Thirteen Ways to Mess With the X Storyline
Way #1
Sakurazuka Setsuka looked at her young son with a calm expression that bordered on quiet pride.
Little Seishirou was outside in the small garden of the apartment block they currently lived in, playing with the butterflies as they fluttered around the flower beds. He was carrying a butterfly net.
A passing neighbour smiled at Setsuka, and said "Ah, aren't children so adorable at that age?"
Setsuka nodded her head. A few strands of her silky hair fell across her face. "Indeed." Then the neighbour walked away in to the building.
Seishirou toddled up to his mother and held out the butterfly net. His amber eyes gleamed. "Look at what I caught!" he announced. Trapped inside the net was a butterfly with exquisite wings the colour of a dramatic sunset. "Pretty," he said.
"It is pretty," said Setsuka. "Shall we add it to your collection?"
"Yes," he replied.
The old lady who lived next door to Setsuka and Seishirou had once insisted on visiting them in their apartment. Setsuka had let her in, since it would be be uncharacteristically rude of the sort of woman she pretended to be not to do so. After all, it was a perfectly normal-seeming apartment, and there were no hints within it as to the true identity of its owner. Except that there was perhaps one that Setsuka had overlooked. The old lady had been horrified to see Seishirou's butterfly collection on display.
"Dear me," the woman had said. "Having dead insects around must be disturbing for your little boy. Does he know that they're real butterflies? It's not really my place to say, Sakurazuka-san, but surely this might be a bad influence on him? Children get so upset when they find out about what death is."
Setsuka had given a non-committal reply, but she privately disagreed. Her son had never been disturbed by death. Seishirou was such a good boy, she thought. Even at such a young age, he was well-coordinated, possessing a keen hunter's instinct, and also an appreciation for beautiful things. A perfect candidate for being the Sakurazukamori.
It was time to begin Seishirou's training in earnest.
One day, Setsuka decided to take Seishirou to Ueno Park to meet the Tree. She thought the Tree was a thing of beauty, although she herself preferred the deeper shade of red camellias rather than the pale pink of the blood-tinged sakura. It was a sensible idea, she thought, to introduce her son to the centrepoint of every Sakurazukamori's existence well in advance of him having to associate with it in a professional capacity.
It was winter, and only one sakura tree was in blossom. It was extravagantly colourful in comparison to the other trees, bare-branched and barren, that lined the park. One could almost imagine that the other trees were jealous of the Tree's magnificent blossoms.
"Seishirou?"
"Yes, mother?"
"Do you know why it is that these sakura blossoms are pink?" asked Setsuka.
"No."
The wind traced its insubstantial fingers through the branches of the sakura tree, and a cloud of petals fell in swirling arcs towards the ground where Setsuka and Seishirou stood.
"It's because beneath this tree, there are corpses buried. Their blood tinges the...Seishirou, are you listening to me?" Setsuka turned around, disturbing the sakura petals that had landed on her shoulders. She was, to her surprise, mildly annoyed. Here she was imparting the secrets of the Sakurazuka clan to her son, and she could tell that he wasn't paying even the slightest bit of attention to it.
"Seishirou?" She took a good look at her son. His face had turned an unhealthy shade of purple, and he looked as if he were about to faint. "Seishirou! What's wrong?"
A faint groan was the only reply before Seishirou actually did faint.
"I can't be quite sure what the problem is until I run some tests," said the doctor at the nearest medical clinic, "but it looks to me as if your son has just had a severe allergic reaction to something. He'll be alright this time, I think. Tell me, has he eaten any sort of new food recently?"
"No, I don't think so."
"What about animals? Was he around animals at the time that he collapsed?"
"No," said Setsuka. Her concern about her son's condition was a new experience for her. She was unused to feeling that sort of emotion, and she found that she didn't like it one bit. It was unsettling.
The doctor paused. "Well, what about plants?"
Setsuka got to experience yet another emotion that had previously never made her acquaintance: a sinking feeling, one that might be called dread.
Beneath the Diet building, Hinoto dreamed. As she dreamed of the future she saw many things - happy things, terrible things, things that showed loss, anguish, and ruin, and sometimes the joy before unhappy times - but the future was always one. It was foreordained, and there was nothing she could ever, ever do to change it. It was always one...but one day there would be a person, the Kamui, who would be given a Choice. Hinoto was envious.
She saw Tokyo Tower, on which stood cloaked figures whose faces were only partially visible. Seven Seals, and seven Angels, who would fight on the promised day to save or destroy humanity. A dramatic scene, set against the backdrop of a city teetering on the brink of destruction. She also saw many feathers and sakura petals, but they were only there to set the mood.
...Something caught her eye. Frowning, she looked closer.
One of the cloaked figures appeared to be wearing a mask, of the sort worn by hay-fever sufferers. He was sneezing as discreetly as he could manage. It rather ruined the tense, apocalyptic atmosphere of the whole situation.
Hinoto heard a brief, muffled sound from behind her, and she realised that she was not alone. "Kanoe! Keep out of my dream!"
Kanoe would have smirked if she wasn't too busy trying not to laugh. "Alright then, sister. Just this once." She left the dreamscape with an unnerving giggle, the likes of which Hinoto had not heard for centuries and never wanted to hear again.
Shivering slightly, Hinoto turned back to her dreamgazing, and saw...
End of Way #1: Give Seishirou an allergy to sakura blossoms.
