::Disclaimer: (See first chapter)::
+++++++++++++++++++++
Yuki coughed. His chest felt sore - that stupid cat must have tried to beat him while he slept. "Baka," he mumbled, forcing his eyes open. His head protested.
What was going on?
Yuki tried to sit up. There was a weight on his chest that he could not lift. Yuki forced his eyes open. Total darkness. This was sick - was this someone's idea of a joke? Was he really at home, dreaming? If he was dreaming, he has better wake up soon; he had other things to do then dream… A strange sense of déjà vu accompanied the thought. Better things to worry about…
THE CAR!
Yuki writhed. He had to get free; he wouldn't be trapped here, held under his own car. "Kyo!" he muttered, his voice sounding strangely distant. His voice sounded as though it were drifting through an empty hallway. A thought hit Yuki with a distinct slam.
I can not be dead! he panicked, struggling more to gain momentum to-
"Yuki, stay perfectly still."
The voice sounded familiar. The same sort of noise an organ makes when it's being tuned - hollow, stately, aloof; but out of place. The voice was very reassuring - like finding a landmark that shows you which way to find your home after being lost. Oh, no, the words were not assuring, it was more of the recognition. Why was he thinking these things?
"Close your eyes, we're going to pull you out," the voice commanded, "But with your head injury it may hurt if you look at the light."
Hatori. That's who the voice belonged to - or who belonged to the voice. How could he have known? How could anyone have known? Probably Shigure and his dogs again. "Baka inu," he wheezed as he felt himself pulled out from the weight of the car. Everyone was stupid. The whole family was stupid. The curse was stupid.
The light burned even his closed eyes - consumed him violently - and he felt no more.
*
Kyo was sitting up by the car long before Hatori and Momiji freed Yuki. It was so odd - Yuki trying to grab the wheel, throwing himself up like that. Yuki had taken the entire brunt of the dashboard crashing in, while Kyo had been pitched out the side window as the car rolled. His right arm no longer moved, nor did his right leg. He kept his mouth shut from the pain.
The car he had hit was totaled. It had rolled off into the trees on the other side of the road. Unless someone had been watching, they would assume Kyo had lost control and skidded off the road. The car had been rolling when it hit the tree anyhow. If Kyo hadn't rolled from the car when he did, he would have been impaled on a tree branch right now. If Yuki hadn't jumped for the wheel he would be dead.
Yuki had saved him.
Kyo flinched at the implications. Yuki had saved him. Even if he hated Yuki, he would have to pay a life debt. He found himself wishing Yuki would die, so that he would be free of the burden. Kyo leaned back and lay against the grass tentatively. There was another problem, though.
Whoever had been in other car was dead.
Kyo may have been a fighter for nearly all his life, but… He had killed someone? He was not prepared to kill someone. Not now - possible not ever. Sure, he threatened Yuki all the time - that was just life. Live, breathe, eat, threaten Yuki's life. Even if he could have, he wouldn't. Perhaps Hatori would find someone alive there? He hoped…
Kyo's mind came full circle to the thought of Hatori and Momiji. How had they been following the car the whole time without his notice?
Maybe it's because you don't look in the rearview mirror, you idiot, Kyo's thoughts sneered viciously.
I do look! Well, er, sometimes. When I'm going to change lanes. Maybe. I think…, Kyo tried to think back at himself. It didn't matter that he was arguing with himself - no, he was more used to that then he would let on. Kyo let his eyes slide shut the moment Yuki was pulled from the car. Battered and broken, but still breathing, Yuki would live. Kyo knew it the minute he saw Momiji smile again.
If only there could have been another miracle today.
*
Tichini floated through a hazy mist surrounding her thoughts. The mist hung from the corridor of her mind, like cobwebs in an unused room. An unused room that was silent. Absent of all the noise of centuries before.
It was a factory that had been shut down.
She could not hear her heart beat, her breathing, anything. She hung in a limbo between life and death, a limbo balanced in her mind. Two thoughts were the most used in her mind - one was extremely happy, joyous and synthetic. Synthetic, but without pain. The other was harsh, painful and bright.
The difference was that only one door was real.
So much for only slipping away, Tichini thought, laughing simply to make noise in her head, I've completely fallen off the boat.
She felt her way to the warm, synthetic happiness, and shook her head. This was a choice - a dream she could never wake from. The other door… The other door was a pain she could never sleep away. Time was fleeting - though she didn't know why. Tears streaming down her face, she knew it was the last moment before her choice was decided for her.
Tiptoeing across the spindly web of thoughts - climbing through the trap of happiness ensnaring her every thought - she reached out for the cold, painful door that lead to life.
*
Hatori felt his heart sink as he climbed down the incline where the little blue Miata had flipped. Impaled on a tree stump, there was no possibility of survival. The car had been nailed in the fore-driver's side (probably automatically killing whoever was driving), rolled down the embankment, and was now jutted on a tree. The motor twitched pathetically, like a speared fish whose nerves did not realize it was dead yet.
But where did that noise come from? It was a soft sort of noise, like someone calling for help. Someone who was too weak to scream. Hatori's brain told him to stop being an idiot, but his legs stretched further. Yuki had been saved - miracle of miracles - by throwing his upper body above the dashboard line and shoving his arms up to block the shards of glass. It wasn't possible to have another miracle, was it?
After all, Hatori wasn't particularly gifted in the way of miracles in the first place.
He found his legs sprinting him the rest of the way to the car, the entire way his voice screaming, Don't die, don't die, don't die… He pulled off what was left of the door to find - the car was empty. A stump stabbed clean through the driver's seat, but there was no blood. Hatori soon noticed why - the seat belt had snapped.
But where were they thrown?
Hatori followed the shards of glass from the windshield. He searched the ground, the hollows - even the branches for a trace of clothing, blood. Something. He was looking to the branches when he stumbled across the obstructive tree root. Coughing, he looked back to see a girl - pale with blood loss and coughing up blood lightly - staring at him with a delirious smile toying at her lips.
"A doctor…" she coughed, blood flecking her ashen skin, "I thought you'd never get here."
++++++++++++++++++++
Author's Notes: Ah, here we go. Getting to the first conflict of the story. I'm rambling, but I'm sure we all see the connection, eh? ;) Even if you don't, ah well. Chapter 5 is almost done and then - amazingness - all of the fic will be complete and uploaded one at a time (seeing as I'm also uploading it to my webpage for a friend to link to it for her Furuba site). Hope you like!