Hope you enjoy, from here on out comes the -really- fun stuff XD It will get rapidly darker from this point. (Darker? I know, wtf, but trust me :D) Also, we'll be entering the shaky ground of pretty intense lemons in a chapter or two, just to forewarn you.
As usual, lyrics by Poe, and beta-thanks to Colin and Xin.
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We had all been waiting in a room on the CLAMP campus, for word of Kamui's condition. The room was full of unfamiliar faces. Most of them were probably Dragons of Heaven.
None of us talked. They just waited, tense and silent with worry.
I stood by the window, staring out of it sightlessly. In my faint reflection, I could just barely pick out the white reflection of the bandage on my cheek. One guess what was on my mind.
The door clicked open, and Sorata came back in. His smile was replaced by sorrow and guilt.
Arashi stood, concern written on her face. "...Kamui?"
Sorata shook his head. "He didn't respond to me calling."
The tension broke, replaced with the sound of the youngest girl sobbing.
".. A girl who was really important to him... was killed before his eyes by a guy who was equally important." I started, and Sorata paused. I wondered if he had seen that. I could feel my breath catch. "It's possible that he will never regain consciousness... I dunno."
A flame springing to life in my hand, steady and sure, belying the fact that I was trembling. My hand raising it to the tip of Seishirou's cigarette. Him pulling off his sunglasses to show his eyes, chillingly vacant as he smiled up at me. ...Blood dripping off his hands, to stain those sakura petals at his feet that weren't already washed in the blood seeping from Hokuto's body.
Her broken body on the sakura. ... and the last time she hugged me. Somehow, I remember that she was crying. But I couldn't really remember it, could I?
"If he doesn't regain consciousness, what will happen to him?" Her voice broke into my reverie. It was high, on the edge of hysteria. She looked about to burst into tears again, and Sorata hesitated before replying.
"... He'll stay like that. He won't see anything. Nor hear. All clammed up inside his heart..."
Unable to keep from living the same scene over and over again in the depths of his soul, constantly running from it, trying to hide within the past? but never being able to escape. And truly, was the past any less painful, in it's own way?
You can't escape from the pain. It's always there, tainting even your happiest memories.
"Forever..."
He needed me. I was the only one who had any clue what had happened to him. Before I quite realized what I was doing, my hand was on the knob, wrenching the door open.
"What're you doing?"
I took a breath, staring at the boy. He lay there, lost in the hospital bed and the oversized kimono they had dressed him in. He stared at nothing, his eyes glazed, dilated.
Blood seeped through the yards of bandages that covered his body. There were bruises all over him, faint but distinct under his pale skin. He looked like a broken doll.
It was hard to believe that he was supposed to save the world.
I took his hand in mine. It felt thin, fragile, and was so cold... "Going within Kamui."
Arashi gasped behind me. ".. Diving into his heart? To enter a muddy consciousness... It's too dangerous!"
I glanced back at the others, then down at the head Kamui cradled briefly. Finally focused on his glassy eyes.
"Is it a secret spell of the Sumeragi Clan...?"
I wasn't listening to them anymore. I lifted my hand, started the spell. Dimly I heard someone yell, but I was already concentrating, chanting softly.
My hand touched Kamui's forehead.
Hokuto was crying.
The spell wrapped around us, and I was falling, my forehead rushing towards his, touching. And I was within, sinking into peaceful darkness. Suddenly, it was there, the guardian of Kamui's mind roared up at me, warning me off. I couldn't attack - it would injure Kamui. I threw my hand up to protect myself from the sharp shards that flew at me from it, wincing as they sliced my skin.
Suddenly, with a burst of bubbles, my path cleared and I could see him below me.
He was there, with the girl, and another boy. Taller, with a cruel smile on his lips. So, this was his friend...
They were speaking. I strained my ears to hear the conversation. It would be important later.
"...You seem to have made a decision."
"Fuu... ma...?" He was crying.
"You chose your future as a Dragon of Heaven... one of the Seven Seals. ...Kamui. If you chose your future as a Dragon of Heaven, it is my Destiny to be a Dragon of Earth."
The scene changed. A cross dominated it, and the girl hung from it, wires twisting tightly around her, lashing her to it. Kamui was screaming her name over and over, running towards her, until he was caught, dragged back, by another boy. Himself.
On the cross, another figure with Kamui's face plunged a sword into Kotori, smiling, his eyes wide and crazed. And Kamui screamed, wordless now, collapsed, curled into himself. He was holding the head again.
"Kamui!" I tried calling to him, but the ground rippled around him, turning liquid. He was sobbing, shaking as he slid into it, disappearing.
Shit. I followed deeper, slowly. Much more and his heart would shatter. Finally, I saw him again.
A child this time, with two other children who had to be Fuuma and Kotori. They laughed as they ran across the dreamscape chasing a flock of birds, their voices oddly muffled.
Kamui paused, looked back at Fuuma as Kotori ran ahead. His face started to split, and blood dripped from it. Kamui reached up.
"Don't look! Kamui!" I yelled too late, though I doubt he was listening. I tried to run to him, but I couldn't get closer. Fuuma ripped the sword through his younger self's body, and without pausing through Kotori's. The girl crumpled, her eyes vacant as Fuuma pulled the blade out of her chest.
He smiled down at Kamui. "I..."
"no..." Kamui's voice was soft, a whisper of denial as he clapped his hands to his ears.
"will..." he continued on, ignoring the boy.
Louder this time, as if it would help. "No..." Tears started forming in the corners of his eyes.
"kill you." His smile was cold as he turned away, body dissolving into feathers, blowing away. The bodies of the other children followed suit.
Kamui screamed his denial even as he sobbed, falling to his knees.
I ran to his side before I even had quite realized that his guard had lowered. He still held his hands over his ears, crying softly, whispering the names of his friends.
"Kamui..." I had to get his attention. Dropping to my knees, I called again. "Kamui!"
No response. I grabbed his hands pulling them away, practically shouting his name. And this time, he looked up at me, violet eyes wide as tears slid down his face.
He stared at me for several seconds, then finally swallowed. "who...?" he asked in a small, scared voice.
"Subaru Sumeragi."
He seemed to sink into himself. "...don't know."
Wind whipped around him, and I felt myself being pushed back slightly. Feathers swirled, forming into the bodies of Kotori and Fuuma.
"Don't kill Kotori and Fuuma... Please... don't kill the two of them..."
"Kamui!" I was losing him.
He was getting hysterical again, crying harder now. "Please..."
"Listen! Kamui!" I grabbed him by the shoulders again. Physical contact seemed to jar him out of it last time.
It worked. He looked up at me, focusing on me as the forms of his friends swirled away again. "If you don't leave this dream, nothing will begin and nothing will end. Things will only get worse."
I sighed, closing my eyes for a second. I had to give him something else to focus on, something to show him that he wasn't alone. My past.
"... Like me."
He stared at me, utterly confused, but the fear was leaving his eyes. I had to make him understand what was happening.
"You can hear my voice, right?" He nodded, and I relaxed my grip, taking his hands instead. "Right now you are at the bottom of your heart."
".. The bottom of my heart?"
"Something heart-breaking happened... You chose not to stay in the real world to consider and choose your next path. You... ran away from reality."
It was time to show him my memories. I concentrated, letting them take shape.
"Who...?" Kamui stared at the form of Hokuto as it took shape.
"My sister."
The sakura, with it's petals floating delicately on an invisible wind. And finally, Seishirou-san.
As I watched them, I asked Kamui, "I wonder... do you know anything about onmyouji?
"Mother taught me." Good. It was easier this way.
"As the head of the Sumeragi clan, I govern Japan's onmyouji."
Kamui pointed to Hokuto. "Is that person also... an onmyouji?"
"No..." I didn't mention that if she had been, she would have stood a chance. He'd see the rest of it soon enough.
"I know him..." Kamui's eyes widened slightly as he took in the two figures.
I glanced at the boy, surprised. "You've met Seishirou-san?"
"Seishirou-san...?" Kamui looked back at me, curious.
So, he had met him, but not heard his name? Interesting... had Seishirou tried to kill him already? That stuck under my skin, irritated me. Why would he do that? Wasn't it against the rules of the whole game?
I closed my eyes, trying to explain the story as simply as possible. "Seishirou Sakurazuka, who uses onmyoujitsu to kill -- Sakurazukamori. I loved him. I didn't realize it at first... He treated me gently for one year... he lost his right eye protecting me... I finally realized when I cried for his loss..."
I looked at them again. Focused on Seishirou, realized how young he looked in my memories. "I realized that he was the only one I didn't want to be hated by. That he alone was special. But... that was only my delusion."
Kamui's full attention was on me now, and I sighed as I ripped my vision away, continued the story. "He said, 'There is no difference between people and things.'"
"You mean, he was saying that everything was alive, the way humans are?"
His question surprised me, and I stared at him for a second. Suddenly, him being the Kamui didn't feel quite so strange. I shook the feeling off, focusing. "It's not that. No matter what he destroys -- living beings or nonliving things -- he does not feel anything."
I closed my eyes tightly as Seishirou's hand ripped through Hokuto's chest.
Kamui let out a choked cry and tried to run to them. I caught his hand, and he looked back at me, horror in his eyes. "Because this is my memory... running won't let you be there in time."
"Your sister..." He was crying again.
"When my sister was killed... I couldn't do anything. I was hiding in my own heart. I had ran away from reality." I tried not to look, but I could still see her body, dissolving into sakura petals. "Like what you are doing now." I held a hand up, caught one of the falling petals.
I looked up, finally, past Kamui. Seishirou smiled back at me.
I turned back to the boy, lifting my hand to his face. "It might be good for you to stay here, if that gives you the greatest happiness. But if you don't come back out, nothing will begin, and nothing will end. You won't be able to do anything when it's really important. You will only be a spectator... like how I was. Kamui."
Faint images of Kotori's death swirled around us again, but this time, they weren't the same. They were softer, present but not overwhelming. And my memories also floated through the air. "I also had a precious person killed by another precious person. But... my wound and yours aren't the same. I lost my sister... I came back to reality with the pain that it caused. And now..."
"I... I, to make the future that I wish for into reality... live. That... will most likely depress everyone that loves me... But I cannot stop wishing."
It hurt to admit that. To have my wish realized... it would practically kill Grandmother, I was sure. I watched Kamui carefully.
"Because he was... special?" Kamui smiled at me, softly.
I started. Was that really what he thought my wish was? I smiled. I suppose I hadn't given him anything else to believe. "...That's right. Therefore, you, too, should choose. To continue living inside your memories blaming yourself. Or to awaken for the sake of your wish."
He pulled away from me as I was speaking, image wavering, almost as if he was covered in clear flame. His body lengthened, grew, until finally he looked back at me, no longer a child.
Behind him, his friend picked up the sword from where it stood in the ground "I want to bring Fuuma back. Because... I couldn't protect Kotori... I want to protect Fuuma more than ever."
He turned to face the figure that stood behind him. "This isn't Fuuma."
"...If he returns to the personality of "Fuuma" he might remember... that he killed this girl."
He winced slightly, but stood firm. "But still... I... don't want to lose Fuuma."
"If he returns to that personality will you tell him that he killed the girl named Kotori? Even if there will be people who will say that you're selfish?"
"...Yeah."
"Even if there will be people who will blame you?"
"...Yeah." He closed his eyes, nodded his head.
"Even if no one will understand your wish?"
"...Yeah." Tears slid down his face, and his form was wavering again.
I reached for him, gathering him to me. "Then for the sake of that wish. Come back."
And suddenly, we were drifting upwards through a curtain of bubbles. I held Kamui's arm firmly, and he blinked, opening his eyes slowly. We stopped. And in the distance, I could see two figures. One was immediately recognizable, the other somehow familiar, though I was sure I had never seen him before.
Kamui saw them too. "... Fuuma."
I pulled him away, turning my back on them, ignoring Kamui's soundless cry, the way he reached out for his friend. Ruthlessly, I pulled us out of the spell.
I opened my eyes, looking down at Kamui practically holding my breath as his eyelids inched open.
".. Subaru..." He croaked my name out in broken syllables. It actually worked. I smiled slightly as I felt the exhaustion roll in on me, dragging me into unconsciousness.
