With love to Liz for the chapter subtitle and for proofreading. Nothing much to say here, really, except that I now have a cat in my head named Schroedinger. No, don't ask. /So/ not happy with this chapter, but I don't particularly want to touch it any more.

Comments are nice. *niko*



3/Twisted: Flight.



The tree was calling.

He could feel it, just as dark as the other presence in his mind--only, where one was soft ash and monochromatic feathers, /this/ was blood and death and a sort of patient hunger, dwelling at the outer edges of his awareness.

Seishirou ignored it, keeping all of his attention on his patient, idly smoothing back the cat's fur and securing the bandage around its leg with practiced movements.

"I expect that this'll teach you not to climb trees in the rain," he told it, a hint of good humour in his voice--the Siamese's only response was to blink sleepy blue eyes, and sneeze onto his hand. It ducked its head to sniff curiously at his fingers, then turned to survey the room, tail waving lazily.

He wondered what it smelled. Old blood, perhaps, or maybe something else--who knew what caught a cat's fancy?

Animals were sometimes just so much more perceptive than humans.

He picked it up, supporting it easily in the crook of his arm. The cat only yawned and put up a token struggle, suffering without much complaint to be put inside its carrier, although it /did/ gift him with a disdainful glance.

The sky outside had hours since gone dark, and the clinic was deserted. Absently, he lit a cigarette, giving his office a final once over as he stepped out of the door.

Only a pair of luminous blue eyes met his gaze, unblinking and inscrutable--

Who knew, indeed...


Tokyo was a beautiful city from above, especially by night, Seishirou mused--rich with a vibrancy entirely its own, of electric streetlights and passing cars and semi-crowded streets. Almost like a painting, in its own way. A living painting, ultimately unreal even in its beauty, and ultimately, something he was not a part of.

But that didn't make it any less beautiful.

From his vantage point, the city was a sea of a million lights in shadow, blending into a vague glow along the horizon. Below him, he could hear the discordant hum of cars, mixed with the occasional, barely audible, human voice--sound carried at night, no matter how far away one might be standing.

Or how high up.

He was never quite sure just where he had acquired his taste for heights from. Not the tree, for certain. His Shikigami, perhaps--it was, after all, about the closest he could come to true flying...

The end of his cigarette glowed as he took a drag, another spot of brightness against the dark.

Closing his eyes, he exhaled.

Smoke gathered, swirling, laced through with the power that gave it shape--

And a misty eagle winged easily onto his wrist.

"Good evening," he told it, politely. The Shikigami didn't reply, merely preening a single feather into place and looking up at him with golden-yellow eyes.

"You want to start work, already?" he asked, dropping his cigarette onto the concrete in a careless gesture. It nodded, half-spreading its wings for balance, talons gripping his wrist with gentle, almost imperceptible, pressure.

He could feel it, restlessly awake, somewhere at the edges of his consciousness--shifting impatience, underlaid with an almost tangible desire to fly--

Yes, his Shikigami was most likely why he liked heights.

The tree's power came easily to his calling and tasted, as it always did, of blood. The eagle took the offered focus-card and stood quietly on his wrist, waiting as he bound the beginnings of a spell to the slim ofuda.

It looked up as he tied down the final threads of power, tightening its grip and spreading huge black wings.

The Shikigami blinked once, deliberately--

And launched itself into the air, guided only by magic and the rustling whispers of a Sakura tree.

Black feathers blending into darkness, nearly invisible against the night sky, the only evidence it left of its passing was a single keening shriek, midair.

But soon, even that faded.

Seishirou stopped trying to follow the path of his Shikigami with normal vision, and glanced down, instead. The street below wasn't crowded by any of Tokyo's standards, but it wasn't quite what he'd call deserted, either--there were still cars passing along the road and people, couples mostly, walking down.

Absently, he took his glasses off and slipped them into the pocket of his suit, pausing a moment as his fingers encountered the flat planes of his cigarette box. But... no, perhaps later.

He drew his maboroshi around himself and took a final glance in the direction that the eagle had gone.

It was a nice night.

Seishirou decided to walk.

It wasn't a long drop over the edge of the roof, and he landed easily--just a few feet from a passing stranger who stepped unconsciously out of his way.

/Show off,/ the eagle murmured.

He just laughed, and followed.

The wind trailed chill fingers down his skin wherever it could, and toyed idly with his hair--he ignored it, just like the people he passed ignored /him/.

He had long since become accustomed to the night.

The illusion seemed to blur the world outside, drawing shadows into stark relief--a surreal reality/not-reality, tinted blood-dark within from the tree's power.

But that was alright, because he had long since become accustomed to that, too.



The Shikigami was waiting when he arrived, and it landed silently, ghost-like, on his shoulder once he came near. He was an area not quite familiar to him, having only passed by once or twice--just a row of small shops, entrances facing the road, most of them closed by this hour. One or two still showed signs of life, though, in the form of pale light streaming from behind closed doors and windows.

His destination was one of those few, the faint illumination it offered soon swallowed by the night, made distinct by the kekkai that surrounded it--a blue shimmer of power that shifted in and out of focus, as though the ward had been set up improperly.

It hadn't, though--as he came closer, a familiar piece of ofuda caught his eye. His own, drained entirely of power, and next to it, a similar yet entirely different card.

White and black.

The power he had woven into his focus-card hadn't been enough to break the shield, apparently, although it /had/ managed to knock out one of the cornerstones of the kekkai--

Seishirou smiled and picked them both up.

The kekkai resisted slightly as he pushed at it, stopping him short a few inches from the door itself. It was skillfully made, even in its weakness--a construct of five stars within a single star, each supporting and giving power to the next, still able to stand with one of its points gone.

He whispered a few short syllables under the watchful eye of his Shikigami, the words so old that some of them didn't even have meaning any more...

The ward melted away, and somewhere, four pieces of card fell to the ground.

Bells tinkled lightly as he pushed the door open. Just another shop, hardly bigger than a single room--a bookstore from its appearance, a collection of old and used books on its shelves...

And in the corner, a small stack of nondescript manuscripts that drew his eye with a power of their own, given none of the care they deserved but admittedly did not need--

Ah.

A young man looked up as he stepped in, abandoning the book he was bent over for the moment.

"I'm afraid we're closed, sir..."

"That's alright," he smiled, bringing his illusion together. "I'm not here to buy."




Somewhere in Ueno Park, a Sakura tree was blooming.

Pink flowers blanketed nearly every corner of the room, although they gave the books at the corner a narrow berth. It had been a simple kill, and now, almost nothing of the corpse remained, what little left of it soon disintegrating into sakura.

He felt power stir, vaguely, somewhere far off--untamed magic, wild and raw, that rebounded blindly and left once it had killed.

He was its target, and by that reason alone, he could feel it, see it, track it--

Something struck.

Something snapped.

Something died--

--And it settled back down, curling back into itself, spent.

/Sakanagi./

A slight breeze teased at the covering of petals, carrying a few to drift up and settle somewhere else--nothing special in itself, but in the maboroshi, where everything was controlled by him...

He turned to meet dispassionate green eyes.

"Oh. You."

The Sumeragi didn't reply, studying the illusion with a sort of quiet curiosity and picking up a single petal to brush as its velvet softness.

/Do you know why the petals are red?/

"Does your family know you're out so late, Subaru-kun?"

Subaru flicked his gaze up to him, raising an eyebrow slightly.

"Does yours?"

"I don't have one."

"Neither do I."

The other onmyouji dropped the pink slip with something that might have been a sigh, or just a breath.

"He'd been warned, you know," Subaru said, no emotion in particular in his voice. "When he first took over this place, then when we found that he wasn't taking our warnings, and selling the books anyway. And the kekkai was set up for the backlash--"

/But not to block the Sakurazukamori./

"So he had."

"No reproaches, Sumeragi-kun?" Seishirou continued, lightly, as his Shikigami tilted its head in birdlike curiosity. "Aren't you going to tell me what I should have done?"

Subaru looked up at him again.

"I'm not going to interfere with your work, Sakurazuka-san," he said.

"Seishirou."

"Think of it as thanks for you interfering in mine."

Seishirou smiled.

"Oh?"

Subaru ignored him, idly leafing through one of the books in the corner.

"My grandmother is going to be upset that I didn't retrieve any of these," he remarked.

"Go ahead, Subaru-kun," Seishirou shrugged. "I'm not stopping you."

Subaru looked at the manuscript again, before replacing it where it had been found.

"No," he said thoughtfully. "I don't think I will."

The spirit eagle on Seishirou's shoulder said something disapproving as he took out his cigarettes. He just shrugged and lit one, offering it to the other onmyouji, who took it, dangling it loosely between two fingers.

"Thank you, but I'm afraid I have to go."

"It was nice seeing you again, Subaru-kun."

The Sumeragi raised an eyebrow.

"Was it?" he asked, but before Seishirou could reply, he took a step back--and out--

Into reality.

The sakura petals were fading, wisping back into broken illusions and magic, leaving behind only the vague scent of honey and blood. Lighting another cigarette, he slipped his sunglasses back on, looking at the place where the Sumeragi had left from.

His Shikigami was murmuring something at the back of his mind again, something about fate and tangled threads...

But with a little effort, Seishirou ignored it.