6. Enemy.
T: Forgive me for yet another cliff-hanger…seems to be becoming a habit with this story! Warnings are the same I still own nothing here….to my anonymous review!
Rosa: I fear it's a habit of mine to make speech a little more formal than it needs to be…I blame my creative writing course for this! I'm glad you like it and I'm actually surprised I've only got a few spelling mistakes considering I'm submitting this without the aid of my wonderful beta!
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Orito-san had been so very pail the last he had seen him and thus his absence from school the next day is as a greater concern to him than it might otherwise have been.
Indeed he is so concerned that he calls an early close to his lunch with Fuuma.
"Where are you going, Kamui-nii?"
"I wish to talk to Takumura-san before lunch is over."
"Why?"
"I just want to be sure Orito-san is okay…he seemed so very strange yesterday…"
"What is it about him that fascinates you so, Kamui-nii? For he seems to me hard and un-remissive."
"When first I saw him that's what I thought also and then the sunlight caught his eyes…you see in the bright sunlight his eyes are almost the same colour as uncle Subaru's and in seeing that similarity I noticed another."
"Which was?"
"That they were, the both of them, hiding an intense loneliness deep in their hearts…"
"So this is about your want to make uncle Subaru happy?"
"I believe it began as such…now…now I wish also to make Orito-kun happy."
"I may not have your ability to see magical auras, nor mama's capacity to understand the hearts of others, but always when it's come to you I've had a 'special sense'…"
"I know and I'm thankful for it…thankful to have you protecting me from danger…"
"Yet you shall not be thankful for what I have to tell you now, Kamui-nii and yet, for my own peace of mind, I have to say it.
"There is something about Sakurazuka Orito-san that I distrust greatly, something in his personality that sets me instantly on edge and I'm scared, Kamui-nii, so very scared that you're going to get hurt…"
"Then I shall get hurt and still I will stay at his side, for there is something in Orito-san that I trust implicitly."
"Somehow I knew you were going to say that…" His brother's face has fallen and he knows then that this is not simply to do with Fuuma's distrust of Orito…knows that his brother is a little envious of the connection that he has with the elder boy.
Thus he smiles brightly and pulling Fuuma into a hug he remarks,
"I will always have a want for you to be at my side, Fuuma-nii, you are, after all, a part of me."
Only once he feels his brother's arms returning the hug does he pull from him and informing the other, "I really have to go," he heads off in search for the campus security sectary.
The Takumura informs him, as kindly as possible, that he had not seen Orito since they had discussed the tournament and that he had most certainly not requested the other's presence the day previous.
It is a revelation that cuts Kamui deeply for, in the long year since he had first met Orito, the elder boy had only ever told him the truth…had, on several occasions, berated Kamui for keeping certain matters from him.
Indeed the other had once told him,
"If we can not trust one another then we have no right to claim to be friends."
Thus, by lying, Orito has placed a doubt in Kamui's head as to the strength of the elder boy's trust in him and as to the validity of their friendship.
He wishes to know why Orito has done such a terrible thing so very causally, wishes to know what he has done to push to elder boy so far from him…wishes, desperately, just to be able to talk to the other again.
Thus he performs the simple incantation to form his Shikigami and, one the tiny sparrow is fully formed, he kisses it upon its head and commands,
"Find Orito-san."
The creature takes flight almost instantly and, after circling him twice, it heads towards the campus exit.
He is so intent upon watching the bird's flight path that he does not register the other following upon his heals…
Thus he is ill prepared to defend himself from the hand that presses to his face and the chloroform soaked cloth grasped within its fingers.
He has time enough to note that his attacker is male before the world falls away from him.
……………………………………………………………………………….
His father had responded to his black mood by 'treating' him to a day home from school, something that had made a little more sense when the elder Sakurazuka had explained his plan for the day.
"We are going to brush up your fighting skills."
"Could we not just do a little field research instead?"
"You know as well as I do that 'field research' always manages to become something else when you're with me."
His father's mind clearly fixed on this course of action he had, reluctantly, submitted to his fate.
When they broke for lunch an hour later he was covered in a swath of new bruises and ached in places that he had not even been aware had muscles.
"You've become lethargic since the last we sparred."
"Whose fault is that? If you'd wanted me to maintain a physical prime you should have sent me somewhere other than Clamp campus."
"It is important that you stretch your mind as well as you physical being, Orito and thus I decided to send you to Clamp campus.
"As to the disadvantages that such a decision has meant for you're fighting ability…the true show of one in our profession is to turn negatives into positives."
He turns to face his father and, noticing the playful smirk on the other's face, he enquires,
"You're trying to get a rise from me, aren't you?"
"Yes and no."
"Which means?"
"Perhaps it is time that you began to commit yourself to the future that awaits you."
He opens his mouth to tell his father, once again, that he has no want to 'commit' to the future the elder Sakurazuka has planned for him, that he wishes, instead, to forge his own path in life, but is stopped by a sudden blinding pain in his chest.
The world wavers a moment and he gropes, blindly, for some means of support.
His father presents his arm as an anchoring point and, once assured that he has settled a little, he enquires,
"What is wrong, Orito?"
"I do not know…" Breathing deeply he forces his mind into a coherent state and, once calmed, he searches for the cause of this pain.
This ache comes not from his own self but rather from an outside source and, for a brief instant, he believes the Tree to be responsible.
He dismisses this idea swiftly, for if the Tree had been at the rout of this discomfort then his father would be feeling it also.
Yet if it is not the Tree, then what is it?
The answer comes to him with a sudden terrible certainty and he all but lunges from his father's grasp.
The world wavers again and this time it is the Tree that provides him with support.
"Perhaps you should rest a moment more"
"No!"
His father comes to stand beside him and pressing a hand to his shoulder he enquires,
"What is wrong, Orito?"
"Kamui-kun is in danger."
"'Kamui-kun'"
"Kizuki Kamui…please, father, you have to let me go…they're hurting him!"
The sharp shock of a spell lances across his body and suddenly everything is falling away from him.
As the last of his self awareness flees he hears his father's voice remarking,
"Do you know who 'they' are or where they have the child, Orito? You need to know your enemy before you can attack, child, this I have told you many times before."
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T: Next chapter Sunday at the latest, until then R+R