Notes: Set in an AU and a crossover (sorta) with the Labyrinth. Disclaimer: I own nothing...Not Tokyo Babylon, which is CLAMP's nor The Labyrinth which belongs to Jim Henson. I've also used some text from a transcript of the Labyrinth which I found at http://www.magitech.com/~cruiser1/labyrnth/movie.htm. The lyrics in the story are also from the movie.

Yaaaa! I'd just like to use this space to show my gratitude to everyone who's reviewed so far. And I'm really really sorry its taken me so long to update this.

Through Dangers Untold

CHAPTER 3. (By Twylise)

Ever since that appalling meeting with the Lady Sumeragi, Hokuto's day just seemed to be sliding further and further down a slippery slope of pain and general unpleasantness. The next chapter in her sorry story of ill luck featured her landing face first in the dirt. She lay there stunned for a moment before coming up spitting and sputtering in a kneeling position, reminiscent of the way she had sat before her grandmother.

Except her grandmother was never inclined to wearing designer suits and most certainly wouldn't smirk at Hokuto the way the Sakurazukamori was smirking at her right now.

"Need a hand?" The man purred, reaching down for the teenager with one hand and brushing some dirt off of his otherwise pristine white shirt with the other.

Despite her better judgment Hokuto allowed the assassin to pull her to her feet. After thanking him curtly she crossed her arms over her chest and stared at him expectantly.

"Well?"

"Well what?" The Sakurazukamori raised an eyebrow at the pout that was forming on Hokuto's lips.

"Are you going to give me my brother back or not?"

He gave a great overdramatic sigh and once again pulled his cigarettes out of his coat, placing one of the thin white sticks between his lips and lighting up despite the look of obvious distaste that crossed his company's face. "I'm deeply sorry Hokuto-chan," He began in an apologetic voice, "But I cannot just simply give you you're brother back. The system doesn't work like that. Otherwise I would have to constantly deal with people trying to take back my sacrifices and where would that leave the Sakura and I?"

Hokuto wasn't buying it, "But I didn't intend to wish him away! If you don't want people making those kinds of mistakes than you…you should put a label on the cover of the book saying; 'Beware! Repeating certain lines in this text may result in you handing your siblings or friends over to a blood crazed Magician with a nicotine addiction and a temperamental piece of shrubbery!' It's unfair advertising"

The Sakurazukamori chuckled deeply. "My, my! Feisty aren't me? Really now, wishing family members away to certain death isn't something that people do on a regular basis. Did you're brother do something particularly nasty to you?" He titled his head to one side and watched her amusedly, "Frogs in your bed? Stealing you're dates? Replacing your shampoo with green hair-dye?"

Hokuto sputtered, "My Subaru? Doing things like that? Don't be ridiculous! He wouldn't capture frogs; cruelty to animals and all that, he's to shy to find his own dates let alone stealing mine, and about the green hair-dye…" Hokuto reached up and twisted a lock of dark ebony around her index finger, studying it speculatively, "I was actually thinking about dying it that colour the other day, you know, to match my eyes… Do you think it would suit?"

He shook his head, "No I think you're hair's just lovely the way it is. Too much green would look garish and it would certainly cut down on what clothes you could wear without clashing." He smiled at the girl charmingly.

Hokuto didn't notice the smile as for the first time she took in her surroundings, or rather the lack of them…She and the Sakurazukamori were standing on what appeared to be nothing but night. A deep black void that lay beneath their feet, spread out around them on all sides and soured above them limitlessly. She remembered the name of this 'place' from her book. Maboroshi. An illusion.

"Subaru…" she murmured, "He wouldn't have done any of those things you just mentioned; he's far to kind. How could I have done this too him?" She turned her big pleading green eyes on the assassin, "I need my brother back! Please! You don't want to make a girl cry now would you?"

"A gentleman such as myself?" He exclaimed, face aghast. "Why, to think such a thing!"

"Then you'll let Subaru go?"

Without any warning the friendly facade was gone and Hokuto found herself on the receiving end of a very unnerving, predatory smile. He tapped the end of his cigarette, the grey ash that had been building up over the course of their conversation falling to the ground, and took a slow steady puff, smoke wafting up into both their faces. Hokuto found herself coughing as she took in a mouthful of it.

"Haven't you been listening to anything I've just been telling you Hokuto-chan? I said I cannot just return Subaru too you."

"But---" Hokuto's voice trailed away as the man raised a hand to silence her.

"Of course if you were willing to make a bet of sorts with me…"

Hokuto frowned, "What kind of bet?"

Here the assassin's grin grew wider, "Unfortunately being trapped in the underground isn't as exciting and glamorous as it seems; I don't get cable or have the time to go out to the theatre or any such things. Of course I love my job, don't get me wrong…"

He paused in his speech as he waited for Hokuto to finish her coughing fit.

"But at times I have to find other forms of entertainment. Now, watch."

And Hokuto did watch, with amazement as the vast, empty blackness that had been spread out before the two of them shifted. The walls of the ebony dome gradually lowered, like the petals of some tightly closed bud peeling open as it began to flower, in it's wake she saw an endless dusky crimson sky, with a few ashen clouds streaking faintly across it. The remaining darkness rolled out like huge waves of midnight, roaring off in all directions before suddenly flaring into a multitude of colours to swirling and brilliant to watch without making her eyes sting. So she closed them.

And when she opened them again she couldn't help gasping in wonderment. Where once there had been nothing that stretched out into infinity there now was an enormous maze, which reached out just as far as the darkness had.

That's the Labyrinth, there's nothing else it could possibly be.

The hill on which the two of them were standing gave Hokuto a wonderful vantage point of the maze, which lay a mere hundred metres away. So she could just see what appeared to be it's centre, a lush, green park, filled with row upon row of stately maple trees and in the centre of that, a Sakura tree. Even from this distance Hokuto could tell that this was no ordinary Sakura though, it was without a doubt the Sakura that gave the assassin standing beside her his powers.

How could Hokaru tell that this particular cherry blossom was not a regular run of the mill piece of shrubbery but in fact an ancient burial ground and cage for countless souls?

Perhaps it was in the way its branches seemed to be pulled along in a breeze, scattering its pale blossoms across the surrounding labyrinth and causing the tree's limbs to wave as if it were an enraged Hindu deity with a dozen lashing arms, despite the lack of wind. Or maybe it was that ominous aura that surrounded it, an aura so powerful that even a low-level onmyouji like Hokuto good see its power.

Or maybe it was the fact that it stood, grotesquely larger than the other trees around it. Reaching to a height that could rival Tokyo Tower.

"Is my brother there?" She asked the assassin.

"Hmmmm?" The dark-haired man followed her line of sight so that his mismatched eyes rested on the gigantic cherry tree as well. "No I've placed him somewhere else for the time being for…" He smirked darkly, "safekeeping. But that," Here he gestured at the Sakura, "Is where you will have to meet me if you do want him back; before the time limit of course. I assume you know the rules of my labyrinth?"

Hokuto huffed indignantly, "Of course! After all I have read the book at least seven times. All I have to do is get to the center of the Labyrinth, the Sakura, before my thirteen hours are up and you'll give Subaru back."

"If you knew the way this worked already then why did you bother asking me to just straight out give him back?"

"Well it didn't hurt to try, did it?" Hokuto snapped. She was suddenly impatient, eager to complete this maze as soon as possible and have Subaru home safe and sound. So he could forgive her.

"When do I start?"

For what seemed like the thousandth time that day, the Sakurazukamori started to smirk. If he had ever stopped to begin with.

"Right now"

And with that he was gone in a gust of fragrant pink petals. Leaving Hokuto alone to gaze out at the seemingly infinite stone structure.