#ikusari

“Owari-senpai, have you ever had clothes that fit.”

When Junko says it, it’s a statement, not a question.  She remembers when she first Akane, years ago, when Ryoko Otanashi traveled the world to make her way from a trip in Paris to where Matsuda lived in Enoshima.  She’d been homeless then, a child masking herself from anyone (everyone) who wanted to find her, and she’d done a very good job of not being found – and of not being recognized when she was.

Looking as she does now, Akane doesn’t recognize her.  Who would?  Junko Enoshima is a far cry from the redheaded brat she once was.

But Junko remembers Akane, and she remembers the garbage gremlin who never wore anything clean, who probably never had anything clean.  (Just the same as she remembers Mikan, who found her and tended to her until she was healthy enough to escape.  (Mikan would have kept her forever if she could.  She’d needed something under her constant control.  Ryoko just managed to be that thing for a short while, up until her analysis allowed her to get out, up until she’d broken through her own depression enough to realize that she didn’t want to stay.  But that’s another story for another day.))

Akane pulls on the edges of collar.  “Whaddya mean?  I’m not showin’ again, am I?”  She glances down, situates her shirt a bit, and then frowns.  “Nah.  Looks good.”  She flashes a grin at Junko.  “Hanamura-kun says I look good like this!”

Junko rolls her eyes.  “Teruteru would say you looked good dressed like a pig on a spit.”

“Like a—”  Akane’s eyes light up.  “He’s roasting a pig?”  She begins to drool.  “Where?”  Then she sniffs the air and frowns again.  “I don’t smell any.  You’re not lyin’, are ya?”

“No, I—”  Junko sighs and pinches the bridge of her nose.  “Look, my sister wants me to give you the same treatment I gave Miki—”

Immediately, Akane growls and settles into a fighting stance, both hands clenched into fists in front of her.  “I don’t want any of what you and Tsumiki-chan got goin’ on, and I don’ think Miki would like it if ya were ta—”

“That’s not what I meant.”  Junko flushes a bright red and turns away from Akane, crossing her arms.  “Clothes, Akane.  I meant clothes.”

“Oh.”  Akane relaxes.  Her head tilts to one side.  “What about ‘em?”

“Yours don’t fit.”

Akane pulls on the edges of her collar and looks down again, brow furrowing and then relaxing.  “Nah, they fit good enough.  Ya can’t see nothing.”

“That’s not the point.”  Junko takes a deep breath and counts to ten.  Twenty.  Thirty, just to be safe.  She knows Akane isn’t dumb – she’s actually incredibly smart, when it comes down to it, just a different kind of smart than almost anything that Hope’s Peak runs on.  Mukuro gets it; they can hold a conversation (when Mukuro wants to hold a conversation) just fine.  Mikan gets it, too; she and Akane grew up in the same area, so Mikan has a good handle on translating from one end to the other and can settle into talking with Akane the way that Junko talks with…well, talked with Yasuke, when it comes down to it, although there’s nothing romantic between them.  Frustratingly enough, Teruteru can hold a conversation with Akane just fine, too, although more often than not he choose not to do so.  (Celeste is in that same boat; she’d just never admit to it.)

Junko understands it, but when she’s settled into her own self, it’s hard to not feel like they’re constantly talking past each other.

As Junko takes her calming breath, Akane’s head tilts again, ever so slightly.  “You okay?  Ya look like your head’s gonna pop.  Hanamura-kun didn’t give ya one of his special soups, did he?”

“No.”  Junko lets that breath out and then reaches over, placing a hand on Akane’s and clasping it when Akane tries to flinch away.  “What I’m trying to say is that I want to make you new clothes.  Ones that fit better.”  She holds Akane’s hand still when Akane goes to check her chest for the third time.  “Ones where you don’t have to check if you’ve got a nip slip all the time.”

Akane glances up.  Blinks.  “Ya don’t have ta do all that.  I’m good with what I got.”

“Consider it a gift,” Junko says, meeting her eyes.  “From Mukuro, not from me, so don’t be getting any ideas in your head.”  She thinks back to Akane’s previous comment about Mikan and considers that probably Akane has no desire for that sort of thing.  But it’s good that she’s making it clear that’s not what she’s doing…or why she’s doing what she’s doing.

Fuck, this can be so frustrating.

“Okay.”  Akane settles again.  Then she takes her hand from Junko’s, brows furrowing.  “I don’t want all of that frou frou stuff.”  She gestures to Junko.  “I don’t wanna look like that.”

Junko waits for the no offense, but it doesn’t come.  Not that she minds, or anything, because she doesn’t.  Whether it’s meant with offense or not, she’s not going to take it that way.  Not right now.  There’s no despair in that.  There’d only be despair if she thought little of Akane, and she doesn’t.  So it doesn’t matter.

“’Course you don’t,” Junko says, when the silence lingers a little too long.  (She can pretend that it hurt.  It’ll make Akane feel bad.  Maybe.)  “I would make something for you that fits with the kind of lifestyle you have.  Clothes are good about that, about telling a story, about feeling so much a part of yourself that—”

“That’s real nice of you!” Akane interrupts, and she flashes Junko a bright smile.  “I don’t get all of that fashion stuff, but if ya wanna make me look…uh—”

“Like you,” Junko completes.  “I want to make you look like you.”

“I always look like me.”

“Like a better version of you.”

“You sayin’ I don’t look good now?”  Akane gets into a fighting stance again, half-crouched, hands up in fists.  “‘Cause Hanamura-kun says—”

“For fucks’ sake, Akane, I don’t give a flying fuck what Teruteru thinks!”  Junko places her hands on Akane’s shoulders and meets her eyes again.  “I care what Mukuro thinks, and Mukuro thinks you look like shit, so I’m gonna make you look better so my sister doesn’t have a girlfriend who looks like shit.”

Akane freezes.  Blinks twice.  “Ikusaba-chan thinks I look like—”

Junko groans.  “No, no, she does not, she thinks you look pretty fine, obviously, but she thought I could help you look better because that is literally the thing I’m good at, got it?”

Akane stays frozen.  “Ya said something about girlfriend—”

“No, I did not say that either.”

“Yeah, pretty sure ya did—”

“Shut up.”  Junko covers Akane’s mouth with one hand and glares at her.  “Ya gonna let me make ya look like power or not?”

Akane’s eyes light up, and she grins again as Junko’s hand falls from her mouth.  “That’s what ya meant!  Sure!  Why didn’t ya say that?”

Junko sighs and rubs her forehead with her forefingers.  “I don’t know.”  Then she takes Akane’s hand and tugs on it.  “Now, let’s get goin’ before ya change your mind.”

“Why’d I do that?”

They taught her how to kill, but they didn’t teach her how to live on the streets.

They taught her how to hunt people, but not how to hunt for food, and you would think that one would easily translate into the other, but it doesn’t.  Locusts are tiny and jumpy and fast, which makes them really hard to catch, and also you can’t shoot a locust without losing the locust, which makes it absolutely not useful for food.  You can’t shoot all of the bees around a hive without probably shooting the hive, which wastes most of the honey (and also means that she’ll probably get stung by a lot of bees, which no one likes).  You can’t really shoot a fish without having to worry about it dropping, and then it’s incredibly hard to find (because trust her, she tried, and it sucked, and then she tried to catch one with her bare hands, which works better but still isn’t great).  And people notice if their horses are missing or their cats or their dogs, and there aren’t nearly as many wild rabbits as you might think, and the patterns of how animals move and hide are so different from humans, and there aren’t enough forests around here for her to try and find fresh deer meat.  (She probably could strip a deer, if she could find one, but she’s been going through cities, not through forests, and even rural areas don’t have nearly as many deer as you’d think, and people get real upset if you try to snatch something from their livelihood – not that she minds, because she’s pretty good at not getting caught, but.)

If not for the sanctity of human life or whatever, she’d kill a person and strip them down and eat that, but that’s generally frowned upon in polite society.  Or any society, really.  Also she’s pretty sure her sister would care if she found out she’d been eating people, and not in the fun way.  (To be fair, she’d probably care if she found out she’d been eating people in the fun way, too, but she’d be more likely to use that for jokes than disgust.  Not that she’s done either.  She’ll probably hold that over her head, too.)

So while Mukuro’s not exactly starving when she stumbles into what is probably the bad side of town (all sides of town are the bad sides of town, some of them are just better at hiding it behind money and wealth and caring only about gathering everything they can get their hands on and not sharing any of that with the people who desperately need something to get by), she’s definitely hungry.  Her stomach is all sorts of fucked up because she hasn’t eaten enough and also the last thing she ate (raw fish, because she couldn’t get a fire started without alerting the wild animals, and she really didn’t feel like fighting any of them over her single fish, even if she would have won, even if she could have eaten their flesh later) isn’t quite sitting well – or that’s the bad water that she drank that looked good but apparently maybe actually wasn’t good.

It doesn’t matter.

What matters is that she’s hungry and she’s sick and she’s tired when she slumps down in an alleyway that looks mostly abandoned, rests her head against a full bag of trash (it’s softer than the wall behind her, and it’s easier to hide if she does it among trash bags than flush in the open against the wall), and closes her eyes.

Now, Mukuro has a good concept of time, unlike some people, which means she knows that roughly fifteen minutes pass between the time she closes her eyes and the time she feels another girl nudging her with her crusty shoe.  (She knows it’s a girl because she doesn’t laugh.  Boys always laugh first, like she’s some secret stench that they’ve found and want to share to disgust their friends; girls nudge with their shoe because they want to check on her but they don’t want to get her stench on them, if they can help it.)

“Hey.  You alive?”

The voice confirms that this is a girl, at least.  Maybe if she plays dead long enough, the girl will leave her alone.

“Man.  I don’t wanna have to drag another body to the crema—”

“I’m not dead, you dweeb.”  Mukuro cracks an eye open and glares at the girl with dark skin and darker hair.  “I’m trying to take a nap.  So buzz off.”

The girl tilts her head to one side.  “Real shit place to nap.  Police’ll come by and scavenge you in about….”  She sniffs the air.  “Few minutes.”

Mukuro sniffs.  She can’t smell anything but the trash.  “I’ll kill ‘em then.”

“Yeah?  You a good fighter?”  The girl’s eyes light up.  “Get some food in me, and I’ll wipe the floor with you!”

Mukuro blinks.  “I thought I was going to fight the police.”

“Yeah, fight the scumbags later.  I’m more fun!”  The girl pops a hand on her hip and flashes Mukuro a bright smile.

Mukuro just stares at her for a few seconds and says nothing.  Then she curls up one side away from her, holding a bag of trash to her stomach like a stuffed animal.  (She’s only ever had one, a black bear with the cutest pinprick eyes, and Oto-sama ripped it in half with his bare hands.  Her sister sewed one of the halves to half of her white bear as a form of solidarity, but it didn’t matter.  It’s not like she could keep the bear with her anyway.)

“Hey, we gotta go!”

The girl grabs her shoulder – digs her grubby, shorn nails through the rip in Mukuro’s shirt to the skin below – and tears her out of the safe comfort of the trash, lifts her over her shoulder like she’s nothing more than a bag of trash herself, and sprints out of the alleyway.

“W-wait!”  Mukuro pounds her fists against the girl’s shoulder.  “Put me down!”

“Nah, you’da stayed in the trash heap, and then you woulda died, and I don’t feel like lettin’ someone else die right now, so you’re just gonna come with me, and then we can fight later!”  The girl grits her teeth together.  “You weigh nothin’.  You been eatin’ right?  Who am I kiddin’, you were in the trash, ain’t nobody sleepin’ in trash who eats right.  Did you at least check the trash for scraps?”

“I didn’t think about that.”

The girl groans.  “Man, you suck.  There was probably some good stuff in there, and now it’s all gonna be gone!”  She scuffs the toe of one shoe on the ground as she keeps running.  “Scavengers’ll get it while we’re gone!”

Mukuro tries to pull herself out of the girl’s grip again, but it’s like steel.  “I thought you said the police were coming.”

“After the police!”  The girl scowls.  “Whadda ya think I was doin’ there?”

Mukuro doesn’t answer that, too preoccupied with getting herself out.  She doesn’t like being carried, and she especially doesn’t like being carried somewhere she doesn’t know.  “Can you let me down?  I can walk, you know.”

“Nah.  You’ll just run away, and then we won’t be able to fight.”

“I didn’t agree to a fight with you.  You just assumed—”

Immediately, the girl drops her to the ground and glares at her.  “I just saved your life!”

“Doubt it.”  Mukuro shifts just enough to keep herself from landing on anything too important (a sprained ankle or wrist right now would not be great) and then pushes herself up.  Her eyes narrow as she takes the girl in.  “You wouldn’t even beat me.  You’re too scrawny for that.”

“Says you.”

Mukuro dusts herself off, although that’s pointless after trying to nap surrounded by garbage bags, and then holds out her hand.  “Mukuro,” she says.  “Ikusaba Mukuro.”

The girl stands at her hand.  “What’s that?”

“A handshake.  It’s a thing you do when you introduce yourself.”

“Uh-huh.”  The girl just stares at her hand.  “Looks like a good way to start a throw down.”

“I’m not fighting you.”

“Yeah.  You said.”  The girl doesn’t take her hand.  “Owari Akane.”  She stares at Mukuro and sniffs again.  “You hungry?  I’m always hungry.  You got anything to eat?”

Mukuro shakes her head.  “No.”  Whether that’s an answer to the first question or the second one is up to Akane’s interpretation; it’s a lie, if the first, but she’s not going to tell her that.  Her stomach recoils, and her face grows white.  “I haven’t been feeling so good.”

Akane steps back, away from her.  “You gonna get sick?”

“No.”

Mukuro’s actually not sure about this.  She absolutely could get sick at probably any moment.  She’s just not going to do it in front of this girl.  (She remembers what it is to show weakness in front of someone who would take advantage of it, who would only hurt her for showing it to them.  This girl wants to fight her for no reason; she refuses to show weakness to her.)

But Akane scowls at her.  “You’re gonna get sick.”  Before Mukuro can say anything, she grabs her and throws her over her shoulder again.  “I gotta friend who can fix you up.  But you better not get sick on me!” she says as she breaks out into a sprint again.

“I’m not going to get sick.”

Mukuro says that, but the problem with being manhandled and carried over someone else’s shoulder is that it does not help her stomach.  If anything, it just makes it worse.

But she’s not going to get sick.

She’s not.

(Force of will in the Ikusaba family is very strong.  She won’t get sick until she’s good and ready to get sick.  That’s how this works.

…most of the time.)

~

Akane carries a Mukuro who is doing her best to keep her mouth shut tight for ten minutes through alleyways and streets that she clearly knows better than the back of her hand.  Every now and again, she gives Mukuro a warning, and then jumps – parkours – from one wall to another to jump over a fence or barricade; at these moments, Mukuro digs her teeth into her lower lip to keep from heaving.  She would have been fine if Akane left her alone; all of these carrying and jumping is making things worse.  Finally, Akane jumps to the top of a wall, grabs hold of a window frame, and swings both of them through the window before dropping Mukuro unceremoniously on a dirty, stained mattress.

(Some of the stains are blood.  Mukuro knows what those look like.)

“Mikan!” Akane calls out, cupping her hands around her mouth.  The name comes out like two syllables as she calls it again – Mi-kan – like Rika calling out ni-pah! in that stupid horror show her sister found so fascinating.  (It was the games that the club members played with each other that she’d loved so much, more than the horror stuff; maybe, if Mukuro had stayed there, they would have formed their own club and had their own pranks and games, but she’ll never know that now.)  And again, her face scowling after a few seconds, “Mi-kan!”

Followed by the furious sound of someone running up the stairs and the appearance of a girl paler than Mukuro’s ghastly face with uneven hair the color of a fading bruise.  One of her arms and one of her legs are bandaged – opposite ones, like a fashion statement, although Mukuro’s pretty sure it’s not that.  The girl shuts the door behind her and turns to Akane with round, uncertain eyes.  “A-A-Akane, now is a…is a b-b-bad t-t-time—”

“But Mikan!”  Akane claps her hands together like a prayer and bows her head the slightest bit.  “You said if I need help to come see ya again!  And I gotta friend who needs help!”

Mukuro slowly pushes herself up.  “Friend is an…an overstatement.”

Akane shoots her a look.  “You’re gonna fight me, which means you’re a friend.”  She grins at her, a grin that quickly fades, brows furrowing in consternation, as she continues, “Except I kick the shit out of the assholes who try to steal my good stolen food, but you’re not tryin’ ta steal from me, so,” she grins again, “you’re okay!”

While they talk, Mikan slowly scoots over to Mukuro.  She holds a hand to Mukuro’s forehead, and Mukuro instinctively flinches away from her touch.  Mikan’s eyes widen.  “N-n-no!  I won’t hurt you!  I’m a….”  She hesitates, her face flushing.  “I’m not a…not a nurse, b-b-but I’m really good at…at taking care of people.”

“I’m fine.”

“No, you’re not.”  Akane crosses her arms and stares at her.  “I’m no good with sick, but Mikan’ll back me up.  Right?”

Mikan gives Mukuro a general look then nods.  “I’ll take very good care of you.”

“No.  I need to go.”  Mukuro tries to push herself up off the mattress, her stomach roiling again.  “I’ve got to get to Enoshima.”

Akane’s expression shifts, her eyes widening.  “What, like the island?  That’s where that other girl wanted to go!”  She crosses her arms and thinks strongly for a few seconds.  “It’s been a while.  But if you see her, you should tell her I said hi!”  Her face falls.  “Only I didn’t tell her my name.”

“What….”  Mikan looks up at Akane.  “What…girl?”

“I met her before I found you,” Akane says and shrugs.  Then she shoves Mukuro back down onto the mattress and sits next to her.  “You’re not gonna get there if you’re sick.”

“I’m not sick.”

“Quit lyin’ to me!  I’ll beat it out of you!”

“P-p-please don’t fight h-h-here!”

Mukuro sighs and flops back on the mattress.  She hates to admit it, but there’s an element of truth in what Akane’s saying.  Even Fenrir hadn’t wanted sick operatives out in the field.  Being sick makes you more liable to make a mistake, to cause a fatality.  This might just be food poisoning, and she might be able to stick it out and move on just fine, but if Akane carrying her everywhere taught her anything, it’s that her stomach is not in any position for her to go anywhere just yet.  And a room with a roof over her head and a mattress under her back – even a blood-stained one – is better than curling up with a trash bag as a pillow.

“This is a safe place to stay?” Mukuro asks, staring at Mikan.  “You take care of sick people here, and they don’t have to worry about anything?”

Mikan’s gaze drops, and her hands draw up in front of her chest in small fists, an inadequate defensive measure against either of the people in the room with her.  “I can take…,” she starts to say, her face flushing.  “If you’re my patient,” she tries again, firmer this time, “I will take very good care of you.”

“Yeah, last time I ate from one of the dumps near that seafood place, she nursed me right back to better!”  Akane beams and pats Mikan’s shoulder hard enough that Mikan squeaks and curls tighter in on herself.  “The best part is she doesn’t cost anything!”

But Mukuro looks over Mikan and thinks that probably she does cost something, just not anything Akane can see.  “I’ll stay then,” she says and meets Mikan’s eyes when Mikan looks up at her.  “At least until I feel better.”

“So you are sick!”

“No.  I’m not sick.”

Akane just beams at her.  She grabs the lip of the window again and hangs half out of it.  “I’ll be back before you leave,” she says, “so we can have our fight!”

“A-A-Akane, if you…if you fight, then she’ll be stuck here l-l-longer—”

But Akane swings out of the window before Mikan can finish her sentence.  Mikan sighs and glances back to Mukuro.  “P-p-please don’t fight here,” she repeats, soft.

“I don’t plan on fighting her,” Mukuro says, “and if I do, she’s the one who will be stuck here.  I don’t think that’s a good return for her kindness, do you?”

~

The days pass – days, because Mukuro’s food poisoning gets worse before it gets better – and Mikan keeps an eye on her, just like she said she would.  Every day, Akane swings back in through the window to check on her, to see if she’s ready to fight, and every day, she swings back out with her tail between her legs, scowling because Mukuro hasn’t gotten better fast enough.  Finally, though, Mukuro does feel better, well enough to leave, but she has no intention of waiting for Akane to return to fight her.

“Tell her I said thank you,” Mukuro says as she laces up her boots.  She brushes her hands along her dirty clothes, even though it still doesn’t do much of anything, and then stands.  A myriad of knives and other weapons sit on the floor next to her, and she begins to hide them on her person again.

Mikan’s gaze drops.  “Sh-sh-she’s not going to be…to be happy about this.”

Mukuro glances at her.  “She won’t hurt you, will she?  You won’t last long in a fight.”  She’d tried to give Mikan some tips and tricks during her stay, but she’s not sure how many of them stuck.  Most of it was spoken; it would be better to stay for a little while longer and give her some actual practice, but she doesn’t have time for that.  She needs to get to Enoshima.

She needs to find her sister.

“N-n-no.”  Mikan offers Mukuro a small, sweet smile.  “I-I-I would be no good in a f-f-fight.  A-A-Akane knows that.”

Mukuro nods.  She hesitates, not wanting to give Mikan a hug but wanting to offer her some form of comfort regardless, and then reaches over and places a hand on her shoulder.  “Come find me,” she says, “if you ever need anything.”

“O-o-of course.”

Then Mukuro grabs the lip of the window the same way she’s seen Akane do, drops onto the nearest roof, and makes her way out of the city.

~

At the city’s edge, Mukuro finds Akane waiting for her with one hand propped on her hip and a big smile on her face.  She scuffs her boots on the ground and scowls.  “I don’t want to fight—”

“Yeah, I know!”  Akane walks forward to meet her.  “You’re leaving before you’re top notch, and I don’t wanna fight you when you’re all weak and shit.”  She shifts the strap of a backpack from her shoulder and then shoves it into Mukuro’s hands.  “It’s a lot of walkin’ from here to Enoshima, so I got you the best thing!”  She beams as Mukuro opens the pack.  “Food!  But not the kind that’ll make you get all sick again.”

Mukuro stares at the food in the pack.  Some of it’s bread, which won’t last very long at all, but most of it’s stuff that will last, at least for a little while.  Even further down, there are a few unopened bottles of water, which in her professional opinion is even better.  She’ll save those for later, to make sure they last just as long as possible.  She also won’t ask how Akane got any of it, not because that’s rude, but because she has a general idea and she doesn’t want to know.  Instead, she pulls out one of the bread rolls and hands it over to her.  “You need to eat, too,” she says, not looking up to meet her eyes.  “You have to be at your best when I come back.”

Akane’s eyes widen, and for a moment, Mukuro is certain she’s going to tell her not to come back.  But then she just grins.  “I’m always at my best!”  Still, she’s munching on the roll as Mukuro walks away, and when Mukuro looks back only a few seconds later, the roll is already gone.

This time, when Mukuro pulls out a roll, she stares at it for a few seconds before taking a bite.  It’s soft and warm and good and filling.  She takes another bite.