2007:
Kaleidoscope
T: Yet another piece that's been niggling at me for a while, one that I had intended to be a drabble but then the ideas kept coming and this monster…thankfully I stopped myself before it got too silly!
There will be character death here and as it's based seven years into the future of the manga cannon it will be dark. Also as I'm not a mind reader this is my own take on how the fight between the two Kamui's will end and on how each of the characters left alive will deal with this.
It is all clamps, even the obsession that drove me to write this ficy!
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Each winter my mama takes me to place flowers at the base of the tower.
She tells me they are for father and for the others that died during that year…
Tells me that they are to remember what her life had been in that span of time and then she will tell me nothing more.
She has wrapped me in the red coat that I always wear when we are to make the trip and she has pinned back her long hair with a set or bright orange clips.
This hue all the more vibrant for being the only one that she wears on this day.
"Mama, why do you always wear orange in your hair upon this day?"
"To recall the fire of my love for your father, to show that though I grieve I love him still."
She takes my hand in hers and we step out onto the streets of Tokyo.
It is crowded and mama grips my fingers the tighter, fearful now of loosing me amid the press of bodies.
The crowds lessen as we come into sight of the tower and by the time we draw level with its base we are entirely alone.
Mama told me once that there had been crowds here in this place also, but that after the 'war' had ended rumours had begun that a sprit lingered in the metal and thus the crowds had slowly faded until none at all came into the shadow of the structure.
The flowers are white as always and they blend almost imperceptibly into the snow as mama sets them against the tower.
There is another set of flowers upon the snow, the pail pink hue of sakura standing clear amid the virgin white about it.
Its presence is odd for two reasons, the first that always before mama's flowers have been alone upon the snow and the second that the sakura bloom only in the summer.
Mama sets her fingers against the blossoms and her mouth whispers a name before she stands and looks about us.
Her breathing has become rapid and though there is no danger now of my being lost she is griping again tightly to my fingers.
A tension comes to her back, its cause a figure in black who stands just a little before us.
There is a great sadness lined upon his face, sadness that does not reach his mismatched eyes and yet still I feel pity for him…still I yearn to ease his grief.
"Arashi." He has the voice of a killer and looking again to his face I can see the threat of danger hidden within his eyes.
"How are you?" Mama enquires.
"Do you truly wish to know?"
"No." Silence stretches a little then and mama turns to look again at the pink of the sakura blossoms. "Why have I not seen a commemoration from you before this day?" She enquires suddenly.
"I have had want to escape the ghosts of the past behind me and yet there is a rhythm to my life that must be upheld.
"Thus seven years after that day I come to pay homage to our 'saviour'."
There is silence a moment and then mama enquires,
"Is it true that he lingers here still?"
"Yes, but only so that he might maintain the stability of the final keki."
Mama stays only a little after that, talking of absent things that I little comprehend and then she bids this other goodbye and we retreat again into the crowd.
…………………………………………………………………………….
She is dressed in grey today, the colour she reserves usually for work and yet she is not taking me directly to the school as she usually does on a work day.
Instead she has diverted towards the sight of the bridge that had once spanned the harbour.
The sight where once a rainbow has shone…
There are a few pieces of metal visible still within the water broken metal sentinels that have escaped being recycled into the new bridge that stands just up the bay from where we stand.
A figure balances upon one of these shards of metal, its face turned to glance at the rush of the water below it.
Mama instructs me to stay where I am and then she leaps, her body gliding gracefully across the sky until she sets herself onto another of the struts.
She talks a great while with the other figure and then she returns to my side, tears clear in her eyes.
"Mama, why do you cry?"
"Because the world is hard." She replies before she takes my hand in hers and takes me at last to school.
………………………………………………………………………………
We are both dressed in lavender today and this means only one thing.
We are going to visit the broken man.
The broken man always gives me sweets, pets my hair and tells me of the little things that he sees in me that recall to him my father.
Thus though he is quiet and sometimes brash I like visiting him.
He is reading as mama and I come into his living room and it takes him a moment or two to register our presence.
He smiles when he does and placing his book to one side he says,
"Good afternoon, Arashi-san, Kotori-chan."
"Good afternoon, Kamui-kun." I remark as I come to sit at his feet.
His fingers curl into my hair and as always the gesture relaxes me.
"I saw the Sakurazukamori on new years eve."
"How did he seem?"
"Distant."
"Did you ask him home?"
"On that day, no…for we both were concerned more with recalling our losses.
"Yet I sought him out again a week later and recalling your desire to see him broached the request then."
"And?"
"He told me that he would consider the request and then we talked a little on other matters."
Her eyes have grown distant and the empty man stretches to touch her face, the soothing effect of his fingers working even on her ailing heart.
"Do not dwell on the sadness, Arashi." He requests before his hands drop again to my hair.
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I awake suddenly and for a moment I register very little as my brain stirs into life.
I then note several things in quick succession.
The azure blue of my room seems almost sapphire; a fact that means it is till a good five hours before dawn.
A set of eyes (One a muted emerald and the other a rich hazel) regard me through my window.
The glass about his hands is the deep crimson of blood…
I scream, the sound an odd immaturity even to my ears and mama is soon at my side, her frail body wrapped tight in the grey of her night dress.
The figure at the window has retreated a little into the shadow of the night and yet still I can see him and the crimson upon the stark white of his skin.
Mama opens the window and crosses out onto the balcony to stand with the other.
The rose of her lips moves in the form of silent words, and the other listens, his own mouth set in a mockery of a smile.
Mama grasps for his hands and I feel sickened as the crimson begins to taint her skin alone.
Mama simply wipes this taint away where she finds the opportunity, the crimson fading to an almost ochre upon the grey of her clothing.
Eventually she convinces him to cross into the house and he presses as a shadow into the hall.
Mama lingers a moment, her eyes fixated upon the faint stain visible still on her fingers and then she smiles and tells me,
"Go back to bed, Kotori." Before she too is gone.
…………………………………………………………………………………
She dresses me in pink when Sunday comes, a hue that recalls to me that sprig of sakura against the snow.
We go to Ueno park with the mismatched man and as we step into the muted whites and browns of the park in winter I spot the pink of sakura clear in the distance.
It is odd to see the branches of just one tree so laden when the rest stand bear and yet odder still is the presence of the broken man, his frail form wrapped against the cold in a leaf green coat that all but swamps him.
The mismatched man touches the broken man's face and for a moment they are both smiling true smiles.
Then the mismatched man steps free of the broken man and begins to chant.
The sakura petals begin to fall about us like snow, first in small flakes and then as vast flurries.
The broken man sets some sort of a shield about us as the flurry becomes thick enough that to even breathe would be hardship.
Eventually the sakura stops falling and my eyes take a second to adjust back to the harsh white of the snow.
The tree is empty now of its blossoms.
At its base lies the mismatched man, his body dappled here and there with sakura so dark in hue that it looks almost as though they are bleeding.
The broken man goes to him and as he lifts the body up into his arms I realise why the sakura is so dark.
……………………………………………………………………………….
She is dressed again in black and yet this time her hair remains free of the orange clip.
I recognise the broken man's face but the others are unknown to me.
Mama has a cheep metal pentagram clutched in her fingers and I note that the others bear also some representation of this symbol.
"Good bye, Subaru, may your next life be a kinder one than this." The broken man remarks as he tosses his pentagram into the coffin.
Each of the strangers say something as they toss their offerings into the grave and then it is mama's turn.
She kisses the metal and says,
"I understand and forgive your actions, Subaru. Understand that love drove you insane jut as it has myself." Then she tosses her offering into the coffin.
We linger to watch the brown soil being pilled in and then we go home.
The broken man is staying with us this evening and mama lets me stay up later than is my usual on a school night.
Once she has tucked me into bed her eyes drift to the faint stain visible still on my window frame and then setting a hand to my face she says,
"Long ago, Kotori there was a boy who was told he was going to die for the love of a woman…"
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T: There we go! R+R and I'll answer all your questions.