Disclaimer: I do not own X.
Author's note: this story is an attempt to draw some kind of a background story for parts of X's character's lives that Clamp did not light for us. It is not a statement but a mere opinion.
Author's thanks: To my beta Kitsunia To Amy (thank you –blush- such a praising, thank you so much. I have a few more stories to tell so I don't know if I'll finish it so soon dear) and to Morbid Romantic for favoring this fic.
Author's Notes: I'm glad someone recovered the infamous Seishiro chapter and began reviewing it. I'm doing my best to not over-invent and not shock people with too much at a time.
Kishuu Arashi – Never Let Them See You Cry
She never let people see her cry, never!
When someone cries tears of anger, or pain, or sadness, even laughter, they take off their shield and let the world around them see a glimpse of the real them; the core them.
Arashi never let anyone see her cry because she didn't want people to look so deeply into her out of the fear that maybe, as they gaze into the breach in her defences they might discover something about her that she did not know.
And then what?
Will they use it to their advantage? Will they use it to her advantage? Will they shrug and walk away carelessly only to remember her in tiny glimpses whenever something similar to her comes before them? Will they linger and try to help? Linger and try to hurt?
Arashi didn't know and it's that lack of knowledge that drove her into fear and hiding; whenever she cries she hides and makes sure no one saw her do it.
She gets rid of evidence, as if she were a spy on the verge of getting caught, as if she's committed a terrible crime and now plots for her eligibility. She sprinkles cold water on her face to sooth the reddened cheeks, she washes her eyes with cold water or black tea to sooth the redness, she blows her nose then treats its skin with moisture creams and cold water to sooth its redness. Then she walks back into the real world with her mask replaced and fixed, prepared for whatever cruelness it'll hurl at her next.
Kishuu Arashi never lets people see her cry.
One can find many 'strays' in the big city:
Stray cats for one; leaping from trash bin to trash bin, strolling streets dirty and mucky as if they are kings of their region, meowing, fighting, purring, mating, guarding their territory and taking their naps in the most unusual places with such grace and carelessness.
Stray dogs… a lot less regal and a lot less sure of themselves, they roam the streets looking for others of their kind to join into a pack where they'll scavenge together and bark together and brawl together and grovel to the humans together. The lone wolf strays with their aloof manner and cold eyes, eyes brightening only when it's time to grovel for some food.
Stray teens…children of crime, neglect and abuse, roaming the streets much like the stray dogs. They do not bite; they stab you with a switchblade knife if you fail to give them your lunch money. They stab each other when bonds and alliances are broken. They do not bark; they curse and spit and hiss at you and other pedestrians and each other a lot. They break bottles and windows and glasses, get drunk, get high, get injured until they almost die. They either perish or manage to crawl out of the gutter eventually.
The three groups of the above, strays through and through, to whom will this little girl belong?
Roaming the streets aimlessly, without a parent to hold her hand and help her across the street and without the ability to read maps yet, little Arashi had become trapped on a block surrounded by wide roads and high buildings. This was her territory and she roamed it endlessly; perhaps she's a stray cat.
Three days into her abandonment in the streets, she learnt how to sneak into the bakery through the backdoor and steal a few buns to feed herself on; perhaps she's a stray teen.
She learnt how to look up into the eyes of the pedestrians with her big dark purple orbs and capture their hearts enough to earn a hot meal and a hug; perhaps she's a stray dog.
She learnt to dig herself a den amongst the cardboard packages and Styrofoam cubes where she'll be comfortable and cosy enough to sleep through the night; perhaps she is a stray cat after all.
Two weeks into her abandonment and she had already forgotten how her mother looks like and what their last words to each other were. She forgot the sight of her home, of her bed, of a freshly prepared meal on her home's kitchen table. She had become the child of the streets.
But the streets are no place for a child. Stray teens pull their trick of survival only barely and that is after they've grown into the cruel environment in the first place. Animals have their instincts and even with those they often fail. What chances will a little girl have in the streets!
Soon the eyes of pedestrians became cold and careless, realising she had become constant in her block, they ignored her and moved on with their life choosing to see the pretty cherry blossom in the park across the block rather then the dirty thin child at their feet.
Looking up made Arashi see people pass her by, looking down at her then onwards with the same monotonous grave expression. It's as if she lay in a coffin and they passed across it to gaze upon her and move on.
A shock went through her; was she dead and invisible? Was she a spirit now and nothing more? Perhaps it's better this way; ghosts can't feel the cold of the night and the hunger of days without a proper meal.
She didn't care if she'd die because her trouble would be stopped then and she won't have to bother with anything anymore.
So why did she feel the stinging in her eyes? Why did her heart choose to start thumping powerfully in her tiny chest and hurt so much?
She knew what she is about to do; she's done it so many times as a child and a baby that she's grown to know it's warning symptoms.
And she'll be damned if she'll let these cold hearted drones around her see her at it, she'd rather die already then to grovel with tears in her eyes.
She bit her tiny lower lip and walked towards a back ally where she slept a few nights ago. There she stood with her thin back to the cold wall and cried undisturbed. She choked her sobs and whimpers. Mice cry louder then that, but cats catch mice, do they not? She curled up on the floor inside a cardboard box and cried some more until her heart was clear and her head was dizzy and sleepy.
The rain then came down on her and nearly led to her death from cold, malnutrition and exhaustion. The cold melted when a stray dog found her and curled up at her side.
But the cold never really melted from her heart; she became frozen and careless. Her eyes always half dreamily staring, her voice always even and calm never mind what it spoke, her expressions hardly changing.
A month after that Kaede-san had found her.
Girls have a tendency to turn into three types at the age of eleven:
The queen, who rules her underlings with an iron fist and a mouthful of gossip and swears. The underling, who grovels and gossip along with their queen, partners in crime. And finally, the outcast who either cares not about the other two groups or suffers the insults on which queens build their palaces.
Arashi was the third kind. She was always a loner who's perfectionist ways made her avoid the company of anyone other then her in order to get things through correctly.
Her classmates' nonsense interests were empty and pointless to her; they bored her. She ignored their presence when it was forced on her and ran away from it whenever she could. She had better things to do.
She had her sword to practice; her time of peace and perfection. All alone in the dojo, with the white and wood walls so far from her, the smooth floor under her socked feet, the silence of the hall around her and the faint sounds of nature seeping in through the walls.
Here Arashi was happy, undisturbed and focused. Here she practiced her skills and perfected herself, chiselled through the rock to sculpture a figure of herself as she wanted to be.
Maybe if she'll work hard enough and put obstacles high enough in her path she'll find the real herself in the moments of despair and exhaustion. If not then she'll always have the skills and abilities such practices gave her.
Kishuu Arashi still did not meet the real her.
She was walking to her dojo when two groups led by two different class queens ensnared her. They stood at the entrance to the dojo and stared down at her from the small wooden terrace where Arashi would have her tea in her training breaks.
Arashi could not overlook this violation of her sacred ground. Her terrace was violated, defiled.
She clutched her neat pack of training clothes and levelled her eyes with the more powerful class queen.
"What are you doing there everyday Kishuu," the queen shrilled, talking to her underlings and comrade in status more then to Arashi.
"I train there."
"Train! What for! Girls aren't supposed to be so strong," the queen said. She was the cute and effeminate kind, the type that already attracts the attention of boy even though her body stays childish for now. The type that would grow to be a 'cute' popular girl and be courted by the millions: only to marry a 9-5 corporate and have an empty, boring, and meaningless life.
"It's so un-cute for a girl."
"I train in Kendo and I like it."
"Kendo," the second queen chirped, "you're hardly in the height to hold a shinai (1)properly, how will you train!"
Arashi's answer drowned in the sea of catcalls and laughter. She hung her head.
"'Rashi-chaaaan," the first queen now hissed. "You can't come here anymore! This is our playground now and you're not invited because you're not our friend!"
"Yeah, you're not popular," the second queen jeered.
"The dojo is everybody's property, it belongs to everyone and everyone can train in it!" A hint of anger and complaint snuck into Arashi's voice.
The group on the terrace burst into laughter.
"Well guess what? It's ours now and you can't come in," one of the underlings yelled, cheers joining her voice immediately.
Arashi dug her little feet into the ground, clutched her fists, hardened her eyes, froze her expression and took a deep breath. Step by step she began walking towards the dojo, towards the lions, hyenas and vultures awaiting her on the terrace.
She climbed the few stairs and came face to face with the first queen who shouldered her way to the end of the flight.
The two girls stared each other down; one with calm and (inwardly wavering) power, the other with malice and an impatient need to see her opponent going down in tears of hysteria and fear of her might.
"Let me in the dojo."
"No."
Arashi took another step forward and here she was, no longer on a lower stair but on the same floor as the queens and their escorts.
"Let me in the dojo."
"I said no!" The queen lashed out her slim hands and pushed the little girl before her a few steps back.
Arashi lost the wooden ground under her feet and tumbled down a step. She fell backwards, nothing but her sharp instincts and powerful body to stop a nearly fatal fall like that.
She clung to the railing with one arm and swung there for a moment, balancing herself again two stairs down from the terrace.
She gazed at the smirking queen again, her eyes now big and sad.
"Go away, the dojo is ours to use," the second queen declared, triumphant.
Arashi complied. There was a dojo in her shrine, where the queens and underlings were too unholy to enter, where the atmosphere was too heavy for their light-headed interests and where Kaede's goodness proved to be too strict for them.
Arashi began training there since then. But not before she walked solemnly to her room in the shrine and crumbled into tears of despair and sadness like only an outcast with the fresh wounds of humiliation can.
She did not let the hyena pack see her cry.
Her disliking of human company grew; the cold in her heart spread, the aloofness became great.
She chose to be as far away from her age group's as she could, adopting a silent mature behaviour to herself, speaking and writing in an archaic language.
In his time it was not Sorata's fault Arashi had such a great hidden fear (well masked as patronizing and mature behaviour) of him; he was happy, cheerful and immediately popular, just like the queens and their underlings.
But he managed to break the ice finally.
The first time Kaede-san told Arashi of her role in destiny Arashi cried.
She was frightened.
She was only fourteen and along with the first signs of womanhood her sword came to be. She became the hidden priestess, embodiment of Ise Shrine's power; she had a role in her life and a path to follow.
And she was frightened to the core. She wanted to be back on the streets grovelling and hiding in cardboard boxes. The stray animals did not expect her to save humanity. The criminal teens were not an opposite company of powerful seven people whose aim in life is to destroy Tokyo.
She spent many night well tucked into her blanket, curled up on the futon, crying in panic.
But she came to except it. A twinkle in her heart helped her through, a twinkle she'll never admit to have had.
"From now on there will be many people for you to meet Arashi. Some will be your friends. And some will be your foes. And some…some will come to love you very, very much…"
"What is going to happen in the future. And, what will happen to Tokyo, no, the Earth, now.
"I plan to see what happens with my own eyes, like how I promised
you.
"And, in those events, what I will choose and how I will act.
I intend on studying myself."
Three days into her familiarity with Kamui and Sorata. Three days into the core of 1999. She didn't feel comfortable around the other Seals though she pushed herself to be with them and talk to them. The only Seal she liked was Subaru who seemed to share the same poor socializing skills as her.
Inevitable she became intertwined with the group.
Arashi cried for the tragedy of Kotori, for the sadness of what had happened to Kamui, for the death of Saiki, which she knew before anyone else, did and had somehow managed to bond with on a brother-sister level.
But she did all those behind closed doors, in her room at Clamp Campus' dorms and she made sure twice and thrice that no one might hear her or come to 'her aid'.
She cried in panic once when she realized the Sakurazukamori is amongst her foes (Kaede was a good friend of Lady Sumeragi and, as a child, Arashi heard many spooky stories of the assassin clan). Those tears were the type she was most ashamed of and refused to acknowledge for what they are.
She cried after the first battle she took place in, tears of exhaustion, stress relieving and cleansing. She did not share them nor acknowledged them and whenever her heart beat a little more powerfully at the memory of that first taste of fire she hurried to quench them with her icy calm.
She resided in being the calm one, the collected and logical amongst the young DoHs. She showed nothing of her emotions but irritation from Sorata and mild excitement at battle. Other then that she was an ice sculpture never to melt.
Sorata had managed to work his way through her system, to squirm across and under her defences, to reach out and stroke the very deep core of her personality. How had he done it? She did not know but….
She was hopeful, really, that he would linger there to keep at it. She wanted to study herself and finally find the true her. If he could see it, maybe he'll show it to her.
Besides, he was very stubborn.
Now he was on the bed, injured, crippled, because of her…all because of her…
Sure, he smiled at her, he laughed and joked, offered her food and was generally, well, Sorata.
But his horrid condition, it was all her fault; his avatar, his injuries, her own careless, selfish fault!
The tears, those damn tears, they came and they didn't stop, couldn't stop. Here she was, crying, and someone saw her.
Sorata reached out to place his palm on the side of her face, reached out and embraced her. He reached out through the breach in her defences and embraced her hearts, her true self, Kishuu Arashi.
"But I…I never let anyone see me cry! And now that the tears have begun, I can't seem to make them stop…"
His arms so warm, his chest so broad and powerful, his lips on her hair…intoxication. She was a teenager still, after all.
"A first? And just for me, huh? Her virgin tears…!"
That bastard! Will he never be able to say the right thing god damn it!
"Why do you always have to twist things around!" She pushed the bliss of his warmth away, infuriated.
She hated to be seen blushing for the same reason she hated to be seen crying. And here she was doing those two things in front of that…that…man…
"So…do you think I might have one more of your firsts?"
He pulled her into the kiss and into the embrace afterwards, into the bed and under him.
She did not struggle, for a very long time into it she was too shocked and numb with first time fear and bordering with terror surprise.
She understood what he was doing and agreed to it because she loved him. Because he was hers and she was his. Because it made sense and she wanted it. Because…because he gave her so much, and she gave him so little, really.
And she wanted it because he was Sorata, a man, her man, and her love.
"You are the one for whom I'll give my life."
"Who asked you to pick me to be the girl you'd die for? What would happen to me…to my feelings for you if…."
Saying something like "I'll die for you" is not a romantic thing; it's a hateful thing. To curse someone with eternal powerful love about to be snatched away by something so complete and undisputed such as death is the worst of the worst.
He had loved her, true, but he had made the wrong choice by it because….
Because he loved her so much that she drowned in it and became so accustomed to it that when he died she found herself on dry land; gasping for air, painfully exhausted, lost, frightened, dying.
Because she was far too ignorant in the ways of love: of powerful emotions and of how to deal with them to know how to deal with the end of their source.
Because she was to blame for his death no matter how you look at it.
And she looked at it, many times, oh so many times.
She wished to end her life as well and join him in eternal life. Maybe, in one of her future incarnations she will meet him and they won't have to die for each other, will not suffer from fate's fickle fingers.
Maybe they'll be two lazy stray cats heating from the sun on the lid of a trash bin, living peacefully and happily. She could guide Sorata through life on the streets, she could save his life for once, and she could repay him for all the things she did not have time to thank for.
She cried a lot, away from the women in her shrine. She cried so much she hardly left her room.
She cried more because her hormones raged and she did not know it.
The reason for those tears, when I was made known to her, made her stop thinking about stray cats.
Sorata had given her another gift, the chance to regain herself after so many failures and lost battles during 1999.
Here she was a skilful, hard headed warrior again; fighting against exhaustion in the nights when her son wept endlessly, fighting to keep him growing well with nothing but herself and the little pension she received from the shrine, fighting to keep her job once her son was old enough to be left in kindergarten.
She fought to survive and raise her child as a healthy, well educated, well mannered and well taken care for boy. She did not abandon him in the streets like her mother had done to her.
In her son she found her light, her strength, herself. Kishuu Arashi, the survivor and warrior, the powerful mother, the woman.
She felt complete.
She stopped crying because nothing was as bad as what she had already experienced in 1999. Her heart had become tougher, colder and calmer. It was a power and a bane at the same time.
She was not the sentimental wallowing mother. She was a loving mother, no doubt about it, but she was still a bit cold towards her son sometimes, times she wished to erase and cancel completely if only she knew how.
If she'd care about it she'd notice the eyes of other mothers in her son's kindergarten, in the playground. They thought she was a strict, heartless mother. She ignored the incarnated hyenas.
The chance to melt down completely and remove the last barrier between her and herself finally came one day.
She was in the kitchen, making dinner after having just returned from work.
Her son finished doing homework and came to nag her about pre-dinner snacks.
"You know you can't have any now or you won't have enough appetite to finish dinner!"
Her day at work was exhausting and irritating. Her son was showing symptoms of what his teacher hinted might be mild ADHD(2) which, she was sure, is a 'gift' from his father if it's true.
"Besides those snacks are nothing but junk food while the dinner I'm making is nutritious and healthy and you're going to finish it no matter what," she yelped across her shoulder.
Her son frowned, grabbing at the wall instead of stomping his feet and having a tantrum (she raised him very well).
"But I'm hungry."
"You'll just have to be patient and wait for dinner, it's almost ready."
"But I'm hungry…and I need food, I'm still in my growth spurt."
Arashi dropped the knife from her hand.
The tears in her eyes did not come from the onion's chemicals, released because she was cutting it; her tears came from her heart.
She turned to her son, slightly frightening the boy who never saw his mother with tears in her eyes.
She walked up to him and crushed at his feet, wrapping her arms tightly around him.
He returned her hug and asked her if she was alright and if she was in pain and was she hungry too because she was cranky (mother's friend, with the big burly husband and the invisible dog always says that when you're hungry you're cranky).
She placed her head on his little shoulder and let loose to eight years of sorrow and pain.
Then she cried of happiness for her son, and for her loneliness finally shattered. She cried for the last barrier in her heart now melted away. She cried for how well she managed to raise her son and hold herself together and cried for all the pains she had to go through to carry those two tasks.
When she finished she wiped the tears from her cheeks, kissed her son on his head and smiled at him so brightly, like she never ever did.
Her son smiled back at her and gave her kisses as well.
Then he asked if he could have the snacks now please.
She nearly slapped him.
(end)
(1) Kendo sword.
(2) Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (AD/HD) is a neurobehavioral disorder that affects an estimated 3-7 percent of the school age population. Disrupts concentration on tasks, studies etc. makes a child impulsive, too active for his/her own sake due to often risky and/or careless act and very difficult to control within classrooms etc.