Happenstance (Fire Emblem Fates)

Critical Mass

A/N: Snow day today so I had time to write! I've had so many different idea for this chapter and rewritten it a few times and I'm still iffy on the direction I went with it. I definitely should up the rating on this now...

Some notes to preface this:

*There is a time skip of four years between this chapter and the last one, meaning Takumi is 11.

*At the end of the last chapter, Anankos basically wiped Takumi's memories of himself before lying dormant. Anankos had been sleeping these four years and has left Takumi alone, meaning he doesn't know anything that's happened in the past four years.

*Sumeragi is the head of a big corporation/firm and has quite a lot of money. The kids know their dad has a good job but it isn't exactly something that they remember half of the time. This will make sense in the second half of the chapter I hope.

*Warning, the second half of this chapter is pretty dark. And that scene will carry over into the next chapter so I guess that'll be dark also.

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Reflecting on his life so far, Takumi noticed how spotty his memory was at times.

He could remember playing with dolls with Sakura and Kamui when he was younger, or how he would play catch with Ryoma or having running competitions with Hinoka. He could remember running off with Sakura at parties and finding places to hide, or the times Ryoma would give him piggyback rides and then would run through the forest as if they were warriors.

He could remember the slow process of becoming friends with Leo, that jerk he met when he was in second grade. It took many fights and arguments but they eventually found out that they had a lot in common and bonded over those things. Later on, he found out his friend Azura, the one he met in the forest and grew close to, was Leo's older sister, which was a surprise in itself.

He could remember becoming friends with Hinata and Oboro, and he couldn't recall when they started coming over to his house nearly every day after school. Either it was them or Leo was over to work on a project or study for their classes. They seemed to always have his back, to the point they would call him their "liege". How he ended up with friends as loyal and dependable as that, he would never know.

What he couldn't remember, however, was mostly before the age of seven. There were times where he woke up somewhere he didn't remember going, or when people would tell him he did things he could never recall doing. It was odd to think about but it was years in the past now. He was eleven now and breezing through junior high, with friends he could trust and depend on. If it was so easy to make friends now, why had he not had any in elementary school? Was he weird as a child? He couldn't remember.

"You're so different now," Leo began, walking besides Takumi to the Shirasagi house, "I can just remember sitting next to you in second grade and wondering what is wrong with this kid. You used to mutter things to yourself and you always seemed like you were in a different world than anyone else."

Takumi wanted to ask what Leo meant by half of that but he found his snarkiness get the best of him. "So you spent most of your time in class staring at me?"

Leo winced but composed himself quickly. "You act like I didn't see you constantly looking at me when you thought I wasn't looking..." He sighed, rubbing his temples. "Insufferable. You're truly insufferable."

Takumi developed a hate for that word after Leo would incessantly use it to describe him. Typically, this would be when he would begin to refute the blond's claims out of concern for his pride but he felt his energy to argue drain him. What Leo had said before was what he was truly curious about and a petty argument over nothing was meaningless.