5. Haemorrhage.
T: Not too much to say about this chapter, however I wanted to tell Ruth that the triangle is one of the things that I particularly like about this story and to keep watching as things are going to get more complex! Am upping the angst again (just to be safe I promise) and adding a 'made up medical practices' warning. Everything in italics is in the perspective of 1999 Subaru…hopefully this should reduce the chances for confusion! Nothing you see here is my own apart from the plot.
Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
He is reading quietly in his apartment when a sudden, sharp, pain flairs in his head and a borage of images assail him…
…Seishiro's fingers brushing at the gauze of his blind eye…
…the discomfort in his eye as Subaru asks, outright, to be killed…
…the frustration of Seishiro's refusal to act and the confusion at the other's parting statement.
In his own past Seishiro had not visited him after the disaster on Sunshine 60, something that had furthered his belief that the other had truly considered him nothing more than glass and that had made the revelation on the Rainbow Bridge all the more painful.
Yet it seemed that now this was not the case, that, for some reason, the Sakurazukamori had chosen to bare a little of his true heart.
'You are the reason behind this change.' A voice informed him, 'The abnormality of your presence in this time creating small disturbances that are turning, slowly, into giant ripples.'
He is swept, then, into the darkness of a dreamscape, the pail form of his 'captor' appearing at his side a moment later.
"Why have you brought me here, Kakyo?"
'I wished a moment of your time, Sakurazuka-san.'
"To warn me of the dangers of interfering? Yuuko-san has already done that."
'Perhaps, but you have not truly listened to her,'
The darkness of the dreamscape fills with pail pink Sakura and, a moment later, his sister appears before them.
'This tragedy affected us both, Sakurazuka-san, yourself because one you cared for was killed by he that you loved and myself because Hokuto was my world.' He pauses a moment to watch the events play to their conclusion and then he says 'I knew, a little before, that this was going to occur and I thought to change things…thought to stop her…
'Yet the day before I had planned to warn her I dreamt of how the world would be had she lived.
'Dreamt of my freedom and your continued incarceration in your heart…dreamt of your envelopment into the void left by my absence and of the terrible fate that awaited you.
'A fate that she could not stop and that lead, eventually, to your death.' He gestured with his hand and before them blooms another image of his sister.
Older, now, than the sixteen years that she had lived in his lifetime, the toll of those extra years showing clearly upon her face.
For her smile has dimmed and the strength of the misery in her eyes makes her as a perfect mirror of the man he had become during 1999.
'After you were gone she began to change…she began to care less about her appearance, began to smile less and then, suddenly, she too shut the world away…
'Though it was selfish of me I chose to let her die…chose to allow her to remain as a bright spark in my mind than wither into nothingness.' The image fades and again the darkness surrounds them.
'Should you continue on this path then more will be altered than you have wish to be. Indeed it is more than possible that your want to stop the tragedy upon the Rainbow Bridge will cost the greatest of prices; that of mankind's very existence.'
"You forget, Kakyo, that I have no care for mankind's fate…that I am intrinsically selfish."
'I do not forget, Sakurazuka-san, but I had hoped, perhaps, that your view had changed.'
"It has not."
'Then head me well, Sakurazuka-san, your presence here is as a stone in a river: The stone disrupts the natural flow of the stream just as you are disrupting the flow of time. However, the stream also begins to wear at the stone, dissolving it piece by piece until it has faded completely.
'As the stream wears the stone, time is wearing your mind, Sakurazuka-san. Yet, unlike the stream; time's wear is a swift thing and if you continue to intervene you will pay with your life.'
"If by dying I assure his life, Kakyo, then I will die willingly."
…………………………………………………………………………………
He wakes to find blood streaming from his nose and recalling the Dreamseer's words he goes, immediately, to the Shinjuku hospital.
After an hour of scans and tests the doctor informs him that his brain has suffered a very minor haemorrhage.
The doctor asks him to return for another scan in the week and instructs him to do as little as he can for the next 24 hours.
Thus discharged he heads for the lift and is greeted with the familiar diminutive form of Kamui.
The boy looks somewhat haggard and, compelled by the minute want in his heart to protect the lad, he enquires,
"Is everything all right?"
The boy's violet eyes regard him with a momentary suspicion and then he replies,
"Yes, thank you."
"Forgive my forwardness; it was just that you looked a little pale."
"I have not been sleeping well of late."
"I find that a glass of warm milk helps chase the daemons away."
A black amusement crosses the boy's eyes and bowing he remarks,
"I am indebted to you for that piece of wisdom…"
"Kimoru Yuji."
A recognition sparks in the boy's eyes and, a little of the suspicion fading from his eyes he enquires,
"Are you, by any chance, the author Kimoru Yuji?"
"I am, indeed."
"I recently gave a copy of 'The Cage' to he that I am here to visit and…"
Whatever it is that the boy says next is lost to Subaru's ears as he is assailed by another ball of fractured images…
…Kamui pressing a copy of 'The Cage' into his fingers…
…the anger in his heart as his eye finds an all too familiar quote…
…the sudden, irrational, jealousy that swamps him as he contemplates why Seishiro knew those words before they had been published.
The hidden strength of Kamui's fingers grasp, suddenly, about his arm and his world comes forcefully back to the 'present'.
"Kimoru-san, is everything alright?"
"I just need a moment."
"Perhaps I should call a doctor."
"It is not necessary, thank you."
Kamui releases his grip then and, after an instant of silence, he enquires,
"Would you care to accompany me as far as my friend's room?"
"So that you might keep an eye on me?"
"Yes, but you shall also be able to keep an eye on me."
"Then I accept gladly…"
"Shirou Kamui."
……………………………………………………………………………
He feels Kamui's approach a little before the boy reaches him, the extra few moments used to wake himself as much as he can and to move Yuzihara's gift to a less conspicuous place on the bed.
It is thanks, also, to this small buffer that he is a alert enough to register Kamui talking to some unknown before he steps into the room.
"Who were you talking to, Kamui?" he enquires once the boy is settled at his side.
"Kimoru Yuji."
"The author?"
Kamui replies to the positive and desperate to ask this other if he did, indeed, know Seishiro he enquires,
"Would you mind if I had a moment with him?"
He does not miss the momentary flash of disappointment in Kamui's eyes and then the boy is again on his feet.
"I'll go and fetch him, shall I?"
There is a whispered conversation on the other side of the door and then a darkly clothed individual is stepping into the room.
Though he has never met this man before there is something familiar about him and the odd aura that surrounds him.
"Shirou-kun informed me that you wanted a moment."
He considers starting an empty conversation, yet something about the manner of this other tells him such a thing would be pointless.
Thus he pushes himself a little up in the bed and enquires,
"Do you know Sakurazuka Seishiro?"
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
T: Yep first cliff hanger of the fic…don't worry am on holiday next week so the update should be Wednesday at the latest!
I would have thought that Seiichiro is responsible for 'The Cage' reaching Subaru's hands…most likely he visited with a copy of the book and told Subaru something like "I thought you'd like the tone of the book" or something along those lines!
I liked the idea, in the film 'The butterfly affect', of the main character being able to see what his tiny change had done to the future and that this glimpse starts to degenerate his mind...thus I twiddled with the idea a bit and thus we reach this point.
My father (wound/injury expert as he is) assured me that as long as the haemorrhage is somewhere 'unimportant' on the brain a small one would not be considered overwhelmingly serious…most likely a doctor would be a little more worried than Subaru's is but I wanted my two Sumeragi's to meet and thus Sakurazuka Subaru had to be pretty quickly discharged from the hospital.
Kamui is responding to the fact that Yuji is actually Subaru, thus his rather swift acceptance of someone who is a complete stranger…don't worry 1999 Subaru will query this OOC next chapter!
I think that's it…as always don't be afraid to ask if you're not sure as questions help me sew up plot holes as best I can! R+R just because!
