I shouldn't start something new; I have my plate full with REMSG; but I really wanted to try my hand at stupid humor again, and what better place to do so than in the Manga That Never Ends?

I own nothing, lalalalalalalala…I'm going to prom dressed as Subaru, lalalalalalalalalalala….I need a life, lalalalalalala….

Oh, and by the way, all chapter titles are old/current slogans of Subaru, the car company.

"The Subaru Legacy, Chapter One: Cheap and Ugly Does It"

Fuma Monou, alias The Other Kamui, was not having a very good day.

First, his archnemesis-slash-boyfriend, The Original Kamui, was nowhere to be found; second, his previously loyal servant Nataku had just that morning flat-out refused to destroy any more buildings until His Beloved Daddy bought him a new pair of earrings; and finally, with all the destruction in Tokyo, the proprietors of his favorite ice-cream parlor had packed up their families and moved to Tahiti. All in all, a chaotic mess. Fuma enjoyed chaos, but only when he was the direct cause of it.

Bored, frustrated, and dying for companionship, he'd phoned the Sakurazukamori but gotten the answering machine ("If you want to talk to Seishiro about his veterinary practice, press one. If you'd like to hire the Sakurazukamori, press two. If you want to talk to Tree-san, don't bother. He hasn't got ears. Just stop by and I'm sure a meeting could be…arranged"), so he did the only other thing he could think of.

He took a nap. Why should he suffer alone? Kakyo was always depressed, and if even that company for his misery didn't work, he could knock the Dreamseer around a bit physically or mentally. That usually cheered him up.

But the Fate that destined him to be such a sadistic maniac was displaying traits of the selfsame sadism when it came to its treatment of him. Fuma arrived in Kakyo's dreamscape limbo to find the Dragon not alone. Princess Hinoto's good half, the side her sense of self-preservation had locked away, was with him.

And they appeared to be throwing a party.

"Hello, Kamui!" Hinoto greeted him, her dainty mouth curving into a smile. "Here, have some potato chips."

"Want an iced tea?" asked Kakyo, offering him a can. "We've also got cake and ice cream."

"Give me that." Fuma grabbed the gallon of Whitehouse Cherry ice cream and began shoveling it into his mouth.

"Don't you at least want a spoon?"

Fuma wiped his hands on his T-shirt absently, then continued digging in. "Spoons are for sissies. What exactly is going on?"

"We're celebrating," Hinoto said, opening a pop can and getting Mountain Dew all over her kimono as it sprayed out.

"Celebrating?" Fuma choked on a maraschino cherry slice. "Celebrating what? You two have nothing to celebrate! You—" he turned to Hinoto—"have been locked out of your body by your own dark half, and are now forced to sit helpless and watch your trusting companions be manipulated and know it's all your fault! And you—" he looked at Kakyo—"from the day I met you have expressed no other wish than to die! You're a fatalist, trapped in a coma, unable to save anyone, not even the woman you loved! You are, in a phrase, the most singularly depressing person I have ever met, and I know a lot of depressing people! So what could possibly give you cause for joy!"

They both faced him, beaming, faces contorted with an expression formerly alien to them—pure unbridled happiness. "The future," they chorused, "has yet to be decided!"

"That again!" Fuma sat down and set to licking the ice cream container clean as he spoke. "I've told you a thousand times…"

"But this time it's true!" Kakyo interrupted; he'd never interrupted Fuma before. "We both dreamed the same outcome…and then something different happened! Already the future is changing!"

"Outcome? Outcome to what? What the blazes is going on?"

"Look." Kakyo pointed into the distance; a vision shimmered into view. Fuma recognized the landmark: the Rainbow Bridge. A lone man walked the length, dragging one hand absentmindedly along the railing. Behind it, the hand left a long smear of blood.

"Sakurazukamori," Hinoto said unnecessarily; Fuma knew the man well. Licking ice cream off the tip of his nose, he watched Seishiro sneak up behind a man in a white trenchcoat ("Sumeragi," Hinoto commented; Fuma threw the now-empty barrel of ice cream at her head), observed as the two traded a few petty comments. Then Sumeragi placed his hands together, and as the green star-shaped barrier blossomed from his cupped palms, Fuma braced himself. Surely now all hell would break loose.

And break it did. The two onmyoji attacked each other with single-minded determination, evenly matched: apparently all the cigarettes Sumeragi had been chain-smoking had boosted his strength though, Fuma was certain, absolutely ravaging his lungs.

Contrasted with the younger man's scowl of determination, Sakurazuka smirked through the entire fight; Fuma could tell what was on his mind before the man said it.

"So your one true desire…it isn't to kill me, and avenge your sister?"

"No," Sumeragi replied. "It's not."

Fuma leaned forward: the time had come at last. These two, whose desires could never be compatible, now had to finally decide the path they would take. Would Sumeragi reveal his true wish? Would Sakurazuka grant it? Or would he…

Sakurazuki pulled his right hand, knife-style, back to his ear. Keenly aware of the two Dreamseers watching his reactions with bated breath, Fuma forced his features to assume a stoic indifference, but inside he squirmed eagerly. This was better than destroying Shibuya had been. This was almost better than playing with The Original Kamui. This was drama, this was tension, this was—

He missed. At the last second, as his hand came plunging down towards his opponent's unprotected heart, Sakurazuka flinched and his hand whizzed harmlessly by Sumeragi's cheek. His momentum carried both men to the ground; Sumeragi jumped backwards as Sakurazuka fell. In his vulnerability, Sakurazuka launched his aquiline shikigami at his opponent to buy himself time; the hawk caught Sumeragi off-guard and he stumbled, fell, a stream of blood flying up from three ugly gashes across his chest. Sensing its prey's weakness, the hawk circled back in, gouged with steel-like talons.

Sumeragi screamed, yet a note of triumph mingled itself with the pain. Fuma could hear the young man's soul screaming too, a paean of fulfillment as his life ebbed away in scarlet waves.

Shaken, Sakurazuka stared at his fallen opponent; his legs gave way and he knelt involuntarily by his foe's side. Choking, Sumeragi lifted his head, pulled himself up to Sakurazuka's ear.

"Seishi…ro…san…thank…you…I always…"

He whispered something into the assassin's ear, but a gust of wind whipped up around the two and his last words were lost to Fuma as the thirteenth and last heir of the Sumeragi gave up his struggle against himself at last. Fuma breathed out, too: he hadn't even realized he'd been holding his breath.

Turning to the Dreamseers, he smiled disdainfully. "What? You believe that since Sakurazuka was supposed to die, this changes anything? It doesn't! The boy would have become a Harbinger anyway! This changes absolutely—"

"SUBARU!" screamed a voice within the vision, a voice Fuma knew very, very well. "Kamui!" he cried, whirling around to watch once more.

Sure enough, there he was. The Original Kamui, complete with pain-stricken purple eyes and windblown black hair. The Original Kamui, screaming his little lungs out over his fallen friend. More than once, Fuma had been jealous of Sumeragi's hold on the boy. He'd never have to worry about that again.

"Subaru, no!" Kamui knelt by the body, stared in horror at the gashes across his friend's chest. Eyes suddenly ignited, he looked up at Sakurazuka, blazing hatred. "You did this…to Subaru…"

"Kamui, look out!" screamed Arashi, who had accompanied The Original Kamui to the bridge; something—probably the young woman—obscured Fuma's vision. He heard a scream, high-pitched—too high-pitched for Sakurazuka—a cloud of dust obscured the vision, the bridge began to collapse, and when the wreckage cleared the picture showed one more scene only: Arashi supporting Kamui, who was clutching the right side of his head. "You shouldn't have crossed him!" she was scolding. "The Sakurazukamori—you're lucky to be alive!"

Fuma barely heard her. He could only see the blood, the mark of a wound on Kamui. His Kamui. Scarred by another man.

"I'll kill him," he swore, grabbing Hinoto's pop can and crushing it in his fist. "I swear to anything listening I'll kill him!"

o0o0o0o0o0o0o

a/n: Sorry, Subaru fans. I really am. But in order to write a counterfactual, one must change history.

I don't know how often I'll be updating this; I only have a couple chapters laid out instead of my usual Whole Story. So…be patient. But hey, we're X fans. We're used to waiting.