A/N: This chapter is more foundation for the rest of the stuff that's happening, you can say it's like reasons why this and this happened in the story.. Another explaining chapter I suppose but hey this time you get to hear about brother's side of the story and his oh so fabulous connection with our 'to be or not to be' lovers!

Chapter 21: The Other Side Of the River

Fate ran faster and faster, only if her power wasn't so useless on palace grounds then she could've been back at the house already. Her breath became heavier as she pushed herself to run faster, they just had to be alive they wouldn't give up their lives without a fight especially Izumi. Her side were in stitches as the pain seared through her body, she was not liking the whole idea of running to the portal exit to the mortal world. What ever was in the future she was ready to take head on even if it meant a fight with her brother. She reached the first gate of the portal end and was about to go through when her father's voice boomed from behind her making her jump from surprise at the power of his vocals.

"Fate." she turned around and found him right behind her, damn for a man of a few millennia years old he was still had his speed.

"Yes?" she moaned, she didn't exactly have the time to stand around and chit chat around with her old man right now, but he was getting closer and she could feel the lecture coming on about being careful around her brother, she faced her father.

"Those weren't the only memories stored within the book, the story that has no ending." he said cryptically that Fate raised an eyebrow at him in question.

"What? I have no idea what you just said... Dad, this isn't exactly the best times to give me one of those fortune cookie lectures." she said exasperated at his mysterious ways, she turned away again when he spoke up again.

"No. Those memories I suppressed from you, those weren't the only ones. I've been removing life time of memories from you Fate you have the know the whole truth before you go face him, that way it'll end this time or else the cycle will go on." he went on, Fate turned around and looked at her father with confused eyes.

"I can't believe that one life time wasn't enough for you that you had to erase my whole life!" she wailed throwing her arms in the air for emphasis, her father sighed and shifted in his robes

"When he died the first time... you went hysterical. It was the most painful days..watching you wither and cry in your room unwilling to come out. I didn't want you to go through it again... but I allowed you to see him because it made you so happy." he said softly sitting on a stone bench near the Crystal Fountain, he patted the seat next to him and Fate looking back at the swirling mist behind her then reluctantly went and sat beside her father, even if time was tight she wanted to know what really happened in her life, the part where it was stored between pages of a book.

"But the story didn't start there, I only began recording your story when it became necessary. The real story began with Izumi and Takuya, fated lovers since the beginning of time and I must tell you it's not exactly a happy ending. You were sent into it's contents only after when Izumi had feared to open up when Takuya shattered her heart. After that she just never wanted to be in love again and thing started going bad. Her clamped shut feelings are the only way out for her if she doesn't then the whole thing will start all over, that fool of a girl. The boy was brave in the end he was able to tell her but she still wouldn't believe him or herself that she was in love that young man. The purest of all loves and she's letting fear control her emotions and her actions so that you and the rest of them are chained in until she admits her heart to him." Fate listened with a faint heart as she turned her head and looked at the portal with uneasy eyes then back at her dad who has stopped the story. He was staring at a pair of birds on the branch above them, nestling against each other for warmth and comfort. "The easiest thing and she couldn't bring herself to say it to him." she touched his hand and urged him to go on, "Their souls will be tormented with death over and over again, more violent than the time before until there's nothing left of it that way the story will finally have an ending." She froze in her seat with her eyes growing big at his last statement.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa. You mean the complete annihilation of all their souls?! As in they can't even cross over? Doesn't that mean then..." she trailed off looking straight into her her old man's blue violet eyes and she held her breath.

"It's like they never existed." he finished for her, she took a heavy intake of breath at his answer, no it just couldn't happen like that! She needed Kouichi even if he died at least she would know that his spirit is somewhere safe.

"How does he play into this story?" she finally asked the question that had been nagging at her since the conversation began and her father actually laughed, "What's so funny? This is serious matter!"

"Believe it or not, it's because he meddled into a mortal's affair too that got him into this story along with you and anybody else standing too close to a human. He's a lot like you even if you won't admit it, you two came from the same mother in fact twins honey. You just don't understand his part of the chapter yet." Fate was disgusted at the way her dad was comparing her to her twin brother, she never mentioned it to anyone that she was his twin, it was good that she looked nothing like him or else other's would have speculated something. She hated him with all her heart and soul that it sucked having have been born from the same womb as him.

"I'm nothing like that murderer." she spat bitterly, her fingers wrenched around a small part of her dress and it wrinkled under her touch. "He's a killer, a cold-blooded killer."

"He might be, but you two were special when your mother brought you two along. I knew it the moment I laid eyes on you two in your mother's arms. One with silver hair and one of dark chocolate with beautiful lilac eyes and the other of ruby red." he mused recalling the days of Fate and her brother's infant days.

"We might be twins and we might share the same blood, but doesn't mean we share the same morals and beliefs let alone the same way of thinking." she retorted with a sharp tone and her father chuckled a low laugh from the bottom of his chest then looked straight into her eyes.

"Tell me one thing we have in common." she challenged giving him a look of a daring daughter ready to rip her brother's name to shreds.

"You two learned to fall in love. Not just anybody... but mortals. Something us Guardians don't know how to do... to love and feel those emotions that humans feel.." he revealed which sent Fate into mental shock, 'That's impossible..!' her inner voice shouted that it clouded her ears for a moment. "He was in Ireland picking up the remains of lost souls when he saw a lass named Caroline picking berries and he was gone from there. Then she fell ill, and like every human she had to go... you can say it was her time. He tried everything in his power to save her but his job was inevitable as her name appeared on the list... that's when he started to go astray. He turned bitter and angry at his fate and went off to kill to seal away the pain that he knew he was going to experience when he lost her. The thrill of killing only lasted so long that soon he was looking for more 'longer-lasting' souls." he explained and Fate picked up from there.

"That's when he found out about Izumi and Takuya's souls and went after them." She said finally understanding some part of this long story herself.

"The only thing he could do was slow down time for her, but she's still dying..." he murmured under his breath and touching his long greying beard.

"What happened to her?" Fate asked quietly finally knowing her older brother's story, it was so much like Izumi's yet so different.

"She sleeps in a sealed glass box since that day he brought her in awaiting her prince to return and awaken her from her slumber only to face death when her eyes open." he sighed sadly shaking his head.

"Isn't there anyway to save her then maybe brother will stop pursuing such useless and dangerous goals?" Fate asked hopefully but it was crushed when Lord Jikoku shook his head again.

"Humans must die, it's the cycle of life for them... there won't be anything to live for if their petty lives just went on... the only thing that can save her is if an Immortal willingly gives up his or her immortality to that specific human than there's nothing holding back the human from living forever." he stated as if memorizing from a book. Fate sat there thinking about the things she had just heard, there is only one ending to this fairy tale and that is of that of a happy one whether Izumi wants it or not! And she was going to stop her brother from his recent killing sprees the last two centuries even if it meant going toe to toe with him she was ready to take on her full responsibility as the Guardian Fate.

"He was the one that broke her heart over and over again.. but in the end it is that exact person that she must open up to even if he was the one that hurt her the most." she noted understanding Izumi for the first time, "It must be hard to love someone like that..." she was in her own world when her Lord Jikoku touched her shoulder and she looked up at him.

"Are you still going?" he asked her not as a authoritative figure but as a father, he was concerned about her safety, it didn't matter whether she had powers or not but it was her biggest task that could change the future for many. She nodded and stood up heading towards the churning clouds of purple and blue, before she stepped in she turned around.

"Hey dad... did you love mother?" They stood there for a moment in silence then finally he broke into a simple smile and answered her.

"Yes, I did very much." she grinned and put a foot through the portal and gave him one last statement before she disappeared into the drizzle of light.

"I guess I'm not the only one who learned to love then." She twisted her body around again and was gone with a blast of bright light.

"Be safe my daughter."