tabula rasa: seven
Gah, this one took much too long... >_
My apologies if the "magic talk" in Hinoto's dream isn't strictly correct; my understanding of necromancy is shaky at best, so I've tried to combine what I know about the way magic works in X with the little bits I know about other magic traditions.
Oh yes. And there's another nasty bit of graphic violence.
*`-,--
"Kamui, we need some water..."
Subaru cradled the yumemi against his chest; the Princess' breathing was shallow, and her tiny hands curled limply into her sleeves. A fine sheen of sweat glistened over the elaborate sigil on her forehead; little almost-whimpers broke loose from her throat.
"Please--!" The young clanhead looked up at Kamui, his eyes wide with concern. "She just--I don't know what's wrong--"
"I'll get her some water," one of the twins said, and hastily backed out of the room.
Kamui knelt next to his friend, being careful to keep clear of the hair and silk that pooled around them on the floor. He'd seen the Princess get lost in her visions before, but the past half-hour had been frighteningly intense: the dreamgazer's mental murmurs had progressed to screaming, and her entire tiny frame shook with the force of the dreams until, with a strangled, muted half-cry--the first real sound he'd ever heard from her locked throat--she collapsed against Subaru's slim shoulder.
"Shh, shh," Subaru soothed, one gloved hand moving slowly through her hair. "Please, Princess, don't try to move... just relax. Relax."
"Subaru-san..." She raised a hand to clutch at the lapel of his jacket.
"Shhh. You're going to be all right."
There was a moment of awkward silence before the Princess' remaining bodyguard spoke up.
"Sumeragi-san, is she--is she hurt?"
"I don't think so. And, please, Subaru will do..." He glanced up at her, and Kamui followed his line of vision; now, as he always was, Kamui found himself impressed by how ornate her costume was. True, she and her sister didn't wear nearly as many layers of heavy, embroidered silk as the yumemi, but the brilliant red fabric of her outfit was painted with just as many designs as Hinoto's, charms and sayings and little mysteries weaving across her chest and sleeves in beautiful writing he couldn't understand.
"You protect the Princess?" Subaru asked pleasantly. The girl bowed in confirmation, somewhat formally; tendrils of brown hair swung down over her shoulders.
"I do. My twin sister and I have been her bodyguards for several years."
"Ah, I thought you were twins." His smile was small, but sincere. "It must be nice to work with your sister."
She looked startled, briefly--Kamui couldn't blame her; he'd never heard any of the Seals or even Saiki ask either of the twins about themselves, while the Princess and her visions were so close at hand--and then gave him an awkward half-smile.
"It is nice, yes. Souhi and I are very close."
"What's your name?"
"Hien."
"Souhi..." Hinoto stirred, her sightless eyes turning up toward Subaru's face. "Where is Souhi?"
"She's getting you some water, Princess... please, stay still."
The dreamgazer let out a long breath, and drooped so that her forehead rested against the hollow of Subaru's shoulder. Long coils of snow-bright hair spilled over his slender arm, shifting to ivory and cream when she moved.
"I dreamed..."
"I came as fast as I could!" Hien's twin, breathless and flushed, stumbled across the threshold in a blaze of blue, a glass clutched in her hand. "Princess, are you all right?"
"I'll... be fine, thank you..."
Subaru stroked her back gently. "Try to sit up, Princess. Take deep breaths."
Kamui took the glass from Souhi as carefully as he could, lifting it to her lips as the other boy gave him an encouraging nod. The yumemi sipped slowly, her features slackening into an expression of absolute exhaustion; she looked like nothing if not a tired child.
"I dreamed," she repeated, her mental tone dazed.
"Sh. It's over now. You're safe."
Kamui tentatively reached over and laid his hand on Subaru's shoulder; the other boy looked up, startled.
"Thanks," he managed.
Subaru's only reply was a brief little smile as the yumemi curled into his arms.
* * *
On the dreamscape, her scream had been a hundred times louder than the choked cry her muted human throat had managed.
She had seen the Bridge in ruins, the pale damp colours of dawn, the long ribbon of smoke from a falling cigarette. The memory dissolved around her as it passed; she recognised this as part of the magic that held the boy Subaru's psyche together--if he knew his own origins, the Wish on which his existence was built would disintegrate back into unfulfilled yearning, and he himself would disappear. He had been created to be blank innocence, with no past; if he learned about the past he had been created to contradict, his trusting gentleness would crumble, and once again Sumeragi Subaru the Dragon of Heaven would die.
As the Dark Kamui brought his hand down to seal the spell, she leaned forward to watch carefully. Her seer's vision allowed her to look straight into the nature of the magic, laying bare to her the secret that had enabled the Angel to give this Wish a physical form.
She had been told, by onmyouji lesser in power and rank than the Sumeragi clanhead, that certain magic traditions had long held a very firm set of beliefs about gaining control over people. The most persistent idea they had spoken of was the idea that any part of a human body--hair, skin, fingernails--could, if correctly used, become the key to controlling the welfare of the entire body. The most powerful thing a spellcaster could hope to obtain was, invariably and without question, blood.
The foundation of the spell the Dark Kamui had cast was much the same, except that it was stronger, simpler--the purest form of a principle.
When the Sunshine 60 kekkai had fallen, the Dark Kamui had come away from the encounter with not only an intimate knowledge of the clanhead's Wish, but his hands had been soaked with the man's blood. The dark smears of what had once been Subaru's eye brought the clanhead into the sphere of his power; though blood by itself could have created any number of devastating spells, when its magic came in contact with the Wish curled bright and hard around Subaru's heart, it became merely a catalyst.
In short, the Wish provided the power--and the blood gave it form.
Fascinating, when she considered it.
This, she knew, would take very delicate wording to explain properly, and she still wasn't quite sure how to use it to her advantage. Perhaps if she simply undid the new Seal--
The vision shifted.
Irritated, she glanced up to see her other self--the self, like this new boy-Subaru, so blithely naive--standing before her. Tears poured down the reflection's cheeks, and her unnaturally bright eyes were full of pleading.
"What?" Hinoto asked, irked by the image's boldness.
The reflection lifted a doll-like hand and pointed.
Hinoto turned, and the darkness around her rippled into a familiar shape--she saw, as she had seen so many times before, her own body limp and broken at Kamui's feet. The boy looked up at her with infinitely sad eyes, his fingers tightening around the hilt of the Sacred Sword he held.
And then he dropped it.
"I've changed," he whispered, in a voice not his own. As she stared, his entire appearance fragmented like a shattered mirror; the outline of his leathery wings re-formed itself into a paler, smoother shape, and bit by bit the picture reassembled until Kamui stood taller and darker and blind in one eye.
"You changed me," the Sakurazukamori said.
He raised an accusing, blood-stained hand, and the pentagram burned red all the way through his palm. Hinoto glanced frantically at the space in the vision where her body had been sprawled a moment before: now hers was not the only corpse at his feet, merely one of a dozen corpses whose eyes stared sightlessly at their killer...
He raised his hand to strike, and she screamed.
*`-,--
It was another half-hour before a thoroughly exhausted Hinoto, still visibly shaken by whatever she had seen in her dreams, finally gave up on the hope of recovering in the presence of the two Seals and politely begged them to excuse her until the next day; though Kamui still had a nagging, uneasy feeling about the whole thing, Subaru didn't say a word until they were on their way back to the mansion. Even when he did speak, his voice was subdued and thoughtful.
"I can't imagine being blind," he said.
Kamui thought of the star-shaped kekkai dissolving around the Sunshine 60 building, and tried hard not to shudder.
"Me neither."
There was an awkward moment of quiet. Overhead, thick dark clouds hung across the sky; the air was heavy with the promise of rain.
It was Subaru who spoke next, his voice a little thin with attempted good cheer.
"I've really never played the violin for you?"
The question made Kamui blink. "No. I didn't even know you played, until you mentioned it."
"Then when we get home, I'll play you something." He hesitated, then added, "Well, if you want me to. I don't want to sound like a show-off or anything."
"It's fine. I'd like to hear you play... I don't think anyone else plays an instrument, so it'll be good to have some music in the house."
Subaru smiled over at him, and then Kamui was suddenly struck with a thought.
"Hey, Subaru... are you sure you brought it with you to Tokyo?"
"I'm pretty sure, yes. It should be under my bed... I like to have it there; it feels like a good-luck charm."
Kamui wondered if the Subaru he had known had grown out of that superstition... he hoped not, which surprised him a little.
They walked on in relative silence; when they reached the door of the mansion, Sorata and Yuzuriha were sitting on the front steps, apparently engaged in a game of cat's cradle.
"No, see, you're s'posed to take these two threads here and put 'em--here, lemme show you," Sorata said, attempting to take the string out of Yuzuriha's hands.
"This is so complicated. How do you win?"
"Um. You don't, you just kinda--Kamui, hey, what's up? How was Her Highness?"
"We have to go back and see her tomorrow."
"That bad, huh? Man, I wouldn't wanna live in her head."
Yuzuriha beamed at them. "Karen-san said we should wait for you guys out here. She and Arashi-san are cleaning."
"I bet you anything they're makin' Aoki-san watch a chick flick," Sorata smirked.
"You're so mean, Sorata-san!"
Subaru cleared his throat a little shyly. "Ah... Is it okay if we go inside, or should we wait until they ask us back in?"
"Nah, they should be done by now, unless they decided to wax the ceilings or somethin'." Sorata stood, and then, with a broad grin, threw one arm around Subaru's shoulders and one arm around Kamui's.
Subaru's green eyes went wide, and he made a startled, embarrassed little noise that sounded very much like "mneegh".
"C'mon, let's go see how cute the ladies of the house look in aprons!"
"Hey, what about me?" Yuzuriha looked indignant.
"Aw, you've got a puppy. That's like two aprons and a big floofy hair bow."
She pouted, but only briefly.
As Sorata led the other boys inside, the "puppy" came bouncing joyfully towards them, barking at Subaru with happy abandon. Though still clearly embarrassed, the young Seal smiled as Inuki bounced himself up to eye level and began licking his face.
"Hey!" He laughed, and, without breaking out of Sorata's loose grip on his shoulders, reached out to take the inugami in both gloved hands and bury his face in the soft grey fur. "Mmm, you missed us, didn't you? What a good boy."
"Wow, he really likes you, doesn't he, Subaru-san?" Sorata's tone was one of amusement.
"It's probably because I smell like something good to him. Probably my gloves, they're leather--"
"Subaru-san, he's a spirit dog. He doesn't eat."
The clanhead blushed, but offered up a timid half-smile. "Oh... right."
"Hello?" Karen peeked around the living-room door. "You're back already?"
"We have to go back tomorrow," Kamui said. "The Princess wasn't feeling well."
"That's too bad... oh well, at least we got some work done." She stepped into the room fully--there was no apron over her red-and-black dress, which provoked a disappointed frown from Sorata--and waved cheerfully at the little group. "We've just been tidying up a little. Might make everyone a late lunch."
"Karen-san?" Arashi's voice, somewhere a little further down the hallway, was muffled. "Karen-san, I found something--"
"I'll be there in a minute--actually, Subaru-san, could you go get tea started?"
"Of course." He handed the inugami back to Yuzuriha with a bright smile and headed for the kitchen.
Almost as soon as he was out of earshot, Karen leaned in and spoke softly against Kamui's ear. "We've been moving his old clothes and things out of his room, and trying to get rid of the cigarette smell. You might want to take him shopping later."
Kamui blinked rapidly, surprised. "Where did you put--"
"It's all in boxes, in Arashi-san's room. Although she found something under the bed that we didn't think should go in a--"
"His violin?"
It was Karen's turn to look startled. "How did you know?"
From somewhere in the kitchen, the sound of light humming drifted by, along with the soft scraping of cups and tins being removed from cabinets.
"Maybe I should explain a few things," Kamui said.
* * *
The Princess slept, curled into her snowy robes, but just outside her chamber the twins stayed awake.
"Souhi?"
The blue-garbed girl blinked, as if she had been lost in thought, and looked up at her twin. "Hmm?"
"Tell me my fortune again."
Souhi smiled. "But Hien, you've heard it a hundred times."
"I know, but..." With a fingertip, Hien traced one of the characters on her sleeve, the smooth complicated character for "silver". "Just this once?"
Her sister smiled, and then reached back to tug the tie out of her hair. Loose waves of brown shimmered down around her shoulders, rich oak-wood silk that crimped and swept back softly from her ears. She was not very pretty, but now she looked comfortable, and that was the look her twin liked the most.
"All right, then," she murmured. "Where should I start?"
"Start with the things that have already come true." Hien leaned against the heavy sliding door, unable to contain a smile of her own. They'd both had their fortunes read by a stargazer when they were about ten, before they'd begun training to serve the Princess, and by now each sister knew the other's fortune as thoroughly as the familiar rhythms of a fairy-tale. They used it like a fairy-tale, too--it was something reassuring in the face of stressful events, or a little bonus on the calmest of days.
"Hm. Well, let's see. You were going to have a hand in the future of Tokyo, and meet a princess, and guide the blind through darkness." Souhi took a lock of her own brown hair between two fingers and stroked it with her thumb, chewing on her lower lip thoughtfully. "Now, the things that haven't come true..."
"What about Prince Charming?"
She laughed, a rich little sound. "Oh yes. You're going to meet a man in black, who will change your life. So romantic."
"Think he'll be handsome?"
"Of course." She turned a little, and her smile broadened. "Only the best for my baby sister."
Hien made an indignant noise. "I'm only twelve minutes younger."
"All right, all right... but still. Only the best."
What happened next happened so quickly that Hien barely had time to react.
First there was a shadow behind her sister; then the soft tap of a footstep on the hard floorboards. The shadow blurred into a shape, a human form; suddenly she sensed a current of incoming power--
And then Souhi was nearly lifted off her feet as a long-fingered hand thrust straight through her chest from behind.
Time stopped.
From behind the doors of the Princess' chamber, a mental scream tore loose, wild with desperation and disbelief; much more terrible was the soft cracking of bone giving way as Souhi's slender frame convulsed.
There was an eternity of nothing before the hand slowly drew back, and the dying bodyguard fell forward into her sister's arms. Souhi's eyes went wide, and then all too suddenly they were dim, a tide of blood rushing past her lips in the instant before she went limp. Clotted darkness spattered thick and sticky against her sister's red outfit, and then it began to grow lighter, pinker, until it wasn't blood that flowed from the wound but sakura petals, floating on a silent current of magic.
Hien looked up, her eyes wide and nearly blind with horror. The killer who towered before her wore his black coat like a second skin, and his blind eye glittered coldly in the half-light.
There was no smile on his face. But then, she had rarely ever seen the head of the Sumeragi clan smile.
Oh yes. And there's another nasty bit of graphic violence.
*`-,--
"Kamui, we need some water..."
Subaru cradled the yumemi against his chest; the Princess' breathing was shallow, and her tiny hands curled limply into her sleeves. A fine sheen of sweat glistened over the elaborate sigil on her forehead; little almost-whimpers broke loose from her throat.
"Please--!" The young clanhead looked up at Kamui, his eyes wide with concern. "She just--I don't know what's wrong--"
"I'll get her some water," one of the twins said, and hastily backed out of the room.
Kamui knelt next to his friend, being careful to keep clear of the hair and silk that pooled around them on the floor. He'd seen the Princess get lost in her visions before, but the past half-hour had been frighteningly intense: the dreamgazer's mental murmurs had progressed to screaming, and her entire tiny frame shook with the force of the dreams until, with a strangled, muted half-cry--the first real sound he'd ever heard from her locked throat--she collapsed against Subaru's slim shoulder.
"Shh, shh," Subaru soothed, one gloved hand moving slowly through her hair. "Please, Princess, don't try to move... just relax. Relax."
"Subaru-san..." She raised a hand to clutch at the lapel of his jacket.
"Shhh. You're going to be all right."
There was a moment of awkward silence before the Princess' remaining bodyguard spoke up.
"Sumeragi-san, is she--is she hurt?"
"I don't think so. And, please, Subaru will do..." He glanced up at her, and Kamui followed his line of vision; now, as he always was, Kamui found himself impressed by how ornate her costume was. True, she and her sister didn't wear nearly as many layers of heavy, embroidered silk as the yumemi, but the brilliant red fabric of her outfit was painted with just as many designs as Hinoto's, charms and sayings and little mysteries weaving across her chest and sleeves in beautiful writing he couldn't understand.
"You protect the Princess?" Subaru asked pleasantly. The girl bowed in confirmation, somewhat formally; tendrils of brown hair swung down over her shoulders.
"I do. My twin sister and I have been her bodyguards for several years."
"Ah, I thought you were twins." His smile was small, but sincere. "It must be nice to work with your sister."
She looked startled, briefly--Kamui couldn't blame her; he'd never heard any of the Seals or even Saiki ask either of the twins about themselves, while the Princess and her visions were so close at hand--and then gave him an awkward half-smile.
"It is nice, yes. Souhi and I are very close."
"What's your name?"
"Hien."
"Souhi..." Hinoto stirred, her sightless eyes turning up toward Subaru's face. "Where is Souhi?"
"She's getting you some water, Princess... please, stay still."
The dreamgazer let out a long breath, and drooped so that her forehead rested against the hollow of Subaru's shoulder. Long coils of snow-bright hair spilled over his slender arm, shifting to ivory and cream when she moved.
"I dreamed..."
"I came as fast as I could!" Hien's twin, breathless and flushed, stumbled across the threshold in a blaze of blue, a glass clutched in her hand. "Princess, are you all right?"
"I'll... be fine, thank you..."
Subaru stroked her back gently. "Try to sit up, Princess. Take deep breaths."
Kamui took the glass from Souhi as carefully as he could, lifting it to her lips as the other boy gave him an encouraging nod. The yumemi sipped slowly, her features slackening into an expression of absolute exhaustion; she looked like nothing if not a tired child.
"I dreamed," she repeated, her mental tone dazed.
"Sh. It's over now. You're safe."
Kamui tentatively reached over and laid his hand on Subaru's shoulder; the other boy looked up, startled.
"Thanks," he managed.
Subaru's only reply was a brief little smile as the yumemi curled into his arms.
* * *
On the dreamscape, her scream had been a hundred times louder than the choked cry her muted human throat had managed.
She had seen the Bridge in ruins, the pale damp colours of dawn, the long ribbon of smoke from a falling cigarette. The memory dissolved around her as it passed; she recognised this as part of the magic that held the boy Subaru's psyche together--if he knew his own origins, the Wish on which his existence was built would disintegrate back into unfulfilled yearning, and he himself would disappear. He had been created to be blank innocence, with no past; if he learned about the past he had been created to contradict, his trusting gentleness would crumble, and once again Sumeragi Subaru the Dragon of Heaven would die.
As the Dark Kamui brought his hand down to seal the spell, she leaned forward to watch carefully. Her seer's vision allowed her to look straight into the nature of the magic, laying bare to her the secret that had enabled the Angel to give this Wish a physical form.
She had been told, by onmyouji lesser in power and rank than the Sumeragi clanhead, that certain magic traditions had long held a very firm set of beliefs about gaining control over people. The most persistent idea they had spoken of was the idea that any part of a human body--hair, skin, fingernails--could, if correctly used, become the key to controlling the welfare of the entire body. The most powerful thing a spellcaster could hope to obtain was, invariably and without question, blood.
The foundation of the spell the Dark Kamui had cast was much the same, except that it was stronger, simpler--the purest form of a principle.
When the Sunshine 60 kekkai had fallen, the Dark Kamui had come away from the encounter with not only an intimate knowledge of the clanhead's Wish, but his hands had been soaked with the man's blood. The dark smears of what had once been Subaru's eye brought the clanhead into the sphere of his power; though blood by itself could have created any number of devastating spells, when its magic came in contact with the Wish curled bright and hard around Subaru's heart, it became merely a catalyst.
In short, the Wish provided the power--and the blood gave it form.
Fascinating, when she considered it.
This, she knew, would take very delicate wording to explain properly, and she still wasn't quite sure how to use it to her advantage. Perhaps if she simply undid the new Seal--
The vision shifted.
Irritated, she glanced up to see her other self--the self, like this new boy-Subaru, so blithely naive--standing before her. Tears poured down the reflection's cheeks, and her unnaturally bright eyes were full of pleading.
"What?" Hinoto asked, irked by the image's boldness.
The reflection lifted a doll-like hand and pointed.
Hinoto turned, and the darkness around her rippled into a familiar shape--she saw, as she had seen so many times before, her own body limp and broken at Kamui's feet. The boy looked up at her with infinitely sad eyes, his fingers tightening around the hilt of the Sacred Sword he held.
And then he dropped it.
"I've changed," he whispered, in a voice not his own. As she stared, his entire appearance fragmented like a shattered mirror; the outline of his leathery wings re-formed itself into a paler, smoother shape, and bit by bit the picture reassembled until Kamui stood taller and darker and blind in one eye.
"You changed me," the Sakurazukamori said.
He raised an accusing, blood-stained hand, and the pentagram burned red all the way through his palm. Hinoto glanced frantically at the space in the vision where her body had been sprawled a moment before: now hers was not the only corpse at his feet, merely one of a dozen corpses whose eyes stared sightlessly at their killer...
He raised his hand to strike, and she screamed.
*`-,--
It was another half-hour before a thoroughly exhausted Hinoto, still visibly shaken by whatever she had seen in her dreams, finally gave up on the hope of recovering in the presence of the two Seals and politely begged them to excuse her until the next day; though Kamui still had a nagging, uneasy feeling about the whole thing, Subaru didn't say a word until they were on their way back to the mansion. Even when he did speak, his voice was subdued and thoughtful.
"I can't imagine being blind," he said.
Kamui thought of the star-shaped kekkai dissolving around the Sunshine 60 building, and tried hard not to shudder.
"Me neither."
There was an awkward moment of quiet. Overhead, thick dark clouds hung across the sky; the air was heavy with the promise of rain.
It was Subaru who spoke next, his voice a little thin with attempted good cheer.
"I've really never played the violin for you?"
The question made Kamui blink. "No. I didn't even know you played, until you mentioned it."
"Then when we get home, I'll play you something." He hesitated, then added, "Well, if you want me to. I don't want to sound like a show-off or anything."
"It's fine. I'd like to hear you play... I don't think anyone else plays an instrument, so it'll be good to have some music in the house."
Subaru smiled over at him, and then Kamui was suddenly struck with a thought.
"Hey, Subaru... are you sure you brought it with you to Tokyo?"
"I'm pretty sure, yes. It should be under my bed... I like to have it there; it feels like a good-luck charm."
Kamui wondered if the Subaru he had known had grown out of that superstition... he hoped not, which surprised him a little.
They walked on in relative silence; when they reached the door of the mansion, Sorata and Yuzuriha were sitting on the front steps, apparently engaged in a game of cat's cradle.
"No, see, you're s'posed to take these two threads here and put 'em--here, lemme show you," Sorata said, attempting to take the string out of Yuzuriha's hands.
"This is so complicated. How do you win?"
"Um. You don't, you just kinda--Kamui, hey, what's up? How was Her Highness?"
"We have to go back and see her tomorrow."
"That bad, huh? Man, I wouldn't wanna live in her head."
Yuzuriha beamed at them. "Karen-san said we should wait for you guys out here. She and Arashi-san are cleaning."
"I bet you anything they're makin' Aoki-san watch a chick flick," Sorata smirked.
"You're so mean, Sorata-san!"
Subaru cleared his throat a little shyly. "Ah... Is it okay if we go inside, or should we wait until they ask us back in?"
"Nah, they should be done by now, unless they decided to wax the ceilings or somethin'." Sorata stood, and then, with a broad grin, threw one arm around Subaru's shoulders and one arm around Kamui's.
Subaru's green eyes went wide, and he made a startled, embarrassed little noise that sounded very much like "mneegh".
"C'mon, let's go see how cute the ladies of the house look in aprons!"
"Hey, what about me?" Yuzuriha looked indignant.
"Aw, you've got a puppy. That's like two aprons and a big floofy hair bow."
She pouted, but only briefly.
As Sorata led the other boys inside, the "puppy" came bouncing joyfully towards them, barking at Subaru with happy abandon. Though still clearly embarrassed, the young Seal smiled as Inuki bounced himself up to eye level and began licking his face.
"Hey!" He laughed, and, without breaking out of Sorata's loose grip on his shoulders, reached out to take the inugami in both gloved hands and bury his face in the soft grey fur. "Mmm, you missed us, didn't you? What a good boy."
"Wow, he really likes you, doesn't he, Subaru-san?" Sorata's tone was one of amusement.
"It's probably because I smell like something good to him. Probably my gloves, they're leather--"
"Subaru-san, he's a spirit dog. He doesn't eat."
The clanhead blushed, but offered up a timid half-smile. "Oh... right."
"Hello?" Karen peeked around the living-room door. "You're back already?"
"We have to go back tomorrow," Kamui said. "The Princess wasn't feeling well."
"That's too bad... oh well, at least we got some work done." She stepped into the room fully--there was no apron over her red-and-black dress, which provoked a disappointed frown from Sorata--and waved cheerfully at the little group. "We've just been tidying up a little. Might make everyone a late lunch."
"Karen-san?" Arashi's voice, somewhere a little further down the hallway, was muffled. "Karen-san, I found something--"
"I'll be there in a minute--actually, Subaru-san, could you go get tea started?"
"Of course." He handed the inugami back to Yuzuriha with a bright smile and headed for the kitchen.
Almost as soon as he was out of earshot, Karen leaned in and spoke softly against Kamui's ear. "We've been moving his old clothes and things out of his room, and trying to get rid of the cigarette smell. You might want to take him shopping later."
Kamui blinked rapidly, surprised. "Where did you put--"
"It's all in boxes, in Arashi-san's room. Although she found something under the bed that we didn't think should go in a--"
"His violin?"
It was Karen's turn to look startled. "How did you know?"
From somewhere in the kitchen, the sound of light humming drifted by, along with the soft scraping of cups and tins being removed from cabinets.
"Maybe I should explain a few things," Kamui said.
* * *
The Princess slept, curled into her snowy robes, but just outside her chamber the twins stayed awake.
"Souhi?"
The blue-garbed girl blinked, as if she had been lost in thought, and looked up at her twin. "Hmm?"
"Tell me my fortune again."
Souhi smiled. "But Hien, you've heard it a hundred times."
"I know, but..." With a fingertip, Hien traced one of the characters on her sleeve, the smooth complicated character for "silver". "Just this once?"
Her sister smiled, and then reached back to tug the tie out of her hair. Loose waves of brown shimmered down around her shoulders, rich oak-wood silk that crimped and swept back softly from her ears. She was not very pretty, but now she looked comfortable, and that was the look her twin liked the most.
"All right, then," she murmured. "Where should I start?"
"Start with the things that have already come true." Hien leaned against the heavy sliding door, unable to contain a smile of her own. They'd both had their fortunes read by a stargazer when they were about ten, before they'd begun training to serve the Princess, and by now each sister knew the other's fortune as thoroughly as the familiar rhythms of a fairy-tale. They used it like a fairy-tale, too--it was something reassuring in the face of stressful events, or a little bonus on the calmest of days.
"Hm. Well, let's see. You were going to have a hand in the future of Tokyo, and meet a princess, and guide the blind through darkness." Souhi took a lock of her own brown hair between two fingers and stroked it with her thumb, chewing on her lower lip thoughtfully. "Now, the things that haven't come true..."
"What about Prince Charming?"
She laughed, a rich little sound. "Oh yes. You're going to meet a man in black, who will change your life. So romantic."
"Think he'll be handsome?"
"Of course." She turned a little, and her smile broadened. "Only the best for my baby sister."
Hien made an indignant noise. "I'm only twelve minutes younger."
"All right, all right... but still. Only the best."
What happened next happened so quickly that Hien barely had time to react.
First there was a shadow behind her sister; then the soft tap of a footstep on the hard floorboards. The shadow blurred into a shape, a human form; suddenly she sensed a current of incoming power--
And then Souhi was nearly lifted off her feet as a long-fingered hand thrust straight through her chest from behind.
Time stopped.
From behind the doors of the Princess' chamber, a mental scream tore loose, wild with desperation and disbelief; much more terrible was the soft cracking of bone giving way as Souhi's slender frame convulsed.
There was an eternity of nothing before the hand slowly drew back, and the dying bodyguard fell forward into her sister's arms. Souhi's eyes went wide, and then all too suddenly they were dim, a tide of blood rushing past her lips in the instant before she went limp. Clotted darkness spattered thick and sticky against her sister's red outfit, and then it began to grow lighter, pinker, until it wasn't blood that flowed from the wound but sakura petals, floating on a silent current of magic.
Hien looked up, her eyes wide and nearly blind with horror. The killer who towered before her wore his black coat like a second skin, and his blind eye glittered coldly in the half-light.
There was no smile on his face. But then, she had rarely ever seen the head of the Sumeragi clan smile.