Congener
Disclaimer: Clamp owns Tokyo Babylon, X/1999, Tsubasa, and probably a bit of my soul too. Any similarity to person, places or events that are real or fiction is coincidental. Fo sho.
Warnings: Im fairly sure there will be shounen-ai/yaoi action in the future of this, not to mention quite a lot of violence. Im going to TRY to write longer chapters...prologue excluded.
Prologue (Japan 2000)
He could feel the failing heartbeat in his hand, the tissue laced through his fingers. A distinct sound breaks through painted lips– a death rattle shakes through the pierced torso in her last vestiges of strength. She whimpers, unable to produce the air to scream. The miserable glassy gaze she fixed onto his miss-matched eyes would forever imprint on his memory. Twenty-seven...she was the twenty-seventh person he was sent to kill after the Rainbow Bridge, a bureaucrat.
Twenty-seven...he didn't remember names, only faces. Some angry, some sad, but all were afraid. The first time he will never forget...he hesitated before trying to pierce the chest of the politician somehow a threat to Japan. He'd missed the heart completely. He'd missed the CHEST completely. The older man writhed violently around the arm running just below his rib cage. The spinal chord had torn and shattered his assailants hand, who he continued to try to pummel. The man hadn't stopped thrashing until he had bled out and Subaru Sakurazuka was heavily bruised. Even then, removing his arm from the corpse had taken long enough to have the previous Sakurazukamori turn in his grave. Fortunately, it had only taken six weeks for his hand to heal but the misery of knowing he took another life took far longer to recover from.
He had honed his skills by now enough to kill quickly with a feigned indifference. It doesn't matter anymore, he told himself not for the first time, these people mean nothing to me. A vile thud follows when he releases the woman from his grasp, his entire arm stained in blood. The night air is tainted with the sickening sweet scent of the blood and the sakura of the surrounding trees. Sakura-sama yearned for the corpse he had liberated, its soft voice purring through the back of his mind. He would enlighten it, he always does.
The walk home was long, four mild seven long, but no one noticed the blood on his inherited black trench coat. He had moved into Seishirou's apartment not long into the new year, the distinct scent of cigarettes and sakura to serve as a constant reminder had become a requirement. The apartment itself was a clear indication of the affluence of being the Sakurazukamori, state-of-the-art to the extent of being cold. Hokuto would have hated the apartment but he needed it. He needed to linger onto anything that is and was Seishirou Sakurazuka.
By now, the woman's blood had caked onto his arm, seemed under his nails, staining him slowly. He carefully removed the coat to later clean with excess care. He would repeatedly shower as he did every night such as this until the diluted blood no longer swirled around the drain and the steaming water had long since turned freezing. The constant stream did well to convince him he wasn't actually crying. It was the shower. Yes, the shower.
Yet no amount of water, no amount of soap, could completely remove the stain or scent of the blood. As if it was engraved into him, never allowing him to forget how destroyed he was. With hair still dripping, he disposed himself on the large bed, intoxicating himself with the scent of Seishirou while staring at his stained hands as he would every night like this. Then he would delude himself in what could have been. What if it had been Onee-san he had made the bet with instead? She would have not lost, the suffering would have been avoided. What if he had did that day in the hospital in Seishirou's maboroshi? Onee-san would have mourned his death for a while but at least she would still be alive. What if he had never followed the lure of Sakura-sama over fifteen years ago? He didn't daunt long on that though, he would never regret meeting Seishirou-san even though...
He wanted some form of change, something to redirect his path of slow destruction. He would have to find a heir eventually, someone to resume as the Sakurazukamori when he has passed. Sakura-sama had grown steadily more tolerant of his incompetence but he will definitely need to find someone more capable than he, someone like Seishirou-san. There was only one fatal flaw to the plan. The Sakurazukamori must be killed by the one they love most. Everyone that ever really mattered had been slain during of before the final battle. He had no one.
If only he had died instead of Seishirou...
If only...
He had only been aware of the shop because a target had been leaving it when Subaru had found him. The location was as unique as it's merchandise. Out of place, to say the least.
"That's an interesting request, Sakurazuka-san." The woman purred with a knowing smile, taking in the man's increasingly crestfallen features. He didn't seem to want to further elaborate on his exact plans but she had a fairly good idea. One might call her omniscient. She would allow it...under certain conditions.
"Such complicated things have a high price tag, you realize."
"Anything..."
Notes:
Congener: Something closely related to another thing. Similar in composition or effect.
Sakurazukamori: Guardian of the Sakura. Seishirou's title while killing and feeding the Sakura tree to keep the magical balance intact. He inherited it from his mother.
Maboroshi: Illusion.
Sakura-sama: The Tree!
Onee-san: Sister.
The following chapters are going to be more AU. This isn't an extremely important section but it will make later planned events less deus ex machina. What happened will be made more clear later, also. Still, reviews would be adored, even if you say something like "kukukachu!1!!".