Title: Omen
Author: jordannamorgan
Fandom: Kabaneri of the Iron Fortress
Characters: Ikoma.
Setting: During episode 1.
Rating: PG.
Length: 752 words.
Summary: On Aragane Station's last morning, Ikoma has a forbidding dream.
Notes: Also for the prompt of “Dreams and Nightmares” at genprompt_bingo.



The night was lit with blazing flames that reflected on splashes of red.

Every breath the boy dragged into his lungs was labored, the air itself choking him with a metallic mixture of smoke, blood, and black powder. A deceptively innocent-looking canvas bundle was clutched so tightly in his hand that its rough seams cut into his palm, but he did not feel the pain. His vision was blurred by the tears streaming from his eyes, obscuring the details of a small crumpled figure over which he knelt… yet even so, he could see the first warming of an ominous amber glow.

With shaking hands he lowered the suicide charge, pressing it firmly against the epicenter of that awakening light. Somewhere in the back of his mind was the feeling that he had done this a thousand times, reliving this moment again and again, with each outcome more terrible than the last. Even so, he found himself powerless to make any other choice than the action in which he mechanically moved. Part of him wanted to turn the charge against his own chest, if only to break this terrifying cycle he sensed; but he could not even do that. A strange inevitability guided his trembling fingers to grasp the charge’s cord, and he slowly began to pull it taut.

A heartbeat before the moment of no return, hands like iron suddenly seized his wrists. Only then did he feel pain as the charge was effortlessly, brutally twisted from his grasp. In an instant his hazy sight became crystal clear, and he saw her staring up at him, with eyes that raged as scarlet as the flames around them. It was her hands that had locked upon his, holding him paralyzed.

In his peripheral vision, dark shapes moved within the flames, staggering out of the conflagration to lurch ever closer. Red eyes like hers… Glowing veins and gaping jaws…

Join us, Big Brother, hissed some monstrous corruption of her voice in his mind, as several rough hands seized him—and then he felt the fangs.



Ikoma jerked upright on his tattered sleeping mat, a muffled cry caught in his throat. His breaths heaved in his chest, just as they had there… but it took him a long moment to realize the air he inhaled was clean and free of smoke, smelling only of the iron and machine oil that permeated his small cabin-turned-workshop. He was alone: no monstrous creatures looming over him, no simultaneously accusing and beckoning eyes piercing into his soul.

A dream. Just a bad dream… once again.

No wonder he had felt a sense of déjà vu, even as the nightmare played out. His mind’s revisitation of that night was familiar by now, but somehow the details were twisted enough each time to keep the horror fresh. After five years of bitter remorse and resolve to make amends, his conscience had still not tired of punishing him.

Peeling back his glove, he gazed down ruefully at the blue-green stone bound to his palm.

I’m sorry, Hatsune. Someday we will be together again, but not like that. I couldn’t let you join them—and I never will either.

Somewhat unsteadily, he stumbled to his feet and went to gulp a dipperful of water from the bucket on his work table. Even that briefly threatened to come up again, but he took several deep breaths and willfully held it down. So much for having any breakfast this morning.

Morning…

With a start Ikoma turned to look at the window, and the full rays of the sun shining through it. He had slept well past the dawn—doubtless exhausted after a late night spent test-firing his piercing gun, but that was no excuse. With not one but two trains due to arrive at Aragane Station that day, every available steamsmith would be needed at the depot, and he was supposed to have arrived for his shift half an hour ago.

Hastily he wrestled on his belt and jacket, his leather greaves and sandals: the portions of his uniform that he’d carelessly shed before he collapsed into sleep in the small hours. Snatching up his tool bag, he rushed out the door and pelted down the street, on his belated way to what promised to be a grueling day’s labor.

I have to take care of my job right now—but my real work only needs a little more time. I’m sure of it. Hatsune, I’m so close now…

It could even be tonight.

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2020 Jordanna Morgan