Chapter Text
The river smelled of rot.
The air was thick with the scent of old iron, of wet decay, of flesh that had long since stopped clinging to life. Flies whined over a corpse sprawled in the reeds - a woman whose belly had been taut with the burden of life just hours before. She had been left there like refuse, her lips cracked, her eyes rolled back, her womb slack and torn.
But something moved within her.
A wet, glistening hand pushed through the bloodied wreckage of her body, fingers flexing instinctively, curling into the air as if to seize it. The thing was not meant to live. The mother had died alone in the filth of the riverbank, and the child should have followed, strangled by the birth that had orphaned it before its first breath.
And yet, it did not die.
With a slow, unnatural deliberation, the newborn pulled itself free from its mother’s cooling flesh. Its tiny chest heaved, gulping in air. The cord that bound it to the corpse was still attached, still pulsing weakly with the last dregs of borrowed life.
The firstborn did not know the word for mother, but he knew that she had been the source of all things before now. And yet she was nothing now - bloated flesh cooling, her insides loose and slick with afterbirth, her open legs revealing the black-red mess he had crawled from. Waste.
It did not cry. It simply stared at the world with pale, unfocused eyes. Alive.
Another weak, reedy wail came from the ruined cavity of the lifegiver’s abdomen. A second infant, still slick with blood and fluid, still curled and trembling, barely strong enough to squirm. It was a fragile, pitiful thing, and as the first child turned its unfocused gaze upon it, something stirred within its newborn mind.
It reached out - clumsy, twitching fingers wrapping around the smaller hand. .
It did not understand words yet. It did not understand names, or possession, or desire. But it understood other child belonged to it. This small, helpless thing had come into the world with him. It was his.
It curled closer, pressing its damp, fever-warm skin against its twin’s trembling body. The second child barely reacted, too weak even to shiver. Its breath was unsteady, shallow, its ribs sharp beneath its paper-thin skin.
It would die if left alone.
The first child did not intend to let that happen.
Its tiny fingers flexed again, nails digging into the flesh of its sibling and dragged its twin fully into the world.
With instinct, the firstborn moved toward the the waste - he dead thing that had been their lifegiver. Her breast was still warm. Her flesh had not yet stiffened. The thing beside it would not have the strength, but the stronger one did. It found her, latched it’s mouth onto the softness of her body, and suckled down.
And it drank.
At first, nourishment did not come. The body was reluctant, unresponsive. Useless. But the firstborn’s will was greater. He did not cry for nourishment like lesser creatures. He took it. His small hands pressed and kneaded, demanding, and slowly, the remnants of her warmth obeyed. The liquid that once fed him in the womb fed him again.
He drank. He consumed. He survived.
But even in hunger, he was aware of the imperfection beside him.
When the stronger one had had its fill - when its belly had rounded and the gnawing ache had dulled - it turned its attention back to the frail thing still clenched in its fist..
The weaker one was barely breathing. So with clumsy hands, the stronger pushed its twin toward the swollen breast.
The frail thing did not respond at first. It was too weak, too cold, too near to slipping away.
Irritation stirred. The stronger child’s fingers tightened , pressing its weaker half’s mouth against the leaking flesh. Its tiny nails bit into its twin’s skin, scratching, coaxing, forcing. Drink.
And finally, the smaller one did.
It was weak. It drank slowly, too little, hesitating with each shallow swallow. But it drank. It lived.
For three days, they remained on the riverbank, nestled in the carcass of the lifegiver.
The stronger one took first. Always first. Always more. It fed until it was satisfied, until its body was warm and full, and only then did it allow its twin to have what remained.
And in time, the body that had sustained them bloated. The milk turned sour, thick with curdled death. The flesh grew soft beneath their touch. And the flies came in droves.
But the children survived.
When scavengers lurked too close, drawn by the scent of carrion, the stronger child curled around the weaker one, shielding it from the night and the flesh peckers.
And when the milk ran dry, The liquid falling from the sky kept them alive for longer, as they both consumed its sometimes bountiful and sometimes paltry offerings. And when there was nothing left to take, and the firstborn’s body had evolved enough, it knew it was time to leave.
So it crawled.
Weak, trembling, but determined, it pulled itself through the filth of the riverbank. Dragged the weaker one with it, even as it wailed, with its paper thin fresh scraping against the earth.
By the time the stronger child took its first steps, unsteady, staggering, but upright, it had learned one undeniable truth.
It- he - was superior. It had been born into filth, into blood, into death, but it had taken what it needed and survived. It had no name, no home, nothing but the frail little thing that always clung to its hand.
When speech came, it named the weaker one.
“Yoichi.”
The first born’s first possession.
His heart, born outside of its body.