DISCLAIMER: As before, all characters and specialised words etc, relating to the characters used are owned and credited to CLAMP. Certain images and events are also credited to CLAMP. However, the interpretation of events and the story that follows is written by sakurazukamori. Enjoi, R/R.
.:Chapter 4 – The Lovers:.
"Love is not the satisfaction of a need, but the precondition for all others."
If I turn around will he be there?
Seishiro-san.
Seishiro…
Silence…
…yet the silence of the darkness gave way to one lonely sound - the brushing of the young Sumeragi's white ofuda against one another moments before they were flung at the one who commanded the blossom: the bane of the onmyouji's life, yet the only reason he had to live. His hand trembled as the uncertainty of what was to follow bore down upon him, tormenting him.
Why? Why can't I turn around?
Fear…
It was the fear of uncertainty - the very reason why the young onmyouji could not turn around; the reason why he could not move, why he could not think. He had felt this fear before when he was a boy of eight years old – when he was, again, at the whim of the sakurazukamori: his enemy, his love. It hung about his neck like a festering albatross, haunting him, dragging him back down to the darkest recesses of his soul. He could feel the unwanted memories surfacing once more, trickling out of every pore covering his skin in a searing film of nostalgia. The Sumeragi could almost smell the aroma of the past that once again saturated his very being, immersing him in fear and dread. The glowing ofuda continued to quiver in the onmyouji's unstable hand as the fear ravaged him yet again. No matter how hard he tried to overcome this fear it found new ways of destroying his already weakened resolve. Once more he was caught in an illusion of the sakurazukamori's doing; again his mind was cruelly subjected to defilation by the sakura and corruption by the blossom star himself, Seishiro Sakurazuka.
Seishiro…
The man that had brought both sorrow and joy into Subaru's life; the man whom he both hated and loved in equal measure now, once again, held him prisoner. He had been Seishiro's prisoner all his life, both in mind and body, but no more…
"No more!" cried out the young Sumeragi. "No more…"
With that he twisted round flinging his ofuda in front of him, hoping, praying that he could break free from the sakurazukamori's hold. The ofuda flew out transforming into white doves as they soared, each one emblazoned with the sign of the Sumeragi's white onmyoujitsu – the pentacle. A burst of ruby light flashed before the young Sumeragi forcing him to shield his eyes; when he reopened them, his ofuda were no longer present - he had felt their energy disintegrate and then he saw blood...the blood of his own ofuda trickling down the contours of a scarlet pentagram invoked by the same ruby light that had appeared before him moments ago. He could hear the blood splash onto the ground below in torrents. Again, the pentagram, the mark of the sakurazukamori had found him once more and would not let him go – the wielder of the star still held his prisoner captive.
Subaru fell to his knees before the crimson pentagram watching helplessly as its scarlet radiance grew stronger and stronger, bathing the darkness around him with a vermilion calamity as if it were concealing a hideous secret he could not know. He could feel the presence of the sakurazukamori surrounding him, revelling in his helplessness just as he had done all those years ago. The backs of the Sumeragi's ashen hands burnt as the accursed mark of the sakurazukamori emitted a faint azure glow.
The cracking of knuckles pierced the oppressing silence as the fists of the young onmyouji clenched. With each crack the Sumeragi resolved to break though the pentagram that had dominion power over him. However, as if reading his very thoughts, the scarlet pentagram burst into a contagion of bloodstained sakura petals before Subaru's very eyes, allowing him to see what lay behind the fluttering remains of the withered pentagram.
"Hokuto-chan!" he whispered, as what had been concealed from him was finally revealed.
Hokuto?
But why?
She stood there adorned in his white shikifuku, his own ceremonial beads hung at her slender throat caressing her pale skin. The shadow of the sinister Sakura Barrow crept over her, its gnarled vines twisting and contorting about themselves in anticipation at what was yet to come. She stepped forward, the shikifuku swaying about herfragile frame, the ceremonial beads chiming against each other and looked up at the blizzard of treacherous sakura blossom that engulfed her. The blanket of sakura petals that covered the ground threw an unearthly glare upon the trunk of the Sakura Barrow revealing its pulsating limbs. The Barrow appeared to have a mind of its own as its vines tried to grasp at his mirror image who stood... waiting.
"Hokuto-chan!" the Sumeragi screamed. "Run. RUN!"
She could not hear him; instead she turned around as if she were talking to someone on the other side of the throbbing trunk of the Sakura Barrow. He had to warn her… had to save her. The young onmyouji ran; he ran until he felt his muscles burn with acid fatigue. He ran until he could feel his pulse drum through every vein, every artery.
Oh God.
Hokuto-chan.
Please…run, just…
"Konnichiwa," his sister whispered, "Sei-chan."
run…
He stopped dead in his tracks.
Konnichiwa…
Sei-chan.
Sei-chan.
Sei-chan…
His name echoed inside the Sumeragi's mind and reverberated about his physical being. He could feel himself sinking deeper into the illusion as the name of his sister's murderer resonated against the invisible walls of darkness between which he was held captive. His eyes grew wide with terror...
"Konnichiwa, Hokuto-chan," the sakurazukamori whispered slowly and purposefully, flashing a stingingly sadistic smile.
Subaru's eyes flashed between his sister and him Why could he not hear them? His sister's face, it looked so composed, so tranquil as if she had no idea what her fate was destined to be… yet she clasped and unclasped her hands: the only action that betrayed her steadfast composure.
I can't. I can't let her die, not again…
"HOKUTO-CHAN!" screamed the young Sumeragi, his fists tightly balled. "Please, RUN!"
It was no use. His sister's arms dropped to her sides as she closed her eyes… waiting. Then he saw, he saw what was to become his sister's untimely end. The sakurazukamori, the man he held most dear, began to prepare his fatal technique.
"NO! HOKUTO!"
He ran…
His arm flattened itself out…
He kept running…
…drawing itself back…
He ran and ran…
…swiftly striking his victim…
He stopped…
The Sumeragi watched as the man he loved mercilessly struck his sister, impaling her with his own hand.
He watched through crying eyes as the crimson essence gushed from the gaping wound in her chest, staining the white shikifuku.
He heard the tearing of sinew and the cracking of bone as the sakurazukamori withdrew his blood-soaked hand.
He smelt the scent of her blood on his flesh.
His twin, his Gemini, lay there on a bed of scarlet-tainted sakura blossom, motionless and bloody. Standing over her was the man he held most dear, his hand dripping with blood, encrusted with sinew – somehow his face managed to remain completely serene; even his mismatched eyes held an eerie sense of serenity. The sakurazukamori turned, kneeling next to his dying victim taking her wilting hand into his.
"Seishiro-san. Why?" whispered the young onmyouji. "WHY?"
He threw himself at the dark onmyouji grabbing his solid form turning him around to face him. Subaru's eyes flashed with anger as the blossom star merely smiled at him calmly, flashing him his pearly white teeth.
"Why? WHY NOT ME?" exclaimed the Sumeragi. "I've looked all over for you, to ask you…to…a-"
"Were you really looking for me?" interrupted the sakurazukamori. "Or were you merely looking…for yourself?"
Subaru's eyes grew wide in disbelief.
"How!"
He watched as the mismatched eyes of his adversary flooded with the same emerald hue that coloured his own. The blossom star's hair grew until Subaru's own trademark bangs framed his own face, until strands of the dark hair of the Sumeragi gently swept across his own eyelids. His already pallid complexion drained further until the translucent flesh of the Sumeragi became his own. Even the dark shroud that covered his body faded out into the white of Subaru's own overcoat.
"Subaru-kun, you look like you've seen a ghost," whispered a transformed Seishiro, smiling.
The Sumeragi stumbled back watching this illusion of his own image heartlessly grinning back at him; he watched as he, Subaru Sumeragi, picked up his sister's lifeless body and offered it to the very thing he despised – the very thing that had haunted him… that haunted him still. He was still at the mercy of the Barrow. Crumpling to his knees, he held his head in his hands.
"I didn't kill her. I didn't kill her," he shakily murmured to himself. "I…did…"
He lunged out with his arm so as to grab at his cold-blooded reflection, so he could stop himself condemning his own sister, his own flesh and blood to the grappling vines of the Sakura Barrow. However, his hand sliced effortlessly through the effigy of himself as if it were just a mirage of the air dispersing the image of him and his sister into a pestilence of fluttering iniquity.
Difficult chapter to write first time, but I am still relatively happy with the way it turned out. Hope you all liked it too. Once again, my grammar and punctuation were totally terrible! I think they've improved somewhat now, hope so anyway. Feel free to give me a review or email with your comments – I like receiving feedback.