AUTHOR : Etrangere (anne.elisa@free.fr)
SUMMARY : Three vignettes about Subaru becoming the Sakurazukamori
NOTES : Big thanks a lot to Umidori for betaing and to Xynnie for giving an english translation of X17 when I couldn't find one anywhere
DISCLAMER : Don't be ridiculous, if I owned Subaru, I would cook him plenty of good dishes and he wouldn't be as thin as he is.
Rebirth
He felt like a ghost walking an old battlefield. Peaceful wreckage screaming with past turmoil. The blooming flowers and quiet vegetation already covering ruins and bones, which only set a bleak contrast with the consummated ashes that were inside him.
Nature's implacable law. Life goes on, we're just not a part of it anymore.
Mild annoyance arised, disturbing him from his contemplation, when he felt the other's presence.
"You have no business with me now", he said without turning back. "The future of earth, everything... it is no interest of mine."
"I know", the One who Hunts the Majesty of God answered.
"Then why ?" He had no patience anymore for the petty plays of Destiny.
The Kamui went on blabbering, trying to scathe him with sarcastic mentions of flowers and wishes. He waited blankly for him to finish. He didn't really feel like anything could touch him anymore.
Then the Kamui caught his interest.
"But it may be possible for you to grant the Sakurazukamori's wish."
He looked up at the amused expression on the man's face, uncertain if he could accept his words.
The eye... the eye he had wanted to loose and that the Kamui had took him. So the Angels' Kamui could see people's wishes, could have known what was in his heart ?
And it was...
the one thing that he missed,
the one thing that he could still long for anymore.
Therefore he was hooked. Trapped, once more.
"...That eye", the Kamui went on, "No matter how, Sakurazukamori was never too pleased about it. For any person other than himself to leave a scar on you... the Sakurazukamori's wish was for that scar to be erased."
And it was amusing in a way, that he would have wanted to abolish every one of his wishes, every one of his ties that bound him to regrets and expectations. All of them, he would have them deigned.
"Inside this I've put Sakurazukamori's left eye. It was the only thing that I could find at Rainbow Bridge. To use this eye and erase the mark of other man - that was Sakurazukamori's wish."
But it was fitting, as well, for him to be claimed in one other way, now that the inverted pentacles on his hands were fading. It was sustaining to have an outer mark of the scars within. Even the cheerful morbidity of it was so much... Seishirou.
"I too will do the same."
He understood then. Another broken piece in the twisted puzzle of their fate.
"To Kamui...?"
"Yes."
And there was a pang of something that wasn't. The hollow trace of feelings that didn't exist anymore in him. The acknowledgement that if he could, he would have felt sorry for these two. But he lacked even that at present.
"What are you going to do ? Accept it? Or throw it away ?"
He moved at once, without thinking, but the Kamui stopped him, as was his role to make people understand the weight of their wishes and consequences of their choices.
"You'll also become the inheritor of the powers of the Sakurazukamori."
He hesitated one instant, then, like the famous knight in the tale hesitated in front of the greatest shame.
One instant, and he could remember his own words in that time a whole age ago when everything was yet simple, and bright, and alive.
"I wish my body could save many people's lives..." He had said, so desperate at the time to please and to help, to give some kind of worth to his existence. He didn't have any such delusions anymore. "I'd like them to continue to live... and prolong my life a bit... In any case, I can't do much to help others... I'd be happy to save one life, one last time, before being crudely turned into ashes..."
And he could recall how he had been afraid that this decision could upset his grandmother and Hokuto-chan. But Seishirou...
"But I don't think so... In fact, I believe that Hokuto would be proud of your choice..."
He had felt those strong, warm arms embrace him from behind, and it had felt so safe, so right that the moment should have lasted forever.
"Those who let their organs be donated think that they can prolong their lives a little..."
Something he couldn't refuse, couldn't renounce. There was no denying it.
"The victims' families are given new hope... In imagining their lost one still lives on, in a sense, in someone else's body..."
And that was a gift so great and so derisive. Not hope, certainly not, but something akin to it. Remembrance kept alive with each passing day, a sacrament of a sort.
"And I would be so proud of you."
His hands reached to grasp the flask and he held it tightly against his chest.
He would live for him.
Sacrifice
The girl is seventeen, dressed in her navy blue school uniform and chattering with her friends, long hair waving in her back as she talks with animation. He trails them from a hundred steps away, a figure clad in shadows and sorrows while they are walking home. Dimly, he can hear words of "cute", "homework" and "boring" carried away by the wind. He doesn't really pay attention to it.
One after one, the other girls wave her goodbye, dispersing away like petals into the narrow streets and darkening corners. Night falls down and now the girl's alone on the road.
He hastens his pace, walking closer.
The girl isn't dense enough she doesn't realize something's amiss. She turns around and he can see her eyes widen, her mouth shaped in a little silent 'O'. She springs for a run.
Wearily, he brings his hands together; chanting softly, and there's nowhere to run to anymore.
She trips on a crawling root at the feet of the massive tree looming over her and falls down hard on the ground raising a little cloud of dust and sakura. She keeps murmuring inaudibly "No, no, please, no" as he comes closer to her.
He bows toward her and offers her a helpful hand. She doesn't have to remain on the ground like some thrown away toy. It isn't dignified.
The girl watches his hand as if it was some sort of obscene snake, and, shuddering, she stands up on her own. He can see she's fighting hard to keep some semblance of control over herself.
He shrugs and grips her shoulder to immobilize her, preparing the blow.
"Please, no, I don't want to die..." she says, the tears gathering in her eyes threatening to break down the fragile restraint she maintained.
"Everyone dies." He says.
He doesn't know why it has been decided for the girl to die. Maybe she did something to threaten the state. Maybe she's just an unlucky hindrance whose presence annoyed some politician. It doesn't matter.
"But... not so soon, not before... there are so many things I want to do ! People I want to tell I love, and...", she cries out, clinging at his arm.
He nods. They are few who have the luxury of choosing the time of their death and feel content with it.
"I know." He says gently. "It doesn't change anything."
"But you don't have to do this... I promise I won't talk... I..."
Doesn't he ? No, he has to, it's part of the price he must pay.
"I'm sorry." He says politely. "I don't make the decision. There are no exceptions."
Not unless this girl wants to become the next Sakurazukamori. Somehow he doubts it.
He can feel something break in her and she gives in, her body relaxing under his arm.
"Will it hurt ?" She whispers.
He closes his eyes and remembers a face, strained in spite of the smile lingering like perfume haunts old clothes.
"Yes. But it won't last long."
"Why ?", she raises her gleaming eyes toward him, "Why are you doing this ?"
He stares at her, surprised.
Why is he doing it ?
He could lie and say he gets paid for it, but he figures you might owe the truth to people you are going to kill. He could say it is because it is his charge, his burden, but it's not really that. He could answer with a long, long tale, full of pain and revenge, love and shame, but he hasn't got any heart for it. He knows there's some part of him that takes release in killing. Not because he likes hurting. But because he feels so barren and hollow he needs the outlet, he needs to see other people feel, and cry, and break for him in the way that he can't anymore.
And because...
"Someone's got to do it." He says finally to the girl.
And strikes.
He holds her close while she's dying. He always does, like that first time when he was first bathed in blood, and guilt, and horror. But it's not his face he thinks of.
He thinks of Hokuto and he wonders how she died. Was she brave ? Yes, she must have been. Hokuto had always been so much more courageous and strong than he could ever be.
What would she think of him now ? What would she think of what her sacrifice brought to him ? Would she be angry at him for what he has become ? Would she understand ?
She used to say she was the one gifted with the ability to see his heart.
He's not sure she would be able to see into it, now. It is so decayed and buried under black drapes of grief he's not even sure it is there anymore. He doesn't think Hokuto would have had the eyes to see in such a dark place.
He lowers his gaze at the girl and notices she is dead. He closes her eyes and carries her limp body to the tree.
Another offering so that spring can last forever, another corpse in his trail.
And if he carries on, maybe he will understand him, one day.
Severance
They welcomed him inside the Government Office building, and it was all very utterly wrong. The yumemi woman all big smiles and cheerful greeting, the watercaster just polite and casual as if it was just any mundane work meeting. The young girl studying him from behind her glasses as if he was some kind of strange insect whose behavior should be analyzed. The military man withdrawn and sullen like he'd wished to be anywhere else. The Kamui watching them from afar, his usual knowing smile gracing his lips, the strange creature with the mind of a child standing one step behind him. He never met the seventh Angel.
Subaru barely answered their questions, barely listened to their greetings. None of these people had really known him. He wondered what he was doing here.
He escaped from their fake exuberance for a smoke over a terrace. From there you could see all of Tokyo, lights flaring like fireworks, the Tower diving into the sky in the background, all of the city ready to disappear in one last bang. He still liked to watch Tokyo, even if he didn't belong to it anymore.
He heard noise in his back, the window opening and closing.
Wordlessly, he offered the pack of cigarettes to the presence joining him. "I don't smoke.", said the girl in her cold, precise voice. "It's diminishing the human body's functions by a significant margin."
"Then why are you here ?".
"I want to know why you joined us." She said.
He turned to look at her harsh, demanding eyes. There was no mercy in them, no tolerance for the wrong answer. They were too old for her age, like there was nothing she hadn't seen but none of it had ever touched her.
"What does it matter ?", he asked cautiously.
"You were of the Ten no Ryu. You valued life. Now, you're a killer. What changed your mind ?"
He hesitated. It wasn't about valuing life. He had no right to do what he did to these people. He would do it anyway. He couldn't bear to do otherwise.
"Don't you care that people will be unhappy of it ?", the girl asked again, insistent voice revealing the acute need for answers.
There's no way for everyone to be happy, he had said to Kamui.
"How can I know they are unhappy ?", He said very softly. "How can they know they miss someone ? We never know other people, we can never see what's inside their hearts. When we suffer for them, it's only because we imagine their own pain. But it's all an illusion. There's no such thing as intimacy. People, everyone... are really alone."
He always felt for others, had always empathized with their pains and joys. Aware that he couldn't truly know it, but caring nonetheless. Now he didn't feel like it was enough anymore. Not when he couldn't say, couldn't guess if he had said the truth that day on the bridge. Suddenly the vertiginous gaps between people were too much to stand.
The girl's eyes glistened with something, livening their implacable gravity. Interest, maybe.
"Because... there's no wholeness of people ?"
He nodded.
Her expression became distant, pondering.
"There's a tale I've been told among the free masons. About the creation of the world.", she said in her toneless, droning voice. "They said that in the beginning everything was one with God, the Ein Sof. It filled the totality of existence. So the world could be created, the Ein Sof had to withdraw its presence, so as to create an empty place where things could then exist - separated from it."
He looked at her, startled.
"Separation as a prerequisite of individual existence." She summarized.
"Didn't these people try to find a way back to God ?", he asked.
"They did, once, they built a Tower. It didn't work too well."
"Is that why you want to end the world, to reach again this unity ?"
"No." She sounded so scornful. "It's because I'm bored."
The light of interest was already gone from her eyes.
He crushed the extinguished cigarette and went back inside.
He could hardly understand how boredom would drive someone to wish for the world to end. But then, what could he understand about this girl ? She knew too much, too many, but she didn't really know anything. Subaru didn't know much, he only knew what he felt.
They could as well have not been speaking the same language.
~ owari ~