Sweet Like Candy

How I Met Your Father

Okay, before we begin the backstory, I'm just gonna tell y'all this now: there's a fanfic on Ao3 called The Father's Story and it's basically Shiro and Tatsuma's backstory, but gay. Imma make that canon in this AU, but Tatsuma couldn't really tell the adoptive children of his favorite guy all the juicy details, so there ya go. I suggest you read that because it will come into play later in this story. Enjoy!

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“Torako!” Tatsuma held his wife’s hand as she lay in her bed, heavily pregnant and very sick. She gripped his hand weakly, trying to reassure him that she and the baby were fine. It did the opposite.

“Tatsuma…” Torako whispered, smiling to ease his worry. “This child and I are just fine. Go back to work, please?”

“Tatsuma.” Yaozo called, poking his head into the room. “The Most High Priest is calling for you.” By the look on his face, Tatsuma knew he was probably going to get more crap from his father. Reluctantly, he left his wife’s side and went to find his father, the Most High Priest of the Myōu Dha Sect. 

“Tatsuma!” his father rasped angrily.  “What are you doing?! Don’t be skipping out on your duties! It is your job to protect everyone from the impurity of the Right Eye! If you miss out on even a single day of conversing with Buddha, Buddha will turn his back on us! His power will leave you!” Tatsuma had heard this several times and was more than sick of it, but he would obey his father because there were no other solutions to their problem.

“I haven’t been skipping out, father!I’ve been doing this daily for seven years! And yet nothing good has come of it! Instead, fifteen people are dead and more are dying still! Torako’s practically at death’s door, along with our baby! Can everyone really be saved by us performing the Goma Ritual?!” He protested.

“What else can we do?” His father argued. “Following the priceless teachings of our ancestry is the most ideal to….” He stopped talking to cough, the blisters on his face bubbling disgustingly. Yeah, Tatsuma thought darkly. Praying is definitely helping you.

“Most High Priest!” A servant rushed to help the man stay upright. He was a determined man and stopped for nothing. No matter what he lost along the way, Tatsuma's father went on to see all his religious duties in the Myou Dha Sect to the end, even after Tatsuma's mother died and the man himself fell violently ill.

“I will return to my duties. The duties that you, too, will someday take over.  When I die, you will discover the secrets of this Temple, and you will also keep these secrets with you until the day you die. If Torako dies, get yourself a better wife. Producing an heir is also an important duty you must fulfill, is it not? Cast aside all that is of this world.” Tatsuma's father left him with those harsh words.

Tatsuma wasn't a violent man, but the comment about getting a "better" wife and having to produce an heir made him angry enough to want to deck his father. He loved Torako and couldn't imagine having to raise a child with any other woman. He dreaded bringing his own child into the Temple he grew up in. He only hoped he could give his child a good life. If the child and Torako made it.

Tatsuma hated feeling so powerless. He was born the seventeenth successor of the Myou Dha Sect’s lineage of Most High Priests. All of their followers worked hard to fulfill their duties every day, all for the sake of protecting the lineage of Most High Priests. 

Just then, from the sky, a winged demon came crashing down, and with it, the white-haired man who had just finished slaying it. He carried a double barrel shotgun, blasting the demon full of shells as they landed.

The priests on the ground were panicking during the whole thing, unsure what to do about the stranger and the demon corpse now laying on top of their Homa Mandala.