Disclaimers: Subaru and Sei-chan all belong to Clamp (Tokyo Babylon). I'm only borrowing them, though I'm having evil ideas of kidnapping Subaru. :P
Warning: Spoilers, spoilers, and spoilers! If you haven't read TB, you may not get some of the references as this is based on a certain event in the series, the 7th tankouban to be specific. Who was that little girl Sei-chan killed when he met Subaru for the first time?
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Precious Thing
"What's your most precious thing, Aya-chan?"
The girl tilts her head, frowning, her feathery little brows drawing together in fierce concentration. She is a pretty child, with pouty rosebud lips and huge dark eyes. Only five years old, she looks like a pretty doll, with pale skin and long lashes.
"My doll, Kiki-chan!" she beams, her eyes bright. "Tousan gave her to me on my birthday!"
She looks so kawaii, her head cocked, like whispering a secret.
The sakura petals drift past in a slow stream, a pale, pale pink.
Outside, her mother is calling.
"Aya! Aya-chan, where are you?" The woman wanders by, almost brushing by the little girl, and her eyes are misted with worry. A doll dangles by the arm, clutched as tightly as she wants to hold her darling Aya. Aya-chan doesn't notice, nor do her huge eyes light up when her doll swings by, its eyes glassy and blank.
So unlike little Aya-chan, whose clear eyes can only belong to a sweet little girl like her.
"What do you think is your Tousan and Kaasan's most precious thing?" I ask, smiling.
Ah, only children are so honest with their emotions. Aya's soft, fawn eyes are sad instantly.
"Money."
Then she looks up, almost defiantly tossing her hair. "But Aya-chan is second!"
"Aya-chan," I say, and smile. "Would you like to be your parents' most precious thing?"
**************
I spend far too much time playing, I suppose.
I lean against the branches, while we watch Aya-chan's parents run in frantic circles inside my maraboshi. It's not a true maraboshi; it merely makes it impossible for anyone to see us, and it lays a subtle compulsion for those caught within the invisible magic circle to stay in. Aya-chan's parents circle us without knowing it; her father is an aging scientist with thick-framed glasses, while her mother was a manager of some big department store, now a retired housewife.
Aya's father has been working on some rather poisonous chemicals. They probably won't see the light of day for several years more, if ever; it's a dangerous research project that's being undertaken with greatest secrecy. But if they lose Aya's father, it will be decades before it gets off the ground. I think of it as my good deed for the future. It will be many, many years later before those chemicals are developed. Just pushing away the inevitable for a little more.
It's odd. When the man who created the Sakurazukamori first set the spell, tying it to the sakura tree, he certainly never meant for us to evolve into an assassin group. The cherry guardian was merely meant to protect Japan, to be the shadow reflection of the Sumeragi, using darker arts to coerce, threaten, eliminate and occasionally kill. Naturally, it was always much easier to kill. It's much harder to come back from the dead than planning a comeback alive. Of course, not everyone finds that idea agreeable, nor is the mass murder of men, enemies or no-- something that can be hidden easily. Sakurazukamori became only one person, not a group-- it's hard to disagree with yourself whether you should kill or not. (1)
As the Sakurazukamori, my next task was to kill the chief scientist of the experiment. The Cherry made an ideal judge and jury of those who would harm Nippon; money or other human things certainly couldn't sway it. All it required of course, was the executioner.
Me.
I inhale the sweet fragrance of the sakura clustering around us, and study him thoughtfully. I could, of course, kill Aya-chan's father. It's a very effective way of stopping the project. Certainly, the Cherry agrees; stopping the project the most efficient way is certainly what I'm supposed to do. But it wouldn't be long before a new scientist replaced him, and I certainly don't want to spend my summer holidays stalking them.
But if Aya's father lost something very precious to him, what would he do? Oh, he probably wouldn't work for weeks-- perhaps even months. But once depression sets in, it doesn't go away all that easily. It's a rather sneaky enemy, and he might start drinking. Get careless. Be suicidal. Not pay attention to those tiny, important details that might kill him one day. And the project will flounder. It'll eat up all that precious money politicians are so fond of, and funding will get cut. The project might even well be shut down and archived, good only for collecting dust.
Ideal. I've always wanted to go to Hokkaido for a holiday. Perhaps I'll get a tan.
"Aya! Aya! Where are you?" His hair is disheveled now; he's sweating and pale. Not even his wife could lure him out of the labs; but a threat to his daughter works wonders. Its not that I couldn't slip in, but I'm not foolish enough to believe I'm perfect yet, and there are too many security cameras for me to chance. Machines aren't so easy to fool as the human mind.
I laugh silently, until a small tug on my sleeve disturbs my thoughts.
"Kaasan... and even Tousan...Aya-chan's their most precious thing, right, Seishirou-oniisan?"
She wriggles in my lap so that she can face me, her eyes huge and serious, wide with awe at the thought that a simple disappearance could cause her parents to worry so. Below her, her mother calls desperately, clutching Kiki-chan to her chest, her words muffled by the second layer of maraboshi I have around us.
"Hai! Aya-chan is so kawaii, of course Aya-chan is precious!" I lightly pinch her nose, making her giggle. Enough now. Panic and the seeds of doubt have already been sown, and it will be a long, long time before they stop their search, never dreaming that their darling daughter was so close by. Perhaps they'll even get a divorce, blaming each other for Aya-chan's disappearance.
With a mental flick, I dispel the outer layer of my maraboshi, allowing her parents to wander away. A nameless compulsion will make them search far, far away from Ueno Park, and it will be a long time before they return.
I smile my most charming at the little girl on my lap. "Would Aya-chan like to be their most precious thing-- forever?"
"Hai!" she chirps.
"Do you know how to become the most precious thing a person has, Aya-chan?" I whisper softly in her ear. This is a secret just for her and the sakura; others are not meant to hear. "Do you know, Aya-chan, how a person discovers how precious something is to them?"
Her eyes are fully focused on mine, and I let a hint of gold creep in, the colour of a hunting hawk, the power of the Cherry flowing into me.
"Humans are such strange things, Aya-chan."
"They don't understand how precious some things are, like your parents. It's only when you take it away, then they realise it's their most precious possession, something that's one of a kind. They don't realise that there can be only one precious thing... only one little Aya-chan."
She makes a soft gasp, twitching a little as she dies. Below me, the sakura sighs softly, sucking that sweet little soul up. For dessert, it'll have a sweet little girl to feast on; and the petals will flush rose-pink, like the soft cheek of Aya-chan.
I've been too involved in playing with Aya-chan; the sakura shudders faintly, swaying in an invisible wind as it shakes off the magical spell like a dog shaking off water. I shouldn't really bury so many bodies in the same tree. No matter how well hidden the traces, a powerful and sensitive onmyouji can pick up the scent of death multiplied. The wind whispers, a soft silky sound, and the sakura blossoms part before me as my maraboshi unravels fully.
My, my. Another child, and cute as Aya-chan, it seems.
Then a drop of blood slips from my fingers, kissing the pale cheek below. Poor little Aya. She won't be kissing any cute boys now. The child looks up, and his eyes are wide, twin jade mirrors, beautiful against the white skin and red teardrop.
And one of my own kind, his power glowing about him with fast-fading pearlescent light.
How interesting.
He starts a little as I leap down, tossing aside the empty shell with a practiced flick of my wrist. He's much cuter now that I'm closer; his black eyelashes frame the most enchanting green eyes I've ever seen. He's so cute that he looks positively edible. Like mochi meant to be eaten on moon-viewing nights, so white and sweet. Someone has taken the trouble to make a shikifuku his size, and even at this age it's rare to find a child skilled enough to carry out an exorcism, even if it failed. Child, you're up against a lot more than you know.
The wind is rising, and the sakura swirl around us, thousands of flowery stars, pink-kissed by blood. I can feel the Cherry, murmuring wordless desires for the sweet young thing before it, life pulsing bright and soft as a star.
"Do you like sakura?" (2)
"Hai!"
Oh, this is too much fun.
"Do you know? Many corpses are buried under the sakura tree."
"Corpses?"
"Every year, the sakura blossoms so beautifully because of them. But their petals should really be white...white as snow. Instead, they are red...do you know why?"
Cutely, he shakes his head. He only has a child's understanding of death, that people go away when they die. I'm about to change all that for you...
"That's because they draw on the blood of the corpses buried under the tree. "
"Don't they feel any pain?"
I'm genuinely taken off guard. Such a sweet child, that he should care.
"No, they don't."
I kneel before him, better to look into those lovely green eyes, so expressive and so full of light. Such an interesting child, lovely and innocent, and packaged so attractively too. I don't think I'll kill him right now...in fact, I have an idea. Thank you, little Aya-chan.
"So I'll make a bet with you."
"One year. If you can make me feel something for you, if you can be /my/ precious thing..."
"If I can feel something for you, if you can become 'special', you win our little bet."
He squints as the wind caresses him with sakura petals, swirling them with cherry-soft kisses over his skin, his eyes and ears, making him raise a hand to keep them out of his eyes. White flushing to deep pink, the sakura petals dance, sweeping away our words, sealing our little promise.
"Gomen, I can't hear you..." he cries, high and sweet as a bird, his long white sleeves flapping like wings.
"I'll let you go today. But when we meet again..."
Lightly, I capture one of the small white hands. I kiss it, tasting the softness of his skin, his hand sweet and perfectly shaped like a lotus petal. The Cherry sighs longingly, but I am the Master of the Hunt. And now, I mark my prey.
Twin stars of light flare on the back of each tiny hand, and he gasps in surprise, more fascinated by the brief play of magic caressing skin than their true meaning.
I smile and lift the other hand, and the lovely verdant green of his eyes dulls, and he slumps into my arms, eyelashes fluttering shut. He's like a fragile white dove, his heartbeat too big for that delicate frame, his hair filled with the exotic scent of incense and pine.
Someone will come looking for him; and I've played long enough. But first--
"Come back to Tokyo," I whisper, secret words meant only for him. "Come back when you become an onmyouji worthy enough to challenge the head of the Sakurazukamori." I smile, in spite of myself.
"Come back to Tokyo."
"And bring your most precious thing with you."
*********************************************************************
Some notes:
(1) This is also my own version of the "Cherry Barrow Guardian". He has to guard something, so why not make that Japan so that he becomes a patriotic killer? :P This theory was inspired by Hokuto's explanation of the Sakurazukamori in the first tankouban.
(2) This is not an accurate translation of the famous "first meeting" scene you can find in the first and last tankouban. I'm merely writing from memory, and revising the words to suit the fic. Likewise, I haven't remained completely faithful to the scene that plays out in the manga.
Many, many thanks go to the people who helped and encouraged me; Jenni-chan in particular! ^-^
Warning: Spoilers, spoilers, and spoilers! If you haven't read TB, you may not get some of the references as this is based on a certain event in the series, the 7th tankouban to be specific. Who was that little girl Sei-chan killed when he met Subaru for the first time?
********************************************************************
Precious Thing
"What's your most precious thing, Aya-chan?"
The girl tilts her head, frowning, her feathery little brows drawing together in fierce concentration. She is a pretty child, with pouty rosebud lips and huge dark eyes. Only five years old, she looks like a pretty doll, with pale skin and long lashes.
"My doll, Kiki-chan!" she beams, her eyes bright. "Tousan gave her to me on my birthday!"
She looks so kawaii, her head cocked, like whispering a secret.
The sakura petals drift past in a slow stream, a pale, pale pink.
Outside, her mother is calling.
"Aya! Aya-chan, where are you?" The woman wanders by, almost brushing by the little girl, and her eyes are misted with worry. A doll dangles by the arm, clutched as tightly as she wants to hold her darling Aya. Aya-chan doesn't notice, nor do her huge eyes light up when her doll swings by, its eyes glassy and blank.
So unlike little Aya-chan, whose clear eyes can only belong to a sweet little girl like her.
"What do you think is your Tousan and Kaasan's most precious thing?" I ask, smiling.
Ah, only children are so honest with their emotions. Aya's soft, fawn eyes are sad instantly.
"Money."
Then she looks up, almost defiantly tossing her hair. "But Aya-chan is second!"
"Aya-chan," I say, and smile. "Would you like to be your parents' most precious thing?"
**************
I spend far too much time playing, I suppose.
I lean against the branches, while we watch Aya-chan's parents run in frantic circles inside my maraboshi. It's not a true maraboshi; it merely makes it impossible for anyone to see us, and it lays a subtle compulsion for those caught within the invisible magic circle to stay in. Aya-chan's parents circle us without knowing it; her father is an aging scientist with thick-framed glasses, while her mother was a manager of some big department store, now a retired housewife.
Aya's father has been working on some rather poisonous chemicals. They probably won't see the light of day for several years more, if ever; it's a dangerous research project that's being undertaken with greatest secrecy. But if they lose Aya's father, it will be decades before it gets off the ground. I think of it as my good deed for the future. It will be many, many years later before those chemicals are developed. Just pushing away the inevitable for a little more.
It's odd. When the man who created the Sakurazukamori first set the spell, tying it to the sakura tree, he certainly never meant for us to evolve into an assassin group. The cherry guardian was merely meant to protect Japan, to be the shadow reflection of the Sumeragi, using darker arts to coerce, threaten, eliminate and occasionally kill. Naturally, it was always much easier to kill. It's much harder to come back from the dead than planning a comeback alive. Of course, not everyone finds that idea agreeable, nor is the mass murder of men, enemies or no-- something that can be hidden easily. Sakurazukamori became only one person, not a group-- it's hard to disagree with yourself whether you should kill or not. (1)
As the Sakurazukamori, my next task was to kill the chief scientist of the experiment. The Cherry made an ideal judge and jury of those who would harm Nippon; money or other human things certainly couldn't sway it. All it required of course, was the executioner.
Me.
I inhale the sweet fragrance of the sakura clustering around us, and study him thoughtfully. I could, of course, kill Aya-chan's father. It's a very effective way of stopping the project. Certainly, the Cherry agrees; stopping the project the most efficient way is certainly what I'm supposed to do. But it wouldn't be long before a new scientist replaced him, and I certainly don't want to spend my summer holidays stalking them.
But if Aya's father lost something very precious to him, what would he do? Oh, he probably wouldn't work for weeks-- perhaps even months. But once depression sets in, it doesn't go away all that easily. It's a rather sneaky enemy, and he might start drinking. Get careless. Be suicidal. Not pay attention to those tiny, important details that might kill him one day. And the project will flounder. It'll eat up all that precious money politicians are so fond of, and funding will get cut. The project might even well be shut down and archived, good only for collecting dust.
Ideal. I've always wanted to go to Hokkaido for a holiday. Perhaps I'll get a tan.
"Aya! Aya! Where are you?" His hair is disheveled now; he's sweating and pale. Not even his wife could lure him out of the labs; but a threat to his daughter works wonders. Its not that I couldn't slip in, but I'm not foolish enough to believe I'm perfect yet, and there are too many security cameras for me to chance. Machines aren't so easy to fool as the human mind.
I laugh silently, until a small tug on my sleeve disturbs my thoughts.
"Kaasan... and even Tousan...Aya-chan's their most precious thing, right, Seishirou-oniisan?"
She wriggles in my lap so that she can face me, her eyes huge and serious, wide with awe at the thought that a simple disappearance could cause her parents to worry so. Below her, her mother calls desperately, clutching Kiki-chan to her chest, her words muffled by the second layer of maraboshi I have around us.
"Hai! Aya-chan is so kawaii, of course Aya-chan is precious!" I lightly pinch her nose, making her giggle. Enough now. Panic and the seeds of doubt have already been sown, and it will be a long, long time before they stop their search, never dreaming that their darling daughter was so close by. Perhaps they'll even get a divorce, blaming each other for Aya-chan's disappearance.
With a mental flick, I dispel the outer layer of my maraboshi, allowing her parents to wander away. A nameless compulsion will make them search far, far away from Ueno Park, and it will be a long time before they return.
I smile my most charming at the little girl on my lap. "Would Aya-chan like to be their most precious thing-- forever?"
"Hai!" she chirps.
"Do you know how to become the most precious thing a person has, Aya-chan?" I whisper softly in her ear. This is a secret just for her and the sakura; others are not meant to hear. "Do you know, Aya-chan, how a person discovers how precious something is to them?"
Her eyes are fully focused on mine, and I let a hint of gold creep in, the colour of a hunting hawk, the power of the Cherry flowing into me.
"Humans are such strange things, Aya-chan."
"They don't understand how precious some things are, like your parents. It's only when you take it away, then they realise it's their most precious possession, something that's one of a kind. They don't realise that there can be only one precious thing... only one little Aya-chan."
She makes a soft gasp, twitching a little as she dies. Below me, the sakura sighs softly, sucking that sweet little soul up. For dessert, it'll have a sweet little girl to feast on; and the petals will flush rose-pink, like the soft cheek of Aya-chan.
I've been too involved in playing with Aya-chan; the sakura shudders faintly, swaying in an invisible wind as it shakes off the magical spell like a dog shaking off water. I shouldn't really bury so many bodies in the same tree. No matter how well hidden the traces, a powerful and sensitive onmyouji can pick up the scent of death multiplied. The wind whispers, a soft silky sound, and the sakura blossoms part before me as my maraboshi unravels fully.
My, my. Another child, and cute as Aya-chan, it seems.
Then a drop of blood slips from my fingers, kissing the pale cheek below. Poor little Aya. She won't be kissing any cute boys now. The child looks up, and his eyes are wide, twin jade mirrors, beautiful against the white skin and red teardrop.
And one of my own kind, his power glowing about him with fast-fading pearlescent light.
How interesting.
He starts a little as I leap down, tossing aside the empty shell with a practiced flick of my wrist. He's much cuter now that I'm closer; his black eyelashes frame the most enchanting green eyes I've ever seen. He's so cute that he looks positively edible. Like mochi meant to be eaten on moon-viewing nights, so white and sweet. Someone has taken the trouble to make a shikifuku his size, and even at this age it's rare to find a child skilled enough to carry out an exorcism, even if it failed. Child, you're up against a lot more than you know.
The wind is rising, and the sakura swirl around us, thousands of flowery stars, pink-kissed by blood. I can feel the Cherry, murmuring wordless desires for the sweet young thing before it, life pulsing bright and soft as a star.
"Do you like sakura?" (2)
"Hai!"
Oh, this is too much fun.
"Do you know? Many corpses are buried under the sakura tree."
"Corpses?"
"Every year, the sakura blossoms so beautifully because of them. But their petals should really be white...white as snow. Instead, they are red...do you know why?"
Cutely, he shakes his head. He only has a child's understanding of death, that people go away when they die. I'm about to change all that for you...
"That's because they draw on the blood of the corpses buried under the tree. "
"Don't they feel any pain?"
I'm genuinely taken off guard. Such a sweet child, that he should care.
"No, they don't."
I kneel before him, better to look into those lovely green eyes, so expressive and so full of light. Such an interesting child, lovely and innocent, and packaged so attractively too. I don't think I'll kill him right now...in fact, I have an idea. Thank you, little Aya-chan.
"So I'll make a bet with you."
"One year. If you can make me feel something for you, if you can be /my/ precious thing..."
"If I can feel something for you, if you can become 'special', you win our little bet."
He squints as the wind caresses him with sakura petals, swirling them with cherry-soft kisses over his skin, his eyes and ears, making him raise a hand to keep them out of his eyes. White flushing to deep pink, the sakura petals dance, sweeping away our words, sealing our little promise.
"Gomen, I can't hear you..." he cries, high and sweet as a bird, his long white sleeves flapping like wings.
"I'll let you go today. But when we meet again..."
Lightly, I capture one of the small white hands. I kiss it, tasting the softness of his skin, his hand sweet and perfectly shaped like a lotus petal. The Cherry sighs longingly, but I am the Master of the Hunt. And now, I mark my prey.
Twin stars of light flare on the back of each tiny hand, and he gasps in surprise, more fascinated by the brief play of magic caressing skin than their true meaning.
I smile and lift the other hand, and the lovely verdant green of his eyes dulls, and he slumps into my arms, eyelashes fluttering shut. He's like a fragile white dove, his heartbeat too big for that delicate frame, his hair filled with the exotic scent of incense and pine.
Someone will come looking for him; and I've played long enough. But first--
"Come back to Tokyo," I whisper, secret words meant only for him. "Come back when you become an onmyouji worthy enough to challenge the head of the Sakurazukamori." I smile, in spite of myself.
"Come back to Tokyo."
"And bring your most precious thing with you."
*********************************************************************
Some notes:
(1) This is also my own version of the "Cherry Barrow Guardian". He has to guard something, so why not make that Japan so that he becomes a patriotic killer? :P This theory was inspired by Hokuto's explanation of the Sakurazukamori in the first tankouban.
(2) This is not an accurate translation of the famous "first meeting" scene you can find in the first and last tankouban. I'm merely writing from memory, and revising the words to suit the fic. Likewise, I haven't remained completely faithful to the scene that plays out in the manga.
Many, many thanks go to the people who helped and encouraged me; Jenni-chan in particular! ^-^