Disclaimer: Kamui may be my pillow, but I don't own him.

Twin Star

Part 5

Kamui felt uneasy. More than that, really – he felt annoyed. Of course, it was hard for him to feel much else right now, although if he didn't concentrate hard enough, some of the fear would start to leak in. And he didn't want to deal with that, knew he couldn't deal with that, so he concentrated on feeling annoyed.

Because that girl had looked at him like he was a piece of meat.

He sighed. All right, he told himself, she hadn't really been looking at him like that. But something about the way she had been looking at him had struck something in him that had left him feeling completely exposed. And he couldn't say why.

He remembered being called, Hinoto's telepathic voice echoing through his head, at once explaining why Arashi and Sorata had left the house that afternoon. Kamui hadn't particularly cared why they'd left, but Hinoto hadn't cared about what he thought, merely inserted knowledge into his mind via her damned telepathic dream images, and then called him to her room beneath the Diet Building. Yuzuriha had appeared at his door a moment later, knocking tentatively, Inuki sitting alert at her feet. And Kamui had had no choice but to join her.

Karen had been there too, when they'd arrived, but neither Aoki nor Subaru had appeared. Kamui hadn't cared about that either. He'd merely stood, half-attentive, as Karen and Hinoto spoke, unaware of the subject of their conversation until suddenly the soft voice had rung throughout his head.

"Kamui."

He'd blinked and turned to the princess, his arms crossed, trying to show her that he didn't care about whatever it was that she'd seen, that he just wanted her to leave him the hell alone. But she hadn't taken notice, merely looked up at him with her hauntingly blank eyes.

"You haven't been listening," she'd said. He'd rolled his eyes and shrugged. "Kamui, something very important has happened."

A vision had invaded his mind then, of space and time and in the center of it all, the big dipper, shining brightly. He'd squinted at the stars, confused, for he had always thought there were only seven stars to its name, seven points of light arcing across the sky, marking the tail of the bear.

But there, beneath the second star, was a tinier point of light. It seemed a part of the first, but had separated itself enough to shine on its own.

"There are eight stars in the big dipper, Kamui," Hinoto's voice had told him, as he lurched nauseatingly back into reality and stared at her. "There are eight stars," she went on, speaking now to both Yuzuriha and Karen as well as himself, "and there are eight Seals."
Yuzuriha had blinked, then gasped. "We have eight Seals?"
"Yes," Hinoto had replied. "There are eight; the eighth is the twin star of Mizar, the eighth Seal is a twin of our own."
"Whose star is it?" Karen had asked, voice smooth and calm and Kamui fleetingly wondered what other uses her voice would be put to before the night was over. He didn't hate Karen – not at all, no more than any of the others around him who'd foolishly sworn allegiance to him – but right then he'd not been in a particularly good mood to begin with.

"The eighth Seal is the twin star to Sorata," Hinoto had said. "A female twin to match him and balance him –"

She'd stopped, gasping, as Kamui heard sounds coming from the door. And he'd looked over to see Sorata and Arashi entering, leading behind them a girl who looked partly confused, partly strangely calm, dressed in a CLAMP School uniform, long black hair swaying about her waist as she took in her surroundings. She looked like she couldn't be much older than him, but she certainly wasn't much younger, either.

And her dark eyes had been trained on nothing else but him.

He sighed, now back in his room, sitting at his desk, and lowered his forehead to meet his hands, elbows propped on his desk. His head was pounding, and he didn't want to think any more tonight. He had school in the morning, and these damned Dragons and their Apocalypse were interfering with his schoolwork, to say the least.

He laughed bitterly to himself. As if he had ever really cared about his schoolwork.

The image of dark eyes swarm through his mind again, and he shook his head, forcing them away into the mist of his thoughts.

No, she hadn't looked at him like he was a piece of meat.

Closing his eyes, he remembered a night, that somehow seemed so long ago and yet so clear that it could have been yesterday, all at the same time. He remembered the feel of the sword, of the glass through his palms, and he remembered Fuuma's warm body pressed perversely against his. He remembered Fuuma's tongue, lapping up the blood that he himself was responsible for, licking it gently from Kamui's neck.

No, Nibai hadn't looked at him like he was a piece of meat.

But that night, Fuuma had.

* * *

She had resolved to take this all in stride, as difficult as that was, and to go on with her life. To work on her homework like a good girl, to not dwell on that last bit of her fate like it was the end-all of everything, because she knew that if she thought like that then the rest of her life – however much of it she did have left – would have no meaning. And she most certainly didn't want that.

She tried not to miss Miki; it was hard, but with the new challenge before her now, she at least had other things to keep her mind otherwise occupied. Things like Kamui.

But Kamui, however, was not very responsive. It was positively annoying – she could see him, visibly in pain, and yet he refused to accept any help. From anyone. She rarely got the chance to speak to him, odd as that was, although she ended up spending quite a bit of time after classes at the enormous house that the chairman of CLAMP School had provided for the Dragons of Heaven. She would eat meals with them, keeping up to date on the motions of the Dragons of Earth. She had learned, over the course of the past few days, the names of the Dragons that opposed them, as well as anything Hinoto or her fellow Seals knew about them. They were an interesting lot, to say the least, and she still wasn't quite sure what she would do if she ended up face-to-face with any of them just yet. Of course, she realized now that she already had, recalling her brief encounter with who she now knew was Sakurazuka Seishirou that day in Ueno park. But she still didn't know what she would do if, rather than vacating the area, she had to make a stand. But she also understood the school and its grounds to be fairly well-guarded, so at least she probably wouldn't have to worry about that just yet.

Kamui was also attending CLAMP School, after having transferred there himself recently, and they were actually in a few of the same classes. She hadn't really had an extensive education – the high school in her home town was rather plain. CLAMP School was positively huge compared with what she was used to, and yet she found herself able to slip into the flow of the student body rather easily.

And it turned out to be an incredibly good idea to have her "watch" Kamui while she was at school – it cut down on the other Dragons of Heaven having to loiter about the grounds, for which Sorata was infinitely glad. Apparently he was the one given the job the most often.

"Oh, it's not like the CLAMP campus isn't great or anything," he said over dinner, bolting his food as though he'd never eaten before and didn't expect to ever again, "but I mean, there's only so many times you can wander that library. It gets boring, even when the staff all know you're supposed to be there and aren't trying to throw you out."

"Perhaps we should get them to attempt to throw you out, then," Arashi muttered, eyeing his table manners – or lack thereof – with distaste. "It will give you an excuse to stay alert."

Nibai laughed as Sorata shot her a sort of sad puppy dog look. Even Yuzuriha began to laugh at that.

Kamui remained silent, picking at his meal.

Nibai sighed as she watched him, almost wishing that she could do something to make him stop hurting. Or at least to help him deal with it. But she knew that she was hopeless with such things – she'd never been what Yui-san would have even begun to refer to as tactful, and she knew that it would probably hurt Kamui more than help him, were she to try and confront him about it.

But still, all the same, he didn't have to be so damned unresponsive.

She'd heard – seen – the story from Hinoto, when she'd gone back the next day. She'd sat before the princess, legs crossed, and stared into her depthless eyes, only to fall flailing into something she could never have imagined…

"There are things that I cannot tell you – things it is much easier to merely show you." Hinoto's voice echoed all around her, and although this place seemed an endless expanse of darkness, the sound assaulted her as if thrown from walls, ceiling, and floor.

"Do you agree to this?" the princess asked.

Nibai cringed. If Hinoto was asking if she agreed to this… what was she going to be shown? But she really had no choice – if she was going to be helpful at all, she needed to know. Needed to know what was happening, and why – if there really was a why involved at all here – and this seemed to be the best way to do things. She hoped.

"Yes."

And it began. She hurtled through so many images, so many memories that she was afraid she would be sick – her stomach lurched as the landscape changed again and again, with no warning…

An operating room, blood everywhere, two children and a father left alone..

A sword, sacred, protected, stolen, a death in its wake…

A fire, a prophecy, more death, more swords…

Betrayal, confusion, fear and sadness and loss at the death of a childhood friend – one of too few friends…

Feathers, obscuring her vision, blowing around her until she was lost in a storm of white, then falling, falling, towards the bottom of the world and there was Kamui, alone and lost, trapped beneath the weight of a sword he couldn't wield and the pair of midnight black wings, leathery yet infinitely fragile, extended above his head –

Nibai gasped, coming to her senses, still seated before Hinoto, blinking as the real world came back into focus. There were so many things swimming through her mind, images and sounds, but above all stood Kamui, trapped and lost and sad beyond her comprehension.

"You see why we must help him," Hinoto said softly.

"Hell yes. That boy needs help," Nibai said, but her voice sounded shaky and weak, even to her.

"You still agree to protect him, then?"

Nibai swallowed, then nodded. She wanted – no, needed to help this boy. She felt it. She felt it and was more sure of it than anything else in her life until this moment. She needed to help Kamui.

"Yeah," she said, for Hinoto had not seen her nod. "Yeah, I think I'd better stick around."

And yet, she'd barely ever been alone with the boy. He certainly wasn't easy to talk to – he tended to just look away or mumble one-syllable responses when confronted, and it was enough to drive her mad. She understood what he had gone through – at least, she thought she could begin to understand a little of it. She honestly couldn't even begin to imagine what he felt like but she could, for a moment, put herself in his shoes and try to make sense of it all. And it didn't.

It didn't make sense in exactly the same way that what Hinoto had told her the first day didn't make sense. That no matter what she did, she was fated to die for the sake of a man. And that no matter how she tried to fight it… That was what the stars whispered to her at night, even separated by the layers of cloud and smog and light here in the middle of Tokyo. They still whispered to her in her dreams, of things to come, of paths she must walk, of a fate she must accept.

Well, she was trying to accept it, but the one thing that she thought might make that easier was not being very cooperative.

Sorata finished his meal first – small wonder – and dumped the plates in the sink, ignoring the look Arashi gave him.

"Well, gotta run, got some stuff to take care of. Be good kids," he winked to Nibai, Yuzuriha, and Kamui, "and I'll see you later, cutie." He grinned at Arashi, who sighed and waved him out the door. He grinned, and was gone.

"I'm not hungry," Kamui announced flatly, standing up and depositing his plate on the counter. He trudged soundlessly into the room that was "his", closing the door – not quite slamming it, but in a quiet way that got the same idea across – behind him.

Nibai sighed and hung her head. This had become the norm, over the past few days – yet another thing that was bugging the hell out of her. When she looked up, Yuzuriha was picking at her food, decidedly less genki, and Arashi was staring out the window, looking slightly preoccupied.

"Leave it to Sorata to leave the room speechless," she said, in an effort to lighten the mood. "Ne, Yuzuriha, howabout we go get some ice cream?"

Yuzuriha perked up at that, her eyes sparkling with interest. "Really?"

Nibai shrugged. "You mind, Arashi?"
"Not at all," she answered, looking down to Nibai from across the table.

"Great!" Nibai stood and cleared her plate as Yuzuriha followed suit. "Meet me by the door," Nibai told her, before heading in the direction of Kamui's room. She stopped outside the door, pausing a moment before she knocked, softly.

"Ne, Kamui, we're going to get some ice cream. I don't suppose –"

"No," was the firm response from behind the door.

"Ne, Kamui, come on, you can't –"

"No."

She paused. "You're sure?"

"I'm sure."

She sighed. "All right. You'd better not kill me if I bring some back for you then," she said, and left before he could even respond.