Disclaimer: X and Tokyo Babylon are Clamp's. Shinta's my own character along with Mr. Yamaguchi. Ordinary World is Duran Duran's.

Crimson Tokyo
by Miyamoto Yui


Chapter 3 - Poisoned.


"Beautiful." I heard inside my swimming head.

"Mm..." I blinked my eyes as I got up slowly. Looking around, I again found my sliding door open with the breeze making my curtains float in their place. The sun was rising quickly in the sky.

It was already morning.

I looked down at myself to find my shirt had been opened half way. I closed my eyes in frustration and sighed loudly.

Had he...touched me while I was sleeping?

I got up disgusted with the thought.
And it certainly wasn't the first time this had happened. Nor was this the first time I had thought that either.

As I looked at myself in the mirror, I saw my chapped lips. My lower one was bleeding...

I closed my eyes and sighed again as I just instantly decided to take a shower before leaving.
I always felt so dirty after he left me...

I didn't have the appetite to eat anything. Then again, I thought about the scolding I had gotten all these years. Even my aunty in her notebook was telling me to eat. "And please eat. Eating is a part of life. Don't be like Subaru. He's a damn stick because he keeps on worrying. If it weren't for me, he wouldn't be so healthy!"
I laughed at the thought. I really wonder what my wonderful aunt was like.

But just as quickly as I had laughed to myself, Grandmother's voice slid through the seams of my mind. "Please don't repeat history."

I'm not.

I'm studying hard, Grandmother.

It was then that I took out the address that I had taken down a yesterday. Standing in front of a large house, I looked at the well-guarded blue tiles. "Just like home," I commented sarcastically.

Knocking on the front door, I stood there with my trenchcoat on. It was a keepsake of my father's.
It still has his smell. I almost want to drown myself in this smell...

"Good morning. You must be Sumeragi Shinta-san?"

I nodded my head solemnly.

"Please come in." The servant leads me through the corridors to the man of the house.

The man of the house, Mr. Yamaguchi, nods at me as I do the same. I kneel before me as he positions himself on the opposite side of the table. "Hello Sumeragi-san."

I greet him back.

"Okay, I won't take up much of your time. But an important issue has come up and I had to call you on emergency just yesterday." He looked at me gravely and distressed. "_She_ must speak to you."

I slightly open my eyes in shock.

He opens the screen door behind him and I look at the figure before me with a calm face. Inside of myself, I was truly awed. I had a weakness for beauty after all, even morbid beauty.

"Hello, Sumeragi-san," the lady had communicated inside of my head. She laughed. "It is so funny that now I call you the same way I talked to your father."

I bowed my head. "I'm only so honored by this great gesture, Hinoto-hime."

"I called you today because I must discuss with you an important matter. The world has yet not learned its mistakes. As long as humans err, there is no stopping the vicious cycle of destruction that it subjects itself to."

I looked at her blankly.

"Do you not care for the earth, Sumeragi-san?"

"It doesn't concern me."

"Then, I guess I have to take this from a different approach."

"Set your bet."

"How dare you talk to the Princess in that way!" Yamaguchi-san shouted at me.

Hinoto hime lifted her hand. "I know his reasoning and I understand."

My brow sweated. Was she reading my heart?
I know how to play this game. I'm the best in my field now, Princess.

Just keep your mind clear. Just keep yourself calm.

"Oh, is that how it goes?" she laughed. "You are good. I'm proud of Sumeragi Subaru's heir."

But then, she mumbled again, "Sumeragi Subaru's heir..."

Somehow, the way she said it didn't sound right. I dismissed the feeling.

She touched my cheek. "I must beg you to please save the earth!"

"I repeat once more that it doesn't concern me."

"Sumeragi-san, I called you here not only for myself, but also for you. If you keep on with this search, you will be the cause of the motion that might destroy this earth."

"Me?"

"_He_ is still alive."

"He?"

"The Kamui has been resurrected."

I looked at her incredulously.

"It seems both of your fates are intertwined, Sumeragi-san. If you find the Kamui, you will be able to find your father. In doing so, you might kill the Earth in the process."


"What has happened to it all? Crazy some say..." the song haunted my ears as Shizuka's shadowed figure suddenly flashed through my mind.


But still firm in my position, I bowed my head and turned around. "I'm sorry Princess Hinoto. Humanity was already cursed since Adam and Eve ate of the apple from the tree of knowledge. I too am poisoned."

"Is your love so much that you would be willing to bring humanity down with you?" she desparately said behind me.

She knew.
Her tone gave her away.


I stopped without turning around. "Shitsureishimasu."

I exited the complex without another word.


I too am poisoned.


--
author's note: Okay, I'm shameless. Yamaguchi? --;; Oh, kappei!

clarifications? Shizuka? He's a boy. I made him ambiguous on purpose.

shitsureishimasu - a greeting you give before and after meeting someone of rank higher than yourself such as a teacher or doctor.