9. Final contact.

T: I really really can not say a thing about this chapter without spoiling things…just recall the previous chapter's warning! Nope still not mine.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

She had considered her next step swiftly after she had left Noruko to care for Seishiro and had decided to let go her procrastination and listen to her heart.

It was while making this choice that the sharp shock of one of her spells breaking, had hit her.

Further examination told her that it had been the holds on her boy's memory that had failed and she had known then, beyond doubt, that today would be the day when her long wait was ended.

Wishing now to sever all her ties to the false shell of Sakura she had gone to Noruko as the dawn had broken and requested that he join her in a stroll about Ueno Park.

She had allowed him to talk a while with her about the welfare of her boy and of the arrival of the Sumeragi before she had bored of the false joy in his voice and caught him into the thrall of a spell.

But moments after that she had felt her boy cross into the park and she had taken her post in the protective embrace of her tree.

She listens to their talk until the Sumeragi questions her judgement and then, pushing free of the branches, she makes herself known.

Her boy seems surprised by her appearance and she makes reference to something the Sumeragi had said previously before to clarify the matter.

His mind catches onto a dark consequence of her false face and he enquires, with some terrible foreboding of the answer written already on his face, after the welfare of Noruko.

Once the boy is revealed she talks a little of her careful planning, of her choice to follow her heart and she feels the affects of Oniichan's spell fall away from her at last.

Again in her true form she feels strong, confident and calling the tree to aid her she takes control of the situation.

She had thought to kill Noruko, in order to maintain the secret of her identity and yet as the branches head for his heart a voice calls out the other's name.

There is a soft thud as the branch tears into skin and then she is looking again into the calm golden eyes of the Takumura.

He smiles as only one who has fulfilled a duty can and then he pulls himself to his feet, the skin of his shoulder tearing further as he works himself up the branch.

There is a want for confrontation in his eyes and she finds a dark amusement in it which she sets aside, for the moment, in favour of remaining attentive of her boy and the choice she has want to ask him for.

He has turned from her and she little loves this, thus she moves to stand again in his eye sight, her lips voicing that terrible choice as she settles herself but a hands reach from him.

"How can you do this when you know the pain of making such a terrible choice? Indeed how can you serve the sakura so willingly when it was for its sake that your child died?" Her boy enquires, a desperate hope clear in his voice.

"What does that child matter to me now, when I have you? The sakura gave me the power to mark you and thus allow myself to make sure always that you were safe…alive.

"The sakura also gave me the form of a little girl so that I might spend time with you and learn of you without you acting in haste.

"Perhaps once I hated it for the loss of my baby and yet now it has given me so much that I can not begrudge it that one sacrifice."

His shoulders sag and she feels guilty for destroying a little of his fragile home and yet this is the way it has been always from Sakurazukamori to Sakurazukamori.

Odd how she now so willingly accepts the 'must be's' that are buried within the legacy that she wishes passed to her boy, especially when at the beginning she had chilled at the thought of doing as Oniichan before her and forcing Seishiro to be something he had no wish to be.

She recollects that Oniichan had told her once that his feelings towards the sakura had changed over the years, that he had once loved the power it gave him and yet now loathed it with a passion.

She had asked him why and he had touched her face gently before replying,

'Because of you, Setsuka.

'After I met you I realised how tied the sakura's power had made me…realised that I would never get a chance to laugh freely and truly with you as I desired.'

Had her opinion of the tree changed truly changed simply for the love of her boy? Had she allowed her dark heart and her lighter self to merge all for the sake of love?

The Sumeragi is all but blue by now and a determination comes to her boy's face before he requests,

"Set him free, Sakurazukamori, or at least let him breath, for I want a moment with him before I give you my choice."

"My name is Setsuka, Seishiro and I shall lease him but a little to thus ensure that you do not simply snatch him into your arms and flee."

Her boy moves swiftly to the Sumeragi's side and begins to talk to the other in a whisper, his hands reaching to caress the boy's face as he talks.

She angers quickly to the sight of her boy's obvious affection for the other and she allows her anger to again swamp away her morality and compassion,

"You're time runs short, Seishiro."

Her boy grasps harder to the Sumeragi and the other shakes his head vehemently before her boy says something that seemingly irradiates whatever the argument had been for the Sumeragi nods once and then falls oddly still.

Her boy stands and smiling to her he remarks,

"I fear that I have not chosen either of the options presented to me this day, but that I have chosen a hidden option of which only I had any idea."

As the words leave his mouth she feels the familiar pressure of magic in the air and realises, all but an instant too late, why the Sumeragi had stilled so suddenly.

Her boy collapses as though his bones have been stolen from him and she forgets about duty and protocol and runs to his side.

He is not moving and already he feels chilled, yet with the fall and the bite of the coming autumn on the air, these things may yet prove insignificant.

It is the lack of a pulse or a breath that tells her what she had feared the very instant that he had collapsed.

He is dead.

She feels her heart numb away and there is a wild thought in her to kill the Sumeragi and wrought a vengeance upon him.

Yet she knows this is an empty thought, that no matter what she does now her boy is dead and her release from that terrible legacy is gone.

She grips him hard to her in a hope of reviving his life…in restoring her freedom to her and yet she knows it is empty.

She pulls herself into an illusion of invisibility and then she turns in on herself.

Oniichan is waiting as always and he has but to look at her face before he enquires,

'He is gone, is he not?'

She nods and he bends to kiss her forehead,

'What am I to do now, Oniichan? How can I live like this forever knowing he is gone and that I am alone always?'

He regards her a moment and then his smile fades away so that he seems now so unlike the man who had raised her.

'Setsuka, there are rules and regulations to being Sakurazukamori, which, as you know, I hate greatly.

'Willingly I have aided you in my death just as Kasan aided me, willingly I have allowed you to care for another and have aided you in gaining his faith.

'Yet I shall not stand aside and watch you suffer, not when even in death I love you.'

He steps to her and furls her into his arms, the chill of his body as welcome to her as it always has been.

He kisses her forehead again and then he places his fingers about her neck, the chill ceasing her muscles and cutting her breath short even before he begins to squeeze.

It is painful and yet she welcomes it for it allows her to think of something other than the absolute grief of loosing her boy.

With her last breath she thanks Oniichan for this final gift to her and then death takes her and all thought and care fades into emptiness.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

T: Yes there is another chapter…you'll have to wait and see what is in it! R+R…please!