#setocrow

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In the summer when Seto was fifteen, his grandfather died. In the summer when Seto was fifteen, he set out to try and find someone- anyone- who might be left in a ruined world. In the world left behind. 

Years later when Seto was all alone, he met his end. In the time between fifteen and then he’d found and lost many companions. Seen as many dawns as dusks. 

Years- centuries- later the remnants of humanity rebuilt. Not exactly the same as the society before Seto, but something of its own. In the dawn of an unremarkable year, Seto opened his eyes and realized, for the first time, that he was alive.

In the summer, at the break of sunlight through the clouds, Seto remembers being fifteen in a ruined world. Seto enters a new life with purpose, for the first time since his first life ended, alone.

The sun is setting, in Seto’s memory. Falling behind the horizon as he and PF enter the abandoned subway. Then the equally abandoned mall. To a place the sun can’t be seen; in pursuit of the one other human Seto has seen since the passing of his grandfather. The summer’s wind blocked along with the light of the world above.

PF’s voice echoes against tile walls, as they discuss what to do next, now that they have the key they need.

Every step through that place- through the underground tunnels- leading to a new stretch of sky. Every step leading, hopefully, to the person he’s seeking, is filled with her voice.

Sometimes worried. He couldn't conceptualize at that time the difference between a Personal Frame and any other person, as she worries over him.

Sometimes, PF sounds so happy. Feeling the same joy at struggles overcome, solutions found. Sometimes…

The muffled warmth of her voice is lost, as the robotic elements of her begin to fail. As she dies. Seto gives her his name as the dull humming of her body goes quiet. A screw comes loose.

By the time Seto see’s the sky again, it’s dark. By the time dawn comes, Seto can only dully wish PF had gotten to see it with him. But he Continues on. Till day turns to night again. Those who are dead can’t live again. 

But Seto wishes he could show her the sunrise.

Her name is Ayako.

A long time passes between lifes. Seto has grown older; faded like everyone does, in time, then he’d grown up again. Within a world he couldn’t have comprehended would exist in the one he originally grew up in. A world where he can see other people without the struggles to reach them that defined the only life he once knew.

He’s reborn in this world with the memories- the feelings- of a man he no longer is. And so too are the others.

PF. Personal Frame. It’s not a very fitting name for someone so very human. It’s not a fitting name for the human who’s called Ayako.

PF was always so, so human to him, despite her form. Despite why she died. It’s easy enough to accept that she, too, was reborn. That she can live as the person she always was, in his mind. His first companion on his journey. Her voice is too familiar. He dreams of that voice accompanying him through the summer sunset.

“Seto?” There’s that twinge of concern in her voice, but he only shakes his head. 

“Sorry. I was thinking…”

“Yes?”

“I-” Seto blinks, his vision clearing moisture as he takes in the darkness around them. He’s the one who asked her to meet him, so late into the night. Or early into the morning, really. Most people would have questioned him more, but not PF. In spite of all the time that’s passed, she still cares for him. Is willing to be there should he seem to need her help. Or just a companion. “I wanted to show you something.”

She’s seen the sun before. She’s likely seen the sunrise. A dawn isn’t unfamiliar.

But Seto wants to see one dawn with the first person he traveled with. The person who worried for him, talked with him, shared her knowledge with him. PF- Ayako- may have already seen anything he could show her. Seto knows that.

“Okay.” She smiles at him, and Seto leads them. Past half-rebuilt buildings, till they can see the horizon.

The dawn comes; the sun rises.

“I just wanted… to thank you.” Seto sighs, staring out into the distance. For guiding me, for worrying for me. But, most importantly, “for talking to me.”

“I’ve always enjoyed talking,” she says, quietly. She’s already thanked him, once, for everything. Seto is almost glad she doesn’t thank him again. “This is the first sunrise we’ve seen together.”

Her tone betrays her simple understanding. Seto faces her, smiling.

“It is.”

Finally, after so long, it feels like Seto has made it through that first night. Because PF is here, this time.

It’s day when they meet, night when they separate, but Sai is with Seto for days. Mostly underground, but they see the sky enough. As time passes, Seto learns to put the pieces together. About this ghost. About the woman who advises him, even when he doesn’t listen to her advice. About the girl who was used as a catalyst for a project that ended humanity.

About Sai.

The sun falls, and rises, and time passes. Without fail, Seto realizes, Sai must have been so alone. Between the time of Glass Cage and when they met. Seto lost every person he met, but what about her?

In the end, the moon watches as Sai is the one to save what little remains of humanity. Not by fighting her way to the top of that tower, or anything like that. Simply through the act of caring. Seto doesn’t mourn Sai, in the coming years, the same way as the others. It wasn’t like PF or Crow, or even Chiyo who he barely knew at all.

Sai was his longest companion, after his grandpa, until Ren in the years to come. Seto slept through the dawns they may have seen, at makeshift campfires. But they were together, nonetheless.

They’ve fallen asleep. Seto blinks into awareness, on the floor of a room that doesn’t belong to him. Sai is asleep, on the bed in the room. Each has a scattering of books around them. Seto pushes himself up, to sit, and looks to the window. It’s dark, but beginning to brighten. Then he looks at Sai. Her peaceful rise and fall as she breathes is a far cry from the stillness of her body, when they first met.

She’s alive.

Sai was the first person he met, again, in this life. The one who proved to him he wasn’t alone in knowing. The one who remains his longest companion.

Seto stands up, reaching for a haphazardly discarded blanket. He drapes it over his friend. Sai shifts in her sleep. Huddles into the warmth it provides, subconsciously. He closes their sprawling of books, stifling a yawn. Lessons about a world they both know better than their educators are set aside as dawn breaks outside.

For once, Seto realizes, Sai is the one sleeping through daybreak, while Seto is awake. 

“I thought it was just me.”  Seto had cried when they met again. Sai had pulled him closer with an understanding nobody else could have had at that time. Now, Seto settles onto the floor, back to the bed, and breathes out. It’s not just us. 

“Seto?” Sai’s voice is groggy with sleep. It’s something Seto has never heard from her. He turns his head towards her.

“Yeah?”

“What time is it?”

“Morning.”

“Ugh.” Sai’s groan punctuated by her pulling the blanket over her face. Seto laughs, lightly. She reaches out to lightly smack him. “Go back to sleep.”

“You don’t want to watch sunrise?”

“I’ve seen enough of those.” Despite her words, Sai peaks her eyes out from the blanket. “Haven’t you?”

“I slept through most of them,” Seto admits, softly. Something in Sai’s gaze changes, but Seto can’t quite place it. With a yawn, she sits up. Then she slides off the edge of the bed, pulling the blanket down with her. Sai drapes it over the two of them, looking over to the window. Seto shifts a bit closer. Neither of them say anything else.

I missed you.

After so much struggle, Seto finds Ren. After everything the two travel together. In the end, they don’t stay together very long. Things are cut short eventually. But after that first night, Ren and Seto set out together. Leave the tower and glass cage behind. Find a place to rest, as day reaches them. 

A campfire begins to be outshone by the sun in the distance. Ren sits against a wall, a cat curling against her leg. Seto is probably staring. After everything that's happened actually having her here feels strange. Almost as if it isn’t real. Or as if it’s going to be ripped away like every other companion.

But Ren looks up. She smiles at him, and he returns it before looking into the horizon. Another cat wanders up to him, probably hoping for some of the food stuffed into his bag. He hasn’t seen the merchant in a while, but he’d gotten a hold of quite a bit last time. Seto abides the silent request, setting out a can. Ren chuckles lightly when the one at her side jumps up immediately.

Seto, in this moment, doesn’t know how long they’ll stay together. But their time begins with the break of dawn, and shared smiles. He isn’t alone, in spite of all he’s lost. She isn’t, in spite of everything she’s gone through. 

Their time begins with the break of dawn. (It ends with the break of dawn, too.)

Ren doesn’t remember as much as the others do. Seto has never given much thought as to why. Has discovered some people don’t remember anything at all, and wonders if it really matters. Ren is Ren, regardless of anything else. He wanted to know her, before he ever had. Knowing Ren, as she is now, is just as much getting to know a new person as it was the first time. 

Yet some things remain the same. 

She invites him to help out at an animal shelter, and he agrees. Over time, it becomes a regular occurrence. She allows him to avoid the animals he’s still somewhat afraid of, and they spend most of their time with the cats.

The season means the sun is still set when they go the first time. Ren seems so much in her element, throughout the day. As they feed the cats, care for the ones that are more friendly, and try to get the trust of those that aren’t. It’s a tiny building, considering the remaining state of the world. It feels strangely comforting, to Seto. The simplicity of it all.

At some point, Ren turns to Seto with a smile far brighter than anything he saw within their first life. Without the weight of ruins around them. The moon pushed aside in the light of the sun, Ren hands him a bowl of food for the cats around them.

“Ren.”

“Yeah?” 

Seto sets the bowl down. The cats crowd around immediately. He doesn’t look up when he says, “thank you.”

“...What for?”

He isn’t quite sure. A lot, maybe. Seto stands back up, and faces her. “Being with me.” Maybe someone who knew nothing would misunderstand. Ren remembers enough that her expression softens.

“Thank you,” Ren says.

Their time begins, truly, for real this time, with the sun in the sky. They’ve passed the break of darkness into light, together.

In spite of his name, Crow is a bright spot in the night Seto meets him. 

Sure, Seto’s first thoughts about Crow are “what’s wrong with him.” Thoughts filled with the upset Seto feels from Crow stealing his grandfather's locket. Things that in retrospect, Seto doesn’t care all too much about. All it takes is a book with too-familiar interactions, a fall from a ferris wheel, and a returned locket, to change that. 

Seto comes to understand who Crow is. 

Seto comes to care about Crow. To see the sometimes mocking, sometimes caring voice Crow carries as a light in the darkness. The amusement park feels brighter, once they're together. Night shades the two, but there’s a lightness in Seto’s chest at the word friend. A warmth in Crow’s teasing grin. A relief in having someone at his side.

They don’t stay together long. It’s still night when they each set off for their own respective goals. Yet Crow fills Seto’s thoughts entirely as he leaves. Crow steals something else, and leaves Seto with the feelings that come with that. A stolen kiss, and the words best friends echoing in Seto’s head even as the sun rises above him. It’ll get pushed back as the day brings new struggles and a new companion along with it. But it’ll still be there, in the back of his mind.

Seto’s world dims the next time he sees Crow.

He's unable to move, unable to cry, unable to do more than say goodbye. Seto’s light flickers out, underground where the sun couldn’t reach even if it were morning. Crow’s words sit uncomfortably in Seto’s chest, long after he’s stopped moving. Seto’s world feels colder.

Sometimes, over the years that pass, Seto thinks he may have been lucky. To have met Crow in the dark of night.

He may have been blinded if he met Crow in the day.

Seto is drawn to Crow’s laughter. As sun sets, it helps Seto find Crow, in this new life. Crow, the last person Seto found again. Crow, who Seto spent days upon weeks upon years agonizing over not being able to see. Because everyone else was there, both those he met before and after Crow.

Because Seto wanted his best friend back.

Once, hundreds of years ago, Seto lived in a destroyed world. Met and lost people. Ended up alone, then, at the end of his life. Now, reborn into this world, he lives a different life. A calmer one. One where those he loves, those who remember just as he does, get to stay.

Where he’s not alone.

And yet, Seto’s world has felt dim. Missing colour, missing brightness. Seto has felt the aching emptiness of a person who meant so much to him missing.

Finding Crow again makes even that sunset feel like a sunrise.

“Crow,” Seto says, one day, many weeks after they meet again.

“Yeah?”

“Let’s…will you stay with me tonight?”

“Oh like a sleepover?” Crow grins at him. Seto nods.

“We can watch the sunrise.”

“Hmm,” Crown hums, as if considering it. Seto rolls his eyes at the act, but waits. “Isn’t that a little romantic?”

“It is not!” Seto huffs out a sigh. Crow chuckles that ever-familiar laugh of his. “And! And anyway, what do you know about that?”

“Huh?”

“You kissed me, isn’t that a bit-”

“Okay you got me!” Seto frowns at his best friend. He can’t be upset at being cut off, though, as colour rises to Crow’s face. Being human makes his emotions far more obvious, for Seto to pick up. 

“So?”

“Yeah, sure, we can watch the sunrise.” Then, with a grin, “don’t get blinded.”

“By the sunrise or you?”

“What?!”

Seto laughs. Crow turns ever slightly more pink. He never has the mind to make jokes like that in his first life. Maybe Crow rubbed off on him, or the lightness of his new life changed him.

Seto falls asleep before dawn. Yet he finds himself being woken up to the blinding light of Crow’s smile and the sunrise through a window. He might, if pressed, admit it does feel a bit romantic. That’s okay; he’s no longer fifteen, unknowing what he’s feeling. He’ll deal with that at some later point. For now, he embraces the dawn of a new day, in his new life, with the person he never had enough time with before.

For the light of his new life.

In the summer when Seto was fifteen, the first time he was fifteen, his grandfather died. He set out to try and find someone who might be left in a ruined world under the shadow of night. 

Years later Seto was all alone. Sometime between fifteen and then, he’d found and lost many companions. Seen as many dawns as dusks. It’s night fall when he breathes out for the last time.

Hundreds of years later the remnants of humanity rebuilt. Not exactly the same as the society before, but something of its own. 

In the dawn of an unremarkable year, Seto opened his eyes and realized, for the first time, that he was alive. That he was alive again. That he remembered who he was before.

It’s summer, again. Seto is no longer fifteen. Hasn’t been for many years. Seto holds a hand up, to block the light of the sun, with his companions around him. Looking away from the sky, Seto meets Crow’s eyes. Sai chuckles at something someone said, Ren asks Ayako about something. Seto breathes out, and takes another breath in.

He’s alive.

The ruined world of his first life is a dusk long passed. He grabs Crow’s hand, as he takes another step forward. For the first time Seto thinks he understands why sunrise feels so significant.