© 2002 Copyright Original Storyline by Gold
Disclaimer: I can't read Japanese kanji.

Tokyo Kokuritsu Hakubutsukan is a famous museum somewhere in Ueno Park, and it has an enormous collection of Japanese antiques, art pieces and other historical items of interest. And no, I haven't any idea whether Tokyo Tower faces north, south, east or west, or if this museum faces any part of Tokyo Tower.

After The Fact (Version 3.0)
Part 8: Walk Away

This exhibition was huge. It spanned several rooms in the new Tokyo Kokuritsu Hakubutsukan and was the most popular exhibit there. In those rooms were bits and pieces of life as it had been a thousand and more years ago, just before the earthquakes and floods savaged Tokyo and laid the city to waste. Archaeologists, historians and survivors of the last millenium's greatest cataclysm had worked together while the city was being restored, to pick up what remained of their past, and preserve it. The Japanese are a people who consider themselves a race and a culture all their own, and in them is a fierce pride in their history and their nation. They will not destroy bits of their culture simply to make way for modernity. If they can, they will preserve it, if only in museums, and they will try their best to ensure that future generations do not forget. So it is that every citizen of Tokyo knows about the earthquakes and floods that nearly destroyed Tokyo forever; legends have arisen around it, and those legends always talk about how Tokyo Tower was the final building to collapse. Strangely, many of these tales hint that a spiritual battle had been fought over Tokyo; eyewitness reports mentioned seeing two figures standing at Tokyo Tower, each bearing a long sword. But that was over a thousand years ago. In this millennium, there are no such things as spirits anymore, or magic, and supernatural occurrences trouble Tokyo no more.

The tall, handsome dark-haired boy was the only one in the room who remained staring at the glass case that was the centrepiece of the entire exhibition. He had made a direct beeline for it as soon as he stepped into the room, and he remained looking at it although other visitors had already looked their fill at it and left. The case was a horizontal glass-topped one, made of some shiny metal, and lined with cream-coloured velvet. Against the velvet lay two sword hilts, and several broken pieces of black-stained metal artistically arranged around the hilts. The hilts were bare, and so were the tiny pieces of metal, but once upon a time, there had been writing on those hilts, and on the blades.

Monou Fuuma silently read through the scanty information on the screen by the side of the case. Found in remains of old Tokyo Tower, it said. Gives lie to the legend…spiritual battle…swords once…no one has been able to put them together…the pieces mysteriously resist any attempts to glue them together, or forge them together…That was because the battle was over. The Shinken had completed the tasks they had been born to do, and there was no more need of them.

Fuuma drew a deep, shaky breath. This was the only the tenth time he had been here and every instinct of his was screaming. He wanted to run, far, far from the broken swords, and the sight of the blood on the metal, now darkened to black. Swords cannot be cleaned, nor can the blood be analysed…unable to remove…His blood and Kamui's blood were on those swords.

The memories crashed back every time he stood in front of that glass case. The first time he had seen those swords, he had suffered a massive headache. That was several years back. He had not come to this part of the museum, irrationally fearing to have that same headache—he had come to associate the swords with headaches! But now he had come back to see the swords over the months. The headache did not strike him; instead, the nightmares had come back, in broad daylight. He had rushed wildly from the room the second time he came, because he had not been able to take the battering. But every time he returned, he stayed a little bit longer, and dug in his heels until he felt himself on the verge of breaking down. Then he fled.

Fuuma clenched his fists. The worst part was not the nightmares. It wasn't even the fact that he was some person whose job had been to destroy humanity, kill his own sister, and break the heart of the only other person in the world who cared for him. It was simply that he couldn't go down on his knees and beg forgiveness. He would give nearly anything in the world to be able to do that for his sister and Kamui—and he couldn't. He couldn't tell them, not because they wouldn't believe him, but because he couldn't bring himself to. How do you tell the people you love that you spent your past life killing them or driving them over the edge? How do you tell them you caused them that much misery, and nearly terrorised them to death? How do you tell them you spilt their blood? How can you tell them that you loved them then, loved them more than anything in the world—and yet you could bear to sacrifice them at that time? How can you bear to see them look at you like you're some kind of monster? How can you break their hearts for the second time?

You can only walk away, and stay in the shadows, and swear by everything holy that in this lifetime, you will guard them forever, for as long as you live, and you will take nothing from them, not even that which they're willing to give. And if you hurt them too much by being with them, and if they can no longer find joy in your company—if they see you no more in the light of a friend—if you can't give them what they want as their friend—then all you can do is to go away, so you won't hurt them anymore. That way, they can find someone else to give them what they need.

Fuuma would have stayed with Kamui, even though the very sight of Kamui made him remember all over again the white-hot agony he had felt a thousand years ago when he had plunged the shinken into Kamui, and felt Kamui's shinken, twin blade to his, slide, hard, sharp and fast, into his body, at the same time. But the nightmares had terrified Fuuma, and while he tried on his own to battle his darkness, he had pushed away his best friend without meaning to. And to top it all, he didn't know exactly how he felt about Kamui. Did he love the other as more than a friend? Had he fallen in love in this lifetime, or was it merely a powerful echo of the past, a reflection of his nightmares? Before he could find out what he really felt, they had quarrelled badly, and it was all over...

On the steps of the New Tokyo Kokuritsu Hakubutsukan, a tall, dark-haired teenager stopped for a moment to look at the tall spire of New Tokyo Tower outlined in the light of the setting sun, and built next to the site where the old one had stood a thousand years ago. Some day, he thought, he would go there. Alone. But not just yet. Not just yet.

And far in the distance, in a certain high school, the senior dance for the class of A.D. 3167 was about to begin.