outfit considering the bunny one from before that failed to entice him.

How fucking wrong he was on that front.

This was nothing like the bunny suit.

This… this was…

“The cheating part comes from me deciding to put one more sexy getup to my whore clothes collection because that special oomph was missing, ya know? All the stuff until now was just hastily pulled off the shelves but this – for this one, I went to a seedy shop at the edge of the forbidden zones and I threw some hefty money at the owner and the tailors to get it done in my size in one day. What do you think?”

Benimaru did not think anything. He didn’t even hear what Tōji said just now. He was busy being utterly mesmerized by what his boyfriend was wearing and the only function his body was capable of during that moment was getting his cock to full mast.

Tōji was wearing dark orange gloves that went past his elbows with matching tights held up by a garter belt mid-thigh. What was that garter belt attached to? Benimaru’s last string of sanity apparently because he could barely look past the tights and gloves without getting an aneurysm. Tōji was wearing what Benimaru’s limited vocabulary could only describe as a thick swimsuit that was 100% not meant for swimming.

It was a deep orange suit starting from under Tōji’s arms with only thin black straps that went over his shoulders to hold it up, leaving his muscles all around that part of his body open to be stared at. Oh, but there were more muscles to be stared at as the suit had three giant and one small rectangular hole in it at the front.

The first hole was basically his underboob window. The second and third holes showed his smooth skin stretched over thick muscles directly under his ribs and his belly. The fourth and smallest hole was directly. Above. His. Crotch. (His belly button was hidden under the orange suit and a tiny pink bow.)

The sides of the suit flared out into more fabric looking exactly like its front including the holes. But those were mouth-wateringly stretched over his upper thighs to connect with the garter belt and the tights. The craziest part of the entire getup though… was the black fabric over his crotch that showed the exact shape and length of Tōji’s dick and balls.

…

“Oh, I forgot something!” Tōji said with extreme cheer in his voice while Benimaru was still rooted to his spot unable to move a single muscle and having forgotten how to breathe. “This one! I stitched the name on it myself!”

With deft fingers and a brain that still worked normally, Tōji put a fucking collar around his neck while Benimaru felt like his inside just melted off. The name on the collar? Benimaru. When Tōji also pulled out a chain from somewhere to be attached to the collar it was all over for the Master of the Neighbourhood Watch of Asakusa.

Later Benimaru would’ve no memory of how or when he rushed over to Tōji to fuck him. His entire world had shrunken down to Tōji’s body and his mother’s room divider, in other words, he had no control over any kind of destruction he might or might not cause in that moment inside Tōji’s second room.

Luckily his boyfriend was prepared for everything and met him in the middle of the room before anything important caught on fire but that also meant that Tōji was now the sole recipient of Benimaru’s entire pent-up aggression from the last hour. And of course, that was all by design.

Tōji and Benimaru always had the best sex when Beni’s fire was turned up to 120%. Which it was right now.

“Come here, you fucking slut!”

“Why should I? I don’t think you can handle me!” Tōji taunted him while laughing wildly. Benimaru nearly put his hands around Tōji’s throat but the collar with his name stared back at him and he needed to protect that piece of metal at all costs, so he pushed his boyfriend down by his bare shoulders instead.  

The heat from his hands immediately seeped into Tōji’s skin and muscles and it was only now – for the first time this evening – that lust and excitement were visible on Tōji. Benimaru’s sex-crazed brain had memorized that a long time ago; how his lover needed a rough touch to feel the thrill of good sex and by the Gods Benimaru would give him that now.

But the orange suit also had to be protected.

“You prepared yourself, right?! Pushed massive amounts of lube up your hole before I ever came here?!”

“No, that makes me sound like a slut!”

For that fucking lie, Tōji got a hand on his open chest from where Benimaru pushed extreme heat into him, so much that a normal human would’ve been cocked from the inside out. But not Tōji. He squirmed around instead, his breath becoming shallow and his face taking on a pained and heated look. When Benimaru used his weight and pyrokinetic energy control to physically push against Tōji’s chest as well, that was when his boyfriend started to squirm and hiss in masochistic pleasure.

“Is that al-“

But of course, Tōji would try to push him further than that. This dimension-travelling prostitute could not get enough punishment in one sitting, he needed to force as much out of Beni as possible when he had the chance while Benimaru’s fury was unlocked.

“Shut it! You won’t be saying another word for today!”

The floorboards creaked because of the force Benimaru was extending on it through Tōji’s body and still that maddening man managed to push one last quip out. “Make me!”

And Benimaru did. Against all of his usual likes and dislikes during sex, he went for a kiss to make Tōji shut up but again, it was one that would kill a normal human because of how hot it was. Tōji on the other hand just melted (metaphorically) into it. His eyelashes fluttered, his hands went out to hold onto Benimaru and his entire torso rose and fell trying to get away or get closer or both simultaneously while Beni trapped him in a way no one else on earth had the power to do.

When Benimaru was sure that his whore wouldn’t be speaking again what with his red and bruised lips, he lifted himself and grabbed Tōji’s hands to pull them away from himself. Only one man was in control here and that man decided that Tōji wouldn’t be holding him anymore. So the hands were off together with his yukata that got ripped off his shoulders because Tōji didn’t want to let go.

Normally, in case when they didn’t remove their clothes completely during sex, Benimaru still made sure that Tōji ended up naked. He liked it when his boyfriend was completely bare while he was still clothed; there was something exciting to that and he loved experiencing it. Now though, it was Benimaru who ended up naked while Tōji was dressed…

…but no sane person on earth would describe wearing that orange suit with giant holes in it as being dressed. No, no, no. Tōji was finally wearing something that perfectly showed the world what his insides looked like: A slut ready to be taken.

So it was just a matter of time before Benimaru had enough of leaving angry red hand prints on Tōji’s exposed skin at his front and belly while holding his hands up above his head. Now he roughly turned him around on his stomach to get to the real price he was owed after that dress-up show. The back of that suit also had gaps in the fabric but those were smaller ones, not big enough to push his hands through to pleasure Tōji without destroying his suit.

So Benimaru was forced to go directly to his goal while Tōji was desperately taking in air and oxygen. He took his lover’s hands and bend them over his back while pushing one of his knees between Tōji’s legs to get him to move his ass up. Benimaru held that uncomfortable passion – uncomfortable for Tōji that is – and he even pushed Tōji’s hands and arms further apart while they were crisscrossed over his back.

The sight of his lover bent over in that outfit and his clothed ass the new resting place of Beni’s erect cock, was arousing but more than that it was satisfying to Benimaru to have this much power over the one man in Tokyo who could kill him. Now, with Tōji starting to give off moans that were half screams, it was finally time to end this.

He was loath to do it but the bottom half of that orange suit needed to go so Benimaru could access the hole he was promised for today. Interestingly, (or more like predictably) the black underwear came off easily from the back part of the best whore getup Tōji could’ve come up with. Now Benimaru was looking at the ass he came to be obsessed with in his lustful moments and that for good reason.

It was a big and firm ass that promised untold pleasure with how physically perfect and strong it was. Benimaru had half-expected a butt plug to be inside of it, not to stretch the muscles beforehand but to keep the lube inside but no, Tōji simply kept his sphincter closed for the last hour after he had filled himself up to the brim.

Some of that lube dribbled out now but Benimaru got angry at seeing that because it meant Tōji still had his wits about himself to control his ring muscles perfectly.

SLAP

That was the brutal sound of a hand on fire hitting the biggest muscle in the human body. That sound repeated itself a few times in the Guardhouse this evening among the louder and louder cries of one Fushiguro Tōji. Benimaru changed his hands doing the hitting a few times, never once leaving Tōji’s hands unattended, so both of his ass cheeks could get that delicious new red shine to them.

All until he couldn’t keep his ass closed anymore. All until the lube inside of him dribbled out uncontrollably.

At Benimaru’s last slap, Tōji’s insides contracted so much that some of that lube shot out of him to land on Beni’s chest and there was no better signal on earth that an ass (the literal ass but also the personality attached to it) was ready to be fucked. Beni closed his eyes for a few seconds to enjoy this moment before the finale; then he opened them again to push inside Tōji without warning and with a single thrust until he physically couldn’t get deeper.  

Tōji screamed. So loud the neighbours probably heard him but Benimaru didn’t care as it was like music in his ears. And so, without fanfare but with Tōji’s gloved arms in a hard grip pulling them backwards to keep his sex toy steady, Benimaru rammed himself with all his might into Tōji repeatedly while letting his heat and energy flow wildly around and inside of himself.

He let them flow wildly inside Tōji as well and so it was no wonder that his lover was the first to come on that day even without being touched.

And that was just the first time for him.

Notes:

While writing this I realized that I don't have the necessary english vocabulary to describe sexy clothes so apologies for that :D
If some of my beautiful readers want to remedy that, just write a few sentences of Beni watching Toji in sexy (or not sexy) stuff and I can add them in later.

Next chapter will be massive plot again.

Chapter 8: A Child's Affection

Notes:

This was a really slow week for me, just being tired in the morning, during midday and in the evening, so an entire section of I wanted to write was cut unfortunately. Looks like I need to get a new Vitamin B12 shot in my ass 😤

Anyway, some Toji reflection about Megumi and Tsumiki.

Tōji watched the rain fall while he leaned against the side of a window, his cooking forgotten for now.

Rain was a rarity in Tokyo in this age; early autumn the only time you could experience it regularly. The smell of it was all wrong though just like the feel of the droplets that landed on Tōji’s hand when he wanted to catch some of them. They tasted strange, too; ash was mixed into them, just like ash was mixed into every square centimetre of soil around him.

Gone were the times when he could taste the sweet smell of wet earth after an entire day of hopefully non-acidic rain. Now everything tasted, smelled, felt and looked wrong. And no one outside of himself would ever know and experience that.

Soon, the rain stopped and sunshine shone through the thin clouds. The weather report said tomorrow a small shower would come again. Fine, Tōji thought, isn’t important. Dinner was important though so he went back to it while cutting fish, however, his hand slowed down more and more until it completely stopped before he put the knife away.

It was one of those days… when Tōji felt so homesick his mind wandered to places that didn’t exist anymore, like that early spring day in Sapporo where he had walked around a dirt path beside a forest when sudden rain and hail had him soaked to the bones until he reached the city again. Thinking about old scenery was still the good part of this melancholic feeling though… because if he wasn’t careful, his shadows would grow until small hands tried to reach out of them.

“For fuck’s sake…” So if these sad and nostalgic feelings were already overrunning him, couldn’t Tōji at least not fear them getting worse? He would actually love to think back to Megumi and Tsumiki every day but instead, his brain would get on high alert because it was sure Tōji would crash if he did that too often. So now Tōji’s homesickness presented itself with memories of solitude instead of memories where he played with his children.

It was frustrating to be afraid of remembering them.

Tōji forced that moment of bitter emotions to pass by going back to cocking. Soon, the image of melting child faces was replaced by hungry but happy Asakusan faces that would greet him in an hour. It was the only thing left on his mind but the wrong smell of wet earth and the moving shadows on the walls didn’t leave him.

“Do you two want to go shopping with me?” Tōji asked Hinata and Hikage later. They were about halfway done with their main dish while the grown men already had seconds.

“Yes!”

“But only if we get new hairclips!”

Tōji avoiding the girls at all costs had faded into distant memory but he still didn’t go out of his way to spend time with them either. The biggest affection he showed them was making their favourite foods and dessert though one could argue that teaching them to not be cute little bastards who cursed left and right was also a form of affection.

“I’ll give you some spending money for them,” Konro said, happy Tōji was getting out of his child-indifference phase. Of course, Konro was also happy about throwing money at Tōji he had trouble refusing. It was logical that Tōji wouldn’t have to spend his own money on his employer's children, so his high ethical standards regarding that (which only sprang into existence when it came to Konro) had no excuse not to accept the extra 50 En.

Benimaru nodded his head at Tōji’s afternoon plans, his only acknowledgement of the unusual event. He might’ve reacted a bit more but the guy was too dense sometimes to understand why big changes in the behaviour of others occurred and what the implications of it were. After he had some time to mull it over, Benimaru would probably ask Konro for clarification and then Tōji himself with tactless aplomb.

“We need some groceries and new bedding and while we buy those we can go through other shops as well. When you want something just tell me.”

“Okay! But why do we need new bedding?”

“Because nearly of those we have are ol–“

“Because you and Waka burn or rip them apart all the time when you go to your room to wrestle?”

Out on the streets of Asakusa, several eyes widened comically before they either turned to the side or stared blankly ahead. Still, either way, all of them were accompanied by mirthful giggling the moment Tōji wasn’t looking in the direction of the person those eyes belonged to anymore. Luckily they were still close to the Watch because their neighbours were used to… the girls’ blabbering mouths, Tōji’s presence and Tōji’s and Benimaru’s love life that got spoken about at least once a week when… when something broke or burned again because of it.

“No. I’m not speaking about my bedding, I’m speaking about yours and Konro’s. Those are old and need replacing.”

“Ahh… and did you get money from Konro for that as well?”

“No, not for small things like that.”

The girls were too young to question Tōji’s urge to spend his own money on the Shinmon household even though he was an A+ bastard when it came to earning and keeping it. He wanted to do something good for those around him and he felt like using his hard-earned money for that (okay, most of it wasn’t hard-earned or earned at all) was good… karma? Good for his mental well-being?

Money or the lack thereof was always something that accompanied him during his darkest times and was the main factor for why he accepted Shiu’s job of assassinating Amanai Riko. When he spent it now for people other than himself it felt like he cut off a curse that still clung to him.

So he bought much more than simple bedding and some groceries that evening. For some reason, he couldn’t get his mind to tell him that this new cushion or that new cutlery was enough. No, he was in a ridiculous spending mood which may or may not have been influenced by his homesickness from before or… it may have been influenced by Hinata and Hikage being there with him, too.

Sometimes, when he didn’t look at them head-on he saw Megumi and Tsumiki walking beside him. Tōji wasn’t beholden to all his moods and emotions anymore though; the moment he realized what was going on with the every-disappearing money in his leather wallet and the shadows in the corner of his eye, he could’ve stopped that with pure willpower.

But he let it go on because unlike during other times when his dead children were on his mind, he didn’t get anxious because of them. As it was now, with the girls running up to him every 30 seconds to show him something else they wanted to buy, he could think about his son and daughter with a relatively calm mind… and some love in his heart that didn’t hurt as much.

Later he went home with a few bags and baskets too many but it wasn’t like he had trouble carrying them.

“Did you go out with Hinata and Hikage because you miss your children?” was the predictable question that came from Benimaru when Tōji and the girls were finally back. Tōji had to give it to his lover though, he wasn’t tactless when he asked that. Just a few months ago for a question like this, Beni would’ve loudly added the fact that his children were dead but of course, old habits die hard and the moment Benimaru saw the shopping bags he went right back into being a shithead.

“What the? Did you try to make up every year they’ve been dead with how much presents you bought the girls?”

“These are not all presents.” Besides, giving Tsumiki and Megumi gifts was the one thing he always did. When he was there. “I simply decided to replace some old stuff around the house.”

“Right. Like the stuffed toys and dolls that were in serious danger of falling apart this week and needed replacing by a dozen new ones.”

“You joke but if it weren’t for me the girls would still set them on fire while roleplaying ancient myths.”

Melancholic and tactless boyfriend worked together then to put all the new stuff (mostly belonging to the girls) into their designated places. The bedding that had tears in it was put together to be sent to the tailors for reuse and the numerous new toys, hairclips and other hair accessories for the girls were neatly arranged in their room on their desks. Benimaru even brought a new desk from the storage because they didn’t have enough space for all their small belongings anymore.

Hinata and Hikage begged the two of them to do their hair even though their bedtime was just around the corner and while Tōji would’ve given them a definitive no Benimaru was as always way more laidback and just sat down with a comb in his hand. Not to be a total ass in that moment, Tōji also sat down and made the hair of Hikage while Beni did the hair of Hinata. 20 minutes later, those two were decked out in a fashionable hairstyle with accessories which they immediately showed off to Konro before the old womanizer went away for his special visits.

Eleven minutes after that they were fast asleep in Benimaru’s arms who had without protests caved to them wanting to sleep in his bed.

“Why don’t you just have them move into your room when they already sleep with you every second day?” Tōji was grading the latest hikeshi-school tests when Benimaru finally managed to come back from being a pillow to his pseudo daughters. His boyfriend’s severe side-eye at the papers in front of him didn’t deter Tōji in the least.

“It’s not like I let them stay there the entire night. I still throw them into their own beds when they’re asleep.” Benimaru’s use of the word ‘throw’ was only half a joke. “If you want to make them stop doing that, don’t expect me to help you. I have no problems with it.”

“Yeah, I guessed.” Tōji marked the current paper in front of him with a red pen, a colour they normally didn’t use in the Guardhouse which was all the more reason for him to pull it out. “Really want to see you do that when they’re older and have husbands. Not like anyone could stop you or them from sleeping in your bed so it’ll be fun to witness.”

“…husbands?”

The funny faces Benimaru was making right now. Apparently, he had never thought about his children's future, so he went from confusion to understanding to consternation and finally to… contemplation? Tōji probably watched too many American movies in his life which was why he expected something like fatherly anger about this subject but he should’ve known better as Beni rarely got angry when the Empire wasn’t involved.

“I’ll have to ask Konro about dowries later,” was his conclusion to Tōji’s funny side comment.

“Starting early with the negotiations, hä? Just make sure that their respective lovers have to pay the same amount.”

“Yeah, yeah but now let’s get to you. What the fuck are you doing with the written exams of my men?!”

“And women!”

“Who allowed you to do that? That’s Shinbeita’s job!”

“Well.” As was Tōji’s way of riling his boyfriend up, he made a tactical pause in his talking while marking even more parts of the test he was grading with red before he resumed his explanation. Benimaru was just on this side of literally fuming. “I asked Shinbeita if he wanted to give them to me instead of wasting his time when he had better things to do. And he said yes.”

“Just like that?”

“Are you expecting me to have threatened him? Or was he not allowed to delegate his duties to others to free up his limited time?” Finished with one test that seemed more red than black at that point, Tōji grabbed another to show just how badly Benimaru’s recruits were doing.

“I think I should make a rule about that actually. Only people part of Company 7 are allowed to grade these things.”

Another paper full of red went to the pile.

“I won’t stop you from doing that of course, Waka.”

“…give me that!”

Benimaru didn’t go for all the papers to prevent Tōji from finishing his extra task for the evening. He only grabbed one of the graded ones to see what his future men (and women) were getting so catastrophically wrong on a simple test on the laws of Asakusa. He was expecting some severe misunderstanding of their legal system or maybe how the female recruits were doing worse in this test because they only had two months to prepare for it… but the answers were mostly okay-ish to good which begged the question: why was half the page marked in red?

“…you seriously crossed out all the kanji that have been written wrongly?”

“Yes.”

“You even marked grammar mistakes?”

“Absolutely.”

“You even marked words that have been written in hiragana as wrong because it should’ve been written in kanji?”

“The hikeshi need to be operating on a high literacy level, right? To represent Asakusa.”

“…you fucking…” Benimaru wanted to get fully angry at Tōji for the way he went over these tests but there was one problem with it. Konro. Tōji had marked these papers in the exact same way as Konro would’ve done it. He even had a test from a few years ago on the table to orient himself on how to do this Konro-style. Only the red marker instead of an equally black pen was an added touch to his grading process.

“…you fucking bitch…”

“That’s why I’m here, honey.”

In the end, Benimaru stormed off to the kitchen to let off steam and prepare tea for the both of them. When he came back he sat down beside Tōji and looked over the tests himself. He needed to know how the recruits were doing and who needed some pointers before they failed the half-year-long schooling phase. After that, they had another half a year to show their skills inside the Watch both in organizational tasks and especially in combat and defence against infernals.

It was a calm evening between the two of them even after Benimaru asked Tōji if he went out shopping with his own children as well.

“While I was a single Dad, all the time. Couldn’t leave Megumi alone. After marrying again, I left that up to my wife but we did go out on family trips a few times.”

“I guess the world back then was more exciting for trips than it is now.”

“It was but you could also pack the girls on your broom and visit the surrounding islands. You might find the ruins of old Japanese cities there.”

“I just might do that.”

But only after he was sure his men (and women) were able to take care of any infernal attacks for at least half a day, like the one that came about 30 minutes after Tōji had finished his grading. He flinched when he heard an alarm bell to the south, which was the first clue Benimaru had on the new emergency before the bell close to the Watch was also rung.

“I’m going to try some things on that infernal. Maybe I’ll find a way to prevent spontaneous human combustion.”

“Good luck.”

With Benimaru out of the house, Tōji cleaned up here and there before writing a message to Konro congratulating him on his latest visit to his precious prostitutes, which he hung up on his bedroom door. He also wrote down that with the new sheets he could finally invite them over to his home but Tōji knew Konro would never do that. If at all, he would invite his lady friends to his own forgotten house somewhere seven streets over.

After that he wanted to go back to his room and sleep but before he realized it his feet had brought him to Hinata’s and Hikage’s room instead. He didn’t open their door to look inside as there was no point in that. He only came here for the… atmosphere those two provided. An atmosphere of childlike wonder and innocence he wished he could revisit in another place and time.

But his mind and his heart and his subconsciousness were at war with each other again so he left that hallway amongst the shadows that tried to reach out to him.

Notes:

In Toji's next chapter he'll train with Kanao and treat some tephrosis.

Benimaru on the other hand will go to war with the proto infernals.

Chapter 9: A Proper Goodbye

Notes:

A section of this chapter is written as if the author is still in university writing term papers.

I apologize 💖

Because a proto-infernal walked past them, Benimaru left the training of the recruits early. It appeared mostly as mist in humanoid form to him, as tall as either a teenager or shrunken grandma or grandpa. He ordered one of his senior men to take over the training, then he started to follow that being made of pyrokinetic energy.

More than with his eyes, he felt that thing in his gut just like he had felt them all his life while growing up. The visual aspect was a nice touch though and a measure of how well Benimaru had perfected his energy control. When he could see the fine lines those beings consisted of, he would know he was on the same level as Tōji in that aspect of his perception.

For now, he followed that walking mist and tried to make sense of it. It did not, he soon realized, come from the hole to hell behind that one butcher’s shop he went to with Tōji once. As far as they knew, these things took a direct route to their destination so if the person who would soon be turned into an infernal hadn’t moved around from one end of Asakusa to the other in a short time, the proto-infernal had crossed the border from the Sumida Ward.

With supreme annoyance, Benimaru remembered Tōji’s words on how dealing with the gateway to hell in Asakusa alone wouldn’t amount to much because the proto-infernals didn’t stick to borders. If they ever solved this problem, they would’ve to share and coordinate with Tokyo on it.

An aggrieved ‘fine’ was all Beni could think of directed at the Tōji that lived in his head rent-free (unlike his real boyfriend who did pay rent [with his body]) before he stuck his hand into the proto-infernal.

It evaded him.

No, that was what Benimaru had previously thought when he had crossed paths with these ghosts. Now his understanding of pyrokinetic energy was better and his control finer so he felt his energy push the energy of the proto-infernal away. It was the same as if he had touched a real shoulder where his flesh hand wouldn’t just phase through it; it would push the body away because they both consisted of matter.

(Benimaru could, of course, push his hand through a shoulder. That was a different kind of situation though and not applicable here. Not yet at least.)

Tōji had described his encounters with these things differently. His hand did phase through the energy being without resistance, the same as when those beings would go through walls. Not that they did go through walls often because they actually followed roads a pedestrian would walk on. After Benimaru “touched” the proto-infernal a second time and after that thing got pushed away once more, he could’ve sworn that a head turned towards him.

Was it looking at him now? Would it recognize him? Would it try to communicate?

“Hey, Waka! What are you doing?”

It walked on without Benimaru getting any kind of answer which was why he shot fire at the proto-infernal next. The first one went through it but for the second one, the being went to the side. Another evasion, this time a proper one. This meant Beni’s fire had to have an effect of some sort but maybe it wasn’t because of the fire itself but the pyrokinetic energy inside of it.

“Shit, shit, shit! Waka, did you have to set my pants on fire with that?”

Benimaru concentrated his energy and without any fire or heat shot only that. This time though, there wasn’t an evasion; his energy bullet went through the proto-infernal in what should be the right lung area. It definitely stopped though and probably turned around to look at Beni… so he shot another energy bullet at it. Up until now, everything that Beni could perceive from that being in terms of movement was in the normal human range; the speed it walked forward matched the frequency of its steps for example.

This time however… it slithered to the side to evade Benimaru’s bullet as if there had been a treadmill under it.

“You ruffian! Why are you deshtroying the cobble shtones willy-nilly!”

Benimaru blinked his eyes and bothered to acknowledge his surroundings for the first time since following that thing. His citizens were out on the streets, going on with their normal day-to-day life as long as they weren’t victims of his random pyrokinetic attacks. He viewed the ground ahead of him where there was indeed a hole in the cobblestone; his energy bullet had been stronger than he wanted it to be.

Benimaru put his hand on the head of the six-year-old with missing teeth who just chastised him and ruffled his hair.

“You spent too much time with an old person, I can tell.”

“My great-grandma ish not old! And you should shtop deshtroying thingsh before I call Tōji!”

Beni didn’t know if he should roll his eyes or feel affection for his boyfriend for making such a good impression on the young and destruction-unfriendly people in his town. The proto-infernal was on the move though so he pushed that debate to a later date.

“Waka, do you want some tea?”

“I’m on a mission right now, so I don’t. Stop bothering me, this is an important experiment.”

“All right, Waka! Good luck with your experiment!”

With his hands full of a teacup with green tea, two onigiri and one candied banana on a stick, Benimaru kept on following the proto-infernal while still shooting energy at it and doing other experimental stuff. At some point, it occurred to him that Tōji wouldn’t have done the same as openly as he. He would fear the people seeing him as some kind of nutcase if he started to interact with the air around him. That was not a fear Benimaru had of course because his nutcase allegations had come and gone when he was still a child with a speech impediment.

Now nearly everyone was worshipping him. Tōji should try the same.

They could tell the people about the proto-infernals and Beni wasn’t against that idea but then everyone would start bothering him about it and he just barely got accustomed to being bothered about his relationship with Tōji, so a secret duo mission it was.

After less than half an hour of following, touching and shooting energy and fire at it, the proto-infernal started getting faster without an explicit change in its movements, signalling that he would soon reach greater speeds and then its victim. Benimaru didn’t realize it at first, but his heartrate shot up at the thought of what would come next.

Until then, Beni managed to observe many different and some extremely confusing things from proto-infernal. He had a possible explanation for some of his observations, but for others, he definitely didn’t.

1. Generally, the proto-infernal followed pedestrian walkways and avoided collision both with objects and people in its way.
2. But sometimes, it did go through objects and even entire houses. Most of the time the objects it crossed were movable things like stools and karts someone pushed around in the street. Going through the houses was another pattern though.
   1. It took seeing that twice until Benimaru realized the difference: the houses the proto-infernal walked through were newly built on a new ground plan. Last year, there would’ve been a street going through them.
3. The proto-infernal had human and non-human reactions to being pestered
   1. Human reactions included turning around, going left or right and one time even staying still and doing what Beni could only describe as trying to talk.
   2. The non-human reactions were unnatural movements in all directions that didn’t fit human motion. When they came upon a small crater Benimaru had made in his fight against Tōji, the proto-infernal took one step into it and then levitated at abnormal speed to the other side before slowing down again.
      1. While jumping over the crater himself because he feared he would lose that thing, Benimaru realized how his pyrokinetic energy was still trapped in the ground.
   3. The last observation was about the people the proto-infernal encountered: pyrokinetics and normal humans.
      1. It avoided both but at no point did it ever lose sight of the existence of humans unlike with houses it thought were still streets.
      2. It reacted the same to the pyrokinetic energy of others as it did to Benimaru’s: with collision (no one else was able to feel). When avoidance didn’t work out, it was pushed to the side.
      3. When avoidance didn’t work out with normal humans, their bodies phased through the proto-infernal though it made sure that contact was as short as possible.

There was a problem with the last point: Tōji (from what his boyfriend had told him about his own encounter with them.)

From everything Benimaru had observed, the proto-infernal was always aware of humans, regardless if they had pyrokinetic energy or not, even if it couldn’t prevent them from going through its energy body. So why was Tōji a ghost to them they couldn’t perceive at all? Because of his special constitution that negatively affected cursed and pyrokinetic energy? That didn’t seem like it made much sense though; as far as Benimaru had seen it, the proto-infernal didn’t use pyrokinetic energy to feel normal humans out, so how could there be an interaction?

What was the difference between Tōji and non-pyrokinetics? His dimensional travel?

Maybe he was invisible to these things because he was alien to their world?

Much to think about so Benimaru would love to delegate that thinking to Tōji and Konro later. Now, the proto-infernal looked like it reached its destination… a gathering of a senior book club inside a backyard. Thankfully, the proto-infernal went through the front door of the house attached to it, which gave Beni some time to warn the people…

“Hello, Waka. Would you like some tea and rice cake?” someone asked him, probably the house owner to be a good host. Benimaru’s eyes swept over everyone to see whose stature fit the proto-infernal. It wasn’t an easy task though because they were all sitting on benches or stools, so Benimaru jumped over the low fence to… stop what was going to happen?

“Not now because I have reason to believe that one of you will turn into an infernal in the next minutes.”

This book club meeting was a joyful gathering up until Beni said that. After that, everyone was confused and looked around to see if someone had an idea of what was going on. Benimaru could understand that reaction because predicting when someone was going to die from spontaneous human combustion just wasn’t a thing. It was unheard of except from old tales of charlatans who deceived the masses for personal gain.

The people knew to take Benimaru in matters of pyrokinetics seriously though, especially after his fight with Tōji. That trust in his abilities soon turned into grim and even curious acceptance that one of them would die. But who? With a look inside the house after opening the patio door, Benimaru found the proto-infernal “sitting” on a non-existent chair. From what Tōji had told him, the proto-infernal he had observed also acted like it was a real person and sat down on that teenager’s chair for a few seconds.

“When you hold your club meeting inside the living room, which one of you normally sits under that moon kanji calligraphy?” The only clue Benimaru had on who the infernal was going to be, was hoping that the proto-infernal had the same habits as its victim.

“Oh, that’s my favourite spot!” said an old man enthusiastically before remembering why Benimaru was there. “Ähm… are sure about that infernal business? My children are working or at home right now. And my grandchildren are in kindergarten. Some of them I haven’t seen in days.”

“…I’m not totally certain it’s going to be you specifically but someone will die.” Beni was always affected when his people turned and died in that brutal fashion, even when he didn’t show that outwardly. He thought he had a good grip on himself about that everyday tragedy but this new aspect of being there before spontaneous human combustion happened was a new kind of nerve-wracking. “Stand up and walk around a little, I need to make sure.”

Benimaru didn’t know how accurate comparing the walking gait of a proto-infernal in mist form with its potential victim would be or if it would even mean much at all, but old man Saki did walk like that energy mist as far as Beni could tell.

The proto-infernal looked like it put a book down before standing up and walking towards the door Benimaru was still in front of. The wood under Beni’s fingers splintered when that thing stood before him and went through the motions of opening the already open door. Benimaru though shut the door in its red mist of a face after which the proto-infernal just walked through it.

“Saki. Do you want to flee from spontaneous human combustion?” Benimaru asked tensely, his back to the people while he concentrated on his pyrokinetic energy. That thing wouldn’t be able to go through him.

“Hm, when you ask like that…” Benimaru was accustomed to his people being somewhere between blasé and even happy about becoming infernals because they didn’t fear death and welcomed being killed by him, which was a state of mind that didn’t exist like that just ten years ago. Now though the situation gained a new variable…

“Can you help me flee from that permanently? Or do you mean only temporarily?”

“…I don’t know if I can do either.” The proto-infernal slipped through the gap between Benimaru’s arm and the wall and leisurely walked towards Saki. “I can only try… if you want that.” Beni turned around to the man who would soon die, his heart uncharacteristically heavy. Saki sat down on his stool again and even before he thought about it, Beni already pushed his energy into that stool, ready to create fire under it to shoot it upwards for an escape attempt.

Tōji had been unable to escape from the speed these proto-infernals were capable of and no one on earth was faster than him.

“When it’s like that, then I’d only want to see my children again. To tell them goodbye.”

“…I see.”

Just like he saw the death of that man approaching.

Going up high in the direction of the stratosphere was the one escape attempt Benimaru could think of that had the potential to work (the gateway to hell these things came out of went down, so going up to what’s generally considered the way to heaven might be effective.) But that… wouldn’t help with Saki’s last wish. He wanted his family, not brain damage from too little oxygen before going up in flames.

Benimaru let go of his pyrokinetic energy inside the stool Saki sat on. Then he gritted his teeth while the proto-infernal walked towards the old man without anyone around him able to see it. Should he just leave him like that? Just let him become a victim of his fate? Was there even anything Benimaru could do? He was not at all prepared to have to deal with a problem like that…

“…fuck that thing!” So Benimaru followed his first instinct that made itself known right when the proto-infernal stood in front of Saki and stretched its arm out towards him. While leaving behind fire after every step he took, Benimaru marched towards the pair that shouldn’t be and forcefully grabbed the wrist of that proto-infernal with his pyrokinetic energy-enforced hand.

He had it. He actually had that energy-based being trapped in his hand. Which was something so unforeseen that even the proto-infernal seemed shocked when it “looked” at him. There was a problem unfortunately which crushed Benimaru’s desperate hope of his intervention working: the pyrokinetic energy of the proto-infernal was not bound by a human body…

…so it slowly slipped through his hold after losing cohesion.

“Fuck!” Frustrated and angry, Beni pushed out extreme amounts of his energy to surround and maybe even pierce through the proto-infernal to stop it. He lost some control of it though, just like he lost control of his fire after which many things around them started to burn.

“Waka, what are you doing?” Someone asked. Benimaru couldn’t answer because he needed to concentrate but with the next question, he lost control on that as well. “Is that your method of preven– wh-what is that? Waka, are you making that?”

Benimaru was confused about what the energy-blind grandparents around him could possibly be referring to, but then he looked at the moving and slithering mist before him and saw… that its hand, engulfed in Beni’s pyrokinetic energy, was on fire.

A purple fire showing the contours of an inhumanly stretched-out hand trying to reach Saki’s face.

Everyone was appropriately weirded out and shocked by that especially when that purple hand stretched even more to turn Saki into an infernal. Benimaru pulled it back to get the proto-infernal away but by then that being’s body had dissolved into a liquid-like state and slipped through every hole it could find in Beni’s energy cocoon.

Benimaru only managed to extinguish the purple fire before the proto-infernal touched Saki’s shoulder. After that one touch more followed until the entire energy mist escaped Benimaru’s grasp and settled inside the old man.

“Were… were you successful with slowing spontaneous human combustion down? Hey, did someone send a message to my daughter and sons? Maybe they can get here on-“

Everyone was looking around confused as they had seen their Master struggle with something invisible before a strange and fiery hand reached towards the one who would soon turn into an infernal. Then Saki, a good friend of many years to everyone around him, spat out ash in the middle of talking…

…and a hot fire burst out from his mouth, soon to be followed by fire from every part of his body…

But Benimaru had different plans.

Since he had known what spontaneous human combustion was, he always thought he could extinguish their flames before they came out. No one ever turned in front of him though, and even if they did the process was so fast he wouldn’t have been able to react in time to interfere. He could only extinguish the flames once they were fully out but by then there was no one to save anymore.

Now though, he was prepared and acted before it was too late.

Benimaru put his hand on Saki’s chest and stopped the heat and the fire in their tracks before they completely burst out of the man. It was not easy though; he was basically intervening in an explosion and unfortunately, he soon realized he was only slowing it down… Saki had first convulsed when he was about to become an infernal, now he was shivering because his body temperature was a victim to Beni’s failing attempt at killing his new inner fire.

“Saki! What’s happening?! Waka, is he – did he just turn into an infernal?”

“He…” Benimaru thought about it, he debated with himself on it, and in the end, he had to acknowledge it. “Yes, he just turned into an infernal. I’m holding his fire down but…”

Saki would not be able to live like that. He shivered and turned blue in his pain stricken face while he tried to grab Benimaru’s arm on his chest. Did he try to hold onto something or did he try to push him away? Beni couldn’t tell; the man didn’t have enough strength anymore to do anything with his arms other than hold him weakly. His friends stood up and surrounded them, asking what was going on and urging Saki to speak if he could still do that.

“My belly… b-burns…” was the only thing he managed to say though. Benimaru gritted his teeth once more and concentrated on his ultimate heat control but either it didn’t work properly on someone in the middle of turning or it was straight up impossible to control an infernals inner most heat. It wasn’t even hot! Benimaru had reduced the temperature of the heat – the fire – to 13°C and still Saki was burning to death.

“Alarm the hikeshi and get his family here immediately!” he screamed at the people and soon the infernal alarm was ringing everywhere around them and several people with small children were escorted by his men to this backyard.

“Fa-father! Waka, what is happening?!”

By that point, the heat in his belly Saki was complaining about showed up on every visible part of his body as thick black veins, ripping his skin apart. “It’s my time…” the old man said while ash poured out of his mouth like sand and smoke. It took about 15 minutes until his last family and other close friends arrived, a timespan where Saki was in much pain but he swallowed that down and concentrated on one last conversation and shaky hugs with all his loved ones.

When Benimaru decided that it was enough now, the old man’s body was more black than human flesh which had peeled off in small and huge chunks, including his eyes that had burned into his skull. One could argue that Benimaru just tortured the man by having him go through that but getting one last chance with everyone would be worth it for many who fell victim to spontaneous human combustion. It only had to end at some point.

“I’m going to stop now. You will fully turn into an infernal and then it’ll be over.”

“A-all… righ-t… thank you… so much, W-waka…”

Benimaru took his hand away from Saki’s chest and immediately fire burst out of his extremities which slowly spread over his entire body. Beni’s pyrokinetic energy was still inside of the old man and that slowed the transformation down for a few more seconds. Just enough for Saki to say one more thing.

“Walking with you… reminded me of… your rambunctious childhood… Benimaru.”

Then Saki’s entire body erupted in fire before a black infernal was visible under it. It just sat there though and looked around before Benimaru shot a concentrated fire blast at its core. Saki’s last action on this earth was lifting his arm and waving at everyone before his body crumbled to nothing but ash.

The people started cheering at his death as was their custom even when this human combustion was everything but spontaneous. They gathered the stools and benches and other wooden stuff, broke them down and threw them over Saki’s ashes to make a pyre for him, also made by Beni’s hand. A party was organized immediately and the sad goodbye turned into an event that was more cheerful than normal because there was a proper goodbye.

Benimaru was just puzzled by the end of it.

What did Saki mean with his last words? They did not go on walks together ever as far as Beni could remember. He didn’t know even know that man personally but there was something else, too. After the complete transformation, the infernal’s left wrist and hand was actively on fire. That was nothing unusual on its own, every infernal burned somewhere around their body, but in this case it was the left hand of the proto-infernal Benimaru had grabbed to prevent the combustion in the first place.

The other part of the infernal’s body that was burning was its chest in the right lung area, the same place Benimaru had shot his energy bullet at the proto-infernal. Yes, he had known and seen the proto-infernals behaving like the humans they would turn, and injuries they sustained on their energy bodies being transferred over to the actual infernals they would become was a logical conclusion.

But this was something else entirely.

Saki had memories of an event that had not happened to him.

So what exactly were these proto-infernals? And why did they have to cause combustion?

Notes:

For everyone who still rememberes my plot points thread for this fic: Beni's proto-infernal encounter will diretcly lead into Captain Burns investigating Benimaru and Company 7 on the grounds of murdering their own citizens with SHC. Can you understand how those two will be connected?

Next chapter will be about Toji's ongoing arc of becoming a teacher and healer of tephrosis.

Chapter 10: Finding Comrades

Notes:

Toji finally gets to dance a (semi) dirty dance with someone in a club! Benimaru approves!

...with conditions.

Tōji went out to Tokyo again to finally get into that lively nightlife scene. The gay nightlife scene to be precise because everything else was boring enough to give him a brain bleed. His outfit (approved) was carefully chosen to be just on this side of being slutty enough for others to lust for more (approved) with an additional heavy gold necklace that fell perfectly between his pecs (approval tending) plus chains around his boots that made distinctive cluck-cluck sounds every time he walked (definitely not approved).

“Haven’t seen you here before, comrade.”

“No wonder, was a long way to this place.”

Other bars, discos, and clubs in most of the Tokyo wards had a stamp system to track who paid at the entrance and who was young enough to have only limited options at the alcohol counter. This gay club did not do that for the simple reason that no one who came here wanted to leave with marks wider society might recognize as queer. In the same vein, it wasn’t uncommon for people to wear masks or wigs or to travel from one end of Tokyo to the other to minimize the chances of being recognized by anyone.

While living inside Asakusa, Tōji was able to ignore it most of the time but going out to Tokyo reminded him how 99.99% of the world didn’t exist anymore. The few million people living here were basically the only ones left to flourish in this world and consequently, most people knew each other more than before the Cataclysm. Getting outed would end up badly more often here than in Japan where you could at least try to skip town.

Where would a queer person try to escape now? Asakusa? (They did when they had the guts.) And how was the Fire Church dealing with these people? (Conversion therapy, military service, fire church admittance, banishment, etc.) But the biggest question was… what was this state doing about one gay Shinmon Benimaru, the strongest pyrokinetic in all of the world? It’s been months since the truth came out in Asakusa and depending on their spies the Fire Church probably heard of it a few hours later, so what was their reaction?

Nothing.

They were suppressing the fact their number 1 heretic enemy just became a bit more heretic than before. They were treating it as if it wasn’t an issue and because of Asakusa’s isolationist attitude and heavy stigma against cultivating good relationships with Imperialists, the Asakusans weren’t busy spreading the truth either. They weren’t even slighted by the Tokyo state and its people ignoring the sexuality of their leader. That was probably due to Benimaru being so strong he could do whatever he wanted.

Also, his male partner was the second strongest person in the world, so the Asakusan population, as heard by Tōji’s super ears, was riding quite high on its superiority train. They didn’t care what Tokyo thought or did; ants couldn't insult a tiger. And the Fire Church didn’t challenge that attitude either.

Oh, but Tōji could do some stuff on that front. Make it so that Tokyo couldn’t ignore the queer in Beni anymore. He could create a scandal, something big, something gay, something that would force a reaction out of everyone…

…or he could not create a problem for himself out of the blue. Those days were behind him.

Tōji had been able to hear the music they played in the club outside of it. It wasn’t loud at all, without his super hearing he wouldn’t have noticed it, but that was just the low-key nature these establishments operated under. The old building, or more like its first and basement floor where the club operated in, was nestled between other old buildings in a less-used shopping district with fewer residents to deal with. They only opened after sunset.

The inside of the club was moderately well-lit and open even between the floors, unlike that other club he went to where the lights were just two shades darker than the sun and the floorplan was that of normal apartments with an extra door between them. Tōji could clap his hands together in joy as his first proper impression of this place (opposed to his previous observations from the outside) was already leagues better than that last pseudo-Christian club he was in. The air was even as sticky as before everything went flames up.

“First-timers get their first drink on the house.”

“I appreciate that, buddy.”

“Buddy? That’s what my great-grandpa used to call me. Fun times.”

Tōji went to the bar first to acclimatize himself to this place and listen in on everyone before making any moves. As expected, the people were curious about a new (uncovered) face and he could already hear a group of women in the corner arguing about which one of them would approach him. He took the time until one of them came over to him to check out the people and their proclivities in here thoroughly.

Costumes of some sort were not rare but Tōji couldn’t tell what they represented except the odd ninja here and there. Something Tokyo-esque from the last 250 years which he had no idea about because he either spent his time with people who wanted to live 400 years ago or he spent his time with dusty old books in the archives (Tōji had visited that place twice since he got better and while he liked it there he didn’t see the need or urge to go there anymore.)

Masks over the eyes were moderately common but what was more common than that were the promiscuous outfits. He had not yet seen anyone dare to walk around in daylight with short skirts like that or necklines that went down to your naval together with unconventional parts of your body exposed like your inner thighs. Tōji wondered how many of these people had the Fire Force Nude Calendar hanging in their houses because he was sure no other form of printed nudity was acceptable in Tokyo without heavy backlash. Educational books were probably censored, too.

In terms of sexuality, Tōji wasn’t sure what to look out for because he got the impression that everyone expressed themselves differently in this day and age. He didn’t spot what he knew as the typical gay man gestures for example. He definitely saw some people in drag though, some others who wore androgynous clothes and at least one sharply dressed woman with the words “I fuck women from behind” sewn on her dress shirt. A few men were also eying him with appreciation while wondering how he does in bed, so yeah, Tōji found his place, he only needed to have some good fun as well.

But other sorts of people Tōji hadn’t thought of were hanging around here as well. Non-queer folk who were for a fun time as well. Some shady people were also doing criminal stuff in secluded booths but they were neither here nor there.

“We’ll remember a handsome man like you when you come again, comrade,” the woman who won the ‘Approach the Stranger’ competition said to him. Tōji got the feeling that “comrade” was this era’s way of denoting companionship among queer people and honestly… it was an all right term. It could’ve been worse, like fruit or bara, but however much comrade sounded strange to Tōji’s ears, at least he could laugh at the image of his grandfather turning into quicksand in his urn because the accursed communists apparently won.

“And I will come back when this place is as fun as I hope it’ll be,” was Tōji’s flirty (approved) answer.

“The dance floor might be the right place for you then. You came just at the right time for the party to be in full swing.”

Of course, Tōji chose the time to come here exactly for that reason. He stood up with some grace to flex his height (approved) and his muscles (not approved) before following the beautiful woman with Asian and sub-Saharan ancestry (there were probably not many people around who knew what that word meant) down a few steps to the open dance floor.

If Tōji had chosen not to dress as he did, he probably would’ve been ignored a bit more. But he knew what he was about and how to market himself to others (as gay and down for sexualized fun (approved)), so here he was, feeling about seven years younger while remembering the last time he went to the clubs (to find someone to rob.)

“Just a warning, I don’t know how to dance,” Tōji said, knowing perfectly well how to dance but his moves were a few centuries too old to not make a scene.

“Don’t worry, I’ll show you,” his new partner told him while taking his hand and leading him around other people dancing to a good spot on the floor. “I’m Hane by the way. Nice to meet you.”

Tōji knew that some people in these gay clubs used fake names for additional security, so he thought about doing the same. Then he concluded that he didn’t give a fuck but he still looked at the name registries anyway to make sure ‘Tōji’ wasn’t some extinct first name. It wasn’t but even if it was no one would’ve looked for him in Asakusa anyway. They might’ve even thought his real name was his fake name.

“I’m Tōji. Nice to meet you, too, beauty.”

“A charmer. How old-fashioned.” With a smile on her face, Hane boldly grabbed both of Tōji’s arms to get him to move his chest in tandem with the beat of the music. Then she correctly positioned his hands before doing the same and showing him how exactly he was supposed to dance with the entirety of his upper body. Tōji did an okay job while suppressing his desire to pull out his extinct dancing moves.

Then came the lesson on what to do with your ass and legs and Hane was not shy about turning around and showing off her daringly cut skirt. The motions she showed off were easy to imitate and Tōji was also not shy about turning around to show how good of a learner he was. They spent some time like that, the first dancing lesson with beginner moves, before Hane took the opportunity of the music changing to get closer to Tōji.

Close enough to touch and teach him an intimate dance.

“Ready for the second flame?”

“I’m always ready for flames.”

The next 20 minutes were spent with dancing that included more and firmer touches like handholding (conditional approval), waist and shoulder holding (conditional approval), spinning moves with bodily contact (conditional approval), shoulder-on-shoulder presses (???, probably also conditional approval) and finally, back-to-chest embraces while dancing (conditional approval).

What was the condition for all of these fun time escapades?

“Just so you know, honey, I’m already taken and my man can get quite jealous.” Blunt admission of his relationship status to everyone’s face who wanted to dance with or snuggle up to him.

“You just snuffed out so many embers, comrade Tōji.” Hane was first and foremost ecstatic about how openly and easily Tōji was able to talk about his gay relationship (while doing the hetero tango), but then she had to take a second to herself and close her eyes while she accepted her zero chances with him. While she did that, she put up her hand to signal something to her friends but it wasn’t only her friends who got the message; everyone who was looking at them dancing got it.

And even if Tōji didn’t have super senses, he would’ve still felt the collective disappointment of everyone who wanted a go at him. It wasn’t only Hane’s female friends, but also the gay guys at the corner, a few of the Drag folks, one of the three hidden bouncers who were stationed along the entrances to the club, a few dancers on the dance floor, the bartender from before and two criminals who were covertly negotiating their drug deals while playing skat.

Talk about snuffing out embers.

Tōji was living the life right now. If only they would give him money as well. Actually, he should charge these people for his attention. At another time.

With new purpose, Hane opened her eyes again and began to teach Tōji the next stage of dancing, something that would get the cops called on you if you did that at a normal dance party. And that was only level 2. After the teaching and dancing were over, Tōji went over to the bar again while Hane went to her friends to discuss his skills, looks and “old-man-charm” as she called it. At the same time, one of the men from the gay men's corner thought he was now next in line to be his talking buddy.

Which he was after he opened his greeting with:

“The next one is on me.”

I feel like a beautiful woman right now, Tōji thought while choosing his next drink someone else would be paying for him. During the times he went regularly to all kinds of clubs he got that treatment as well but only in small pockets here and there. Bold women who were more often than not foreigners wanted him around without waiting for him to make the first move. When he was a little younger and less muscled, older men regularly bought him drinks as well.

Now the dating pool for the queer and adventurous was even fewer than before so the people were just two degrees shy of throwing themselves at every new face.

(With the hope no police or someone church adjacent tried to trap them with engaging in illegal acts.)

“Tōji, right? I’m Negi. Heard you have someone already. You should bring him next time if you like it here.”

“I do like it here. There is so much more going on than in other places but I think I have to pass on bringing my boyfriend. He doesn’t like clubs and the like.” Tōji tried to imagine bringing Benimaru to this place. The guy would rather eat his food from the ground than do that. Tōji would need an intricate and months-long plan before Benimaru would even consider coming to Tokyo with him without destroying things.

“Sad to hear that but you’re completely right, the average Tokyo nightlife is a boring waste of time.”

“I was busy working in the fields since I was young and didn’t have time to go out. But now that I can, I go to a club only to get the urge to throw myself out of a window. That was definitely not what I imagined when people talked about the party scene.” Yes, Tōji cooked up some fake backstory to explain suddenly coming here out of the blue but more importantly than that, he could explain why his mannerism was so different to everyone else.

The agricultural sector was more Japanese-style traditional and labour-intensive which meant the people from there were less involved with the Fire Church or politics in general. Through trade, they also dealt with Asakusa the most which gave Tōji a good opening to bring the small ward up in conversation while having everyday Tokyo things he had no idea about explained to him. People loved to explain stuff to newbies and Negi was no different.

“Yeah! I have friends who come with me to red places on special open days because there you get an actual party and not a matchmaking dinner organized by your grandparents.”

Finally Tōji understood what people meant when they said “red places”! He was puzzled by that while stalking around and listening in to everyone. They called gay clubs red places… now either that came from the phrase “red light district” or the communists just got another win.

“Ha, like I said the matchmaking part is already over for me,” Tōji said to keep to his agreement with Benimaru. The people who wanted time with him needed to know he was taken. Repeatedly. He also loved to talk about his boyfriend though he did have to keep his identity a secret. “Fell head over heels for him after the first punch.”

“Punch as in alcohol? Or punch as in punch?”

“The punch that comes at the end of a fist.” Tōji was remembering his first training match with Benimaru all those months ago. Exciting times.

“Oh, comrade, you have no idea how that’s the story of love from half the men here!”

Tōji got into talking with Negi for a while and he used that time to find out more about the intricacies of the queer nightlife. Like how it wasn’t unusual for the locale to change within a year, mostly because they were issued eviction notices for one reason or another like residents complaining. Sometimes the ward also classified the clubs as hubs of “illegal deeds” which might lead to arrests being made on top of a permanent closure.

On the question if people did illegal stuff here (outside of the gay illegal stuff) Negi said underground residents liked to make dealings about food and water in these places. Before he could go into further detail on that, however, a friend of his sat down beside them and pulled the conversation in a different direction. The cop and priest allegations were still hanging over Tōji’s head and if he had been in their shoes, Tōji wouldn’t have trusted himself either. Good for them for being suspicious about one retired assassin.

Then the conversation drifted over to other topics like the latest local elections, some other politics, and the Great Fire from the beginning of the year after which they landed on the persecution status of queer people. Apparently, it had gone down in the last 10 years which was the reason why they could reopen their bars and clubs with (relative) ease and why they had days when they actively encouraged normal folks to join them.

The patrons of the older generation had been more homogenous (ha!) because of their forcefully closed-off nature. Nowadays, they were more heterogeneous (haha!) because they had the freedom to be more open. The timeframe this happened had Tōji thinking though… Benimaru had been declared public enemy number 1 not quite 15 years ago. Could it be that his presence had a ripple effect inside the Tokyo Empire's inner politics that had them ease up on one part of their population because they had worse things to deal with?

Possible, but it needed some research to confirm. But if it was confirmed it would be hilarious.

From there they managed to get to a topic that was close to every man’s heart: the Nude Calendar.

The first time Tōji had held that thing in his hands he knew that every man-loving person in Tokyo would’ve had an awakening through those naked muscles oiled and posed to be as masculine as possible. And that included the gay and bi guys everywhere. Everyone had their favourite picture of the month even from issues older than the guys themselves. That topic was even so ingrained in the gay culture here that all of Negi’s other friends also migrated to the bar to show off their favourite pics they had hidden in miniature format inside their wallets. Even the bartender joined by showing off his personally stacked-together 12-month calendar from the last 30 issues.

A young Captain Burns was in them and while Tōji found him attractive in his 20s as well he had to admit – after a decade of forgetting about it – that he had an old-man kink. White-haired and bearded Burns just did it way more for him (not approved).

All this talk about the old calendars inevitably led to the upcoming calendar that would come out in December in a few short months.

“So, did someone finally look into how they’ll divide the months up into eight companies?”

“I read it in the newspaper recently. The first eight months will follow the company numbers and the last four will be given to any company with the most well-received pictures in the first round. They’ll get to make or send in a second photo then.”

“Wait, does that mean the calendar will be sold in two parts?”

That was how a heated debate started among the men-having-sex-with-men group which was soon intensified by Hane’s women-having-sex-women group who came by. All heard something different about what would be done about the calendar. The bartender had to send them away to the lounge area because of how much space they occupied with their arguments that got louder and louder. Tōji didn’t even have to add much to that, he simply enjoyed his next free alcoholic drink in his beautiful woman era.

But after Tōji ended up on an old couch with one man and one woman at his sides who were about to start a fistfight with each other (they were married), someone asked a question that had all the arguments stop at once.

“Benimaru Shinmon will also be on the calendar, right?”

Wow, the silence was deafening before someone started swooning over the Captain of Company 7.

“No day passes where I don’t wish I had been trapped inside the Hanami Building as well! I only saw him from the distance while he saved all the people trapped on the rooftop but it was breathtaking! He looked so awesome! The sexy firefighter from your dreams!”

“That one photo of him from that Company 7 article months ago is on my desk so I can look at it every day. He just has this aura about him, somewhere between ‘I don’t give a fuck’ and ‘all the fucks are about me.’”

“I might just buy multiple calendars when they put him in there. I will definitely make sure C7 will win an extra month!”

The swooning about Beni didn’t stop for a while and Tōji had to keep his willpower up not to add something suspicious to the discussions. It was his sexy boyfriend (approved) everyone here was talking about but luckily the drinks kept coming so Tōji managed to hide his mischievous (or borderline murderous) smile at all times. He should’ve guessed that this would be the reaction everyone would have about Benimaru. You didn’t out yourself accidentally to not win the fruits – ähem, the comrades – over instantly.

But while Tōji was thinking that, he realized something important in all the discussions around him.

No one talked about Benimaru being gay or bisexual.

Did I mishear them? Tōji wondered before paying close attention to every word the people around him were saying but no, everyone talked about his boyfriend with the base assumption that he was hetero. In other words, the Tokyo Empire’s tactic of ignoring and suppressing, the news about Benimaru worked.

So much that the Tokyo queer community had no idea about it.

Tōji could change that now. This second. ‘Hey did you know? The Asakusan people talk about Shinmon having a boyfriend` but then Tōji got into thinking… he could drop that bomb on a larger audience, on people who had more trust in him and his words. Maybe he could even manage to keep that a secret until after the new nude calendar dropped?

This entire club would eat Benimaru’s ass up with the calendar and then Tōji would come and shatter their (mostly the men’s) worldview completely by revealing the fact that the sexy beast stuck his dick into asses and got a dick stuck into his ass as well. The strongest firefighter, the strongest person on earth…

…queer.

He could already imagine that moment. Everyone losing their minds over it! It would be magnificent!

It would be more magnificent and outright evil even when he ever managed to bring Beni to this little club…

“Comrade Tōji,” was said to him from behind the couch. Hane was leaning over his shoulder, her drink in her hand. “That is one dangerous smile you have there. Thinking about Asakusa’s top firefighter?”

“Maybe.” Tōji had to smooth his grin out with his fingers that was how much his last thoughts about giant reveals were making him cackle until he could barely control himself.

“Your boyfriend was the jealous type, right? Be careful there, not many can compete with the Heretic.”

“Oh, don’t worry about it.” There it was, his murderous grin trying to come back. A bit more of this and everyone would think he was a psychopath. “My better half knows how to punish me when I misbehave.”

“Hot,” someone from the side said, just about to fall into a daydreaming session. “And Hane, you’re completely right. ‘Better half’. He really has that old-man charm.”

Notes:

Using the word comrade for queer people just came to me while writing the chapter :D
Toji talking and flirting like a grandpa is also a spur-of-the-moment addition because I needed something to distinguish him from the others. My idea is that the Tokyo gays speak in direct words while Toji uses phrases and euphemisms. It's not perfect but funny.

Chapter 11: Marked Skin

Notes:

Gues which blindfolded sorcerer gets mentioned here a few times?

Benimaru once had a friend who vanished one day, never to be seen again.

Her disappearance wasn’t unusual; she had been sick and everyone thought she went to one of the doctors or houses that cared for sick and orphaned street rats like them. One couldn’t keep communications up that well when small and homeless and everyone disappeared and reappeared again a few days later.

Her dying somewhere wasn’t unusual either. Children living in the streets simply died at higher rates than others for a myriad of reasons and not everyone had an impenetrable immune system like Benimaru. What was unusual was how no one heard from her or her death. Asakusa wasn’t a big place and people talked. Not necessarily about their homeless children problem but definitely about the next homeless child that ended up dead again.

Therefore, the total disappearance of someone with no one having a clue about what had happened usually meant a crime had been committed and the body had been burned to ashes to hide it. It was also said that the Empire abducted children from Asakusa sometimes to force them into slavery. Neither of those things was true for Benimaru’s friend though.

He knew what happened to her because he had found her two weeks after she disappeared.

He just rather forgot about it.

Beni was six when his friend disappeared; with eight he found her again because he remembered where she liked to hide. He rather forgot that one as well. Later, he was adopted by the Shinmon family and not long after that, his beloved mother passed away from tephrosis. He lit her funeral pyre together with his father and watched her body burn for the last time before they put her ashes in the family columbarium.

Something strange happened to Benimaru back then. The memories of his friend came back to him but only in bits and pieces. He had suppressed everything that had to do with her disappearance for half his life which made him unable to process her and his mother’s death in the months after.

But slowly something came to him. It only happened deep into the night, in a half-asleep stage unfortunately but Beni did piece everything back together. His friend – whose name he had long forgotten – became sick. At some point, she went to her hiding place in a long-destroyed part of Asakusa but she didn’t manage to get out of there anymore before sickness took her life. No one found her until Benimaru but by then she had started to rot away.

That was not a sight Beni was prepared to see. Corpses decaying wasn’t a thing that existed in his six-year-old world because dead people were always cremated one way or another. Food could rot. Not children. So he forgot he ever found her and never went to that part of town again. Two years later, her disappearance came up among the orphaned but no longer homeless children because the Masters of Asakusa had put effort into getting the children off the streets.

Benimaru remembered her hiding place then and wondered why he never went there to look after she disappeared. So he went there, found her skeletal remains under the staircase he found her the first time and forgot about it again. Then his mother died and something shifted in his brain. Among all the things that were already not right with him, something new slotted itself to the something he forcefully forgot at six years old.

Shame.

Cremation was the proper way to treat the bodies of everyone who died. But because Benimaru had been so frightened by the sight of rot, his friend was denied that burial his mother had the honour to receive.

But he knew now what the problem was and that meant he could deal with it head-on; to give the remains of his friend their proper end. So he went back to that part of town, found her again under the staircase and used his fire to burn her bones. He would bring her ashes to the fields he promised himself so she could have the same grave as all the other orphaned children who had died in the last decades.

There was one problem though.

Benimaru was still half-asleep inside his home.

And instead of burning the ashes of his long-lost friend, he set his legs on fire and burned down his room.

---

They went out of Asakusa for their training, to a patch of land they weren’t using for crops this fall.   

They couldn’t stay in Asakusa for their fights anymore, not only because the Watch’s backyard was too small for them since they had escalated their way of training, but also because spectators would crawl out of every crevice known to man to pleasure themselves while they ogled their bodies. Or so Tōji said.

“Stop describing my citizens like that.”

“Tell me I’m lying.”

“Tt. Nobody does anything while in public.”

“Translation: You have neither super ears nor super eyes.”

Benimaru threw Tōji a glare while they divested themselves of unneeded clothes to start their match. Beni put his uniform jacket on a tree and Tōji did the same with his newly bought yukata (he had been on a spending spree again). Because his boyfriend never wore anything underneath his robes, he stood now half-naked before him with simple trousers and sandals. Benimaru on the other hand had his uniform and Fire Force-issued work boots on and he had to say (not out loud though) that they were better than their previous ones.

It was officially autumn now and the mood of the Asakusan people was high even though their harvest wouldn’t be good this year. The same was true for the rest of Tokyo but fears of food shortages were low. Yes, some staples would be rationed and Asakusa’s Master of the Treasury had warned everyone their imports would be more expensive now, but still, the people loved to be alive.

Because their Waka and his Mistress were watching over them.

Outside of a moral boost that also meant Tokyo wouldn’t dare raise their prices abnormally high as they had done various times in the last two hundred years when they had similar problems with food production. That was how much the imperialists feared him, Shinmon Benimaru, and it would stay that way.

“You know the gays I met; they like you extremely well even though they don’t know about your non-hetero lifestyle.” Tōji began their match with a right kick that immediately turned into a low and then a series of spinning kicks after he got down to the ground with his hands and started to turn around.

“And pray tell why they would do that and why I should care?” Benimaru was prepared for the first kick but the continuation of them so low to the ground just puzzled him. Every time he thought he could get close to his own attacks, Tōji surprised him with another turn and kick with his feet even when he stopped his full body spin just to turn around in the other direction.

Tōji going for a series like that was normal but usually, he did that with kickboxing or taekwondo. Finally though, after that whore got back up to his feet and started moving in a rhythmic stance, Benimaru recognized the style he was fighting in: Capoeira.

“They feel kinship beyond their queerness with you because you are deemed a sinful heretic by the Sun Church just like them. That’s what people call solidarity of the suffering.” Tōji used more than one fighting style of course but for today he decided that capoeira would be the base for all his attacks even if he used judo grips, karate throws and boxing punches. Everything went as long as it had a rhythm to it. “You might want to care because they’re the people of your enemy who are on your side.”

“Hard pass. There is not enough anal sex in the world to fuck the imperialism out of you.” That rhythmic base gave Benimaru an advantage. He could anticipate Tōji’s attacks better like that but it came in tandem with every single hit being so strong they would kill a normal human. This setup was there as a warm-up and they both knew that even without discussing it beforehand. “If being gay wasn’t illegal, they would be your run-of-the-mill imperialist who wants Asakusa to disappear, preferably by show of strength and absolute subjugation.”

“You talk like sympathies with the oppressed is beyond the masses of the oppressor.” Tōji was slowly increasing his already abnormal speed. Beni was sure his boyfriend only had to replace the beat that was playing in his mind with a faster one to do that. The time to gear up and use his pyrokinetic energy and the heat outside of his body for his defences was coming closer now and Benimaru was prepared. “If you want to believe it or not, there are voices in Tokyo who don’t subscribe to their government’s way of politics and culture. I heard them.”

“Hearing voices and seeing that translated to action are completely different things.” Benimaru’s first instinct was always to take absolute control of any fire and heat in his vicinity to protect himself. That didn’t work on Tōji and only had minimal effect on their fight when he used it on the air around them. So to survive his boyfriend’s fists, hardening his pyrokinetic energy it was. “As if the Tokyo empire doesn’t know how to keep its people willingly on their side. They’ve done it since their conception. If Asakusa wants freedom, they will get it themselves.”

“Can’t argue with that.”

Their warm-up phase lasted about ten minutes where they slowly reached a level of fighting that was beyond 90% of all pyrokinetics on the Tokyo island. Every time their bodies made contact, a shockwave was blasted off, but even when they didn’t touch their fast movements still made sounds in various frequencies depending on how hot or cold Benimaru made the air around them.

This was their first proper training match since their fight many weeks earlier. They tried a less intense approach a few days ago at the Guardhouse but apart from the problem of their spectators, they just couldn’t hold themselves back to their previous level of training. They needed to fight the other so brutally that everyone in their vicinity was in danger of being ripped apart or spontaneously-human-combusted by Benimaru himself.

It was like finally seeing the world in 3D after only knowing it in 2D. Why even bother wasting their time on child’s play when they could dedicate their energy to improving themselves with sweat, blood and burns?

And for that, they needed a new place. Of course, their way of fighting still wasn’t compatible with each other, and it was more Benimaru who learned something new than Tōji who worked on getting his muscle mass back.

Surprisingly, their match made them pretty talkative with each other. There was no bullshit and other stuff like the teasing Tōji liked to put into his conversations. They were just to the point with each other, most likely because they used most of their brain power to concentrate on the fighting. It wasn’t as easy as just letting their fists fly loose though, they still had to hold themselves to certain parameters like no fireworks and no fighting in the sky.

“Give me your ideas on how to stop the proto-infernals,” Benimaru asked in the short seconds when he was close enough to Tōji without either of them making too much noise.

“Kill it,” was Tōji’s simple answer the next time an opportunity for talking presented itself.

“I’m not sure they’re alive enough to be killed.”

“Whatever they are, they exist and they cause human combustion. Like with an electric appliance, you either destroy the appliance or cut off its energy source.”

“Can you destroy energy?”

“Hhm…”

Their talking stopped at that point and a few minutes later they finished their first round of hand-to-hand combat. During their short water and lunch break, both of them were in deep thought. “Pyrokinetic energy that gets released without being used,” Tōji said picking around the bento box he prepared himself, “drifts down to the ground.”

“And these things come from there as well,” Benimaru continued with food in his mouth. “They’re not made from free-flowing particles though, they have a mind with which they control the energy and which they bring over to their victim.” He thought back to the man he had tried to save and how he seemingly remembered something that had happened to the proto-infernal and not him.

“Curses are made of cursed energy with a mind of their own. It’s said they automatically become sentient if enough cursed energy is released with a prominent negative emotion to guide it.”

“Is all cursed energy the same?”

“No, you can differentiate between them because they’re produced by individuals.”

Benimaru thought about that while chewing until he came to a conclusion. “The energy of the pyrokinetics is also different but I can’t tell if that’s the same for the proto-infernals. And if cursed energy and the curses are always produced by individuals then from where does the pyrokinetic energy under the earth come from?”

“And why does it go back there?” Tōji finished his bento before answering Beni. “Cursed energy is produced by individuals; curses can form through the cursed energy of dozens if not thousands of people. Could that thing under the earth be like that? Like a giant curse and the proto-infernals are its curse babies who periodically walk out of it to… find someone who matches them?”

“Ähh…” Benimaru’s mind was hard at work. “Wait, your cursed energy–“

“I don’t have cursed energy.”

“I meant your people and their cursed energy.” Benimaru had to roll his eyes at Tōji’s smirk. “You always had that power because it’s produced by something as fundamental as emotions. 250 years ago, pyrokinetics wasn’t a thing though. Pyrokinetic energy only started existing after the Cataclysm. So in a sense, our power was given to us. We still produce it ourselves but I guess their ultimate origin might lie somewhere else.”

“Like in hell?”  

“Maybe.”

Benimaru was thinking way back to what Konro had told them about his experience travelling to “hell”. He was sure Tōji did the same which brought up something interesting… or maybe concerning.

“You passed through that hell.”

“According to Konro.” Even while Tōji put some doubt on Konro’s experiences (the man himself wasn’t 100% sure on) he still flinched at the statement itself because what did that mean for him?

“You were on the verge of dying before you came here. A hole in your chest when I remember correctly.”

“That… truth be told, to this day I have no idea what happened there or how my wounds healed. When you multiply cursed energy with itself you get positive energy and you can regrow entire limbs with that when you’re capable enough. But pyrokinetic energy nor any of its applications can do that, so… I have no idea who or what healed me.”

“Couldn’t that Gojō guy have done that?”

“If his reverse cursed technique was so good, he might’ve done it but only to kill me a second time. So, it was someone else.”

“Wow, you really pissed that man off, huh? …and what the fuck was that about a technique reversal?”

Benimaru’s raised eyebrow was met by his boyfriend’s amused grin and a sentence that did not make a lick of sense to him. “Cursed technique reversal and reverse cursed technique are two completely different things.”

“What?!”

“Yeah, totally! Let me explain some things here.”

Any talk they managed during the rest of their training, they spent with Tōji explaining jujutsu to Benimaru. Of course, Beni was nothing but exasperated at all the crazy shit that power was capable of. Cursed energy and cursed techniques? Fine. They had basically the same thing. Curses that got created because of bad emotions? They didn’t have that, but the concept existed in their society, making it easy to understand.

But weapons infused with curses that not only have cursed energy but sometimes their own technique as well? And Barriers that create a separate dimension of space? Domains you can put your technique into after plucking it out of your body? Changing the polarization of your energy so you can get the reverse of your normal technique? Techniques that straight up defy the laws of physics? Techniques that – as the name jujutsu implies – were otherworldly? Were magic?

In this world, Benimaru was extremely unique. Not only was he one of the very few cases of someone being both a second and a third-generation pyrokinetic, he also had an immense energy reserve. His pyrokinetic abilities themselves weren’t the most ground-breaking but his entire package made him the strongest in the entire world.

Somehow he got the feeling he wouldn’t be that unique in Tōji’s world… that there would be more people on his level of power with even more who could place themselves there with pure proficiency of their techniques, cursed weapons, cursed energy reinforcement, and all the other stuff one could do with jujutsu.

How fascinating.

What was that foreign word he had read in one of their ancient books once? Wanderlust? When you feel the desire to go somewhere else? That was Shinmon Benimaru in this match; experiencing an emotion he had never felt before. He wanted to go to Tōji’s world and fight against its sorcerers; he wanted to find out how he and his world compared to that world. Most importantly though, he wanted to fight against him. The one who was victorious over his lover. The Strongest.

Gojō Satoru.

(If he ever went over to Tōji’s world, he would also like to see how his own world looked before everything burned down. The first thing he’d do if a journey like that ever happened though, would be to go to Tōji’s children and see how they’re doing.)

“Tell me: would I be able to defeat your rebirthing ‘Six Eyes’”

“Huh?”

That question threw Tōji so far off his game that Benimaru managed a full strike against his lower arm. Not only did that give Tōji his first proper burn of the day, but it also sapped away his will to fight more, even though they could’ve gone for a few more minutes.

“So, against Gojō…” Tōji stretched, massaged and scratched his muscles and skin while he looked apprehensive. He got like that sometimes during the handful of times they talked about the defeat that led him here. “You’d need a way to circumvent his Infinity first. With no plan against that, you can forget it.”

“Easy,” Benimaru said much to Tōji’s shocked face and raised eyebrows. He wanted it to come out more arrogant and self-assured though. He was too out of breath to pull that off, unfortunately.

“Easy? And how is that, Waka?”

“Can you see Gojō when he has his Infinity activated?”

“Yes?”

“There you have it.” Now Benimaru had his breathing under enough control to put some arrogance behind his words. “Light still gets through his ultimate defence, in other words, so does radiation and therefore that form of heat. I can cook Gojō alive if I want to.”

“…häh?” Tōji was another kind of shocked right then, the kind where his brain didn’t compute new information. But slowly it all came to him; Benimaru’s scientific explanation and his absolute trust in his own powers. “Wait a moment… yeah… yeah, you’re kinda right, actually!” With comprehension, Tōji’s bloodlust came as well and with his bloodlust came his – rare – murderous demeanour. “You would need more than that of course, he still has cursed energy reinforcement and can heal himself but you can tackle that easily with the proper plan.”

And Tōji was planning. For an event that would most likely never occur, he still stood there right in front of Benimaru. He once more concocted a plan to kill the strongest sorcerer on his earth, all the while looking like he thoroughly enjoyed the thought of killing another human.

A foreign emotion rose inside Benimaru; the second one today, right after his wanderlust to go somewhere that wasn’t Asakusa. This new emotion was several degrees more sinister though. Not something an ethical person would want to feel…

Benimaru wanted to see Tōji be that murderous on his behalf. He wanted Tōji to feel bloodlust for the killing of someone Beni chose. His homicidal assassin and lapdog, someone who would kill for him and have enormous fun while doing it…

The Holy Sol Temple and every other human on earth should be thankful Benimaru wasn’t a sociopath like that; that he was mostly content with the way things were because he was an isolationist with no desire for conquest.

They should also be thankful that Tōji stopped being an assassin who killed for money and lesser desires.

“I got an idea,” his boyfriend said at last but by that point, his demeanour was back to his normal cocky self. “When light can penetrate Infinity, then so can shadows.”

“Shadows? Like that important technique from your family?”

“Yes, the Ten Shadows Technique. It’s been many decades since a sorcerer was born with it but the most famous one fought the Six Eyes to a draw. I guess I have another piece of the puzzle on how he did that.”

---

When they got back to the Guardhouse, Tōji grabbed the first hikeshi he saw and ordered him to form a construction crew with other capable members of Company 7. What did he want? A well-built shack at the edge of the field they just fought on with a shower, a table, a futon, kitchenware and whatnot. Basically a place to relax and have sex.

Benimaru was just about to put the ultimate stop to Tōji ordering his men around. It couldn’t be that someone who was neither part of the Neighbourhood Watch nor an official citizen of Asakusa, had so much power over their strongest force. His men didn’t even protest anymore when Tōji told them to do something, their defiance having been beaten out of them by Konro’s maid a long time ago.

But when he heard what Tōji ordered them to do this time, he immediately agreed with the plan and forgot his anger at this particular behaviour of Tōji for the next months. Again.

“I still can’t believe this won’t scar,” Konro said later while he bandaged Tōji’s arm after taking care of the burn. “From your summer fight, I’ve seen these heal completely with my own eyes and I’m still amazed.”

“Yeah, but that’s only true for my normal skin.”

Benimaru had intimate knowledge of that. Tōji’s skin. The burns he gave his boyfriend from their serious fight healed up scar-less before Beni’s broken bones fused together; except on the part that Gojō Satoru had destroyed. Tōji couldn’t explain how he got healed but he was sure Gojō’s purple attack damaged his soul, which was why he had that circular and pinkish skin on his left side and arm.

That skin and everything underneath it from his muscles to his tendons and bones, was weaker than the rest of his body. Still incredibly strong in normal human terms but weaker than what Tōji should’ve been capable of. That was why the burns Beni gave him on that part of his body scarred. A little at least.

“Those scars give your body some character, more than just with the scar over your lips,” Benimaru said from the side full of snark and gloating. He was waiting his turn to be treated after initially wanting to do it himself. Konro looked at him with sparkling eyes and their medicine kit though and Beni lost all will to protest the mothering that would come now. He just couldn’t deny his friend this rare chance to take care of them; Konro had dedicated so much time and energy to Tōji’s care but now that his pseudo-ten-years younger son was better he missed it.

Missed being a full-time caretaker. It was so obvious even Benimaru was aware of that so yes, he sat there now and waited for his turn with the creams and bandages for the large amount of bruises he accumulated.

“You think my body doesn’t have enough character?” Tōji said while his yukata just randomly fell off one shoulder to show his muscled physique.

“Yes, I do think that.” And Beni was serious about that. “Without any scars to show, a man looks more like a bodybuilder than a firefighter.”

“Really?” Tōji asked with one raised eyebrow. “First, I did not miss how ‘firefighter’ replaced ‘warrior’ for you people here and second, you don’t have any scars yourself, you characterless bitch.”

“I thought you have good eyes, Tōji? Have you never seen my scars?”

“Scars? You!?” The raised eyebrow turned into narrowed eyes while Tōji looked at Beni’s face to find a lie. When he couldn’t he looked him up and down going through the memories of his naked body in his mind. “Wait, wait, wait!” Looked like Tōji found something. “You don’t mean your shins, do you?”

“Absolutely.”

“Are you serious? That little bit of shiny skin might technically be called scar tissue but that’s nothing! You need to have your eyeballs 4 centimetres in front of your leg to even realize that something’s there! And you’re always walking around in your heavy uniform pants anyway!”

“Scars are scars. There is no discussion on that and my uniform designates me as a firefighter already. I don’t need to show anyone my scars for them to see me as who I am.”

“…you’re bullshitting me!”

“And you – with your profession being that of a whore–“

“Beni. Mind the words you’re using.”

“Fine! You – with your profession being that of a Residential Cleaning Professional – are not designated as a firefighter so you need to show it through other means like with manly scars. Like mine.”

“You don’t have scars that could even remotely fit that description!”

“Are you sure? Are you really sure, maid? Have you ever thought about how I got scars on my legs? Their existence obviously means that I fought a great threat, one whose fire was hot enough to permanently burn me.”

Tōji stood still while thinking that through. Konro though was just shaking his head. “Are you talking about your father?” was the only conclusion he could come to but Benimaru couldn’t fault him for that.

“No. Even before I surpassed my father in strength, his fire was never hot enough to give me more than second-degree burns.”

“And Hibachi wouldn’t have ever hurt you enough to even risk scars! Beni, you make it sound like he tried and failed with that!” Konro immediately protected the honour of his old master but it wasn’t like Benimaru tried to put his late father in a bad light? He was just stating facts. “The real story on how he got burned that badly–“

“Konro, no. Let that whore think for himself.”

Tōji and Konro rolled their eyes while Konro finished tying Tōji’s bandage. He went over to Benimaru next, narrowed his eyes and ordered him to move his arms up. Even under Beni’s protests that he could remove his uniform and shirt himself Konro proceeded to do that for him because “who acts like a child, gets treated like one”.

“Was it Captain Burns who burned you?” was Tōji’s last guess on the matter and Benimaru could’ve laughed about that wimp supposedly being strong enough to do that but he couldn’t because Konro intentionally put his shirt across his mouth in that moment.

“Waka burned his legs himself when he was little,” Konro said without permission, ruining Beni’s big reveal. He didn’t even see the face Tōji was making now!

“Wha? Why? Was it a dare?”

“Konro! I wanted to tell him myself!” After finally being free from his own shirt, Benimaru threw a glare at Konro who expertly deflected it with one raised eyebrow. “And it wasn’t a dare,” Beni said to Tōji.

“…and what was it then?” Tōji asked because Beni didn’t feel the need to elaborate further.

“I just did it,” Benimaru said with a shrug of his shoulder, much to Tōji’s rising irritation.

“You’re bullshitting me again.”

“That’s the truth. It just happ-“

“Benimaru had an episode after his mother died. Her death reminded him of an early childhood friend who died without any adult noticing. It spooked him as a young child and as an older child when the next person close to him died his mind malfunctioned in the middle of the night and he burned his legs and his entire room.”

“Ahh.” Tōji was taking that in while Benimaru glared once more at Konro for ruining his story. “So what that tells us… is that you should never do drugs that mess with your mind?”

“Tt. That problem has long been resolved. No drug on earth will ever bring me to that point again where I harm myself without noticing.”

“Are you… sure about that Beni?” Konro asked after choosing the correct cream to put on his bruises. “We just barely managed to get you to talk about Sango and show us where she had died but everything else stayed… in the dark. For us at least.”

“Huh? Did I never tell you why I started to burn my legs?”

Konro was surprised at that question, probably because he didn’t expect that old incident to have been dealt with thoroughly by Benimaru. “No. Do you want to tell us now?” Knowing Konro, that man had probably imagined some serious problems Benimaru might’ve had on why he did what he did. The truth wasn’t that spectacular though.

“I was dreaming. I thought I went to that staircase and found her bones like I did with 8. I was just re-living my memory from that time, though. The bones in front of me I thought I was burning to ash turned out to be my legs in the end.”

“…oh, Beni!” Konro was shocked and then relieved. “You won’t believe how worried we were at the time! We were not sure if you had a self-harm problem or not for months!”

“Well…” That old feeling of shame came crawling back to Benimaru. Making Konro and his father worried for no reason was not something he wanted. “Now you know. It wasn’t that serious.”

“Yeah, you’re right,” Konro said after taking a deep breath and letting it out again together with old anxieties.

“Yeah, you’re right,” Tōji said then to ruin their moment. “Your scars aren’t serious! Children who fall over their own feet have bigger scars!”

“Do I have to tell you again how I don’t need scars to show I’m a firefighter!”

They spent the rest of the evening arguing over that topic and they didn’t stop with it during their big dinner for his men either. Instead, they got everyone into it to argue some more. Only after Benimaru got sake and Tōji a milkshake did they put that issue finally to rest and enjoyed themselves well into the night with the small birthday party for one of Benimaru’s men.

After the party came to an end, right when they were about to part ways at the staircase, Beni stopped Tōji from going upstairs by grabbing the sleeve of his yukata. Benimaru had burned the alcohol in his system at that point, which meant he was completely sober when he pulled Tōji towards him and kissed – yes, kissed – him on the lips.

But lips wasn’t entirely right. Benimaru kissed Tōji on the scar running through his lips.

“Just so you know,” was Beni’s goodnight to his boyfriend on this day. “This is a manly one. A manly scar to show everyone that you’re a firefighter.”

“A firefighter, hm?” Benimaru knew that Tōji wanted to sound cocky with his answer, but his features had softened up too much to make that happen. “I’ll take that honorary title when it comes from you.”

Notes:

So, Benimaru against Gojo anyone? :D

For Beni: that flashback to his dead childhood friend was originally supposed to be a bonding moment between Beni and Toji during Toji's depression. But because I decided to make Konro that bonding partner, Beni's flashback got pushed away. But here it is again! I remembered that it exists yesterday and I wrote it in today :D

Chapter 12: Keep on Doing

Summary:

Toji trains his favourite (and only) student in energy control.

Unfortunately, she doesn't think she'll ever be able to learn it.

Notes:

We're back with the promised Toji trains Kanao chapter :D

Do you guys remember how in Avatar, people bent energy before they bent the elements? Some really old thoughts I had on that flowed into the concept of energy control in this chapter. Another thing that flowed into this is the Byakugan and chakra manipulation from Naruto :D

“I’m sorry for coming late! I forgot the time!”

“It’s okay, we’re used to it by now.”

Tōji was also used to toning his sarcasm and even his jokes down because Kanao did not only have trouble keeping track of time (and information) but she also had trouble understanding subtext in conversations which Tōji tried to mitigate by always sitting down and being as calm as possible when she was around. But that’s what brain damage did to you: give you the opportunity to learn pyrokinetic energy control; take your ability to orient yourself in the streets and everyday life. She’ll maybe get better with time, her doctor said.

Tōji didn’t mind though. He actually found he liked a student who wasn’t immediately good or even competent at what they were doing. Sitting down every second day to rigorously repeat the last lessons because more than half of them didn’t stick touched Tōji somewhere deep inside his liver. It reminded him of his failed attempts to learn jujutsu even though he didn’t have enough cursed energy to do it.

Kanao at least wasn’t a lost cause even though today she thought she was.

“Ähm, Tōji-sensei… I thought that maybe… we don’t need to continue our lessons… anymore…”

“Why do you think that?”

“Because…” Kanao looked down and clasped her hands, sadness escaping her with every movement and attempt at explaining herself. She shifted around and opened and closed her mouth a few times but in the end, she didn’t manage to verbalize her thoughts. It wasn’t hard to guess what they were though.

“If you think you’ll never learn this energy control stuff or the normal activation of your ability and that you should stop trying, then fine, that’s your decision. But.” They were in one of the less-used rooms of the Guardhouse that had become their classroom of sorts; the things Tōji used to teach Kanao, like their candles, were all stored in one of the bookshelves for example but Kanao hadn’t entered the room yet; she tried to end the entirety of their training at the door, before formally starting her next lesson.

“But I don’t think that’s true. You’re making progress even if it takes more time than you want to give it. I think you can successfully finish this training and become Company 7’s acupuncturist even if it takes years.”

Kanao’s lips quivered while her shoulder-length black hair fell forward into her face because of how much she looked down towards her dress. Tōji knew the girl was in a difficult phase in her life and that she struggled with imagining a future for herself. Not only did she lose her family and her house, her grades crashed after she was pulled out of that cupboard and with that, any good work options in her future fell away as well. Something that also endangered her marriage prospects.

Right now, Kanao believed she would fail the probably best and most prestigious apprenticeship she would ever have. Tōji knew that feeling. It was crushing in a way where you wanted to hide from it and never speak of it again. Kanao would never touch her second-generation ability again and she avoid the Guardhouse and Company 7 for the rest of her life if she quit now but Tōji wouldn’t let the girl do that so easily when he knew she was capable of learning this.

“I know this seems like standing in front of a wall,” Tōji said with the simplest metaphor he could think of. At the first sign that Kanao’s eyes got teary, he also turned to the side and looked out of an open door at the flower garden to not embarrass her. “But I see that wall. I see how low it is and how many cracks it has. You can get through that and I’ll help you with it.”

“May-maybe…” Kanao said, her voice cracking while her hands heavily bunched up her dress. “It’s not… it’s not the wall that’s the problem…”

Tōji let that statement hang between them for a few seconds to see how much Kanao believed it. Depending on that, the conversation they needed to have would be different. The way she ground her socked feet into the wooden floor and how she moved one hand against her arm and pushed her shoulder into the door frame while looking down and to the side, told Tōji what was going on inside her head: she believed her words… but she also didn’t want them to be true.

“I’d like to think,” Tōji said with an easy-going voice, not directly talking to Kanao but out to the garden. “That my judgement is worth something. Many things actually. Some money hopefully.” It took her a few seconds to understand what Tōji wanted to say, and after she got it Kanao stopped fidgeting against the door frame at least. “I mean, Waka keeps me around and more importantly Konro keeps me around, and all of that is beside the fact I’m the strongest fighter on earth.”

“Ähm… I think Waka is ähm… equally strong…?” During this tense conversation, Kanao’s inborn urge to protect her Waka’s honour still shined through like that of a true Asakusan citizen. But of course, that worked in Tōji’s favour.

“I’ll let him be my equal for now but what I wanted to say is: my judgement tells me that you can learn this, however much it will take. And that judgement is backed up by Benimaru and Konro and everyone else who saw me fighting that day.”

It was a little cheap in Tōji’s opinion to equate fighting prowess and strength status to something like integrity and skill in evaluating the abilities of others. But hey, that was how Asakusa functioned and he would use that to his advantage as well. Kanao had to think on that now; how her beliefs stood in opposition to what Tōji believed and how his opinion was simply worth more. Harsh when you thought about it like that but Tōji knew what he and Kanao were about, which Kanao didn’t at this time in her life.

“I say we continue our lessons because I believe they will bear fruit in the future. You can of course still decide against it, it’s important what you want after all.” Up until now, since Tōji had turned towards the garden, he hadn’t looked at Kanao at all. Whatever she did with her hands, her feet or her head, he all heard it through the directions she exhaled while breathing and moving, and he felt it through the minuscule shifts in the floorboards. Now he looked at her to see the frustrated tears that had gathered in her eyes while she fought with herself.

She wanted to become their pyrokinetic energy acupuncturist. Even the girl she was before the Fire would’ve wanted that. She just didn’t believe she could do it while the prospect of this being her only chance at a good future hung heavily over her head.

That brought Tōji back to his youth in the Zenin compounds long before he ever managed to remove that cursed energy from his body. There was also a sentiment here they hadn’t touched on until now but Tōji knew that it was important, so he talked to her face to face again.

“Kanao, one thing I don’t want you to forget: quitting these lessons will not be the end of your life. You still have so much in front of you that you can achieve, even if it’s less than what it was a year ago. That little brain damage doesn’t matter.”

“Hm?” It took her longer to parse through what Tōji just said but that wasn’t an issue at all. She could take her time. “…but… I’ll never get a chance like this again…”

“First,” Tōji said playfully so he wouldn’t confuse her with a sudden tonal shift. “Like I said, there are other things you can do in your life and second – and I need you to remember that – you can just come back here.”

“…hä?” Kanao had mostly avoided looking in Tōji’s direction even when he looked to the side but now her head shot up with her wide eyes looking at him in confused shock. Some part of her brain understood what Tōji meant immediately, the other parts only had to catch up. When they did she couldn’t get her words out fast enough. “B-but! You mean…! I can’t just–“

“Yes, you can!” Tōji knew that he got her now. “No one says you have quit forever. You can just come back to these lessons in a few years if you want to.” Kanao’s shock and denial were adorable to watch. “Except of course I and Waka somehow end up dead but let’s just put that under the category of ‘things that are less likely to happen’.”

Kanao’s hands shook which was why she grabbed her dress again but after a few deep breaths, she calmed down because all that stress she was under this whole time… she realized it wasn’t needed at all, so she slowly let it go. Her shoulders lost their tension, she smoothed out her dress and lastly, her normal shyness (x10) returned because they went through this entire ordeal even though a simple question of “Can I take a break to get my head in order” would’ve sufficed.

“Okay, I’ll… I’ll think about that, Tōji-sensei.”

“Good.” Tōji had to remind himself not to smile in a way that showed teeth. Non-brain-damaged people already found that disturbing, Kanao would probably freak out at that for a solid five minutes. “Now come here, I have a new game I’ll show you. It’s over 250 years old.”

Kanao’s shyness and light embarrassment stayed with her for a while. Even during their normal pyrokinetic energy lesson that turned into a vintage board game lesson. No, the game of “Risk” Tōji was teaching her wasn’t really 250 years old; it was a replica he had ordered from one of the Toy shops in Asakusa (billed to the Neighbourhood Watch). Last week he remembered how he had found a well-preserved gaming manual of Risk in the archives and here he was now with his own version.

He wanted to teach it to Benimaru and Konro first (not the girls though, they couldn’t sit still long enough), but they didn’t have the time until now so Kanao it was. And it was a fun and stress-free time, perfect to wind down after their emotional back and forth. The game itself turned out to be a small-scale version of the problems Kanao had to deal with every day: learning something new and never seen before like the concept of “countries,” and memorizing rules.

For the next lesson two days later, Tōji started with a repetition of their pyrokinetic energy lessons before going back to Risk and playing that with her. After that lazy lecture, he intensified their lessons but it wasn’t just about studying and trying harder though; no, Kanao wasn’t the only one learning here. Tōji, too, was learning how to explain and train her on something he couldn’t perform himself. He also needed to learn how to teach this stuff to people who had never conceived of the possibility of “energy” in their lives.

What did he do to make his lessons better and more comprehensible? He added a life performance to it. 

“Give me your hand.”

“For what? I’m reading here.”

“You don’t need two hands to read, do you?”

For once, Benimaru didn’t make a fuss (which might’ve led to light arguing which in turn might’ve led to sex) because Tōji had his student with him who was also Beni’s trainee at the same time. Even though Kanao wasn’t taking part in all Company 7 training practices, she still took part in some of them for general fitness and housekeeping. (Benimaru’s male hikeshi were highly sought after on the dating market because they knew, among other things, how to cook, clean and take care of the elderly.)

“Fine! Here! Do whatever you want with it!”

“There are some particular R-18 things I’d like to do with it but not now,” Tōji replied amused, knowing full well that Kanao wouldn’t understand what he meant. Benimaru knew of course but he (barely) held himself back from replying and concentrated back on his book about Asian legends. Beni was sitting behind Tōji against a pillar on their porch. Kanao was sitting in front of Tōji while he placed himself in such a way that Benimaru wasn’t visible so that he wouldn’t disturb their lesson.

Only his hand was there with them which Tōji manipulated as he pleased, like pushing it up and spreading the fingers apart. Without a word, Benimaru shot small fires out of each finger while Kanao explained how he did that.

“Waka’s pyrokinetic energy mer-… meridian network is all over his body. That’s why he can make flames wherever he wants.”

“Correct, but be more precise.”

“He… because his meridian network is all over his body, he can create flames from every point of his body, unlike others who can only use their hands for example.”

“Yes.”

Tōji closed all of Benimaru’s fingers into a fist, which Beni – absentmindedly – took as a sign to extinguish his fires. Next, Tōji put his lover’s hand further down and flicked his fingers 30cm above it. Benimaru also understood that and created a ball of fire in the air where Tōji’s fingers had just been.

“Waka pushed his energy out of his body and ignited it in the air. Second-generation pyrokinetics do that instinctually but not to create their own fire. They take control of an existing fire by melting their pyrokinetic energy into it.”

“Correct.”

Tōji closed Benimaru’s loosely held hand so he would extinguish the fire in the air, then he pulled out a lighter to make his own fire where the other one had been. Benimaru immediately took control of that small fire and enlarged it to his preferred size showcasing what Kanao had just explained. The girl, as Tōji was glad to see, was extremely happy about their presentation and proud to elaborate on it. Doing this with the guy she saw as a half-god was more than a success.

“Waka pushed his pyrokinetic energy into the fire and took control of it. To keep his control, he has to push his energy into it continuously!”

“Exactly. Which brings us to our actual lesson of today. Let’s pretend for a moment that Benimaru isn’t a freak of nature who coughs out his energy from every pore of his body every second of the day. Let’s pretend he’s only a normal guy with normal guy energy.” The speed with which Beni shook his head behind Tōji, told him how invested or annoyed Waka was about what Tōji was saying… which wasn’t much and exactly what Tōji was hoping for.

They didn’t need Benimaru’s full attention in this lesson, only his cooperation and half an ear so he would make his fires the way Tōji wanted them. Meanwhile, Beni was free to finish his book.

“His pyrokinetic energy comes only from his hand and goes directly up to this ball of fire. In this space here,” Tōji pointed to the 30cm between Benimaru’s hand and the fire, “is his energy. If you can disrupt this, you can extinguish his flame.”

“Ooh!” Kanao was awed at that revelation for about four seconds before she remembered that Benimaru was everything but a normal human. “Waka can use more than just a direct line of energy to feed his fire, right?”

“Of course. Even right now this is more of a waterfall going upwards than a single pipe feeding his fire. If Waka ignited every particle of his pyrokinetic energy that’s outside of his body this part of the Guardhouse would go up in flames.” Tōji could only shake his head at that ridiculous excess. This was just another way the universe fucked with him and his zero cursed energy body: make sure he ended up with someone who was an energy geyser in human form.

But with Benimaru as their test subject, Kanao’s attention was higher than ever before. Her precious Waka just needed to pretend to be normal for about 20 minutes now.

“Keep in mind: you will not find someone like him easily. Most pyrokinetics can only manage one or two streams of energy at the same time and those streams are barely thicker than 2cm. This means if you can successfully do this,” with his free hand, Tōji made a cutting motion through the imaginary line of pyrokinetic energy in the air connecting Benimaru’s hand with his fire, “then the fire will go out.”

Beni’s fire didn’t go out which confused Kanao about this experiment before she focused her mind and repeated what Tōji had said out loud a few times until she got it.

“If Waka hadn’t been flooding this area with his energy, that fire would’ve gone out.”

“Correct. There are some caveats to that but we’ll keep this simple. Now to make this an actual lesson.” Tōji tucked at Beni’s hand to pull him against his back which made the other man nearly lose his book.

“What!”

“Push all of your energy away except for a small stream. Nothing else will keep that ball aflame, understood?”

“I swear if I were the one paying you!”

Despite his grumblings, Benimaru did as told. Now they had a “normal” case of energy feeding into fire before them. One that Kanao could influence.

“First, try to feel the energy. You already have an okay understanding of your own, now it’s time to see if you can feel the one from someone else. It’s strong so that should help.” At the word strong though, Benimaru instinctively raised the voltage of his energy so that more of it went upwards to the fire which made it slightly bigger and hotter. Tōji drew circles against Beni’s palm to get his energy levels back down because that much of it started to displace air and that would falsify the results they were aiming for.

When everything was back to normal, Kanao tentatively put her hand where she thought that invisible energy stream would be to try to feel it out. Until now, she barely managed to feel her own energy when her ability misfired in one half of her body but Tōji knew from Kanao’s cousin that the girl practised control by herself in her free time and deep into the night.

He knew she could do this, especially with Benimaru’s intense energy.

She even stuck her tongue out while feeling around the air which was her way of showing that she thought she would be successful. Then she closed her eyes to make sure her feel was correct before she proudly opened them again. “I can feel it right here! In my hands!” she said correctly identifying the finger the stream was coming out of.

…but of course, it wouldn’t be that easy.

“Good, we made the first step. Now comes the rest.”

Even though Benimaru’s pyrokinetic energy wasn’t displacing the air, it was still strong enough that most people would’ve felt it. From Tōji’s observations, the people around Beni actually did feel his energy constantly; they just never reacted to it properly because they didn’t know of its existence. They thought it was just the air or that an insect crawled over them. Only in the most extreme cases did the people look at Benimaru as some perpetrator but that was when his loose pyrokinetic energy entered the bodies of his pyrokinetic hikeshi and caused a flare-up with them.

The hikeshi mostly thought of those moments as a small-scale Waka-induced power-up. They weren’t even wrong with that.

But for Kanao they were training more than just the knowledge of pyrokinetic energy; they were training control.

“Close your eyes. I will move the stream and you will find it.”

“Okay!”

The next step in their lesson was about fine-tuning her sense of touch and for that Tōji moved Benimaru’s hand in every direction it could go to with the way they were sitting. Which wasn’t much and with the fire between them unmoving there weren’t many places the energy stream could end up. Still, Kanao found it again and again even when it changed fingers, which boosted her confidence.

“Next step,” Tōji announced before telling Benimaru to extinguish his fire but keep the ball of energy in the air. For Tōji, that energy was visible as a red and compressed mist. Kanao had to find it with only her hands now. She stretched her arms out to gently “touch” the place where the fire had just been to familiarize herself with the round shape of the energy. The air around that place was still hot but she looked like she got it.

Benimaru got his hand back, the stream from it to his ball shrinking to nearly nothing while he turned a page. Kanao closed her eyes again and Tōji stood up to give the ball a slight push to move it a metre to the side. Tōji didn’t really push it, of course, Benimaru felt his control of his pyrokinetic energy slipping at the point of contact with Tōji’s finger and moved his ball away on his own.

Kanao found it rather easily.

“Reduce your intensity,” Tōji told Beni to make this more challenging.

“I’m owed a reward for this, just so you know,” Benimaru answered while engrossed in his book.

“You’re barely doing anything!”

“I’m taking over as your assistant teacher and I’m getting annoyed. This calls for some uke responsibilities on your part.”

“I’ll give you responsibilities!”

“What’s an uke?” Kanao asked “holding” the energy ball between her hands again. Tōji told her it was an Old World literary slang for something intimate which she didn’t understand before she was distracted by the energy in her hands fading a few degrees. She felt around it, trying to memorize the feeling before she closed her eyes and let it go so Tōji could push it somewhere else again.

This time, finding the energy ball was harder for her. Tōji saw how it brushed against her arms or legs a few times without her noticing but soon she got the hang of it once more (even though two times she presented a ball of air to him thinking she had the real deal. Tōji suppressed his laughter to a small grin before telling her the truth much to her embarrassment).

“All right, the next step will be to actively interact with Waka’s energy with your own. Right now he uses the close proximity of yours to move the ball. He won’t anymore.” Truth be told, Tōji hadn’t expected to come so far during this lesson. He made a mental note for all potential future pupils to incorporate a life performance by Benimaru earlier into the curriculum. Dry lessons and self-experiments only brought it so far apparently. “We can do this while sitting down.”

They took their places beside Benimaru but Mr Grumpy Pants was allowed to keep his hands to himself this time. His only job was to keep his ball of energy (after giving it some surface tension) in the air and not move it around except when it was pushed by Kanao’s pyrokinetic energy. Kanao activated her ability which still misfired on her right side but that was the side she needed right now.

With her index and middle finger, she released her energy in the direction of Benimaru’s. During his time here, Tōji realized that pyrokinetic energies liked to mix and stick close to each other sometimes. That was mostly different to cursed energy but only as long as that energy was actively used by a sorcerer. Once it was released without the connection to the sorcerers or normal humans it was created by, similarly created cursed energy stuck together to form a curse.

Right now, about halfway from her fingertips to Beni’s ball, Kanao lost mental control of her energy after which it became free and mostly did what it wanted. It was still pushed forward by momentum but now some parts of it got stuck to Beni’s energy, other parts flew off to the side, and another part flew down to the earth where all free-flowing pyrokinetic energy ended up at some point.

The energy ball didn’t move one nanometre but that just meant they found their challenge for the next few lessons.

“Tell me,” Tōji said to Kanao who had her tongue out again. “How we can improve this exercise.”

“Oh, ähm, wait…” Kanao pulled her fingers and her tongue back and went to think hard about Tōji’s question. She “looked” at the energy ball to do that better, just as she looked at her fingers and to the side at Waka who turned yet another page. She did those things a few times until she could come up with a plan. “The energy from my fingers needs to become stronger. There are a few leaks in my merdi… meridian system that should be closed.”

“Correct.” Tōji could get used to being proud of his very own student. “You also need to keep active control of the energy that leaves your body. Like Waka. He’s been controlling this ball the entire time we’ve been here.”

“Oh!” Looked like Kanao hadn’t thought that far ahead but that was why Tōji was here. She had a new question though. “And when I can do… when I can do all of that, I can become Company 7’s acuptior… aucupnctional… acu-puncture-rist, right?”

“When we finish all of your lessons, you’ll be even more than that.” Tōji couldn’t help himself this time, his murderous grin broke out of his face. Kanao’s eyes predictably went over to Benimaru to make sure he was still there while she dutifully yet nervously stayed sitting in front of Tōji. “With one touch,” her teacher said to pull her attention to his finger though, mesmerizing her immediately. “You’ll be able to block the pyrokinetic abilities of all your adversaries!”

“…wow! Like Waka!”

“Yes, just like that idiot.” Tōji nodded from where he sat, ignoring the hard jab to his back from his lover. “As long as you don’t give up.”

“I’ll… I’ll do my best, sensei!”

“That’s what I like to hear.”

Notes:

I can already see a scene where Kanao is extremely annoyed by Arthur, so she takes hold of his wrist and blocks his energy pathways so he can't use his sword anymore. Poor man will be devastated while he falls into another delusion.

I also finished a oneshot :D It's a happy family fic with Toji and Shiu taking care of Baby Megumi even after he cockblocks them constantly. Take a look if you're interested and leave a comment if you liked it :D

Thanks beta!

Chapter 13: Heavy Shoulder

Notes:

This one took longer because I had trouble getting into the chapter during the week, but we see how Benimaru deals with some heavy responsibilities :D

I also started to rewatch Fire Force which is good because I remember stuff now I forgot over the last... two years. But I'm also constantly thinking "Now for my fic that would change, and that would be added, and that will be removed completely, there will be way more Toji in it, Oh Beni just beat Company 8, how should I change that?"

It's a never-ending struggle.

Something was off about the entrance to the Guardhouse but Benimaru couldn’t put his finger on it. It was the blue drapery to the side of the door along the street; for some reason, it looked different today but how? And did Benimaru really care? After looking at it from the other side, he at least concluded he didn’t care enough to find out what but – ah – suddenly it came to him: it was the Fire Force Cross. Someone replaced their blank blue sun drape with one that had a white cross on it.

…

Benimaru took his burning finger down without setting part of his house on fire (again) because whoever decided to put that cross on that drapery did it when Beni had just enough pride in Company 7 (the name) that he could accept the Fire Force logo on his things. Toji maybe; or Shinbeita took the old drapes for a wash and just hung up the new one without looking. Maybe Konro also had an uptick in pride and thought he could fight Beni’s animosity for everything Tokyo empire for this. No one would be fighting anyone today though because Shinmon Benimaru was a mature 20-year-old who didn’t blow up just because he saw something he didn’t like.

He also had important things to do.

Training his pyrokinetic energy control and trying to find a way to stop spontaneous human combustion.

It didn’t go well, unfortunately, at least not on the human combustion front. When Benimaru came across a proto-infernal he tried to capture it, contain it, and just kill it before it could reach its victim but nothing worked until now. Following the proto-infernals and giving their victims some last moments on earth with their families also turned out to be more difficult than it appeared at first. He simply couldn’t know their final destination and how long it would take them to go there.

Those things walked slowly and they left Asakusa most of the time. That was expected as most people on the island of Tokyo did live outside of Beni’s hometown but that meant he was more often than not wasting his time following them while he had duties and obligations that needed his attention. In the weeks following the combustion of old man Saki, Beni only managed two more interventions before his citizens died. For one of them, he tried to flee upwards to the sky to escape the proto-infernal, his hopes of saving the middle-aged farmer woman were crushed though when she had trouble breathing that high.

It was of no use, Benimaru had to go back down if not for that reason than another and so one more of his citizens died in fire. It was frustrating. Human combustion always was but last month it was an act of the Gods; unexpected, untreatable; inevitable. Now Benimaru stood before it with the knowledge that he could prevent it if only he found out how. The faster he solved that problem, the less people died.

It was difficult to deal with that knowledge – that responsibility – but Benimaru didn’t show or openly acknowledge that as was his go-to method for dealing with such things. It was also good that outside of Tōji and Konro, no one knew what exactly was going on with Beni’s trips around town and him correctly predicting who was going to go up in flames next. His people saw it but they didn’t question it which was a huge relief.

An onslaught of hope and demands and disappointments would come his way otherwise. Demands for him to act like the God half of his people believed him to be, and disappointments because he couldn’t live up to that expectation. Just thinking about how his citizens would go about their lives with hope in their hearts that Beni would cure spontaneous human combustion any day now… the guilt Benimaru still felt about Konro’s tephrosis and something ten times bigger came crashing down on him when he thought too much about his failure with finding an answer.

Luckily, meditation helped with those negative feelings, just like thinking how much of an idiot Tōji was to suggest he turn the dharma wheel on his back around. That was an extension of Benimaru’s meridians; he could maybe push them out of his back in a slightly different shape but turning them around was like asking Beni to turn his spine 360°.

“Fucking whore…” he said after half an hour of still trying to do it of course.

____________________________________

Harvest season was in full roll and it would continue until the end of December. With degrees as low as 8 on the Celsius scale, February would be the coldest month of the year. Tōji found that to be a travesty, especially because it promised that natural snow would never rain down on him again, but what could a man do against that? Instead, illnesses would rain down on everyone. Every five to ten years a new – or really old – disease would break out.

In the last 100 years, after they managed to revive old science procedures to inoculate against diseases, new diseases weren’t much of a problem anymore. Most often they were variations of each other or at least similar enough that many just got mildly sick with very few who got seriously ill. If an old disease – hidden away in some crevice after surviving 250 years – came back though, things could take a drastic turn for the population of Tokyo.

The last such outbreak was 40 years ago and the mass deaths led, among other things, to newly made Asakusan orphans being abducted by the Fire Church.

“Wait,” Tōji interrupted Konro’s winter explanations while swirling his chopsticks around. “Did some of those orphans come back to Asakusa? Because a few of the older guys from your troop are circumcised and I’ve seen many dicks around here so I know that’s uncommon.” Tōji held a piece of grilled fish with his chopsticks which cooled down while he waved it in the air, so he did what was common during dinner by now: hold that fish up close to Benimaru so he would heat it back up.

At this point, Beni did that without complaining or starting a fight. Hot enough to burn a normal human’s tongue, Tōji ate his fish while Konro nodded at his observation.

“You’re correct. Takashi and Tobi spent many years in a Holy Sol Orphanage in the Tokyo Empire before coming back to Asakusa. They were circumcised there as is tradition in that culture.”

“Brought it over with US-American refugees,” Tōji added. Konro filed that new information into the history folder inside his brain; then he waited for more but this time disparaging commentary he knew would come from his side. Any second now. In just a moment, Benimaru would say something insulting about the Tokyo people. Half a second more waiting. Any moment now.

“…interesting,” Konro said to give Benimaru a verbal push to say his piece… but much to his confusion and slight concern, nothing came. Benimaru was busy eating his dinner but this was the kind of conversation no food in the world would’ve stopped him from commenting on. It was obvious he was severely distracted and that not for the first time these weeks. “Benimaru… do you have something on your mind?”

“Hmm? No, not really.”

Konro doubted that so he wanted to ask again but the girls were faster.

“What’s circumsed?”

“And what do di- I mean penises have to do with that?”

Konro nearly clapped because of how polite his girls were getting. Even after Tōji (accidentally) used a not-so-good word, Hinata still knew to correct herself. Someday, with a little more education and good role models, those two would become proper ladies.

“That’s when they cut part of your cock off.”

Konro nearly strangled Benimaru because of how he absentmindedly used another bad word right after Tōji made that faux pas and his daughter corrected it! To show that such language wasn’t tolerated at the dinner table (it was tolerated in other places), Konro leaned over to a cupboard to pull out the first thing he could get his hands on; this time, a fan. Then he hit Beni’s head with it as punishment.

“Ow! What did I do?”

“Being here while only half listening!” Konro saw the confusion on Beni’s face and elaborated. “You heard Hikage’s question but not the nuances of our conversation that said you’re supposed to keep your language clean!”

“…what nuances?”

That earned Benimaru the next hit because of which Tōji and the girls giggled to themselves in schadenfreude. During the rest of dinner, Beni was actively talking with them again but Konro had witnessed too many inattentive moments of him to not realize something heavy was on his mind. Konro would’ve liked it if Beni came to him on his own but he had to accept that he couldn’t be someone who was able to help with all problems. At least he could be a good ear though.

Late into the night, after Benimaru went out to deal with another infernal, Konro looked for him with tea he had made and cake Tōji had prepared after dinner. He knew Tōji had seen Benimaru’s behaviour just like him and he also knew Tōji was good with small gestures to help those around him. The cake he had made wasn’t a fruit cake for nothing; those were Beni’s favourites.

“How was it?” Konro asked. Benimaru had returned and was in their garden meditating again but that was unusual in Konro’s opinion. Beni never meditated that much and not at these hours. “It was a high school student this time, right?”

“He fought well. I had the impression getting pyrokinetic abilities and using them in a fight had been a dream of that boy.”

“I see...”

Benimaru was depressed.

Not in the long-suffering and seriously debilitating way Tōji had been for months; but in the hopefully short-term way after a tragedy hit you. Konro saw it now because he knew the difference between Benimaru’s nonchalant and easy-going responses and his emotionally distant ones. Not that someone falling victim to spontaneous human combustion was something he didn’t care about and could nonchalantly retell whenever he wanted to. He still cared about every death in Asakusa but he was good at dealing with that death and the tragedy.

Right now he cared for the recent death so much that he had to shut his emotions off. That was why he was meditating at this hour. These weeks, he couldn’t deal with death and tragedy.

“I’ve brought you something to eat and I brought us both tea. Let’s sit together.”

Reluctantly and slowly, Benimaru accepted the offer and stood up from the ground to walk over to the engawa and sit down while the ever-cooling winds of late autumn breezed through his hair. Konro saw Beni’s disinterested and exhausted face go over the plate between them just to get stuck on the fruit cake. “…do you want to say something to me?” Benimaru asked while he (without prompting) took the fork beside the cake to get himself his first bite.

“Something’s on your mind and I want to see if I can help with that.” Konro poured them both their first cup of tea after Benimaru heated it again without being asked. In the last weeks, he was doing that constantly: keeping everything that was supposed to be at a certain temperature in that temperature even if it wasn’t needed, like when he kept the water tank hot despite no one going to use it that day. Konro had seen that behaviour once before with Benimaru.

“I already told you about it,” was the confusing answer Beni gave which Konro hadn’t expected. Nothing Benimaru had told him in recent times would explain his low mood. Was he talking about something he had told him months ago? Or did Konro misunderstand his past words and their meaning and didn’t realize that more was behind them?

He got into thinking while using the natural pause in their conversation that drinking tea gave them. Instead of their latest conversations though, things from a decade ago came to mind; the last time Benimaru had been this distracted and even scatter-brained for days was right after his mother died. Because Benimaru had already been a difficult child, they had trouble dealing with him and helping him process her death, which ultimately culminated in Benimaru burning his legs during a dream. Back then though, Konro, Hibachi and everyone else knew what was troubling him.

Now?

And so bad he tried to mediate without the sun being up?

“…I see,” Konro said after putting his cup down. “Potentially finding a way to stop human combustion but failing at it, so now another one of our people died.”

“Yeah.” Benimaru paused with his last bite of the cake to turn his head away from Konro for a moment before he – maybe by force – turned back around again to finish his food.

“I’m sorry for just saying it like that. I realized it only now.”

“Khh,” Benimaru scoffed from somewhere around his vocal cords. “I only told you about our proto-infernal discovery. Not that I had trouble with getting results or that it was bothering me, so don’t sweat it.”

“It’s not bad to be bothered by it, by the way.” Before sitting down in their garden, Konro was prepared to only be an ear for Beni. He couldn’t be someone who always had the answers Benimaru was seeking. Now, though, he saw he could help his charge with his troubles this time as well; by being someone who had lived through more in life and had seen and been friends with people who had lived even longer than him.

“You want to save lives so you throw yourself into an unknown project with dimensions you, Tōji and I barely understand. And now you see yourself not finishing that project as failing everyone but… human combustion isn’t your fault and not finding a cure won’t be your fault either.”

Oh, Benimaru’s face went through several grimaces. He gritted his teeth, furrowed his brows, growled a few times and looked like he wanted to set their garden on fire but ultimately he exhaled loudly and accepted Konro’s assertion that he might very well fail at his proto-infernal project. As long as he gave his all though, no death would ever fall back on him.

“…maybe I should ask Tōji about his cursed energy stuff. We might get some ideas from there.”

“Good idea, Beni. This endeavour, this cure, belongs to both of you.” While Konro poured himself new tea, Benimaru looked up at the sky, deep in thought. Their conversation went by easy in his opinion, which showed how much Benimaru had grown in the last years (the last half year?). No repeated explanations, no outbreaks of anger or fire, the natural frustrations that came with this subject were dealt with internally and swiftly. It was obvious Benimaru had already thought about his troubles from every angle he could perceive, he only needed to talk with someone about them to come to grips with them finally.

Konro couldn’t be prouder of Benimaru. His compassionate and rambunctious boy was growing into a responsible man right in front of his eyes.

“How about we concentrate our efforts in a different direction for now?” Konro said while he gave Benimaru his cup of tea. Curious eyes looked back at him. “We’ve kept Tōji’s tephrosis treatment low because he couldn’t deal with too much human contact and right now it’s still low because we’re waiting for Kanae to get the hang of it. But we can ask him how he feels about it now, and then you two can organize regular treatment hours in the Guardhouse for all tephrosis sufferers and not only the severely ill ones.”

“Hm.” Benimaru wasn’t immediately convinced because his mind was still focused on human combustion but after thinking about it he started to nod. “That would help people and I would train my energy control. If I get good at that stuff myself I might even be able to use acupuncture against the proto-infernals.”

“Good!” Konro hadn’t even thought that far ahead but that was the wonder of finding solutions together with others. “Now we only have to ask Tōji but he’s away right now. He’ll come back late, he sai–“

“I’ll just call him back with this,” Benimaru said before pulling a whistle out of his robe. Konro’s first thought when he heard that, had been about Beni using their phone to call Tōji even though he didn’t know where Tōji was, and that was why he wasn’t fast enough to stop Benimaru from using the whistle.

“Pffffffffffffff!!!”

Konro’s mouth fell open at Beni blowing the whistle and while Benimaru was confused at Konro’s reaction, he too realized soon enough that he did something bad.

“…ooops…”

Seven seconds later, Tōji burst onto the scene by jumping over from a neighbour’s house 30 meters away and taking part of the ground with him, ready to fight enemies or rescue people in dire situations. After looking around the garden though – where no enemies stood and where no Asakusa citizens were pathetically dying – Konro’s maid slowly turned his head around to Benimaru who still held his whistle in his hand.

Tōji’s eyes were hard and unforgiving while he relaxed his battle-ready posture just to march angrily over to them. “What!?” he asked to give Benimaru and Konro one last chance to prove to him that an emergency had just happened. Which definitely didn’t. Konro could only shake his head in shame while Benimaru answered.

“Well… I wanted to ask you some–“

“I knew you couldn’t be trusted with this!”

Before anyone could blink, Tōji grabbed the whistle out of Beni’s hand and put it away in a pocket inside his robe. During his trips to Tokyo, Tōji had heard those new whistles used by some Fire Force Companies and sports people. They gave off a high sound that wasn’t perceptible to humans anymore but Tōji could still hear it from over a kilometre away so he got himself a few and gave them to Konro and Shinbeita to call him during an emergency. He didn’t give them to the girls because he knew they would abuse those whistles and he also nearly didn’t give Benimaru one because he knew his boyfriend would abuse it for dumb shit as well.

After lots of arguing between those two, Benimaru got his Tōji-whistle but was not quite a week in Benimaru’s care before he used it for something trivial.

“I,” Benimaru tried to explain himself. “Only wanted to have you here for a question me and Konro had.”

“And I,” Tōji countered, absolutely not having it. “Told you, repeatedly, to never call me with this thing for trivial shit! You swore up and down that you wouldn’t!”

“Maybe…” At Benimaru’s tone, Konro felt great unease overrun him. This could only end in an argument. “I just wanted my lover closer to me? Have you thought of that? That I was lonely? That I wanted your warmth?”

“You don’t get lonely! And we saw each other two hours ago! I made you cake! And you don’t need anyone’s warmth!”

“Emotional warmth? And maybe the cake wasn’t enough? Maybe I suddenly needed you to yell at me this late in the evening! Can’t you be more romantic!”

“You fucking bitch! You don’t know romanticism when it slaps you in the face!”

“Maybe you haven’t been hitting hard enough!”

The moment Benimaru chose to go into his petulant child mode to answer Tōji’s justified anger, Konro knew he needed to get out of that part of their home immediately. Those two wouldn’t be able to contain themselves for the next 20 minutes, whatever form that would take. He thought back to his earlier thoughts on how Benimaru had grown into a man and well, staying a man was a continuous process.

With the sound of a fight taking place not far from him inside his study, Konro took out a new notebook to write everything he knew about infernals, pyrokinetics and the history of the world since the Cataclysm down. He was happy he could help Benimaru with his downheartedness but it would be better if he also helped find a practical solution to the problem he wanted to solve. They were all in this together, it wasn’t just Benimaru who had to do all the work so information gathering for Konro it was.

Besides, all the other Companies had spontaneous human combustion research divisions. It was time that Company 7 built its own and he already had in mind how to do it and who in Asakusa to hire for it. Drinking his tea (and listening to the Master of the Watch and his Maid stop fighting one kind of battle to start another) Konro happily started to work.

Notes:

I'm going to be honest, it's a bit of a struggle to write Gods of Love with the same energy as Gods of War and Destruction. That's mainly because I don't have the overarching narrative structure that was present in GoWaD as in Toji dies - Toji wakes up in a strange place - Toji learns to live in that strange place - Benimaru learns to live with Toji - Toji has massive inner struggles - he runs away - Benimaru deals with that in his way - Konro helps Toji - the conclusion with a big fight and sex.

For GoL, the storyline is cut up and I don't have that ladder-like approach anymore where I know where to put the next step. The (interesting, dramatic) overarching narrative is missing but only... until the canon storyline starts 😂

So people, please bear with me and the story especially if it starts jumping around narratively and with actual time jumps. We will get to the canon stuff sooner rather than later.

Chapter 14: Tending Approval

Summary:

Toji goes back to Tokyo to have some fun. The ominous presence of his boyfriend greatly helps him with that.

Notes:

Alternative chapter title: Bisexual man Fushiguro Toji has fun while sometimes making borderline homophobic jokes inside his head.

But just a little.

Re-reading chapter 10 might be helpful :)

Tōji was slowly making a name for himself in the gay scene. Not only because he was hot, danced like a beast (after numerous (unnecessary) lessons with enthusiastic teachers) and flirted funny but also because he was as unshakeable as he was unconventional.

Recent election in this or that ward? Unfazed.

The way he consumed his coke? Through his nose.

Fear of a police raid? Non-existent.

The way he talked about his boyfriend? BDSM-like.

His relationship with the sin of lust? Had to believe in the Fire Church first to have a relationship with that.

It was the last part where he had to be careful not to reveal too much about himself but then again… it wasn’t like the people in the three Tokyo gay clubs he visited would exclude him if it came out he was from Asakusa. They might be angry at him for lying but it wasn’t like half of them weren’t lying to some degree as well to protect themselves. All in all, he was well-liked while he kept his eccentricities at bay and made sure to make friends instead of letting his true self out and seeing who survived that.

And after getting to know these people better, he had even more fun with their post-apocalyptic version of the nightlife scene. It also turned out that the queers got really wild in their private parties. Tōji, an absolutely faithful man, was sitting on a couch drinking (non-alcoholic) apple juice while various people in various constellations had sex in front of him. He had actually been in this kind of situation a few times in his youth and unlike now back then the happenings had bothered him (downstairs).

Yes, even the great Sorcerer Killer had to fight hormones in his teenage years, now he was reaching his thirties though and had settled down significantly. He was an adult during this orgy; an adult man who was already in a happy relationship. A happy relationship where – and Tōji couldn’t keep his sinister smile to himself again – the sex was a thousand times better than what was going on here.

“Comrade Tōji, I still don’t know if I should take that grin as a sign that you like our parties or if I should fear for my life,” Hane said after finishing her current business and sitting down beside him, a well-worn blanket over her shoulders.

“I was just thinking about fucking my boyfriend so do take that as a good sign.”

“Then the next thing I don’t know about is how your boyfriend feels about you being here. He seems so possessive but he also allows you to come to gatherings like this? Is your sex life – is he so good at sex that he doesn’t fear an affair from you?”

“Ha! Ha, ha, ha!” Tōji just barely managed not to have a full-on laughing fit. “Yes on the sex. Sorry, but I haven’t seen anyone here who could take me like he does but also…” There was so much more between Tōji and Benimaru… and he didn’t want to talk about it because he saw it as their intimate secret but at the same time he wanted the people around him to know how serious it was between them.

In Asakusa, he didn’t have that problem; there everyone knew about them and Tōji had to listen to thousands of different opinions on that every day, most of which he ignored for everyone’s sake. Now, for the first time in their relationship, Tōji realized he had the reigns in his hands on how much the people around him would know about his lover and his love life. He was in complete control of the perception these people would hold of him and Benimaru.

“But also, there is trust between us. Hard-earned trust. And a little orgy like this hardly scratches it.”

“How admirable.”

His and Hane’s talking was interrupted by another “guest” who was just finished with his round and who sat down in all his naked glory beside Hane before slumping to the side and over her until his feet ended up on Tōji’s lap. Tōji unceremoniously pushed those feet off him and reminded the guy of his one rule while being here.

“No touching.”

“Oh, but didn’t we have it about trust just now, comrade? And still, your boyfriend has a no-touching rule for this event while he doesn’t for all those dancing lessons?” was Hane’s cheeky reply. Tōji saw no contradiction in that though because he knew how Benimaru’s brain worked.

“This is my first time in an orgy, so I’m compiling a list of all the activities that are going on here to later give to him for approval. I’m his first ever relationship, you know, he has to feel out the boundaries of his comfort zone. But who knows, maybe the next time one of you can sit on my lap while getting fucked by someone else.”

The number of eyes that turned towards him after letting that bomb drop was like a gentle stroke to his ego. Tōji found his people; people who worshipped him sexually every time he wanted them to aka when he went to the gay clubs in his free time. The phase where everyone paid for his drinks wasn’t over either; he was truly in heaven here.

“…your boyfriend has to know what he’s unleashing on us!” Hane correctly assumed.

“Absolutely.” Benimaru totally knew that, that was why he had to control what Tōji was wearing and what he was allowed to do. Any ogling and sexualising had to be done on his terms. In any other relationship that would be a red flag but there was no coercion and mistrust between them, just Beni’s young envy and possessiveness that was in a constant dance with his hatred of the Empire. At some point, Tōji knew, that would settle down.

Also, Tōji didn’t want to have sex with these people or be touched by them anyway. He was making Beni’s needed approval for things he was allowed to do more of a spectacle than it was and that for pure amusement (approved).

“That boyfriend of yours has to be feeling like the pope with you as his lover.”

“Oh believe me,” Tōji answered Hane’s last comment. “He believes himself to be higher than that man.”

---

Tōji only went to the Tokyo gay club scene every other week for fun and nostalgic stress relief; exactly why he went in search of places like that in the first place. The nostalgia part worked so well though that melancholy hit him a few times. Once, he stepped out of a club through a back door and for one or maybe two seconds, he believed he was in Kyoto again.

A yakuza boss just gave him money for a hit on a police detective. Tōji accepted because he didn’t want to go back to his family where his recent joblessness would cause another argument about money. At least he would’ve some now so a new fight wouldn’t break out between him and his second wife in front of their children…

One or two seconds.

Then he was back again in the future of another universe but this was his new life and he intended to do it justice.

“Comrade Tōji! The first drink is on the new house!”

“Thanks, Mikaes but I’m not sure you’re ever going to make money like that.”

“Please,” the barkeeper said waving Tōji’s observation away. “The last place stayed up for nearly two years. A new opening with lots of free drinks was in the books for a while.”

“Good then, I get my free drink once more.”

“Your free non-alcoholic drink. Are you actually celibate or is this a ploy to make everyone else buy you the cheapest beverages we have?”

As the barkeeper, Mikaes was the first to see through Tōji’s sugar baby routine but he was chill about it and even congratulated him for keeping that up for so long. If the middle-aged guy with grey strakes in his hair had been just a little bit like Benimaru, he would’ve called him a whore for that. And Ironically, in this time and age, Tōji was celibate now. Celibate meaning you didn’t drink alcohol, not that you stopped doing sexual acts with others and toys.

Something, something post-apocalyptic wasteland water and beer that led to the definition of celibacy shifting around until it landed there. Tōji had asked a few Tokyo people about it, but that usage change was so removed from their active memory that no one could properly explain it to him. The Asakusans on the other hand didn’t use that word like that; drinking sake was seen as a nationalistic honour that most people partook in even if it was just one cup every year.

“Alcohol is just not my thing.”

“Okay, then! Also, Negi told me to send you to him. He’s in the upstairs lounge, something we were finally able to set up before the opening. He’s hell-bent on making that a ViF area but he doesn’t have many people convinced.”

“Let’s see if he convinces me.”

“As if that would be hard. He’ll just offer a permanent pass to you and your ‘better half’ and he’s got your vote.”

“Come on, I’m not that easy!”

“We’ll see.”

Yes, Tōji was enjoying himself while throwing off the accumulated stress from the last two weeks. His life in Asakusa wasn’t stressful per se, but sometimes he either woke up feeling overwhelmed because he finally managed to get his life in order into something worth living, or he made dinner and lamented how much he fell from his earned standing as a killer and menace who should be catered to instead of doing the catering.

The last one was merely a fleeting feeling he didn’t linger on because he loved what he had going for him and wanted it to last his lifetime. But bad times – bad mental times – were not impossible for Tōji as everyone had seen. So he used his getaway to queer-land to pre-emptively build himself a place (maybe even a community?) he could fall back to in times of need; a place that had water and people in it and a place that Konro knew the address of. (Konro knew the addresses of all the gay clubs and bars he had been to, even this new one.)

Tōji made his way up the stairs while he looked over the new place the queer people and friends (and criminals) had migrated to after the last place had to be closed because of… zoning Tōji vaguely remembered. It was a bureaucratic way to get them to leave the place but jokes on those homophobes. As it turned out, this former factory had long been scouted as a good replacement for the old bar, it was just that no one dared to come here without it being necessary.

Now everyone helped clean it up and bring the dance floor, the bar, the various lounge areas and the bathrooms up to speed. Even Tōji helped once: 1) To lift heavy stuff (after taking off his shirt but not his undershirt to everyone’s disappointment). 2) To convince everyone to put up a giant painting of fruits on one wall of the dancefloor and 3) To go old school with the music.

The last one was difficult to accomplish and hadn’t happened yet but Tōji had it planned out already.

“Comrade! Come here and feel this couch I managed to get on time for the big opening!”

Negi, as Tōji had learned over the last weeks and months, came from a rather rich family who tried to do everything to straighten out their son but without success. He lived through Holy Sol Temple schooling, the military, the regular firefighters and as a last resort, an office job to come out of the other end purified but it didn’t work out. Now he was a depressed gay for most of the time and on this side of being banished if he had one too many arrests for “solicitation” on his record.

Not that he prostituted himself; that was just the charge you got if you were unlucky during a raid.

“Let’s see… nah, too soft.”

“Of course it is for you.” Negi rolled his eyes before demonstratively appreciating the couch by scooting around on it on his ass and then putting his arms on the backrest and beckoning Tōji over to him. “I seriously wonder how your Better Half keeps you happy. With a hammer maybe? Because of how tough you are?”

“He has a whip for that.”

While everyone around him wondered if Tōji meant his whip comment metaphorically or literally, he sat down beside Negi but not as close as Negi would’ve liked (thigh-to- thigh). He was still closer to him than with others though, even closer than he sat with Benimaru because the only time Waka ever sat down on a couch with him was the time he was healing from his Tōji-inflicted wounds. And they were definitely not thigh-to-thigh with each other then. Thinking of Benimaru, Tōji had to amusedly accept the fact that everyone here started to call him his “Better Half.”

The queer Tokyo Empire people didn’t use affectations that much so it stood out to them when Tōji did it. But instead of the use of “better half” spreading among them, it happened that his unseen boyfriend became the Better Half. Tōji’s Better Half was now the official name Beni went by in these circles. What else would happen to his standing until Tōji managed to get Beni to come with him? What would happen to it afterwards?

“So, I plan to make this part of the balcony into a ViF lounge. You think that would work?”

ViF meant “Very Important Firefighter” and as an answer to Negi’s question, Tōji could give a self-serving one, like Mikaes from downstairs had said. But Tōji was surprised to find that he liked these people enough to engage in a constructive debate with them like he did sometimes in Asakusa.

“You need two things if you want to make that work,” he said immediately getting Negi’s attention because someone seriously contemplated his idea. “A lounge like that needs to be more than just an exclusive place with a nice view. For example, it needs things like better service, free drinks and influential or important people that hang around here to make it desirable to cash out the extra money to get here.”

“Huh…” It was evident to Tōji Negi hadn’t thought of 2/3 of the ideas he just presented. It was understandable though; Tōji’s vision of a ViF lounge was informed by hundreds of them he had seen and been to. Negi and the others only had limited experiences though and that probably from places other than clubs. “Okay, that sounds exclusive and attractive and therefore awesome to have! I’ll work on the pla–“

“Yeah, before you do that you need the second thing more.” Even though Tōji interrupted him, Negi’s enthusiasm just got higher because whatever Tōji would say had to make his plans easier. Right? “People. You need enough people who would want to pay for a ViP ticket and you need a climate for that sort of thing that doesn’t create a class struggle or something similar with those who don’t have the money for it.”

“…ähhh, that…”

“And sorry to say but the number of your queers isn’t enough for a proper ViP lounge either.”

“It’s ViF.”

“Whatever. Right now the club is full but we all know that’s only because this is the opening night. In the next few weeks, fewer and fewer people will come and if you try it with your lounge anyway it’ll just become a cosy place for your friends only and if you want that then you don’t need to call it a ViF area at all.”

“Hm…” Negi’s enthusiasm was hampered while he tried to get his head around everything Tōji just said. Someone to the side lamented how she already tried to explain the people problem to Negi but someone else told her that Negi only listened to you if you had the appropriate jawline. “But… I have many friends? Like outside of the red scene.”

“That’s a solution you can work towards,” Tōji nodded. “Get the straights in here. Regularly. More people, more money, more benefits. Put some criminals, I mean, entrepreneurs up here who people would like to do business with. You also need a different vibe than downstairs and–“

“Hold on! I need to write this down!”

Negi produced paper and a pen from somewhere and did indeed write everything Tōji said down. While he did that, a new person entered their sphere and sat down in front of them.

“What ambitious plans you’re making.” Phire was one of those queers who meticulously hid her identity to go to the clubs so she was in costume now with a mask that covered most of her face. Tōji had never spoken directly with her because she stayed away from newcomers. “If I may give my advice, wait until late spring to implement them. Right now winter is coming up and some of our food is rationed. The people also have less money and some grief after the Great Fire.”

“With how much planning I have to make now that sounds like a good time,” Negi responded but suddenly he stopped and looked with narrowed eyes at Tōji and then back at Phire. “How much more planning do I need to do?” He dreaded the answer.

“You have to arrange yourself with the other clubs,” – “Need to make sure you don’t steal the clientele from the others,” Phire and Tōji said at the same time. They smiled at each other while Negi despaired over his idea he thought was simple but turned out to be anything but. They churned out more things to consider for the next half an hour before Negi gave up for the day and ordered someone to sit on his lap and make out with him.

“Just so you know, when you get the normal Tokyo residents to come here regularly, you can’t make the ViF lounge into a sex den.”

“I know that! And it’s illegal anyway and now stop talking about that! My brain is fried!”

“Well, if that’s the case,” Tōji replied with glee dripping from his smile. “Then I can’t discuss with you and everyone else my boyfriend’s verdict, right?” As expected, curious eyes turned towards him when he mentioned Benimaru but the people always looked at him when he did that. This time it was different though because the “verdict” was about what Tōji was allowed to do…

…during the orgies he attended.

“So… what did he say?” someone from around the dozen people around him asked with suppressed curiosity.

“He said lots of things but luckily for everyone, I brought the list with me.”

“Give me that!” Out of everyone here, Negi had the biggest guts to take the folded piece of paper from Tōji’s hands (after throwing his make-out partner away), which Tōji allowed to happen. It was much funnier like this. “You actually – like really, actually, 100% – made a fucking list of sex acts that your Better Half went over and approved or disapproved?”

“With a pen and a simple check mark after I gave him head. Not that he used the pen and checkmark. Some are still tending though.”

“I can’t believe this! Every time I think I have that guy figured out something new and probably crazy comes out of your mouth and I don’t know any more what I should think of him.”

“Maybe you and we will get a better picture of the Better Half if you finally tell us what’s written on that paper!” After getting admonished by his former make-out partner for delaying the much anticipated Tōji-orgy reveal, Negi got to read out what Tōji was now allowed to do when he went to their private parties.

“Kissing with tongue… not approved.”

“Noooo!” The lament among their group was palpable. The loss… immense. Tōji’s amusement? Peak.

“Light kissing… approved.” A weak cheer went through many people while they were still bitter about not getting tongue from Tōji, but then they realized that normal kissing in itself was something Tōji hadn’t done with anyone before. Now the full cheer came, together with some lustful gazes of who would manage to be the first to get that kiss from Mr. Tough and Charming.

Tōji was soaking the attention up like a sponge. Phire pointed it out immediately.

“Looks like you enjoy getting everyone riled up.”

“What can I say?” Tōji eyed Negi quickly to see what he was up to and why he wasn’t continuing. “My Daddy didn’t love me enough.” A few people laughed at what he said which reminded Tōji how “daddy” was exclusively used by small children in Tokyo but it still fit with the vibe he was going for so he let it be. During the snickering at his word choice, he also saw why Negi had stopped talking: he read ahead through the list.

A few times.

Because he was looking for a question and its answer that wasn’t in there. From the angle of his irises, Tōji knew at which other questions he stopped again and again: the sex-adjacent ones. Their eyes met soon afterwards and silent communication passed between them. An understanding and newfound respect Negi had for Tōji’s relationship.

The missing question was about whether Tōji was allowed to have sex with others or not. The answer to that was so obvious to them that it never needed to be asked at all.

“Fondling breasts… approved.”

“With those hands? Yes!”

“Hitting, slapping and punching… approved.”

“With those hands? …rather not.”

“Light physical contact while others have sex… approved.

Any form of licking… not approved.

Unclothing… not approved except for a jacket.”

It was damn hilarious to Tōji how everyone reacted to that list. The cheers went up and down while some tears welled up. He could’ve kept Benimaru’s existence and their arrangements on how physical Tōji could get with these people a secret. But he opted to make his boyfriend a known presence instead, not only because he wanted him to come here at some point but because he wanted it to be known he was in a relationship. He was at a point in his life where he didn’t need secrets to feel safe.

“Vaginal fingering… tending.”

---

“All right, pals! I’ve brought the mechanic with me! I hope you all brought the stuff we need!”

“I’m not voluntarily here. I’m abducted.”

“Shut it.”

Tōji only lightly coerced Vulcan to come with him to the Factory Fruits (not the club's real name) so he could work on the sound system. The club has been going for five weeks at that point and after ironing out some bumps here and there it was going well. For now at least. See, this place had a problem the Criminal Fruits (not the real name) and the Cosy Fruits (not the real name) didn’t have: high rent and other high upkeep costs.

The owners of the club and most of its clientele dreamt for a while about a big and open place like this but the queers and close friends alone just couldn’t keep the cash flow going to have the club monetarily secured. For one, this wasn’t the only gay club (two others were well-established just like a few smaller bars) and second, all the societal problems Phire had mentioned during Negi’s ViF lounge debate were still present for the normal operation as well.

What this place had going for it was that it had always been open to the straight partygoers. If you wanted to have an actual party with close contact dancing and lots of alcohol instead of staring at the other sex from the other side of the room while being watched by your parent’s friends, you went to Mikaes and his lot. The place was gay but not too gay to turn young Fire Church believers off. Every group of people could easily create their own bubble and not mingle with each other if they didn’t want to and still have a good time.

The Cosy Fruits were different to that. Their club was small and nearly exclusive where you couldn’t get in without a regular backing you and you needed to be queer for that to happen at all. The Criminal Fruits were completely different again. As their unofficial name suggested, that place was a hub for black market activities and was frequented by all classes of society (even fucking Konro somehow) to do illegal business. Calling it a gay club was technically inaccurate at this point but the original owner was trans and the association stuck for various reasons.

The Tokyo queers called those three clubs and the smaller bars their home while some went to all of them and others only to one. The Factory Fruits needed to attract many straight people otherwise they would drain their other establishments which no one wanted.

That’s where Tōji and his brilliant idea came into play.

Post-modern but pre-cataclysm music.

Something that would appeal to many inside Tokyo he believed; from young to old, poor and rich, religious and secular. With that, they could establish themselves as the club to go to for fun and everyone would be happier for it. As long as the straights also didn’t bring massive problems with them.

“Comrade! Nice to bring us that mechanic you talked about!”

“Did you all just ignore how I said that I’m abducted?”

“Are you though?”

Vulcan spectacularly rolled his eyes at Tōji’s dangerous grin which the people who did look twice at the pair after Vulcan repeated himself took as a good sign. Their new friend wasn’t a psychopath abducting people to do his bidding.

“I just wanted to test the waters,” Vulcan admitted quietly enough that the workers of the Factory Fruits didn’t hear him. Tōji thought that was because the muscled redhead never actively went out to meet queer people and that he probably had an image of the Criminal Fruits on his mind. Or worse. He still came with him though after Tōji majestically showed up at his shop because he wanted more music from the olden times.

He didn’t reveal to Vulcan that he was from Asakusa, just that he knew that Vulcan had repaired an old CD Player and that he wanted his own for a club. Not to be a psychopath who abducted people to do his bidding, Tōji paid large amounts of money to Vulcan and found him hard to get electronic parts from Haijima. Vulcan couldn’t get those easily anymore because that company blacklisted him.

“First, I need to look at the sound system that’s already set up and what old gear you have brought here. If you’re lucky enough, I can get a functioning player out of them.”

The club wasn’t open right now, they came in the middle of the day for this where barely anyone was there. The guys doing some cleaning and other upkeep, showed them the old electronics they managed to get which they had put to the side of their current sound bar. “But what kind of music did you have in mind?” one of them asked puzzled. Most people in Tokyo had no idea about music from over 250 years ago and the music they currently listened to barely resembled that either.

“American Hip Hop from the 90’s,” Tōji said. His word choices – which his club friends didn’t understand except “from” and “the” – made him sound smart which awed the others immediately. Except for one person that is.

“Hip Hop?! Are you crazy? Who listens to that shit?” Vulcan apparently had some thoughts™ on Tōji’s favourite music genre. “This is a club and not a death march! The only music that would fit here is Punk!”

“Punk!?!” Now it was Tōji who had some thoughts. “That’s just noise to make you sick! It’s like someone threw up on a keyboard!”

“Hip Hop is someone throwing up while talking!”

“Listen, you punk! Hip Hop is the epitome of counterculture!”

“Hello?! Punk is the definition of counterculture!”

“Wha-what are you two talking about?”

Absolutely no one could understand or add anything to Tōji’s and Vulcan’s argument. Tōji was just surprised it even happened at all and so was Vulcan because of how low the number of people on earth were who even knew those and other music genres. At the peak of their argument though, Vulcan pulled back to affirm one core observation he had made about Tōji earlier.

“You’re unhinged! I knew it the moment you showed up in my shop! Nobody except intimidating assholes come to me and demand I repair super old tech so you can listen to music!”

“Oh really?” Tōji knew immediately where that was going. “Who else came to you to revive our past?”

“The Company 7 Captain! And meeting that guy twice was already enough! I hope I won’t see you more than that either!”

“Wait! Benimaru Shinmon? You met Captain Shinmon? How does he look?”

As he had expected, the club workers seized on the opportunity to talk about one of their favourite crushes, helping Tōji find an elegant way to end his argument. Vulcan huffed at those questions but he too took the out and went back to inspect the old equipment while answering the curious men. With one last look and quip at Tōji, he promised him that he would prove that Punk was better.

“I’ll make a playlist.”

“I’ll make one as well,” Tōji answered, smiling wide. That was going to be interesting to watch, he could already see it. One night Hip Hop, the other Punk, the other Pop and then all of those but Japanese. Japanese folk music should also make an appearance here and there.

It was going to be great, Tōji thought. Fun and relaxing times.

Then one of the Factory Fruits coughed in his vicinity and the upcoming winter took a nose dive for the worst for him.

Notes:

The next time we have Toji's chapter again, Joker and Licht will make an appearance :D

Chapter 15: Mutant (Bugs) (Part 1)

Summary:

Toji gets sick and while he's in denial about it, Benimaru is chill with it like a good boyfriend is supposed to be (or so he thinks). Konro is about to burst a blood vessel.

Notes:

Sorry, for the week delay, I had decided to write another chapter of Bandaid to get that storyline finished (which I failed at miserably :D

And after being sick for an entire week, this week my family got sick and I've been running around with extremely low energy, so this chapter got shorter than normal. It'll be finsihed in Part 2!

PS: the story in these chapters will be one that was planned since the beginning :)

Cough

That was a sound Benimaru knew reasonably well. Not because Tōji had gotten sick since he came to their world, but because he sometimes didn’t manage to swallow him or his release down properly while he had Beni’s cock in his mouth. Natural thing to happen, really. (The absolutely embarrassing times when Benimaru had coughed his lungs out because he got the wrong thing into the wrong pipe while doing sex stuff were conveniently forgotten.)

Cough cough

Hearing that sound coming out of Tōji outside of the bedroom wasn’t uncommon either; even a superhuman freak like him swallowed his water or saliva wrong occasionally, especially when someone in his vicinity said something that shocked or confused him immensely. (Like that time Benimaru told him the story of the Hanami Girls who had public sex some 60 years ago which made them famous even outside of Asakusa. He started the story all jumbled up though and Tōji thought for two solid minutes that 80+ year-old grandmothers were having public sex right now.)

Cough cough cough

But this was getting excessive.

“It’s time you go to the doctor to get that checked out. We have lots of contact with people with the latest cold and flu.”

“No.”

“Fine.”

“…cough…”

The first time Tōji ignored Benimaru’s advice, he had already ignored Konro’s five times. Typical but Benimaru didn’t really care about that because… why should he? This was Tōji Konro was needlessly worrying about. The guy was metaphorically made of steel and coughing for a few days wouldn’t kill him. Just like not sleeping well wouldn’t and having mucus build-up that didn’t go away wouldn’t and having a constantly runny nose and pains in all his bones and low energy and a slight fever wouldn’t either.

Nah. Benimaru knew what his boyfriend was about and maybe he and Tōji shouldn’t have ignored his ever-worsening symptoms but in the end, he would be all right because he had a perfect human body, the peak of creation or so they (Tōji) said. A simple illness made out of bacteria or viruses wouldn’t kill the man. Just discomfort him slightly and annoy Benimaru immensely by having his boyfriend be indisposed or hard to be close to.

Really, everything was fine. Beni was perfectly willing to ignore everything that was going on with Tōji until the man was well again. Sometimes, he did help him out though with his persistent cold by, for example, warming Tōji up around his chest when they decided to sleep on the same futon but that wasn’t worth mentioning. Occasionally, he did other stuff for him, too. His objection to Tōji’s written request for paid sick leave lasted only five minutes instead of his usual one and a half days.

In the end, Tōji and Benimaru were on the same “Ignore the obvious signs of a worsening health condition” page. Of course, Beni still took his lover's duties seriously, so he told Tōji a second time to go to a doctor but after that was met with another refusal, he just sat down beside Tōji (two meters to the side so his coughing wouldn’t happen directly in his ear; Tōji’s coughs sometimes were so loud they could shatter eardrums) and started to read his next book.

They were in perfect synchronicity on that front. The exact same wavelength.

Konro nearly ripped his hair out when he saw Tōji with half-lidded eyes and a pale face slide halfway down the wall. He was this close to banging his head against the doorframe when the only thing Benimaru did against that was throw Tōji a pillow so he could land on something soft. Beni was of the opinion he was doing everything correctly in this situation though, mostly because he was respecting his boyfriend’s wishes and believing in his ultimate strength.

“Tōji! Benimaru! You two can’t be serious about this!”

“Pff,” Beni scoffed. “Everything’s f–“

“So help me Buddha if you say everything is fine!”

“Everything is going to be fine.”

“With the help of a doctor! Tōji! We’re going now!”

“N-cough… nough… n… n-no…”

“You can’t force him if he doesn’t want to.”

That was one of the most intense glares Benimaru’s received from his oldest friend in a while. It made him cower a little but at least Tōji wasn’t able to make fun of him for that as half-dead as he was lying on the ground with a pillow under his head. Still, he knew he was right because Tōji was a beast and didn’t need help with a silly cough. Or a lung infection.

“He’ll get over that on his own.”

In the blink of an eye, Konro crossed the room and had his hand on Benimaru’s uniform with which he dragged him across the floor like a child. “Does he look like he’s going to do that!” Konro asked but actually Benimaru was inclined to reply with a yes but he knew that wasn’t what Konro would accept as an answer and he wasn’t ready to be shaken like a child even more, so he kept his mouth shut.

“We’re all going to the doctor immediately!” was Konro’s final verdict on the matter but Tōji had no fears ingrained into him from brutal childhood training from the Lieutenant, so he answered with an unashamed:

“…no… cough, cough… cough, cough, cough… cough.”

“Tōji, we can do this the easy or the hard way!”

Strangely, Tōji looked peaceful while he lay there on the ground with his low fever and seemingly uncomfortable body position. True, his clothes were in disarray and his hair was oily from sweat and lack of showering but he still looked strong as fuck. Or maybe he didn’t and Benimaru was wrongly superimposing the image of a steadfast firefighter onto his boyfriend because Tōji had broken his bones once?

But Tōji sat back up on his ass again, which meant Benimaru didn’t have to confront his maybe wrong assumptions about his boyfriend’s overall health. All was well, especially after Tōji put his hands on his chest and squeezed his ribcage together until he was finally able to get that phlegm out of his airways and breathe normally. (Said phlegm ended up spat out into the garden. Benimaru only saw that colourful substance for a brief moment but he still wondered if he should burn it out of existence. Just to be safe.)

“First of all, I’m not going anywhere!” Tōji said, speaking in complete sentences again. “I’m perfectly fine where I am if only you would leave me alone!” Couldn’t argue with him there in Beni’s opinion. Konro on the other hand was already taking a deep breath to do exactly that. Tōji was ready to interrupt him but what he said to Konro had even Benimaru whip his head around in shock and disbelief with how absurd and delusional it was. “And second, I’m not sick!”

“…”

Konro’s hand, which was still around Benimaru’s uniform, came loose and because Beni’s mind had problems processing that last sentence, he crashed into the floor. Both were just flabbergasted at that… that denial of basic reality, so now Konro despaired about Tōji suffering brain damage from the summer and Benimaru despaired about underestimating the illness and overestimating Tōji’s resilience to it.

“You are so obviously ill it’s not even funny!” Konro was the first one to find his voice again. Tōji held up a shaking finger though to prove how serious he was with his seriously delusional statement of being healthy.

“Never in my life have I gotten sick! And I will never get sick either!”

“Then how do you explain your poor condition!”

Benimaru sat up and looked at his boyfriend in a new light. Was Tōji so proud of his body and his past of never getting sick that he couldn’t process reality anymore?

“I was in a poor condition after my fight with Benimaru! This doesn’t mean anything! I’m just lacking some energy!” Tōji was… he was so convinced of the bullshit he was telling them that Benimaru also wondered now if he had brain damage. Maybe the flu itself caused him to be this delusional though. Beni sure as fuck hoped so.

“Agh! Do you even hear yourself! Lack of energy? You’re coughing all day, have a fever, and we can see your body aching from the other side of the house!”

“Ts, I’m not in pain.”

“Wait a fucking moment,” Benimaru cut in because he remembered something vital at that moment. “You requested fucking sick days! You admitted that you’re–“

“Absolutely not!” Tōji interrupted him with his red puffy eyes. “You all think I’m sick, so why shouldn’t I cash out on that?”

“…you fucking–!” Benimaru scrambled up from the floor and threw himself at his boyfriend to strangle him. Just a little. And Tōji was weakened enough that he didn’t react in time for a good defence, so now he was only barely holding Benimaru back while he had an elbow around his throat. They fought around like that for a minute on the floor with clothes tearing apart here and there and Tōji’s pale complexion getting even paler.

Konro just stood there thinking he was in the backyard of an elementary school watching idiot boys fight but he didn’t intervene because soon Tōji’s illness itself would do that for him. And look there:

“…cough… cough, cough, cough…”

“See, you fucking bitch are coughing again! And we didn’t even fight properly!”

“I’m not –cough– sick!”

“I can’t believe I defended you!”

With more strength than Tōji should be expending right now, he threw Benimaru off him and across the room. Then he stood up on shaky legs while holding onto the wall and addressed his two enemies head-on. “Listen closely. Bacteria and viruses cannot touch me and even if they do they get killed by my body in record time!” Benimaru didn’t bother pointing out that Tōji had been sick for over a week. “That has always been the case –cough– and it will stay that way.” Right when Konro wanted to reply to that obviously wrongful statement, Tōji went back into explaining his delusions some more.

“One time my father threw me into a room with children who were all suffering from measles. By the time he got me back out 12 hours later, I had already developed immunity after slightly red dust appeared and disappeared on my skin! And that was before I completely got rid of my cursed energy! Just like that! That’s why this time I’m not sick ei–“

“Tōji, wait a moment!”

Benimaru looked up at Konro who’s eyes had gone wide while his hands had gone up to his head. It looked like he had an epiphany of some sort, something Beni got the feeling he should’ve also had.

“Wait, wait, wait… the measles? Measles!? That contagious disease doesn’t exist anymore since the Cataclysm! Tōji, you…” Konro closed his eyes for a moment and took a deep breath before he opened them again with new conviction. “Tōji, you’re living in a world now where every disease you have ever encountered is either eradicated or evolved through 250 years of constant mutation. That’s not even getting into all the new diseases. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

It took Beni a while to get it and because Tōji was seriously ill it also took him a while to get it. They got it at the same time but while Benimaru was happy to have an explanation that neatly connected his jumbled thoughts on Tōji’s strength against his illness, Tōji himself just shook his head in even more denial.

“No… no, I can’t be ill just because your bacteria evolved… then all of you need to be even more ill than me! This doesn’t work like that! I’m supposed to be the best –cough– equipped to deal with this! But you’re all fine! Tanaka only had a runny nose!”

“Tōji, please. Think about this logically.” While Konro patiently explained this to their sick maid, Benimaru leaned back to watch but ultimately he turned around to give Tōji room to have a breakdown over this matter. They should’ve had this conversation before he suffered sleep deprivation and other stuff for a week; now Tōji’s mental fortitude was low while he had to accept that his body wasn’t as perfect as he always thought it was.

“Since the moment you were conceived, you had been exposed to your world’s pathogens while being protected by your mother’s immune syste–“

“My mother didn’t protect me from anything!”

“…her immune system that worked outside of her control automatically before you were born…” Konro finished after hearing that pretty sad admission. Luckily Beni was already looking somewhere else otherwise Tōji might’ve become embarrassed. “You grew up in that environment with your phenomenal immune system. But now you’re in a completely different place with pathogens your body only encountered in miniscule parts if at all. You’re in a new environment while we grew up in it after generations of getting used to these diseases.

“So it’s only natural that you, even with your supernatural ability to fight all bacteria, viruses, parasites and whatnot, would have a harder time adjusting to life here. It’s actually a testament to your superior body that you haven’t gotten sick until now.”

In Benimaru’s opinion, Konro hit that perfect spot between laying out cold hard facts and caressing Tōji’s ego to get him to understand the situation he was in. The lack of an immediate reply was proof of that working but Beni didn’t turn around to see for himself. The way Tōji reacted to their conversation until now pointed to him getting emotional about it in a way Benimaru only vaguely knew from the summer when Konro had found him.

Better to disappear before that happened. Deeply emotional heart-to-heart moments were not yet part of his and Tōji’s relationship; he rather let Konro handle that so without announcing his departure, Benimaru was out of that room. However their conversation unfolded after that point, Beni was sure Konro could handle it but he found himself with nothing to do now.

It felt wrong to go back to his leisure time or his duties after he skipped that confrontation… even though he knew it was the best decision at that moment…

In the end, Benimaru made tea for everyone while he thought of just punishment for Hinata and Hikage for eating their last cookies until he remembered that they ran out of them because Tōji hadn’t made new ones yet…

“Stupid whore… getting sick…”

Benimaru was reminded of the summer during Tōji’s depression and of his mother before she died. He much rather trained with Tōji out on their fields instead of seeing him like that but you couldn’t get everything you wanted. At least for now, Beni was distracted from his unattainable goal of stopping spontaneous human combustion and while he cut some fruit, Benimaru was sure that Konro would come out any moment with Tōji at his side so they could finally go to the doctor.

Beni was still sure his boyfriend could get over the flu or whatever he had on his own, but now that he knew that Tōji’s insistence on denying himself any medical treatment came from his extreme stubbornness in believing himself to be healthy, Benimaru had no excuse anymore to support him. A painkiller or two and some cough medication won’t kill him.

Soon enough, Konro called Benimaru over to him. He was at the front entrance where Tōji was miserably sitting on the steps putting his sandals on. In between coughs, he told Beni to make his tea hotter so he could drink it (and the entire pot) while it boiled in his mouth and throat and after everyone ate the watermelon and peaches, they started their track to the small clinic not far from them. Tōji walked on his own despite looking like he would keel over any moment but he was still superhuman which made that less of a problem than it looked like.

He got many well-wishes while they were on their way but Tōji ignored everyone. After drinking much-needed water which he had denied himself because he “wasn’t sick”, Tōji got some life and intelligence back behind his eyes which he then turned towards Benimaru accusingly.

“Why are you glaring at me?” Beni wanted to know. That was totally uncalled for; he had been a good boyfriend this last week. Apparently not in Tōji’s mind though.

“You could’ve told me I’m sick.”

“…wha–!” Benimaru did not hear that just now!

“I would’ve taken this more seriously.”

“You… you really want me to give you a fucking beating in the middle of the street, don’t you?”

“I’m just saying that you were overly affirmative with me when you normally go against everything I say or do. What’s up with that? Does me coughing or wiping my nose turn you on?”

Konro grabbed Benimaru around his arm before he even had the chance to think about throwing Tōji through some houses. That was the thanks he got for being empathetic and understanding to that whore. Unbelievable. “See me ever do something nice for you again when you get sick with the next virus your body never encountered before!”

“Tt. I’m fine.”

Tōji accentuated his statement with a coughing fit which he only overcame after someone brought him boiling tea again – someone who wasn’t Benimaru of course because the Master of the Watch decided to sit by and think of fucking Tōji just as his boyfriend had more or less suggested he do. A short while later, they finally managed to get to the doctor who immediately got his equipment out to get some samples.

“You should’ve come earlier; you look like you’re about to pass out!” were the words of the older man while he did a nasal swab. He pulled a butterfly needle out next to draw blood but Konro put that needle aside and pointed towards the thickest one they had. “We haven’t reached flu season yet but at least that means I’m not so busy. I can give you some medications while we wait for… why doesn’t this go in?“

“Let me do it,” Konro helpfully took the needle to get the blood himself. “Tōji’s skin is a little tough. You can examine him further while this gets done.”

“All right. So where was I?”

While the doctor went on with explaining what he would give Tōji and when he should take it, and Tōji explained to the doctor that he should give him everything but with five times the dose, Konro tried and failed to get the needle through Tōji’s skin. Benimaru watched him get more and more frustrated about that simple-looking task especially when one and then the second needle broke during it.

“Give me that. You have no experience putting that whore into his place.” New needle in hand, Benimaru was prepared to poke a hole in his boyfriend for nothing more than to punish him for being such a giant pain in the ass. Tōji gave him the side-eye but he was receptive to being punished for being an idiot. At least that was what Benimaru decided to believe in.

Then he broke the needle two times but on his third he did it.

“See? You only need the will to hurt him. Some strength in your arms, too.”

Just when Benimaru was about to get his deserved praise for managing that difficult task, everyone started groaning and shaking their heads, instead. What the fuck. That wasn’t how anyone should’ve reacted to his achievement.

“What?!”

“Benimaru… the needle is supposed to go into his vein. You only punctured his arm.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Tōji got a coughing medicine at that moment but instead of drinking it from the cup the doctor wanted to give him, Tōji grabbed the bottle in the doctor’s other hand and downed half of that before anyone could stop him. Then he grabbed the needle in his arm and put it into his vein himself before collapsing on the bed he was lying on, exhausted to the extreme. So exhausted in fact he couldn’t even make any disparaging comments to anyone (Benimaru) about the failed needling.

“…that… young man, it was unwise to drink half of this…” The doctor was fast to connect the end of the needle with some tubes to draw blood before hooking IV with fluids on Tōji, all the while shaking his head and giving Konro a look that read ‘This one is just as bad Waka’ to which Konro only nodded his head.

“And why are you so good at this needle stuff? Why would you Mr. I Never Get Sick know how to perfectly push a needle into a vein and that through skin as tough as yours?” Benimaru demanded to know. Tōji took some deep breaths before he answered.

“As if it’s difficult.”

Benimaru rolled his eyes but he refrained from getting physical. There was no need for it as he had already put a hole into Tōji so he merely sat down on a stool in the corner and waited for this visit to be other. The doctor did his medical stuff, Konro did his talking stuff and Benimaru closed his eyes for a nap which he had earned after that week and after suffering through Tōji’s stupidity and denialism of today.

When he would open his eyes again, things wouldn’t be fine immediately but they would be on their way there.

Little did Benimaru know that when he opened his eyes again he would be greeted by a panicked doctor tearfully calling a Tokyo hospital to ask for a transfer of a deathly sick patient no one in Asakusa would be able to treat while Konro would look worriedly at different charts while going through his hair with his hands and walking around to relieve stress. And Tōji?

He would just lie there on his bed and look like he did half an hour. In other words, everyone was panicking for nothing.

…or not?

Notes:

In Part 2 we go to Tokyo to save Toji's lung. Meanwhile Benimaru does something extremely dumb.

I wrote another oneshot recently for everyone who's interested in Gojo/Sukuna :D

It's about Kenjaku trying to seduce Sukuna who's sulking in a gay bar because his little brother Megumi denied him contact with that hot Gojo guy. Guess who suddenly shows up in that bar saving Sukuna from Kenjaku in the nick of time?

Chapter 16: Mutant (Bugs) (Part 2)

Summary:

Toji goes to the hospital, Benimaru reluctantly follows. A doctor starts stressing about assassins.
But who's at fault for all of this? Well, Toji has a certail blue-eyed teenager on mind.

Notes:

In the last 2 weeks I have been in a serious slump on the fanfic front. I didn't update anything and only managed to write a few hudnred words a day until a few days ago where it went up again :D

By the end of next week, I'll hopefully get back into my regular schedule. Until then, updates will come at random days probably.

“This is –cough– all Gojō’s fault.”

That was the preliminary conclusion Tōji came to while they slowly made their way to the Asakusa train station. Benimaru had no idea if that was true, but it wasn’t like he cared about Gojō Satoru. He disliked him even, so he had no problem with it when Tōji blamed him for his condition. (He did know that his dislike was biased, though, because he only had Tōji’s recollections of the man to go on… and Tōji was trying to assassinate that teenager after already killing another teenager, so…)

“If you say so.”

“I know it… cough cough… I don’t know how, but I know this is his fault.”

“In a sense, he really is at fault because he defeated you, and you somehow ended up in another dimension with viruses so mutated that even you can’t deal with them.”

“No… he’s directly at fault for this… I know it in my bones… cough cough… He’s laughing somewhere at me right now!”

“Wow… that sounds like you need water again.”

Benimaru did not want to be here with Tōji. Here, on their way to fucking Tokyo. Just why did Tōji’s bloodwork have to come out with catastrophic levels of “sepsis” and whatever other medical stuff the doctor nearly screamed about? This was all an overreaction in his opinion because despite the “near-death coma diagnosis”, Tōji was still conscious and walking on his own so there was no need to take his test result so seriously. Burning everything Tōji and his blood had touched was probably for the best, though.

“He needs to go to Tokyo!” was the next thing Benimaru didn’t like. Taking Tōji’s condition more seriously? Okay, he could do that. Bringing him to a hospital for better treatment? Fine. Unnecessary, but doable. Getting him to Tokyo for better treatment? Absolutely not.

“We have our own hospitals. He’s not going to Tokyo!”

“Waka,” the older doctor said, hands shaking and drenching Tōji’s test results with his sweat. “This is serious! He should be dead ten times over! Attempting complete treatment here is going to fail! We just–“

“Why are you ignoring him being wide awake!”

“We just don’t have the medical equipment and drugs to do that in Asakusa and–“

“The imperialists don’t have better hospitals than we do!”

“And I can’t guarantee a complete recovery if we try to treat him here because the Imperialists have better hospitals than we do!”

“Aghghg! Fine!”

Benimaru knew that Asakusa wasn’t as high-tech and advanced in medical treatments as Tokyo (“I wonder why!”), so in the end, he gave in and let Tōji go to a specialized hospital in enemy territory. What he still refused at that point, though, was going there with Tōji. There was no way he would set foot in Tokyo without setting many, many things on fire. But fucking Konro had other ideas and he had the perfect method bringing Benimaru to heel.

“Beni,” his oldest friend called him instead of using Waka, even though they were in front of others. That was the only warning shot before Konro delivered a one-hit defeat on Benimaru. “Your father brought your mother to every doctor’s appointment.”

“…”

That was how Beni had been “convinced” to bring his boyfriend to Tokyo himself. He couldn’t explain it, though; how had that happened? Why was that simple statement so effective against him? How had Tōji managed to slot himself into the same spot his mother used to have with his father? They weren’t even together for that long, and it wasn’t like Benimaru planned to marry Tōji. In his mind, Beni would get a wife in five to ten years while Tōji stayed with them but in his own part of the house.

Yes. That was the plan…

“Even with my eyes glazed over, I can still see you brooding… cough cough… try not to think so much; you’ll get gray hairs.”

“You should’ve realized during the last week that your higher brain functions always re-activate after drinking water, so how did you delude yourself into thinking you’re healthy for so long?”

“I had an enabler.”

“You fucking…”

The entire way to the train station was filled with childish bickering and annoying coughs. Just three months ago, that would’ve never happened, not even with Konro’s supreme persuasion methods, simply because Benimaru wouldn’t have been able to leave Asakusa for several hours. He was the sole infernal killer, his hikeshi were there for containment and clean up only, and yes, by now he also saw the major flaw in that setup. A setup that wasn’t even ten years old, so by the time Beni died with… 69 due to overheating, his hikeshi would’ve lost any competency in dealing with infernals.

Right now, it was easy enough to get them back into the killing business.

Which meant Benimaru had no excuse left not to go to Tokyo. He wasn’t sure yet how much he regretted that.

Once on the train, they sat down on their seats together with other Asakusans leaving their country and imperialists going back to theirs. There was more than one double take by Beni’s citizens when they saw him there with them. Some also looked ashamed at being “caught” for going to Tokyo for whatever reason. Today, Benimaru didn’t care about that and simply told everyone to get as far away from Tōji as possible as he was sick. The people did after giving him respectful well-wishes.

The Tokyo people, on the other hand, looked nervous after recognizing him. What could the Strongest Pyrokinetic in the World want in Tokyo? And why didn’t he just fly over there instead? Yeah, why did they use the train? Because Tōji didn’t feel like taking the broom transport, making Benimaru’s life once again more difficult for no reason.

The Tokyo people also got away from them, but more out of fear and not wanting to stand out in their presence than respect.

Some time later, they got off at a big Tokyo train station, having to change to another train to get to that specialized hospital. Beni’s men had written down clear instructions for him, including to which platform they needed to go and which train and how many stops they needed to take. Benimaru sighed at the sight of this ugly station and got to walking before turning back around and taking Tōji’s arm to pull him after him. His pain-in-the-ass boyfriend was spacing out again, so with deep-seated hatred in his gut, Benimaru gave the Tokyo Empire his money for an orange juice.

“You’ll pay me back for this.”

“Do you mean me? …or these people?” Tōji asked with his shaking finger, trying to point to everyone else around them but failing miserably.

“I mean all of you,” Benimaru answered, angry at the universe. He knew this day would get even more tedious than this.

They found the correct train to board and for the wellbeing of everyone, the Tokyo people decided to avoid Benimaru and Tōji, partly because they didn’t want to be around an obviously sick person who wasn’t wearing a mask (good for them; they might just die on the spot if they caught Tōji’s germs) and partly because they wanted to stay clear of someone who was wearing Asakusan clothing. Benimaru remembered now how his people would dress like the Tokyo people to avoid this scenario.

But then the Tokyo people realized that Benimaru was wearing Fire Force pants and boots and suddenly they became more friendly towards them. They were lucky they didn’t realize who exactly he was without Asakusan people around to tell them; otherwise, they would’ve been so terrified of him that they would’ve jumped off the moving train. Or so Benimaru hoped. He really hated these people.

And yet he still saved their lives when Tōji had to sneeze.

“…hachoo…”

A giant hole was blasted into the side of the train and the only reason why two women and one teenager didn’t fly out of it in pieces was because Benimaru (reluctantly) heeded Tōji’s warning (transmitted via his elbow being rammed into his side) and pushed those people away. After the screaming stopped and the train came to a sudden halt, a conductor came to their compartment to look at what had just happened. Meanwhile, Benimaru was even nice enough to disinfect the edges of the hole so no one would get Tōji’s illness. (He did his disinfecting with fire, so in the end, he did get to burn Tokyo stuff).

Tōji didn’t have more sneezes, thankfully, and everyone around them just assumed he was a pyrokinetic to explain that superhuman feat. Benimaru did have to write an incident report on the spot, though, so the train company could bill Asakusa for the damages. Tōji pretended to be deaf when Benimaru told him how that money would come out of his paycheck.

With the handy guide written down by his men, they finally made it to that fucking hospital half an hour later. Tōji had, as Benimaru had told everyone continuously, been able to make that way on his own. Deathly sick his ass. Unfortunately, they were expected, so any last-second turnaround was thwarted the moment they stepped inside the reception area.

“You must be Tōji Fushiguro, the patient from Asakusa, right? You shouldn’t be walking with how bad your test results… have been explained to us over the phone.” A middle-aged male nurse came over to greet them, probably the only one who had the guts to do that with one tall, pale and dangerous looking person and one short, angry and dangerous looking person in front of him, both of them “Heredicts”. Now, the man was also questioning the information he had received from Asakusa. Tōji was looking too good to be on the verge of a coma.

“And you must be Mister Fushiguro’s escort,” the nurse continued, a little stressed.

Benimaru accepted that term. He even liked it somehow. Escort. It had an old-timey feel to it, in his opinion, which was the reason why he didn’t scream into the reception area with other nurses, doctors and patients standing around that Tōji was his lover. It would be hilarious if he did that, of course, but he would most likely cause the people there to treat Tōji worse because of their homophobia and sometimes – Benimaru was slowly learning this lesson – you didn’t cause problems for yourself and those closest to you out of thin air. Unlike Tōji, who did exactly that multiple times today.

“Yes, I’m escorting him and no, don’t let his looks deceive you. Anyone else with his level of disease would’ve keeled over days ago.”

The nurse wrote some things down on a clipboard before looking up (technically down) and freezing for a few seconds when he recognized Benimaru. Because his patience this day had already been stretched enough as it was, Beni roughly shoved the nurse towards a random corridor he thought might take them to a doctor before everyone found out who he was as well. The rude treatment had an obvious negative effect on everyone who was watching the Asakusan men, which frustrated Benimaru immensely. Can’t even push people around without these imperialistic pussies getting scandalized.

What would they think if they ever saw Benimaru throw his men through houses and destroy his own and others’ property in the process?

“So… we’ll get a few blood samples first.” They were led to a spacious room with lots of cabinets and a hospital bed where Tōji sat down tiredly after walking too much. “Has your doctor already given you something? And in what dose?”

That was a seriously important question Benimaru had not wasted a single second preparing for. How would they explain that Tōji needed about five times of every dose of medicine? Did they have a story for his superhuman body? Benimaru felt like he should have an answer for this question…

“I’m a pyro… my body burns through medicine fast… need higher dosages… here.” So Tōji had thought about that problem. Which was to be expected, actually; that was his problem first and that snake probably had that excuse ready three days after crashing into Asakusa. What Tōji also had ready was a note from their doctor with everything Tōji had taken back home.

“Wow, that’s a lot! Maybe that’s why you have been able to walk around like that? We’ll check your blood ourselves, too, though, to make sure the numbers are correct before we proceed.”

“Thanks, mate.”

Benimaru narrowed his eyes at Tōji at that overly friendly answer his boyfriend just gave to a Tokyo man. Tōji had a nonplussed look to him after catching Benimaru’s eyes but then, when the nurse turned around to get some things from the cabinets, Tōji stuck out his dry and discoloured tongue at Beni to make an obscene gesture with it. For two reasons, Benimaru’s heart started to pump his blood like a sledgehammer.

“Do that again… and I won’t be held responsible for what will happen in this room next.”

“…ähh, what?”

The nurse confusedly looked back to them but Tōji was pleased to have gotten a rise out of Benimaru. A rise that threatened sex because of how turned on Beni was while also being jealous of that Tokyo man and what Tōji implied he might do with the guy. That jealousy turned into rage fast but he was still able to control himself.

“Nothing. Get on with it.”

The nurse brought, among other stuff, a needle to get the blood. Tōji’s previous IV catheter wasn’t usable anymore because its needle broke after Tōji flexed two fingers of his hand. But Benimaru was more than ready to penetrate his boyfriend again today, so he demanded to be the one to do it now.

“Sure, if you know how to do it.”

“I learned it just today.”

“…maybe I–“

“Shut it.”

The nurse was still bold enough to put small disinfectant wipes on Tōji’s arm, silently urging Benimaru to use them before he poked more pathogens into Tōji. Rolling his eyes, Beni did use them before throwing them into the air and setting them on fire. Then came his big moment. Shinmon Benimaru’s full awakening as an Asakusan nurse who knew how to handle a needle like he knew how to handle his cock.

And on his first try, he did it. He got through that iron skin without breaking the needle and he got the vein just the same.

Perfect penetration.

So why had the other two men expressions of worry and exasperation on them? Tōji rolled his eyes at Beni, a motion that made him dizzy, so he leaned his head back against the upright bed. That left only the Tokyo nurse able to explain Benimaru’s… mistake to him and neither of them would like that conversation.

“Mr. Shinmon… I’m glad you found his vein but… the needle is supposed to go into his vein so the liquid medicine can enter his vascular system… you punctured through that vein and ended up in his muscles…”

Benimaru looked down at Tōji’s arm and at the needle that stuck in a perfect 90° angle there. He hated to admit it, but what the nurse said made painful sense. It wasn’t painful enough however to make Beni embarrassed so with a cocky “You try it, then” he made space for the Tokyo man to fail at this thing (Tōji), too.

The nurse was confident in getting the needling right.

Then he broke the needle.

Confused, he got another bigger one but the moment he pushed it at the tiniest of wrong angles, it bent out of shape into a C-form. The man pulled the needle towards his eyes and just stood there baffled for several seconds before Beni lightly kicked him so he could get another one. While the nurse did that, Benimaru made a mental note to (find someone who would) file an official complaint against Tokyo for giving them inferior needles. It was unacceptable that their bigger needles were so brittle that they broke instead of bending sideways like these.

“All right… this time I’m sure I’ll–“

“Give me that. I won’t become a test dummy for a second time this day.”

Tōji snatched the needle and inserted it into his vein again, but Benimaru had to give it to his boyfriend; despite his misgivings on being poked, he still allowed the nurse to fail twice so Beni’s previous embarrassing failure didn’t seem as colossal anymore. The nurse was wide-eyed now as Tōji easily finished the job even though his fingers shook. Then the blood-getting could finally start and soon the nurse was out of the room ordering those new tests.

He left them something before parting, though. A clipboard and a pen to fill out a form. Benimaru looked at the three papers and shook his head. This was what he got for being in a relationship. Papers to fill out. He was inclined to let Tōji do it but his boyfriend just closed his eyes again to get some rest and well… Benimaru would rather fill out papers than disturb him now.

Luckily, he was finished with them quickly, even before the nurse came back to hook up an IV to Tōji. Soon, a doctor will come with the earliest test results and the treatment will start from there, the nurse said, taking the clipboard back. The only reason Beni was so fast with the forms, though, was that he didn’t ask Tōji a single question…

---

Kayoko Huang, Captain of Company 6, was racing through the streets of Tokyo in her rarely used matchbox to one of her most important cases in the last months. Maybe in the last years even because national security was on the line. A highly delicate matter had arisen out of nowhere and international relationships and military action were at stake if this turned bad.

Benimaru Shinmon was in Tokyo… and he was deathly sick.

The telephone calls and faxed test results were all over the place and hard to make sense of but the facts were that the Captain of Company 7 had a severe infection and sepsis and needed to be treated by multiple doctors at the same time to ensure his survival.

…or his death.

Huang wasn’t that close with the Empire’s political systems but she knew that Tokyo’s reputation was on the line if Shinmon died in their hospital and if it looked like they didn’t try hard enough to save him. That someone from the underbelly of the Fire Church might assassinate him anyway was a possibility Huang wouldn’t be sharing with anyone until her death bed. She had seen injuries and the suspicious circumstances on how they came about; she had done autopsies with subtle yet undeniable evidence that something foul had happened; she knew there was a force in her country that carried out illicit killings of political enemies…

But she didn’t care about them. She couldn’t care about them because her life was dedicated to other things, like swearing to do everything in her power to save a patient. But she also knew her role in this kind of situation… she would try to save Shinmon and make sure that was understood and known in Asakusa. If he still died, she would be able to say from the bottom of her heart that she did everything possible to prevent his demise.

But if an assassin managed to do something to him and if that was so subtle that no one would ever know except maybe herself… she would still try to work against that assassination if Shinmon was in front of her but ultimately… her lips would be sealed if he died like that. Captain Huang was ready to carry that burden for Tokyo’s peace.

If this had happened last year, though, no one at the hospital or the Fire Church would’ve been as stressed and near-panicked as they were now. Last year, they would’ve had multiple assassination plans ready to finally get rid of Shinmon for good before he decided to attack them. But those plans were out of the window since this summer because a new player had entered the game: Tōji Fushiguro.

The unofficial second strongest pyrokinetic in all of the world.

That man had turned all of the other Fire Force Companies and the highest priests of the Fire Church into a frenzy because he had successfully fought Shinmon into a draw. Worse still, he was allied with Shinmon, which was why his name wasn’t widely known in the Tokyo population. Fushiguro was a failsafe for Asakusa now; the man who could promise and successfully undertake retaliation against Tokyo if it looked the tiniest bit like Shinmon’s death was caused by them.

Huang had a huge responsibility on her shoulders: be true to herself and treat the other Captain to the full extent of her abilities, especially in a believable way… and cover up any crime someone from her country might commit against a defenceless man.

She reached the hospital, left her car and ran inside to see in what condition Shinmon was. Her worst fears were partially confirmed when she was led to a ward that was now sealed off, only accessible via a hazmat suit. While she changed, she received the newest test results: Human respiratory syncytial virus. How that benign virus had reached catastrophic levels of sepsis and other complications, Huang had no idea but sometimes people simply had weak immune systems.

“I’m Captain Huang from Company 6! I’m here to treat Captain Shinmon!” she said while bursting into the room. It was dramatic but necessary because she needed to immediately establish who was the highest rank to make sure the proceedings and treatment would run smoothly. She expected a loud environment with doctors and nurses running around and machines beeping and alerting everyone of the next heart failure and low oxygen.

What she found inside her patient’s room… was not that.

The nurses and doctors and machines were there but no one and nothing was making a sound. The equally dressed-in-hazmat-suit hospital personnel were just… idly walking around and looking outside the windows or staring at this and that chart while the machines were neither hooked up to Shinmon nor an electric outlet. All eyes turned to Huang when she entered, which ended the little bit of chatter they had going, making the room completely silent.

Except for the sound of two people eating while talking with each other.

“When we get back, you’re making me this soup. Just less imperialistic.”

“I have no idea what kind of soup… cough cough… that is. Leave me alone.”

One man, who was sitting on the window sill, was indeed eating soup with a spoon while the other one, sitting on the hospital bed and hooked up to an IV, was eating what looked like frozen yoghurt. Neither of them was in a hazmat suit. Neither of them seemed to care where they were. Neither of them looked like they were on the verge of death. One of the men was looking a little sick at least but Huang had come here for an emergency. For potential death one way or another.

In the last 20 minutes, Huang nearly had a crisis of conscience. And now this.

“Captain Huang? I didn’t expect you to come here. Looks like the higher-ups decided on that,” a doctor who introduced herself as the head of her medicine department said. Huang wasn’t surprised that communication had become poor here and there; that was how dire and time-sensitive the information of Shinmon’s illness was. Even though the two men around the bed continued to nonchalantly eat their food.

“Tell me everything that’s going on and explain to me what measures you’ve undertaken until now.”

The bizarrely subdued attitudes of the nurses and doctors turned energetic while they told and showed her every test they did and let her know what medicine they prescribed for their deathly ill patient. Everything was as it should be so far; the doctors made excellent decisions but… but Shinmon was just sitting there and eating yoghurt! No, Huang told herself, calm down and go through this one step at a time. It was uncommon but not unheard of that strong pyrokinetics had atypical symptoms during the progression of their illnesses. This had to be one of those times.

Huang’s confusion on that front abated at last… but a new confusing front opened up when everyone around her talked about Mr. Fushiguro. Maybe the second strongest pyrokinetic on earth was also sick with the human respiratory syncytial virus? But anyway, Huang needed to actually talk with her patient now, and that before he keeled over and asphyxiated from the water in his lungs as per the lung infection she saw on one of the roentgen-rays.

“Captain Shinmon, I need you to tell me exactly how you’re fee–“ But then, with her heart making a painful jump, Huang realized… the man on the bed wasn’t Benimaru Shinmon. “Wha-what? Who are you? You’re not Shinmon?” She had never met Shinmon in person, only the Lieutenant of Company 7, but she had seen his picture in a meeting with the Fire Church, so who was the man before her and where was the other Captain?!

On the window sill, as it seemed. Looking perfectly fine and not like he was in a fever coma or about to end up in one. While Huang was unendingly confused about everything now, the man on the bed decided to answer her last question.

“Thank the Buddha I’m not him… cough… the world wouldn’t survive two powerful yet extremely stupid men.”

“Fuck off, bitch.”

First, Huang had difficulty remembering who Buddha was, but after that, she slowly came to understand what was going on in front of her: a mix-up. But that couldn’t be. She looked over her notes that had been faxed to her and checked everything that had been written down on them. On it, the admission form. Birthday, birthplace, occupation, aliases; everything was about Shinmon and no one else; this piece of paper in front of her showed that Benimaru Shinmon had been admitted to this hospital and not Tōji Fushiguro!

“I’m sorry, but I have been informed that Captain Shinmon was seriously ill and needed immediate attention.” But Shinmon looked perfectly healthy, unlike the other man who had to be Fushiguro, who himself wasn’t about to die either. What was going on here? “I have been informed… that Captain Shinmon…”

Would be killed by the Shadows of the Holy Sol Temple… they have to be here somewhere… are they already in the room? Will they strike now? Or later?

Captain Huang’s stress levels reached a high like they hadn’t in years but she was professional and didn’t let it show in her posture or voice. Only her confusion came through because she needed some serious answers to this catastrophic mix-up before someone tried to assassinate someone else. Most of the doctors and nurses in the room were confused at what she said but some actually took her side and openly said they thought the man on the bed was Shinmon, too.

“Quiet.” Any further questioning and talking by the hospital staff was halted with one word by… by the second strongest man in the world. Huang hadn’t managed to fully realize that until now but that man on the bed was Tōji Fushiguro. Instead of that making her calm down about any possible assassinations, though, she fell into even more paranoia for the moment, thinking the Shadows would try to kill both of them.

“Give that to me,” Fushiguro said, stopping Huang’s spiralling thoughts in their tracks. The sick man didn’t wait to be given anything as he simply snatched her papers away, but strangely, Huang felt relief at that. Like an overly complicated burden was lifted off her shoulders.

Fushiguro looked at her papers for a second, then he closed eyes in a long suffering way, looked up at the ceiling, shook his head, and then he turned to Captain Shinmon with scathingly nonplussed expression made scary by his pale face and red eyes.

“Really? A hospital gives you a form to fill and the first thing you do is write your own name on it?”

“Häh? What?” Shinmon seemed confused about Fushiguro’s statement but Huang finally heard something that had her heart beat slower. A cultural misunderstanding. That was what had happened today. All of that stress and anxiety until now… completely unnecessary. And Shinmon still didn’t get it. “What else was I supposed to do with those papers? They gave them to me.”

“They gave them to you because I was coughing my lungs out! You were supposed to help me fill out those questions! The sick person whose information a hospital would actually need!”

“…”

Everyone was looking at the Heretic as he processed that monumental reveal… about making a really dumb mistake that had nevertheless reached the upper echelons of the Fire Church and prompted an urgent intervention by the Captain of Company 6 (…and some assassins).

“Hmmm…” Benimaru Shinmon said. Huang couldn’t make out if he was embarrassed or didn’t care about his blunder. That young man was hard to read but she was sure he was using his pyrokinetic abilities somewhat. For what, she had no idea. “Well, you should’ve been more clear about that,” was the ultimate answer the other captain came to, which then ended some parts of Huang’s stressful day.

The other part was about helping Tōji Fushiguro, something that was surprisingly easy and yet extremely frustrating because of how Fushiguro’s body reacted to their treatment and how Fushiguro himself refused nearly everything they wanted to do.

No attempts at anyone’s life were made during her visit to this hospital, and Huang was eternally grateful for that.

---

“Did we really have to go to Tokyo for this? Half my day is ruined.”

“Don’t worry, I’m going to put the pharmaceutical companies on my watch list. Next time, I’ll just steal my medicine.”

“Good.”

Benimaru and Tōji were walking back to the train station that would bring them to Asakusa. Tōji was holding a giant bag with about 50 blister packages and small bottles of medicine plus an inhalation device. Half of that stuff they wouldn’t have been able to get in Asakusa, at least not without massive delay, which Tōji might’ve been able to bridge but… Benimaru couldn’t lie to himself that much; he was relieved to have competent people with better machinery and experience and whatnot look at Tōji and determine his health status.

Which turned out to be mostly good except one vital area. One place that carried over 95% of the infection in Tōji’s body from where it spread into the rest and continuously tried to infect every other organ, muscle and joint. The culprit of Tōji’s long-lasting illness turned out to be… his lung.

His left lung.

Which suddenly had Benimaru come to a massively important conclusion.

“You were right,” he said to Tōji because of which his boyfriend’s tired eyes looked over to him. He wasn’t happy about that admission, yet, because he had no idea what Benimaru could be referring to. If Tōji’s brain had been working better at the moment, he could’ve come to this on his own, though. “This is Gojō Satoru’s fault.”

“…really?”

“Yes. Remember what those white sack doctors told us? The main centre of your infection is your left lung. Your regenerated left lung after Gojō blew it off which is now part of your body that is a little weaker than your original.”

“…are you saying…” It took Tōji a few seconds to get it as he was desperately in need of his futon but when he did, he broke the plaster under their feet with his next step. “That I could’ve been over this stupid thing three days in… but I didn’t because my mysteriously healed left lung had different plans? Plans that involved getting seriously infected and spreading that shit all over?”

“Yes, that’s what I’m saying. See, your boyfriend isn’t as stupid as you say.”

“…so all of this is really… Gojō’s fault…

“That fucking teenager!”

Notes:

Yes, this is another scene that had been living inside my head for 2 yeras now. The only thing that changed while writing these fics is that the hikeshi have already learned to operate on their own. In my original idea that wasn't supposed to happen with Toji's disappearance but way later.

As a fun sidenote about Benimaru sticking a needle through Toji's vein and muscles: I had a needle stuck in my breast once. The doc just left it hanging there while getting something else :D

Chapter 17: Joys of Life

Notes:

Who is ready for Fire Force Season 3!!!

These idiots definitely are.

Tōji started their breakfast with, “Was it just me, or were there people in the hospital planning to kill us? Or at least you.”

Three days had passed since their visit to Tokyo, and Tōji was feeling pretty good again. He was loath to admit it, but the medicine helped him recover faster, so today he finally went back to the kitchen and made a big breakfast for the Shinmon Household, plus Shinbeita, who had stepped up in the maid department while Tōji was on his paid sick leave.

“Aren’t there always people in Tokyo who’re trying to kill me?” Benimaru asked while rolling his fried vegetables into a pancake. “I stopped caring for them a long time ago.” Tōji raised an unimpressed eyebrow while Konro and Shinbeita had a good laugh at the constant threats to Benimaru’s life. Technically, those couldn’t be categorized as threats, of course, because a threat needed to be, well, threatening first.

“I’m trying to gauge the political climate and ramifications of the Fire Church looking for ways to kill you inside a hospital,” Tōji said as he found this topic worthy of discussing in depth. For everyone else, it seemed just like another Tuesday, though.

“They haven’t tried anything for years except put some spies here and there.” Konro at least engaged with Tōji’s conversation, unlike the man it was about. “Their last time was right after Hibachi died. After that, the potential for devastating retaliation became too big for them, regardless of whether they managed to kill Beni or not. In case he survived, however, they would be facing a catastrophe.”

“And Waka only got stronger since then,” Shinbeita added.

“I launched a direct attack at Amaterasu after the last assassination attempt,” Benimaru said while putting more food on his plate from the pans in the middle of their round table arrangement. He was the one keeping the pans hot. “Right from the backyard, I took the bodies of the two wannabe assassins and flew upward and towards that thing before setting the bodies on fire and shooting them down on it.”

“Wait, you mean the energy source of Tokyo?” Tōji had seen the giant construction from a distance and while he was curious how it worked, he hadn’t looked into it yet. That Benimaru had targeted it was extremely bold. “Was that a spontaneous decision or did you put actual thought behind attacking Amaterasu?”

“The previous Master had given him clear instructions to do that at the slightest provocation after Waka would take over the title,” Shinbeita answered for Benimaru, who had his mouth full again and wasn’t in a hurry to remedy that. “Calculated damage. Enough to have them sweat while repairing it, and fearing the worst if an attack was ever on the table again.”

“The old man had some brains, I have to give him that.” Tōji mulled that new revelation over in his head until he could better understand the history between Asakusa and Tokyo. “They’re relying heavily on that fusion reactor or whatever else it is; their lifestyles are solely centred on the electricity it generates, so threatening that is a really good idea.”

“And that’s why they left us alone for so long,” Konro concluded while putting jam onto the pancakes of Hinata and Hikage. The girls were only allowed to eat two lest one of them got sick. “Giving us a Company is their new strategy to forge peace after their ways of brutalizing us don’t work anymore.”

“Forge peace,” Benimaru said mockingly. When it came to hating on the Tokyo Empire, he was quick to swallow his food down. “The Company business is there to de-fang us and fold us into them so we cannot easily rebel anymore.”

“We’re not getting into that again,” but Konro was quick to shut that conversation down. They really had enough of that, especially in the early days of Company 7. “No one tried to kill Beni in years and I’m sure the people in the hospital wouldn’t have tried either.”

“Of course they wouldn’t, he was healthy.” Tōji thought back to their visit and tried to reconstruct everything that had happened there while his mind was too ill to respond properly to anything. “And I don’t like to say this, but Beni filling out the admission form under his own name saved us a headache later on. Me leaving behind a trail that can be proven to be false is just unnecessary drama no one needs.”

The hot dumpling Tōji was just about to put into his mouth turned cold with one glare from his boyfriend. Tōji returned the glare in kind. “I complimented you, didn’t I? Good job being dumb.”

Benimaru didn’t deign to answer that “compliment” other than to reheat the dumpling into being burned. Tōji threw it into his mouth before the black spots became too big and the breakfast continued like normal afterwards. His entire life returned to being normal after experiencing the human condition known as being sick for more than a week. That meant Tōji cleaned the dishes again, made some snacks and tea for everyone, organized the laundry and counted his money before deciding how much of it he wanted to spend on a shopping trip tomorrow.

‘So this is my life now, huh?’ he thought while walking through the wooden corridors of the Guardhouse. It seemed so ordinary but every time he thought about it, it was incredible how he got there and mind-blowing how he liked to stay there, too. One could argue that Tōji got humbled by Gojo and the universe into being a decent person, and yeah, that was probably correct.

What also humbled him was his ability to think clearly which took a nosedive while he was ill. Regardless if that was something that happened to most people suffering from severe lung infections or not, it brought him into a vulnerable position he shouldn’t and didn’t want to be in. His summer depression might’ve taken a bigger toll on his body than he thought which he would have to deal with from now on, but… he was glad to be here with people who took care of him even when he was his most brain-damaged and stubborn self.

---

“Have I told you how I wanted to be carried by you a few times while we walked to the hospital?”

Late in the evening and from behind, Tōji put his hands on Benimaru’s shoulders. He had been silent while he walked up to him and avoided the pyrokinetic energy tendrils his boyfriend was pushing in some directions. In other words, Benimaru was surprised to have Tōji touching him suddenly. But you had to be careful with surprising the strongest pyrokinetic on earth; either he or you could burst into flames. So Tōji made sure his words reached Beni’s ears first before his hands got on those tense muscles.

Benimaru jolted at the contact, showing both his surprise and restraint. He was sitting on the engawa repairing hikeshi equipment like fire-resistant ropes and the bolts, screws and hooks they were attached to. Tōji saw the heat he used to bend the metal to his will rise 50 degrees while Benimaru dealt with his small fright. Then his boyfriend calmed down and continued with his repairs.

Tōji silently sat down behind Benimaru while his hands remained on the other’s shoulders.

“What are you talking about? You explicitly refused to be carried by me on my matoi.”

“I meant being carried on your arms because how exactly would’ve the broom been an enjoyable experience? I would’ve thrown up from the view and the wind would’ve whipped me in the face every nanosecond.”

“Not only could you have closed your eyes or looked at me during the flight, but I’m also perfectly capable of creating a warm and cosy bubble while flying.”

“Oh, so not creating any warm and cosy bubble for me until now was a deliberate choice on your part, hä?”

“Whores need to know their place.”

“And where is my place exactly?”

“With…”

During their conversation, Tōji’s fingers not only stayed on Benimaru’s shoulders, they travelled up to his neck and down over his spine for slow and sensible ministrations. Sensible soon turned into strong and Beni’s composure and ability to talk without moaning crumbled piece by piece.

“With me… on the floor… any second now…”

“Not today, honey.”

“…what?”

Like most of their sexual encounters, they could’ve made this a quick affair. Foreplay for only as long as they got each other hot and bruised, sex brutally administered which meant fast thrusts, then some afterglow cuddles that might last longer if Benimaru had something to do or read with him while Tōji nestled his face into his lover’s chest. Beni would’ve done all of that during this evening, especially because this would be the first time they had sex in two weeks.

But Tōji had different plans, so he stopped Benimaru from turning around and getting right to it. With hands as strong as a cage, he kept his lover in place while giving him a massage like no other person on earth could.

“Whatever you’re… whatever you… you’re planning, I’m…”

Which meant Tōji had a sure-fire way to shut Beni up at any time. Benimaru wanted to give his opinion on what was to come? Well sucks to be him, because that’s a thumb between his ribs. He wanted to complain? Nails along his neck. He wanted to stand up? He just got a centimetre shorter after Tōji pressed his spine into the ground. Suffice it to say but they both got turned on immensely by that punishing game.

“Tonight, you’re going to be the whore,” Tōji whispered into Benimaru’s ear, eliciting a shudder in his boyfriend that travelled up and down his body before settling in his groin. Tōji saw and loved it. Benimaru did, too, but he was in denial.

“I’m not going… to be the bitch tonight.”

“What did we say about not using insulting language?”

“That I could do it… as long as no one listened in…”

“Wrong answer.”

Benimaru went from being held in a sitting position to being pressed down into the tatami floor by his shoulders. Tōji wasn’t shy about being rough either, so he pushed his boyfriend from the engawa to the middle of the room, nearly breaking a few wooden boards underneath them. Tonight their love-making would only go in one direction.

And Benimaru? However much that wasn’t a position he sought out on his own, he still liked it enough to engage with it from time to time.

But this time, something new built up in him. A new dimension to his sexual desires he hadn’t felt before.

Benimaru put his hands on the tatami and tried to push himself up just to feel the endlessly strong hands of Tōji holding him in place. When he tried his legs next, he wasn’t surprised that Tōji put a knee on the small of his back. Physically, he was restrained in a way he couldn’t get out of without using his pyrokinesis. Mentally, that brought a new feeling of subjugation into his psyche he had no idea he could possess.

Those fingers that were pushing him down with no chance of escape broke his bones not long ago…

Benimaru couldn’t believe how much that turned him on.

---

“Ts,” was Tōji’s misgiving comment on the state of an old residential district of Asakusa at one of the borders. An infernal had appeared there and now two rows of houses were completely and five additional houses were partially ruined. Not by the infernal though. No, no, that honour of destruction belonged to none other than Shinmon Benimaru and Tōji was pissed about it.

Partly because he didn’t understand that tradition; mostly because he saw every En of wasted money in Asakusa as his wasted money. Who knew how much free and cheap stuff he could be getting if the city wasn’t constantly losing money on repairing all these buildings. And wood wasn’t an easy resource to get anymore either; that stuff was expensive. But try talking sense into these people who loved to have their houses destroyed by their Waka. Sometimes, it felt like Tōji had walked into a cult but, well, he was also somewhat worshipped by them, so he ignored that mostly.

“You could’ve restrained yourself at least a little,” he told Benimaru amidst the wreckage, trying to convince him to change this madness. Convincing the people? Forget it; if Tōji’s word stood against Benimaru’s, the masses would always side with Waka. But if he got Beni to see the light, then the masses would follow him without question.

“I did restrain myself for how old and well-liked Grandma Tsunade was.”

“That was a restrained response?” There went that plan. “You should’ve realized by now that you’re costing Asakusa a fortune with your wanton destruction.”

“This isn’t wanton, it’s part of our culture, so you better get behind it.”

“Even if it means being disadvantaged against the Tokyo Empire?”

“Ts.” Was it just Tōji, or had Benimaru recently started using that tiny dismissive exclamation after copying it from Tōji? …or did Tōji copy it from Benimaru? He couldn’t tell right now. “The empire doesn’t dictate how we act and what we do. I won’t give them that power over us.”

Look at that, an argument even Tōji could get behind. Still.

“You can still turn the level of destroyed homes down a bit. How about only destroying the building that belonged to the infernal?”

Benimaru put his finger into his ear to relieve pressure or something similar, making Tōji narrow his eyes at him because of the intentional disrespect on display. He wasn’t surprised his proposal was rejected. “And not make a spectacle of the death?”

Tōji closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Then he slowly let it out again. Did he really care so much about the destruction Benimaru caused? Not really, he thought, he cared more about the people of Asakusa and how they should live the best life possible for them which included not throwing their money away constantly. So, after his impromptu introspection, he realized that his objection to this tradition was really about… culture.

For Tōji, a destroyed house implied a destroyed home. A home that didn’t mean much to the people when it was destroyed, implied a broken home. He just couldn’t reconcile the fact that the Asakusans evidently thought differently about that; that they didn’t put as much identity and belonging into the physical structure of a house. And it wasn’t like Tōji wasn’t like that either most of his life; he had gone from one apartment to the next over the years and only called one of them his home during all that time.

But thinking like that as an individual (without leaving destroyed houses and apartments behind) was one thing and having to accept that an entire society acted like that was another and didn’t sit right with Tōji… in the end, he couldn’t do much about that, though. It wasn’t his place to do anything about it either; he was the guest and he had to conform to Asakusa’s culture.

But that didn’t prevent his pride and contrarianism from demanding some changes. Throwing so much wood and money away twice a week was ridiculous.

(And while Tōji made his next demand, a proto-infernal rounded a corner.)

“All right, then destroy the house of the infernal and the two or three houses adjacent to it.”

“Tōji,” Benimaru said all haughtily, like he couldn’t believe this conversation was happening. “Why would I limit myself and Asakusa like that? And how would I know which house belongs to the infernal when I shoot them down from far away? Think about this logically.”

Knack

That was the sound of Tōji’s knuckles cracking before he put them into his yukata sleeves. Benimaru had no right to talk about logic as he only ever did things based on his moods. “Logically speaking, you could just not throw your matoi at the infernal from a distance. It’s not like you aren’t there five seconds later anyway.”

“Hm.”

That was the sound of Benimaru acknowledging that he hadn’t thought that far ahead in his argument because he wasn’t actually making any arguments. He was just standing his ground with whatever felt like would win him the debate he was having with Tōji. Then, after he lazily acknowledged the proto-infernal walking past him, Benimaru just gave up on arguing about their different stances completely.

“I’m not going to stop offering destruction as the final farewell to my people, and I’m not going to limit myself on that either. If you still have a problem with that, then either stop having that problem or bring it up to the Asakusa Counsel or the Masters’ Guild.” For Benimaru, that was the end of the conversation, so he turned around, ignored the slow-walking proto-infernal, and looked at his levelled surroundings to find something to do there. The rebuilding was faster when he helped and it was the fastest when Tōji helped.

And Tōji would help them. He would help them so much they won’t need day-long repairs anymore and he knew the way to accomplish that now as well. Benimaru had inadvertently made him see the light at the end of the tunnel.

“All right,” he called out to Beni’s back, making him tense up because his tone promised a fight. “I’ll do that.”

“…do what?” Benimaru said while turning his head, directing his narrowed eyes at Tōji.

“Complain to the Asakusa Counsel, the Masters’ Guild and… the Geriatric Society.”

The eye-narrowing got more severe after Benimaru fully turned around again and at the mention of the last association of Asakusan people, he even crossed his arms over his chest. “And what do you think you will accomplish by complaining to them about this? After all, we’re all united on that front.”

“Luckily, you’ve already perfected my arguments just now.” Tōji’s grin stretched across his face while he lifted his head to emphasize their height difference. “Culture here, death ritual there. Yeah, yeah, I get it, I won’t be able to make this stop. But I can restrain it.”

“You wouldn’t dare start a fight like that with Asakusa.” Just as it looked like their disagreement would get serious, Benimaru’s eyes travelled up and to the side while he thought of what he just said. Tōji saw how Beni remembered that, yeah… the Asakusan people would actually love it if a trusted member of their city started a fight like that. They would start arguing with each other soon afterward, too, and it would get physical in a caring way which meant Benimaru needed another argument against Tōji’s plans.

“You really think you’ll be successful with your complaint? When everyone loves it when I set their houses on fire?”

“Like I said.” Tōji’s grin got that quality back to it that made nearly everyone avert their eyes in fear when they saw it. “You won’t stop destroying stuff, you’ll just destroy less stuff after I’m finished with the Counsel and Guild. The house of the infernal and the 2 to 3 houses beside it.”

“That won’t happen.” Benimaru was so sure of himself that he also lifted his head to make himself bigger to metaphorically look down on Tōji. “The people will be on my side and they will listen to me when they have questions that need answers, like how many buildings need to go up in flames.”

“Shinmon Benimaru,” Tōji replied formally, putting Beni on his toes about what he had to say next. “Are you really telling me that you will unethically influence your people’s opinions on cultural matters?” Benimaru had to think for a few seconds to get what Tōji meant by that, but then his eyes widened in understanding. “Most of these people already worship you, which gives you dangerous power over them. Are you really willing to abuse that power just so you can destroy as much as you want any given week?”

“I am not abusing my power over anyone.” And Benimaru looked so sure about. “Everyone wants two rows of houses destroyed.”

“Then you won’t have a problem with me when I start a public debate about that, right? After all, everyone would be against my proposed limited destruction. Without any input from you.”

By this point, Benimaru’s eyes were glowing but he couldn’t refute what Tōji said to him. “Fine! Do it. But I’ll tell you now that people won’t flock to your idea. You’ll be alone. And if you think old people would be your closest allies on this because they like to see me as a brat they can push around, then forget it. They want the fireworks the most.”

“All right, then. We’ll see how that goes.” It wasn’t exactly what Tōji wanted and it would be a pain in the ass to go through official channels like that, but he was still pleased with himself at saving money that would go back into his pockets and at making his boyfriend’s life a little harder.

That was how those two had fun in their free time when they weren’t busy having sex or reading books while sitting in the general vicinity of each other. Every Asakusan and hikeshi who had been near them while they argued just shook their heads at their latest argument. Most of them were smiling, however, though some also murmured amongst themselves if that dynamic between those two would remain like that when Waka got married to a woman in the future…

Just when Benimaru and Tōji wanted to (finally) help out with the repairs, Benimaru’s eyes swung over to the proto-infernal. It was about to go into a street and disappear from view and Beni let it do that by ignoring it again and turning towards his men to help out with the cutting of the wood. Tōji could empathize with the frustration his boyfriend was dealing with, especially so soon after another one of his citizens turned. So he decided that maybe it was time to tackle those things together.

“Want to have a look with me?” Tōji asked and Beni half-turned his head towards the cause of spontaneous human combustion before answering him.

“Only if you have some ideas to try out.”

“I think I got a few.”

Notes:

Next chapter will start the "Captain Burns will investigate Benimaru for intentionally causing SHC"-arc :D

Chapter 18: Following the String of Fate

Summary:

Benimaru and Toji make huge discoveries about spontaneous human combustion.

Notes:

Ahh, that storyline I've been talking about for... two years has started! But first some Kanao

Even Toji's Gojo inflicted wounds get a little role to play. This time different from the last time though. More mystical.

Before they went to look for the next proto-infernal to study and hopefully kill, they first went back to the Guardhouse to collect their student. Kanao’s training was… a mix of different achievements and failures but she had earned the right achievements for this task: energy control. At least enough of it to not get lost while Tōji and Benimaru bullied air.

Teaching Kanao to create her fire rings with only one hand hadn’t worked out; jumpstarting her pyrokinetic ability like a failing heart hadn’t worked out either, so that only left energy control and a future as Company 7’s acupuncturist. Normal hikeshi training was also a mixed bag for her, unfortunately. Administrative tasks and everything to do with writing official letters worked well for her, even though she had some difficulties at the beginning learning those skills.

She lagged behind in the physical part of the hikeshi training, so much so that at first, Kanao’s cousin had to take off work every other day so she could do physical therapy during that time instead. She got off her crutches after a month but running was still off-limits for her, so chasing after an infernal would only happen inside her dreams.

But they had all been realistic when she was accepted into the hikeshi trainees. Her path was always going to be either pyrokinesis specialisation if she managed to regain her abilities, or an energy specialisation she would use to become an acupuncturist. Her hikeshi physical training only served as physical therapy now, which everyone accepted, despite some initial grumbling.

Opening up the hikeshi to women had already been a major step in Asakusa and while that was viewed positively in general, some people saw it as a step too far to also have cripples in the trainee ranks. They could do that specialised education programme with Kanao but not as part of the hikeshi, some people said, some even loudly. If those offended people had managed to bring that complaint in an orderly fashion through the right channels and with the appropriate language to Benimaru, he would’ve considered decoupling Kanao and any future trainees like her from the hikeshi.

But it was Tōji who had first overheard the unfiltered and unashamed complaints about Kanao out on the streets, and once you insult him so viciously, whether directly or indirectly, you would be lucky not to get harmed permanently. Before that official complaint ever reached the Neighbourhood Watch, Tōji had already vetoed the idea to death both with Benimaru and Konro, but also with the proper and the trainee hikeshi.

That didn’t mean Kanao didn’t hear those complaints about her but most of what she had to deal with was the benevolent ableism that told her she should stop becoming a hikeshi when it got too hard, and that she could’ve had it easier in life if she did something else. She was long past that, though, and concentrated on her specialised training. This time: acupuncture lessons with an actual acupuncturist.

(Tōji was not an acupuncturist; he was just able to see veins and the like really well and with the help of a normal stethoscope, he was even able to hear nerves. Nothing of which a normal human could ever replicate.)

They were inside one of the rooms in the Watch, with books, diagrams and even a mannequin in-between them while Kanao’s teacher showed her the intricacies of poking people with tiny needles. Konro was also there, trying his best to poke the right places as well. He and Kanao were excited because in a few days, Tōji would receive his first tephrosis patient outside of Konro, and Kanao would be there as his second assistant.

They were just halfway through the poking lessons when said man burst into the room to steal his student for the next few hours.

“Kanao. Field trip. Now. Pack some food.”

“…what?”

The food she would be packing was the food Tōji had to prepare first but that was done in ten minutes while Benimaru looked through the study to get some maps. Konro helped Kanao understand what she would be doing now because going on a trip in her condition sounded unrealistic in her opinion. Surely, she heard her teacher wrong.

But no, Tōji and Beni were already waiting for her to get ready.

Kanao was excited when she put on her backpack, then she was doubtful about being able to walk for long distances, then she was beyond herself when she saw that her master had one of his matoi ready to be boarded by her, so she wouldn’t have to walk at all. Said matoi was parallel to the ground and after Benimaru lowered it so she could comfortably sit sideways on it, everything was set for their field trip.

…after Kanao recovered from falling on her face at the slightest movement of her disability (un?)friendly transportation. One matoi became two matoi and even a small pillow was bound to the centre of it. Only then did she have a good and reliable transportation for herself, which was powered by Benimaru. Tōji was walking beside her in the beginning to make sure she would actually get used to the Broom Service™ and not fall down again after three seconds.

“We’re going to explore a natural phenomenon and we’ll try to influence it. You will do the same even if you don’t understand it fully.”

“Allkay, Waka!” Kanao wondered if she should get something to write with from her backpack, but the thought of falling down again while doing so was too frightening, so she let it be. “What kind of phenomenon are we going to study?” she asked instead.

“One to do with pyrokinetic energy,” Tōji answered. They had discussed how much they would tell Kanao about the proto-infernals, which wouldn’t be much. It wasn’t that they didn’t trust the girl to keep quiet about those beings before Tōji and Benimaru knew what to do with them; it was that they didn’t trust her broken brain-to-mouth filter to not shout the first thought that came to her mind about proto-infernals.

“That’s what I’ve been training with!”

“Exactly. That’s why you’re here.”

“Here, where exactly?” Benimaru asked after they rounded a corner, no real destination on mind. At least Beni had none in mind even though he was the one with the maps. “Where are we going to do this?”

“My suggestion: we’re going to one of the borders and look for a suitable one that enters Asakusa from there. More of a chance that one will stay in Asakusa but statistically speaking, we would still need to get lucky. Asakusa’s population is tiny compared to the rest of Tokyo. They just might walk through here to get to another ward.”

“Hmpf.” Benimaru furrowed his brows for a second before accepting his fate of probably helping the Empire out today. If they even managed to do anything against the protos. “I’ll live with that for now, so let’s get going.”

They walked for a while with Kanao happily sitting on the matoi and enjoying her field trip. Many Asakusans on their way complimented Benimaru on being able to keep the matoi stable while slowly levitating it over the ground, which wasn’t something anyone had ever seen from him until then. No wonder, as Beni did that for the first time that day. Shooting his matoi at high speeds was significantly easier than what he was doing now.

It was Tōji’s idea and Beni forced himself to implement the difficult process in about 20 minutes which he saw as a great achievement until Kanao fell down immediately. It was partly her fault, but for several seconds Benimaru thought it was completely his and that brought his old feelings of guilt from The Fire back to the forefront of his mind, especially because Kanao would’ve died miserably if Tōji hadn’t been there.

In the end, Benimaru, Tōji and Kanao shared the blame for her falling (Beni and Tōji because they hadn’t anticipated that someone with weakened muscles and brain damage would need extra support), so they rectified that until Beni’s conscience calmed down. He made extra sure his fire control at the end and the beginning of his matoi was perfect so that on his end, another accident wouldn’t happen again. It did, though, because Kanao leaned over a bit too much once, but Tōji caught her before her face kissed the dirt again.

Finally, they were at the border with the other ward, where they found an outdoor place to sit down and wait for a suitable proto-infernal. They were just sitting on random crates but five minutes later, various people were gifting them food, water and alcohol, of which the alcohol everyone declined.

“If I drink that, I’ll be even more sha-shet-shutter… shatterbrained,” Kanao said as her polite way of saying no.

“If Waka drinks that, he’ll change personalities,” Tōji said as an insult hidden in a statement that sounded neutral enough.

“Tt, tea is enough for me.”

They waited a while, just sitting around but still testing their skills at energy detection. Tōji saw random proto-infernals first and instructed Benimaru and Kanao to focus and find them, too. For Beni, they needed to be about seven meters close to him for him to get a visual of their red mist. In his gut, he could already feel them a little earlier.

Kanao was able to feel the energy of the proto-infernals when they were 30cm in front of her palm. For the slow-walking ones, Tōji wanted her to follow them, so she did on her own feet with relative success. When she was a bit further away, out of hearing range, Tōji and Benimaru discussed their strategies going forward.

“I’ll try to cocoon one. We’ll find out if I can perfect that one with you there.”

“But even if you did, that’s not a solution to spontaneous human combustion as long as you’re not able to imprison all proto-infernals that exist now and are going to exist in the future.”

“I know. I thought of it as a temporary solution for one individual for now. Right before they get turned, I grab the proto-infernal and give them some time to properly say goodbye to their loved ones. No need to do that while burning up from the inside.”

“Good plan. Give me the maps.”

There were a few proto-infernals that had come from that specific border in the time they’ve sat there. Not all of them were walking normally, some just whizzed past them to their victim, none of which were from Asakusa again. Tōji was now looking at the streets and roads that would take them to a secluded location where they could do their experiments in peace. But he was also not shy about ordering an evacuation under Benimaru’s name to get that secluded place.

After a while, Kanao became tired of walking but that just made Benimaru sit her on his matoi again with instructions to use it herself. Not in the controlling the matoi-way, but in the pushing the wood up and down and from side to side so Beni could move the matoi in the direction she wanted to go-way. She was successful enough with getting around like that and with following the proto-infernals that some of them started to react to her presence.

They still didn’t tell her what those “phenomena” were, they didn’t even go with the ghost explanation that Tōji had used with Benimaru months ago. They just said that there were pockets of energy floating around sometimes and that they wanted to research them.

More than an hour later, a suitable proto-infernal walked down a path to a place that Tōji had ordered to evacuate. Luckily, the proto didn’t change course at some point, so when they were beside the courtyard of a school that had a spontaneous field trip today as well, Benimaru released his pyrokinetic energy to push it inside. The proto-infernal resisted, most likely because the courtyard wasn’t a place “to walk on” but it did have a second gate on the other side that led to a parallel street. After initially refusing, the proto – as far as it was capable of critical thought – decided that going through the courtyard was the path of least resistance.

And now they had it.

“Wooooooow!”

Kanao didn’t understand most of what was happening but with goosebumps all over her body, she felt the massive energy Benimaru expended in a single second. She always knew her master was special (in the opposite way that Tōji was special) but she had never witnessed his energy outside of his body except to train her. Benimaru had long since started to keep his energy contained within himself around others; the days were he exhaled excess amounts of it or when they shot out of him in tendrils were gone.

Now came the part where they would encase the proto-infernal in Benimaru’s energy.

“Let’s see…”

Benimaru had trained energy control as well; he could harden his now by making it unmovable. This proto-infernal wouldn’t be able to push it away to escape if Beni didn’t want it to (hopefully). Newly released energy flooded into the courtyard and surrounded the proto on all sides before descending on it. Tōji saw the proto-infernal react to the energy, its body language one of confusion. Then a tight energy cocoon was all around it, stopping it in its tracks.

For now…

“It’s touching your cage like it doesn’t understand why it’s there. Can you make it denser?”

“Hm.” Benimaru used his hands to better control his energy. Now he pushed even more of it out of himself. “It’s a ball. A cage has holes in it,” he said, combining the different energy waves into a bigger ball than before but there was one problem. “I can’t get it denser, just bigger.”

“We’ll see how this will go, then.”

Kanao was levitating behind them with Benimaru about three meters away from the proto-infernal and Tōji the closest at a one-meter distance. Still, the energy in the middle of the courtyard was so strong that Kanao felt it even with her limited range. Even normal people would’ve been able to sense something strange in the air; not from Kanao’s distance but definitely when they walked past the cageball.

“What’s it doing now?” Benimaru asked. He couldn’t see the proto-infernal anymore because his own energy was in his way but Tōji’s better eyes had him covered on that front.

“I think Kanao should go after her next target,” Tōji answered.

Benimaru understood what he meant and created another ball of energy, this one smaller and about the same intensity as a proto-infernal, which he threw to the side. “Kanao, there is another one. Follow it again but this one seems trickier, so be careful and focus. On your feet.”

“Okight, Waka!” Kanao got off her broom transport but she had trouble at first to find the new ball of energy in front of her because the giant display of power further in the front overrode her senses too much. Benimaru pushed her target close enough to her so she could find it, then he pushed the ball away towards an entrance to the school to get her away from the spectacle that was bound to happen soon.

“It’s trying to find a way out. It’s also still moving like a human.” That was the thing both men feared would change. They knew these beings only imitated the way humans acted, but when it became difficult to keep that up, they fully turned supernatural. “Now, it’s starting to ‘panic’ or something similar. At least like this, it can’t get out.”

“But it’s already started to push against me with more strength than ten seconds ago and it’s still getting stronger.”

The strength with which the proto-infernal fought against its cageball increased steadily, forcing Benimaru to keep up and increase his energy control, too. The energy ball that Kanao was occupied by involuntarily changed size, direction and intensity with how focused Beni needed to be with the proto-infernal.

Then it wasn’t only the pyrokinetic strength of the proto that was going up anymore. As with all the others before it, its speed (and therefore the velocity with which it hit and pushed at its cage) also increased step by step. This was now a trial of willpower for Beni and with how his hands shook at this point before the proto reached the speeds they knew it was capable of, the winner was already decided. Before they had a clear winner on that front, however, the proto-infernal decided on a different route and escaped with that.

But before that happened, the places where its hands hit Benimaru’s cageball to break it apart started to explode in short-lived fire. Purple fire, like the time Beni grabbed the proto-infernal at the old people gathering. A fire that was visible to the naked eye and… caused mild discomfort around Tōji’s destroyed and recreated left side.

Then the proto-infernal liquefied and squeezed itself through Benimaru’s pyrokinetic energy particles.

“Fucking bitch!”

Tōji’s earlier question of making Beni’s cageball denser came back but the answer to that was still a no. However the proto-infernal managed it, it could get smaller than the holes in Beni’s construct, which meant that stacking more pyrokinetic energy on top of it didn’t help either. With one hand over the left side of his chest, Tōji got closer to the place where the proto was escaping from. He nearly smashed his face into the energy cageball to be as close to the escape as possible, then he said fuck it and directly put his eyes into the stream of pyrokinetic energy coming out.

For a fraction of a second, Tōji saw a dark place where the sky was grey, the ground was purple and the smoke black.

Then he saw the energy of the proto-infernal again and how it slipped through Benimaru’s. In some places, that movement caused enough friction to make tiny purple embers explode into existence before they disappeared again. Tōji stepped back from the entire thing because his left side and left arm felt more than strange by now.

The proto-infernal slipped out of Benimaru’s cageball which Beni stopped holding up at that point. The loose energy formed back into a being that resembled a human again, who looked around like it was offended. It only looked towards Benimaru, though, Tōji was invisible to it, before it started walking again. Not without getting blasted by Benimaru, of course. Failure in their first plan meant they started plan 2.

“That was… odd,” Tōji remarked.

“Why? I already told you about the purple flame.”

“No, there was more than the purple flame… we’ll get back to that. Try changing your attacks from energy to heat to fire. Let’s see how it reacts.”

With anger, apparently. As long as it and the victim shared their personality, the likelihood of the victim of this proto-infernal being from outside of Asakusa rose. The typical Imperialist would also be angry at a proto-nationalist from Asakusa if they were attacked by them. The proto-infernal was slowly walking away, and Tōji and Benimaru saw no reason to try to rectify that. If caging and destroying it weren’t working, then they were out of options when it came to stopping it.

Only analysing was left, and it didn’t look good on that front either.

Until… Tōji saw something new right when Benimaru went back to attacking it with energy alone.

“Was that a string? I could swear I saw something like that coming out of its heart for a second… shoot it again.”

“Nothing I’d love to do more right now.”

Benimaru had to tweak the way he shot his energy at the proto-infernal. Less of a concentrated blast, and more of a wide and slow flood but then it was clear: there was a pyrokinetic energy string coming out of the proto-infernal. It was parallel to the ground but it wasn’t even half a metre long before it faded into nothing, hanging strangely in the air.

Actually, it started to fade completely if Benimaru didn’t keep his energy barrage up.

“And? What does your superhuman brain say to that?” Beni asked. His tone could’ve been sarcastic as per their usual banter, but by now, he wanted clear answers to this deadly phenomenon before him.

“About the string specifically… my wild guess is that it could lead to its victim.”

Benimaru thought about that for a second before walking around the visibly angry proto-infernal and trying to cut the string with his hand. He tried it with his flesh, with his fire and with his energy. The first one didn’t do anything, the second one ignited the pyrokinetic energy in the path of the fire and the third one let the string shine brightly for a second. (Something that wasn’t visible to Benimaru’s eyes but it was visible to Tōji’s.)

“Looks like it can’t be cut in the same way the being can’t be killed,” Tōji summarised. He also tried to cut the string, maybe his special body would’ve had more luck, but no. The part of the string between Tōji’s hand and the proto-infernal stayed the same; the energy of rest behind Tōji’s hand lost its cohesion and dissipated. Whatever the string was made of didn’t stop existing, though, as they found out after Benimaru put more of his own energy back into the proto-infernal, which made the string visible again.

“Now that the cutting didn’t work, we go to the next part.”

“…freezing?” was the only other option Benimaru saw but Tōji was way ahead of him.

“No. We follow the string to find the victim of spontaneous human combustion.”

“Hm. That makes sense. No wonder I keep you around.”

“Everyone would want to keep me around for my intellect. Thank you.”

“Yes, your intellect… and your bo–“

“Kanao! We’re going!”

“Yeskay!”

What they did next would be the first step in identifying future infernal victims. Benimaru kept on pushing his pyrokinetic energy into the infernal, from where it flowed into the string coming out of its heart. After some trial and error, he managed to push his energy into the string itself, from where they could keep it visible to their eyes without needing the proto-infernal close. This meant they could walk faster than that being, and see where the string led to.

With Kanao back on her disability transport (Benimaru’s energy ball from before secure in her hands), they started their fast track to the end of the string. Without Tōji, they would’ve lost it several times – if that had happened, they would’ve needed to go back and find the proto-infernal again – and luckily, the string only curved around corners but didn’t move other than that. It did look funny, though, with the way Benimaru had to keep his hands at adult human heart height at all times, doing something completely invisible to everyone around them.

But with one theory confirmed and the other one still up in the air, their journey came to an early end. They couldn’t resolutely confirm that the string led to the next SHC victim because, as they had speculated from the beginning, the proto-infernal was from one of the other wards. They waited at the border to at least confirm that the proto was following the string, though.

“So, infernals. Hä?” Tōji said while all three of them watched the proto-infernal walk over to the next ward, not one but two middle fingers raised at them. First Kanao, then Benimaru and then Tōji lost sight of it.

“What about infernals?” Kanao asked, bento box in one hand and Beni’s ball in her other. That was the most she had managed to play around with his energy; an impressive achievement for today.

“Just reminiscing about life,” Tōji answered while looking over to Benimaru. His boyfriend had one of the most concentrated looks on his face he had ever seen. No wonder, because Benimaru was thinking of something that could’ve far-reaching consequences in Asakusa.

“I think you’ll get your wish,” he said to Tōji, eyes still somewhere far away. “Less destruction when I kill an infernal.”

“How so?” Normally, it was Tōji who thought a few steps ahead, but right now he couldn’t quite imagine what Benimaru had in mind. Cultural traditions, it turned out.

“I’m thinking of a parade around town with only a single house to be destroyed at the end of it.”

“And what… are we parading?” Now, Tōji got a feeling where this was going.

“The next victim of spontaneous human combustion. It’ll be a big parade with them at the front before they turn. I guess most people would want that. If not, we can do it in a small circle.”

“…I see.”

That was an idea Tōji needed to digest first. Once again, it was one of those that sounded too strange and foreign to his ears but he could see the Asakusans going along with it. It, being identified by their demigod as the next person to go up in flames and being the centre of a parade through the streets in front of thousands of people before you die…

Meanwhile, on the other side of Tokyo, the proto-infernal Tōji and Benimaru had pestered for some time, found its victim to fuse with. An infernal was the result but something unexpected happened as well. Most of the energy Benimaru had pushed into the proto-infernal stayed with it, even after turning.

Which didn’t turn the infernal into an oni or demon, but it did make him so strong that it heavily injured the first Fire Force team sent out to kill it before destroying an entire neighbourhood. Had the victim turned in a more populated area, it would’ve caused massive deaths.

Notes:

Haha! Evil laugh! Benimaru causing destruction without knowing it will lead to another arc :D

Soooooooo... Toji is also marked by Adolla?

Chapter 19: Of Acupuncture and digging Wells

Summary:

Toji finally starts his tephrosis clinic, then in the night, he and Benimaru make an unexpected discovery inside a well.

Notes:

Sorry for the late chapter. I can only manage 1 chapter per week now, and that among 3 ongoing fics.

And somehow this chapter still reached 5k words? I got really inspired today while writing the end. The beginning is about Toji (and Beni and Kanao) healing people with tiny needles :D

“I had my overheat eight years ago. Was fighting an infernal before Hibachi came to take care of it. Have to sleep mostly upright since then.”

“Does that hinder you from taking it up the ass, too?”

“…Waka, I have to confess that living with my tephrosis is easier than recovering from the punishment Konro gave me. You know, from back then when you were small and overheard us talking about anal sex.”

“Even I needed a bit of time to recover from that punishment. Konro was terrifying when he came to my house to tell me I wasn’t allowed to sleep with Tatewaki anymore.”

“I have no idea what you two are talking about,” Benimaru said, half confused and half exasperated. “Why would talking about anal sex in front of me make Konro want to punish you? I saw people have sex in the streets long before I was adopted.”

Inside the Guardhouse, the first official treatment of tephrosis was about to begin… if not for the ridiculous conversation that was happening in front of Tōji that moment. Their patient was there, just like his long-time doctor, but more importantly, his older lover. If Tōji’s and Benimaru’s relationship hadn’t been known, that man would’ve probably stayed away, but there they were, reminiscing about old and gay stories Beni was somehow involved in. They didn’t look like they would stop on their own but luckily Konro came just then.

“I’m sorry it took so long, but here is everyone’s tea,” he said after entering the room with a large tray in hand. Trailing after him was Kanao which meant everyone who needed to be there was present now. “I hope you’re comfortable on the couch. If not, we’ll get something else.”

“I’m good, Konro,” Tatewaki said after he pushed his head against the backrest of the only couch in the Guardhouse to test how good it was. It would do, everyone agreed, but Tōji would request proper medical beds and seats for the future when their treatment took off and became a regular thing. And of course, he would bill Company 7 for that.

“What medicine did you use since yesterday?” Tōji asked while preparing his needles, scalpels and tiny medical spoons he got from the hospital in Asakusa. He was already making a mental map of what he would be doing after Tatewaki pulled his robe and bandages off to show the tephrosis damage on his chest. The man had once been able to capture sunlight through his body to then push it out of his chest in small balls with different properties. That ability was just on this side of being second generation, but he was able to produce his fireballs without sunlight, too.

It was mostly Tatewaki’s chest that was burned and charred but small spots of blackened skin and flesh appeared in other parts of his body as well. Tōji saw how all of those were connected: Tatewaki’s energy centre was in his chest but many of his meridians were saturated with his energy as well, and they travelled all over his body.

That made sense with his ability to absorb sunlight through his skin, but that also meant that for his tephrosis treatment he had to avoid the sun at all costs now, otherwise the burning in his body would become worse. Tatewaki was lucky in that respect, as what he had to do was easy to implement. He avoided the sun for nearly a decade and had to take vitamin D supplements because of it.

“I last used the tephrosis cream yesterday morning. Then I took an ibuprofen at noon but since then nothing. Wanted to see and feel how this would go.”

“Good,” Tōji replied. He was curious how his first patient (other than Konro) would react to his treatment. “Tell us everything unusual while we do this. Konro will write it down so we can compare it with others in the future and put it in my book.”

“A book about an old yet new treatment of the ash sickness?” Tatewaki’s lover said from the side. The man was sitting by the sliding doors beside the doctor. “Interesting. I wonder when the Imperialists will come knocking on your door with that one. The ill ones will come earlier, of course.”

“Why?” Benimaru was angry immediately at the prospect of Tokyo residents coming to his house. His question wasn’t about the why they would come, though. Not even he was so hateful that he would reject terminally ill people at his door. It was about the why some of them would come earlier. “We’re not planning on broadcasting this everywhere, especially not in Tokyo. And even with an article or book about it, the Imperialists wouldn’t easily believe this to be working either.”

“You’re severely underestimating the desperation of tephrosis sufferers, Waka,” Tatewaki said. Benimaru thought back to all the people he knew who had that illness, but even with the memories of his mother, Konro’s condition and other hikeshi over the years he had seen, Beni had to admit he had no idea about emotions like that.

“Every ward has their own network where the ash casualties and their families communicate with each other,” the lover elaborated. “Asakusa is more isolated but there are cross-border communications here as well. Haijima is big all over the place because they’re the only ones with treatments that work well but every time a new kind of treatment pops up somewhere, people flock to it to try it out, even if the prospect of it working is abysmal. Hope is the last step before total desperation or acceptance of a painful death.”

“Hhmm.” Benimaru could do nothing but silently growl at that explanation. In the end, there was nothing but accepting it, though. If the price for his citizens getting better was the Tokyo citizens to also get better, then he would pay that. “Fine. They can come when they hear rumours about this and are bold enough to cross the border. But there will still be no advertisement.”

“Until I finish writing my book, of course,” Tōji added, thinking of money.

“You mean until Konro finishes writing your book for you?” Benimaru said, throwing narrowed eyes at his boyfriend.

“It’s a collaboration with split earnings.” Before an argument about how those earnings would be split broke out, everyone concentrated back to the task at hand: treating Tatewaki. By now, Tōji had a good idea of what to do, but he chose to take it slowly with the acupuncture. Tatewaki’s energy flow might react differently to Konro’s and that could take a while to manifest.

“Seeing how well Konro is doing, I have complete faith in your treatment,” the lover said, which Tōji took as the compliment it was but for Benimaru, it sat a little heavier in his stomach.

Expectations of being saved by him.

There was another thing on that front that needed to be tackled by him, too.

“First poke of the day! Waka, charge!” Benimaru chose not to react negatively to Tōji’s playful orders and do as he was told. With his fingers, he pushed his pyrokinetic energy into the needle and watched Tōji pierce the skin on Tatewaki’s shoulder. (Beni wanted to touch the needle directly at first but Tōji pulled it away so it wouldn’t get contaminated with germs after being wiped clean with antiseptic wipes.)

Benimaru couldn’t quite feel Tatewaki’s energy-filled meridians inside his body, so there wasn’t much else he could help with during the treatment. Soon, Kanao would take over a small part of the energy-charging, then Beni would do nothing more than sit on the side and watch. Except Kanao didn’t manage to do her task right.

“Now comes the second! Aaaaand those were the third, fourth and fifth.”

Tōji had no problem seeing the meridians and the energy flow. That was why his precision with the acupuncture needles was so high, something no one could replace for a long while. He perfectly pierced Tatewaki’s tiny pathways to stop the energy from flowing into his chest from his shoulder and left arm. Benimaru’s energy was the blockage and as long as he didn’t actively pull it out of Tatewaki, it would stay inside his body for a while.

Tōji blocked one meridian multiple times to make sure the energy flow wouldn’t come back early (sometimes the needles needed to go in deep, though, way more than normal acupuncture). With Konro, after about two weeks, he needed a new acupuncture session on his shoulders and arms to stop his tephrosis. That was a short affair for the lieutenant but for Tatewaki it would take longer as he already had over 30 needles in just one arm, and Tōji needed to treat most of his body.

“Looks good so far! Will probably last as long as Konro’s,” Tōji said. “Any new sensations?”

“I’m not sure…? I don’t want to say something false just because I expect something to change.”

“Take your time,” Benimaru replied. He saw how excited Tatewaki was about the treatment, even though the retired hikeshi couldn’t physically express it well after his body had suffered for so long. The man had lost most of his muscles and weight, was pale and had dark circles around his eyes; the same as most tephrosis victims.

“I have to say, the placement of many of the needles isn’t accurate to traditional acupuncture,” Tatewaki’s doctor of many years said, a bit confused but mostly intrigued.

“Like I said last week,” Konro began to answer, “Tōji can interact with the body’s chi like no one else. He knows if it deviates from the pathways our ancestors have discovered millennia ago.”

“You mean the acupuncture spots the Chinese have established millennia ago,” Tōji threw in but his point went over everyone’s head. He had successfully blocked all energy on Tatewaki’s upper left side and he was glad to see that the energy flow from the other three parts of his body didn’t increase to compensate for that. For now, he left the needles in the left arm while he took care of the right arm.

“Kanao, it’s your turn,” Tōji said, much to the girl’s momentary shock. She knew what she would be doing and when that would happen, but she was so nervous she forgot about it until then.

“I…I’m co-coming.”

“Just like we practised,” Tōji assured her and while she did have one nervous look around the room at the six adults sitting all around her, she still managed to calm herself down and concentrate on her pyrokinetic energy. She pulled her right arm up and put her fingers together to shoot her energy out of them. It was mostly controlled, especially between her fingers which was how she would be pushing her energy into the needle.

“And you have no problem with our student helping out?” Konro asked Tatewaki, who just waved his right hand before it would get immobilised just like his other one, soon.

“Go ahead. It’s good to train the next generation as fast as possible.”

Kanao’s eyes widened at that statement before they narrowed on the needle in proud determination. She put three of her fingers around Tōji’s two that were gripping the padded base of the needle, before she pushed her pyrokinetic energy into it. She had trained to push and then to keep her energy inside objects in the last weeks, so after a few seconds, she deemed her job done and let go. Now they would see how her energy manipulation would fare compared to Waka’s once her connection to it was severed when the needle entered a foreign body.

Tōji placed six needles that were charged by Kanao into Tatewaki’s ring finger, up past his wrist. He blocked the energy inside three meridians that became two and then one. The upper part of that meridian going over the shoulder he blocked with Benimaru’s energy again. Their goal was to see how fast Kanao’s blockage would break without putting Tatewaki’s treatment at risk.

“Holds up for now. Well done, Kanao,” Tōji said, much to her joy she expressed with short-lived tears before she left the room to go tell her cousin about her first patient. Meanwhile, it was time to remove the needles on Tatewaki’s left arm and start on his soon-to-be-bare legs.

“I wanted to make sure I was really feeling this, so this comes a little late but… some of the burning in my chest cooled down.” With his left hand free, Tatewaki showed them where the cooling sensation was coming from before he pushed his fingers into a few places along his chest that normally hurt when they were touched. Tōji was able to see the now energy-free places where that wouldn’t be the case anymore, as far as creating new burns was concerned, at least.

“Wow, normally this is only this numb after an hour of Haijima’s cream or nitrogen treatment. And it isn’t even cold.”

“Do you hear that, Waka? That’s my future income talking. People will trample all over each other to get my book.” Tōji could’ve sounded much cheekier while saying that, but he kept his evil side low because of their patient. Consequently, Benimaru didn’t see the need to comment on his money fantasy except with:

“Books don’t sell much.”

“Yeah, but–“

“In this day and age, new books are cheap to make and are not sold much because people don’t keep too many around because of our daily fire hazards.”

“…then I’ll make my money by charging the Tokyo people who come here!” Tōji’s angry grumbling about the future money he just lost didn’t last long as he was back into acupuncture mode for his tephrosis treatment. Relatively soon, Tatewaki’s legs were poked as well which had a noticeable effect on the man, though clinically it didn’t look much different from a placebo-induced euphoric high for now.

The man had lived through “treatments” that had brought that high out of him, too, and sometimes he was even well for a few days before he crashed again. The difference to this treatment was that it worked outside of the mind as well. Improvement in your quality of life was guaranteed if one looked at Konro. The Lieutenant of Company 7 had lost the dark circles around his eyes months ago, just like he lost his pale complexion and constant fatigue. He was even back in his brothels regularly, which everyone knew, Benimaru against his will.

“I’m feeling so much better! Thank you! And–“

“Nah-ah, we’re not finished yet.”

Tōji still had to take care of the small black spots around Tatewaki’s body and the giant ones on his chest. Mostly, everyone left them alone because there was no benefit to removing them with an additional risk of infection if done poorly. Not for Tōji. He disinfected the places, scraped them out with his handy medical spoons and knives, and then he had Benimaru push the energy still resting inside of them out of the open meridians.

“Cool him down” was the agreed-upon code for Benimaru doing that. Konro, Tōji and Beni had talked about how much they wanted to reveal about pyrokinetic energy, and with their upcoming attempt at finding an infernal victim before they turned, they decided on as little as possible. For now, the treatment would stay vague with Tōji knowing “chi” and Benimaru and Kanao using it.

In the end, the whole treatment from the first poke to the last bandage with a normal wound cream on his chest, took one and a half hours. They took it slow; future sessions would be less than an hour. The result was immediate as any active burning, however minuscule it had been before, was now stopped, which Tatewaki felt. Yes, some of his euphoria was the placebo effect, but everyone knew that the healing would last.

“Next week, same time to see how you’re doing?” Konro asked while helping Tatewaki into his long and thick robe.

“Of course!”

Their patient and two guests thanked them immensely before leaving, Tatewaki with an old-style straw hat on his head to protect him from the sun. Right when he took his first step out of the entrance of the guardhouse, though, he turned around to ask if he would ever be able to walk outside freely again.

“I’ll check on that next week,” Tōji said. “And by that, I mean I’ll have your arm out under the sun to see how much of your chi returns to your body.”

“Can’t wait for that,” Tatewaki said full of enthusiasm, which was the end of his visit.

“You’re going to get busy in the upcoming weeks,” Konro said to Tōji later when they were eating dinner. Tōji’s face scrunched up for a moment thinking of all that unwanted human contact, and that with sick people no less, but at least he couldn’t catch tephrosis and he was sure most people would bring him gifts, making talking with them easier.

“I’ll manage as long as it’s not every day someone comes here for that. I need my free time.”

“I’m sure you do,” Benimaru replied to his boyfriend. They looked at each other for a moment, a world of insults passing silently between them, before they concentrated back on their food, which was more important than arguing out loud. “So, one hour past midnight?” Beni asked later.

“Yes, which reminds me that I need to take my evening nap soon. If something gets dirty around here, you’ll need to get one of your men to do it.”

“Of course.” Another insultful gaze was exchanged between Tōji and Beni but in the end, everyone was fine with how they would be doing things for their first night hunting proto-infernals.

They chose the late hour to have as little interference from the townsfolk as possible, but also because Benimaru saw pyrokinetic energy better at night when the sun’s light wasn’t shining everything up. They were prepared for failure as they still had the same problem as the last time they went after a proto-infernal: most of them only passed through Asakusa; their target wasn’t one of Benimaru’s citizens.

But tonight their chances of getting the right one were slightly up simply because in the last few days no other infernal had appeared in Asakusa. It wasn’t guaranteed, unfortunately, but they also had the upcoming days to find the next victim, too.

The night air was cool this close to winter (or more like “winter” in Tōji’s opinion). With the lack of noise all around them, the streets of Asakusa reached a rare quality of calmness when busy work, loud talking and the clapping of sandals on the stone ground were its normal sounds. Benimaru felt different kinds of nostalgia during their search for a proto-infernal.

“I used to leave the Watch nearly every night for some time after I was adopted. There were too many people there, especially during the day, so I went on trips around the neighbourhood to cool my head. Wouldn’t have described it like that when I was small, though.”

“You have no idea how much money I would pay to meet you when you were that wild kid who hunted cats and ate them with his bare hands.”

“I still cooked them,” Benimaru replied while inspecting his fingernails but a random cat sleeping on a wall might have caught his attention in that moment. Maybe there was a bit too much nostalgia happening to him that night.

“Cooking implies something way more sophisticated than grilling animals in your hands just because you can produce fire with them.” Tōji saw Benimaru eying that cat, so he took it upon himself to snatch it from its sleeping place and wave it in Beni’s face for the sole purpose of messing with him.

With an eye roll, Benimaru pushed the cat away and Tōji let it go, but it was more like throwing, after which the cat looked like it wanted to scratch their eyes out before it scurried away, hissing up a storm instead.

“I wonder what you were like as a child,” Benimaru asked half an hour later when their first attempt at dealing with a proto-infernal failed due to it gaining speed and disappearing soon after.

“Nothing special,” Tōji answered while shrugging his shoulders. He meant it in a slightly different way than people would understand. “Overall, I guess I was a nicer person back then. That didn’t last long and only came back for a short while many years later.”

“Hm.” Benimaru eyed Tōji with a calculating gaze for several beats. “I wonder how child-you would’ve treated me before I became a Shinmon.”

“Ooooohh!” Tōji immediately got ideas into his head, ideas that had Benimaru raise an eyebrow immediately. “From everything I know of your child-self, I’m sure I would’ve made you my little freak pet. I would’ve let you burn stuff while teaching you how to be a functioning human, and you would’ve followed me like a lost puppy because I would be affirming of your shortcomings while allowing you to hurt people.”

“Tt. Don’t be ridiculous!” Several of the things Tōji had just said hit too close to home because those had been the things that more or less happened after Benimaru’s adoption. After some major hiccups along the way, though. “And even if you managed to do half of that, I would’ve still rejected you because that was how I was back then. Ask Konro if you want confirmation!”

“Ah-ah, Waka. You’re missing something vital here. Something that would’ve made you my puppy following me around instantly.”

“…I swear to the Buddha, if you say something sexual now–“

“Of course I mean my age, dummy.” Tōji had an infuriating grin plastered all over his face and Benimaru would’ve liked nothing more in that moment than to hit his boyfriend but what he said next made… sense, actually. “In this made-up scenario, I’m also a child, remember? And I would bet my left hand that you would’ve loved nothing more than another child in your life who was just as much of a freak as you. Right?”

“…you fucking bitch.”

That was as much of a confirmation as Benimaru was willing to give, but Tōji was totally right. Beni had massive problems with adults in his life at the time… he had no problem with children his age, except that they were too afraid of him to become his close friends. But if there had been another fucked-up child like him…

“Funny how you’re basically proud of being abused by your family for that scenario to work,” Beni said after a minute of grumbling to himself.

“You make the best of what you have.” But Tōji just shrugged his shoulders. “You would’ve made a really good pet, I’m sure. I would’ve told you how proud I am of you, too.”

“You can’t make your daddy issues any more obvious, you know?”

“Please, don’t be so misogynistic. I also had a bad mother.”

They went back to dealing with another proto-infernal they came across but they couldn’t make much progress with it either. They did follow its pyrokinetic energy thread for a long time but then, many hours of failure later, Tōji and Benimaru were about to call it quits for the night. Before the sun rose on the horizon, Benimaru got an urge to get at least something done, so he pulled out an old idea he had.

“Let’s find the other location in Asakusa where these things crawl out of,” he said to Tōji, pointing in the general direction where he was sure that the other gateway to hell was. It wouldn’t be inside the city limits; Beni would’ve found that years ago, like the one behind the Butcher’s shop. It would be somewhere in the Asakusa fields or just across the border to the other wards.

“Good idea. Maybe we can even dig into it, if not today then at some point.”

After Tōji’s agreement, Benimaru was looking out for one of his matoi; he had had enough of slow walking for today, but Tōji was faster. Without a warning, he grabbed Beni and put him into his arms bridal style before dashing away to the outskirts of town and beyond.

“You can now depart the Princess-Express,” Tōji said five minutes and about eleven kilometres later.

“Fuck off,” was the answer he got for his services. Benimaru’s hair was sticking out in all directions and he had to catch his breath first after having trouble breathing going at those high speeds. They weren’t a problem if they came from his own powers but in the arms of someone else that was a shit experience. Now he had to admit that carrying Tōji around on his matoi without an air bubble to protect him from the wind and whatnot, was indeed a shit move.

“Did you go in circles at the end just to bother me some more?” Instead of admitting that revelation to Tōji, though, Benimaru opted for a half-hearted argument.

“I cut down on aimlessly walking around to find this second gate. Thank me for the sleep you’ll be getting because of it.”

“Tt.” Benimaru looked around at where they ended up, just past the border to another ward. “So? Where is the gate? I can’t sense anything here.”

“This was as close as I could get it,” Tōji said while looking around in search of the gate himself. “The proto-infernals are just not helpful today. I can’t triangulate this better with just the two that were walking around here.”

“You could’ve kept on walking until you found it.” While they bickered again, Benimaru and Tōji started walking once more to find the place.

“You would’ve set my hair on fire in the next kilometre.”

“You’re right.”

But Tōji’s detective skills were pretty accurate in the end, because, among a small bundle of ruins in-between several hills, they found the gateway to hell after ten minutes of lazy walking. The ruins were nothing grand; just some bricks sticking out of the ground among yellowed grass and some bushes. They (meaning Tōji) dug the one in the middle of the gate out a little. Partly to see what it was, mostly to see if the earth was special after sitting on top of a phenomenon like this for hundreds of years.

The bricks turned out to be more interesting than the earth.

“Why are they formed in a circle?” Benimaru asked, head tilted to the side. He was sure he knew the answer but it wouldn’t come to him.

“That was most likely a well,” Tōji answered him, still inspecting the dirt in his hands.

Benimaru had to think for a while to fully comprehend what he was seeing in front of him until it finally clicked. “Ah! A well! Water came out of it!”

Tōji looked up at his boyfriend with a raised eyebrow before he pulled it back down, remembering where he was. “Don’t tell me there is no groundwater in all of Tokyo.”

“Of course not. It all dried up during the Cataclysm, except you want to dig deep enough to reach salt water. We get our water mostly through Amaterasu and rainwater reserves.”

Tōji shook his head at uncovering a new disturbing detail about the post-apocalyptic future he found himself in. But he could think about that another time. “Do you feel something different in this gate compared to the other one?”

“Not really.” So this was also a bust? At least until they came back with shovels... but maybe Beni could try something first. “Move.”

After Tōji scooted to the side, Benimaru went into the 1.5 meter-long circle of bricks and put his hands on the ground. He felt the massive and pretty deep pyrokinetic energy under him, then he pushed his own down. Tōji made an oooooh sound before getting close again to keep an eye out for what would happen next.

Something unexpected it turned out, because Benimaru had difficulties working against the current of foreign energy under him. That had never happened to him before but he was determined to get as deep as possible.

“This is more difficult than it should be,” he said a minute with minimal progress later. He could go all out, but for now, he took it slow to see if he could get some kind of reaction from under him. A new proto-infernal could come out at any time, as well.

“Keep track of everything you’re doing and feeling right now; this will go into my second book!”

“If you make Konro write that as we–“

Benimaru stopped talking abruptly because something… unexpected crossed his senses. Tōji saw that reaction and was curious.

“What is it?”

“…an infernal.”

“Is one coming out?”

“No.” Benimaru shook his head but he didn’t blame Tōji for misunderstanding him. He hadn’t expected this either but he made sure to check a few times to confirm his first feeling. “A normal infernal is down there. A victim of spontaneous human combustion.”

“…the fuck.” Tōji looked down at the ground, trying to imagine a humanoid shape down there, stuck between tonnes of earth. That was an image that became more horrifying the more he thought about it. “Infernals don’t die of age, if I remember correctly.”

“Yes.” Benimaru’s face turned grim in a way it rarely did. “The one down there… might’ve turned decades or a hundred years ago… maybe it’s also been in this well since the Cataclysm.”

Infernals, for all that they were monsters that caused death and destruction around them, were still humans suffering the worst fate possible on this earth. Burning until they were killed – literal hell on earth, and that through no fault of their own. It was cruelty like no other to see one that might’ve suffered that painful reality for nearly 250 years.

Benimaru and Tōji looked at each other before looking back at the ground with new determination. Tōji pulled his robe off while Benimaru stepped out of the ruins of the well, then Tōji got inside, digging with his hands. Soft earth or hard stone, nothing was too difficult to remove for him. “How many meters down?” he asked. “More than seven,” Benimaru answered.

Notes:

So, an infernal from the Cataclysm. Meaning that person is from *before* the apocalypse. Meaning that person is [Fire Force spoilers].

I had that encounter planned since the beginning, but putting it here was a new decision. (It didn't have a specific place in another arc anyway). Next chapter will be about that but also about the first successful... SHC Parade.

(It's pretty late now, tomorrow I will go over this chapter again because I'm sure my last edit is a little lacking right now.)

Chapter 20: Crossing Dimensions inside a Cave

Summary:

What are Toji and Benimaru going to find inside the well they (mostly Toji) are digging into?

Notes:

The title has a different meaning than what you might think at first. Try to think of it at the end of the chapter :D

After all the soft earth was shovelled out of the old well, big stones were the next. The interesting stuff on their way down to the infernal came after those.

“Is this… a frying pan?” Benimaru asked while inspecting a contorted piece of metal. Some parts of it were dented by force, others looked bent out of shape due to extreme heat, so really, who could guess what had been at some point?

“Maybe,” Toji answered, not sure himself. He was close to breaching the two-meter mark in his dig that was slowly turning into an archaeological site when he pulled out elongated metal pieces next. By the fourth piece, he was reasonably sure that he was unearthing cutlery now.

“A dried-up well probably is a convenient place to throw broken stuff into,” Benimaru remarked, a curved pipe (probably) in his hand. He decided to blow fire into it and push or burn any earth out but whatever was inside that old thing had a melting point close to the metal itself, so he gave that up and threw the smoking pipe among the other artefacts.

More broken metal and other long-lasting things slowly came to the surface, most of which were useless except as museum pieces. During a short break, Toji came out of his hole to show Benimaru a big but flat rectangular piece of plastic. After dusting it off, Toji gave it to Beni to see if he could figure out what it was.

“My first thought is a book pressed really thin.”

“Only in your head.” Toji’s answer made Benimaru realize that that was indeed a rather silly thought because you couldn’t press paper books into thin plastic, but… Benimaru didn’t have a better second thought on that thing. Its features were distinct, though; you could make out fingertip-sized squares on the side where it was only slightly melted. At closer inspection, Benimaru also saw tiny wires sticking out of that thing in some places, too.

“A foggy image is slowly creeping up in my brain but I have no desire to wait for it to become sharp. What is this?”

“I wouldn’t have expected even that much from you, to be honest.” Toji wasn’t mocking Benimaru with his statement. He made clear that their mystery artefact was something lost to the ages, or at least lost in Asakusa. “It’s the keyboard section of a laptop. A portable and foldable computer. The screen is missing.”

“Foldable?” Benimaru looked at the rectangle, the keyboard, again but he couldn’t imagine how that could’ve been folded in any way. Toji pointed to a hinge that was still halfway there at one of the edges and only then did it make sense in Beni’s mind about how a laptop functioned. “Need any help?” Benimaru said after throwing the keyboard among the other useless things. Instead of watching from above, he could get his hands dirty, too.

“No, thank you. Although…” Toji contemplated something inside the well while digging up a book that was half dust and half baked over by plastic. If he had to go seven meters deep into this, right into the maws of a burning infernal, then some fresh air would be nice. “Do you know how to manipulate air inside a small space to get oxygen in?”

“Hhm…” Benimaru looked down the well to calculate the dimensions while heating up and cooling down the air around his hands to get a feel for what he would need to do. “Yes, I do. But if you want to be down there with me, that hole needs to get bigger.”

“You could also do that from where you are now.”

“And miss the chance to kill one of the first infernals in the world? No.”

With a smirk and a short throaty laugh, Toji went on to scrape the earth off the walls around him, too. This brought out even more artefacts he tossed up to Benimaru, but much to the horror of any historian in Tokyo, neither of the lovers was careful with what they were doing to them. All the pre-cataclysm items landed on a heap on the side, with Benimaru only caring enough about them not to destroy them. Later, he would give them to someone who had a passion for old shit.

Toji’s problem, on the other hand, was that he didn’t see the artefacts as something to be protected because for him they were nothing but ordinary everyday tools and possessions. One of Toji’s laptops broke at its hinges once because he sneezed on it. At least for now (while erroneously thinking that the rest of Tokyo still produced most of these), Toji didn’t care much about keeping them as intact as possible.

Narrow two meters, soon turned into wide three meters, and only then did Toji fully realize what they were doing there. Human remains were now under his hands, and he felt the need to give them more respect than just throwing them up. But he also wanted to get down there in the next 30 minutes and not two weeks later after actual archaeologists came to this well.

“What should we do?” Toji asked Benimaru, who was already thinking of a few ideas.

“Get a camera and take a photo every time before we remove a bone?”

“…I’d rather let this stay intact.”

“I could use my fire to lift it.”

“Not without oxygen underneath it.”

“I could try it with my pyrokinetic energy. I can harden it enough to push something up with it.”

They thought about the idea for a few seconds before deciding to try it out. Up until now, Benimaru only used his pyrokinetic energy defensively by “freezing” it in place, like in the air or his arms (not in the rest of his body, though). He was able to move his arms while he did that but outside of it, moving his energy in hardened form was more difficult.

While Benimaru did a test run with the rocks they had pulled out, Toji found a relatively empty place before him and dug a small hole to find out how deep the remains were piled on top of each other. He also used his superior hearing with knocks on the earth and the bones to get a good idea of that. His verdict: nearly one meter of remains, pressed directly against the walls of the well that were still cobbled at that point.

The well was 1.5 meters in diameter. Taking into account that any fat and muscles had long since rotted away (which meant these remains were pressed closer together than when they were first thrown into this hole), this place had to be the grave of a huge number of people.

Toji saw the upper protrusions of big, cracked skulls and shoulder plates. He was sure the bones of the dead children (and of course, there would be dead children here, too, they were the first to die in big disasters) were underneath them. While he pushed his arm down the hole he dug, he felt many more bones in the earth. He made sure not to damage them, then he felt hard stone once more, signalling what he was sure was the end of the well since the remains would’ve been further down otherwise.

“Wells are way deeper than that,” Toji explained when he was on the surface again. Without realising it, he put his dirty right hand over his left elbow. “The lower part probably collapsed during the Cataclysm, so there was nothing else they could use it for other than a grave.”

“So how come the infernal is even deeper than that?” Benimaru asked. He was successfully levitating a rock in the air, a phenomenon everyone else on earth would categorise as magic, as he neither used fire, heat, nor radiation to do it.

“From my time in the library, I read a few accounts of the survivors of the Cataclysm. They said that there were many earthquakes on top of the fires. I suppose someone might have jumped down the well to find water before turning, or they were pushed down while already turned. Then an earthquake destroyed the lower part of the well and they’ve been stuck since.”

There wasn’t much more to say about that while Toji and Benimaru looked down at the bones sticking out of the earth they hadn’t removed yet. What a gruesome fate to not only be a prisoner of your body and then of tons of earth above you, but also to be part of a place others used as a mass grave.

“I’ll do this now,” Benimaru announced before jumping down the wide hole. He made sure not to land on any of the open bones but before he could start pushing his energy down to lift that slab of an earthly grave, a weird sensation made him stop. “Did you also feel… lighter down here?” he asked Toji.

“Lighter? No, more like… weird.”

Instead of philosophising about their different sensations, Benimaru let his energy out which allowed him to understand his problem immediately. Toji’s had to be something else. “The energy from hell that is coming up is pushing my own up as well. Three meters deep like this, I’m probably a few kilos lighter now.”

“Cool.” Toji sat down cross-legged and leaned over to get a better view of the pyrokinetic energy currents rising. “We would need to go way deeper than just seven meters, though, to see if the push against you would be enough to neutralise all the gravitational forces on your body.”

Benimaru shrugged his shoulders. He could already fly, so that wasn’t something he was interested in. Now it was time to see if he could complete his job. He let out two bursts of energy which he directed downwards, one through the small hole Toji had made, and the other through the earth and the bones. As had been his problem earlier (and the places he pushed his energy down didn’t matter there), the pyrokinetic energy from hell made it difficult to get his own lower. This time, he was pushing way more of it down, but he made it work with extreme effort.

But if the human remains had been lower than four meters, then… Benimaru would’ve probably instructed Toji to dig a second hole to the side, so they could reach the infernal from there. Beni would’ve sulked for days about failing his part, though.

The energy was completely under the part where Toji was sure the grave ended, so Benimaru turned up his control of it until he felt the first tremors under his feet. The hardening and moving were underway but the energy from below was severely hindering Benimaru from doing his thing. One might think the push against his energy would help, but no, his “plate” under the grave was poked through with holes instead. What to do now?

Benimaru was grateful to have an intelligent boyfriend at that moment. On his own, he would’ve wasted days thinking up a good way to deal with that problem.

“Make a thin blade first to cut through the entire rock; the underside but also along the walls. Then create an energy net to lift it so you don’t block the other energy from coming up.”

“…” Benimaru thought Toji’s advice through; not to find a flaw in it, but to revel in the… easy access to it he was granted. It felt like he had earned that advice, but it was also precious to get it so easily. “I’ll do that.” And do he did. Soon after, with Benimaru’s arms trembling now, too, a one-meter-thick and 1.5-meter-wide grave with about a dozen skeletons inside was flying out of the well. The moment the underside of the grave breached the edge of the well, air flew into the vacuum underneath it.

With the air came the oxygen, and with that came fire which was a thousand times easier to use and control than energy. The grave ended up close to the artefacts, where it hopefully wouldn’t stay for another hundred years.

“The Tokyo University or whatever can have this.” Benimaru was his usual defensive and borderline xenophobic self about everything to do with Asakusa and everything that wasn’t (they had crossed into another ward for their search, so these remains were not Beni’s to deal with) but Toji saw a few cracks in that disposition; a rare interest Benimaru showed to external and foreign things, this time because these people had died before there ever was a subjugated Asakusa and an imperialist Tokyo.

After Toji brushed some hard earth away from one of the skulls, and after Benimaru took a closer look at the teeth that had been filled with “amalgam”, they went back to work on killing the infernal under them.

The well itself, meaning the cobbled parts of it; its original construction; ended at the same line as the grave did. Below that, it was only hard rock with occasional broken-off cobblestones, showing the forces that had shifted everything around this far underground. Benimaru threw a small flame down to Toji to give him light (it was difficult to keep that flame alight, though), then he used his heat control to create an air current for proper gas exchange down below.

After digging another meter, Toji heard an interesting sound when he struck a piece of rock to break it apart before throwing it up. He put his ear down to the ground to make sure and then he lay down on his chest to feel more to make double sure, and yes, there was a cavity not far below him. Maybe one the infernal had made while trying to get out?

“Gonna hit a hollow space soon!” Toji shouted up.

“Like, one the infernal made?” Benimaru shouted down.

Toji removed most of the rest of the earth and stone before he punched his hand through to the cavity below. He held his hand there for a moment to feel for any possible air currents or moisture in the air. Heat from a fire should be there first but strangely, that was missing even though by Benimaru’s calculations, the infernal was just 1.2 meters below them now.

“Can infernals stop burning?” Toji asked after pulling his hand back. With it, he touched his healed chest and arm, thinking about how unwell he had started to feel there. It was like a build-up of tension, like his skin was pulling itself together and apart, but it went as deep as his muscles and bones, too. It had to do with the gateway to hell, he thought, the place that had presumably healed him when he travelled to this world, so the question was:

Is this only a temporary reaction because I’m closer to hell now? Or will this follow me back home? Will it get worse the further down I go? How worse can it get?

“My healed side is acting up.” Toji decided to confide in Benimaru about how he was feeling.

“Your…?” Benimaru looked down at his boyfriend, concerned for a second, which Toji saw. Then Benimaru jumped down to Toji’s level to poke his fingers at his scars. “Assuming the healing can be undone, would you survive?”

“No beating around the bush with you, hä?” Toji could only grin at the blunt question that got to the worst-case scenario immediately, but that was how Benimaru ticked. The fear of the healing disappearing spontaneously was valid, as they didn’t even know how it happened in the first place, but for now, it seemed unlikely to happen. “I wouldn’t die immediately. Too tough for that. But part of my heart had also been hit, not to forget that I lost, you know, one third of my chest through and through. If I’m more than ten seconds away from one of those heart-lung machines when that happens, then we’ll have only enough time for one more and extremely short talk and that’s it.”

“Hm,” was Benimaru’s thoughtful grumble, which then turned into a thoughtful gaze he directed at the dirt wall to his side, but Toji didn’t have much hope for a thoughtful answer from Beni. The guy needed way more time to think about these kinds of things and that was the exact conclusion Benimaru came to as well. So he decided on a humorous comment in the end. “Would we have enough time for one last fuck?”

Toji put his hand on his mouth before he laughed too loudly at that ridiculous question. “No, except you want to kill me four seconds in. I’m afraid only a bittersweet romantic kiss will be in it.”

“Hrch.” That was Benimaru’s thoughtful grunt while he crossed his arms, not really ecstatic at that prospect. “I guess I can do one last kiss. No promises on it being romantic, though.”

“Make sure Konro doesn’t hear that last part.”

With Toji’s old wounds acting up dealt with, the pair concentrated back on getting down. The ground underneath their feet was thin before leading to an open space. And the walls around them weren’t that far apart anymore as Toji hadn’t bothered to keep the 1.5-meter diameter up. Something he was infinitely glad about, as he could throw his arms and legs at the walls to keep himself in the well when Benimaru suddenly decided to blow the ground under them away.

“What the fuck are you doing!” Toji asked, bewildered while holding himself horizontally so he wouldn’t fall down.

“Getting dow–“ Beniamru was just about to answer when he felt lightheaded all of a sudden. He automatically grabbed Toji around one of his legs to dangle there for a few seconds while oxygen-depleted air from the cavity under them travelled upwards. He had breathed in some of it right after igniting his fire under his feet; now he was holding his breath while the stones under them crashed to the ground and the air inside and above the well was moved in all directions.

“Oxygen is back to normal,” Toji said after a while. Benimaru had kept his heat control up, which was why the air was circulated so fast. After being pushed up by the hellish pyrokinetic energy, his tiny light from before had gone out, though.

“Just so you know,” Benimaru said while climbing on top of Toji who was still holding himself up against the walls with his hands and feet, “I can hold my breath longer than that. I trained for it actually, so I won’t end up like Konro.”

“Yeah, I won’t believe that until you prove it on my dick.”

“Tt. Get down, now.”

With a disapproving grunt, Toji did just that, and slowly moved down the walls until he came to the edge of the hole that led to the top part of the small cave. Benimaru, meanwhile, fought against the foreign energy all around him and pushed heated air into the cavity so that they had a good breeze going, making sure they didn’t asphyxiate without realising it.

For now, Toji decided not to enter the cavity, so he turned around, still holding himself horizontally but this time with his back to the ground, so he could stick his head down for a better view. Benimaru had been sitting on Toji’s ass until then, but he, too, didn’t want to go down yet, so scooted over to Toji’s lower back, hooked his legs around his stomach, and turned around with Toji. Now his upper body was dangling down with the only thing that was missing being some light.

Because the infernal, wherever it was in this cavity, was not burning.

“We won’t be able to stand in this space. Okay, maybe you will but I definitely won’t.”

“Shut it.”

There wasn’t much to say about the cavity after it was illuminated, except that there were broken rocks all around it, but also…

“I feel moisture down there. Maybe there’s even water,” Toji said, eyeing the deepest holes in-between the rocks.

“We’re not close to the sea, so that shouldn’t be saltwater.” Benimaru was positively surprised by this place being wet in some shape or form. “It would be a huge discovery if it turns out that the Tokyo island is building up groundwater again.”

“If even you get excited about that, then it would be a huge discovery, yes.”

As a nonverbal answer to that comment, Benimaru pressed his legs together to squeeze Toji’s stomach, but that didn’t last long as he finally found what they’d been looking for. The infernal from the Cataclysm.

“There it is.” Benimaru pointed towards a dark piece of burned flesh under them. After pushing one of his fires towards it, they could make out what body part it was: a hand and an arm. With a pang, Toji was reminded of the arm he had lost, but he knew this had nothing to do with him. Benimaru decided to push the rocks on top of the infernal away to get it free and see what state it was in. He also created a heat bubble in its vicinity to pull some oxygenated air towards it.

The infernal didn’t react, making Toji and Benimaru think about how it might actually be possible to kill infernals in other ways than destroying their core, but Toji started to hear crackling noises coming from the blackened skin.

“I think it’s starting to ignite again.”

“Yeah, its pyrokinetic energy started to move around. Probably because of the oxy–“

“…who… are… you…”

They both froze when they heard those words; Toji with more of an idea of what had just been said than Benimaru, but it was unmistakable… the infernal just spoke.

Toji turned on his axis with his stomach facing down again, so he could look Benimaru in the eye to make sure they heard the same thing. “Infernals speak sometimes,” Benimaru said, but he wasn’t reassured by his own words. “It’s extremely rare that they can do so conversationally, though.”

“…what… is… an… infernal…”

After another short glance at each other, Benimaru put his hands on the rocks underneath him to push them away, and when he couldn’t reach more of them anymore, Toji turned around in the opening of the well to reposition his boyfriend for more rock pushing. They didn’t completely uncover the infernal but its black head was free now.

From the way it was lying on the ground, it seemed like it had been reaching for the well and the path to the outside it once provided.

“You are an infernal,” Benimaru said after looking at that creature for longer than he was used to.

“…I… am… not…”

“Then what are you?” Toji asked to see where this conversation would go. The crackling on its body was becoming more numerous, though, with small wisps of smoke starting to emerge from it as well. It wouldn’t take long before the infernal would go up in flames again.

“…why… what? …I am… a person…”

“…sorry for that. Who are you?”

“Aya… ka…”

“Where are you from? Ever went outside of Tokyo?” This time, it was Benimaru who asked because he was reminded of his first conversation with Toji when he accidentally said he was from Kyoto. What other destroyed city would this infernal mention if it really lived before the Cataclysm?

“I’m from… Ishinomaki…”

“North Japan near Sendai,” Toji explained to Benimaru. Both took that as the last proof of this person being one of the first infernals on earth.

“…what happened… to everyone… I can’t get out… everything hurts…”

“What happened was the world–“ Benimaru’s answer was interrupted by Toji letting go of the wall with one hand to flick Beni against his shoulder. Benimaru rethought what he should say and how he would say it. The smoke on the body of the infernal was getting thicker every second, which meant they didn’t have much time left for talking. “It’s been a long time since you’ve been like this. No one you knew is alive anymore.”

“…they’re all… dead… finally I know… for sure…”

“Have you been waiting for…” Toji started to ask but he couldn’t think of a way to end his question. The infernal still understood what he wanted to say. By now, embers started to glow red on its body.

“…I’ve been waiting… for my family and friends… then I’ve been waiting… for death… to meet them again… I’m still waiting…”

“We’re here for that,” Benimaru replied in the same tone of voice as when he killed his people who had turned; he was less loud and grand about it, though, because there was no point in making this a spectacle with a human who had suffered spontaneous human combustion for 250 years. “You’ll meet your loved ones soon.”

“Thank you.”

The first fire broke out over the infernal’s shoulder and its eyes stared to glow, too, signalling that it was now time to kill it, instead of prolonging its suffering. Benimaru let go of Toji's waist to land on his feet below, believing that killing someone like that while upside down was too disrespectful. Toji jumped down as well, but he stayed crouched and didn’t make any further attempts at keeping the conversation going.

But the infernal had one last but utterly baffling question for them.

“…but tell me first… why you two… look so strange?”

“Strange how?” Benimaru asked, reading his fire for the kill.

“…like… anime characters…”

“…what?” Benimaru looked over at Toji to make sure they heard the same thing. Toji’s equally confused look showed that they did. “How would we look like anime characters?”

“…the way you seem… drawn… not real… the fire nearly looks real… but also not… like I’m in an… animation…”

Neither Toji nor Benimaru could understand where that comparison was coming from, but before they could ask more about it, the fire started to spread to the rest of the infernal’s body, even the parts that were still under the rocks. There wasn’t much they could do at that point, and at the first painful-looking spasm in the flaming arms of the infernal, Benimaru created a fire blade with his hand, which he rammed into its heart.

The age-old fire creature began to disintegrate before them, a quarter millennium of suffering finally at an end. “Thank you again,” were the last words of the person who had lived in Toji’s time, and that was the end of their mission to find a suitable proto-infernal to study. The proto-infernal part failed but the sudden addition of the infernal part was a success.

“I don’t look ‘drawn, ’” Toji said while inspecting his hands. He was still crouched down while Benimaru looked up at the hole of the well where faint sunlight was shining down on them.

“Who knows what that was supposed to mean. He probably lost all sense of reality while trapped down here for so long. His eyes wouldn’t know what they saw, if infernals even have eyes that see the world as it is.”

“That’s probably it, but… why ‘he’? That was clearly a woman.”

“No? That was a man. He said his name was Ayaka.”

That earned Benimaru some prettily narrowed eyes. “Ayaka is a girl’s name.”

“Ayaka is a boy’s name, Fushiguro-san. Our neighbour’s son is named that.”

“…that’s a boy?” Toji lost his composure for a second, thinking of that child and how much sense it made now looking back that ‘she’ was a ‘he’. He had been confused about that for a while. But soon he was back to arguing with Benimaru about it.

“In my time, the time this woman came from, Ayaka was exclusively a female name. So count this round as lost, Shinmon-sama.”

“Tt.”

They were just about to go up again when Benimaru felt a shift in the pyrokinetic energy from hell. He looked down to see a proto-infernal slowly emerging from the ground, but unlike the ones walking on the surface, this one looked like a real and recognisable human.

Notes:

So they look like anime characters, hm? Hhhmmm????

Trippy. Not that they would understand what that meant.

For those not far enough into the manga, the Fire Force universe used to be *real* in the live-action sense. The Cataclysm changed their universe into a battle shonen manga/anime. That's the dimension crossing inside the cave - Plato's Cave, but the reverse. The FF people went from a higher dimension into a lower one instead of going from 2D to 3D.

:D

I don't read much FF fanfic, so for those who do: do other authors use this canon plot point in their fics from time to time?

Chapter 21: The First Parade of Death

Summary:

The ghostly image Benimaru and Toji saw inside the well, was someone they couldn't ignore.
A new ritual in Asaskusan and even Tokyo history started on that day because of it.

Notes:

I'm 70% positive that I'll get out of my fanfic slump soon :D

Until then, macabre parades.

“You saw that, too?” Benimaru asked.

“Yeah,” Tōji answered. “I saw my sleep floating past me. This night doesn’t want to end.”

The pair was taken aback at the sight of a recognisable human going up beside them. That middle-aged man wasn’t too human, though; he was more of an image inside the pyrokinetic energy that was constantly being pushed up. His eyes were closed as he looked more like he was sleeping. Neither Tōji nor Benimaru wanted to engage with him or it, however.

The sun was already up and they wanted to go back into their beds, but with one glance at each other, they decided differently.

Because that man was undoubtedly dressed like an Asakusan.

Tōji was the first to jump out of the well, right past the man. From the surface, he had a good view of how the recognisable features of the man disappeared when he went beyond the threshold of the well. Then, only pyrokinetic energy crisscrossing in lines was left of him, and the man emerged as a proto-infernal, now on its way to its victim.

“Why did it look like a normal human?” Benimaru asked after he went up as well. They started following the proto, leaving the grave and the artefacts behind. One of them would give this ward a call later to inform them about them.

“Why did it only look like a human inside the pyrokinetic energy and not outside of it? And he didn’t look that normal. More like a ghost. Or a painting on a tapestry.”

Tōji and Benimaru eyed each other again, coming to the same conclusion. The finer answers to their questions could wait; now they had to find the guy this proto-infernal belonged to. “Your parade might become a reality now,” Tōji remarked.

“Your demand for less destruction as well.” They were both uneasy about this development, though. “I hope you got a better look at the guy than I did.” At Tōji’s nod, their roles for the next few hours were set: Benimaru would push his energy inside the proto-infernal to light up the string that connected it with its victim, while Tōji would look around for that man.

That the man they saw and the victim were the same person was an assumption both believed to be true. 

They didn’t have to split up immediately, though. Asakusa was a big place, even if it wasn’t the biggest in Tokyo, and Benimaru was more comfortable with Tōji staying with him for now while he tried to improve his string-lighting technique. He lost contact and visual with the invisible string earlier than Tōji, but he had time to improve at it until they reached the city limits. But even after they did, Tōji stayed with him a little longer.

One problem they encountered in their search was that nearly no one was up at this ungodly hour except those who really had to and the pyrokinetics who rose with the sun.

“People will definitely curse me out when I start banging on their doors to look at the middle-aged men living with them. Or worse, they’ll call me a whore for looking for middle-aged men.”

“Please, they’ll call you a sad boy with daddy issues at the most. You forgot how everyone still thinks that Konro is your father?”

“Oh, yeah. That.”

What Tōji did end up doing was ask a woman who was tending to her garden for a piece of paper and a pencil. Then he took his time (two minutes, more than he normally bothers to expend for something like this) to draw that man’s face from memory. Then he asked the woman if he had ever seen the guy.

“He’s not from this neighbourhood, apparently. He might be from the other side of Asakusa for all we know.”

“Or he’ll be in the next one, or maybe that woman just didn’t know her neighbours that well.”

By this point, the proto-infernal was further back while Benimaru “held” its string between his hands. He was continuously pumping his energy into it, a task he didn’t dare mess up, which meant he couldn’t look for the man himself. He did look at the drawing Tōji made of him, though.

“Since when can you draw that well?” he asked his lover indignantly after seeing the pretty realistic-looking sketch Tōji barfed up while standing and with only a wooden wall as support.

“As if it's difficult,” was the only answer Benimaru got on that front.

That was the moment they split up to do their searching more efficiently. Tōji went ahead and asked everyone he came across if they knew the man, then, after a while, he looked for Benimaru to adjust the places he searched through. Reluctantly, he gave Benimaru the Tōji-whistle back at some point so that he could be informed about any directional changes as fast as possible.

“Are you giving the people a reason for looking for the guy?”

“Don’t talk with the fucking whistle in your mouth!”

With pain in his ears, Tōji flipped the whistle out from between Benimaru’s lips (but it still hung around his neck). His lover looked at him askew before realising that yes, even if the whistle didn’t make a sound to Beni’s ears while he talked with it in his mouth, it could make enough of a sound for Tōji’s ears. Tōji cemented that observation by asking Benimaru to repeat himself.

“What excuse are you using to look for that man? Are you going around saying he owes you money?”

“Don’t be ridiculous. That guy is going to die today.” Tōji pushed his ear around to relieve the tinnitus noises that were assaulting him. “Wouldn’t want to link my name to his.”

“Why? He’s going to die of SHC.” Benimaru couldn’t follow Tōji’s logic. Spontaneous human combustion wasn’t something anyone could influence, not even him for now. Why would someone think Tōji had something to do with it, especially because of something as flimsy as owing money?

“I know. I just don’t want to be connected with him more than necessary. Call it an old habit.” After thinking about it for a moment, Tōji found another reason why it was better that way. “I also should stay as far away from your 'parade’ as possible. That’s going to be your thing, I’m not going to be part of the next stage of your godhood.”

“If you say so.”

Benimaru barely understood where Tōji was coming from, as he couldn’t think of many negative consequences of Tōji becoming a bit godlike like himself. Tōji was thinking far ahead, though, to the negative consequences the parade itself could create. You can’t just present yourself to a populace with the ability of a prophet who can predict the next death without unwanted pushback or complications.

Their search took a bit more than an hour, then they found a neighbourhood where that man was known. From there, it was easier to track him down until Tōji had an address. “This is it,” he said while they walked towards the place, their string eerily showing the way. “How are you going to organise this?” At first, Tōji wanted to ask how Benimaru would organise this quickly, but he realised that quickly wasn’t the problem; the Asakusans would do as Beni said immediately, with only some grumbling about it. The how and with what justification this would be organised were the biggest questions Tōji had.

Before answering, Benimaru took a deep breath, adjusting to what would undoubtedly be one of the biggest changes their post-apocalyptic world would go through now. He was the one who grew up in this society where spontaneous human combustion was not only death but also a god everyone had to believe in, if they wanted to or not. He had months to get used to this moment, but now that it was before him, it had his heart beating faster.

“A few of my men live around here. I’ll give the order to assemble for a parade. After we talk with Totsuka Enji, I’ll let the parade start.”

“Your explanation for it?”

“This man is going to turn into an infernal, what else?”

On that point, Tōji and Benimaru weren’t on the same wavelength. They hadn’t been since the beginning because Tōji barely understood how deep-seated the cultural significance of spontaneous human combustion was. And because he barely scratched the surface of understanding that 250-year-old phenomenon, he couldn’t follow all the ways that Asakusa, and more importantly Benimaru, interacted with it. That his former society strictly cut the sorcerers and non-sorcerers apart didn’t help, either.

“So we’re really going through with it?”

“As much as they need to know, of course. Why? Why is this bothering you all of a sudden?”

“…”

Tōji pulled his ever-growing hair out of his face before looking up for a moment. He saw the shadow of a teenage god floating above him, ready to end his life with the flick of a finger. “It’s nothing…” he said but then he wondered why he didn’t just say what was on his mind. Maybe he’ll get some clarity out of it. “I’m thinking of Gojō but it doesn’t make much sense right now.”

“Was he worshipped?” Benimaru asked, curious. He felt like he knew where Tōji was coming from. “You think I’ll become like him?”

“Gojō wasn’t worshipped. Not directly, at least. His power was revered and feared, and he by association.” Tōji had spent way too much of his time and energy thinking of that little kid with the Six Eyes not to know how he was perceived by the jujutsu world since his birth. “He didn’t have a personality cult or something like that. Just immense power over everyone, humans, sorcerers and curses alike, just by being who he was.”

“So… I am kinda becoming like him, right?” Benimaru raised an eyebrow and looked up at Tōji after they stopped at Totsuka’s door. “I’ll become even more revered and feared after the parade. In Asakusa and Tokyo, respectively.” Tōji slowly nodded his head. “Not that I think that’s a bad thing. You’re the only one who has a problem with that, which I find strange, actually. Would’ve thought you’d love it, but thinking of how much you fear Gojō…”

Tōji snapped his head around at the last part, indignant immediately. “I’m not afraid of Gojō!”

“Your elaborate plan to kill him says otherwise.”

“That was a realistic plan to kill someone with the strongest defence!”

“Fine. If you insist. Doesn’t change the fact, however, that you’re traumatised by him.”

“I’m no–“ Okay, maybe Tōji was a little traumatised by Gojō, so maybe Benimaru’s raised eyebrows were warranted on that front. “Fine! Could be that I’m making some connections between you two about how this parade is going to be perceived and how you compare to Gojō on that front! A comparison I’d rather not be making because I don’t like thinking about Gojō!”

“Yes.” In Tōji’s eyes, Benimaru looked awfully pleased with himself, like he wanted huge amounts of praise for helping Tōji figure out his unease. Which he did.

“But it’s not like this doesn’t affect you either,” Tōji pointed out to put his boyfriend down a peg before he started floating, too. “I can hear your heartbeat, so spit out what has you bothered, too.”

“Hn.” Benimaru grunted while knocking on the door several times. He wasn’t forceful with his fist, though; his knocking was rather disjointed because he was thinking too hard about Tōji’s question. But he could go the honest route, too. “I’m about to break one of the hallmarks of spontaneous human combustion. The Unknown. The Randomness, even if only in part. It doesn’t seem like it for us because we know how SHC truly works, but for now, no one else will. Either way, this will be huge to everyone, and might change some things immensely.”

“So, like, we worry about the same thing but different aspects of it?”

Benimaru shrugged his shoulders. “Same same but different,” he said absentmindedly after looking back at the door when they heard heavy footsteps on creaking floorboards coming towards them.

---

“Everyone, wake up! Waka ordered a Death Parade! Wake up! Totsuka Enji is going to turn into an infernal! The Death Parade is starting!”

That and many similar calls were screamed in all corners of Asakusa to get everyone up for the new tradition – the new and yet old way of dying – that would now be performed for the first time. The pyrokinetic energy string from the proto-infernal did connect with Totsuka, which sealed his fate in the upcoming hours.

That early in the morning, it had been hard for the man to understand what was happening. He believed Benimaru’s words but that didn’t make them make sense. It made even less sense for Totsuka’s wife and old parents but that was the trade-off for Tōji and Beni keeping their findings on spontaneous human combustion to themselves: no one else was able to prepare for the death parade until now.

They would be prepared in the future.

“B-but when, when will I…?”

“Soon, unfortunately. I’m sorry I can’t prevent it.”

“But you’re sure, Waka?” Totsuka’s wife asked, tears streaming down her face. Totsuka himself was still too shocked to properly digest what was happening. No one in the small household had any idea how to process this.

“Yes. I’ll be immensely sorry for interrupting your life with disturbing predictions like this if I’m wrong… but right now, I don’t believe I am.”

Asakusans celebrated the life of the person who turned into an infernal, but now, that tradition was turned on its head. What were the people supposed to do and feel before the person became a victim of human combustion? Death was imminent instead of a done deal. Totsuka was alive instead of burning. Did they still celebrate his life or did they mourn its end as with other causes of death?

“…but you’re the one to kill me?” were Totsuka’s first words of acceptance in this ordeal. Benimaru promised him that of course he would be the one to end his physical life after the fire would take his spiritual one. “Then…” The middle-aged man had been sitting down for a while, staring at the floor in his living room. But with clarity on what was happening came determination…

…determination to make use of the time his Waka had given him; to have one last talk with his family, his friends and to right the wrongs he never got around to righting. “Then we need to call everyone! As fast as possible!”

They could hear bustling from out on the street, the hikeshi hard at work preparing an impromptu parade they didn’t understand the meaning of yet. Konro was the first important person to come to the house of the future victim, simply because he was first in line to hear about this as the lieutenant of Company 7.  Soon, extended family, close friends, and the district mayor also came, along with priests.

Benimaru was steadfast against the confusion that everyone other than Konro was feeling about the death parade. There was more scepticism from the new arrivals than from the family itself but he was dealing with it. His main reasoning, he explained, for why he was sure Totsuka would turn into an infernal soon, was:

“I can feel his chi ready to spark into ash and fire.”

No one disbelieved him. Even if they weren’t sure about the outcome, they believed Benimaru’s words to be true in some fashion.

(That explanation for his otherworldly premonition about human combustion would end up in secret reports seen only by the highest priests and personnel of the Holy Sol Temple before being distributed to the other companies. The White-Clads would also be hearing about it sooner rather than later.)

While the anxious atmosphere inside the home of Totsuka had abated at that point, there was still confusion and a lack of understanding on how to proceed from there. Tōji had been leaning against a wall this entire time, tucked away because he didn’t feel like he could contribute anything meaningful to the situation. But that gave him the space to look at it from an emotional distance, something that Benimaru wasn’t able to do right then, even if he didn’t look like he struggled.

“So, does this mean,” Tōji said at a moment when talking had quieted down. Everyone looked over to him, not knowing what to expect of the foreigner. No one, not even Benimaru and Konro, thought that Tōji would’ve a meaningful insight about what was happening, especially because Tōji had expressed disbelief and consternation about their traditions multiple times. “Does this mean you get to be part of the party of you becoming an infernal?”

“Huh?” many people said at the same time. Benimaru threw Tōji a raised eyebrow at the question because the party part of him killing infernals was the one part Tōji always complained about. Second to the destruction, of course. But Beni saw what his boyfriend tried to achieve when many eyes all around him widened in understanding… and excitement.

The Death Parade took on the dimension Benimaru had first envisioned it with so long ago: a party.

“Yes!” Totsuka said after jumping up. “I can party, too, now!” He wasn’t quite believing himself when he said that the first time, but by the third, he was fully into it, just like his wife and parents. “Get the sake out! I’ll dance till I drop dead!”

“You mean till you light up the place!” said an uncle from the side. In Tokyo, a statement like that would’ve earned you severe admonishment or even an arrest in the worst cases. In Asakusa, on the other hand, it got you cheers.

“All right! Enough sitting on our asses! Let’s get out and see what my men have built for us!”

With Benimaru’s call, everyone stood up and trickled out of the house, Totsuka and his wife at the front, hand in hand, about to dance together. They stayed on the street for a while, speaking with neighbours and friends, explaining what was happening and how the parade would end with him turning. Benimaru, Tōji and Konro stayed behind to discuss the details.

“How are we doing this? What’s your plan?” During the gathering with everyone inside the house, Konro had managed to keep himself calm and exude an air of sympathy and authority. Now he was rubbing his jaw nervously, no idea what to do. He was glad his young charges (though only Benimaru was his charge, he also saw Tōji as his foster-charge) seemed to be on top of this situation.

“The proto-infernal isn’t too far away and I doubt it’ll go in random directions and postpone its takeover of Totsuka,” Benimaru answered. “We’ll just walk around the streets until it catches up, then I’ll kill the infernal. We can’t escape it.”

“But we’ll need to make sure it also doesn’t gain speed and turn Totsuka in five minutes,” Tōji replied. “We can’t give off the impression that we’re trying to escape. Don’t ask me how the protos know that, they always do somehow, so my suggestion is to make the parade go around the streets Totsuka would normally take as well. We’ll see how the proto-infernal will behave and go from there.”

“All right.”

Benimaru had been vague when he told his men to prepare a parade, and Asakusa didn’t do many of them in any given year, either, so they decided to build colourful papier-mâché animals from extinct species (like tigers and dragons), among other things, like a moving platform. While Tōji removed himself from the tense masses (who nevertheless became festive with every passing minute), Benimaru wondered if he should change into a kimono for the parade.

That was normally how he dressed himself for things like that, but then he remembered that his role at the death parade would be as a firefighter killing an infernal. He would rather stay in his comfortable uniform during this special occasion than start wearing a kimono every hour of every day to ensure his citizens were all killed equally by him.

Soon, the parade started and the people moved forward, with Totsuka’s family at the front. Any confusion the rest of the populace had on the matter was ignored by everyone, even those who were confused, because their trust in Shinmon Benimaru and the people around him was so high that they simply decided to participate in this new ritual, one that ultimately became a joyful event.

Then, the family was lifted up on the platform and carried around by the hikeshi but also by every man from Totsuka’s life. Dance groups from young to old threw themselves at the front, performed one routine with high or low success and then went to the back to perform a second time, all to the cheers of every person standing to the sides along the streets. Pyrokinetics started to perform as well.

“The proto-infernal just left the house. For now, it takes the same route as us.” In a gentle gust of wind, Tōji suddenly appeared at Benimaru’s side.

They were behind the platform together with priests blessing the upcoming death. Above them was the head of the paper dragon held up by Benimaru’s flaming matoi. He gathered more of them to hold the rest of the dragon because volunteers decided to add to its tail with their own papier-mâché pieces every time they rounded a corner. On its own, the patchwork dragon was quite ugly but it fit into the collective nature of the parade.

“Did it change its speed until now?”

“No, but the parade walks slower than it. So we either match the speed and hope it doesn’t trigger the proto, or we stay like this and I’ll make an estimate on when Totsuka will turn.”

“And if it doesn’t gain speed?”

“Then we’ll do this parade for hours or days without a clear end in sight. Escaping combustion can’t be as easy as walking and never stopping, though, right?” Tōji was sure that in 250 years of dealing with spontaneous human combustion, all methods of circumventing their fiery end had been tried, including an endless walk around the Tokyo island.

“…no, there is no escaping it except to die another way first.” Benimaru stood before a matter of life and death he rarely had to deal with. He was never shy of describing himself as the killer of his turned citizens but in this instance, he would be their judge deciding when they would die. And prolonging that death too long wouldn’t be good for the ones involved either. Right now, everything was fine with Totsuka and his wife dancing together on the platform, but past the high point of the parade, psychological horror would set in.

“Tell me how long it will probably take for the proto-infernal to reach us.”

“My current estimate is about two and a half hours but I’ll check to make sure.” Tōji didn’t give Benimaru a goodbye before leaving again, but he did give everyone he walked by nods and waved to the crowd. He wasn’t feeling the cheer like everyone else, but he pretended for now.

Benimaru couldn’t fault Tōji for that; he wasn’t the most cheerful person right now, either. This entire process was too new and challenging for him. He wasn’t even sure about the decision he had just taken. Maybe they should try to escape? Make this parade never-ending? Have the next future-victims of human combustion live up there on the platform until the rest of their days? Until they either find out that people can’t escape like that, or until the people on the platform decide to throw themselves down to escape the platform?

Tōji came back with a note he had made calculations on; the estimated time of the arrival of the infernal stood at 2 hours and 17 minutes. The problem, he said to Benimaru, was that Totsuka wasn’t walking himself, so the proto-infernal could gain speed at some point. They couldn’t make the parade go faster either because then the parts in the back wouldn’t keep up and the show itself would fall apart.

And that, Benimaru realised, was more important than squeezing extra hours of life out of Totsuka and pushing him into a scared state of not knowing when he would light up.

“Keep the proto in your sight,” Benimaru instructed Tōji. A win-win for all because Tōji didn’t want to be inside the parade anyway. “Tell me when it gains speed… we’ll go from there.”

The rest of the parade was a fun spectacle as long as everyone ignored the little bit of confusion and anxiety coursing through everybody. When the paper dragon became too long, and after they went into a bigger street, Benimaru took full control of it with his matoi. He jumped in the air on his own stick and flew the papier-mâché construct around the town as if he were a dragon whisperer. At some point, Totsuka and his wife stopped dancing and had a meal together that his parents cooked on the portable mini-kitchen that had been brought up to the platform.

1 hour and 8 minutes after he had left, Tōji appeared at Benimaru’s side again.

“It’s gaining speed steadily every second. I kidnapped a math professor half an hour ago to prepare some math formulas for me. It’s less than 5 minutes at this point.”

That was the dreaded news Benimaru had been expecting. Hopefully, he would be dealing with this better in the future. “They get slower again right before the end, right?”

“In my experience, yes.”

Benimaru closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and looked ahead to Totsuka and his family. Then he jumped up to them in a whirl of fire, drawing everyone’s attention but not before saying thank you to Tōji. Benimaru told Totsuka that he felt his chi about to snap in the next minutes, then he addressed every other Asakusan in his vicinity.

“Our new parade is about to come to an end!” He had given a signal to his hikeshi to stop the procession. With one look at Konro, he communicated that they needed a suitable house for a fire and that he should clear that up. They hadn’t managed the logistics of going back to Totsuka’s home. “Cheers for Totsuka Enji! His life is going to end! But it was a life worth living!”

Everyone erupted in applause and screams, with Totsuka in the middle, waving and screaming with them. Tears ran down his and his wife’s faces but this time, those were tears of joy and gratitude for a graceful death.

(Not quite a graceful death; it was still the normal one where Waka send them to the afterlife by killing their infernal. The point up to the spiritual death was the graceful and cheerful and lovely part.)

Shinbeita ran up to Totsuka to give him a mike so he could address the crowd as well. Not everyone had the experience and lung capacity to do that unassisted, like Benimaru. Holding the mike connected to a heavy battery in his hand, Totsuka told everyone how lucky and blessed he felt to have his Waka warn him of his combustion in time. If he hadn’t done that, he said, pain visible on him for the first time since the morning, he would’ve been alone in his workshop after having skipped breakfast with his family again.

Tōji and Benimaru saw the proto-infernal arrive in the large circle they had created. The platform the Totsuka family had been carried around was on the ground since they stopped. For one moment, Benimaru was sure the proto would violently collide with Totsuka with his wife still in his arms. But as Tōji had said, it slowed down again before turning a human being into an actual infernal.

Benimaru took one step forward to get the newest victim of spontaneous human combustion away, but Tōji was faster. He stepped up to the couple and respectfully walked them to the house that would be destroyed for them. Konro was waiting in front of the entrance just like the homeowners. The proto-infernal took Totsuka’s place on the platform. Benimaru couldn’t see it as clearly as Tōji, but that thing started waving at the crowd as well. Just more reserved.

Then it stepped off the platform and walked towards the house – to its victim.

Benimaru took another deep breath before he made a show of spreading his arms out. The paper dragon had been flying in circles high above them since he had finished with his performance. Now, Benimaru set it ablaze. With only two twirls, because they didn’t have more time left, Beni let it crash into the house with some extra fire for a spectacular destruction that even people at the edges of Asakusa would be able to see.

“Wow… never could I have imagined experiencing and seeing something like this before I’m taken by the God of Fire.”

Totsuka, his family, and everyone else were happy with how this very first death parade had turned out. There were some issues to iron out, but all things considered, even the macabre nature of it, it was a success on all fronts. With one look from Tōji, Konro stepped up to the couple in front of the inferno and gently took the arm of the wife to lead her to the side; the parents followed suit.

Then the strange being, consisting only of pyrokinetic energy, reached its happy and waving victim. It touched him and with ash as the only warning, out came another it. Silence came over the crowd in an instant when Totsuka froze, convulsed and in his last moment on earth, turned into a blackened mass on fire.

The infernal managed one painful scream with its hands in its hair, consisting only of fire, before Benimaru shot a powerful blast at its core that pushed it back towards the house. Totsuka’s human remains disintegrated in front of the pyre made for him, all to the reawakened cheers of the Asakusan crowd.

Notes:

If any of you ever read a Twitter post about JJK but it looked soemthing like this: When CE then HR and CTR opposed to CRT compared to PE and CT and SDNSS, then I have a meta fic for you that tells you exactly what all of that world salad means.

About Benimaru's death parade, though. I spoke about it in my comments on GoWaD with a few people in the past, but for those who never read those: what do you think will be the biggest personal and societal problem Benimaru will face by continuing his death parade?

There are of course multiple answers to this that can be true at the same time. The one I'm thinking about and that I will dedicate an entire chapter to, is something that Toji sees and heavily argues with Benimaru about because he doesn't.

Series this work belongs to:

• Part 2 of Crossing over to a New Life