OD: I don't own Fuuma, X, or bad horror movies. The logic, regrettably, is my own.

Disintegration

the sensation that you're screaming, but you never make a sound
or the feeling that you're falling, but you never hit the ground

There is something absurdly movie-like about not being in control of your own body, like a nightmare turned horror flick. Watching through someone else's eyes, feeling like a stranger in your own skin. It's also a little crazy, fighting with a you-that-isn't-you inside your own head for control, though it's a losing game.

Fuuma watches.

Kamui – him, the other Fuuma – tells him that control can be regained if no one else is around. If they're completely alone, Fuuma would have his body back. Fuuma wants his body back, too, so he keeps a constant lookout for times of solitude, something impossibly elusive for a member of such a loose-knit group as the harbringers. There is always someone in the street, a computer, a telephone line, always something. Fuuma argues himself in circles while the Kamui kills his sister and maims his best friend and tears down Tokyo. Fuuma argues until he's not sure why he's arguing anymore.

It's a little crazy, fighting with yourself.

So the Kamui laughs and breaks a kekkai and breaks his twin star and maybe even breaks Fuuma in a masochistic sort of penance, just because. Fuuma screams soundlessly, trapped with the psychotic serial killer and trapped in the role of the doomed-to-die main character, watching and breaking and falling and fighting. It's a little crazy, fighting with Kamui, but Fuuma tries anyways, watching. He wants to get back, to tell Kamui that it's not him, to apologize to Kotori (who's dead because of him – Kamui, Fuuma), to do something for all those who died when he broke the kekkai, when he broke Tokyo.

Fuuma argues until he can't argue anymore.

Somewhere along the line, logic begins to fall away like the broken pieces of steel and concrete that once belonged to majestic skyscrapers. Sometime while he's falling, watching, yelling, Fuuma stops resisting. He's never alone, not yet, but Kamui mentions that they're both fighting for (against) the same thing. If Tokyo is gone, all the people are gone, won't he be alone? Fuuma still screams, though no one can hear him, but this he has to agree with. Logically, Kamui is right; without Tokyo, the most important kekkai, there won't be anyone else around. Pure loneliness, pure freedom. The lines between him and Fuuma, between Kamui and him, begin to blur. It's all the same thing in the end, really.

He wants to get back.

He falls and watches and screams and he breaks Kamui and Tokyo and himself, and sometimes they can't tell who's doing what, exactly. And then the Promised Day comes in a sudden rush and he's fighting Kamui – the other one, best friend, twin star – and he's parried and blocked and one of them lunges – Kamui, or him, or Fuuma, not that it matters – and the war is lost. The Earth is saved, though Kamui is not. Destiny dies, with no one left to manipulate, leaving the remains of a broken world to itself. Fuuma is alone, and Tokyo crumbles beneath his watching eye. In a blinding moment of clarity, brought on by a final rush of air into his mute, starving lungs, he realizes that he's alone and he's free and he's able to do whatever he wants now. His voice is hoarse, the ground is rushing up at him, and there is nothing left to watch anymore.

But it's all the same in the end, really.

He's alone in his apocalypse, corpses for company and the freedom to cry for whomever he wishes. His body is his own again, and he wishes it wasn't so because he doesn't think he's strong enough to survive much longer like this. He's sane again, finally. The movie is over, the killer dead, and he's the one who got away at everyone else's expense. He rushes towards the ground at a million miles an hour, no longer in freefall. He's free to do more than watch now.

There's nothing left.

Maybe Destiny isn't dead after all, he thinks, because his wish is paradoxically fulfilled, just like Kamui – just like his twin star, best friend, important person. He wished to be alone, and so he is – but because he is alone, there is no reason to be alone anymore. Kamui is dead, Kotori's tree is buried under buildings, and the Earth is empty and healing.

Fuuma watches anyways.


This was... a trip. I don't really know if Fuuma could see what's going on while he's the Kamui; I'm inclined to think not, but I don't really know. And I don't like to think that Kamui dies in the end, either, but it's viable. This plotbunny grabbed hold and wouldn't let go, resulting in the prose equivalent of a pantuom and a deranged little logic session. By the way, it's all circular. The last sentence of the preceding paragraph contains the standalone line for each division, except for the first and last, which are mirrors of each other. The standalones can also be read as a set, disregarding the paragraphs, creating a snapshot of the whole thing. Have fun deciphering it all!

Fun fact: The title is a veryveryvery vague reference to Salvador Dali's The Disintegration of Memory. Melting clocks, man.