Spectrum

Character(s): Murata Ken-centric. Some appearances by the Daikenja, Shinou, Dr. Rodriguez, and Yuuri.

Timeline: pre-series.

Spoilers: Some spoilers for the end of Season 2, but mostly just about Murata's identity, and Shinou and the Daikenja's arrangement.

Pairing(s): Very lightly implied Shinou/Daikenja, incarnations/other unnamed individuals, Shinou/Murata. In my opinion, Shinou and the Daikenja are the ultimate in intense, undefined relationships, so interpret as you will.

A/N: Okay, I took some creative liberties with this fic. I blame it on Murata being a highly undeveloped character—particularly since he's been around for 4,000 years—but I tried to stay as in canon as possible while still developing him. First of all, I've always had a problem with him saying that memories of his past lives are just like movies to him, that is, that someone else had the active, and he's just watching. He's committed the last 4,000 years to Shinou's plan, and doesn't seem to have a problem with it, so I always figured that this was at least one life that he still felt strongly about. Hence, my made-up back-story was born. I'm also not sure if the "bond" that Murata mentions actually exists either in canon. But once I started this fic, he started talking about it and wouldn't let it go. Perhaps it's only his imagination, too. :). Lastly, I don't know if all Mazoku are bisexual. But they all certainly act like it, sooo…yeah.

He blinked again, and still all he could see was blinding white.

The world was too bright. His eyelids hurt, and his tender skin burned. He could feel his face creasing in discomfort, muscles beyond his conscious control.

Won't cry yet. Can't. First things first. Where was he?

The blurry shape of a woman, huge in comparison to himself, loomed suddenly over him. He blinked at her, but she remained out of focus. Lips moved, and her words were nonsense.

Another language?

Another life.

His face—little and red again, he was sure, aged liver spots and wrinkles gone once more—crumpled, and he cried.

"I will try to make this as easy for you as possible." Shinou's hand was over his eyes, and the Daikenja could just make out the faint trembling in the great man's bearing. He shook his head at how the King could be this close to falling apart and still be concerned over his advisor's feelings, and tried to dislodge the unseemly lump from his throat. "You must remember your past lives, but I can make sure that they are only memories, not a continuation of one life, so it will be easier to move on. Your soul will be the only thing that remains the same."

"Very well. You need not concern yourself so much on my behalf. I do have a request, my king."

"Of course. What is it?"

"I wish to remember this life as I truly experienced it, my lord. Without such disassociation."

Shinou's breath caught, and his hand lifted slowly to reveal his face. Though the skin around them was worn, his eyes remained unclouded by the pain that wracked his body and conflict that tore his soul. "May I ask why?"

"Yes, my lord."

After a beat, with no answer forthcoming, the king growled in frustration. "Don't play games with me, sage." Nevertheless, the corner of his mouth twitched. "Very well: why?"

"You say that my personalities may be different with each life. What if I gain one with less commitment to our goal? I may do something to compromise your efforts. If I retain my true feelings from this life, that will not happen."

Shinou shook his head. "There are easier ways to do that. I can just ensure that you—"

"Thank you, my lord," the sage cut him off, "but I would prefer that it was my initiative." He paused, choosing his words carefully. "It is also good insurance, in case…something occurs beyond your control."

There was a brief silence.

"Very well, my sage. I grant your request."

"Thank you, my lord."

And the empty throne room rang silently with the words they did not say.

By just a few weeks of life, he'd realized that his eyesight was absolutely terrible.

Diagnosing the problem may be the first step toward fixing it, but getting a remedy for this particular obstacle was more difficult than others. In Shin Makoku, healers could cure this with a quick burst of focused maryoku. Here, it seemed, there was no such simple fix, and it seemed that he was doomed to spend the first few years of life in a blurred haze.

By watching and learning, though, he discovered that his father was practically blind without the bulky contraptions perched on his nose, and it didn't take much of his own bumping into walls and tripping over objects—only a little dramatized—for his parents to realize that he needed a prescription too.

After the appointment, he grabbed the roundest, largest framed glasses he could find, ignoring his mother's regretful sigh. These would make things easier. He genuinely liked his parents. While he was usually born into good families, goodness was sometimes expressed in blind righteousness, not understanding. He knew Shinou did his best, though, and he never faulted him. These glasses would make lying to this particular set of parents easier, for they didn't have to see his eyes, or be frightened by the knowledge there.

School was a mixed blessing for him. On one hand, it was fascinating to finally have access to the library's collection of Earth history books, and he immediately latched onto the dictionary to improve his understanding of the odd and complicated language of this land. (While still re-mastering impulse control, he had been thankful the language was so different, for the words that he uttered were assumed to be nonsense, not another language from another world. It made things…easier.) On the other, it put him under the constant surveillance of adults far more experienced with "normal" children than his own parents. After several years in this body, he was able to control his expressions and keep his focus on the here-and-now and not his crushingly deep cache of memories, but convincing interactions with children remained difficult. Meetings were called with his parents, and he pressed his ear to the door to hear words like "developmentally unclassifiable" and "child psychologist."

He stepped back, and could not look at his parents' faces when the door opened.

Dr. Rodriguez was a blessing, no questions asked. With him, Murata could openly discuss the affairs of the Mazoku, and he didn't have to hide, as he did from his parents, that instead of reading comic books, he was actually recreating four-thousand-year old battles in his mind, as he did every so often to refresh his memory.

One day, Dr. Rodriguez asked, "Ken…not as the great sage, but as just you…are you okay with this?"

Murata blinked, and his legs stopped kicking and just dangled helplessly above the floor. It was a childish habit he'd adopted long ago that was apparently hard to break even when he didn't have to hide his identity. Becoming the mask. How cliché. "Trying to ease your conscience?" he asked slyly, guessing immediately what "this" was, and the doctor's strained smile told him that he hit close to the mark. He shrugged innocently. "Of course. It was needed."

Rodriguez shook his head. "That doesn't answer my question."

Murata smirked, just a little, at his naïveté. "Yes, it does." Quieter, he added, "Shinou asked it of me," and he felt something wriggle guiltily in the bond between him and the lord of Shin Makoku, the one that grew more pronounced every day. Something was changing. Soon, he would be called back. Soon, he would be needed.

The doctor cocked his head curiously. "Never would have pegged you for a very religious man, Ken."

The boy's glasses slid down his nose to glint harshly in the light, and his smile sharpened, utterly incongruous with his childishly round cheeks and elfin chin. "I'm not."

Dr. Rodriguez gulped.

Like any good Mazoku—although not Mazoku, not anymore, remember!—Murata Ken enjoyed the attentions of both men and women. "Bisexual," these Earth people called it, although there was no equivalent word in Shin Makoku besides the nebulous concept of "normal." It was hard to wrap his mind around the idea that this was unusual, and even condemned. Something to be hidden, repressed.

Luckily, the Daikenja's incarnations were good at hiding.

While his classmates were slowly and sloppily discovering their own sexualities, Murata had millions of memories of intimate moments. Porn simply didn't do much—much…although a few were remarkably inventive—for him; he had so many scenes in his own mind of making love to men and women his previous lives had truly cared for.

At 14 years old, Murata kissed a blond boy on the roof of the school, and ignored the tight, heavy squeeze in his chest and wrongness of the boy's fleshy lips.

Rinsing his mouth out a moment later, he gazed at his reflection in the bathroom mirror and thought, This soul has loved thousands of people. Why does this feel different now?

And if he found anything unusual about the fact that the boy had disappeared the next day (his parent's visas had been suddenly revoked, the teachers said, and they were all unceremoniously shipped back to the United States), he hid behind the shine of his glasses catching the light, and said nothing about it.

He met Shibuya Yuuri, and immediately liked him.

Innocent, humble, and clumsy, Shibuya was everything Shinou wasn't. Idealistic, brave, and committed, he was everything Shin Makoku needed.

He liked him. He wasn't sure if this was just because his own current personality was preprogrammed to like everyone more, or if he was specifically destined to like the future Maou in particular, or if he really was directly influenced Shibuya's odd form of bumbling, oblivious charisma. Nature versus nurture, or destiny versus chance were not something to argue when he was a 4,000-year-old reincarnation who had a scheming deity as his…

His nothing.

He squared his shoulders, and ignored the shiver of arrogant, half-amused disappointment through the bond.

Shin Makoku. Finally.

Murata Ken tugged on a lock of his newly blond hair and suppressed a smile. Okay, maybe the dye job hadn't scored him some of those hotties on the beach (yet—there was still hope for when they returned). It had been worth it for the irony.

He could just see Shinou's expression.