Title: Names

Author: Soshite

Summary: AU Kitaniji-centric? 'Her name was Shizune Buyataka. But no one knew that, save for Kitaniji, and even he never referred to her actual name in her presence.'

Rated: T

Disclaimer: I do not own The World Ends With You/Subarashiki Kono Sekai, its storyline or its characters. They belong to Square-Enix.

Beta: Un-betaed. Anyone wanna be my beta reader?

Warning: OOC characterizations, OC-bordering-on-Mary-Sue, pseudo Japanese history and lots of spoilers.

NAMES

November 11, 1855, Edo

His smile was too coy. Much too coy for his tastes, but Megumi liked him, so he wouldn't say anything just yet.

Perhaps , Kitaniji thought, he was being overprotective of the Mikado due to his old samurai senses randomly kicking in whenever he saw a strange person get near his beloved Mikado, sensing a threat where there was none to be had. The boy seemed to genuinely like Megumi, too. Of course, that did not make the feeling of impending doom go away either. This boy would be trouble, that was for certain and trouble was the last thing that their court needed once again. Not since the separation of Megumi's generals.

"Yoshiya!" There was the sound of running feet and two bodies colliding as Kitaniji was tallying up the amount of Souls lost that day due to the assignment sent by the new Game Master. A Game Master was something Megumi had recently implemented in the last few months, to give the Game a new pace. It had been working out so far, but it, of course, meant that both Kitaniji and his lady were further distancing themselves from overseeing the Game. It was still being played by her rules, since Meifuu overall was defined by her as she saw it and he still had control over the soldiers, but as the years went by and Japan slowly started changing, bit by bit...Megumi started changing, too.

It was probably why he allowed her whimsy to take a turn for the...maternal.

"Please, Mother. Father calls me 'Joshua'. I expect the same of you, of course," the pale boy said to Megumi, who had all, but glued herself to the young soldier's side.

"Of course," she agreed, ruffling his equally as pale hair. "Father does call you that, doesn't he? How silly of me." Kitaniji scowled over his abacus, practically ready to wretch at the sickeningly sweet display before him. The two of them had been at it since they had first met a few years ago, when the boy, Yoshia Kiryuu, had been the sole survivor of Megumi's game (and what a game that one had been—nearly colapsed the entire village with it) and was taken under the woman's wing in a way Kitaniji had never been when he had accepted to become her Minister.

Not that he wanted to be babied by an overly affectionate Megumi. No, not at all.

And there was the subject of this 'Father' the two of them seemed to be talking about. Couldn't be imaginary, since he doubted Megumi had gotten that senile just yet (or maybe she had been to begin with and he never noticed) and he doubted Yoshiya was that in to the whole 'happy family' scenario cooked up by Megumi. But there was no evidence to the contrary. Whoever it was though, only the boy and Megumi seemed to know who it was, since it wasn't Kitaniji who had the joy of being the boy's Father.

Not that he was jealous of another, supposedly existant, man, damn it.

"The tally, Mikado-sama," Kitaniji interrupted before things got too far.

"Oh? I'm sorry, Kitaniji-san. I almost forgot why I came here," Megumi said, making Kitaniji frown. Ever since the boy came into the picture she had stopped calling him 'Mitsukuni-kun' as she was wont to do, back in the day. She respectfully referred to him by his surname and treated him cordially with more space in between them. No longer did she cling onto his arm, pull him along on her random shopping sprees in the village market or whatever else that decided to catch her fancy. She did that with her beloved 'Joshua' now. Not that he was jealous of a boy, of all things. He had been by the Mikado's side for many a decade , serving her faithfully without fail and he wasn't going to suddenly get insecure because of a sickly looking little boy.

Albeit, he was closer in age physically to Megumi, whereas Kitaniji had died in his early thirties—a soldier defending his homeland from invaders. When one was dead one did not age a single day, but it had never bothered him overly much—until this boy came into the picture. Megumi looked young enough to be his sister, never mind mother.

Megumi looked over the tally, eyebrows shooting to her hairline as she took in the figures and not quite believing what she was seeing. Kitaniji hadn't really paid much attention to his results, excluding putting the result together, so he wasn't quite ready for the unlady-like shout coming from the Mikado's lips.

"Holy mother of Susa-no-O-no-Mikoto! Yoshiya! Over half the Players have been taken down within the first day!" She sounded more horrified, than impressed. Same old Megumi. No matter how bad things got in their homeland, the plains tarnished by the appearance of the western devils, her heart was still the same underneath it all. She wanted to give everyone a chance—any chance. But things weren't the same and she couldn't be as free as she wanted to be with her wishes. The souls of Players had to be more refined, brighter, stronger...before she could even think of sending them back. There were too many people now and sending people back from the dead would only compound the problem.

"You seem surprised, Mother," Yoshiya said, smiling ever so slightly. There was no actual malice that Kitaniji could find, but there was an underlying amusement that he heard there. It flickered in the boy's soul. "You did tell me to do my best, didn't you?" The child made a disappointed face at the older woman who, despite how old she truly was and everything in herself that was telling her not to give in to maternal instinct, just smiled sadly and shook her head.

"Oh, well...I suppose I am. It's just such a high number...I don't think we've ever had this many Players gone, have we, Kitaniji-san?" She pulled him into the conversation with just a simple call of his name and he knew he was obliged to answer her. When he didn't answer right away she just chuckled softly. "Well, this certainly is a cause for...celebration..." She considered something then, looking at the two men within the chamber. She smiled brightly at the both of them.

"You know...it should be snowing soon...perhaps we could catch a glimpse of it? I haven't seen snow in such a long time," she stated thoughtfully. "And today...seems like a perfect day, no? So why don't we go outside for a little while?"

And she left him behind, again. But he was not jealous. He would not rise, especially to the boy on Megumi's arm who looked over his shoulder and looked just too smug about something. Out the door they went together, with him watching and going back to his calculations. He didn't like that boy, but he made Megumi happy—no, he did good work. He did good work. That was a mantra he had to repeat to himself. If he kept thinking about Megumi he would go mad.

No, he wasn't jealous. Not at all. He was worried. Megumi was unstable—their homeland was unstable. That was what he had to think about—had to remind himself that was what it was all about. Megumi was his Mikado and, of course, he would get overprotective as was normal for a subordinate such as himself, but he had to remember his higher calling. He was doing it for his homeland that he loved so much. Although, not as much as he loved Megumi whose presence had been a constant for Kami only knew how many years...

"Mitsukuni!"

Kitaniji was disturbed from his musings by suddenly having an armful of Megumi in his arms, the ink he had been using spilled over onto his pristine paper he was going to write a report on. Dumbstruck, he could only look down at the woman holding onto him.

"...Mikad—"

"Shizune."

He looked down at her.

"I told you before...it's Shizune. So don't forget, please? I haven't forgotten you, so don't forget."

It had been so odd for her. She had left Joshua outside a moment, let him go on by himself for her to catch up to later so she could return to Kitaniji and...well, see him. He should have seen something bad coming from this, but he hadn't. He just simply held her awkwardly with one arm, staring down at the top of Megumi's head.

"Don't forget."

She touched his temple and he felt something cool enter his mind, forming something—a thought. It was her name. Her human name; imprinted into his mind forever.

Shizune Buyataka.

Don't forget. He had no idea what had brought this on, but he promised her that he wouldn't forget as long as he existed. She seemed satisfied with this and smiled brightly up at him, though she looked positively close to crying.

"My lady honors me with her name," he said softly. "But please...do not stay on account of myself. Go see your snow," he urged. She nodded, giving him a watery smile.

"Alright. Yoshiya should be waiting for me. Lets go to the village soon, Mitsukuni-kun. I need a new kimono." And she left again, with a silent promise to return.

She never did.

That evening, an earthquake struck Edo, killing thousands and destroying just as many houses. There was a great despair in the air as people laid injured or dying; homes and livelihoods wrecked beyond repair where the earth had violently shaken everything up. The land was a cacaphony of cries and screams, all centering in on one village.

Kitaniji felt it in the air before he himself realized it as he beheld the Room of Reckoning, the room used by the Mikado, within the Palace of Paradise, changed form. What was once bright with colors that attacked the senses as Kitaniji had known it, with all of Megumi's old kimono's hung up as decorations on the walls (she owned about 250 different ones) was now dark...bleak. The Room of Reckoning was once built in the same style of yore...the style Megumi had cherished, because it reminded her of home. It was gone. All gone. It was now just a dark room and a western style chair, large and imposing with strange markings all over. Those markings were the only color in the spacious chamber, giving the Minister a sense of foreboding. They glowed a bright red; like blood. A surge of power had drawn him in here as he was doing more calculations in his own chambers, before the quake suddenly started shaking everything.

Yoshiya stood there, alone, staring at his hands. Hands that glowed—a whole body that glowed. A body that shone as bright as Amaterasu...

The boy turned around, horrified, as to what had transpired. To what the two of them had witnessed.

"Why did she do it?" the boy asked, light coming off of him the way it used to on Megumi. "Why did she do it, Kitaniji?"

Kitaniji closed his eyes, held the grief that was threatening to tear him apart. He could feel her—feel her off of this boy—in this room—in the village as well. She was all around, but nowhere at all. She caressed him without touching him...without being there.

...Mitsukuni-kun...

She could still whisper his name to him through the air...

Kitaniji touched the chair, stroking the sleek, dark wood. It held power, too, and it licked at his very skin, teasing him with the presence behind it in all of its familiarity.

"Because she loves her homeland more than herself."