PROMPT: Holloween

WORDCOUNT: 863

FODDER: Ronin Warriors

CHARACTER: Yulie

Chisana - Tiny
Kyuu - Old

x-x-x-x-x

In the end, they drift. Like the tides. The wind. Ashes, fallen stones; rays of sunlight.

Just a little.

Just enough.

Yulie watches it happen with the silence and dignity that all old warriors like they deserve. Because they are old warriors, where it matters. In the heart and mind, if not the body.

Even if the country doesn't notice. Even if no one remembers. They've earned it; he knows that.

So he doesn't expect them to show when his parents are killed, and he's not at all disappointed when they don't. They've their own lives to live.

He's sixteen when it happens; burglary gone bad. He isn't even home at the time. He finds out about it in the news on the way; after school, like everyone else who knows. He doesn't want to be a burden, after; Yamano isn't an old name, though, not a traditional one, and so no one believes he can take care of himself. He's only sixteen. In the old days, or the Dynasty, that would have been enough.

Society says he's a child until he's twenty-something. He hasn't been paying attention to society since he was eight.

But he asks to become Mia's ward, and is denied. Mia isn't family in their eyes, even though she's practically his sister. Aunt. Something. She was there, in the time they don't remember. His parents would have approved.

So they call his brother in. Older. He'd been in college, during the war. So he remembers what the government fed everyone, and the dark cloud over the city, and that Mom and Dad simply don't remember. But he hasn't lived in Japan for years.

Americans call him Rick, which is close enough. Yulie can't call him anything but Rikai. Partially because Yulie is failing English. Partially because he's distracted by Meari and the new baby.

Partially because he doesn't want to let Mia go, and he can't believe no one else showed.

But he lets go anyway.

x-x-x-x-x

Rikai and Meari named his nephew Yulie. They even spelled it the same.

Yulie supposes he should feel proud, but it hurts a bit when they talk to their son with his name. He misses Ryou. And Whiteblaze. And the others.

He calls the boy Chisana. In turn, Rikai calls him Kyuu. But Yulie had the name first, and at least Meari has the heart to remember that.

She still looks surprised he's there though, half the time. But she tries.

x-x-x-x-x

He applies to college as soon as he's able.

When he can speak English fluent. When his grades are good. The moment he realizes the hair in the drain isn't all black any more, and that even when he tries, he can't sleep at night.

Old blood sings in his veins. Calls to him. Echos.

He wonders if this is how the guys felt. And feels selfishly guilty when he realizes what's at fault.

It's human. Ancient's blood, but human. The Jewel is responsible.

It doesn't make him feel any better when he looks at pictures of his parents, and wonders, if he were to take a paternity test now, would he still be his father's son? His mother's?

Neither?

x-x-x-x-x

He gets to travel the world.

For the longest time, he just kind of floats around it. Drifts, in a vague motion around where he really wants to go, and can't.

Won't.

Because going back or going home means admitting something might be wrong. Admitting the hair at the back of his neck isn't black anymore, and that in the mirror he can't see himself.

Admitting he might need help.

He doesn't. He learned from the best.

x-x-x-x-x

When he meets Mia somewhere in Europe at a conference for something he only attended for funding, it's really not his fault he has a panic attack in the little stall in the gent's loo.

Especially once she tells him she's here as Cye's guest.

When he tries to leave the party early, Cye hunts him down in the parking lot.

He never could lie to Cye.

x-x-x-x-x

Hiding in the Youjikai is easy. And almost as good as hiding in Egypt, but much as he wants to, Yulie can't admit that to his coworkers.

So he plays poker instead, and tells them he lived in America his whole life when they start asking about Japan and all it's oddities.

They are all very hard to fool. To lie to. And smart enough that, with enough time and information, they might puzzle him out.

But they are not Cye, and Yulie has had a long time to practice.

x-x-x-x-x

Yulie has a lot of regrets.

That they drifted. That he couldn't hold them together. That Mia couldn't.

That he couldn't save his parents. That he didn't know, until after they had passed away. That he can't find that girl he met, back during the summer break.

That he's never really met his nephew. Never writes, never calls.

That he hides the truth behind veils and shadows. Like the Ancient. Like Talpa.

That being dishonest isn't about being cautious, and more about being ashamed. That he can't stop.

That he regrets anything.

x-x-x-x-x

Edited Slightly: keeps eating my linebreaks.