3: History.

T: Glad everyone is (So far) enthusiastic about this fic especially as I have yet to feel 100 confident about it…most likely because it has yet to settle into any sort of clear plot…Silver Salamander is again allowing herself to be subjected to being my Beta so thank you! Warnings remain the same with the addition of odd logic…for this I blame the tree!

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They sleep curled together, almost as close now as they had been within their mother's womb.

Her brother's dreams are fitful things and more than once she awakens to the heartbreaking cries of Seishiro's name.

At breakfast he talks of the young woman he had met the day before and she knows, simply through the slight downturn of his lips, that he is trying to turn his thoughts away from the previous days encounter.

His willingness to humour their Obaachan is, as she feared, due to a wish to erase Seishiro from his heart…a wish to change everything about himself.

She can not allow him to commit to something as serious as marriage for such reasons and so once she is assured that he has eaten healthy she makes her excuses and catches a train to Kyoto.

She has not gone back since she left to join Subaru in Tokyo, not because she dislikes their Obaachan…but rather because Kyoto holds too many dark memories of being without Subaru…of being alone.

Her Obaachan is dressed plainly today, the style of the kimono she is wearing as such that it does not catch in the wheals of her chair.

Despite both her infirmity and her plain dress she is still an imposing figure and Hokuto can well understand why her brother still seems relatively nervous about her.

"It is good to see you looking so well, Hokuto-chan, especially when your disappearance had us all so very worried."

"Subaru is in love with him, Obaachan."

"With who?" It is as a casual enquiry and yet the grip of her hands upon the arm rest tells a different story.

"I think you already know, Obaachan."

The woman's eyes drift to watch the breeze and her voice blank she replies,

"He can not love someone who does not exist, Hokuto-chan."

"You may not believe me when I say this, Obaachan, but he does exist."

"No, it was simply the illusion of the Sakurazukamori."

"Was it an a illusion that I faced a year to this day, Obaachan? Was it an illusion who chose to spare my life because he knew how much my death would hurt Subaru?"

"The Sakurazukamori have no emotions, they do not comprehend things such as mercy or love…if he spared you then it was as part of the game."

Silence a moment and then she asks, at last, the one question she has never dared ask of her Obaachan.

"Obaachan, you talk always of the Sakurazukamori with sadness within your voice…I believed for a while that that was because you had foreseen thus tragedy occurring to Subaru and yet, even now, you utter that name with despair in your voice.

"Is that, perhaps, because someone you cared for died at the hands of the previous Sakurazukamori?"

"Yes… though not simply someone I cared for, but someone who Subaru and yourself could have loved also."

"Are you talking of Tousan?"

The woman sighs and turns to face her at last, an old, long recalled, pain in her eyes.

"Before he met your mother your father fell in love with the previous Sakurazukamori, Setsuka.

"He would not listen when I warned him of the dangers of loving such a creature and it was only when she dismissed him from her side as garbage that he realised all that she had ever told him had been lies.

"I had believed that that was an end to it but then after your mother died giving birth to the two of you he began talking of seeing Setsuka again…of trying to tie together the bonds between the families.

"The night that he died your father came to me to say that she had taken him back…that he was going to go to her today and make her his bride.

"I found his body on the doorstep the next day…a hole punched clear through his heart."

Hokuto's eyes dull, and she lets out a quiet sigh.

"Why did you tell Subaru and myself that Tousan died of illness?"

"Because I did not want you to think less of him, Hokuto-chan and because by the time I could talk to you because by the time I could talk to you of your father Subaru had already fallen victim to the current Sakurazukamori."

"Yet why would I think less of Tousan for doing all he could for his love? Why would Subaru's branding silence you?"

"To be honest I do not know why those things made a difference…I think that it was rather that I had want to preserve him always in my mind as my pure innocent Hideki and to admit that he had loves the enemy…I could not do it."

"Obaachan…you talked of the 'dangers of loving such a creature' and Seishiro said that his love was a dangerous thing…yet why?"

"Because of the heart of the Sakurazukamori curse…because of their greatest secret."

"Do you know what it is, Obaachan…did Tousan learn the secret of that line and impart it to you?"

"No, I know the secret as it was one of the Sumeragi who placed this curse upon the Sakurazukamori…one of the Sumeragi who so bound the hearts of that line."

It made sense, of course, the Sumeragi and the Sakurazukamori existed in tandem, with each acting upon the previous action of the other in an unending cycle.

Yet her Obaachan had piqued her curiosity and she enquires,

"Why was the curse created and what is the secret of the line?"

"Before the spell was created the Sakurazukamori were of the worst kind…taking pleasure in their crimes and actually acting out their perversion in their day to day life.

"If they loved it was a vicious thing and always it ended in bloodshed and death.

"Our clans were already at odds…opposed for our use of our magic and simply in our outlook.

"When the head of the Sakurazukamori clan slaughtered one of the daughters of the head of our clan it was the last straw and a meeting was called within the clan.

"It was decided to bind the emotions of the clan…to remove any pleasure they derived from the act of killing…to make them nothing more thane empty shells.

"Yet this was not punishment enough for the head and when weaving the spell she placed within its binds a curse that is reflected well in the sakura that the clan serve.

"For never again would one of that line be able to re-produce…would be as their precious tree, stuck always within the bright bloom of spring, never to move into the fruiting of summer.

"The line had to continue, of course, for what is Ying without Yang, light without dark and thus she made it so that the line passed through the blood…made it so that the first death a Sakurazukamori was ever responsible for was that of their predecessor.

"With such a system any one could easily have become Sakurazukamori and so yet another layer was wound into the spell.

"It is this layer that the Sakurazukamori retain as their final secret and this layer is what makes courting the love of the Sakurazukamori a dangerous thing.

"For the one who kills the Sakurazukamori, who becomes themselves as that creature, is the one who the Sakurazukamori loves beyond all others.

"For the Sakurazukamori to love is to die."

For a moment she believes her Obaachan to be lying…believes that this is all some well crafted fiction to stop her from aiding her brother.

Yet when she sees the despair in the older woman's eyes…her heart filled with dread as she thought of what was to come.

If Seishiro truly loves her brother then it is Subaru who is to be the next Sakurazukamori…Subaru who will be the next to lose all that he was to the Sakura.

"Obaachan…if the spell is of the devising of our clan could it not be broken by one of its members?"

"All the layers of the spell are tied tightly together…to destroy one would be as destroying the whole thing…would be as leasing the true perversion of the Sakurazukamori upon the world.

"Can you say, truly, that you trust current Sakurazukamori enough that you could say that he would not change if he were given again his emotions?"

"Seishiro-chan is different from his predecessors, Obaachan. Setsuka raised him as though she were his own mother and thus he has never known a world with emotion…can not comprehend even such base things as jealousy and mercy.

"I can not say that leasing his emotions would not change him and yet I believe it might be as a change for the positive…believe that if he were allowed to feel he might learn to comprehend such a thing as remorse."

"Yet would such a feeling be positive for one such as he? As it is now the Sakurazukamori is the perfect assassin…the perfect counterpoint to the Sumeragi…to change that would be as changing the balance and that is always a risky thing."

"Yet did she who placed the curse not also change the balance?"

"Yes and we have paid dearly for it, for in every generation since that day one of the clan has fallen…be it to illness or murder…indeed yours shall be the first generation that had not fallen victim to this curse in many years."

"Many would call that karma, Obaachan and you have to recall that I only escaped this 'curse' because of the changing of Seishiro-chan's heart."

She claps her hands and one of her serving maids appears from the house, a small brown envelope clutched in her hands.

"I had thought to tell you this tale today, Hokuto-chan and I knew that you would say what you have said, thus I spent my morning researching the spell and have found a suitable countering incantation.

"Subaru and Subaru alone can perform this spell and it is to him that I wish you to give this envelope…wish you to allow him to make this choice on his own."

The older woman passes the envelope into her care and she clutches it as a lifeline.

"Take care, Hokuto-chan and please allow Subaru to do what he believes best even if you do not agree with him."

"Of course, Obaachan." She replies before the presence of the older woman is gone from her side.

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T: I blame the fact that I have been watching Chobits on father Sumeragi's name…I wanted something more serious but Chi kept repeating 'Hideki' in my head and thus we get this! R+R I need confidence!