AD 2005 April
Tokyo, Japan, Earth
Spring had sprung in Azabu-Juuban, and it was a fine morning for all persons concerned.
The playground they were at was one much like any other in Yaijinden's experience. It was somewhat smaller than those of his hometown, but Japan was far more cramped for space than anywhere in the United States had been. Apartment buildings bordered the grounds on two sides, the streets swallowing up the other half.
Traffic was light, though, and the other neighborhood kids were not out in force. For all intents and purposes, they might as well have been alone. The four and five-year-olds did not interest the girl he'd brought here- they weren't her age peers. Maybe the younger Sakura, or the younger Miki, or the futurespawn Minami and Kyanite- they might have associated with her. Everyone her age was in school.
Perhaps Aoiko resented those latter children the most.
The girl was a sight. He had made sure she wasn't going to stand out in a crowd, so he'd woven relatively mundane clothes. Leather sandals, a pink t-shirt featuring the vacant grin of Totoro, a brown pair of cargo capris, and hair clips pinning her longish hair back to her head- the combination seemed common enough that nobody raised an eyebrow.
Aoiko's hair was obviously her mother's, the sort of yellow usually reserved for dandelions and particularly vibrant tulips; her eyes were her grandmother's, the blue of an afternoon summer sky. Most of Sakura's genetics had proven dominant in their pairing, and Yaijinden had been content to let that be as it was. All that really mattered was that the girl looked like his sister and mother and himself when they were all that age.
It was the way she smiled- that half-present curl of the lips- that he knew she bore part of his genes. When he saw her smile, he could see what made Sakura so passionately attached in the brief time that the Gallifreyan woman had been with the girl; he could see part of himself in Aoiko, and he could feel part of himself attempting to parent her the way she would have needed to be.
Instead, he leaned back and started swinging from the swingset, slowly. Aoiko had been busying herself with the slide for some minutes now- while she knew that such things were exciting and interesting, she had not actually experienced any of these playground devices. He couldn't imagine what it was like for such a thing to be new to him- it had been a long, long time since he had been that young. Since his viewpoint had been that uncluttered.
Yaijinden watched absently as she eventually abandoned the slide and ran her way across the playground to the swingset he was now hanging from. "How do I get high up again?" she asked eagerly, planting herself in the direction opposite his own.
He smiled a brief moment. "Watch my legs," he instructed her, pumping his feet and injecting motion into his seat. Aoiko watched intently as he slowly began ascending, back and forth, and then put her own observation into effect.
When she had apparently mastered the deed, Yaijinden slowed down, eventually coming to a rest. Swingsets generally did not take kindly to people twice the girl's weight, and he did not need that sort of liberation.
Aoiko was older than any other kid here, and the few other parents here knew it. This playground wasn't attached to any school, and Yaijinden had obviously been the one to bring her here; he briefly wondered what sort of words these young ladies were thinking to describe him. Irresponsible, probably. Maybe deadbeat. Slacker. A girl her age should be in school, et cetera et cetera.
The thought of their disdain brought another brief smile to his face. It was then, though, that he noticed Aoiko slowly coming to a halt, and he turned his gaze back to the girl. Her swing had been at rest for a long moment before she haltingly voiced, "Y-dono?"
An inquiry. He could see it in her eyes. "Mmyeas?"
"Everyone was... really nice last night." She met his eyes briefly before looking away. "Is it because I'm going to die?"
"Maybe." The edge of a smile crossed Yaijinden's lips before he glanced upwards to the sky. "We aren't subject to that much tragedy around here," he noted absently. "When something wrong happens, a lot of the people here will try anything we can to make it stop."
"Even aunt stars?"
"starcat... is a strange customer in her ways." He scratched the stubble on his chin. "You may be young, but you've also proven yourself to be a genuinely pleasant person to have around. Some of the people here were affected by that more than others."
"Mm." The girl chewed on the bottom of her lip for a long moment. "They're going to miss me, right?" she asked hesitantly. "I mean, that's what they said..."
"I can assure you that people will miss you." The older man reached over and ruffled her hair, watching her squirm and try to make her head look neat again. "You've made an impression," Yaijinden said pleasantly. "That's something that few kids your age get to do."
Aoiko huffed. "If I have to die to make an impression then I'd rather not leave an impression."
Yaijinden snorted a chuckle. "Such is not your fate," he observed dryly. "Yours is to pass before the sun sets; ours is to live on, if only for a little longer."
"I know..." The indignant anger left her just as quickly as it came. "But, still..."
They sat in silence for another long moment. "Y-dono, does it hurt to die?" she said suddenly.
"It's not death that hurts," he answered sagely. "For some people, it's everything up to that point. For you, though... do you remember going to sleep last night?"
She nodded. "For you, Aoiko," Yaijinden observed placidly, "it will be just like going to sleep. You'll get tired, and then you'll just... stop."
"...will I dream?"
"That depends." He tilted his head to the side and regarded another small grouping of children climbing amongst the playset. "There are many powers in this universe, and some of them very much desire the spirits of the dead. For you, fortunately, many of those who might claim you are somewhat benevolent."
"Somewhat...?"
"The powers that be are not always... kind. But children like yourself are not held to the same standards as people like myself." The thought brought another small chortle from him. "There are many places you might go," he mused. "You wouldn't dream in Heaven because you wouldn't have a body to dream with yet- but you would be able to watch people still alive. You wouldn't dream in Meido because nobody dreams in Meido. You might just return to the void from whence you came, and then you would wait for a new chance at a life."
"And if I wasn't a kid?" she queried, curious.
"Probably the same," he shrugged. "You haven't done great wrongs, and I don't think your spirit is petty enough to merit something more terrible. If you are aware of the nature of the power who ushes you onwards, you will probably be okay with it."
Aoiko was quiet for along moment, lips wrinkled in thought. "You'll be fine," he clarified, a genuine smile on his face. "Let me tell you one thing I've learned- don't worry about where you're going to go. It doesn't get you anything but stressed out."
"Okay," she mumbled, frowning. He watched the downward cast of her eyes, and the general listlessness; she was still thinking about unpleasant things, that much was obvious. Whether they were things she wanted to talk about, though... that much he would have to wait for.
So he did. The chain joints on the swingset creaked every so often beneath his weight, as he pushed himself back and forth on the seat. Aoiko was almost motionless; the excitement had gone as quickly as it had come, and she was dwelling on important things.
When she finally spoke again, he was almost surprised. "Y-dono?" Aoiko asked again.
He looked over to her again. "Yes?"
"Why... don't you love me?"
Briefly, Yaijinden wondered if she had inherited her directness directly from him or from the Time Lady. "What makes you think that?" he inquired, keeping his voice level.
"Well, S-dono..." She paused, swallowed, and started again, "S-dono wanted to be my momma. I... just know she wanted to. starcat and Archangel and everyone else wanted me to be happy. But Y-dono... well..."
"...well?" he prompted, unusually gentle.
Aoiko bit her lip again- she didn't want to cry, not in front of him, not in front of anyone. Heartless or not, he could still tell something that obvious. "You don't want me around," she murmured quietly. "You don't care. You don't- you don't want to be my father, do you?"
"It's... a little more complex than that." Yaijinden took his hands off the chain and leaned forward, resting his chin on his outstretched fingers. "You deserve a mother and father," he stated matter-of-factly. "You have someone who wants to be your mother, yes, but I could not be your father even if I wanted to."
Her hands tightened around the swing. "I knew it," she said quietly. "Is it because I'm... not going to be here?"
"You're right," he acknowledged with a sigh. "But like I said, it's a little more complex than that. It's always a little more complex than that." He pushed himself upright and took a few steps, putting himself in front of Aoiko, and squatted down so that he was at eye level. "Mothers and fathers love their children, right?" the heartless man inquired.
"Yeah," she responded, not meeting his gaze.
"And I know you've noticed that a lot of people here have superpowers." He took hold of the girl's chin and directed her face towards his own. "Am I right?"
"Yeah," she repeated, looking to the side now.
"Well, to tell you a secret..." He glanced to either side, going through the motions of making sure nobody was listening, and whispered, "S-dono doesn't want you to go away. You know this, right?"
Finally, she gave him her eyes. "Uh huh..." she said dubiously.
"If S-dono could," he said quietly but intently, "she would do things to your body. You'd be with us for another few days, sure- but you would be hurting all the time. Your elbows and knees would ache, your ears would be ringing, you'd have a big headache... so because S-dono loves you, and doesn't want you to hurt, when her friends called her, she made herself go away.
"Now," Yaijinden continued, releasing her chin, "If I was your dad, I'd do anything I could in order to make sure you stayed with us. I can't do what S-dono can- but I can do different things. Your body wouldn't hurt... but you would be different. And not in a good way, either."
Aoiko raised both eyebrows. "Like... different how?"
He considered this a moment. "You know how you've been having fun with people while you've been here?" he asked, tilting his head to the side.
She nodded agreement. "Well," he said quietly, "if I wanted to be your dad, and then I did what I wanted to... well, you wouldn't be able to have fun with them. Or with anyone. All the ways you were happy today, and last night? You wouldn't be able to enjoy them ever again."
"...Wow." The idea obviously puzzled her. "Why?"
"Like I keep saying..."
"It's complicated," Aoiko finished.
"If I did that, you would just end up doing nothing but living." Yaijinden drew a deep breath and let it go slowly. "And nobody wants to just do nothing but exist. It sounds cool, but when you don't enjoy anything... well, you just get really, really bored until you just decide to stop."
"That... doesn't sound good," she mused.
"You're damn straight it doesn't sound good." He cracked a grin. "Another time, another life, things'd be different. Yeah, I'd be your dad. S-dono would probably be your mom, too. But for now, we have to take a step back. She needs to learn that sentient life is a wonderful, terrible thing, and I needed..."
"You needed what?" she pressed.
Yaijinden closed his eyes for a second, touching the spot on his chest where his heart had once been. "I needed to remember that I could want to feel again."
Aoiko's lips curled briefly in a smile. She let go of the swing and, tenatively, put her arms around the first human being she had ever seen- the one who had given her a worldview to work from, the one who had spilled the fluid from the cloning tubes, and the one who had introduced her to the pleasant oddities of Ten'Aino House.
And for a moment, he held her back, and let himself pretend.
To deny her a childhood was unacceptable- so he could not allow himself to be her father. Never mind his own dulled, weakened emotions, never mind his own strange set of responsibilities- it was one of his own few taboos, one that he could not break without going against anything he stood for.
But for a moment, he could give her this.
Yaijinden sighed again and closed his eyes, listening to the silence of his own body and the twin heartbeats of his nearly-daughter. Yes... for a moment, he could give her this.
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