Disclaimer: Even though I bought all the DVDs and even the movie, still not mine. ^^;;

Twin Star

Part 7

            It was dark where she was - very dark, so that she could barely make out the outline of her hand when she held it in front of her face. She blinked, as if her vision might clear, but to no avail.

            This place felt... empty. It felt like nothingness, like she was the only person there and had been the only person ever there, would be the only person to ever be there. It was lonely, and she wanted someone else.

            And then there was someone else, someone watching her, a shadow in a dark coat with one dark eye, one light, and she shivered under his gaze and her chest began to sting. She didn't want to be here anymore, under his gaze.

            She began to run - she didn't know where she was running to, she couldn't see three inches in front of her face, but that wasn't stopping her now. Every step she took, she heard water splashing - she was running through puddles, across an endless expanse of puddle, the only sound in this place save her breathing, louder than her heartbeat in her ears.

            She reached out, wishing for someone - anyone - to come, to save her, to take her away –

            Wings. Before her, the sound – the sight – of wings, unfolding into the darkness. A red scarf, blowing in some unfelt wind, entangled in the wings of the angel who stood before her. Feathers streamed past her face as she looked up and saw –

            Kamui. Kamui, standing there before her, golden eyes glinting with some light she had never seen in them before. Smiling a wicked little smile that chilled her to the bone, that seemed somehow wrong on his face –

            "Kamui!" She called out to him, running faster. He reached out a hand for her and she ran, trying to reach him –

            And she tripped. And she fell. Right through the puddle; her world suddenly turned itself upside-down and she was dizzy, falling out of the sky, fighting down nausea –

            Until she connected with something very solid. A person – a person's chest, rather, clothed in a simple black school uniform.

            Kamui's uniform. Her hands were bleeding, they were leaving deep red marks barely visible on the black cloth.

            She looked up.

            Kamui. Kamui, looking down at her with such immense hurt and desperation in his eyes that she wanted nothing more in the world than to take him and hold him and tell him everything would be all right. Kamui, whose enormous black wings came to enclose her now, shutting the darkness out and leaving them encase in their own little world –

            Nibai woke with a start, sitting straight up in bed and feeling her heart pounding. She shook her head slightly, as if to clear it, and raised her hands in front of her face in the moonlight. They were unwounded and clean; she sighed and lowered them to her lap, even as they still felt of blood, slick and sliding down her palms.

            She'd been having dreams like this ever since she'd arrived in Tokyo; she couldn't really figure out what they meant, other than her unconscious mind latching onto Kamui. She had to laugh a little at that – they were hardly the fantasies most people dreamed about when they liked someone. But then again, their situation was hardly a normal one.

            Still, it was only a dream. And she was not a Dreamgazer; thus, it probably meant nothing. And so, despite the strange feeling still churning in her stomach, she was able to lie back down and eventually fall back into sleep once more.

                                                *                       *                       *

            "So. Are you just going to sit over there all day looking pissy, or could you possibly lower your gracious self to talking to me?"

            He gave her the oddest look, somewhere between shock and outrage, as she giggled to herself at how odd the expression looked coming from him. His mouth opened, but it seemed to take him a moment to form words.

            "… What?" was all he could say, when he finally did form sound.

            "Well… you've been sitting over there all day, being your lonesome little pissy self, and I've been sitting over here, bored to tears. We're both doing the same homework. We could at least compare answers or something."

            He sighed suddenly, and dropped his forehead onto his hand, propping his elbows on the table. "Were that I had answers to compare," he said, letting his pencil fall to the table with a quiet click. The CLAMP School library was mostly deserted, and would have been a good place to get some of their work done, had they actually been able to do it.

            She laughed. "Oh great, me too. I was hoping you had some." She put her own pencil down and rocked the chair back onto two legs, folding her hands behind her head and staring at the ceiling. "Now we're both screwed."

            "You're going to fall," came his muffled voice, directed more at the table than at her.

            "Ne?" she asked, looking over at him – and losing her balance, crashing to the floor. Bright spots suddenly superimposed themselves on her vision, as a sharp pain began working its way up from her shoulders to her skull.

            She blinked up, stunned, and suddenly Kamui was standing over her, a look of almost-amusement on his face of otherwise pale stone, extending a hand towards her as she tried to regain her senses.

            "I said, 'you're going to fall,'" he repeated, even as she felt herself begin to blush and took his hand, using it to lever herself up into a standing position. She wouldn'tve thought he weighed any more than she did – if at all, he looked so frail – but his grip was rock-steady and he showed no signs of trouble at all in hoisting her to her feet.

            "Guess it's a little late for that, ne?" she asked, rubbing the back of her head both in embarrassment and to try to ease the pain beginning to set in there. Over to the right, one of the librarians had stopped what she was doing and was giving them a stern look; after a moment, however, she went back to her work.

            "Seems that way," was the even reply, as he went back to his own chair next to hers. She righted her own chair and sat down again, still rubbing the back of her neck and now picking up her pencil, tapping it against the polished tabletop.

            Silence fell once more, and it was so uncomfortable again that she had no choice but to break it a second time.

            "So… no answers, then?" she asked, sliding her gaze to the boy next to her.

            He was still staring at the homework laid out before him; his pencil still sat on the table.

            "No answers," he echoed.

            "Maybe we should go ask Keiichi-kun," she suggested. It was only mid-afternoon, after all, and Keiichi was sure to be bouncing about somewhere near. He'd offered to help her with homework before, and she was sure he'd extended that same offer to Kamui at some point as well. He seemed like the type of person who would do so.

            And at this point, she didn't think she'd mind asking someone for help. Especially not someone who was willing to talk to her, instead of just sitting there like a self-perpetuating angst ball.

            She needed to do something.

            "You can if you want," he was saying, not looking at her, speaking to the papers before him.

            She sighed loudly and propped her chin up on her hands, elbows on the table as she gave him a sideways glance. "Not if you're not going."

            He looked at her but said nothing.

            She sighed again. She really needed to do something. This was driving her crazy. And she had a feeling, deep down, that it was probably driving Kamui crazy as well.

            "Look," she said, turning to face him more fully; her words brought his gaze away from the table finally as he looked up at her. "This is… well, it's stupid, for one thing."

            He blinked, uncomprehending. "What's stupid?"

            "You are!" she burst out, before looking around the mostly-abandoned library and hushing her voice. As if she hadn't already gotten enough stares by overturning her chair. "This is stupid and it's got to stop, Kamui. I can't watch you do this to yourself."

            He was still looking at her, expression confused, as if she were speaking a completely foreign language. How thick could the boy be? So he'd been through a lot – she understood that, but she only wanted to help – she'd only wanted to help from the moment she'd laid eyes on him. She'd wanted to take him and wipe that look off his face, put almost any other expression there and leave the perpetual façade of uncaring emptiness to the confines of a long-forgotten memory.

            And how the hell was she supposed to tell him – Kamui – this?

            "Look, I know Sorata pledged his allegiance to you," she went on. "He told me it's one of the most important things in his life. So… as his twin, I'm here to do the same, to do whatever I can, because I want to help you. Kamui… " Her voice fell silent for a moment, as she realized what she was about to say and just how completely she meant it. But she knew that it was her destiny, moreso than for the other Dragons, and she wasn't sure if Kamui knew. And she thought he should.

            "Kamui," she whispered, "I exist to serve you. In… in any way. In every way. And I want to protect you. I want to help you. So let me, all right? And smile while you're at it, ne?" She let out a nervous laugh aware of how completely stupid and gushy this all sounded, and wishing very much that she hadn't just spoken those words. Because if he hadn't spoken to her before… he sure as hell probably wasn't going to start now.

            Way to go, she chided herself. I'm sure that helped…

            He stood, abruptly, his chair scraping against the floor and she started, looking up at him.

            "Let's go outside," was all he said, and she barely had time to collect her wits and follow him before he was headed for the door and then out of it.

            He led her to one of the many benches just outside the library; the sidewalks crisscrossing the campus were mostly empty today. Most of the students were gone for the weekend, off doing something much more carefree than guarding the one who held the power of God in his hands.

            Then again, she though to herself, life would be much less interesting if she weren't sitting there guarding him.

            If she weren't staring at him, afraid that he would never speak to her with anything other than orders again.

            "Oh, this really is stupid," she said, as soon as she'd sat down beside him on the bench, hidden from the soft sunlight beneath the leaves of the trees towering above them. "Forget it, all of it, and just let me help you with your homework. That'd be much –"

            "I won't forget it," he said, almost coldly, and she stared at him, pierced to the heart with the ice in his voice.

            She sighed, not letting any of that show, trying not to let it get to her. Letting her acceptance wash over the ice and warm it to water so that it flowed away from the wound.

            "There are too many people," he murmured, almost to himself, "Too many people who have given so much for me. Who have sworn allegiance to me. Who have given their lives for me."

            He looked up at her, and she was falling again, drowning in icewater and falling towards her doom, in the complete and utter loss in those eyes.

            "I don't deserve it," he whispered. "I don't deserve any of it, and yet you fools go around protecting me like I'm something important. I'm not, dammit, and will you please get that through your head so you can go and convince all of them?!" His voice ended on a note of desperation, and she was at a loss for what to say.

            But only for a moment.

            "It doesn't matter if you deserve it," she replied. "Or, rather, whether or not you think you deserve it, you baka, but I'm not going to get into that." She grinned. "We don't have much of a choice. It's our destiny – "

            "Screw destiny!" he yelled, standing up and beginning to pace before the bench, leaves falling past him in the breeze as he walked. "I don't believe in that destiny crap, and if all of you could just get it through your thick heads and leave me alone…"

            He seemed to run out of steam, for he sat back down on the bench and buried his head in his hands.

            "I've lost too much already. My mother, Tokiko-san, Kotori… Now I'm afraid I've lost Fuuma. I don't believe in destiny. I don't want to believe in destiny."

            "Yeah, it sure makes life a living hell sometimes, ne?"

            He looked up at her with disbelief, and she could see the unshed tears behind his bright eyes.

            "I mean, there I was, a happy kid in my temple, and then the stars had to go and tell me I was supposed to come here. And sure, I was excited about coming to Tokyo – who wouldn't be, you know? – but it meant leaving things behind. Leaving people behind. And then I get here, and I find out that I'm a Dragon of Heaven, and I'm supposed to help this gorgeous guy that I'd absolutely die to have one night with save the future of mankind, and I mean, it didn't sound like a bad deal. You know, fighting, thwarting evil, sure, why not? It was my destiny, after all, and you guys seemed like an interesting crowd to run with. But, well, everything has its drawbacks… There is that whole fighting part, 'cause along with it comes that whole possibility of dying thing, or even just the pain thing, and, well, I've never been a big fan of that, ne? But I'd help you no matter what, Kamui, I'd help you whether or not I'd been told –"

            She paused – perhaps now wasn't the best time to explain just how closely her fate was intertwined with that of Sorata –

            "You… you think I'm gorgeous." His voice was flat – it was almost funny and she looked at him, in the dappled light.

            "You?" she laughed. "Oh, hell yes, Kamui, I'd protect you even if I wasn't asked to!" She could feel herself turning red, but it was already out, she'd dug her own grave and there was no use trying to hide the headstone now. Besides, how was she going to get anywhere with him if he didn't know just what she thought?

            "You'd –" he stopped, looking at her, but his eyes had suddenly grown wide with realization, and he stood, backing a pace or two away from her.

            "Damn you," he said, and she blinked, frozen in place, wondering what the hell had just gotten into him.

            "Damn you," he repeated, backing up another step. "Damn you, damn Hinoto – you're Sorata's twin, you said you'd die for me, you – "

            She looked down. Damn, she hadn't meant to make this worse. Another example of her fine people skills at work. Chalk up another victory to stupidity. And she had even tried to not tell him.

            "I did," she said softly; it was all she could say. "I did, and I would. And… I will."

            "No!" he screamed, and he was suddenly alive with power, as he extended one arm towards her, palm open. He was going to strike – she leapt from the bench in self-defense, lightning crackling between her hands but she wasn't fast enough, wasn't prepared yet when the bolt of energy hit her and sent her reeling into the bushes.

            She lay there, stunned, not even sure if she was seriously injured, not even sure if anyone had seen; she was only aware of his footfalls, pounding away down the sidewalk. Then a pause, as if to leap –

            And then nothing.

            She blinked a few times, the same spot on her skull aching where she'd hit it only a little while before, gathering her wits because she had to call someone, had to call Hinoto or Sorata or Aoki or –

            The bushes above her parted, and a pleasantly smiling face peered down through the leaves at her. It was no one she knew –

            Was it?

            He took off his wire-rimmed sunglasses and continued peering down through the foliage at her, and it struck her that although this was not the man that she had seen before, following her all the way to the Nakano Sun Plaza, this boy had exactly the same feeling about him.     He was someone important. But who the hell was he?

            "Ne, it looks like you had a little fight with Kamui-chan," he said pleasantly, still smiling down at her. "Want to tell your buddy Fuuma all about it?"