Kirito Miristioma :: District Eleven :: Resub :: Fin

[Arrows]

    
Kirito Miristioma

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30 years old as of the 84th Hunger Games
Victor of the 70th Hunger Games Quell
1st Elected Mayor of District Eleven

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She looks at him with eyes illuminated with innocence, yet cradling curiosity. The questions she always ask of why he must go and why he spends some nights staring silently into the sky. He cannot quiet them forever, a crown earned by blood cannot be buried.

"Let me tell you the story of a boy of the fields who was carried away to a city of glass, and of the games they made him play."

[Arrows]

Dust and Dirt

The fields were different to him back then, when their harvest was plenty but his stomach was empty. When each day he'd watch the trains take away almost every crate of fruit and every gallon of grain. When each day he'd watch his brother nearly break beneath the batons of the Peacekeepers. There wasn't hate in Kirito's heart, but there was emptiness. Numbness to the dirt that was like skin to him. Stillness to the picture of Ma crumpled into the couch barely battling her illness. Life was harder then, but it was also simpler. Days spent gathering herbs and mixing remedies, nights spent tightly tethered to Ikaia's side while the cold cruelly swept through the shack of home.

With Pa gone sentenced to death by the brightness of the burning summer sun and Ma rendered immobile, it was as though he and Ikaia were alone trying to survive. Yet, such was the life of a Miristioma. On every fragile branch of the expansive family tree there was fallen leaves. A curse from the roots up that seemed as though the soil the family was planted in was nothing more than dust and dirt. Always death, always suffering. If there was a Ripred, then he was a God with a burning eye of cruelty. However, despite the hardships and the powerlessness of poverty, even then Kirito tried to harness the light.

After preparing each meal Kirito would be grateful for the few ladles of stew they had to share. When Ikaia would come home beaten and bruised, Kirito would express the luckiness in how at least his brother wasn't killed. Every time Kirito had the chance to heal another, he would take up such an opportunity with joy. He was a sunflower with the softest petals despite growing out of a nestle of thorns. He was weak and scrawny with mouse-like features, but carried within his chest the heart of the gentlest lion. It was only fate by means of the family curse that he should be culled, the smallest seed snatched from the earth. 

[Arrows]

Blood and Demons

There really wasn't anything special about that day. The tub water was still frigid and the clothes he wore were still too big, it was just like every other Reaping. Only, really it wasn't. The whispers that winded through the corn fields and the extravagance that engulfed the District Square. The frenzy over what the Quell twist would be was enough to devour a simple small boy with a bronze rose pendant whole, and it did. Kirito stood with every other sixteen year old and watched as the President filled the screen. Listened to his words as he proclaimed a Reaping regardless of District. Shivered at the idea of how many careers could end up in the Games. Only, never once did it cross Kirito's mind that he would be chosen as the only tribute from the lowest District in the Quell until he heard his name slip forth from the lips of President Snow himself.

"Kirito Miristioma, of District Eleven."

Of course there was no volunteers, only eyes to watch the lone figure who would represent the District under the guidance of their first Victor in decades. Kirito accepted his death then. Confessed in the train to Katelyn his fear of what the Games could do to a boy like him. Found what little solace he could in the strength she shared with him. Then he was there, the center of the nation. A city of glass ruled by a serpent king. From the fingers of Circe Lyon wrapped around his neck to the threats of Elya Johnwayne to the night of stars with Kiena Ward, life in the Capitol was one of a blurred illusion. It was the prelude to a symphony of sorrow, to the final moments of the soft sunflower from District Eleven.

It took only a matter of moments, seconds standing atop that giant gear for the world of fields and flowers to burn into ash. For Rowan Combe to die because of Kirito's knife. For Kiena's eyes of friendship to shift into seas of betrayal. He was born then, the evil, the only way Kirito's mind could manage the guilt of killing another human. It was slow, but the psychotic chaos corrupting Kirito was bound to break eventually. A hellhound pelt, Kiena killing Rhyme in revenge, Olivia and Imp abandoning him, and a battle between a mirror image shattered his psyche. All there was left was blood and demons, Kiri and the crown. Flashes of red, a gun going off. Imp's death, embers alighting the sky. Kiena's kiss in the sewers, a final farewell. Orion's face, another life destroyed by his knife. A constant stream of scenes straight out of a nightmare while Kirito remained complacent beneath his alter-ego's desire for death. But he couldn't let them win like that, let the Capitol feast on his insanity. 

On the last day, as the storms of the sky screamed and the clock tower fell, Kirito killed off his complacency. In the final fight, as a just as worthy, if not more than worthy, boy battled against him Kirito accepted the weight of his actions. Every knife of Wyatt was a knife into Kiri, into the demon Kirito had let himself become. Kiri had no place in the world Kirito was fighting to return to, and yet even as Wyatt fell Kirito knew he hadn't killed his demon. He'd only given him the crown he wanted. 

[Arrows]

Phantoms and Fear

The world Kirito returned to was not the one he remembered, instead it was full of memories and regret. Congratulations and phrases such as you did what you had to became the normal. But it was all background noise, internally he was still too broken. Shades of shadows tinted the rooms and voices of the dead whispered from the walls. In the night, he would shatter clocks and cry in their shards of glass until Katelyn would come and cradle him. During the days he would stare blankly into nothingness, seeing Rhyme on a park bench or feeling Circe's breath against his face. How pathetic of a Victor he felt like he was, so unworthy of those who had died for him to come back just as a shell. Even under the mists of medication, throughout the first years he was so unstable. Pierced by panic attacks, crippled by moments where reality would bend. And atop all, affixed with that crown Kiri had so craved was the constant guilt. 

Eventually though, Kirito found some sort of contempt, but through a moment he'll never forgive himself for. After his fingers had found the throat of Lethe Turner and Patricia had to fight him off of her, he knew he had to find control. He turned to medicine, to the thing that brought him solace once. He studied under Capitolites in hospitals, vowed to find some sort of way to become better. Back in Eleven, he opened a free clinic in his house at the Victor Village. He tried make peace with the phantoms and fear, greet them only with a passing glance. For a time it worked, throwing himself into caring for others. By helping them he could avoid himself, the uncertainty that still rested inside of his mind.

At the height of this attempt to exert himself outward, Kirito turned all of his attention towards providing medical support for tsunami survivors in District Four. For months he helped in various centers, just like the one he met Oasis at. She was unlike anyone he'd met, the way she could see past the facade and into the fear. And when she saw it, she didn't frighten but embraced it. She forced him to begin focusing inward again, but this time with a hand to hold. She saw him and wasn't afraid, she reminded him that he was still worthy of love and of letting in light despite what will forever stain his hands. 

[Arrows]

Hope and Discovery

For the first time since the Games, Kirito felt stable with Oasis and the other Victors in Eleven. When the nightmares would tear his eyes awake and he would wreath out of bed in a panic, Oasis was there to listen. When Snow was continuing to punish Eleven after winning three years in a row by killing off Harbinger and Kirito's family, he felt strength by Katelyn and Harbingers' sides. He felt as though for once he could look at President Snow in the eyes with power, his own power. It was in this phase of life, youthful perhaps, that Kirito chose to run for the Mayorship in Eleven. He dreamed of the ways he could alter Eleven, the information he could give to the rebels stirring from his position. He could see the ways he change the District for the better.

Kirito did what he could, but in the end he still wished for more. He gave the information he could to the rebels and implemented several policies. More workers in the fields, less hours per shift but more shifts for better income and health. Several new clinics throughout the District. Several festivals where he could provide food and clothes to those in need. Alas, it all felt small in the grand scheme of things. However, during this time his focus also began to fall to his family. 

Following his engagement to Oasis, he brought home Anastasia from the Capitol. He was lucky Oasis was as understanding of her situation as she was, especially considering she was pregnant. Yet as his family grew, Kirito began to feel a new sense of hope and discovery with each element of Fatherhood. Still though, where there was joy there was also worry. How he would explain to his kids what they will see what he did on screens? How could he keep them from being afraid of that monster he became? For years he kept it from Ana, tried to spare her from the Capitol's corruption. But eventually, she had to know just as her sister and her brother and any other siblings to come will have to know. There are some secrets even parents can't keep hidden forever. 

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Memories and Truth

Throughout all the years, the seminars and the science, he should have known. Noticed the twitch of his fingers or the small spots of dizziness, but then again, doctors are always the worst patients after all. Still so focused on others and on his family, Kirito didn't have time to think of himself. He had to be there for Harbinger as Snow claimed Rhodes after Rhodes. He had to spend time with his kids while they still were young and free of the dread of Reapings. He had to try everything he could to help his tributes against Snow's hatred for them. He couldn't handle his visions of the others from his Games as anything more than just his mind's way of coping, but of course they were. 

That day in the Capitol, in the steam of his shower, it was undeniable. Memories and truth became clear cut as fear unlike any he had felt since the Games gripped his throat like a chain. The world spun while his demon hissed and the shadows of hell came over him in a wave. When he awoke being carted away to some hospital he used to study at, he knew. He knew what all the tremors were and what the vomiting had meant. He knew the darker secret behind the shadows of the fallen. And in that moment, the fear he felt, it wasn't for himself. It was for the kids back home who could lose their Dad. For the tributes who had died only for him to fall too. 

The day he told Oasis, when he called her from the Capitol with a tumor in his head and in need of a hand to hold, he finally broke. He cried with the tears of the storm that raged in his arena on its final day. Sobbed beneath the weight of Oasis' reveal of their next child. Victors were supposed to live the rest of their lives in peace, right? They're not supposed to get sick, to die young. 

When the surgery was finished, life was different again. Every time Kirito wakes up in a Capitol bed the world seems to change. However, the first thing he noticed was the quiet. There was only the sound of his steady heartbeat and nothing else, no phantom faces or ghostly grins. He let out a breath so long that he felt like he'd been holding it for thirteen years. He would live, and he accepted that. He realized now how much better it is to live for those he lost then to die for them. 

[Arrows]

Acceptance and Life

"Is it still scary sometimes?"

Kirito's hand pulls a tangle of blonde off of Ana's forehead in response to her question.

"Of course, sometimes I'm scared and sometimes I'm sad. But not all the time, and that's the important part."

Her eyes flutter, how curious children can be.

"When will you tell Sonja and Kei?"

Kirito looks out into the yard where Sonja plays and Oasis holds Kei soothing off one of his tantrums. 

"Sonja in a few years, Kei when he's older."

Ana nods silent for a second before suddenly wrapping her arms around Kirito in a hug. His eyebrows tilt with surprise. 

"We'll love you always, okay?"

Kirito hides his face and the water in his eyes briefly within her thicket of blonde hair. 

"I know, and I'll always love you. Now go see if Mama needs a break from Kei."

She takes off in an instant, running as always. Oh how children always run so swiftly towards the future, what things their minds create. Grabbing the cane from the side of the porch swing, Kirito rises slowly from his seat. Standing up still causes him some trouble, but compared to where he was a year ago he's lucky. Oasis insists the cane makes him even more handsome, but he thinks it only makes him look like an upper class ass. However, even he has gotten used to getting around with it. Of all the things that could have come from his surgery, from the tumor, this is something he can live with. 

Stepping inside, Kirito presses a kiss into his Ma's cheek before walking into the back of the house where his clinic is. Several sets of stitching kits and bandages still sit on some of the stations from his afternoon lessons. He might not be great at combat, but medicine is something he knows. He looks over his list of students making several notes by each for the coming day. They may not be careers, but Kirito won't ever be complacent to anything ever again. He will prepare as many children as he can for what could come for them, what could steal them suddenly from the fields and send them to a glass city. This is his acceptance and life.

He is a Father.

He is a Mentor.  

He is a survivor. 

[Arrows]

Well, with that he is done. 

lance has requested dibs <3

[lance]

bruh you've taken this victor of yours and given him such an amazing journey over the years, i am truly #blessed to be the one to accept him uwu. and of course as always ur writing is just plain old