Chapter Text
They take him in the dead of night, when there are shadows all around him—but the first thing they do is tie his hands behind his back, before he can summon anything to his aid. His skin twists in the binding. He opens his mouth to scream and his mouth is next, a fist of cloth stuffed between his teeth, but still he thrashes until they hit him, punching until his shouts extinguish into gasps of pain. The blood from his nose soaks his gag.
Tsumiki, he thinks wildly. Where is Tsumiki? What have they done to her? One wild look confirms that she is still in the room, though she’s been pushed or maybe even kicked aside. A hand loosened from the blanket is fallen back, errant; as he watches, someone steps on it. Megumi shouts with fury, and then the front of his robe is yanked, upward, hard.
“Listen. Listen to me, brat. This is your chance.”
Megumi huffs, hard enough to spray blood across his captor's face, which earns him another punch. Afterward, Zen-in Naoya stands back, wiping his cheek with disgust while his guards resume the work of trussing Megumi's kicking legs.
Let me go, Megumi tries to scream. Let me go!
He isn't coherent through the gag, but there aren't a lot of other things that he could be trying to say. Naoya smiles, thinly.
“Don't you worry your pretty little head,” he says. “You'll be out of here real quick.”
Megumi is so tightly bound now that he can't move an inch when Naoya nears him again, kneeling. This time, Naoya has his knife out, his favorite glinting tanto knife, and plays it against Megumi's cheek.
“Frankly,” Naoya continues, “I thought negotiations would take much longer than they did. But the King offered us his own ransom.”
In shock, Megumi stills. Naoya beams.
“That's right. Who knew that the King of Curses could have so much money? The fruit of all the raids he's been making this winter, I reckon. You know what that makes you, Fushiguro Megumi? A good return on investment.”
Megumi searches Naoya's face for signs that he is lying, for evidence that this is just some kind of especially cruel joke. Naoya was never happy about Megumi's “adoption” into the Zen-in family. But Megumi thought they’d both understood that Megumi wanted from the Zen-in clan was food and shelter for him and his sister, even if that shelter was a single scant room for the both of them.
Megumi wanted nothing to do with Naoya’s precious clan leadership, didn’t even have any interest in arming the Zen-in’s clan or bloodlines with Ten Shadows—not that Ten Shadows was useful for anything. For all its notoriety, Megumi has yet to summon anything but one large dog-shaped shikigami, or two, if he's lucky. That's it, for all of the twenty-some years of the bastard existence that have passed since his technique manifested and promptly summoned a Zen-in clan representative seeking Megumi’s allegiance.
Belatedly, Megumi realizes that he took the wrong track. A smarter Megumi would have understood intimately that Naoya had grown up in this toxic household, drenched in the shadows of endless sorcerer wars, and would expect nothing less but toxicity from everyone else, even an unambitious cousin and a non-curse-user sister cursed to unending sleep. Megumi had been stupid to think keeping to themselves would keep them safe, stupid to assume Naoya was even remotely capable of understanding someone might have no desire in being a clan head, no matter what the Zen-in elders wanted.
Wait, that's right—elders. They wouldn't allow this, would they? Ten Shadows—they needed Ten Shadows, even if they didn’t need him. But Naoya is already clicking his tongue.
“We both know you're no use to anyone with nothing more than a couple of mangy animals. And since it's obvious you haven't had much luck refining that special technique all on your lonesome, the elders approved of my great idea for you to…help us out, with a little problem we have. But don’t worry. Honestly, you’ve got a much brighter future over there. You’ll be in for some direct, personalized…ah, what did he call it?”
Naoya purses his lips, as if in actual thought, and then laughs. “That's right! Specialty training. Sorry for laughing. I’m just happy for you. Sounds like the King’s already got a l-o-t of plans for you.”
Hearing that, Megumi begins to thrash again, with all of his strength, throat turning raw with screaming. The coarse ropes dig into his skin, and the sorcerers around him add magical bindings as well, strips of paper that flare more brightly the more he struggles, and constrict. Curse energy stabs him through, in punishing white light; when it recedes, Megumi finds his face flat against the floor, and the gag wet with so much saliva that it's dripping. He struggles to breathe.
Naoya uses a sandaled foot to roll Megumi onto his back, and sighs.
“Guess the King'll have his work cut out for him. But listen closely, Megumi. You listening to me?”
Megumi is listening, as well as he can through the heave of his own breath, the shudder of his body lanced through with pain. He watches blearily as Naoya starts to pace.
“I plan to rule the Zen-in clan benevolently. That's why I promise that your, ah…”
Naoya wrinkles his nose in Tsumiki’s direction, taps her shoulder with the tip of his foot. "Your sister, right? Anyway, I promise she’ll continue to be v-e-r-y well-cared for here, even without you stooping over her all the time like some kind of scary curse. So don't you worry one bit about her, okay? She'll be completely fine here. For as long as you do whatever the King wants."
Naoya smiles. He sheathes the knife, and withdraws a vial from his breast pocket.
“And I have one other gift for you. One last little blessing. Are you listening? Hold on to my voice, Megumi. At the end of the day, I gotta admit that it's not really great that that…thing is getting closer and closer to Zen-in territory and calling himself a king, even if he’s got you to keep him distracted for a while. So…before we hand you over, I think we might…you know…make sure that the bindings on your hands are a little loose. And if one of your special little mongrels manages to make quick work of your new master, well…”
Naoya makes a big, exaggerated sigh as he uncorks the vial and tips its contents into a handkerchief. “That would be good for everyone, wouldn't it? Anyway, you've only got one shot at it, probably, so don't waste it. Do your best.”
There's never been affection between them, and it doesn't start now. Megumi makes one last harsh attempt to get to Tsumiki, and as he lurches, Naoya reaches smoothly and smothers the drenched handkerchief against Megumi's face. It smells sweet; and then it smells like nothing.