2: Dreaming of you.
T: Have twiddled a bit with the summery and the rating as I set the rating too high (Duh!) and my summery got cut off! Warnings remain the same with an addition of a slightly odd dream sequence and a little blood. No I'm not a member of Clamp…sob!
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Every night she is there in his dreams, her skin a fine porcelain, her hair as the very darkness of night and her nails so red that he wonders always if she had painted them with blood.
He can not recall what the colour of her eyes were or what words her cherry red lips were forming and it is these details that bring always the headaches.
Kasan had been all but an emotional wreck when the headaches had gotten bad enough that he's began to bleed from the nose, fearing that he had contracted the cancer that had eventually killed Tousan.
He had known that it was not cancer, that the kiss that 'the woman' had placed on his forehead had done something to his memory so that thinking too long of that encounter would result in hurt of some kind.
It had become an obsession for him to know what, precisely, she had done and he had began to research into the various magical arts.
Eventually he had exhausted the shelves both at his home and in all the local libraries and yet still he had thirsted for knowledge of the one who haunted him always.
At ten years of age he had applied for a position in the prestigious Clamp Campus located at the heart of Tokyo, in an hope that there extensive resources may give him more an answer.
They had granted his application not because he was son to the former president of the Yuko Corporation, but rather because he was becoming already a recognised intelligence in all manner of things occult.
The library at the Campus had provided more answers than he had even dared hope and little by little he had pieced together an idea of what magic had been used against him.
Indeed so useful had the knowledge extricated from the library on Campus proven that he had remained on after his graduation as a lecturer and teacher of the history and legends of the occult. This so that he might continue his research into the nature of the woman.
Yet even after thirteen years of hard study she remained, illusive.
He knew that she was of a group known as the Sakurazukamori and that these individuals were tied somehow to the sakura and yet more than that he could not discover.
There were a few legends and pieces of hear say and yet he knew…somehow…that none were anywhere close to the truth.
There was a vain hope of clarification in the form of a particular Campus student and it was to the hope of a meeting that he had come to the Chairman of the class board's high school division.
He had known Imonoyama Noruko personally for six years now, having met the boy through his secretary and personal body guard Takumura Suoh.
The Takumura had been his Tai Kwan do sparring partner since the boy had been nine and though Seishrio had not, in all those years, beaten him he regarded it as a point of honour that he was in a minority who could claim to have come close.
He bows to the three men of the board and Noruko smiles before remarking,
"Good afternoon, Yuko-san."
"Good afternoon, Imonoyama-san."
"How can we be of service to you?"
"I have been informed that there is a student by the name of Sumeragi Subaru in your year."
"That is correct."
"I had hoped that you might arrange a meeting between us, for he holds knowledge that might be useful in my research."
"I fear that I must disappoint you, Sumeragi-san has commitments outside of the Campus grounds and does not regularly attend to his classes, thus making arranging a meeting between you all but impossible."
"I understand. Thank you for your time, Imonoyama-san." He remarks, bowing again to the board before he leaves the room.
He is a little up the hallway when a soft click informs him that someone has followed him and turning he is met with the patient gaze of the Takumura.
"Seishiro-sempi, perhaps you should take this as a sign to give up your search at last."
"Suoh-kun, if Imonoyama-san decided that he had no more want to be your friend, no more want for you to be always at his side…would you leave him?"
The boy glances over his shoulder and stepping a little closer he responds,
"No, for no matter what Kaichou will always be my One."
"Then you can understand why I saw that I can not give this search up…no matter if it seems hopeless or I learn something I wish I had not at the end of it."
"If you mean that then there is another solution. Sumeragi-san had a sister who attends class always and perhaps Kaichou might charm her into arranging a meeting between yourself and her brother outside of Campus grounds."
"I would appreciate it if you made such a suggestion to Imonoyama-san, Suoh-kun, especially when I know how uncomfortable it makes you to see him flirting with the ladies."
Those golden eyes narrow and he hisses,
"You promised you would not again mention my 'feelings' for Kaichou."
Seishiro breaks into laughter and replies,
"Yet I can not help but tease you sometime, Suoh-kun especially when you have still the advantage on me."
The boy shakes his head and his face again fixing into a more impassive mask he turns and walks back up the corridor and into the boardroom.
Seishiro is sat quietly in the library, his mind deeply mired in the mythological text that he is reading when a familiar head of blond hair appears in his peripheral vision.
The Imonoyama has an unfamiliar girl at his side, something about the way she was carrying herself telling him quickly that this was the sister of the boy he was seeking.
"Yuko-san, may I introduce you to Sumeragi Hokuto. Hokuto-chan this is Yuko Seishiro."
"I have heard your name mentioned often by my brother Yuko-san."
"Is that so?"
"Yes, he is constantly telling me that you are the greatest mind in Japan in regards to the occult and that he wises he knew of half the things you did."
He smiles lazily and leaning a little towards her he enquires,
"Do you think that he would agree to a meeting between us?"
"Of course! I will speak to him when I see him tonight, Yuko-san and I will let you know tomorrow where and when to meet him."
"Thank you, Sumeragi-san."
The girl laughs brightly and though it is a little obnoxious he finds himself smiling in response.
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He is walking in the darkness of night, the only guidance he has a flickering lamp on the horizon.
The air is chill and he can feel the crunch of snow beneath his feet, yet he feels feverishly hot… as though his very blood is on fire.
The lamp light sways violently and suddenly he is stood before the doll like woman.
Her frail form is swamped in the folds of a crimson cloak, the vivid hue making her seem pail enough to be a corpse.
She smiles at him and her lips shape into three words before she sweeps the lantern away from her to reveal a giant cherry tree.
Yet there are not blossoms on the branches, but thousands upon thousands of corpses, each with a dark void where once their hearts had been.
The woman takes a hold of his hand and jumps into the branches.
Again her lips form into silent words and setting her lantern to one side she pulls him against her.
Her touch snuffs the fire within his blood and he feels, at last, the freezing cold of the night.
Suddenly his left hand is warm again and staring down he notes, slowly, that his hand is through her heart.
He pulls from her and she is smiling so gently as she falls to her knees that he believes that he had imagined that last image…
Yet his hand is warm still.
Blood coats his fingers and staring at the viscous liquid he feels panic cease at him.
She sees this, somehow, and with her last breath she moves so as to kiss his blood sodden digits.
The crimson hue matches well that of her lips and he marvels at this a moment before he screams at last.
He is screaming still as he awakes and he has to forcibly stop himself by biting hard to his pillow.
Once he is calm he writes the dream down in the notebook kept at his beside for just such a purpose and then he rises to wash his face.
For the briefest of moments he can see a vivid red mark on his forehead and then he is simply staring at his reflection.
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T: The bit with the lanterns is actually snitched from the legend that inspired Clamp to supposedly make the Sakurazukamori.
I know Suoh is a little OOC but I figure that knowing Sei-chan for six long years is bound to have meddled in his character a littler. Oh and for those curious Noruko is 16, Suoh is 15 and Akira is 14…I'll do the others as it comes up! R+R as the authoress survives on the sustenance that review provide her!
