Memories.
T: Having rather enjoyed writing an angsty Subaru I thought I'd give this a whirl! A warning that this is much, much darker than my usual want but I hope that that won't scare too many people away! I will also be moving about a lot within the timeline, but hopefully it'll remain clear where I am. Apart from that there is also SLASH, and COMPLEX LOGIC through out. I am not a member of Clamp, though I am, apparently, becoming as evil as them! Things in italics are from a Seishiro perspective.
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A cat sits on his doorstep, a look of hopeful optimism in its stark green eyes.
He bends to ruffle its fur and enquires,
"Where are you from then kitty?"
The cat regards him with a bemused, 'why aren't you feeding me' look; then mews plaintively.
Against his better judgement he allows the cat to enter his home and watches the thing eating with an odd amusement.
Sooner or later the backlash would strike the creature but until then…
He had never had a pet of his own…
He all but falls into the hallway, the last meagre reserves of his energy having been spent breaking the wards that lay on the house.
He manages; somehow, to keep to his feet until they collide, in the darkness, with a soft body.
He stumbles and there is a pained screech as he falls onto the cat.
Once his hear has calmed a little he tentatively gains his feet again and once he is within the glow of the electric light he searches the hallway for the animal.
He finds it pressed beneath the large oaken bureau that all but monopolises the tiny hallways and after a solid half hour he manages, at last, to coax out the creature.
The thing is slightly over weight and old enough that it has developed the strong facial definition typical to a tomcat.
About his neck has been wrapped a deep red ribbon, upon which has been securely attached a name tag,
"'Midnight'." The cat mews in a soft questioning manner and he strokes it absently as he turns the tag over.
The mettle on the opposite side is blank but for a small engraving of an inverse pentagram.
"It seems you are mine now." He informs the creature before he finds his feet again.
Midnight watches him curiously from his perch on the table, his eyes flicking occasionally to linger on the movement of his quill.
He is just finishing the final symbol that will turn the slip of paper from simply that and into a powerful Ofuda when the cat pounces.
The pen scratches hard across the paper and manages to scrape a sizable groove in the wood of the table before he gains control of its momentum.
He and the cat exchange a glance and then he smoothes its fur and informs it,
"Do not do that again." Before he discards the now useless slip of paper and begins instead on a letter.
The living room is a spacious thing which opens out, through a set of French windows, into an ornate garden.
At the centre of the small circle created by the furniture is a long rectangular table made, oddly, from cherry wood.
There is a deep scratch near the edge of one corner, this made, judging by its depth, with the tip of a quill.
Balanced on the table, beneath a small glass paperweight, is a letter written in a familiar hand,
'Subaru-kun,
Welcome to your new home.
Your bedroom is the green door while behind the red is all you shall need to create Ofuda and learn of the history of the Sakurazuka bloodline.
Fuuma shall come to see you in a few days, but until then I suggest that you get to know the house and get yourself a little rest.
For the moment the cat shall look after himself.
Seishiro'
He screws the thing into a tiny ball and tosses it angrily over his shoulder.
As always after he had spent time in the company of his Kamui he was feeling a little itchy.
True enough the boy searched for the more amusing aspects of life, just as he himself did and yet…
The ground shifts lazily beneath him and his in the door jam almost without thought.
His wards are strong enough that a traditional earthquake could not affect the house and thus this can only be the collapse of another Keiki.
Curious he dons his coat and makes out towards sunshine 60.
He stirs to find the cat balanced in his chest, its tiny body curled hard into his meagre warmth.
Feeling just slightly guilty he dislodges the animal and stands, his body complaining both from the oddity of his sleeping position and the hard labour that it had been through of late.
He opens the red door and steps through into what had been the inner sanctum of his one time enemy.
The space is filled with shelve upon shelve of ancient history and spell law, these interspersed with more modern texts that deal with theoretical advances for some of the well established magical spells.
Shoved against the far wall is a writing bureau that has been scattered with snatches of spells and the occasional textbook.
Two tomes are propped open on this desk, the first a detailed history of the Sumeragi line and the other on rejuvenation spells.
Pencilled notes have been scribbled in the margin of the magic tome and he reads only one of these annotations before he closes the book and moves on.
As he had lived always with the thought to amuse himself, he had never quite believed himself completely incapable of emotion.
To feel so strongly though and for one whom he had viewed only as a pawn in his game…
It was, disconcerting, if only because it meant that, he had, at last, lost a small portion of his control over his own life.
It also means that he must mow begin to put into action the last stages of the game, to this end he has shut himself into his study and found out the most relevant of his books.
He reaches, after a good hour, a tome on rejuvenation spells and scanning through the bulky chapters he finds, at last, something that might be useable.
He scribbles the note,
'Perhaps adapt this in order to preserve the item in question…also need to see if this will work with Su. Magic. V. Important.' Before he continues to read.
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T: It amused me to give Sei-chan a pet and as cats have a tendency to appear as if from nowhere one of the species seemed the perfect candidate. Things may not make total sense in this chapter as you are viewing the tying up of loose ends. Hopefully as I progress the unanswered questions will be answered! R+R as I need support to bolster my fragile confidence!