{Well, as I supposed you must have guessed by now, I took something of a summer hiatus on this one. ^^;; BUT, I'll do my best to have ch. 5 next Monday, really I will! Thank you very, very much, Yati and Trickster Kitsune, for your great comments! I don't get much in the way of reviews, so they mean a lot to me. And, of course, eternal gratitude to Lee for betaing this chapter for me and reassuring me that Subaru and Seishirou were written tolerably, at least. Writing for such well-known cannon characters made me a bit insecure. ^^;;}

Ch. 4.

Something was most definitely not right. It had been two months and nine days, exactly, since Hokuto had mentioned her strange dream encounter, and ever since then Subaru knew for a fact that her sleep had been erratic. Lately, it had become even worse; fearsome nightmares she refused to recount when pressed, even though he could hear her cries right through the walls sometimes. And on other occasions, she would sleep long past normal waking hours-- he was rather ashamed of intruding on her privacy, but he'd even snuck into her room on a couple such occasions (alright, maybe a bit more than that) and had seen a curious little smile on her face that somehow merely increased his agitation. There was something-- everything!-- not right about her dreams, even the ones that did not inspire screaming and tears. But what really had Subaru at his wits' end was that she refused to tell him anything! The two had never held back anything from one another, and here she was, distracting him with jokes or teasing whenever he asked, and simply falling silent whenever he pressed the issue. What was he to do?

Seishirou listened to the entire frazzled monologue with his elbows resting on the table, hands joined and pressed against his mouth in thought. His deep brown eyes gazed sympathetically at Subaru through their glasses, and he nodded or added a "hmm" whenever appropriate. Finally, as the other wound down, he beamed and motioned towards Subaru's barely nibbled morning pastry. "Are you going to eat that?"

"Seishirou-san!" Subaru wailed, "I need help! Hokuto won't even speak to me about this, you're my only hope!" Nevertheless, he did slide over the pastry.

Seishirou gave him another smile, more than enough to bring color into Subaru's face, and munched on a forkful of danish. However, when he spoke again, his face was serious, if still kindly, and it was evident that he had been paying more attention than it had appeared. "And this… dream-controller of hers, do you remember his name?"

Subaru frowned slightly. "Only his given-- Kakyou. And Hokuto only mentioned it once, so I could be wrong. I've already tried researching the name, and any sort of power like that, with no luck… if only I had a family name, that might make it easier."

"Probably not," Seishirou replied, "it must be a very rare power for neither you nor I to have ever heard of it… or a very well concealed one." He frowned as well and swallowed another bite. "But my first and most immediate question is, have you noticed any change in Hokuto's health? I haven't, myself, but you would know better than I. Because, if Kakyou is not targeting her health or her powers, perhaps you're worrying yourself unnecessarily."

"Well…" Subaru stammered, "no, there's no foreign power whatsoever in her chakra, and she's as active and healthy as ever, when awake… but there are still those dreams." Maybe that in itself was what worried him, that there was no real symptom, nothing he target, or even point to as evidence. No symptom, yet he knew so deeply that he was absolutely sure of it, something was very wrong.

"Dreams are dreams, Subaru-kun," Seishirou said rather lightly, "and while I certainly wouldn't say this is nothing, perhaps it's not worth the anxiety you're putting yourself through. And," he added pensively, "there may be quite a different reason indeed as to why she won't speak of her friend. Why, it may be far more harmless than it seems." He gave a small smile.

Subaru blinked. "Well?"

Seishirou took a sip of his juice, swallowed, and wiped at the corners of his mouth, all the while quite oblivious to Subaru's suspense. "Perhaps she's just shy of telling you about her new boyfriend."

A slight, strangled sound emerged from Subaru's suddenly gaping mouth, but nothing actually coherent was issued, nor did it appear that his eyes would stop popping any time soon. Seishirou smiled slightly and amended, "Well, perhaps not so harmless, but at least in a different direction."

"Aaa… a boyfriend?! Her dream-man? But--"

"And why not?" His neat suit and businessman look clashing quite violently with his dreamy smile and the schoolgirl fantasy he was now extolling, Seishirou continued, "It's wonderfully romantic… meeting him every night in her mind… you know, Subaru-kun, you said it yourself: he's the man of her dreams." The smile melted into something more mischievous, betraying the veterinarian's teasing, but Subaru was rather too beside himself to notice. Finally, Seishirou took some pity on his younger companion and leaned forward a little to murmur, "Subaru-kun, relax. It's just a joke. For all we know she may well be in a relationship with this Kakyou, but even so, that wouldn't explain the dreams, so you're right, we should try to figure this out. Why don't we both keep an eye on Hokuto, and if either of us sees a change for the worse, we'll decide what to do from there. And in the meanwhile," he leaned forward and gave Subaru another warm smile, "try not to worry so, alright? I don't want to see my precious Subaru-kun unhappy."

Subaru blushed, gulped happily, and nodded to his friend's words. "T-thank you very much, Seishirou-san. You're a wonderful help."

Seishirou smiled cheerfully, finished off the danish, and turned his head just slightly as he rose to clear away the dishes. For a single moment, light reflected off his glasses, turning them opaque, and for a single moment, Subaru wondered: where have I seen such a face before, with eyes overshadowed…? And then the thought simply melted from his mind as he jumped up to help his Seishirou-san.

***

Reflexively, her hand reached out almost before she even awoke, and by the time Hokuto was sitting up and yawning away sleep, her diary was already in her lap and unlocked. It had become a ritual for her, in these last months; wake up and immediately jot down everything Kakyou had shown her of his prophetic dreams that night. Only this way could she even begin to guess at their meanings, and how they might be changed.

We started by the water. She wrote rapidly, trying to recall everything, Not our usual Dreamscape ocean, but a river in the mountains, cutting through a forest. We traced it backwards, from where it spilled out to a glorious waterfall, and then hovered there for a while. Kakyou had never seen this dream before, so his guess was as good as mine as to why we were there. But then, a little girl appeared, climbing over rocks on her way to the waterfall. For a moment, Hokuto's concentrated brows smoothed thanks to a fond smile. She was adorable. She had a puppy with her, scampering ahead, and they soon arrived at an outcropping above the waterfall and sat down. But then-- The frown returned-- then strange noises began, like the rumbling just before an earthquake. The girl couldn't hear it, but suddenly her dog sat up and grabbed her shirt collar in his teeth. I was surprised, she was more than four times her puppy's size, but he somehow managed to lift her, despite her confused struggling, and take such a powerful leap that he nearly flew her to safety. Around them the earth was beginning to shake, and rocks were thrusting themselves out of the ground, but for some reason he chose to put her down in a large crevasse between two rocks, to which other animals were also fleeing. But-- as he did this-- a single tear hovered, then tumbled end-over-end to the page-- vines that seemed to have a will of their own shot out and impaled him. It was so, so awful. We could hear her screaming and crying inside her shield as he died, and the waterfall simply stopped flowing, what was left of the water crashing down and draining away as his torn body landed on the ground. Then, the Dreamscape brought us closer so that we could see her again.

The sky was darkening unnaturally quickly as we flew towards her, and then we were perched on the lip of the rock, looking down a couple feet into her tear-streaked face. She had grown from around six years old to maybe thirteen or fourteen, and now she was in a dark green school uniform. She was looking beyond us, at the night sky above, and the only constellation visible: the Dipper. But, reflected in her eyes was only one star.

This was where the dream bled away, and we emerged back in Kakyou's Dreamscape. He said the ending had made it clear; she was a Dragon of Heaven, and the dog represented her powers. Somehow, due to some inattentiveness or mistake on her part, she would lose her powers but not her life.

Poor girl. If the pain is anything like what she experienced in the dream, it will be terrible for her. No. Could be terrible for her, but it doesn't have to happen. When I see her next, doubtless in the year 1999, I'll be sure to warn her, I'll be sure to do whatever it takes for her to not have to live through that. And, it could be that she is a key. Perhaps, if she doesn't lose her powers, she'll be able to tip the balance in favor of the Seals.

I also wonder if Kakyou's interpretation is complete. After all, there is still the matter of the sanctuary her powers chose for her. Dropping her in a chasm seems… kind of crazy. And yet, she was protected by it, and it only extended a couple feet, not anywhere near as bottomless as it first appeared. So what's that supposed to mean? A disguised protector of some sort, for after her power is lost? Or have I carried the metaphor too far?

…Frankly, that doesn't seem very possible in Dreamscape.

Hokuto eyed that last sentence and sighed, knowing she'd probably been dwelling too long on the dream if she was turning cranky. She shut the diary again, locked it, and tucked it away in her nightstand drawer. She'd have to buy a new one soon; it was very nearly filled with dream after prophetic dream. Every last one was grim, or seemed that way, but she refused to give in yet. The diary was also filling with her speculations on how to reverse the events Kakyou had shown her… even if she had to admit, at times it seemed as impossible as he said it was. No names, not even true descriptions of powers all the time, just all these damn metaphors in dreams in vague allusion that nearly made her scream. But like hell was she giving in.

And to think only a few months ago, all I wrote of was Subaru-kun and Seishirou-kun… I can't even really understand what's happened to me. There was less to smile about, when she remembered the image of that long-haired girl, eyes dark as she surveyed her own heart in her hands, skewered on a sword she'd somehow drawn out of herself. It was harder to laugh, after she'd dreamed of a woman willingly leaping into a burning pyre. And it was impossible to look Subaru in the eye when her mind's eye could see his pale face, rigid in death, with the inverted pentagram of Black Onmyoujitsu emblazoned on his eyelids. When the battle comes, he will face the Sakurazukamori, and lose… oh, God, I've got to be there to protect him when that day arrives!