Title: Strength
Author: jordannamorgan
Fandom: Kabaneri of the Iron Fortress
Characters: Ikoma and Mumei.
Setting: Episode three, immediately after Ikoma tells Mumei about his sister.
Rating: G.
Length: 1,897 words.
Summary: While in confinement, Ikoma and Mumei have a small debate.
Notes: Also for “Grief” at smallfandomflsh, and “would love to save everything” at shortfics.



Ikoma’s first day as a Kabaneri was the second most lonely time in his life.

When he woke up yesterday, he had merely been an ordinary human being: just one young man in search of some way to fix a broken world. Yesterday he had thought his years of work might finally be ready to pay off, and hoped for a chance to prove his dreams could be made a reality.

Then that chance had arrived in the worst way possible. Then the Kabane came… and everything went off the rails.

Now he didn’t even know what he was anymore: his body changed, his heart clad with the iron of a Kabane cage, yet his mind still working furiously despite the numerous fading bite marks that should have spelled his doom. Maybe his desperate efforts had only slowed the course of his infection, and in time he would lose himself after all to a mindless hunger for human life. Maybe he really was what Mumei claimed, an in-between Kabaneri who could survive as she evidently did; but even if that was true, he wondered at what cost. He wondered what his new physiology demanded—what he would eventually begin to crave—when adrenaline and anxiety were overtaken at last by exhaustion and need.

If that need was the same as a Kabane’s, surely it would have been more merciful if Kurusu’s bullet had finished him.

His own questions were the reason why Ikoma couldn’t blame anyone for being afraid of him. Still, knowing that they were only plunged him deeper into desolation. No matter how much he agreed that locking up himself and Mumei was a reasonable and necessary precaution, there was still something terribly bitter about being thought a monster by the people whose lives he had fought to save.

The one glimmer of warmth since his change was Takumi, his self-appointed best friend—and practically his only friend, out of all the other steamsmiths who for years had ridiculed him as a mad dreamer. No one else had given him a thought when the Kabane broke into the station. It was only Takumi, scared yet stubbornly and stupidly loyal, who made his way through the infested town to find him. Even more incredibly, despite shrinking away in fear at the first sight of Ikoma’s blazing heart cage, it was Takumi who later physically hauled him back aboard the Kotetsujo.

Since then, they had been separated by Ikoma’s confinement. He would have given almost anything to see Takumi’s goofy smile, to feel as if just one person might still recognize the human he had been… but right now, he didn’t trust himself to be anywhere near someone he cared for.

Of course, he wasn’t exactly alone in the improvised prison that was the rear car; but honestly, solitude might even have been preferable to his current company.

Mumei wasn’t interested in answering his questions about exactly what a Kabaneri was, and what it really meant for them. She only babbled about training him to be her shield before laying into him relentlessly, forcing him to defend himself despite his protests. The bruises she dealt out did not ache quite as much as her refusal to simply stop and talk to him: to have the compassion to help him try to anchor himself in this new state of being.

After a certain point, it wasn’t so much that he was unwilling to hit back against the abuse. It was just that every time he tried, the girl he saw looking back at him… was not Mumei at all.

Even after she finally let up on him, things didn’t get any better. By then the Kotetsujo had halted, no doubt for urgent repairs first and foremost; but soon, along with the ringing of hammers, the fragrance of smoke from a prayer fire began to waft through the rifle slits. Gazing out at the flames then, Ikoma only felt more hollow, as he was reminded of the one time in his life that was even more lonely. Of the smoke of burning houses instead, and the prayer fire he had never been able to have for his sister, as a child hastily swept far away from the ruins of his young life.

There were no distracting worries about his own humanity for his mind to gnaw on then. There was only the grief of his loss, and the shame of his failure to protect Hatsune… until at last all that pain hardened into the resolve to find a new way to fight the Kabane.

…It had been a fine joke, telling himself it was about protecting people instead of mere revenge and self-vindication.

Maybe he’d gotten what he deserved in the end. The weapon he’d forged in hatred was a success—yet he still couldn’t destroy one Kabane without being bitten, nor completely prevent its monstrosity from becoming a part of him.

All things considered, Ikoma was in a dark place already when Mumei asked him about his lack of prayers, and the talisman he wore on his hand.

In that frame of mind, telling her about Hatsune’s death was the same kind of satisfying hurt as picking at a scab. He deserved the pain, the self-revilement. He deserved becoming something that everyone else would hate too, even if they hated him for the wrong reason. He’d been a monster long before that Kabane sank its teeth into his flesh, and was only pretending he wasn’t—because a coward was worse than a Kabane.

Yet Mumei’s simple, quiet response was one he could never have been prepared for.

“The weak die and the strong survive. Yep… That’s all there is to it.”



The statement left Ikoma staring at Mumei for a long moment, trying to process the weight of such words from the painfully young figure before him.

“What are you saying?” he breathed at last. “Are you trying to say that my sister—was weak?”

Mumei wrinkled her nose. “It’s obvious, isn’t it? If she was stronger, she could have gotten away from the Kabane, the same as you did. It’s not like it’s really anybody’s fault, though. Weak or strong—it’s just how we’re born.”

Ikoma felt his heart beginning to tighten strangely against the walls of its alien new cage. With his body temperature heightened, he wondered if the simmering boil he felt rising in his blood was not something close to literal.

Memories flashed through his mind. Hatsune comforting him after their parents’ deaths, able to smile again long before he could. Hatsune stubbornly getting out of bed to care for him when they were both sick. Hatsune coaxing him to eat properly by cooking food all by herself, ensuring he would feel guilty if he failed to appreciate the meals she had worked so hard to prepare.

The truth was that in far too many ways, she always looked after him much better than he had done for her. She may have been small, sweet-natured, even delicate—but one thing she had certainly never been was weak.

“…Don’t you ever say that!” Ikoma snapped back, glowering at Mumei from beneath his snowy forelock. “Hatsune… she was the strongest person I ever knew. She was stronger than I was. Maybe not physically, but—if I was the one the Kabane had caught, I know she would have done what I didn’t. Instead of running away, she would’ve tried to fight it and save me. …I know that.”

“Then you both would’ve died. Strength isn’t always about fighting.” A subtle hardness crept into Mumei’s eyes, reflecting something distant that Ikoma could not see. “…And weakness can even be trying to save someone who’s already as good as dead.”

“You’re wrong. If anyone has one breath of life left, there has to be a chance for them. If I didn’t believe that…” Ikoma drew a shuddering breath. “I couldn’t believe there’s still any hope for myself.”

“But you can’t go fighting for just anyone, dummy. If the strong give up their lives saving the weak, soon there wouldn’t be anyone left who is strong enough to save anybody else.”

“There are more kinds of strength than just physical power, Mumei. Finding smarter ways to fight is being stronger, too. That’s what I’ve spent the last five years trying to do. I realize now that before, I never could have fought the Kabane the way I—”

Ikoma stumbled to a halt at the memory of his struggle to the drawbridge lever: the hands that grasped at him, the fangs that pierced him. Nothing human could have thrown aside those monsters the way he had then.

His fingers closed tight over the stone that rested cool and smooth in his palm.

What I still need most is the kind of strength you had, Hatsune.

“…But the strength I had then was my skills,” he continued more quietly. “By designing a weapon, I could be a part of humanity’s battle in my own way. And so can anyone. Even just having the courage to listen to new ideas, or be kind to someone… that’s strength too. Anyone who can do that deserves to be fought for.”

A wry twitch played across Mumei’s lips. “Well, it’s not like the people on this train are being all that nice and open-minded to us, is it?”

“How can I blame them when even I don’t know if I’ll be a monster by tomorrow? Everyone is scared of the unknown. They’re human beings just trying to protect each other, and for now, that’s enough.” His gaze dropped. “If I am a Kabaneri… if I can live this way, and not hurt anyone… then we’ll see. Then I’ll try to keep proving that I can fight for them. But until I know for sure, I want them to be safe—even if it means staying safe from me.”

Mumei did not quite utter a snort. Of course, she had already made it abundantly clear that she felt neither of them should be considered a threat.

“You seriously do think they’re all worth saving, don’t you?”

Ikoma closed his eyes, drawing in a deep breath. The pain in his soul still tempted him to despair, but he pushed past that darkness to the one bright thought of what Hatsune would have wanted.

“…Yes. And not just the people who survived to make it onto this train. I also want to save the memory of those who died, and what Aragane Station meant to them. Everyone who escaped carries those things inside them too. That alone is reason enough to want to help them stay alive—so we don’t lose another piece of our world.” He smiled sadly. “I wanted to be the one who could save everything. Maybe I never could… especially now. But anything I can still save is worth trying to. Anyone I can save is worth it, no matter how ‘weak’ you think they are—because maybe someday they will have the strength it takes to save someone else.”

The girl quirked her lips thoughtfully, blinking at him. She looked almost surprised, and Ikoma wondered what her response would be.

It was a curiosity that would remain unanswered. At that moment the hatch creaked open, and the two looked up to see Miss Ayame step alone into their makeshift cell.

“Let’s talk.”

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2020 Jordanna Morgan