Summary: A short ficlet about Yukio gaining a new bodyguard. Spoiler alert: it's Tanushima.
You can also read it on ao3 <3
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Yukio knew, when he decided to join the Illuminati, that he would come face to face with all sorts of horrifying things. He had not only accepted that but also prepared himself to stomach them for the sake of accomplishing his end goals.
And yet.
“What…” Yukio said with a deliberate, controlled intake of breath, “…is this?”
His reaction was not one Renzou could blame him for. He himself was still reeling from this particular turn of events. Forcing on a smile he didn’t feel in the slightest, he reluctantly answered.
“This is… Well, his name is—“
“I’m Tanushima!” the mini version of Renzou proclaimed from where he was dangling on Renzou’s hand. Well, he looked similar enough to Renzou in many aspects, from his facial features down to, bizarrely enough, his pink hair. But there were a couple of differences: primarily, the small, round animal ears on top of his head and the thick tail flicking from behind him.
As his namesake had indicated, this mini version of his former student was some kind of tanuki demon.
“What? ”
One worded as his question might have been, it certainly got its message across. In response, Renzou finally allowed himself to show how he really felt about all of this and grimaced.
“Look, your guess is as good as mine as to why they thought this was a good idea. I’m already regretting allowing them to take any bit of my blood. I didn’t think they’d manage to do something like this with it.”
Hearing that only gave Yukio more questions than answers; not to mention, concerns. He was very much feeling similar regrets to having consented to letting them clone his arm. Sure, his own body had a special resilience that made it close to impossible for demons to possess him (save for his current loathsome tag-along parasite), but without enough genetic engineering, anything was possible, wasn’t it?
“Can we… exorcise it?” Yukio asked slowly, unable to tear his gaze away from the demonic mini-clone of Renzou, who reacted to that suggestion in the same way any other demon would in his situation. Except, the wording of his protest was a little off.
“No!! You can’t do that! I’m supposed to watch you!” Tanushima proclaimed, wriggling in Renzou’s grip to show how vehemently against this idea he felt.
“Yeah, unfortunately, I can’t support that idea either,” Renzou informed Yukio with a heavy sigh, slumping his shoulders a bit. He continued to maintain the tight grip he had over the neck of his clone’s uniform though, not letting him escape. “I’ve been temporarily reassigned,” he explained. “It shouldn’t be for too long, but they didn’t want you to miss me. Hence this.”
Yukio’s features twitched, an indignant glare forming on his face. “Why would I miss you ?” he scoffed.
Infuriatingly enough, Renzou’s lips only twitched in response, a glimmer of his usual teasing persona returning despite the off-putting circumstances they both found themselves in.
“Aww, don’t act so cold now. We’re besties, aren’t we?” he crooned.
Yukio’s glare intensified. “Like hell,” he bit out mercilessly.
Renzou theatrically placed his free hand over his chest and faked a wince.
“Ouch. My heart is breaking, truly. Well, maybe you’ll feel differently after I come back from wherever the hell they’re sending me, but in the meantime you’re in babysitter mode.”
If Renzou had been sent to Yukio’s room with the sole purpose of making him lose his composure, then he was succeeding in his mission. Yukio was only becoming more appalled by the second. And he wasn’t the only one.
“Hey! I’m the one who’ll be babysitting Yuki-chan!” Tanushima protested, kicking his feet in the air again.
“Yuki—?! ”
“Anyway—!” Renzou cut in before Yukio could get another bristling word through. “That’s all I came here to tell you, but now I gotta run! Have fun, and don’t get into too much trouble!”
With a flash of his most dazzling smile and a wink, Renzou threw Tanushima across the air—the mini version of him happily extended its arms, eager to jump into Yukio’s space—and although Yukio attempted to avoid this bizarre version of Renzou, Tanushima was as quick-witted and nimble as the source of his genetic origins, so he managed to latch on successfully.
“Waa, it’s just the two of us now~! ♥ Isn’t that great, Yuki-chan??” Tanushima crooned, rubbing his face against Yukio’s cheek for a split second before Yukio pried him off forcefully and pinned him with a glare.
Tanushima, of course, was even less phased by the sight of it than Renzou tended to pretend to be.
Dammit.
Yukio regretted a lot of things about his life. The longer he stayed here though, the more he regretted not taking the Illuminati down faster.
In honor of my brand new fic I am now fully invested in the thought that Tanushima is a part of the series. He's just always sneaking around and that's why we don't normally see him ;)
Even Kato once said he's a better spy than Renzou after all <3
