Notes: I've only read up to book 16 so you can't scold me! Haha. Well, you can, but then I'll cry. Takes place after The End. Fuuma and Kamui have fought, Kamui is dead, Fuuma's back to "normal", all that good stuff. I wrote this fic a really long time ago, over a year, and have only now gotten around to submitting it.
Warnings: Blood? Suicide? Really, this fic shouldn't even have a warning.
Spoilers: Nah.

Hajimemashou
(Shall we begin)

By: Eri Nightwind
12-02-02 Edited 04-27-2004

I didn't mind killing him. At least, now I don't mind. In this moment, I don't mind... When it happened... I was... shocked. I was dead. No, not dead... Dying...

But I don't think about it very much, really. Every so often a feeling of numbness comes over me, but usually... usually I'm fine. A perfectly ok walking corpse, you could say. But that's just the numbness talking.

I don't mind that he's dead. He told me what I never thought he'd say... just like always. I am content knowing that. It's good, as well, that he told me the way he did. That he chose that moment to do it. I could feel it in the warmth of his blood washing over me. The way he clung to me as the last bits of breath left him... Knowing his past, knowing his present, even his future... If he hadn't told me the way he did, I don't think I would have believed him. I like to tell myself that I would have known anyway, but even for someone as close to him as I was... I realize I was lucky.

This is getting me nowhere, isn't it? My thoughts are coming out in jumbles. I'm supposed to be telling you why I'm leaving, not part of the reason why I've stayed these past few months.

I'm leaving now because... knowledge alone cannot keep me here without him. He was my purpose, after he killed Hokuto, after he stole my heart and paraded it in front of me for so long. Kamui is dead. Fuuma is back to his old self. The world is different and yet the same. It could still use my gifts, but... I don't think I can manage it anymore.

I'm not sure who will find this note. Probably Arashi. She's been visiting me lately, trying to make up for Sorata being gone, I think. She'll understand, even if the others don't. Yuzuriha will cry. I'll have to leave her a handkerchief.

-Subaru

Subaru nodded slightly to himself as he placed the sheet of paper on his bed.

"It fits..." he whispered softly, then reached into his pocket and pulled out his handkerchief, dropping it down next to the note. He turned and started walking over to his chair, the only other piece of furniture in the room. He'd gotten rid of his phone a month ago. He had no need for it, after all.

The moonlight shone faintly around the edges of the curtained window. Subaru paused in his walk and looked at it.

"Wrong... definitely wrong..." He reached forward and pushed the curtains open, allowing the moonlight to pour over his face, his clothes, highlighting the bloodstains on his coat. The old bloodstains. He'd saved it, after all...

Subaru closed his eye for a moment, enjoying the moonlight, then continued his walk to the chair.

He sat down slowly, almost as though he wanted to savor the feeling. His fingers slipped around the handle of the knife easily, fluidly. The blade was a bright speck in the shadows surrounding the moonlight.

It was amazing, almost, how easily it slid through his skin. So smooth, so cold, so... perfect. Seishirou would have liked it.

"Killed by something cold..." Subaru laughed and looked down at his wrists. His eyes wandered over the patterns the blood was making on the leather of the chair. He could feel the tree screaming in the back of his mind, protesting this sudden mortal treatment. He ignored it. He turned his face toward the window, watching the moonlight, letting his mind drift...

The world seemed to waver, the moonlight and curtains warping slightly. He blinked and leaned back in his chair, turning his gaze to the door. The door...

Kamui opened the door slowly, a shy smile on his face.
"I hope I'm not bothering you, Subaru-kun." Kamui's voice seemed... soft... Why was that?
"Because you're dead." Subaru said, his words slurring together as coherent thought began to elude him.
Kamui laughed and nodded, then began walking towards him.
Subaru rubbed his eye, trying to focus on Kamui's gauze-like form. The shadows... The reflections of the moonlight off the floor, they were making the room spin... He had to close his eye, just for a moment...

"I hope I'm not bothering you, Subaru." This time the voice was closer, stronger, right by his ear. Tangible.
"Seishirou-san." Subaru said, opening his eyes. Over the walk between the door and the chair, Kamui had become Seishirou; one soul had been exchanged for the other. Where Kamui would have been, Seishirou now was, leaning forward, a hand resting on the arm of each chair, his fingers lazily tracing patterns in the blood there. He looked the same as he had at the Rainbow Bridge. Same coat, same tie, same smirk.

"Let's go, Subaru." Seishirou said, offering his hand to Subaru. Subaru looked at him for a moment, then took it.