Annex I:
Hearth:
Touya
One day, Kinomoto Nadeshiko Left.
Kinomoto Touya, her son, knew that one day, she was going to Leave. Or rather, he told himself that. And he also told himself that it would be good when she did Leave. She was, after all, not supposed to have stayed behind as a ghost. He knew that. He knew, as he knew many things, that it was far better for her to leave than to stay. He had seen ghosts his entire life, and he had felt either ineffable sadness or unspeakable anger from them. So, all in all, it was far better for people to Go. But his mother had stayed, and part of him was glad for it, because it meant she was still there, even as part of him knew it was better for her to go. He knew, once whatever her unfinished business tying her there was gone, she would be free. He knew it. So he was not surprised by her leaving.
He was, however, surprised by her not saying "Good-bye."
It hurt, somehow, in a way he had not expected. He told himself to stop being selfish, that he was supposed to be happy that she was finally at peace. But part of him was hurt, and part of him was very angry. And that part told him that she had just left him, without a word. He told that part that he had had longer with her than anyone, and he had been lucky for that time.
And the small, angry voice answered back, because such voices always had answers.
Yes, she Left. You knew she would. And you also know that you aren't why she stayed. She didn't stay for your sake.
He knew his mother loved him. But he also knew she hadn't worried as much about him, because he was like her, he knew things...and that he would use that to protect his family. He had become protective of Sakura even before their mother had died, carefully hiding from her as long as possible how sick their mother really was.
He had known, from the very start, that his mother was going to die and that he could do nothing but watch it happen. He could do nothing more than watch, watch and try to ease her life as best he could. And the night she died, when she came to talk to him, he cried for her because she was gone and also because she was, in her way, trapped. She was trapped until he could make things right enough for her to leave. He had to be the strong one. Sakura was just a baby and his father...while his father didn't cry, Touya knew that something had broken.
Protect them, his mother had said. Take care of them. Be strong, and take care of them.
That was when he had known--she was not there for him. She worried so much about them that she could not go to wherever it was that ghosts were supposed to go. She was trapped in the world, the same as the ghosts of murdered children and accident victims; the same as the spirits of the vengeful and the lost.
She was trapped until he made things right enough for her to be able to move on.
The first thing he did was start taking over taking care of Sakura. The first few days, she needed the most care. He assumed, like all children, that his father would be able to take care of himself; it was not until the funeral service that he realized how horribly wrong that was.
And so, in his way, he took care of his father as well.
He began to take over the day-to-day things. His father, he learned quickly, was woefully unprepared for some of the necessities of life. His father was wonderfully ready in terms of taking care of chores and such, cleaning and cooking and sewing, but had no head at all for finances--he had, in standard Japanese way, simply left the finances to his wife, and now suddenly there were problems such as the electricity being cut off because he didn't know how to pay the bill.
That only happened once; Touya consulted with his mother, and from that day forth took care of the finances. He took his father's pay stub every month, calculated out for bills, and took over as his mother had done, leaving his father the money for the week. For the first few weeks after his mother died, Touya kept himself together. He quietly did as he had before his mother died, taking care of the household chores as best he could, watching Sakura as soon as he got home, and doing his homework late at night, after she had gone to sleep. After a semester, however, his father came to his room to tell him that he had received a phone call from the school, that Touya's grades were dropping. Touya just shrugged and said he was busy; he'd work harder next time. His father nodded, but stared at him strangely for a moment.
The next week, the chore chart started. His grades improved.
Time passed. Sakura grew older, Touya began to work, and his father seemed to step away from the strange and horrible gapingness that Touya had felt at the funeral, even though it was still there, quietly biding it's time.
It was simply a matter of time before it came out, but Touya could not think of a way to bring it to his mother or to talk to his father. He would wait, and if the situation worsened, well, then he would do something. He couldn't, after all, worry his mother with this. She didn't need one more burden, tying her to world she was supposed to have Left.
So he stayed strong, took care of everything, protected them as best he could for his mother, so she could be free.
And then, one day she was gone.
And she hadn't cared enough to say "Good-bye."
But time passed, as it always does, and he found that one day the slap in the face that his mother's abrupt departure had seemed to be had, as all pains one day do, faded from a sharp, painful grief into a dull ache.
It was during this time, when the pain was just beginning to fade, that Kinomoto Touya found himself standing in front of a tree.
It was not a tree like the one that he still occasionally had nightmares about; it was instead a tree that had...something...inside it. He wasn't quite sure what, but he could feel it. He walked over to the tree and introduced himself. After all, many times, some of the things that lived in trees and rocks and many other things could be helpful. They all had emotions, just as he did, and he knew that it was best to let them know that he was here, and that he was friendly.
He was not expecting anyone else to be there. He was quite surprised, therefore, when he heard someone else's voice.
Her name was Kaho. She smiled, and he sensed something about her. Not simply that she knew things, but something else. She sought him out, seemed to inexorable draw him to her with her gentle laughs and smiles and the way she teased him. It seemed like the only time he could relax--that he could let go of the tight ball of stress that his life seemed to be now that his mother wasn't there to help him take care of his family--was when she was around.
It was because of her that he discovered his own age; that he finally got to be a teenager again. She laughed at him if he was too serious, teased him for working too many jobs, and for the first time, he began to feel as if he mattered for more than just keeping everything running. He could tell her about his fears and his worries, and she understood. She listened. She cared.
Kaho had become his world, and he loved her very much. And, it seemed, she loved him as well. And for a while, and for the first time in what had seemed to be a long time, Touya felt as if everything was finally going right. He had Kaho. She loved him. Someone, a voice said, finally actually loved him. Someone noticed him. Someone cared. She was...special, and he couldn't imagine feeling this way about anyone else.
And during a festival, a year after he told Kaho he loved her, she smiled as she always did, looked at him, and told him that it had been nice, but now it was over between them.
And with those words, Kaho was gone.
Time passed, as it always does, and he found that, one day, the blow to the stomach that Kaho's abrupt departure had seemed to be had, as all pains one day do, faded from a sharp, painful stabbing into a dull ache.
It was during this time, when the pain was just beginning to fade, that Kinomoto Fujitaka came home from a trip to Kyoto with load of books.
He asked his son Touya to put them away for him, since he had to run to the university. He told Touya he hadn't had a chance yet to look over all of them, so to put the books in the smallest box on his desk, and he would look at them in detail later.
Touya agreed, and did as his father asked, not paying much attention until the last book in the smallest box, which he dropped as if burned.
It was a strange book; old, with an image of a winged lion on the front, and somehow...sealed? Sealed by something other than the flap locking it. He turned the book and lost his breath, something pulling him at the sight of the glyph of the moon. There was an image, an image in his mind of the moon in winter. His hands strayed over the flap keeping the book closed, his eyes glazing over slightly as he did so. His fingers brushed it, toying unconsciously over it. He felt his thumb twitch slightly, trying to open it. Something was here, something strong, something powerful, something that would change everything; he had only to flip it open...
He dropped the book. His hands felt cold, like he had been touching ice, and he shivered, suddenly nervous, suddenly sure that there was something...wrong. He frowned and picked the book up again, his fingers brushing the back of it, tracing unconsciously the raised crescent moon. Cold, and image flashing in his mind of wings, of feathers and ice, and something that felt like a keening wail; a flash of despair that threatened to overwhelm him; a pain of loss that was too familiar for him to ignore, and he shivered. His thumbs caressed the front, the sun and the face of the lion, and Touya suddenly felt sick; ill--there was something dangerous here. Suddenly he wanted nothing more than to get this book *away*--something dangerous slumbered within it; something that for an instant had felt so terrifying familiar; something that for an instant had felt like his father, but only horribly transmuted into...something else, someone else, something capable of creating that despairing chill he had felt from the moon, and he wanted nothing more than to get this book as far from his father as possible; wanted to make sure that his father could never become *that.*
And he wanted this book away from *him*, wanted the temptation to open it, to grasp that power within it, to hold the power of the moon within his hands, wanted it away. Whatever was in the book was far too tempting, far too seductive. Part of it called to him, called to him in a voice that felt like a crumbling glacier, a power that he had never felt before and that could make him more powerful than anyone--anything--in the world. It called him, it sang to him, it reached to him with feathered wings--
--and he ran from it, afraid, irrationally so, of what it would make him become.
That night, Touya dreamed. First he dreamed of darkness, a deep darkness that could be felt; reaching out to him and threatening to overwhelm him. Something, something that felt like flower petals, brushed over him and he felt cold, frightened; more alone than he had ever been in his life, and knowing that he would be overwhelmed. He struggled, tearing forward, running, tree branches trying to capture him, tearing in his flesh. But ahead, a light...there was a light...
The moon. Ahead, there was light, the light of the moon, and it would protect him in it's warmth glow, save him from the darkness that wanted nothing more than to pull him into it. The moon, he realized, was the only light; it was that which drove away the darkness of the midnight, and that which could save him from it.
But now, the darkness again, the moon was waning, fading, and he was surrounded by the sakura, black sakura, wrapping around him, drowning him again in the darkness, and a soft voice he had never heard before crying out in an unknown tongue--
He woke with a start, in his father's office, holding the sealed book, fingers about to rip open the seal.
He dropped the book as if burned by the cold. There was something stirring, something within the book, trying to awaken, and he knew it would destroy him, it was the Dark--
There was no warm moonlight now; only a feeling of something that would burn him to nothing.
And his father...what would it do to his father, if his father broke the seal?
~Protect them.~
He couldn't throw out his father's book, but...but he could hide it somewhere. His father had so many books...put it in the wrong place, on a shelf too low for his father to easily get too. He shoved it into the bookcase and swore never to come for the book again; knowing, as he knew many things, that what was in the book would destroy him, by making him into something else. It was not safe now. Not for him. Perhaps not for his family, but certainly not for him.
And something whispered to him that it would not be safe for his father, who still teetered on the brink of some abyss. No, he could not be touched by the Dark; it would be too much. This book was not for either of them.
He shoved the book into a low shelf, and ran.
The rest of the night, he dreamed only of the moonlight; of standing in the light of the moon, bathed by its glow, and for the first time, feeling not as alone as he had felt for all of these years, since his mother, since Kaho--
He reached for the moon, wanting it in his arms, to feel it. It was there, almost within his grasp, almost--
When he woke, there were tears on his face, for the loss of that dream of light; the loss of the moon, of one more thing that left him without a backwards glace. He wiped them away, glad no one could see them, then got up and got ready for school.
That day, he met Tsukishiro Yukito, and knew that he had found the moon again.
This time, he would not let it go.
And this time, he would not be left.