Encounter
It was night. His favorite time.
He wrapped his black cloak around him tighter as he flew silently through the still night. He could almost laugh at the events now unfolding…he was returning, again. Still returning to Tokyo, even though the original had been destroyed in a blaze of fire and the broken remains of years-old magic not 15 years ago. So many things had changed since that day. The world, the seasons. The views of people, the whirling, twisting eddies of fate that could not, refused to be read. In a corner of his mind, he reflected that only Hinoto, of all of them, had ever been concerned with ephermal things like that.
His life. That had been changed, too, irrevocably. He whispered their names again, futilely, as he had done so many times. As the words escaped his lips, he realized why he had come back again. This was the day they had died, the day the world had changed, 15 years after the 2nd Impact.
"Kamui is returning to Tokyo!" The old words rang in his mind again. No one had ever mentioned Fuuma.
Fate. Life. The Dragons had fought for them, making it all the more ironic that neither had succeeded. He still remembered the look of shock on Kanoe's face as the kekkai began to rupture during their battle, torn asunder by forces neither side had summoned. His face stained with his best friend's blood, Seishirou's corpse at his side and the glowing Shinken in his grasp, he'd looked towards the crimson and gasped. The breaking of the magical sub-realities had caused, along with the initial explosion, the 2nd Impact. Not one, not the other.
This was surely the end of the world, he'd thought. They'd all thought.
As if things would end so neatly. He had always wondered; with the twin priestesses divining, Sorata's stargazing, and Satsuki's Beast, why no one had sensed the First Angel. Why no one had paid attention to a lowly group of scientists tracking their weary way towards the North Pole. Science was as powerful as magic in its own way. Both were responsible for the deaths of 2 billion 15 years ago. How bizarrely appropriate.
But he had only cared for two. Two that had meant the world to him.
His feet touched the ground as he descended, gently brushing the ground like a mother's caress. He certainly seemed to be one for nostalgia today. Why? The old question returned. Why the swords? Why did his mother and theirs have to die? Fate again, perhaps. Somehow that didn't satisfy him, not then, not now.
The cloak swept back over his shoulders with a sibilant hiss. There was enough thinking done. He shoved back the memories into the familiar recesses of his mind; now was the time for action. If he'd learned anything during those years, it was not to cry over spilled milk. Or blood.
The moon rose above. Softly, gently, with nary a sound to mark their passing, the sakura began to fall.
Another one. He let his gaze pass over the tall, nondescript building on his left. Another Child. So much like him…he also had the ones he wanted to protect. Somewhere, pity stirred, and he felt again for a moment the keening pain of his mother's passing. He shook that away as well. It was a mistake to have returned. He should have stayed away, biding his time, until events progressed, until at least the Spear made it's appearance. But then again, that was what they had done last time.
He brushed the pink petals from his shoulder as he regarded the single room above. A solitary breeze wafted some past his nose, and for a moment, he was back at the shrine, hand on Fuuma's shoulder, laughing with Kotori as their mothers shared a joke.
A mistake. Definitely a mistake.
"Are you sure, Dragon of Heaven?"
That voice. He'd heard it before. But then, that had been…there were no more Dreamspeakers!
"We do not need those. We are beings from a higher plane of existence and speak to the soul."
The first notes reached him as he saw the white hair, pristine strands framing red eyes and a strangely childlike face. And then he felt the surge of power, of, of magic around him as a kekkai sprang into existence, orange-red hexagons flaring bright against the night sky.
Wait. That wasn't a kekkai. It was the energy that Golems possessed, the…
"AT Field.. Correct." It was so hauntingly familiar, the voice.
He stood and regarded the floating figure. Incongruously, his hands were in his pockets, an enigmatic smile on his face. The sakura were still falling.
"What now, Dragon? Or perhaps I should call you the "majesty of god." The voice turned scornful, mocking.
The old anger surged back. "Who are you? What do you want?" He kept his fury barely in check; even so, he was sure the other could see the blue strands of energy that had danced across his fingers seconds ago. He had returned, it seemed, to what had awaited him before. Cryptic sayings and more foes.
"Kamui has returned to Tokyo!" He was not fooled, this time. The smiling figure in front of him nodded his head, as if confirmed that fact, then spoke again.
"Kamui." Black orbs stared into red ones. "Who are you?"
"I don't know." Partially correct. He did know, sometimes. Not often, though. He suddenly recognized the voice, the expression. Nataku.
The eyes narrowed.
He was sent flying back, reeling from the shock as blast after blast of both psychic and physical force was sent at him. With a howl, the energy exploded around him, a blazing corona of cyan light. He focussed the power and lashed out with it, smiling in satisfaction as the Angel went tumbling backwards.
Still the same enigmatic smile as he rose out from the debris. He growled and flung out another bolt of azure lightning, only to see it hit and play harmlessly against on the peculiar orange-red field he'd seen before. He struck again with no effect. For a moment he wished he had the Shinken…it's sacred lightning would have pierced this Angel's barrier soon enough. The ambient force swirled around him again as he prepared another attack. The Holy Sword…for a moment, he saw his mother again, engulfed in flames.
What was it that made the memories return so fast, with such force?
"You being to understand, Kamui." And then the world dissolved into the hazy, misty outlines of dream realm.
Not again. This was another return, in another realm. Hinoto's first attempt at contact came back to him as he looked around. Shattered, broken buildings everywhere, huge cracks splitting the ground below. The cries, the cries of pain, and the dark, formless void that stretched overhead like a gaping maw. Everywhere, death, everywhere, destruction. The cold, frigid winds swept by him again, their touch icy upon his skin even with his cloak.
He let their names pass from his lips again as he saw them.
Her hair, just as he remembered it, twisting and floating freely upon the wind like a living entity. His eyes, large and dark. Still friendly. They looked up at him.
He could not meet their gaze. "It is not a trick, Hunter. They are there, alive for a time. Go to meet them." He was no fool. Fools died. He raised his arms and muttered a spell again. Magician; that was what he was.
No change at all. It was still a dream. Only the howling, ceaseless wind and the two below.
"Kamui-chan…" he froze at the voice. So like her's…"Kamui…" It *was* hers. He swept down to them, a dark angel as his cloak parted. Fuuma greeted him with a smile.
"I never held it against you, you know. It was fate."
"Who ARE you?" The words came unbidden. Regret. Hope. They rushed from the musty corners of his mind, fresh but uncertain from long disuse. He could see them in Kotori's eyes as well. For a time, they simply sat there, staring at each other.
"The end of the world." Both Dragons hissed the words, then turned to each other.
"Why?" Again, the eternal question. Fuuma simply smiled back, a sad, sad, smile.
"It is not from him to know. Nor for you. You must simply understand."
They faded from his eyes, and he screamed out his frustration to the empty sky. Taunted within his dreams yet again. Yet, there was something else that he felt amidst the pain. A hint of...premonition?
"You begin to realize. The majesty of god still lies within you."
They would not taunt him! He reached out with his magic, sending tendrils of force snaking out to towards the sky and rend chunks of stone from the fallen works of man. And yet the voice continued.
"You have returned, Kamui. Kamui has once again returned to Tokyo."
Wiser. Sadder. The words came unbidden again, and he saw Kotori's and Fuuma's faces flash past him. "Why have I returned?" he thought. Mixed with the hope and the anger were seeds of a greater understanding.
"Look upon destiny." The voice left with a final sibilant hiss, and the visions began. A sea of red blood. Strange half-mechanical creatures, the tortured souls inside screaming for release, yet locked in an unholy symbiosis with the children of sorrow inside them. A giant, bleeding bright ichor from a spear embedded in it's chest. Nataku's face. No, not Nataku, the one he had seen earlier but female. She smiled at him.
A lance, it's power shining like a miniature sun before him, forged by the same magics that had created the Shinken's. A tree, twisting roots reaching out to all humanity as the rain fell and the wind blew and the end of the world was nigh. A boy and a girl on a deserted beach, the remains of a once-great city around them. Then suddenly they were Kotori and Fuuma. The rain fell, with the soft pink petals of spring dancing slowly with it.
God's tears. He brought his hands up to his own wet eyes. For a moment, he had seen the light, an intersection of events wrought together in symmetry beyond mortal knowledge. His destiny.
But now there was only the street, and the harsh glare of streetlamps as they cast their yellow beams into the darkness. And the rain pattering around him, wet sakura falling to the earth.
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