I Survive
Disclaimer: Seishirou Sakurazuka created and owned by Clamp. Shiki Ryougi created and owned by Kinoku Nasu and Type-Moon. Name and inspiration for this fic come from the Lacuna Coil song I Survive.
Warnings: Spoilers for X and Kara No Kyoukai. I strongly advise you to not read this if you aren't familiar with both characters, or it won't make any sense. Also this is an action/horror oriented fic so it contains language, violence and blood. Finally I dedicate this to my friend Morganna "Luna" Melin for pushing me to write.
She walked sheepishly on the sidewalk, head down to avoid the burning rays of the summer sun pounding like a hammer on her body. The exhaust fumes of the passing cars made her empty stomach quake and scream. Finally the staring eyes of the pedestrians marveling on her beauty and her unique clothing style, a white kimono and a bright red leather jacket, made her already sweaty skin crawl. The only thing stopping Ryougi Shiki from a rampage in the middle of down town Tokyo was the constant thought replaying in her head.
I'm going to kill him. Kokuto is going die once I get home.
She hated going out during the day, and never did unless she absolutely had to, or on rare occasion wanted to, and in today's case she found herself forced to. Touko had an errand for Mikiya and he thrust it upon Shiki calling in some bizarre favor he claimed she owned him. She told him to rot in hell sticking the so called dept up his, and he started bitching about it, like a sixteen year old girl that was not allowed to go on a date. Finally Shiki agreed to go do the errand of getting some stupid thesis from some stupid occult researcher for Touko, so Kokuto could go have lunch with his uncle.
But now Shiki had regreted it, thus coming to the very sound conclusion of making a bloody pulp of Mikiya Kokuto for having her do this. She tacked these happy thoughts on a corner of her head when she reached the street that the man's office was supposedly located scanning the area for the number of his building sighing when she saw it, mentally bracing herself for the upcoming and much loathed social pleasantries the researcher would throw at her.
She dragged her feet in the 6 story building and headed for the elevator checking the small piece of paper she held in her hand to make sure she had the right apartment number, and then pushed 4 on the control panel. Once she got out of the elevator she walked the empty corridor reaching the researchers' door Shiki raised her fist and knocked.
A small pound made the door creak and open slightly and Shiki raised an eyebrow. Then she saw darkness coming from the crack that had formed and stared at it for a few seconds trying to decide if she should go in or call out to the tenant. But then as she stared at the darkness it moved, like a shifting cloud or some bizarre monster. Shiki pulled back a meter hardening her expression, making her body rigid and stiff for the moments her hand slowly slipped for the large knife hidden in her kimono sash. And once she firmly gripped the hilt she sprang inside the living darkness.
She tumbled and rolled into ever stretching erebus oozing everywhere landing on top of some kind of stone platform immediately she stood up. As far as she could see there was a black smoke under a glass floor stretching to eternity, mountains of razor rocks coming out of an endless darkened sky, moving and shifting and changing their shape. And on top of a giant stone pillar right across her own hovering above her, a man in the eye of a storm made out of sakura petals falling around him dancing and encircling him.
He was tall, his hair dark and sort and perfect, he wore a black suit with leather gloves, and his eyes were hidden behind a pair of sunglasses. He looked down at Shiki and for a moment he had an expression of surprise that quickly faded and turned into a grin colder and sharper than glass and ice. Shiki could see blood, a stream of blood connecting the dancing petals with each other. Those flowers, they were beautiful and fragile, and proof of the lives he had taken. She couldn't even count them.
"You must have some sort of rare power to see, and enter here."
His voice was mellowed and honeyed but Shiki knew the tone all to well, she used it quiet often, predator to prey, and she tensed her body eyes fixed on the man knowing he was about to bare his claws.
"Let's see what sort of power you possess."
He raised a hand and Shiki turned to locate the rumbling sound coming from one of the huge rocks fixed into the dark sky, it moved and slithered and shot itself with outstanding speed to crush her like a fly.
She raised her knife between seconds, it's tip touched the tip of the rock, or rather it touched one of the colorful lines Shiki saw on it's body. The rock riped in two giant halves crushing on her left and right, causing an impact when they hit the floor raising a blast of wind and smoke that blew her shouldered length dark hair in front of her face hiding her features for a few seconds and when her strands settled down her eyes glowed a color of burning blue and red.
Then she turned with a haughty smile matching that of her assailants', pointing her knife on him.
"We're dancing now. Murderer".
He smiled bearing white teeth, raised and brought his arm down and this time all the countless mountains from the sky started to fall on her, a rock avalanche. She jumped down falling to the glass floor landing gracefully on her feet, the rocks crashing down around her, she leaped again and twirled and struck her knife barely grazing the rocks that came at her each one almost simultaneously and they blew up turning into bright colored sakura petals flowing on the wind. The killer's cold expression turned to one of a child's that had been given a new toy, whispering one word to himself.
"Interesting."
She swirled, a typhoon hitting a sea, moving through the rocks and sprinting toward the pilar he stood on, fixing herself on the target, covering a distance that seemed miles away, into seconds.
The man opened his hand chant coming out of his lips, energy erupting from his palm, a blast of power that took form, a giant black falcon nesting on his wrist.
"Hunt."
He ordered and then it flew like lighting towards Shiki just when her knife was inches away from striking the pillar. She turned and dodged back to avoid razor claws when she felt the falcon swooping for her head, missing her chance. She raised her left arm and made a quick movement of grasping the falcon even as it ascended, flying once again into the air, fairly large distance separating the two. And then around it appeared a white glow in the form a grapping hand, the falcon screeched, and struggled to free itself from Shiki's ghostly grip. Shiki smiled and thrusted her arm to her own direction. The falcon fell towards her knife, she smiled, and the beast vanished into mist.
Ofuda paper streams came rushing out of the man's cuffs each strip caught fire and a red river inferno came down the pillar. Shiki once again jumped back in order to position herself for counter action. She had the hang of his spells now, multilayered evolving illusions and she determined that the simplest way to end this was one clear strike unto the man it would break his playground into a million pieces.
Kill the mage, kill the spell.
But she couldn't see him anymore, as the river of fire came crushing down on her. One quick glance and a leap towards the flames Shiki threw herself into the furnace with a scream.
Then as the flames swallowed her they stopped moving. An explosion of sakura petals blew up replacing the fire and Shiki stood right beneath the large pillar, unharmed smiling towards him her knife already plunged into the rock.
"It ends now."
She drew the blade out, and the monument came crashing down, the black clad killer gliding towards her like a doll whose strings were cut, she raised her knife aiming for the lines of death accumulating on the assassin's heart, taking note at how uncanny small and thin they were.
She build up her killing intent, let it soar in her mind and take over, gripped her knife with all her strength, held her breath until she felt her lungs burn, and as she pulled her strength in order to strike, she jumped to meet him in the air.
She landed meters away, her boots causing a sound from the friction on the glass ground that were akin to a car pulled violently to stop, and she cursed under her breath looking at her stainless blade. She missed, no, she didn't strike at all Kokuto's face flashed in her minds' eye shattering her conviction to kill and she pulled out.
"That bastard, that bastard, THAT BASTARD!"
Trying to catch her breath she quickly turned around to face her enemy but he was gone out of her sight, she was petrified, she knew, how the mind of a man that enjoyed killing worked, she had convinced herself she had one. She tried to turn again but it was too late, she felt a cold leather clad hand caressing her spine.
"Caught you."
Ecstatic, smiling, griping the arm that held the knife, with one hand Sakurazuka Seishirou pulled his other arm back and with a fluid motion, palm open, shoved it into Shiki's back, flesh ripping ,blood gushing Shiki screaming from the pain.
Then as his fingers like hot knives entered further in her body dripping blood on their feet Seishirou felt something with his fingertips, something cold, and vast, and infinite. No, not something everything but something, endless nothing pulling him in, swallowing him whole. And he knew, he knew the "empty body" of this girl would unmake him. And for the first time in his life he was scared, he wouldn't be able to see him again, his precious prey that was innumerably more valuable than this girl. He held his hand for a few seconds, when he heard the sound of something opening, like a small box or case, and a tiny object sprang through the air before Shiki pulled her left arm free grabbing her second knife almost simultaneously as she had released it from her artificial arm.
She spin around knife in hand, striking blindly, black blood dripped from his forehead, his sunglasses broken into thousand peaces, his one yellow and one glass eye revealed, staring amusingly now bare at her. Once again she held her strength , grazing instead of chopping his head.
That moment both knew, neither could do it, neither could kill the other.
Seishirou ignored the hot pain coming from his forehead, reaching for a tucked away cigarette, placing it on his lips lighting it, and taking a in a slow breath of nicotine, eye transfixed on the panting Shiki who seemed to struggle to decide if she should or could attack again.
He smiled that cold smile again and as he let his breath go, the illusion of the black space dissolved before he took the next one.
Now they were in the middle of a sunlit tiny apartment filled with books, and behind Seishirou, Shiki saw the body of a middle aged man, a whole in his chest, a puddle of blood on the floor, eyes lifeless staring at her.
She grinded her teeth but didn't move, even when the killer started walking towards her, stoping on her right side.
"You're too kind."
He said and reached the exit, leaving Shiki with the body in the small apartment neither looked back to see the other. She reined her breathing after a few moments, when the sense of danger passed, she tucked the knives away and wrapped her leather jacket around her waist in order to slow the bleeding in her back the wound wasn't deep and she could bear the pain for now. She went over the desk on the other side of the room, not averting her eyes from the dead man, she picked the phone on top of it and dialed a number. Her heart jumped, when she heard his voice saying a simple hello, and she drowned a happy choke.
"Kokuto, come pick me up."
And she slammed the phone before he could answer, looking sadly at the unavenged man.
"I'm sorry."
She said solemnly and with a blood stained hand she closed the man's eyelids down so he wouldn't have to stare at the void anymore.