4. Focus.

T: Now that I've scared everyone away with that last chapter I'm most likely talking to myself but still…

All of this first little bit with Subaru genuinely happened to me with the exception that I have none to blame but myself sigh…and yes there is a purpose to the madness if you just stay with me!

Is Clamps not mine and warnings remain the same!

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I awoke wrapped in a blanket, clothed in nothing more than my underwear and devoid of any memory of how I had come to be in such a situation.

Sitting up I realise that I am in an unfamiliar apartment but that, thankfully, I have been sleeping upon the couch.

The recollection of kissing Seishiro-san is foremost in my mind and then that initial thought leads me through the rest of the evening's events with swift certainty up until the very point where my memory fades into patches of hazy memories that may or may not have been dreams.

Ryu had found me again at some point and had eventually goaded me into a rum drinking competition with him.

My spoils for winning had turned out to be that Ryu bought me drinks for the remainder of the evening…drinks that had turned out to be the oddest of combinations by the time they made their way to me.

The last that I recalled with any fixed certainty was him returning with rum that had been mixed with vodka, from which point it became very fuzzy.

There is the vaguest of memories of me draping myself over Seishiro-san and insisting that as I was too inebriated to drive home I would have to spend the night with him.

This supposedly means that this is his apartment.

Yet how had I come to loose my shirt and trousers?

Blushing hotly I stumble to my feet and grasped my head in hopes of stopping it falling off I make my way to what seems to be the kitchen.

There is a note pinned to the fridge and willing my eyes to focus I attempt to read it;

'Subaru-kun.

I hope you are not too worse the wear for the evening's festivities.

I wished to assure you that I have not taken advantage of the state that you were in and that you were the one to remove both your shirt and your trousers in what has to be the drunkest striptease that I have ever viewed.

The clothes have been washed and are folded out on my bed for you. Please help yourself to breakfast and excuse that I am not here to greet you myself.

Sadly duty calls.

I should be back for lunch but I'll understand if you've gone home by that point.

Seishiro.

I try to recall if I had actually performed a striptease or if Seishiro-san is teasing me, yet that particular memory remains predictably elusive.

I make myself breakfast and by the time I have some food in my stomach and a warm cup of tea clenched in my hands I begin to feel more myself.

I call Obaasan to assure her that I am still alive and that the reason she could not reach me this morning is because I am staying at a friend's.

I perform my daily meditation and then I call my new client to gain information on their case and find out the best time that I could come and observe the setting.

Unfortunately it seems the best time to talk to her is this afternoon and that means I can not stay here as I had hoped.

Assuring my client that I would come and see her this afternoon I write Seishiro-san a note and return back to my own apartment.

The job proves to be little more than a simple haunting and as I slip into my trance I find that my mind winders from the situation at hand.

Nothing about the last few days makes any sense to me.

Seishiro-san was not the sort of man one could instantly warm to and I had been enough of an emotional recluse so that even if he had of been such a person a friendship would still have been hard going.

Yet but moments after meeting him I had given him my name, had trusted him enough so that the next time we had met I'd given him my home number.

Both of which had seemed natural enough and yet why?

What was this force that existed between Seishiro-san and I?

Why did I love him already?

Was this fate?

Had all that had been taken from me all those years ago been restored to me in the form of this man?

If I had gone to the Sakura tree at that time what would I have seen?

I feel the essence of the ghost drifting away into the other real, feel its gratitude before a niggling memory ceases at me.

Seishiro-san kneeling on the floor, his hands pressed to my face and his lips whispering…something…then he raises each of my hands to his lips and kisses them.

I recall the burn of that kiss…feel it still on my hands and curious I lift them to my eyes…

There on the backs of each is burned an inverted pentagram.

The mark of the Sakurazukamori.

………………………………………………………………………………….

She looks so different in the sunlight.

This is the very first thing that he had thought as she had come to sit across from him at the table and had thought so many times before…

For in the shadows of her husbands world she seemed quiet and unassuming, seemed as a hidden strength burning always.

In the sunlight she seemed alive, that strength quickened into some bright brilliance that made her both threat and ally.

"Though it is nice to be so in demand of late, Seishiro-chan, I know that there is more to today than tea."

"I saw your brother last night."

"Then you went to Babylon." She remarks as she takes the first sip of the tea that he had ordered her.

"We did."

"I hope that Ryu did not get Subaru too drunk."

"Drunk enough I fear."

She sighs and shaking her head remarks,

"He never learns…but then I am sure that Subaru encouraged him as usual."

She is smiling pleasantly now and he knows she is only joking, that she is pleased that Subaru is again enjoying his life no matter how shallow that enjoyment might be.

"I have marked him."

The tea cup freezes mid way between her mouth and the table and her eyes darkening she enquires,

"Why?"

"I am trying out a little game that I thought of."

"What game?"

"Your brother has the challenge of making me feel something for him."

"Let me guess…if he wins this 'game' you shall set him free and yet if he fails you shall kill him?"

"Not quite. Should he fail I will indeed kill him and yet should he succeed I can not grant him his freedom.

"For should he succeed in unfreezing my heart then he shall be my successor and fated to carry on as Sakurazukamori once he has killed me."

"And then what?" She enquires, calm again present in her every action.

"What do you mean?"

"Who shall succeed my brother, Seishiro-chan?

"Ever before in your line the one to kill the Sakurazukamori had been fated to love another. Yet with Subaru that is not the case…with Subaru there shall only ever be you."

He recalls the previous night, the way that Subaru-kun had danced with that other boy and the way in which he had danced with himself…the way in which the wild fire beneath his green eyes had sparked into something uncontrollable.

That fire, the fire of Subaru-kun's spirit, seemed to burn for him and him alone…

"Perhaps there shall be none to succeed him; perhaps he is fated to be the last of my line."

She returns to drinking the tea and he believes that shall be the last of it until she sets her cup to the table and removes her gloves.

"Forgive that I have to do this, Seishiro-kun."

She remarks before she places her hands atop his own.

For a moment there is only the normal heat of her body and then the darker heat of magic flows into his veins.

She draws back eventually and putting her gloves back on she says,

"I was not a skilled magician when Kakyo asked me to create a spell to perceive his dreams…thus though it is true that I alone can see what Kakyo dreams, I have also inadvertently given myself the ability to see what others dream also."

"That is why you wear those gloves, I suppose."

"It is."

There is a stagnant silence and then he poses the question he knows that she is waiting for,

"What can you see in my dreams, Hokuto-chan?"

"You have already lost your 'game' it seems." She remarks, a smile gracing her lips before she responds to his question, "In your dreams I see obsession, the desire to possess and the first blossoming of love…

"My brother is calling to you, Seishiro-chan, for the bright fire of his soul burns now in tandem with your own, this truth is proved by the pull you feel whenever you are within his presence.

"You think yourself obligated to continue tradition, to die at his hand, yet perhaps you should allow such a thing to be his choice…should allow Subaru the freedom to love you.

"After all, what does it matter if the line ends with him or with you?"

"There is more to this than simply the continuation of the Sakura, Hokuto-chan…"

"You are opposed in the Final Battle, this I know and yet as things progress there may not be a problem as far as that goes."

Again he pictures the other that had been with Subaru…pictures that false smile and the seduction clear in those beautiful eyes.

Hokuto talked always of Kamui as some fragile thing…as glass to be broken with but the merest of touches.

Yet that smile bespoke of another nature…of the nature that would be his always if he chose Earth rather than Heaven.

"What if things are changing, already, Hokuto-chan? What if your brother's influence allows Kamui to pull himself free of his misery?"

"It is possible…"

"Then again we have the problem of our opposition."

"If you both decide not to fight then the sides will balance out and all shall be well.

"You love him, Seashore-chan and perhaps you should give that love a chance."

Unbidden the memory of that kiss burns at the back of his mind, not for the emotion he had felt at that touch but for the words that had preceded them,

'Perhaps life is an illusion, Seashore-san, but this is truth.'

All his life he had pretended to be something he was not, had hidden the dark heart of the Sakurazukamori beneath geniality and kindness.

Watching Subaru letting go his inhibitions on the dance floor had been as a call to that side of himself and when the other had talked of illusion…

He had wanted to warn him, wanted to tell the boy that he was nothing more than a blanket of illusions draped over a dark heart and a dark destiny.

Yet admitting to such a thing had proven impossible and he had simply broached an idle viewpoint instead.

Yet Subaru had not cared whether life were illusion…whether even Seashore himself was illusion, all that had mattered to the young man in that moment was simply the one indefinable truth of his heart.

Seashore found that he too wished to disregard the illusions and focus simply on the truth.

Focus simply on his love for Subaru.

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T: You see I told you there was a point to the silliness. I promise that it's all behind me now...well there will be a Last Day party, but then that's understandable! R+R and I'll let you play with Subaru while Sei-chan isn't looking!