Hi! I'm Phoenix to Flame, and while this isn't my first collaboration, I'm still quite new to the art. It's been really fun already working with reminiscent-afterthought and I hope that all of you enjoy what's to come as much as we do!

Hi! I'm reminiscent-afterthought, and unlike Phoenix to Flame this is my first collaboration, but it's certainly a lot of fun working with Phoenix to Flame on this project. So I hope you all enjoy reading the first chapter and this fic as a whole as much (or maybe more) as we did writing it.

Nocturne Apocalypse

Chapter 1

Tokyo Tower fell, gleaming a vibrant red in the light of the setting sun. The water captured the sight, bleeding into the disheveled earth as the levels after days of flooding began to drop. The entire city to an outsider would appear in that moment as though bathed in blood – the substance of life and much else aside – but in truth the only physical blood poured from the still form he held within his arms.

Kamui – whose name had been in a sense taken from him and now returned, for there was now and would always be from that moment just one Kamui: Shirou Kamui – looked paler than he ever had against the bright backdrop. Their black attires did nothing to dampen then; indeed, they were damp themselves, sagging under the weight of water, debris and coagulating blood.

Blood. The liquid that sustained life. That painted a place of death…or perhaps that was too weak a term. Murder was perhaps more accurate: homicide. Or, on a larger scale, genocide. How could adding to that ever make a world more beautiful? Even if the earth wanted it, cried for it, ridding the blood in its soil by burying it with more would never bring about the change it longed for. A Tokyo crumbled by earthquakes, sinking in water…the earth too paid for all of that.

Tokyo Tower had fallen, but the future of the Dragons of Earth had not come. All Fuuma clutched now was the body of the one who had, before destiny had caught up with the two of them, been his closest friend. The friend he had killed on the day the earth faced its destruction.

Kamui…had not fulfilled his wish. In the end the current earth endured still, but what use to it was a protector that was dead? Such sacrifice would not instill a permanent kekkai on the world; Tokyo's role as the battleground may have ended but somehow the earth had endured. But for how long? There were no more Seals to defend Tokyo. There were no more Magami to sacrifice their lives for the earth like Aunt Tooru had.

There was only him and shadows casting darkness upon the sea of red. Nameless, faceless – somehow they were all related to him. It was though, at that moment, insignificant; memories whirled into a fading backdrop of grey in his mind save the dark red in his arms. His own body, hunched over, blocked the light from bathing him like it did the ruined Tokyo, and it was strangely ironic that the light was denied to the one who had already walked to it.

The light at the end of the tunnel, or so some believed, or saw. Ironic that Kamui, the 'Kamui' of the Seals, accepted the hand of an Angel to depart from the world he had died to protect. Not him; the Angels' Kamui had died the moment the Shinken plunged through the other's chest and pierced the heart underneath. A different Angel had claimed his soul: one that promised eternal freedom, eternal happiness…

"Bring him back," he whispered, voice hoarse with a litany of desperation upon the tone. "Please, give him back." The words tumbled past his lips like a receding wave, repeating themselves in an endless loop and losing just a little more power each time, the torrent of water mellowing, flattening, with each repeat.

There was a dampened crush of boot on floating wood in reply. "The dead do not belong in the world of the living."

Sumeragi Subaru. Sakurazukamori…and yet he was still the thirteenth Head of the Sumeragi Clan. The first since the Clans split into their respective roles so long ago to govern over the effects of the spiritual realm on the living and that of the living realm on the spiritual. The onmyouji who freed both the living and the dead.

"Then kill me instead." He closed his eyes, feeling only the diluted blood running over his fingers as they, and his body, sunk on the fragile weight of cement and steel upon which they stood. The water accepted them gladly, its coldness doing nothing to numb him.

There was nothing left to numb.

"No," came the soft, emotionless reply.

Fuuma looked at the pallid face of Kamui…and laughed. One could describe it as hysteria, but the description would still be somewhat inaccurate. "Of course. Of all people…" He dropped his head, stagnant pink water lapping at his head and leaving a tiny ripple behind to expand and spread before fading into a world simply too large for it. "You were right."

There were many replies, but Subaru gave none of them. Instead, the silence spoke volumes; the odd understanding they had as Dragons of Earth carried their meaning upon silvery webs.

Kamui's blue eyes stared vacantly back at the one holding their owner as Fuuma turned back to face him. Part of him – a small part – wanted to scream in anger, in agony…why did the other have to choose the same destructive Wish as the emotional support-staff he had chosen for himself? And why did his have to succeed, when the other's had failed?

Kakyou…Kakyou had foreseen his death. Kamui's death that was. So had Hinoto, but both of them had claimed the Dragon of Earth's 'Kamui' would win. He had even seen the dream himself. But Kotori, although having seen Kamui's death as well, only saw a crumbled Tokyo behind it…

…and him cradling the ebbing body in his arms.

A future that had already been decided…

And any and all of them could be correct, because there had been little seen after the death of the Seal. The most obvious conclusion had been the victory of the Angels, the destruction of the old world and the formation of a new. But the red glow was slowly slipping from the receding waters, bringing with it a blanket of darkness to cover a still wounded Tokyo in its shadow till the sun rose.

And there was little doubt it would rise.

The blue gaze remained unwavering; in any other situation, he would have snorted to himself but the icy grip on his brain and heart were yet to melt away. Perhaps it was a semblance of shock, perhaps something else. But it left him as incapable of summoning tears and sorrow as he was anger.

It also left him without a sense of direction, because his only anchor was slipping ever deeper into the water, his arms failing to provide eternal support. For he was no God; his days of hunting that majesty was over. He was human, neither Angel nor the 'true seal' as his name implied. Apparently another little quirk of destiny, unless some divine deity was trying to shape his future.

The future…

He was forgetting something. Something important.

There were sounds around him. Shadows moving. Inconsequential; he could not discern one from another and none from the shadow that clouded sight and coppery blood that plugged scent. If the Inugami was there, even it would have trouble sniffing out its Mistress amidst the veil. He didn't wonder if it was though; it was unimportant. Whatever conclusion was wrought from that, he had no further hand in it.

Someone had left it out of the job description for the 'Kamui' to be able to bring back the dead. And as for the living...the only wish he could sense now was his own, a dark hole in his heart.

Wish. Kakyou.

"I'll fulfill your Wish at the end of the world."

Subaru.

"Not even I can see every Wish in existence."

Somehow, the two names came together in his mind, reminding him.

He closed his eyes. Another self-destructive wish. It seemed so ironic, that Fate dealt the same hand time and time again…and yet it was constantly played.

"Go to Kakyou, Subaru."

If the other was surprised by the request, he did not show it; most likely he was not. He had yet to see surprise on the other's face since the day he had taken his eye.

There was a slight splash as the footsteps parted, and the remaining rays of the sun blossomed into a false flash before slinking away.

His palms tingled and he stood; the body be carried with him was light, but the damp clothes added a little extra to the load. The water ran off of them, pooling little puddles of pink merging into a larger void.

That void grew larger as he took a step, away from the crumbled ruins of Tokyo Tower.

"Where are you going to go?" someone asked. The tenor was familiar: a female voice, as deadly sorrowful as his own. Kishuu Arashi.

And the question itself was somewhat ironic as well. Particularly as the answer remained, at that moment, elusive. In retrospect, there was little reason to go anywhere, save the ring of people that stood upon the grounds of a crumbled Tower. But as much as there was no reason to go, he had no desire to stay with Tokyo's blood soaking into his body.

There was much he could not bring himself to regret.

"Somewhere," was the answer he finally gave, before stepping further into the shadow and vanishing behind its cloak.

He felt it as clear as the dawn, the moment when the future became the present and a new spinning of events as of yet undecided began.

Despite everything that had transpired, he had not ended with the world that was. Despite his deepest wish, he lingered still.

Kakyou lay where he was, listening to the humming of fate. Whatever was yet to come, it was not clear even to his sight. Too many wishes, too many decisions left. It was certain that the world would not end today; but past that, there was nothing.

He felt like he stood on the edge of a blade. For so long he'd had the images of one moment, one place where nothing could be seen past. For so long, he'd seen it first as proof that the dreaming would end, then, that it would be just his end…and yet now it seemed to be neither.

Unless...

He could hear from somewhere in the waking world, the screech of metal too strained to hold itself up. Whatever had happened above had left the Government building too injured to stand tall, the last kekkai of the old destiny crumbling above. Perhaps it was inevitable that this happened, despite him not seeing. Even the wisest of dreamseers could not predict all possibilities.

The Lady Hinoto had proven that in the end, though she lay dead as well, the choices she and others had made had blurred the sight of her dark self enough that at least there was a chance to stop her. In the end, she hadn't wanted to die, but she accepted it as what must be.

Fate was a cruel mistress indeed.

The building twisted and shrieked above him and he closed his eyes again. Maybe in the next world, he would be lucky enough to see Hokuto-san again. Of course, that might have been asking for too much, but he could hope against hope for that one thing.

He didn't want to be alone any more. It was strange, even when others were with him, he was alone. Maybe it was just another part of his curse. Being too powerful to be granted an ordinary life, never knowing a person who cared about him without the power getting in the way, always being alone...he'd been on this Earth for twenty-six years and only one person had ever seemed to see just him, and not the dreamseer as well.

Maybe it would be different in the afterlife.

The grinding of the building seemed to fill his bones, gyrating and echoing in the pain of death. Would his death be fast or slow when it came? He'd had enough of waiting for an end, but he thought that maybe when it was right upon him, it wouldn't seem so slow to bleed to death.

There was no way he could escape, and no way for the building to not crush him to death when it did fall. No way out, no lease on unwanted life.

Footsteps resounded on the floor.

Why were there footsteps? Who would have known of him after the fall of the Kamui, and who would have cared? There shouldn't have been anyone left.

Almost unbidden, an image of who it was appeared to him. Black coat, black boots, black hair, mismatched eyes. A face that nearly completely resembled Hokuto's if she'd had every single scrap of joy in her life not only stolen, but crushed and ruined and corrupted. The soft scent of cherry blossoms wafting around him like it had for the person who had wrecked them.

Sumeragi Subaru. The Sakurazukamori, Hokuto's twin brother.

There was no point in feigning sleep in front of him; the younger man could probably see how his breathing had intensified with his arrival. He opened his eyes slowly, and the flickering, sparking lights of his room filled his vision before solidifying around Subaru.

There was a moment – maybe long, maybe short; it didn't matter in the grand scheme of things – where they just looked at each other. He didn't know why Subaru seemed to be so impassive, why he was there at all. If there was one thing that he was sure of, it was that Subaru hadn't known of his existence.

Which left very few possibilities as to how he'd arrived there.

"Have you come to kill me?" he said in a whisper, and then nearly mentally smacked himself for it. Despite the fact that he was simply waiting to die, it was not the right question to ask.

And yet, Subaru seemed to think about it seriously, hovering on the edge of indecision. The remaining green eye glowed in a facsimile of life, and another whisper escaped him, the involuntary reminder calling her name to his mouth. "Hokuto-san..."

Both eyes went wide, and then softened, the faintest shard of something that wasn't emptiness entering his face, and the reminder of Hokuto grew stronger. It was easier to ignore the startling similarities between them when he was only dreaming.

"No." Subaru said in response, almost as softly as Kakyou. "No, I'm not going to kill you." The scent of flowers grew stronger, and though nothing seemed to change around him, he could feel magic wrapping around the room, strong as hope.

Any questions of what Subaru was going to do instead were promptly forgotten as the man stepped forwards, and, wrapping the blanket around him as he began to lift, picked up Kakyou from the bed, the I.V cord dangling limply from his arm as Kakyou was abruptly spirited away from the only thing he'd touched in nine years. Somehow, without dropping him, Subaru managed to remove the needle from his arm, and Kakyou was detached from the world that lay beneath the crumbling building.

Subaru was warm, in ways that he wasn't accustomed to, having touched so few people outside of dreams in so long, and physically full of life. Too weak to hold his own head up, Kakyou could hear the consoling rhythm of breath and heartbeat, a persistent reminder that he wasn't dying, because he wouldn't have noticed it.

He saw the room blur as they left it, and an image of his own body still lying in the bed in an illusion strong enough to fool anyone else looking for them. The uneven play of shadows on the walls showed that Subaru had hidden them from sight, and he couldn't understand why the man would do that for someone he'd only just met.

"What...are you doing?" he asked, the amount of breath it took to whisper more than he could summon in one try. He could see faint cracks in the walls of the stairs, the strain of the collapsing building ripping the walls apart.

"There has been enough death for one year, and it's not over yet." Subaru said cryptically, but it was clear enough that he had no intention of killing Kakyou at any point in which to come.

How disappointing, and yet there was no desire to make it change. He couldn't understand why, but it was...nice, to have someone strong enough to carry him away from the ashes of his old self. Somehow, he'd left the desire to die back on that bed, with the illusion.

The Kamui for the Dragons of Earth had said that he would grant Kakyou's wish, the true one he harbored deep below. Was it...not to die, but something else?

Those were thoughts for another time; the further that Subaru climbed, the more obvious the signs of destruction and ruin were about them. Splotches of faded brown littered the ground, growing in amount the further they climbed, and resembling someone stumbling against things while trying to escape. The metallic taste of blood filled the air, blotting out the softer scent of Sakura, and he sneezed suddenly from the stench.

The shriek of tearing metal brought to life the fact that there wasn't much time left to get out, and Subaru's pace quickened under him, muscles flexing as he continued to carry Kakyou free of the building. He could see the cracks on the wall multiplying, bringing a sudden terrifying image of them both crushed into rust-brown splotches on the floor. And it was odd, because now that someone was there, he didn't have the slightest desire for death.

They reached the end of the stairs, and through a door that Subaru opened with his shoulder, Kakyou was blinded by...light. Not even true sunlight – it was a milky grey that pooled on the once-immaculate tiles of the lobby – but light, pure and clean, and too strong for him after nine years of enforced darkness. Whatever faint cry he made, Subaru heard, and the whisper of an incantation cast yet another illusion over his eyes to soften the intensity of that light.

The dimmed light was followed by a door squeaking and sliding open, and then there was wind. The soft eddies of air gently teased at his face as Subaru swiftly exited the building, and it blew strands of his hair up and onto his cheeks and mouth. He could almost taste the change in the world on that first wind, and he shivered at the sudden overwhelming sensation.

Subaru never stopped moving, a force to be reckoned with when it came to covering distance quickly. Whatever bad habits he may have picked up since Hokuto-san's death, it clearly hadn't hampered his physical strength, and the powers of both Heaven and Earth only boosted that quality. Fuuma had been strong and powerful too, but there was something less...assuming about Subaru's. That it simply was strength without a reason to be seen as strong by others, that it just was what it needed to be.

From behind his closed eyelids, he saw for a moment the twisting of the government building as it gave up on life and crashed to the ground, dust and ash tearing free as it died.

And then all the last hints of the future were silent.

The weight in his arms felt unusual, but not wholly unwelcome. In a superficial sense it was a package that needed to be delivered, or more specifically removed, with care. A part of him though was reminded of the animals he had been so attracted to in his youth: the comforting fur, the unyielding ear and unwavering trust, and most importantly the sense of warmth that slowly stemmed the cold loneliness that gnawed at his bones.

He could feel bones, a sharp yet rounded elbow nudging his hip and he fluidly adjusted his grip so it was more comfortable for them both…

…or as comfortable as they could both become with the situation on hand. For Subaru it was the second time in less than an hour one had asked him to take their life; it was strangely ironic, considering inheriting a title was the least of what had changed him from a boy who could not bear the face of death.

He supposed a part of him was bitter, bitter that Seishirou-san had denied him his wish and left like…that, bearing both a title that had destroyed what hope they could have had together and a burden of life he'd been waiting to put down for eight years – and apparently eight years too long. Another part of him was apathetic; he had lost the two people who had mattered more to him than anything: Nee-san and Seishirou-san. He had lost his wish, forever unfulfilled; even Fuuma had seen no such fire or passion or life remained in his heart.

The buildings decreased in number and Subaru jumped gently to the ground, the weight in his arms barely stirring. It had initially been a simple task; save a man from dying due to a collapsing building or else in starvation; who knew how many days it would be before emergency services began clearing from under the Government Building, particularly with the other areas around Tokyo in similar or else worse condition.

The next step took him into water, puddles splashing gently under his booted feet. The gentle step sent ripples spreading in a soft wave. The marks in the water hovered for a moment before vanishing, leaving the surface as smooth and murky as it had been before its rest was disturbed.

Beneath, he could feel spirits, hundreds if not thousands of spirits, crying out. Spirits who had died when the earth had split and cast them into her depths. Spirits who had been swept away by the initial sudden onslaught of water, families who had been in cars that had washed off the road and rammed into buildings. Workers when the union building and the telecommunications centre fell against the more flimsy apartments. And then there were all the people who got caught in the crossfire of a war between Heaven and Earth.

For the moment, they were all in turmoil, lost and confused and unable to even understand their situation. Nor were they of any harm to anyone, least of all themselves. In time many would pass on of their own free will; some were simply searching for family members, others for bits of knowledge and a relief to their confusion. The few remaining would be his task to liberate.

He took his new steps with slightly more care; if he was by himself he would not have slowed at all despite being unable to see past the layer of brown water. However he had somebody else with him, somebody who was not only a dreamseer and valuable to Japan, but also perhaps the last person on Earth (besides perhaps his family) who provided an earthly link to his Nee-san. And as a Dragon of Earth as well as a dreamseer, perhaps he could tell…

He cut the train of thought, leaping up onto the roofs again as he passed the ground-zero and set off again. A normal man would have tired at that point, particularly with the extra weight he carried but he had no need for that energy elsewhere and so it stemmed evenly from him, and not unnecessarily. It was interesting to note far less power was expended without the force of will behind it. But he was barely winded and few could match his speed and endurance even with all the passion in the world flagging him.

And there was nothing hampering his path to Kanazawa, and the Sakurazuka's family home.

Kuzuki-san remained dead to the present in his arms.