'SANCTUARY' was the first fanfiction I ever posted to It was taken down a long time ago.

This is a rewrite (the title of this comes from both that this IS a rewrite and from the song by Asian Kung Fu Generation) of Sanctuary. I've been debating posting this for a while, but with some encouragement from my beta-reader and a bottle of green tea, here it is.

REWRITE

Ichi--- 'Erase'

The woman stood with her back to the door, glancing through the rows and rows of books on all scientific and alchemical topics she could find. Nothing could help her explain what the other scientific team had done.

She had tried and tried to contact the people she wished, but never prevailed.

A knock resounded through the office, and she glared over to the wooden door in the dimly-lit room.

"What is it?" she asked, annoyed, flipping her long black hair over her shoulder.

Neez's timid and shrill voice rose above the silence. "Someone...is here to see you, Dr Asagoi."

"Tell them I'm busy, Neez."

"But..." Neez said, and a suspicious sounding 'click' was made. Dr. Asagoi couldn't believe Neez was trying to open the door.

"Who is it." Asagoi said impatiently, annoyed that her secretary was trying to barge in.

"Sh...Shiva-sama is here to see you."

The doctor's face wiped itself of all emotion as nervousness set in. "Let...let her in."

The clicking noise was made and Asagoi realized it didn't really sound like it could be the door...

"The door is locked!" Neez screamed, followed by a whimper from the secretary and an impatient sigh...from someone else.

Dr Asagoi threw open the door and Neez stood, sweat rolling down her face and a small handgun to her head. Slowly, the doctor's eyes followed the gloved hand until she came up to the inhuman eyes of the infamous Shiva of the Darcias.

Asagoi had heard many things about Shiva; some so gruesome and horrible they could not be attributed to anyone in history. Many were positively unbelievable in the least. But nothing could truly prepare her for what she saw.

What really was 'Shiva the Sad One' was so strange and unworldly and grotesque that the doctor couldn't help but marvel at the beauty that haunted this being's features.

Her eyes were perhaps the most shocking part. They were sky-blue, which could be considered normal, except for the fact she had no pupil (yet was not blind like the other hanabito), and her actual eyeball, which on every other living this was white, was black. No traces of white or even veins were found in her eyes. Her lips were purest black, and as her mouth widened into an amused grin the doctor saw two rows of pointed silvery-white teeth, and as this being moved to speak Asagoi saw her whole entire mouth was blue and her tongue was black.

Shiva watched in giddy amusement as Dr Asagoi looked over her. Be impressed. Be amazed. Be afraid; she thought with a laugh.

The doctor saw dull blue-black hair and grey skin, marked with black scars of the moonlight crucible and containment unit. Even now the chains still hung from her wrists; black onyx and jet, the doctor noted.

Neez let out a cry to remind everyone she was still alive and Shiva rolled her eyes with impatience.

"Are you done?" Shiva said, blinking. Asagoi looked up, also blinking, but in confusion.

The hanabito sighed. "Damnit, woman, are you DONE GAWKING AT ME! I hate resorting to human measures to kill humans! It's like babies eating babies. It might be fun to watch but you feel kinda sick at the same time..."

Asagoi nodded. "Gomen nasai, Shiva-sama. I wasn't expecting you to be so..."

"--Fucked up. Get to what you were going to say beforehand." the hanabito finished for her, looking up to the doctor.

"Gomen nasai. But you're not as...tall as they said you were..." the doctor noted, looking down at Shiva.

"They make up a lot of stories about me, don't they?" Shiva grinned, her smooth and deep voice taunting the doctor. Asagoi could see why so many men fell under her power when she imposed as a human.

It was like speaking to a historical figure, Asagoi thought. This being had such a legacy and story behind her--

"That's why I'm here. So many people tell stories, you see..." Shiva finished Asagoi's thought, lowering her handgun and walking into the office. The doctor watched dumbly as Shiva sat in her desk and swiveled around in the doctor's own chair, making herself at home.

"And you seem to be the main influence."

"Gomen nasai, Shiva-sama. What?" Dr Asagoi asked stupidly, and Shiva rolled her eyes once more.

"That was fancy human-speak for 'you're telling lies about me and I'm getting pissed'."

"Oh. Oh! Gomen nasai, Shiva-sama."

"Oh...By the way..." Shiva said, glancing with a concerned look to the doorway. "Shouldn't you do something about that?"

Asagoi looked and saw Neez, collapsed, on the floor.

"Oh. Neez. She must have fainted."

The hanabito shrugged. "To be expected. How many of them damn things are around?" Shiva asked boredly, waving her handgun in the general direction of the servant.

"Oh. We uh...took her from Darcia's keep. We stormed altogether to grab as many of the hanabito as we could but we only got Cheza and--"

The doctor paused upon seeing the look on Shiva's face.

"Gomen nasai, Shiva-sama. I didn't know you still held a grudge."

Shiva smiled sardonically. "Oho. You assume many things, as I've seen."

The doctor remained silent a moment before speaking. "The lab split and they got Cheza. We got Neez."

"Your 'Neez' is only one of many." the hanabito noted boredly, spinning around in the doctor's desk chair again.

"Excuse...me?"

"There's enough of Neez to run the country. You picked the right one, though. She's surprisingly the brightest."

Shiva laughed.

"Your expression. You're very surprised. Yeah, Darcia didn't make them so smart." she noted quietly, thumbing through a book on the desk.

"So what is it...you have come to correct?"

"Your book."

"You...read it!"

"Damn straight. It isn't right, in the least. I do NOT 'suck' blood, I am not over seven feet tall, I AM a female and..." Shiva paused, thumbing through the book and coming upon the page she was looking for, noted: "I can...have...sex. How awkward can you write this, woman?"

The doctor looked sick a moment as Shiva read it and giggled; "You're REAL creative. I'll give you credit."

"I was NOT created by Darcia, by-the-way. I was only developed by him. I was created, placed in a containment unit, given to Darcia." she said, once again; thumbing through a book about herself.

"Given?"

"...Did I not say it?"

There was a long silence, and Asagoi stared at Shiva's one gloved hand.

"I've heard you can turn your fingers into blades."

"No...not blades. But...I can make them longer and sharper. Think about it..." Shiva said, pulling off the glove. The doctor felt sick as she saw the cut-up grey fingers that had been concealed under the glove. They oozed light green liquid...like a...

"Yeah. Think about it a minute. I was made from a flower. So I'm kind of like a plant. My fingers are my thorns."

Asagoi gave it thought for a minute and realized this was taking 'every rose has a thorn' a little too far.

Shiva slipped the glove back on and the doctor realized Shiva had no fingernails on either hand.

"My ears do exist, too." Shiva said, making another note on a page in the book she was looking through. "They're pointy. They're pierced, too. You made a mention of that, but how can they be pierced when they don't exist, like on this page?"

Much like a child, Shiva shoved the book in Asagoi's face with an eager look.

"I see." the doctor said finally, her face red.

"You didn't think I'd at least hear about it, eventually?" Shiva said, hurt.

"Well...they thought...you were dead."

"No. Just because Cheza is dead doesn't mean I am, too."

"So you're...the last?"

"Yes. But I am much, much different than Cheza or any of the other hanabito. You could say my sister and I were the only ones."

"Your...sister?"

"Yeah. We were twins. That's why Darcia took us when our creator offered...he was partial to us."

"So...what was her name?"

"Kalmia." Shiva said non-chalantly.

Everything in the doctor's mind was being re-written in front of her eyes. The fact that Shiva, THE Shiva of the Darcias, Shiva the Sad One, Lady Nataraja, sat in front of her changed everything from the start. But this was going to an extreme...

"What did...What did Kalmia look like? What happened to her?"

Shiva's grin slid into a crooked frown, and she looked forlornly at the Berber carpeting. "Kalmia..." the hanabito reminisced quietly. "She looked almost exactly like me. But her hair was longer...and green. She was very, very green and sick-looking."

"Like a--"

"Yes." Shiva finished for the doctor, "Like a diseased lunar flower. She was green and thin. She was actually created a brilliant white. She looked so very human, from far away...although, like an albino. But if you got close...you noticed things that were out of place. And as soon as Darcia acquired her she fell ill..."

"Is that how...she died? And when?"

"That is not how she died."

Asagoi watched Shiva and gave her undivided attention. When she finally realized Shiva had stopped speaking, the doctor stood. "I'm sorry. Can I get a notebook?"

Shiva thought a moment and nodded. When the doctor acquired a notebook and pen from in front of Shiva, she sat down in the guest chair and started writing. When she finished writing she persisted in learning more about this 'Kalmia'.

"So what...did eventually kill her?"

"I did." Shiva responded. The hanabito never ever felt remorse for killing any living being...except for her sister.

"Why?" Asagoi asked, noting the regret in Shiva's eyes.

"She was sick. She couldn't take it anymore...she asked me to kill her. And I did."

Dr. Asagoi bit her lip as she watched the so-called 'Flower of Hell'.

"Don't you dare think I'm soft," the hanabito threatened, "I just hated her like that. After a while...since we were so closely linked...I started to die, too."

"I didn't think that at all, Shiva-sama." Asagoi corrected quietly, adding in a short bow of her head.

"Good. Now, to finish what I was saying. I killed her about 8 years after being released from the moonlight containment unit."

"A storage unit." Asagoi laughed, and Shiva shook her head.

"No. We were still developing. Had we been immediately released, we would have died immediately in contact with the oxygen and sulfur in the air."

"There's...barely any sulfur in the air--"

"It could still have killed us. As it is...Kalmia was still sick."

Shiva waited for the doctor to finish writing. "So, what is your name? Can I call you by something besides 'Dr. Asagoi'?", she asked, reading her nametag.

The doctor nodded. "My name is Asagoi Bara."

"Nice name, Bara. Now, do I need to correct your book by dissecting it page-by-page, or do you want to ask more questions?"

Bara smiled. "Thanks. Now, lets start with...how are you? What are you doing currently?"

"I'm hungry, actually..."

Dr Asagoi choked.

Shiva laughed. "I don't drink blood and I don't eat children. I don't really eat at all...but every now and then..."

"Wh...what do you eat, Shiva-sama?"

"Food." Shiva said, raising an eyebrow.

"I mean 'what kind of food'?"

"Whatever I've been lacking."

"Like...?"

"I think I'm lacking protein, this time."

"Oh...gomen nasai, Shiva-sama. I don't understand--"

"That much is obvious." Shiva said dully, waving the doctor's own book in her face.

Bara took some more notes, and she situated herself again. "Well, when Neez wakes up--"

"--If she ever does--" Shiva added.

"--She can order us something from the cafeteria."

"I've always heard cafeteria food sucks. Not very good." the hanabito mused, and Bara laughed.

"School food does, yes. I should really say the kitchen, but...Who has a kitchen in a scientific facility?"

"An unsanitary one." Shiva said without thinking. The room was silent a moment and she waved her hand.

"I'm sorry, Bara. Just joking."

The doctor glared at her a moment and took a few notes. Shiva was almost sure as to what they regarded.

"Moreover...Can you start at the beginning?" Asagoi asked, and Shiva hesitated a moment.

"Like...when?"

"When you were first released from the moonlight containment unit."

"Alright then..." Shiva said, swiveling the chair once more. She made herself comfortable and adjusted her jacket, and her feet propped up on the table (Bara scowled as her papers got marks from Shiva's boots on them).

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Please review and tell me how confused you are.

Also, please read the second chapter before flaming me. It'll start to come together...:sweatdrop: