Aishuu Offers:
Yin Yang
Tokyo Babylon/X: 1999 Fan Fiction
Disclaimers: Tokyo Babylon/X: 1999 (where both these characters appear) is property of CLAMP.
Subaru shook his pen, trying to get it to work. It was one of those days he was actually able to attend classes, and he was being thwarted, by of all things, a ballpoint pen. He briefly considered nudging his sister for a replacement, since she tended to have an ungodly amount of school supplies in her bag, but he could see she was busy scribbling a love letter to her latest boyfriend.
He smiled over at her, then sighed to himself as the pen spurted a blob of ink. He could control shikigami, calm troubled spirits, and cast complex spells, yet he was defeated by a simple pen. There was a message there...
"Sumeragi-san!" a voice called.
"Hai!" he and Hokuto said, both bounding to their feet, he with nervous embarrassment, she with barely contained energy.
The sensei sighed. Usually twins weren't placed in the same classes, but due to Subaru's unique circumstances, allowances were made. It was easier for him to catch up if he was able to get his assignments from his sister, but it certainly made things difficult for everyone else. The twins, while amazingly different in temperament, looked almost exactly alike. Once Hokuto had dressed in a male uniform (much to Subaru's embarrassment), and the students and teachers had spent the entire day feeling a strange case of double vision. "Sumeragi Subaru-san," the sensei corrected.
Hokuto stuck her tongue out at her brother before sinking back into her seat. He blushed, and focused his attention on the teacher. "Hai!" he said, sure that his face was redder than a tomato.
The teacher sighed and held out a long piece of chalk. "Do the problem, please?" he said.
Subaru looked at the daunting math problem, and felt his head begin to spin. He liked science, had no problem with history, literature and art were something the Sumeragi Clan prized and trained into their offspring, but math was his nightmare. Sine, cosine, and tangent, along with the quadratic formula started to whirl through his head, but he gamely stepped forward and accepted the chalk.
CLAMP school accepted only the best and brightest, or those students who could bring something unique to the school. The Sumeragi twins fell into the later category- no one in their right mind would call either of them brilliant, but Subaru was an important personage who would someday be depended upon by the nation, and Hokuto was allowed to ride on his coattails. Hokuto had a flair for fashion, though, so she was taking a bunch of design courses. Subaru was concentrating more on hard science so he could work with animals, someday.
If he ever found someone else to take over the position of Sumeragi Head, which he was beginning to seriously doubt.
Frowning slightly, and hoping that the chalk dust wouldn't get all over his gloves, he gamely attacked the problem. He'd forgotten his calculator at his desk, so was forced to use the sine tables the teacher had on the desk, further compounding his difficulties. After the first minute had gone by, he knew he was in trouble. Thirty seconds later, he knew there was no way he'd ever succeed. Still, his grandmother would kill him if he gave up, and Hokuto would never let him forget it.
It took three minutes for the teacher to put him out of his misery. "Sumeragi-san, that's enough," he said, and Subaru heaved a relieved sigh before blushing as he returned the chalk, and scuttling back to his seat.
Hokuto was giggling as he arrived. "How did you get imaginary numbers out of that problem?" she asked.
He wished the floor would open up and swallow him whole. It was a familiar feeling, especially when Hokuto started in on him.
To his surprise, the sensei came to his rescue. "Hokuto-san, since you seem to find your brother's troubles so amusing, how about doing this yourself?" he said. It was not a suggestion.
"Sure thing!" Hokuto agreed, bouncing to her feet again and retrieving the chalk. To add injury to insult, she solved the problem in less than thirty seconds, earning admiring gazes from her classmates and a glare from her brother. She curtsied to the class, spreading her modified uniform skirt as if it was a ball gown.
"Thank you, Hokuto-san," the sensei said, heaving a long-suffering sigh. "May I suggest you give your brother a little tutoring due to his unavoidable absences?"
"I would, but that would require him being home for more than ten minutes between assignments. I can barely coax him to eat, and getting him to sleep is impossible; do you think I'll have any success getting him to listen to me lecture him on homework?" she asked, putting her hands on her hips and tilting her head charmingly.
Subaru changed his mind- he wished the floor would open up and swallow Hokuto whole. The girls in his class were looking at him as if he was a puppy who needed to be taken care of, and the guys were staring at his sister as though she had walked off a spaceship.
"Um..." the sensei said, clearly unable to think of what to say that wouldn't have one of the Sumeragi siblings upset with him. This time, he was the one who was rescued, by a bell. "No homework!" he declared, grabbing his bag and darting for the door. The dangerous thing about being a CLAMP teacher was that most of the students grew up to be the movers and shakers of Japan, and upsetting them was a bad idea.
The students laughed as Hokuto headed back for her brother's desk. "Sheesh, that was rude!" she declared, settling herself on top of it.
He stared at her, wondering why the Sumeragis' had so many rules about the proper use of magic. Slapping a silence curse on his sister became increasingly tempting as time passed, and it was only those stupid rules that prevented him from doing so sometimes. "Neesan..." he said, knowing that she was about to launch into another of her lectures.
Her eyes softened slightly. "Subaru, you need to learn to stop spreading yourself so thin," she said, swinging her legs back and forth idly. "I'll help you whenever I can, but..." her eyes were troubled, "even I can only do so much."
He was startled by her unusual seriousness. "Neesan?"
She waved a hand across her eyes. "Sa... I must be out of it today to be so gloomy. The best thing, the only thing, is to smile!" she declared, before turning slightly, inadvertently exposing her legs up to her thighs.
Subaru was used to her displays, but many of the other males in the class watched her carelessness with appreciation. "Um, neesan..." he said, lowering his eyes to her leg before shifting them over to one of the class perverts.
She understood perfectly, in the almost telepathic understanding twins seemed to carry for each other. She shifted again subtly, which rearranged her skirt to a more modest length. "Subaru, you're almost too gentle for this world," she said, her green eyes resembling soft jade. Her brother's renewed blush inspired another one of her rippling laughs. "Do you want to eat lunch together?" she asked.
Subaru looked at her, torn. Due to his frequent absences, he had few friends, and his seemingly incurable shyness compounded the issue. Hokuto, on the other hand, was friends with practically everyone, and everyone loved spending time with her. She could eat lunch with practically anyone on campus and be welcome. "Don't you have someone else waiting for you?" he asked softly.
"Well, Arise and Shingo were going to meet me with a group of their friends..."
He cringed at the idea. Arise and Shingo were the most popular couple on campus, and were guaranteed to be surrounded by an amazing amount of hangers-on. If he went with Hokuto, he'd be welcome, but not comfortable. Still, he rarely spent any time with her anymore, between his job and Seishirou demanding his time. He looked into her soft green eyes and made his decision. "I'll go," he agreed.
She rewarded him with a brilliant smile. "Good! I have our lunch right here!" she said, whipping them out from seemingly no where.
He nodded, and rose, following as she led him out the door. They had an hour before their next class, so eating outside was what most students did.
Hokuto smiled and waved at the people who called greetings to her, but didn't stop. Subaru trailed her like her shadow, unaware that his quiet presence was drawing admiring stares from the female population of the school. Finally they were outside, and heading for the prime spot underneath the sakura trees. "Hey, Hokuto-chan!" one of the popular crowd said, waving a free hand cheerfully.
"Hey, Rika-chan!" she exclaimed, grabbing Subaru's hand so she could drag him along with her. "What's the news?" she asked.
"Not much, not much! Nokoru-sama will be joining us later, though! And... who's this?" the girl said, turning wide brown eyes onto Subaru.
"Don't you remember Subaru?" Hokuto asked.
Rika ran admiring eyes over the onmyouji. "I remembered you had a twin, but I didn't realize you looked so much alike. Hi, I'm Kawada Rika," she said, bowing her head graciously.
"Sumeragi Subaru. It's a pleasure to meet you, Kawada-san," Subaru said, bowing to her.
Rika blinked in surprise. "You're so polite! Are you sure you're related to Hokuto?"
Subaru turned scarlet.
"No teasing my brother!" Hokuto said, intervening. "That's my job!"
By this time, most of the others had noticed the twins' arrival. A few of them Subaru recognized, but since this was the popular clique, membership rotated so frequently that he didn't know them all. His instincts were screaming for him to make an excuse to leave, but Hokuto was in her element, sparkling and laughing. It was a pleasure to watch her.
"Hello, Sumeragi-san," a voice said, and Subaru paled slightly as he recognized Toukai Seki. He fascinated Toukai, and Subaru always felt like a specimen under a microscope.
"Hello, Toukai-san..." Subaru replied, resisted the urge to grab his lunch from Hokuto and make a getaway. His sister would catch him eventually, and give him hell for it later.
"I haven't seen you around... have you been working?"
A few people perked up, the ones who knew what Subaru did for a living. By the end of this conversation, Subaru knew that he'd have everyone staring at him like he was a circus freak. "Yes," he said. "Hokuto... can I have my lunch?" he asked, hoping that if his mouth was full, he could avoid questions.
"Sure, sure," she called, throwing it across to him. She was arranging herself next to a cute guy he didn't recognize, and he knew exactly what she wanted. This was her way of encouraging him to socialize.
With a martyred sigh, he sat down next to Toukai, preparing himself for the third degree as he started in on one of the onigiri.
Toukai looked like a cat who was about to eat a canary. "What was your latest? Demon banishing? Possession? Laying a ghost to rest?" Toukai asked.
Subaru wished Hokuto would save him now, rather than when she felt like it. Two girls had turned around and a guy had slid over so he could here, but all three carefully remained distant from him. He hated how people did that, studying him like he was inside a glass cage. "Nothing major. I just helped lay out a building so it wouldn't attract the dead, when it was built." He neglected to mention that the property site was where a serial killer had performer eight killings, or that he had to lay three of the dead to rest before he could do anything.
The nearest girl blinked. She was one of the ones Subaru didn't know. "How do you do that?"
"Subaru's an onmyouji..." Toukai said with delight. "He's the thirteenth heir to the Sumeragi Clan..."
The other girl looked at Subaru as if he had grown a second head. "That's... really nice. Do you see a lot of devils?"
Most of what Subaru did was fascinating to more normal people. They tended to plague him with questions, and he hated it, his inherent shyness and honesty at war with each other. Subaru lived in another plane of existence, in a world ordinary people didn't understand. "Not a lot," he said, fibbing a little. A lot could be defined a lot of ways, couldn't it?
Hokuto was still talking to that boy, and Subaru tried to catch her eye. She was busy doing her impression of a hyena, though, so he was stuck.
"But you see them?" Toukai asked, cornering Subaru.
"Well..." Subaru said, again wishing he had a way out. He lowered his eyes to his lunch, hoping it would give Toukai and his followers the hint.
Then the sun came, in an unlikely form. "Excuse me, Sumeragi-san?" a light tenor interrupted.
Subaru looked up, and his eyes widened in surprise. Imonoyama Nokoru stood in front of him, tapping the familiar fan against his chin, flanked by his faithful retainers. The High School Student Council was studying him, and Subaru tried to keep calm, wondering what he had done. They weren't about to expel him for missing so many classes, were they?
Takamura Suoh's eyes gave away nothing, but Ijyuin Akira, who was known on campus for his cheerful smile, seemed to be worried. Subaru swallowed, grabbed his lunch, and murmured insincere apologies to Toukai and the others. "It's not a problem at all. Where would you like to go, or do you want to speak here?"
"Over there would be fine... I know you were looking forward to speaking to your sister," Nokoru said. "Suoh checked it out, and no one is around. I can trust you to understand this is a delicate matter, and it might be wise for you to take... precautions of your own as well."
Subaru's eyes narrowed. This was pure business, then. All three student council officers were of good families, and Subaru had always known they would most likely seek his services- but never thought it would be so soon. "Hai, Imonoyama-san," he agreed. He lost his appetite, and looked over at his sister. "Neesan, I have something I need to talk to the Student Council about - I'll be back shortly," he promised, getting her attention.
She looked up at him, sensing something was going on, despite his innocent words. "Sure thing, Subaru. Did you eat?"
"Half of it," he confessed.
She huffed, blowing on her bangs in frustration. "Well, that's better than I was expecting. Give me the rest so it doesn't get in your way." She caught the box he tossed to her with dexterity. "Have funnnn... and don't do anything to make Sei-chan jealous!"
"Ho-ku-to-chan!"
The four young men walked away from the group, and Subaru pulled a few ofuda from his pocket, placing them in a star pattern before raising a small silence kekkai. "No one can hear anything that's said within here by magical methods now. What do you want to speak to me of?"
Nokoru looked at his two aides. "The End of the World," he said.
Without thinking, Subaru instinctively summoned his shikigami, three invisible birds that only those with magical talent could see. No one nearby, save Hokuto, had that ability.
His twin, though, rose to her feet. She was about twenty feet away and probably too far away to help if Suoh succeeded in his first attack. The Takamura Clan was famous ninjas... and one attack was usually all it took. Still, Subaru was the Sumeragi...
Suoh sensed the threat to his One, and pulled out a knife, waiting for an attack.
Nokoru looked guilty. "Calm down, Sumeragi-san. I think I may have phrased that wrong... I'm one of the ones destined to help Kamui and the Dragons of Heaven."
Subaru forced himself to relax, casting a small smile at Hokuto. She frowned slightly, and he knew he'd have a lot of explaining to do later. Still, she sat down and turned back to her friends, picking up a conversation. "What do you know of it?" he asked, not shy at all on this topic.
He had only known of his destiny for the past six months, and he was still uncomfortable with it. The idea that he would be one of the seven people fighting for the destiny of humanity didn't sit well with him. He wasn't a fighter; he was a pacifist. Some of the things his job forced him to do made him sick, and the idea that in nine years, he would be involved in a series of cataclysmic battles made him want to hide under his bed and never come out.
Nokoru's eyes were shadowed. "Have you ever looked at a diagram of CLAMP Campus, Sumeragi-san?"
"Yes, I noticed its mystic design... I assumed..." Subaru's green eyes widened. "Why? For what reason?" he demanded.
"It was designed because it will house the Shinken. In the heart of the pentagram, it will be safe. Soon- that's the secret of CLAMP Campus. I will be its guardian, until Kamui comes for the final battle with the Dragons of Earth."
"That's assuming he chooses our side," Subaru said softly.
Akira spoke for the first time. "Why wouldn't he?" he asked.
"Because not everyone can see the beauty in the world," Nokoru answered his friend.
"And unlike some of us... Kamui has a choice..." Subaru whispered. "Why are you telling me this, now?"
Nokoru looked over to where Hokuto was sitting. "Because... something is coming. Sooner... before the final battle, or so Hinoto told me to tell you. You have to prepare. Nine years may go by in a blink of an eye... and you have to work on your kekkai."
"Kekkai..." His grandmother had told him he would have to create one, but he had been afraid.
"To protect that which is important to you." Nokoru reached out and rested a hand on Subaru's shoulder, turning him around. Around them, Subaru's shikigami vanished, as though they had never existed. "Fight to protect that which is precious to you."
Hokuto was talking to her friends, enjoying her life.
And Subaru knew suddenly knew that his placement as one of the Dragons of Heaven wasn't a mistake. "Thank you, Imonoyama-san," he said, walking back to where his sister sat without looking back at the Student Council. He could think on the odd coincidence of fate later, the chance that his school was destined to be involved in the Final Day.
Subaru came back from his talk with Nokoru, feeling grim. Hokuto was laughing with a different boy, but he went over to her, not embarrassed and confident. The teenagers around them didn't matter; the world would be fighting for its existence in 1999, and he was one of the chosen. Subaru had known that, but it had never seemed real until now.
"Hokuto-chan," Subaru called, pushing through the crowd that surrounded her.
She looked up, surprised that her brother wasn't daunted. Something flickered in the emerald green eyes that were mirrors to his own. "Subaru?" she whispered, and she could see that something was up, just by the look in his face.
"It's coming," the boy whispered. Around him, Subaru felt the beginning of the magic that was his kekkai crackling, lighting the air with a feeling similar to static electricity that even the non-magical could detect. His emerald eyes lit from within, and a few of the girls gasped.
Around them, Hokuto's friends started to inch away, scared of the display. It was one thing to know that Sumeragi Subaru was an onmyouji; it was another entirely to see evidence that he was truly powerful in the spirit world.
Hokuto, though, didn't back away, and forgot about everyone else. She stood up, meeting her twin's eyes, yin and yang, as they always were. "What is coming, Subaru?" she demanded.
"You don't need to know, yet," he said softly, too softly for anyone to overhear. Subaru met her eyes, on his territory, and knowing that this was where he ruled. The Sumeragi twins balanced each other.
She nodded, for once not pushing him. "When it's time."
"When it's time," he agreed. "I will protect you," Subaru vowed. Around them, the other students melted away, leaving the siblings beneath the blooming sakura trees. Hokuto and Subaru stood, alone in the world, the most important thing to the other. This was how it was meant to be; it was what it meant to be a twin. Hokuto protected him from the daily trials of life, and Subaru knew that he could return the favor, on the day the world ended.
Notes:
Blame Leareth for Subaru and Hokuto being CLAMP students- manga translation for "Save Me."
Onmyouji is sometimes translated as "Yin Yang" magician.
There's probably some continuity flaws, but... I'd set this approximate nine months into Tokyo Babylon, and three months left of the bet. Let's just call it artistic license, shall we?