A/N: Story still continues. It's been a damn long time.
DISCLAIMER: I do not own any of the characters of X/1999.
Toru's Past
"Onee-chan?"
Tokiko Magami rubbed her heavy-lidded eyes, awoken by the soft brush of cloth against her face. Blinking, she could make out the dark silhouette of her older sister's graceful frame against the flickering of candlelight. With both arms up, she was in the middle of bundling up her locks of dark hair when she craned her neck at the sound of Tokiko's voice.
"What are you doing?" the younger one asked once she sat up, her own hair straying away from her braid in wispy strands. Before she could reach out for her glasses, Toru had her hands cupped over Tokiko's small shoulders. From this up close, the younger Magami sister could see a slight desperate glint in the other's eyes. Her eyes trailed over her sister's bosom and saw a small drop of a cleavage peeking through a plain white button up shirt. Trailing further down, Tokiko's suspicion took final form when she saw that Toru was wearing a pair of jeans. She stared back at Toru, her face etched with the lines of worry and confusion.
"Where are you going?" Tokiko almost screamed. Instead her question escaped in a sharp whisper, the distress of knowing whatever secrecy she was about to witness quivered at the edge of her voice. The rest of the household was still in slumber in the midst of the shrilly wind. Toru smiled, her lips reached closer towards Tokiko's ears. Tokiko kept silent, straining her ears against the wind's drumming of the door as she listened.
Without another word, Toru got up and left. Tokiko watched as her sister turned into a shadow, swallowed by the darkness that laid beyond the Magami household. She continued to sit up awake listening to the howls of the night wind and feel its echoes hollowing out the room she now resided alone.
"Hey, you there!"
Toru twirled around to face the voice that echoed from behind. She had entered this huge lobby – it's marble tiles gleaming in sparkling chandelier light – and did not know where to go. She had underestimated the building's vastness and she now stood, stopped by the command of an elderly woman who now marched towards her. Her form, no longer held in place by the vigor of feminine youth, was wrapped in a fitting black dress. Unhindered by the aged pain in her stride, she had a spark of hardness in her eyes which never left Toru for a second.
"You're late!" she said as she gripped Toru by the wrist with her bony talon-like hands and dragged her towards an elevator. "This way!"
Without a word or a struggle, Toru followed the elderly woman into the elevator. She tapped a card against a panel below the long rows of buttons and the elevator began to move downwards. A light whirring sound accompanied Toru's plunging heart which jumped right back up as soon as the elevator came to a halt, followed by a ding! sound. The elevator door opened, revealing a huge corridor with granite flooring and maroon carpeted walls dappled by high ceilinged incandescent lights, creating a warm orange glow. Toru's heart throbbed as she stared at the wide corridor, beckoning her to enter. A low humming sound filled her ears, slowly drowning out her uneasiness.
"Walk all the way straight and turn left, you'll find the changing room. Go." The old woman said in a hushed voice. Toru turned to face her, "you're not coming?"
The older one only shook her head before giving Toru a final nudge out of the elevator. She watched as the door closed and waited till the sound of the ascending elevator drifted away before she headed towards the changing room.
Toru stood at one of the corners of the ballroom as instructed, with a clean silver tray of tall glasses filled with bubbling gold resting on the palm of her hand. She was clad in a black dress which made her pale skin stand out and her usually long flowing locks were pulled back into a tight bun, revealing her perfect hairline. Her grey eyes wandered around the sea of dark suits and fine jewelry, the slick hairdos and plastered smiles, the perfect postures and eloquent gestures. This was a world Toru had heard of but had never known. When she caught the eyes of some men who were looking towards her direction she quickly darted her eyes away and fixedly stared at an empty spot in the room. With all these worldly distractions, she had to constantly remind herself why she was here to begin with, why she had been so adamant on coming here, and what had made her go this far as to break her family rules. She suddenly thought of Tokiko and the way she had looked as she was left behind and all the shame and guilt began to trickle their way into her head.
"You alright?" an alien voice hooked her senses back in line and found herself staring into a face, almost shocked by the sudden closeness as the silver tray on her hand wobbled slightly.
"Tired of standing?" he asked again. "Well, yeah I can see it's a tough job, waiting around, hoping that someone would come by and take a glass off your tray and perhaps offer to stay and chit-chat?" He took one tall glass of champagne and winked at her. Then she finally noticed the waves of his dark hair falling away from his eyes as he brought the glass up to his lips, emptying it in a manner that was controlled yet rushed. Toru had never deemed herself as a people-reader but she could tell that this man was not part of the sea of elites that shimmered before them. But neither was he a mere commoner. He seemed almost like them
(me)
who raised her to be the woman she was now today.
"You're staring too much. Never seen a man before?"
Toru looked away, feeling her ears burn with chagrin. He chuckled as he stuffed one hand – the one holding nothing – into the pocket of his black coat.
Coat? Well that's the other thing that set him apart from the rest of the crowd. He wasn't wearing a suit. She decided to test him to prove her suspicion.
"Aren't you supposed to be mingling with your friends?"
The man cocked an eyebrow and grinned a lop-sided smile. "Isn't that what I'm doing?"
"No," Toru gestured towards the people around her with a sharp dart of her eyes. "I meant them."
The man shook his head, "Not my kind of crowd. Besides, I'm here on business."
"So are they."
"A different kind of business," he told her and before Toru could ask more, a figure not too far from them stood looking at them. "Business calls," the man half-announced half-whispered before moving away from her and towards the other man. As he neared him, she could see that they were of the same height, same manliness, and the same perfect shoulder-to-hip ratio. While both exerted the same level of control, Toru felt they were very different; one was more casual while the other seemed to be guided by some unseeable force. As they walked away, Toru noticed a quick flick of a flame and a breath of smoke. Such gesture was familiar to her and she tried recalling if there was a no smoking rule when she suddenly noticed tiny flower petals cascading near her feet.
Cherry blossoms? But how…
A sharp pain seared across her chest and the silver tray clattered onto the floor accompanied by shattering glass when she fell forward. Someone screamed. Footsteps shuffled towards her and without warning, she was swept up in a pair of arms. The crushing pain in her chest was ebbing away though every throb her heart makes brought a new wave of pain. Unknowingly, her fingers clenched tightly on the lapel of the other's suit. Her hair had loosen and now flowed wildly as she was carried away. From the corner of her eye, she thought she saw two dark shadows lurking, one of them was holding a cigarette and she could smell its end burning.
"You're a Magami," said the man with dark violet eyes. It almost sounded like an accusation. But it wasn't a question either. He was simply stating a fact and he stared at her, waiting for a confirmation. She nodded.
"That attack was meant for me," he told her. She looked back at him, silent and confused.
"I can't believe they would send an assassin to waltz in just like that!"
Toru touched her chest and felt for her heart that's still beating and recovering from the shock.
An assassin? she thought. The hairs on the back of her neck stood on ends and she felt a sudden coldness as she recalled the man in the black coat and the other who dawned on her as unworldly. She shuddered.
The violet-eyed man turned back and sat at the foot of the bed where she rested and gazed a long while at her. "You're not supposed to be alive. Why?" He asked. Toru shrugged. She shivered upon the realization that she had been near death and it made her feel unwell. Her chest heaved as she felt her bowels turn inside out, getting ready to pour all its contents onto the fine layers of fabric before her. It would be unsightly she imagined and willed herself full bowel control. She managed to ask for a glass of milk and the young man she almost died for left the room to get it. She then closed her eyes and waited.
The sound of a lighter – snick! – followed by the soft hiss of a cigarette as its being inhaled to life sprung her back upright on the bed. Burnt tobacco lightly scented the room as a trail of smoke wound its way from the cigarette's end towards the ceiling. A man in a black coat stood between the bedposts, his unwavering eyes bore into hers with a tinge of amusement. Toru brought both her knees up as if doing so might protect her from him.
He chuckled and took another drag. "I'm not gonna bite," he told her.
"What do you want?"
The man in the black coat waved his free hand at her. "Don't worry, I'm not gonna do the same stunt again. I've already found out what I needed to know."
Toru frowned. What does he mean?
"It's not his time yet, Toru Magami-chan." He said with a humorless smile and Toru wondered what it would take to wipe that smile off his face.
"Today's incident was just a test. My client doesn't want the heir of the Shiro empire dead yet. We're here just to spy on him. Little did I know that his beloved puppet has decided to show up too. I just couldn't resist."
Toru glared at him. Sick bastard!
"I'm here just to check up on you. So, did it hurt?" He asked but he and Toru both knew that he was only feigning concern. He couldn't care less if she was hurt. He was just here to mock and provoke her, to make her see that he was enjoying every bit of torture he was causing her.
He took one last drag of his cigarette and winked at Toru. "Gotta go," he said. Soon, a flurry of cherry petals appeared around and enveloped him. Toru watched in sickening awe as he disappeared from the veil of petals before her eyes. Like a demented Houdini, he could easily appear and disappear and it wasn't long after that did she start questioning her sense of security. Within those years of having Kamui, her paranoia would finally subside as other more important things took the front seat of her brain. It wasn't until many years later after Kamui had grown into a fine young man did she took a walk into the streets and saw him across the road from her. And the same old primal fear would grip at the cords of her heart as she stared at the other who was standing next to her son. Except this wasn't the man in the long black coat. This was someone – or rather something – much more dangerous than an evil onmyouji. Toru stood on the other side like a deer caught in headlights, remembering him to be the same one who had been that shadowy figure in the ballroom where she met Kamui's father many years ago.
Kamui? she thought. But how? Why?
The fact that the man she remembered seeing didn't age at all frightened her. She wondered what kind of devil she had faced many years ago. She wondered how her son had managed to get involved with that same exact devil and what does it want with him.
She watched Kamui follow the man and once they've disappeared into the crowd, she released the breath that she's been holding for god knows how long. She shook her head and started to head the other way, where home was.
Maybe it was just someone who looks like him, she thought to herself as her mind tried to reason with her. There's no such thing as the devil. Very evil people who knows magic yes. But things like the devil? Toru scoffed at herself.
It's not possible.