Author's Note: So the reason for all the sudden updates and writing is that I've decided as a New Year's Resolution to try and write 300,000 words over the course of 2011. (This allows for about 1,000 words a day leaving time to take days off here and there. :P) I apologize for flooding inboxes and taking over the update page! ^^; But we'll see how it goes. :D Trying to get the wordcount up before school starts again. I figure if I'm ahead then I don't have to worry about not writing for days thanks to assignments and whatnot. XD
.
.
A sandbox.
A cross.
"KAMUI!"
Kotori shifted nervously in her sleep.
Pinky promise.
She felt the hook of a tiny finger under her own small digit, skin against skin and it felt too real, too much a lie…
She jerked back and shards crashed down between her and the little dark-haired boy in the sandbox.
Shards?
She looked up and saw a shattering sphere…
Blue.
Like the sky!
Like Kamui's eyes…
She plunged into blue waters, watching mermaids embrace as a burning shipwreck sank around them, driftwood and iron floating eerily to the bottom of the ocean to never be seen by living man again. Glass shards sank with it and Kotori swam closer, reaching out to grasp a piece.
Japan.
A boy's scream.
Cords wrapped around her body, suspending her in midair for a moment before lashing her to broken beams.
A cross.
Sandbox…
Kamui promised…
She saw the flash of the blade as it descended on her, but she wouldn't have stopped it, even if her arms and legs had not been bound by the powerlines.
Kotori jerked awake with a small scream, muffled by her pillow. She jackknifed into a sitting position, staring at her room, trying to catch her breath. Remember the last few flashes of images in the dream, she raised a hand to her chest but felt nothing more than the frill of her nightgown over her heart.
"I didn't know Kamui when I was little." She informed her teddy bear. "I didn't, really. So why would I dream about him as a little boy?"
The stuffed animal offered no explanation and Kotori realized this wasn't a problem she could easily resolve by discussing it with a plushie.
She sighed and lay back down, cradling the bear close, wondering why that pinkie promise had felt so real.
.
.
Kamui had expected a sizeable room with a lot of shelves with books on them. He had obviously severely underestimated the CLAMP Campus Library.
He gulped and tried to steady himself as he dizzily walked to a receptionist desk, wondering what kind of library had eighteen floors and what they were all for. He also wondered if anyone had ever jumped from the balconies of the highest floors down to the fountain in the center of the ground level room with the waterfall descending straight from the glass-tiled ceiling.
"Um… hi…" he choked to the help desk lady with her short pink hair, curled delicately under. "I- I need to do some research."
"Okay. On what?"
"On a historical figure, popular culture figure, political figure or otherwise?"
"I… um?"
Catching his overwhelmed expression, the girl backtracked. "Let's start slower. Living or dead?"
Kamui felt the question like a kick in the gut. Nausea washed over him that had nothing to do with the library and everything to do with the realization that he didn't know the answer to that question.
"Alive." He answered with a fierceness even as fear coiled in his stomach that it was the wrong answer.
"Okay. Is this for a class?"
"No, this is… an old friend I've been trying to locate." Kamui took a deep breath and attempted to steady himself.
"Oh I see, then you'll want to look through our databases on the 5th floor, north wing, section 12B." The girl immediately responded.
"Huh?"
She picked up a piece of paper and pencil to jot down the information and handed it to him.
"Um, thanks." Kamui stared blankly at it then wandered away to his left.
"The elevators are this way." A soft voice called behind him and he turned to see a smiling girl with brown braids and glasses pointing in the opposite direction. "You're new here aren't you? Would you like me to show you the way?"
Kamui nodded gratefully and followed her to the elevators. As soon as the doors were shut the girl gave him a gentle smile. "My name is Kaede by the way." She told him. "What's yours?"
"Kamui."
"One who represents the majesty of the gods." The girl immediately supplied. "Or seeks it."
Kamui stared at her but then the doors opened.
"Sorry my health isn't so good so I'm stuck indoors most of the time." The girl hastily explained, realizing that she had made him uncomfortable. "When you read as much as I do you pick up these things."
"Oh…"
"This is the North Wing." The girl announced as they entered it. "Which section did she tell you?"
"12B" Kamui read off the paper awkwardly.
"Okay!" The girl smiled brightly continued to lead him around the wide circle of the floor. "Are you trying to look someone up?"
"Yeah… yeah I am. Do you know this section well or something?"
She shook her head. "Not better than any other section here. But I spend a lot of time at the library."
"Oh yeah, you said you read a lot…"
"Right. And really, you get to know it pretty fast. I know it looks overwhelming right now, but it's not so bad, honest." She consoled.
Kamui frowned slightly, eyeing the other side of the circular balcony and the floors that loomed up above him and continued down below him.
"Ah here we go. 12B!" Kaede announced, leading him between two marble columns marked with golden numbers and letters into an area full of computers and a back wall lined with file cabinets. "Do you want some help using the system?" She offered.
Kamui nodded gratefully, sure that the computer system would be every bit as complicated as the library itself.
Moments later though, with Kaede's generous help, he was beginning to relax. It was easier to navigate than he had expected and the sound of the waterfall, although imposing when he first entered the building had dulled to a soothing white noise that peacefully erased the sounds of people talking or moving around. He wondered vaguely if that was the point.
Unfortunately, there was still no trace of Fuuma in the system.
Kaede frowned at the screen. "That's really odd."
"Huh?" Kamui dropped his chin to his hands in disappointment.
"This database… we have all of the government's records and then some…"
Kamui turned to stare at her. "Is that even legal?"
"CLAMP school has some special privileges." She replied lightly. "But your friend… if he's not in here I have no idea where he would be."
Kamui felt his shoulders droop.
"I mean for him to not even appear in our files, it's like… like he never existed."
Kamui folded his arms on the table in front of the keyboard and buried his face in his arms. "Maybe he didn't."
Kaede gasped. "You mean you think you imagined him?"
"No, I- Oh nevermind. Thank you for helping." Kamui shook his head and stood up.
She hesitated but eventually bid him goodbye and good luck before wandering off to continue her own business.
Kamui meanwhile, intended to leave, simply returning home after his latest defeat, but found himself meandering around the rest of the floor, intrigued by the various wings with their sprawling sections each devoted to various computer stations and what appeared to be card catalogues.
Curiosity beginning to sneak in beneath his misery, Kamui found himself entering an elevator and pressing the six rather than the button to return him to the ground floor.
The north wing of this floor was filled with catalogues too, but they were broader in shape than the last ones. He casually riffled through one to discover that it was full of sheet music. Surprised that a whole wing would be devoted to this, Kamui crept around the edge of the balcony to the next wing and found that it was a museum of instruments, that claimed to have one of every single instrument currently known to mankind. He wandered through the floor, completely absorbed by the cases containing the instruments he recognized, such as violins and pianos, as well as those he did not recognize, and would not have even known were instruments had they not been displayed here.
He hungrily read explanation after explanation of the instruments' origins, relatives in the musical world, and scanned depictions of how they were played and the cultural significances they held. It was not until his cell phone buzzed in his pocket to announce a text message from a classmate asking about a homework assignment that he realized it had been hours since he first entered the library.
With a mild swear, he hurried back to the elevator, remembering that he had told Subaru he would be a little late coming home from school, but not hours late. As the elevator doors eased closed in front of him, Kamui stared back at the expansive library and vowed to come back.
.
.
In Kakyou's dream, he saw the world: a shining perfect marble of crystalline blue swirled with white strains of clouds and ice as well as earthy green and brown touches, representing the continents inhabited by his own species.
It was beautiful.
It was home.
Kakyou smiled at the globe hanging before him, suspended in a dark vacuum, but glowing with a welcoming light all its own.
It was perfect.
He breathed deeply and closed his eyes, relishing the faint scent of an ocean breeze that tickled the back of his mind.
Then a tiny sound ruptured his serenity: the thin, fragile sound of glass cracking. His eyes flew open and he stared at his perfect, wonderful marble of a planet in horror as a thin line marred its surface. He held his breath, as though the movement of an exhale would add to the destruction and watched the earth, terrified that it was about to shatter completely before his eyes.
It held though and after several moments, he breathed a sigh of almost relief. The world was safe for now.
But that crack…
Kakyou felt cold fingers wrap around his heart and squeeze.
Perhaps all of the warmth and happiness he thought he had found here was not as secure as he had believed.
A room splattered with viscous gore as threads of fate ripped a woman apart, leaving a corporeal mess on the walls and floor, macabre foreshadowing to her daughter's destiny.
Sakura blossoms brushed across his memories in a bloody snow flurry as a figure in white collapsed, prayer beads crashing to the ground.
The first deaths. He reminded himself.
"Hokuto… chan…"
Her smile, her laugh, her hand warm around his as she pulled him onto the dance floor… All of that gone in an instant…
No. He wouldn't allow it. Not this time. He was no longer bound by a predestined fate. He could change the future here.
Couldn't he?
Hokuto was such a unique individual, such a gem sparkling among the everyday crowd. He wanted to protect her, had always wanted to.
Kakyou raised his chin defiantly. He could and he would.
The question was just how.