Title: Vibrant days
Author: Dancing Moon
Contact: dancing_moon@hotmail.com http://nav.to/dancing_moon
Disclaimer: Everyone and their sakura tree belong to CLAMP; me only borrowing.
Spoilers: For Tokyo Babylon
Warnings: Hey, it's about Sei-chan, so don't expect it to be nice! But nothing real nasty
C&C: Please do. All kinds of feedback appreciated.
Summary: Yah... it's my first X fanfic, taking place before the actual manga start.
Soundtrack: Gackt
-------------------------------
~ Vibrant days ~
"Only you are special to me, I don't forget these moments
Beyond the quiet night I want to reach out to you."
-- Solid Gold, Seishirou's image song
-------------------------------
Some days, it was too easy... when the prey stumbled and fell almost immediately. It was always a disappointment when his assignment turned out to be nothing but a pitiful thing, begging for death. Days like these appeared to him like endlessly bleak fields of death, where nothing could keep his interest.
After having taken care of the prey, he found himself with nothing to do.
It was unusual, uncomfortable.
The hunter did not like unused time – time where he could do nothing but watch gray cigarette smoke curl through the air, time to observe the milling masses of humanity, time to sit by the sakura and watch the petals fall silently, time... so much empty time.
Therefore, he always tried to plan ahead, filling his days with useless trinkets resembling a real life. Dragging out the hunt could fill many hours and preparing for them occupied even more of his time. He also took care to stay informed about latest follies of the surrounding world. The knowledge came in handy when he wished to play out another one of his charades.
Today, however, had been a disappointment. The prey had been a man of his own craft, though of a level exceedingly below his. The situation did show some promise as he received the orders; hunting a hunter.
He had always been interested by the reactions he received as they understood that the rolls were reversed, and a few actually put up a challenge. They made him wonder how the final hunt would turn out, when he would find the one worthy of hunting him.
However, this so-called hunter had turned out to be a miserable prey, and he had killed it quickly in disgust. People like that gave death a bad name.
"Too easy," he mumbled, "where is the fun in that?"
Two eyes were fixed on the prey's corpse as it was being devoured by the tree; one blind and one seeing... both equally blank and empty.
Slipping his shades on, hiding that which drew attention, the hunter left. With a silent command, he released the spells hiding his sakura from curious eyes. As he exited the eternal twilight, which surrounded the one place in the world holding any meaning at all for him, he was met by soft sunlight.
The park was very pretty today. Warmth filtering through blooming trees, smiling humans drifting through the mild day... it held its own simple beauty. He assumed it might have made another man sentimental. Not him, though, never the cold hunter.
He felt nothing for this world, this city. If not for his ward being tied to this area here, he might never have returned after...
Ah. That had, in all possible ways, been an exquisite hunt. A small smile graced his lips. Fond memories of twinkling green eyes, vivid in contrast to his own dead gaze, were examined again, a moments relief against the bleakness of the present.
A truly splendid hunt... and a Prey still not caught. Of course, that task was a mere formality, but still something he looked forward to.
"Do you like sakura?" As he'd formed the words, there had been no thoughts do anything more than to play a bit with the doll-like creature. Play, and as he got bored with it, rip apart the child that had intruded upon his sanctuary.
Many questions had he asked that day, and the Prey had answered. It had answered in, quite possibly, the only way which could catch his fleeting interest. This Prey's innocence had always been so endearing...
In the end, though, neither the answers, nor his Prey's physical beauty had been what convinced him to take up the bet. Certainly, the pretty eyes and the soft hair had its appeal – though he was a feral being, the primal aesthetics of the Earth and its children would always enchant a part of him.
Opposites.
They were the perfect opposites, and it drew him in, his hunter's instincts allowing nothing less.
He cared for nothing, lived to hunt and kill and see the blood flow. The other cared for all living things, existed to protect and heal. How could he not have become fascinated?
When marking the child as his Prey, he had made it the one being in the world he would suffer to protect. No one stole what belonged to him; the cold hunter would tear down the sky to keep the world away from his plaything.
Even as he was putting the inverted pentagram on its smooth, smooth hands, he had felt Destiny's pull on the small soul, had known there would be yet another aspect to their game.
Seal and Angel, though he had not yet been aware of their names at the time. The final protector, whose empathy reached throughout the entire planet, against him... the ultimate killer.
The empty smile grazed his lips as he ordered a cone of ice-cream, remembering other times... his Prey, and its imperfect mirror.
It had been a splendig creature too, but nothing could truly mirror purity – except him, corruption impersonated.
"Are you thinking of your special person?" a soft, female voice asked. It was too close, invading what he had observed others considered their personal space, and so he could not choose to ignore it.
"Excuse me?" The smiling persona slipped upon him, flawless.
Striking looks, indeed, but there was something flawed about her dark eyes, the full lips, even in the way which she held her curvaceous body.
His Prey was also marred. With his own bloodied hands had he wrung the innocent perfection apart, adding grief... hatred... endless despair to the fragile heart. In opposite, however, to the shattered and agonizingly beautiful thing he had molded his Prey into, she was still lacking something... Oh, of course.
She felt too much to remain unhurt by the injustice of reality. Yet, her feelings were not deep enough to gain the magnificence of an entire creation.
"Your special person," she said slowly, lips stretching into a knowing smile. "That one person, who mourned for your victims."
He did not hurry removing his sunglasses. The spiritual power he felt in her was dismissible; she would not hunt the hunter. No one could, not until he decided so.
Dropping the ice-cream in the nearest trashcan, he extended a hand towards her. It might seem like a welcoming gesture, but she was not foolish enough to accept death's invitation.
"Who are you?"
"Someone who has been searching for you for a long time, Sakurazukamori."
"For me?" he grinned, deciding to play with her. "Oh, how flattering that a beauty of your class shows interest in my humble self! Unfortunately, as my lady most certainly knows, my heart is reserved for another."
"Is it?" Her long red nails glinted in the sunlight, and she smiled, though it did not come within reach of the blank eyes.
"I though you were still considering, whether to end the hunt... or fulfill your wish."
Gentle smile still on his face, he pulled the sweetest fabric in the world around them. Illusions were his trademark, and weaving them his second craft besides death.
Illusions to haunt, to sway those weak of heart, to enthrall and to hide.
"Though you are a beauty, I do not discuss my wishes with strangers, my lady. Now, your name, and then... then your death, do you not think so?"
"You do not wish to kill me," she said. In spite of her almost perfect control over her face and voice, he saw her fear. It rolled of her in great waves, he saw it in her aura, could smell it from her body even with the overwhelming fragrance of sakura around them.
Fear did not make her any more appealing, as it had with his favorite Prey. Again, his mind wandered back to that time, comparing it to this boring day, and he wondered idly if he should start up another hunt.
"Hear me out, Sakurazukamori, and you will not regret it."
Even his patience had an end.
"You name."
Maybe sensing the growing menace behind his smile, she answered this time. "I am Kanoe. I have searched for you and your kind, Angel."
That actually caught him by surprise. For a while he simply let his gaze rest on the lush woman in front of him, processing her words. In his head, he went through old, but not forgotten, facts he had once collected.
"You are not an Angel, nor a Seal," he said, not waiting for her nod before continuing. "What business do you have with the final day?"
"I am a Dreamgazer, preparing for the return of Kamui," she explained. "I wish for you to join our cause. I could try to sway you with words, offerings, but..."
"Why waste your time?" he grinned. She knew of him, then, at least enough to think she could read his motives.
She smiled lightly, encouraged by his words. "We will need you, when the end comes – but you will also need us, if you wish to attain your goals. I came to convince you to join us."
This time, he let the dark smile rise. If the woman was who she claimed to be, she had better be prepared to meet creatures even darker than death personified.
"For this, you have dared an encounter with the Sakurazukamori... a highly risqué venture. Not to mention pointless – what interest do I hold in the fate of this world?"
"For you, who see all things alike, there can be no sentimental bonds tying you to humanity," she said, and he nodded slightly, acknowledging her words.
"Would it not be a relief to wipe out all those who destroy the beauty of this planet? End their senseless, pathetic struggle to create a 'fair' world. Give the Earth back to the beasts... nothing but hunter and hunted."
"My world is no more than that," he said, cutting her short. "The hunter am I, the hunted the world. Why," he said teasingly, "should I put myself out of commission?"
"Because if you helped us reform the Earth, you would not need to stand outside this dirty world... outside and unable to enter, try as you might."
He tried to stifle a laugh, and then decided there was no need to. Stand outside? Did he not have as much of the world he could wish for in this shady glen? But it seemed she truly though he wished to enter the confusion, the pain of humanity...
Another memory. Eyes, overflowing with life, breaking too easily as he pierced her heart ... and in a sterile white bed, his Prey shattering in response, as it found its world suddenly halved. Eternal darkness where laughs and brightness used to be, and nothing to fill the void with, except a hunter whose heart was an even colder emptiness.
Why would he ever wish for that, the insanity waiting just around the corner, the heart-ache and sorrow which was part of every normal life?
He was the Guardian... he was content with his bleak life. The thrill of a successful hunt, the rush of blood was more than enough for him. It had always been, it would always remain.
Mismatched eyes weighed her for a moment and found her too empty, too boring to play with. As if she knew of the killing strike about to come, not impossible considering what she claimed to be, she cried out, backing away from him.
"Your Prey! He is also involved in this, do you not know?"
"Of course," he sneered, annoyed that she had decided to make this messy. Boring targets were best to kill fast, but it seemed she would procrastinate.
"I know everything of my Prey. His past, his present... his future. They are all in my hands."
"Do you know his Wish?" she asked in a hushed tone.
The Wish... the one thing all humans crave beyond anything, the one need they can not live to see unfulfilled.
"I think I can guess," he said, and allowed the sakura to rain down around them. "Yes, I must say, I am fairly certain of it," he grinned, in memory savoring the feeling of her blood pooling out around them.
"I killed her, you know. His other Special Person, his double. I do not like sharing."
The woman's eyes were far away, and he wondered which of his words had triggered an emotion in her.
"Sharing can be difficult, but sometimes..." she stopped, and he realized she did not wish him to know. Ah well, he honestly didn't care about her hurts and pains.
"If you join us, if you fight for this Earth with me," she removed the hair from her forehead, revealing a tattoo of the third eye. Not a fraud then.
"You will face not only your plaything, but also Kamui."
"Kamui has his own mirror to face. I am certain destiny has been no kinder to him than to my sweet Prey."
"And what about your target's broken beauty?" she asked, not daring to press him too much, yet desperate to convince him. It made some sense; not many could rival the Sakurazukamori in pure strength.
"He was an innocent... would you not like to see that innocence again, rip it apart all over? Crush him, finally! This time, his blood would be spilled below the sakura. Because illusions and imitations only go that far, do they not?"
"She was never an imitation," he chided softly. "They were mirrors of each other, tables of the same scales... but real. She was a vibrant woman-child, her will for life flowing into him... into both of us, but in different ways."
Empty time. Time to kill.
The Prey would come when he called, but then what? His toy had been so thoroughly broken. The years were not nearly long enough to heal the loss of ones other half. Crushing shards was not something this hunter had ever enjoyed.
Gray days stretching out ahead of him...
The woman did not understand him, if she believed he actually gave one way or another about the future of this Earth.
As long as the sun rose and humanity sinned, he would weed the wrongdoers out. If it all ended, he would rest. As Guardian, he existed only to fill a need.
So much time to kill.
Time, where he could do nothing but kill or watch the sakura fall...
A new game? No, the continuation of an old one, of his most spectacular hunt. Maybe it *was* time to end it, to finally bury those vibrant days and the innocent eyes. Such a splendid dance they would weave this time, filling their mutual emptiness with blood and magic. And then...
He would remain. Continue his silent vigil, savoring the memories of hunting and killing during long, empty days.
Or, if destiny so wished, he would finally manage to destroy the innocence utterly. The void would find a new heart to inhabit, but that prospect was less than likely.
His words from then returned, swirling in his mind like the ever-present petals. "Let's make a bet..."
Many years ago, they had formed their pact. The Prey had failed to hold his part, and paid dearly for it. He hardly thought it would fare better this round of the Game – but it would be entertaining to see it try.
"Join us," she asked him, not phased by his grim expression. "For the renewal of the Earth, for the finish of your long hunt."
Green eyes, matted with pain and frustration. Eyes which had once burned with love and caring. Now, they shone only with the obsession of those who have left this world behind for pursue of other goals.
The sakura danced around them, eternal and heartless.
"Do you know..." he had asked, "do you know why the petals are pink?"
They child his Prey had been had not known the answer, but one day... So, he had postponed the end of the hunt.
Though the betrayal, the loss of its other half, had given it a certain understanding, the Prey was still too much of a child. It had not learned completely, did not understand in its heart, which was necessary for his Wish to come true.
Would raising the bets help?
Such an end... such an end to this hunt, which had spanned over a decade! Purity against corruption, Heaven against Earth, compassion against emptiness... Maybe even the fulfillment of the one thing they shared, of their Wish.
An end to the gray days.
"I accept."
She hardly believed him, he saw. It did not matter if she mistrusted him, or if she found him easily swayed. What did he care for the opinion of this small woman?
He only wished to play again, with his favorite kill... it had been too long ago that he'd seen himself reflected in emerald-green eyes.
"When Kamui returns, I shall greet him," he said softly. "And I shall fight... for this Earth, as you put it."
An insane joy spread through the woman's eyes, but she shielded herself fast enough. Still young, but with a certain potential, he figured.
The gray days would end. Together with his Prey, he would replace them with strikingly red nights, and pitch-black moments.
"I am honored to greet you as an ally, Sakurazukamori. Thank you, for aiding us in this final struggle," she said formally.
"Do not. You see..." the sakura where whirling frantically now, obscuring him from her view.
"I fight not for this Earth. I fight for Him... I shall fight Him, and not even the end of the world can change that. Because what I claim, I keep, and He is mine down to the ache in His heart."
He left her. Released the illusion and retreated to his apartment. The Kamui had not yet appeared, but he could wait. Patience was, after all, one of his few virtues.
Soon, he would not have to kill time anymore... he would hunt heavenly dragons.
"Without me, he would have been a useless pawn, broken beyond repair," he mused, not caring that the woman had no way of hearing him.
"You have stirred the hunter, Dreamgazer, and in that also awaken Him. We are opposites and he will grow in my shadow as I do in his light. In the end... ah, the end of all, the final death... we shall fulfill our wishes."
He chuckled, and softly touched his empty eye. Angel and Seal; destroyer and protector... but first and foremost Opposites, defined by each other, challenged by each other - balanced by each other.
"Come, Subaru-kun. Come home and play with me again. I have a promise to hold... and it is due time for the Hunt to end."
-------------------------------
The end.
Well, what you think?
Sakura - Cherry (tree)
Sakurazukamori - Guardian of the Sakura Barrow
Kamui - The Majesty of God (or with a different kanji) the One Who Hunts the Majesty of God
Author: Dancing Moon
Contact: dancing_moon@hotmail.com http://nav.to/dancing_moon
Disclaimer: Everyone and their sakura tree belong to CLAMP; me only borrowing.
Spoilers: For Tokyo Babylon
Warnings: Hey, it's about Sei-chan, so don't expect it to be nice! But nothing real nasty
C&C: Please do. All kinds of feedback appreciated.
Summary: Yah... it's my first X fanfic, taking place before the actual manga start.
Soundtrack: Gackt
-------------------------------
~ Vibrant days ~
"Only you are special to me, I don't forget these moments
Beyond the quiet night I want to reach out to you."
-- Solid Gold, Seishirou's image song
-------------------------------
Some days, it was too easy... when the prey stumbled and fell almost immediately. It was always a disappointment when his assignment turned out to be nothing but a pitiful thing, begging for death. Days like these appeared to him like endlessly bleak fields of death, where nothing could keep his interest.
After having taken care of the prey, he found himself with nothing to do.
It was unusual, uncomfortable.
The hunter did not like unused time – time where he could do nothing but watch gray cigarette smoke curl through the air, time to observe the milling masses of humanity, time to sit by the sakura and watch the petals fall silently, time... so much empty time.
Therefore, he always tried to plan ahead, filling his days with useless trinkets resembling a real life. Dragging out the hunt could fill many hours and preparing for them occupied even more of his time. He also took care to stay informed about latest follies of the surrounding world. The knowledge came in handy when he wished to play out another one of his charades.
Today, however, had been a disappointment. The prey had been a man of his own craft, though of a level exceedingly below his. The situation did show some promise as he received the orders; hunting a hunter.
He had always been interested by the reactions he received as they understood that the rolls were reversed, and a few actually put up a challenge. They made him wonder how the final hunt would turn out, when he would find the one worthy of hunting him.
However, this so-called hunter had turned out to be a miserable prey, and he had killed it quickly in disgust. People like that gave death a bad name.
"Too easy," he mumbled, "where is the fun in that?"
Two eyes were fixed on the prey's corpse as it was being devoured by the tree; one blind and one seeing... both equally blank and empty.
Slipping his shades on, hiding that which drew attention, the hunter left. With a silent command, he released the spells hiding his sakura from curious eyes. As he exited the eternal twilight, which surrounded the one place in the world holding any meaning at all for him, he was met by soft sunlight.
The park was very pretty today. Warmth filtering through blooming trees, smiling humans drifting through the mild day... it held its own simple beauty. He assumed it might have made another man sentimental. Not him, though, never the cold hunter.
He felt nothing for this world, this city. If not for his ward being tied to this area here, he might never have returned after...
Ah. That had, in all possible ways, been an exquisite hunt. A small smile graced his lips. Fond memories of twinkling green eyes, vivid in contrast to his own dead gaze, were examined again, a moments relief against the bleakness of the present.
A truly splendid hunt... and a Prey still not caught. Of course, that task was a mere formality, but still something he looked forward to.
"Do you like sakura?" As he'd formed the words, there had been no thoughts do anything more than to play a bit with the doll-like creature. Play, and as he got bored with it, rip apart the child that had intruded upon his sanctuary.
Many questions had he asked that day, and the Prey had answered. It had answered in, quite possibly, the only way which could catch his fleeting interest. This Prey's innocence had always been so endearing...
In the end, though, neither the answers, nor his Prey's physical beauty had been what convinced him to take up the bet. Certainly, the pretty eyes and the soft hair had its appeal – though he was a feral being, the primal aesthetics of the Earth and its children would always enchant a part of him.
Opposites.
They were the perfect opposites, and it drew him in, his hunter's instincts allowing nothing less.
He cared for nothing, lived to hunt and kill and see the blood flow. The other cared for all living things, existed to protect and heal. How could he not have become fascinated?
When marking the child as his Prey, he had made it the one being in the world he would suffer to protect. No one stole what belonged to him; the cold hunter would tear down the sky to keep the world away from his plaything.
Even as he was putting the inverted pentagram on its smooth, smooth hands, he had felt Destiny's pull on the small soul, had known there would be yet another aspect to their game.
Seal and Angel, though he had not yet been aware of their names at the time. The final protector, whose empathy reached throughout the entire planet, against him... the ultimate killer.
The empty smile grazed his lips as he ordered a cone of ice-cream, remembering other times... his Prey, and its imperfect mirror.
It had been a splendig creature too, but nothing could truly mirror purity – except him, corruption impersonated.
"Are you thinking of your special person?" a soft, female voice asked. It was too close, invading what he had observed others considered their personal space, and so he could not choose to ignore it.
"Excuse me?" The smiling persona slipped upon him, flawless.
Striking looks, indeed, but there was something flawed about her dark eyes, the full lips, even in the way which she held her curvaceous body.
His Prey was also marred. With his own bloodied hands had he wrung the innocent perfection apart, adding grief... hatred... endless despair to the fragile heart. In opposite, however, to the shattered and agonizingly beautiful thing he had molded his Prey into, she was still lacking something... Oh, of course.
She felt too much to remain unhurt by the injustice of reality. Yet, her feelings were not deep enough to gain the magnificence of an entire creation.
"Your special person," she said slowly, lips stretching into a knowing smile. "That one person, who mourned for your victims."
He did not hurry removing his sunglasses. The spiritual power he felt in her was dismissible; she would not hunt the hunter. No one could, not until he decided so.
Dropping the ice-cream in the nearest trashcan, he extended a hand towards her. It might seem like a welcoming gesture, but she was not foolish enough to accept death's invitation.
"Who are you?"
"Someone who has been searching for you for a long time, Sakurazukamori."
"For me?" he grinned, deciding to play with her. "Oh, how flattering that a beauty of your class shows interest in my humble self! Unfortunately, as my lady most certainly knows, my heart is reserved for another."
"Is it?" Her long red nails glinted in the sunlight, and she smiled, though it did not come within reach of the blank eyes.
"I though you were still considering, whether to end the hunt... or fulfill your wish."
Gentle smile still on his face, he pulled the sweetest fabric in the world around them. Illusions were his trademark, and weaving them his second craft besides death.
Illusions to haunt, to sway those weak of heart, to enthrall and to hide.
"Though you are a beauty, I do not discuss my wishes with strangers, my lady. Now, your name, and then... then your death, do you not think so?"
"You do not wish to kill me," she said. In spite of her almost perfect control over her face and voice, he saw her fear. It rolled of her in great waves, he saw it in her aura, could smell it from her body even with the overwhelming fragrance of sakura around them.
Fear did not make her any more appealing, as it had with his favorite Prey. Again, his mind wandered back to that time, comparing it to this boring day, and he wondered idly if he should start up another hunt.
"Hear me out, Sakurazukamori, and you will not regret it."
Even his patience had an end.
"You name."
Maybe sensing the growing menace behind his smile, she answered this time. "I am Kanoe. I have searched for you and your kind, Angel."
That actually caught him by surprise. For a while he simply let his gaze rest on the lush woman in front of him, processing her words. In his head, he went through old, but not forgotten, facts he had once collected.
"You are not an Angel, nor a Seal," he said, not waiting for her nod before continuing. "What business do you have with the final day?"
"I am a Dreamgazer, preparing for the return of Kamui," she explained. "I wish for you to join our cause. I could try to sway you with words, offerings, but..."
"Why waste your time?" he grinned. She knew of him, then, at least enough to think she could read his motives.
She smiled lightly, encouraged by his words. "We will need you, when the end comes – but you will also need us, if you wish to attain your goals. I came to convince you to join us."
This time, he let the dark smile rise. If the woman was who she claimed to be, she had better be prepared to meet creatures even darker than death personified.
"For this, you have dared an encounter with the Sakurazukamori... a highly risqué venture. Not to mention pointless – what interest do I hold in the fate of this world?"
"For you, who see all things alike, there can be no sentimental bonds tying you to humanity," she said, and he nodded slightly, acknowledging her words.
"Would it not be a relief to wipe out all those who destroy the beauty of this planet? End their senseless, pathetic struggle to create a 'fair' world. Give the Earth back to the beasts... nothing but hunter and hunted."
"My world is no more than that," he said, cutting her short. "The hunter am I, the hunted the world. Why," he said teasingly, "should I put myself out of commission?"
"Because if you helped us reform the Earth, you would not need to stand outside this dirty world... outside and unable to enter, try as you might."
He tried to stifle a laugh, and then decided there was no need to. Stand outside? Did he not have as much of the world he could wish for in this shady glen? But it seemed she truly though he wished to enter the confusion, the pain of humanity...
Another memory. Eyes, overflowing with life, breaking too easily as he pierced her heart ... and in a sterile white bed, his Prey shattering in response, as it found its world suddenly halved. Eternal darkness where laughs and brightness used to be, and nothing to fill the void with, except a hunter whose heart was an even colder emptiness.
Why would he ever wish for that, the insanity waiting just around the corner, the heart-ache and sorrow which was part of every normal life?
He was the Guardian... he was content with his bleak life. The thrill of a successful hunt, the rush of blood was more than enough for him. It had always been, it would always remain.
Mismatched eyes weighed her for a moment and found her too empty, too boring to play with. As if she knew of the killing strike about to come, not impossible considering what she claimed to be, she cried out, backing away from him.
"Your Prey! He is also involved in this, do you not know?"
"Of course," he sneered, annoyed that she had decided to make this messy. Boring targets were best to kill fast, but it seemed she would procrastinate.
"I know everything of my Prey. His past, his present... his future. They are all in my hands."
"Do you know his Wish?" she asked in a hushed tone.
The Wish... the one thing all humans crave beyond anything, the one need they can not live to see unfulfilled.
"I think I can guess," he said, and allowed the sakura to rain down around them. "Yes, I must say, I am fairly certain of it," he grinned, in memory savoring the feeling of her blood pooling out around them.
"I killed her, you know. His other Special Person, his double. I do not like sharing."
The woman's eyes were far away, and he wondered which of his words had triggered an emotion in her.
"Sharing can be difficult, but sometimes..." she stopped, and he realized she did not wish him to know. Ah well, he honestly didn't care about her hurts and pains.
"If you join us, if you fight for this Earth with me," she removed the hair from her forehead, revealing a tattoo of the third eye. Not a fraud then.
"You will face not only your plaything, but also Kamui."
"Kamui has his own mirror to face. I am certain destiny has been no kinder to him than to my sweet Prey."
"And what about your target's broken beauty?" she asked, not daring to press him too much, yet desperate to convince him. It made some sense; not many could rival the Sakurazukamori in pure strength.
"He was an innocent... would you not like to see that innocence again, rip it apart all over? Crush him, finally! This time, his blood would be spilled below the sakura. Because illusions and imitations only go that far, do they not?"
"She was never an imitation," he chided softly. "They were mirrors of each other, tables of the same scales... but real. She was a vibrant woman-child, her will for life flowing into him... into both of us, but in different ways."
Empty time. Time to kill.
The Prey would come when he called, but then what? His toy had been so thoroughly broken. The years were not nearly long enough to heal the loss of ones other half. Crushing shards was not something this hunter had ever enjoyed.
Gray days stretching out ahead of him...
The woman did not understand him, if she believed he actually gave one way or another about the future of this Earth.
As long as the sun rose and humanity sinned, he would weed the wrongdoers out. If it all ended, he would rest. As Guardian, he existed only to fill a need.
So much time to kill.
Time, where he could do nothing but kill or watch the sakura fall...
A new game? No, the continuation of an old one, of his most spectacular hunt. Maybe it *was* time to end it, to finally bury those vibrant days and the innocent eyes. Such a splendid dance they would weave this time, filling their mutual emptiness with blood and magic. And then...
He would remain. Continue his silent vigil, savoring the memories of hunting and killing during long, empty days.
Or, if destiny so wished, he would finally manage to destroy the innocence utterly. The void would find a new heart to inhabit, but that prospect was less than likely.
His words from then returned, swirling in his mind like the ever-present petals. "Let's make a bet..."
Many years ago, they had formed their pact. The Prey had failed to hold his part, and paid dearly for it. He hardly thought it would fare better this round of the Game – but it would be entertaining to see it try.
"Join us," she asked him, not phased by his grim expression. "For the renewal of the Earth, for the finish of your long hunt."
Green eyes, matted with pain and frustration. Eyes which had once burned with love and caring. Now, they shone only with the obsession of those who have left this world behind for pursue of other goals.
The sakura danced around them, eternal and heartless.
"Do you know..." he had asked, "do you know why the petals are pink?"
They child his Prey had been had not known the answer, but one day... So, he had postponed the end of the hunt.
Though the betrayal, the loss of its other half, had given it a certain understanding, the Prey was still too much of a child. It had not learned completely, did not understand in its heart, which was necessary for his Wish to come true.
Would raising the bets help?
Such an end... such an end to this hunt, which had spanned over a decade! Purity against corruption, Heaven against Earth, compassion against emptiness... Maybe even the fulfillment of the one thing they shared, of their Wish.
An end to the gray days.
"I accept."
She hardly believed him, he saw. It did not matter if she mistrusted him, or if she found him easily swayed. What did he care for the opinion of this small woman?
He only wished to play again, with his favorite kill... it had been too long ago that he'd seen himself reflected in emerald-green eyes.
"When Kamui returns, I shall greet him," he said softly. "And I shall fight... for this Earth, as you put it."
An insane joy spread through the woman's eyes, but she shielded herself fast enough. Still young, but with a certain potential, he figured.
The gray days would end. Together with his Prey, he would replace them with strikingly red nights, and pitch-black moments.
"I am honored to greet you as an ally, Sakurazukamori. Thank you, for aiding us in this final struggle," she said formally.
"Do not. You see..." the sakura where whirling frantically now, obscuring him from her view.
"I fight not for this Earth. I fight for Him... I shall fight Him, and not even the end of the world can change that. Because what I claim, I keep, and He is mine down to the ache in His heart."
He left her. Released the illusion and retreated to his apartment. The Kamui had not yet appeared, but he could wait. Patience was, after all, one of his few virtues.
Soon, he would not have to kill time anymore... he would hunt heavenly dragons.
"Without me, he would have been a useless pawn, broken beyond repair," he mused, not caring that the woman had no way of hearing him.
"You have stirred the hunter, Dreamgazer, and in that also awaken Him. We are opposites and he will grow in my shadow as I do in his light. In the end... ah, the end of all, the final death... we shall fulfill our wishes."
He chuckled, and softly touched his empty eye. Angel and Seal; destroyer and protector... but first and foremost Opposites, defined by each other, challenged by each other - balanced by each other.
"Come, Subaru-kun. Come home and play with me again. I have a promise to hold... and it is due time for the Hunt to end."
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The end.
Well, what you think?
Sakura - Cherry (tree)
Sakurazukamori - Guardian of the Sakura Barrow
Kamui - The Majesty of God (or with a different kanji) the One Who Hunts the Majesty of God