Before the End
Kakyou looked over his dreamscape. Today, there was only emptiness and falling feathers.
"How can you stand it?" A voice behind him softly said.
Kakyou turned around and almost lost his breath. In front of him stood Hokuto. She looked worried.
"Hokuto.." He whispered. But in the same moment he said it loud he knew it wasn't true. She would never dress in simple black jeans and a black coat.
"I am Subaru, not her." Subaru said and he looked like he wanted to apologize for that.
"I'm sorry.." Kakyou said and looked down. "For a moment… I thought.."
They stood in silence for a while. The feathers kept falling and disappeared the same moment they would have hit the ground. Kakyou changed the surroundings, knowing that the emptiness made others uncomfortable. Now they were standing in a living room, decorated in European style. Subaru sat down in one of the chairs, and Kakyou followed.
"She is gone." Subaru said. "She died for a future that never happened."
Kakyou stared at the floor. He knew very well how true that was. Hokuto had believed in happy endings, she had believed that Kakyou could wake up and be with her. She had also believed that Seishirou could change.
"What do you want?" Kakyou asked. No one ever came to visit him for social purposes. They always wanted something in return. Information, or something more intimate.
But Subaru said:
"I don't want anything from you. I only.. Now when I'm here I wanted to meet you. You meant a lot for my sister."
"Did she tell you about me?" Kakyou asked.
Subaru shook his head. "I read her diary, after she died. I didn't think she would mind.. She wrote about how we would double date as soon as you woke up.."
Kakyou hid his face behind his long hair and tried to hold back his tears. It had been so close.. If not for Seishirou he could have lived a completely different life today. The government wouldn't have minded if he wanted to live with a Sumeragi, would they? Hokuto's family could have gone through the proper channels, and he would never had ended up in this coma.
"It will end badly, won't it?" Subaru sighted.
"The future is foreordained." Kakyou said. He had told his Kamui this things so many times, told him every little detail he needed to know. "Everything is falling apart, exactly as I dreamed."
"It feels very long ago since they said that Kamui had to chose between two futures. Was Hinoto wrong?"
"There are two futures." Kakyou said. "Hinoto is very powerful. But so I am. There are two ways this can end, but both end with the humanity's destruction."
"How?"
"If the Kamui of the Dragons of Heaven doesn't change his wish, then the world as we know it will end. Because if Kamui has nothing he wants to protect, then he will become the Dark Kamui, even if he can beat his friend. This fight will kill everyone he cares about, and if 'Fuuma' dies, so does all Kamui's hope."
"I would like to say it's not fair, but what would be the point?"
"I know what happened to you, but I can't understand why." Kakyou said. "Wht did you do it, why did you chose to be a dragon of earth?"
"I thought I wished for death." Subaru quietly said. "But what I really wanted was to be someone important in Seishirou-san's eyes. Someone important enough to kill. That day, he didn't look at me like I was a thing. Then, in the end he said he loved me. In that moment, I was happy. But it was supposed to end there. Kamui wasn't supposed to drag me away from the falling bridge. Seishirou and I.. we couldn't be happy together, and we couldn't be happy apart. We were meant to go down together."
"Don't you hate him?"
"Kamui?" Subaru said in surprise. "Of course not.. He did what he thought I wanted."
"Seishirou."
"I can't.. I tried so hard to hate him, but I always loved him as much as I hated. And I hate myself for that."
You should. But Kakyou didn't say that out loud. Subaru should hate his sister's murderer. But blaming him wouldn't make anything better.
"I'm so tired of hurting, I'm so tired of being the one responsible for other's pain.."
"Is that why you joined us?"
"Yes." Subaru admitted. "But deep down, I hope we will fail. Whatever happens, it will change the world. Maybe it will change for the better. That is what I hope for."
"The Promised Day is here." Kakyou said. "The two Kamui will fight for the future of the earth. I don't think the future can change, but maybe you being there can make a difference."
"What am I supposed to do?"
"Live." Kakyou said. "Whatever happens, don't interfere. In my dreams, you can't do it. You can't fight Kamui's fight. If you try to save him you will both die. In that dream, you won't make a difference. Maybe if you are there in the end there will be something Kamui can hang on to."
"When will this happen?"
"Very soon.. Go with our Kamui, stay aside as he will ask you to. Before it ends, I will be there too."
"I'll try." Subaru promised. "Maybe you are wrong, maybe the humanity wants to be saved."
Kakyou saw Subaru fade away from the dreamscape and he allowed it to turn into the vision of the Earth's future. When all buildings had fallen, Tokyo turned into a jungle. Depending on how you looked at it, it could be a beautiful sight.
Maybe the future shouldn't be changed after all.