The next time I'm forced to go to the doctor by Karen, I'm asking if they have something that'll keep me awake, Subaru vowed in his mind. I'll get some for Kamui as well, actually. It wasn't that nightmares were anything remotely unusual to Subaru; he was thankful when he had an unsettling prophetic dream instead. They, of course, were rare – the last time he could remember having one was the very beginning of 1999, a few weeks before first encountering Kamui. Several days after a confrontation with the Sakurazukamori at Nakano Sun Plaza, Subaru's subconscious added a new nightmare to its repertoire.
The Sakurazukamori's maboroshi is raised, taking on the characteristics of a maximum-security jail cell – inescapable, dark, oppressing. I can see that it is translucent rather than opaque, yet I see nothing beyond its walls, as if I am within an empty void. My hands begin to bleed, the thin lines of the pentagrams tracing themselves in crimson blood that look to me thick, unhealthy, nearly black in the dark of the Sakurazukamori's illusion. Stricken with a sudden sense of panic, I slam my palms against the walls of the maboroshi. Again and again, I do this, leaving bloody handprints all over the four walls. The blood does not and will never stop flowing. Within my mind, I believe that there are dark cracks running through the middle of the walls, nearly fully horizontal, occasionally branching out. I attack with a focus on those areas, smearing my blood all over them. There is no further effect on the walls. Perhaps, the "cracks" darken, or perhaps it is simply a result of me, drained, sinking to the floor and falling unconscious.
And thus, Subaru woke.
In another world, where things went better between Sumeragi Subaru and Sakurazuka Seishirou, two artists safely oblivious to onmyoujutsu and 1999, a 34 year old painter attends a press conference. It pertains to his latest work, "Sakura no Teoshi-Sha," or, "Cherry Blossom Barrow." An English international art journalist inquired, "'Teoshi-sha' translates to 'barrow' in English, a word for wheelbarrow, and no other definition comes to mind to the average audience or myself, for that matter. What does the name of your painting mean, Sakurazuka-san?"
The artist looks at the man from behind his sunglasses, despite the indoor setting. It was one of many similar mannerisms of his that both puzzled and enthralled the public.
"An old, archaic, almost, secondary definition of 'barrow' is archaeological jargon; it means an ancient burial mound. The inspiration for both the painting and title is the legend of the Sakurazukamori, or, the Guardian of the Cherry Blossom Barrow."
Gazing at the unusual painting, which depicted typical cherry blossom branches but with "flowers" of handprints layered on top of one another, a second reporter asked, "Sakurazuka-san, the color of the paint, it's something I've never seen before, in a very subtle way; I can only call it the color of half-dried blood – how did you create it?"
A near-imperceptible smile tugged at the artist's lips.
"That, I'm afraid, is somewhat of a trade secret. However, I can tell you that I spent much time analyzing the color of blood." He said this with an oddly dark and overly literal tone of voice. In the frenzy to have their own question answered, the journalists did not notice this.
"Sakurazuka-san! The handprints, they themselves and their placement are so natural, they can't possibly be painted."
"They weren't. I covered my hands in the paint and pressed them against the paper, which I affixed to a room's walls. I actually finished the painting in less than an hour, because I did it as if I was trying to break down the walls to escape – very quickly and with much force, that is."
At the back of the room, a forensics officer turned art reporter peered at the large painting on display. From there, she could not make out the handprints; she only saw normal cherry blossoms, no different from those of others but for their unusual darkness, as if the pale pink flowers were drowned in blood. Likely, it was due to the lighting, surely adjusted to amplify that aspect of the piece, but the paint truly looked no different from what she had seen on the violent crime victims, especially the signature on the bottom right. She could have sworn the artist had dipped in finger in fresh blood and dragged in over the thin paper. From a certain angle, a faint part of it vaguely resembled an inverted pentagram, its five thin lines dripping.