~*~
"Ryuuen," said Juan after a moment, "come over here and sit down."
He didn't answer. His arms were wrapped tightly around Saihitei's chest, the comforting thud of the younger man's heartbeat in his ears, and he didn't want to let go. His eyes were squeezed shut, a reddish darkness swirling against the backs of his eyelids, and if it hadn't been for the strength of the arms around him, he was fairly certain that he would be on the ground because his knees felt so weak and it was so hard to do anything more than just cling to Saihitei and pray that he didn't let go...
Don't let go please don't let go
"Ryuuen."
A soft, loved voice in his ear; a warmth against his cheek.
Please don't let go Sai please don't let go I'm afraid I can't do this please please
"Ryuuen. Sweetheart. Please..."
The arms around him didn't lift, but he was aware of them tensing, of the steady beat beneath his ear growing faster, more urgent.
His eyes closed more tightly, letting a cool tear squeeze free, trickle down his cheek.
He could feel it coming, and it scared him more than he would've liked to admit; his arms tightened unconsciously around Sai, his head pressing to the taller man's chest as if bracing himself for what was to come. It was difficult, to explain to the verbal side of himself just how he knew what was coming, or how it was that that knowledge was something felt rather than known.
I don't want to leave him please don't make me leave him please please don't make me don't make me
The pain exploded within him then, so violently that he jerked in Sai's arms, and the tears in his eyes were suddenly tears of pain, and of embittered acceptance. Because...it wasn't fair, it really wasn't. For this to happen again--for it to be here, in Sai's arms, in front of all of their friends...it just wasn't fair. And, even as the anguish shuddered through him, even as he felt, again, that agonizing tearing sensation as if something sharp were being shoved up through his chest, he burned with anger.
You can't do this to him.
You can't.
It's not fair you can't do this to him I love him you can't!!
He had been drifting before the pain came, trying to float far enough away from himself so as not to feel it, because it hurt so much...but now, he had the sudden urge to return, to suffer through it and fight against it and win, because it wasn't fair it wasn't fair and he couldn't do this to Sai, not again, he had to fight--he had to fight!! Even if he didn't win, he couldn't do this to the person he loved, the people he loved...Miaka! Miaka, Hotohori-sama...
...Hotohori-sama.
He was suddenly very aware of the sound of his own breathing, rushing in and out of his lungs with a roar like ocean waves; the thudding of his own heartbeat, too, was almost alarmingly-loud, hammering against his skull even as tears of pain slipped down past his eyelashes. And now that he tried to return, now that he gathered up the shattered remnants of himself and struggled to push back the darkness, open his eyes and fight against the pain, he found that something was blocking his way. It was as if he'd stepped outside for a moment only to find the door locked upon turning back; he wanted to pound his fists, scream, thrash and cry until someone realized that he couldn't get back in, he couldn't get back in... But no one seemed able to hear him.
Everywhere, there was darkness, and the sounds of himself: the rush of breath, the flow of blood, the drumming of his heart. And...the voices. They were whispers, coming at him from all sides, and he found that he couldn't feel the warmth of Sai's chest against his cheek anymore, or the strength of those arms around him. He was floating free, cold and alone, in a darkened space, and all around him were whispers like a thousand voices speaking at once.
It was a very long time before he realized that they were all the same voice, chiming with differing thoughts at the same time. Despite this realization, however, he found that he couldn't make out any of what was being said, or even whose voice it might be. It felt familiar to him somehow, but it was a displaced kind of familiarity, like he imagined it would be for someone who was very old, attempting to remember a moment from early childhood.
He floated like that for awhile, reality blurring in the darkness, and it seemed as if several eternities passed before the Voice came to his ears, and he remembered that he had died.
~*~
It had been so sudden. One moment, Ryuuen was clinging to him tightly, quiet sobs passing from his lips...and then, he'd shuddered, just once, and just like that, everything was different. The slim arms around him went abruptly and frighteningly limp, and the weight against his arms was suddenly much more than it should've been. At first, he'd been confused, the breath seeming to pause in his lips at the suddenness of the change. What...what...
And then, slowly, realization trickled into him.
He brought his arms forward a little, loosening his grip; Ryuuen's head sank back from his chest with the motion, lolled backwards. He could see, now, the streaks of dried tears on those pale cheeks, the way the moisture clung to Ryuuen's eyelashes as if frozen in place.
"J...Juan," he managed shakily.
He's not breathing my God he's not breathing he's not breathing
"Juan...Juan, he...he...Juan..."
And suddenly, the tall doctor was standing there in front of him, dark blue eyes narrowed and solemn, and Ryuuen was being carefully drawn out of his arms and lowered onto the grass.
~*~
"You remember the snow, don't you, Nuriko?"
The snow. The snow was so cold. The snow was so cold and he was so big but I had to I had to I couldn't run away because if I did then he would've gotten it and Miaka God Miaka what would've happened to you so I couldn't let him even though he was so big. He was so big and I was afraid. I was afraid and I fought anyway and I thought maybe that I'd be okay even though I knew deep inside me that I wouldn't be but I fought anyway and his claws, his claws were inside of me and I couldn't get away because even though I didn't feel it at first I knew that it was over and I tried so hard to stay but I couldn't
"And, the pain. You remember the pain, don't you?"
Oh. Oh, Great Suzaku, the pain. My chest. My chest, the pain... I can remember it so well it was like I was on fire but it was a cold fire so cold and I could feel the wind inside of me and the blood was so hot that it burned my skin and I couldn't breathe because it hurt so much and I went limp for a minute, dangling there like a puppet and then he moved and I remembered and I knew I had to move
"There was something
else, though, wasn't there, Nuriko?"
Hotohori-sama.
Hotohori-sama...! For a second
when I was hanging there it was like he was there with me, because they all
were but it was different with him because I loved him and I wanted so much to
come back but I couldn't and it wasn't fair and I swore, I swore that I would
find you again, Hotohori-sama, I swore that I would find you and you would be
happy because you deserved more than this and more than me and I prayed that
someone else would love you until I could because it wasn't fair and even
though I was dying you were all I could think about.
Suddenly, he was standing in a small, dark room, illuminated only by the silver flicker of starlight, and he could see a dark shape just at the edge of the light, moving towards him. It was a moment before he recognized it as the form of a woman, except she wasn't a woman, she was something else--there was more to her than that, more to her than a body or a Voice. And then, she stepped into the flood of starlight and her eyes were beautiful, rising up before him, and she took him into her arms and pulled him close and held him like a child, and he was crying before he even heard her speak.
"Suzaku is the God of love," Taiitsukun whispered, her aged fingers smoothing the hair back from his forehead as he wept. "Did you know, Nuriko, that you were chosen to die first then because he loved you the most, and because he didn't want to hurt you?"
He was sobbing against her, unable to stop despite how badly he wanted to, and it was a long time before he realized that the tears were not all his own.
"He cried for you, Nuriko. Because you loved so deeply and so purely, and he knew that it would've torn you apart if anyone but you had been taken first. He heard you that night, when you prayed--when you pleaded that he take you over any of them...and, because he loved you, he gave you your wish. You never knew, did you, that they loved you, too? You never knew that they loved you so much that your death bonded them forever as one soul, one body, always together no matter where or when or how much time had passed. You did that for them, Nuriko, because they loved you as dearly as you loved them, and when your soul passed from this world, each of them was filled with love for you at the same instant, and it was strong enough to let Suzaku join them for all eternity.
"It was you, Nuriko," she continued, drawing him up to meet her gaze. Her palms pressed to his tear-stained cheeks, such a gentle touch that he barely felt them. "It was you who bonded them. The love they felt for you and the grief that struck into their hearts when you were taken from them thickened the ties between them, giving them all the strength they needed to endure, and to triumph."
He heard the words, knew they were true, but everything was a jumble inside of him; this shouldn't make sense, some rational part of his mind whispered. It shouldn't make sense, but somehow, it did, and he knew the truth of everything so clearly that it scared him.
When at last he managed to break free of the tears for long enough to speak, Taiitsukun's wizened face had softened into a slight smile, and the depth of the love in her eyes nearly made him lapse into sobs again. "But...why...why now?" he managed, biting down on his lip as if to force back the tears. "Wh...why am I being taken now, again, when...when they're already bonded? It isn't fair."
He'd heard her laugh before, he knew he had, but...this was different. Everything he had ever known of her seemed to be knowledge of a different person, and despite the new-old memories within him, he knew that the woman who held him now was the reality and not the mask. The laughter was light and soft, flowing from her lips like a melody, and the very sound of it drove joy into his heart and tears to his eyes.
"You are not being taken," she said at last, smiling down at him. "Don't you understand? You're being given a gift. Suzaku's love for you is deeper than any love you can imagine, and he wants you to remember all so you can finally be at peace."
Confusion circled in his brain, dizzying and blurred, and he realized that he was frowning.
Taiitsukun sighed, a hint of exasperation in her features. "I see speech will be inadequate to explain this to you," she rumbled. "Very well, then. I will show you."
~*~
Juan's face was twisted in anguish, his dark eyebrows drawn together on his forehead. "He's not breathing," he said.
Miaka's hands went to her mouth; Genrou fell backwards a step, thudded into Houjun and would've lost his balance if the older man hadn't lifted his hands, gripped the seventeen-year-old's shoulders. Taka slid forward, face pale and drawn, and put his arm around Miaka; the girl fell into him with a choked sob, eyes riveted to the still form on the grass. Even Doukun did not go unaffected by the moment, scrambling into his mother's arms and burying his face into her shoulder; Shouka held onto him tightly, shivering, looking as if she wanted to go to her husband but lacking the motor control to do so.
And then, there was Saihitei.
He had fallen to his knees on the grass beside Ryuuen, greenish stains already streaked into the fabric of his khakis. His eyes were wide but dry, and were focused--not on the still, pale figure on the grass, violet hair pooling around him--but on his own hand, and on the glittering gold band circling his finger. His lips moved silently, as if chanting a prayer, and even when the wind sent long tufts of chestnut hair fluttering in front of his vision, he didn't move or blink.
Moments had passed, and Juan was leaning down to push the air into Ryuuen's lungs, when Miaka straightened, slipped out of her boyfriend's embrace, and moved to Saihitei's side. Taka followed, the tears pooling in his eyes, and the two of them knelt on either side of the man, put their arms around him. Genrou came next, moving stiffly and mechnically, and kneeled just behind Miaka; Houjun was right behind him, and then Doukun was struggling to break free of his mother's protective arms, was walking unsteadily towards them...
Slowly, Juan sat up, his back to his friends, and let his fingers slide from Ryuuen's shoulders, drop onto his own lap. His eyes gazed sightlessly ahead, not seeming to focus on anything at all, and even as Shouka stared at him, seeming to demand to know why he was stopping now, why he wasn't continuing when Ryuuen's life was on the line, he didn't say a word. And then he was turning, getting his feet beneath him and rising upwards, and a moment later he'd dropped to his knees just in front of Saihitei.
The eighteen-year-old looked up at him, then, and despite the anguish in the younger man's eyes, there was understanding, too, and...something else.
"I see," Juan said quietly, lifting his arms and wrapping them carefully around Saihitei, around the seven who joined him in the embrace. "I see."
~*~
"It was the most powerful moment they shared together."
He saw them beneath him, far away but so close that he could've reached out and touched them, wrapped in each other's arms and hearts and souls. He felt a part of himself in each of them, as if he were the common tie between them all, and it seemed as if he could feel bits of them within himself, too, making him whole...
"Just as their love for you brought them together then, it brings them together now."
The understanding was slow, creeping heavily through his veins, but it was coming; he could feel the beginnings of comprehension in his brain, like the first pricks of starlight against the darkening sky, and knew that very soon, he would know. Very soon, they all would.
He closed his eyes, exulting for a moment in the warmth of their love against him. "Can...can they see me?"
Even though she had long vanished from his sight, Taiitsukun seemed to be smiling; her words were almost achingly-soft. "Not yet. But, they will. And by the time you return to them, they will understand, as you are beginning to. What they don't understand, you will explain to them. The God of Love did not choose you for idle reasons, Nuriko. You are his emissary because no one can do this but you."
"I understand," he
whispered.
He felt cool, floating above the ground with the rush of wind around him; his
body seemed blanketed in clouds, his hair flooding around him like a great
cape. His vision was limited, too, despite
the fact that he knew he could see everything from where he stood, and a
reddish mist seemed to cover all but the circle of grass his friends
occupied.
"It must be very important," he heard himself saying, although his voice sounded very distant in his own ears, and not entirely like he remembered it, "for the Suzaku no Shichiseishi to be reawakened after all this time."
Slim, gentle hands pressed against his shoulders; a moment later, there was the warmth of breath against his ear, and a voice like the quaking of the earth in his mind.
"It is," Suzaku murmured, his voice somehow both silent and deafening. He felt himself fading, tried to grip the hand on his shoulder but couldn't seem to find the strength... "A trial awaits you such as you have never faced, and once again, you will need to make a choice. Until then, return to the ones you love, and remember that you are strong, and I love you."
Tears sprang to his eyes; he couldn't seem to find the strength to wipe them away. "You..."
"The mark of your allegiance to me rests over your heart. Did you never notice? I placed it there because that is where your strength lies, and your greatest weakness. Your heart pains you as nothing else, but it is also what gives you your power, and what bonds you to me more greatly than any other. But I have purged that pain from you, Nuriko. I have purged the pain and the guilt and the anguish of every lifetime you've ever lived, because I need your strength for what lies ahead. You must enter this new conflict with nothing but the love for your companions in your heart.
"It will be difficult. You may not survive. But they will be with you, and I will, also."
Suddenly, he was alone again, alone in that darkness that had brought him into the arms of Taiitsukun, brought him into the presence of Suzaku himself.
"Remember, Nuriko." The voice came to him from a distance, muffled by the rush of blood in his ears, the sudden thudding of his heart. "Remember that you are strong. Remember that I have chosen you..."
And then the darkness had faded, and he began to breathe again.
~*~
