Title: Snapshot
Anime/Manga: Karneval
Author: mizamiko
Rating of Chapter: PG

He who fights monsters

 

In the depths of the Kuronomei, there are places that students are not allowed; from private apartments for visiting officials to laboratories of such delicate experiments that a single mishap would have destroyed the whole test. The information Management course has prided itself in its ability to know everything within the walls of the Academy. The ability to hack into the Academy server to extract information on these special places was a badge of honour to any student capable enough. Akari would like to keep that illusion intact.

To teach inquiring minds was a joy, may hap a little off-putting when dealing with brats of the more recent batch, Tatsu's brother being one of them. But, of all his official duties, teaching was the one he liked the most, it made him feel like the doctor that he touted on his title. Better than the butcher that he really was.

If Circus is the arm of the government that dirties their hands to keep the people safe then the Research division was the arm that bloodies theirs to keep Circus unharmed.

He studiously washes his hands clean. Given a choice he would have grabbed a brush to scour his skin, as if that would make it cleaner. It was an obsession that had its roots from when he was still a student and his descent to darkness began. All it did was turn his pale hands raw and red.

The rooms were incongruous to the actual deeds that take place in it. Several rooms were bright, sterile, and smelled of antiseptic. Another room smelled of formaldehyde. He had worked in all of them. He knew what he was getting himself into. The decision to walk into those rooms every time didn't become any easier each time.

Even in the quiet halls of the Research tower he could still hear the screech of the varuga that once were human in his head. If he were a kind man he would have ended their pain. If he had an ounce of pity he should have killed them, but he was way beyond that now. Every trickle of information that he could wring from their dying bodies, these failed experiments that were no better than animals now, was one more drop of data for him to use to help Circus defend themselves from them.

So he steels himself, grits his teeth as he takes samples, and goes about his experiments as if the screams were nothing more than white noise.

Years later, when he could honestly say that he no longer skirted the edge of becoming one of the monsters of the same ilk as the creators of varuga, Akari wonders if all he has done had been enough. He can still see the grotesque bodies in his mind's eye, still hear the cries in his nightmares, still have tainted hands. He had given up so much and could barely recognize the person in the mirror now, yet they were no closer to ending the war.

A delicate nip of teeth at his nape sent shivers down his spine as a cool hand traces a path from his shoulder down his arm to entwine callused fingers with his own. A warm body pressed against his back. A gentle nuzzling of his hair and then a lick at the shell of his ear. He didn't need to open his eyes to know that hungry dark eyes would meet his. And this was his answer, if it was worth it all.

He still scrubbed his hands raw. He will never be clean. But for every nightmare he lived, he knew, somewhere, a child was saved. They will never thank him, it was Circus they thanked, and he won't begrudge them. He never asked for anything anymore.

It was small, but it was a separate peace and it was enough for someone like him.

The more gentle and nice we make it look, the more vicious the story can be.

— Edmund Mc Millen

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AN: If you look at it, if Akari really is one of the top researchers in the government, then this chapter really is a possibility. But at least it has some HiratoxAkari in it. Sort off... Err... don't hurt me please... Trying my best here...