Disclaimer, which should have come before the prologue:
Everyone probably already knows that I do not now, nor will I ever (unless by some fluke of really dumb luck), own X. That said, this chapter is rated PG-13 for language and what the movie-rating-people would call "mature thematic elements". Oh, and not a lot of shounen-ai here... but there will be later. (It is, after all, a CLAMPfic! ^_^)
*`-,--
"Arisugawa Sorata."
The familiar icy baritone jolted Sorata out of his meditation. His first reaction was to panic--the window was locked, he was sure it was locked, he'd made absolutely sure of it the night before--
"Arisugawa Sorata, first of the Seals..."
Oh God. Here he was in his goddamn pajamas, and Fuuma was staring him down from the windowsill. No, wait... shit, there were two of them. That white-haired, sexless thing was standing by Fuuma's side, with a look of utter boredom plastered across its face.
"...guardian of Mount Kouya..."
He gritted his teeth. Nothing for it but to summon a kekkai and hope for the best...
"...I believe this belongs to you."
Sorata blinked, rendered helpless with confusion as the Dark Kamui's servant stepped down from the windowsill and onto the carpet. For the first time, he noticed that it was carrying something--no, someone, a human figure wrapped in an enormous red jacket, lying limp and sorrowfully pale in its arms.
"Take it," Nataku said, offering out the body.
"Now wait just a minute--"
"Take it," Fuuma repeated. "We haven't got all day."
Sorata was almost ashamed at how quickly he held out his arms, but the chagrin turned instantly to concern when the unnaturally light burden was dumped into his hands. It looked and felt like a kid... another one of Kamui's friends Fuuma had decided to torture to death?
"What th' hell is this?" he hissed.
Fuuma's smile was wry. "Something for which I am no longer responsible."
"Now you wait--"
But the grey mist of morning outside had swallowed both Angels, leaving the room full of still, warm silence.
Sorata looked down at the body in his arms.
"Well, that was weird," he mused.
And, as if in agreement, the child stirred.
* * *
The darkness was hot, and it was all-encompassing.
Subaru felt it creep over him like a fever, teasing his senses into vertigo--he couldn't feel his surroundings; he was trapped--
With a gasp, he jolted into full consciousness.
Shadows shaped themselves into flat planes and curves. He began to see flat silver surfaces, and the constant whine of electricity began to flood his ears. Pale light--green and grey, with the occasional accenting flash of red--outlined the long serpentlike curves of huge cables, twined together in almost-perfect silence like the smooth shapes of foreign handwriting.
He was, he realised with a start, lying inside the hot, cramped metal heart of a machine.
"H... hello?" He heard his voice crack and echo in the semi-darkness. "Is anyone there?"
"About time you got up."
The voice was clear and young and female, and its tone held just enough hostility to make Subaru look up warily.
Sitting at an enormous silvery console, her skin palely pink against the dull grey metal, was a teenaged girl. Black wires snaked from her arms and shoulders, like extensions of the veins that lay beneath the skin; black-framed glasses glinted from the bridge of her nose, and her black tank-top had the oily sheen of vinyl.
He was fairly sure he recognised her from somewhere... one of the seven Dragons of Earth, no doubt. She flashed him a little smile that could almost have been a smirk, and then began to climb down from the console, easily disentangling herself from the wires' intimate embrace.
"Welcome back," she said dryly. "Took you long enough."
He rubbed the back of his neck. "How long... have I been out?"
"A couple of hours." For the first time, he noticed her cropped and blond-streaked hair was damp and fluffed out awkwardly around her head; a fine sheen of sweat shone on her face. "Kamui-san brought you back and I didn't feel like waking you."
Kamui... The memory of that gloved hand emerging from his chest was raw in his mind.
"What did he do to me?"
The girl made a little noise of irritation and opened her mouth to speak, but the voice he heard next wasn't hers.
"What he did, Sumeragi-san, was to give you what you wanted."
* * *
A quick search of the Imonoyama mansion--conducted mostly through yelling--turned up only a few fully conscious Seals. Karen and Arashi were both more than willing to abandon breakfast to examine their "guest"; Seiichiro, who had been trying to fix the Imonoyamas' coffee machine, was quick to follow.
They were quick to decide that the newcomer, whom Sorata had laid out on the living-room couch, was indeed a boy. Although his features were delicate and pixyish, his thin frame was too compact to be a girl's, a fact which was illustrated all too well by the way his black mock-turtleneck clung to the angles and hollows of his upper body. His arms and shoulders, however, were nearly drowned out by the red jacket he wore, which trailed nearly all the way down to his black-gloved fingertips.
"Poor baby," Karen murmured. "He looks half dead. Do you know who he is?"
Sorata shook his head. "Not a clue."
"Whoever he is, it looks like the Dark Kamui didn't do anything to him," Arashi pointed out. "There's not a mark on him."
"I don't know." Karen shifted a little; she looked as if she wanted nothing more than to reach over and stroke the boy's messy bangs back from his face. "He might have been through more than we can tell, right now..."
"Well, he's still breathing, and that's gotta be a good sign. Right?"
"Sorata-san, not appropriate," Arashi hissed.
"Hey, hey, don't get all worked up, I was just tryin' to lighten the mo--"
The boy let out a soft moan, and his eyelids flickered slightly.
"Sorata-kun? Is he all right?"
"Dunno, Aoki-san, he could just be wakin' up--"
"Sorata-san, did it ever occur to you that he might have a concus--"
"...Ho... Hokuto-chan...?"
The four Seals froze as one. The boy was stirring now, probably reacting to the vivid images of a nearly-finished dream; his pale, pretty face was clouded by a confused frown. "Hokuto-chan, where..."
"Who's Hokuto?" Arashi whispered.
As if on cue, the boy let out a strangled cry, and his eyes shot open.
"Easy, easy!" Karen's hand was already on his shoulder, her un-lipsticked mouth twisted with concern. "It was just a dream... you're all right now..."
The boy whimpered, calming slowly as the older woman murmured little words of comfort to him; eventually he relaxed enough to look over at her.
Seiichiro had the presence of mind to cover his mouth with one hand before a gasp worked its way out--the stranger had striking green eyes, a shade too brilliant to forget easily. And he knew, with marrow-deep conviction, when and where he had seen those eyes before.
"Where am I?" the boy asked, slowly.
"Tokyo." Karen paused, and then added, "Safe."
"With friends, to be precise," Sorata put in cheerfully.
"...friends?" The stranger began to sit up, frowning in the direction of the other Seals.
"Yeah! Sure, why not. Or at least, it'll be official when we've got a name to call ya by--you do have a name, right kiddo?"
"Of course." He tilted his head, as if the answer Sorata wanted were obvious enough not to warrant the question.
"It's Sumeragi Subaru."
* `-,--
Feel free to leave feedback! I love comments and I promise I won't bite. ^_^
Everyone probably already knows that I do not now, nor will I ever (unless by some fluke of really dumb luck), own X. That said, this chapter is rated PG-13 for language and what the movie-rating-people would call "mature thematic elements". Oh, and not a lot of shounen-ai here... but there will be later. (It is, after all, a CLAMPfic! ^_^)
*`-,--
"Arisugawa Sorata."
The familiar icy baritone jolted Sorata out of his meditation. His first reaction was to panic--the window was locked, he was sure it was locked, he'd made absolutely sure of it the night before--
"Arisugawa Sorata, first of the Seals..."
Oh God. Here he was in his goddamn pajamas, and Fuuma was staring him down from the windowsill. No, wait... shit, there were two of them. That white-haired, sexless thing was standing by Fuuma's side, with a look of utter boredom plastered across its face.
"...guardian of Mount Kouya..."
He gritted his teeth. Nothing for it but to summon a kekkai and hope for the best...
"...I believe this belongs to you."
Sorata blinked, rendered helpless with confusion as the Dark Kamui's servant stepped down from the windowsill and onto the carpet. For the first time, he noticed that it was carrying something--no, someone, a human figure wrapped in an enormous red jacket, lying limp and sorrowfully pale in its arms.
"Take it," Nataku said, offering out the body.
"Now wait just a minute--"
"Take it," Fuuma repeated. "We haven't got all day."
Sorata was almost ashamed at how quickly he held out his arms, but the chagrin turned instantly to concern when the unnaturally light burden was dumped into his hands. It looked and felt like a kid... another one of Kamui's friends Fuuma had decided to torture to death?
"What th' hell is this?" he hissed.
Fuuma's smile was wry. "Something for which I am no longer responsible."
"Now you wait--"
But the grey mist of morning outside had swallowed both Angels, leaving the room full of still, warm silence.
Sorata looked down at the body in his arms.
"Well, that was weird," he mused.
And, as if in agreement, the child stirred.
* * *
The darkness was hot, and it was all-encompassing.
Subaru felt it creep over him like a fever, teasing his senses into vertigo--he couldn't feel his surroundings; he was trapped--
With a gasp, he jolted into full consciousness.
Shadows shaped themselves into flat planes and curves. He began to see flat silver surfaces, and the constant whine of electricity began to flood his ears. Pale light--green and grey, with the occasional accenting flash of red--outlined the long serpentlike curves of huge cables, twined together in almost-perfect silence like the smooth shapes of foreign handwriting.
He was, he realised with a start, lying inside the hot, cramped metal heart of a machine.
"H... hello?" He heard his voice crack and echo in the semi-darkness. "Is anyone there?"
"About time you got up."
The voice was clear and young and female, and its tone held just enough hostility to make Subaru look up warily.
Sitting at an enormous silvery console, her skin palely pink against the dull grey metal, was a teenaged girl. Black wires snaked from her arms and shoulders, like extensions of the veins that lay beneath the skin; black-framed glasses glinted from the bridge of her nose, and her black tank-top had the oily sheen of vinyl.
He was fairly sure he recognised her from somewhere... one of the seven Dragons of Earth, no doubt. She flashed him a little smile that could almost have been a smirk, and then began to climb down from the console, easily disentangling herself from the wires' intimate embrace.
"Welcome back," she said dryly. "Took you long enough."
He rubbed the back of his neck. "How long... have I been out?"
"A couple of hours." For the first time, he noticed her cropped and blond-streaked hair was damp and fluffed out awkwardly around her head; a fine sheen of sweat shone on her face. "Kamui-san brought you back and I didn't feel like waking you."
Kamui... The memory of that gloved hand emerging from his chest was raw in his mind.
"What did he do to me?"
The girl made a little noise of irritation and opened her mouth to speak, but the voice he heard next wasn't hers.
"What he did, Sumeragi-san, was to give you what you wanted."
* * *
A quick search of the Imonoyama mansion--conducted mostly through yelling--turned up only a few fully conscious Seals. Karen and Arashi were both more than willing to abandon breakfast to examine their "guest"; Seiichiro, who had been trying to fix the Imonoyamas' coffee machine, was quick to follow.
They were quick to decide that the newcomer, whom Sorata had laid out on the living-room couch, was indeed a boy. Although his features were delicate and pixyish, his thin frame was too compact to be a girl's, a fact which was illustrated all too well by the way his black mock-turtleneck clung to the angles and hollows of his upper body. His arms and shoulders, however, were nearly drowned out by the red jacket he wore, which trailed nearly all the way down to his black-gloved fingertips.
"Poor baby," Karen murmured. "He looks half dead. Do you know who he is?"
Sorata shook his head. "Not a clue."
"Whoever he is, it looks like the Dark Kamui didn't do anything to him," Arashi pointed out. "There's not a mark on him."
"I don't know." Karen shifted a little; she looked as if she wanted nothing more than to reach over and stroke the boy's messy bangs back from his face. "He might have been through more than we can tell, right now..."
"Well, he's still breathing, and that's gotta be a good sign. Right?"
"Sorata-san, not appropriate," Arashi hissed.
"Hey, hey, don't get all worked up, I was just tryin' to lighten the mo--"
The boy let out a soft moan, and his eyelids flickered slightly.
"Sorata-kun? Is he all right?"
"Dunno, Aoki-san, he could just be wakin' up--"
"Sorata-san, did it ever occur to you that he might have a concus--"
"...Ho... Hokuto-chan...?"
The four Seals froze as one. The boy was stirring now, probably reacting to the vivid images of a nearly-finished dream; his pale, pretty face was clouded by a confused frown. "Hokuto-chan, where..."
"Who's Hokuto?" Arashi whispered.
As if on cue, the boy let out a strangled cry, and his eyes shot open.
"Easy, easy!" Karen's hand was already on his shoulder, her un-lipsticked mouth twisted with concern. "It was just a dream... you're all right now..."
The boy whimpered, calming slowly as the older woman murmured little words of comfort to him; eventually he relaxed enough to look over at her.
Seiichiro had the presence of mind to cover his mouth with one hand before a gasp worked its way out--the stranger had striking green eyes, a shade too brilliant to forget easily. And he knew, with marrow-deep conviction, when and where he had seen those eyes before.
"Where am I?" the boy asked, slowly.
"Tokyo." Karen paused, and then added, "Safe."
"With friends, to be precise," Sorata put in cheerfully.
"...friends?" The stranger began to sit up, frowning in the direction of the other Seals.
"Yeah! Sure, why not. Or at least, it'll be official when we've got a name to call ya by--you do have a name, right kiddo?"
"Of course." He tilted his head, as if the answer Sorata wanted were obvious enough not to warrant the question.
"It's Sumeragi Subaru."
* `-,--
Feel free to leave feedback! I love comments and I promise I won't bite. ^_^