A/N: This will probably be the least recognizable part of the story for those who have never read Alice in Wonderland / Through the Looking Glass, as the characters and situation introduced are not portrayed in the well known animated Disney film. For anyone who has seen the Alice in Wonderland episode of Ouran High School Host Club (I think it's episode 13?), they do use a version of this scene; it's where Renge appears.

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Before Kamui could slip back into the despair that kept claiming a tighter and tighter grip on his heart, his thoughts were interrupted by Sorata and Yuzuriha, who seemed to have reclaimed a somewhat pained imitation of the cheerfulness they originally had.

"Come on Kamui! Don't let him get to you!" Yuzuriha cried encouragingly, taking Kamui's hand and pulling him to his feet.

"Yeah, no worries man, we're here for ya!" Sorata thumped him somewhat roughly on the shoulder.

Thus the three of them continued through the forest, Kamui wondering if the other two knew where they were going any better than he did. Either way they seemed happier on their way to wherever it was and he tried to soak up the sunshine radiating from the both of them as best he could, hoping it would warm him, chase away the chills left by the last few encounters he had had.

He thought that maybe he was beginning to thaw a little and was beginning to be able to join in on their playful banter, feeling the forest around him grow a little lighter and less threatening. Then he realized they had left the forest and were actually in what looked like a relatively normal neighborhood and he wondered if they had actually walked out of the forest or if it had just changed.

"Kusanagi!" Yuzuriha cried with delight and suddenly broke away from the two of them, her yellow raincoat glimmering in the sunlight.

She threw her arms around an enormous, muscular man with who had been sitting as unobtrusively as possible on a doorstep. His face was a maze of scars, somewhat faded under a dark tan and his broad shoulder seemed to stretch forever in either direction of his thick neck and Kamui thought he should be imposing and threatening. However, the footman's uniform, with its delicate green silk cuffs and shiny brass coat buttons greatly lessened the effect, making him look more ridiculous than anything else.

"Hello missy." He smiled calmly at Yuzuriha who was currently nuzzling his shoulder like an affectionate kitten.

"Who are you?" Sorata asked amiably.

"I'm Kusanagi."

"Yeah, I know, I heard her." He nodded toward Yuzuriha.

"I'm the Duchess' footman." He added, a little more helpfully.

"Ahhh I see." Sorata nodded, seemingly a great deal more informed than Kamui.

"I have something I need to do." Kusanagi added again, as Yuzuriha continued nuzzling.

"Should we go then and leave you to it?" Kamui asked, ready to pull Yuzuriha away if she was bothering him, worried that the man, despite his ill-suited clothing could snap her like a twig at any given moment.

"Oh no." Kusanagi shook his head firmly.

"Oh… okay."

The four of them fell into an awkward silence.

"Well?" Kamui finally demanded.

"Well what?" Sorata looked at him, confused.

'"Aren't you going to do whatever it is you need to do?"

Kusanagi stared as him as though he had just suggested they all fill balloons with water, put goldfish in them and hang them from the eaves under which they stood.

"But I cannot go inside."

"Why not?"

"The door is closed."

Kamui wondered if the heat was getting to him but quickly realized it was not nearly warm enough out for that.

"Then why don't you open it?"

"It's not my house." Kusanagi answered simply.

Sorata watched the exchanges silently, his head bouncing between the two of them like an audience member at a ping pong match.

"Then why don't you knock?"

Kusanagi gaped at him and for a moment Kamui expected a loud croak or ribbit to escape the man's throat. Before he could say anything, the sound of breaking glass and a woman screaming from inside the house broke the silence. Kamui jumped in alarm but none of the others made any sign they had heard anything.

"What was that?"

"It is chaos." Kusanagi answered him flatly.

"And you're just trying to stay out of it?"

"Oh no. I can't stay out of it really. None of us can. I'm just waiting for it to reach me I suppose."

"But… shouldn't we go in and help whoever…"

Suddenly a blur of white came whizzing out of an open window, ripping across Kusanagi's cheek and leaving a fresh line of red that would surely add yet another scar, before crashing into a tree behind them, shattering into numerous tiny pieces of porcelain. Kamui cried out in surprise, jumping away.

Kusanagi didn't flinch or cry out or even move to wipe away the blood and suddenly Kamui found himself wondering how all the other scars had gotten there.

"Shouldn't we find out what's going on?" he asked, watching the window warily now, ready to duck at any moment.

"Why would we do that?" Sorata asked, confused.

"Someone could be getting hurt in there!" Kamui yelled, feeling a tug of frustration at the calm indifference of the other three who didn't even bat an eye at this possibility.

"Probably." Sorata shrugged.

"Oh I'm sure they are." Kusanagi assured him.

"Then… gah! Fine- you sit here and do nothing. I'M going to try to make sure no one's getting killed!" Kamui declared and marched up the steps, tugging at the front door handle, fully prepared to rip it off its hinges if he had to. He nearly fell over when it opened freely. He turned and glared at Kusanagi as though it were his fault Kamui had lost balance. "You mean it was unlocked the whole time?"

Kusanagi glanced over his shoulder at him. "I suppose it was."

"Then why didn't you just go in?"

Another scream and the sound of more crashing pierced his ear drums and Kamui was again distracted, running inside before he could get an answer.

There was no one in the foyer or living room and this seemed hardly surprising given the state they were in. Kamui froze in shock and fear for a moment when he recognized the acrid scent of something smoldering and saw that everything in both rooms was blackened. What was left of the defeated curtains hung limply over the windows and scorch marks ravaged every surface. Kamui felt vile assault the back of his throat as he recognized the living room as that of the house he and mother had lived in when… (1)

NO. Someone's in danger. Take care of that right now. Kamui jerked his head away, feeling the muscles in his neck twinge in protest at the sudden movement. He heard another crash and found his way into the kitchen where Arashi stood at a stove, vigorously shaking a fine black dust into a pot of soup.

Ashes. Kamui thought, nauseated for a moment before he sneezed and realized that it was pepper, not ash.

His sneeze was violently echoed across the room and he turned to see a woman in a rocking chair, clutching something to her chest as her long wavy hair flowed in smooth rivers down her shoulders and arms.

Kamui felt dizzy for a moment and felt his heart leap into his throat.

"Ko-"

Then she looked up and he realized it was not Kotori. For a split second he was relieved and then felt sick again as his brain processed recognition.

"Aunt Saya?"(2)

The woman replied with another sneeze then reached for a plate out of the china cabinet she was seated by.

"Stop! Dammit! I've told you a thousand times! That's enough!" She hurled the plate at the cook, narrowly missing her head, the plate flying out the window by the sink instead.

"Hey!" Kamui reached out to stop her, more than a little shocked. Aunt Saya had never been violent, never swore never… never died?

Arashi paused in her shaking for a moment and Kamui held his breath, thinking it was over. Then she turned and wandered over to the pantry, opened it and after some rummaging around pulled out another shaker and returned the stove, dumping its contents into the pot once more.

Kamui and Saya sneezed simultaneously and he suddenly realized there had been another sneeze muffled under theirs. Turning his gaze to the bundle in her arms, Kamui felt his eyes widen even as stray flecks of pepper stung them. In his surprise, he didn't notice Saya reaching for another plate and launching it once more at Arashi, once more narrowly missing.

"Stop! You're even making the baby sneeze you bitch!" Saya screamed.

"Aunt Saya, don't…" Kamui hesitantly stepped forward.

Suddenly Sorata's head popped up in the window.

"Stopped them yet Kamui? Oh…. Well hello there beautiful." He grinned at Arashi, his eyes roaming up and down her figure.

She froze in her pepper shaking and stared at him as he did his very best to flirt or at least extract some response from her.

Kamui ignored them and nervously approached Saya.

"How… how are you alive?" he asked hoarsely, his throat suddenly dry. "And is that…"

"Duchess! I have a message for you!"

Kamui jumped, wondering how he had not noticed Subaru come up on his right.

Saya gave a sigh of frustration. "What is it then?"

Subaru bowed. "Her majesty wishes to see you in court."

"What?" Kamui cried.

"Her majesty, the queen of hearts." Another familiar voice said behind him. Kamui spun to see Fuuma leaning against the wall, grinning madly. For a moment, he thought Fuuma had even acquired a tail twitching against the patterned wallpaper before realizing was just a shadow. "The duchess is in trouble, you see." He grinned. "It's her own fault though."

"How dare you!" Saya screamed at Fuuma and jerked another plate out of the china cabinet. The plate again missed its target though and Fuuma flashed a taunting smile at her.

Kamui turned back to Saya just in time to see her rearing back another plate. "Wait!" He cried and took a few steps forward. He was still too late to stop her though and he heard the plate crash into something other than the wall this time. He looked over his shoulder and choked when he saw blood dripping from Subaru's chin to the floor, the rest of his face obscured as his head was hung as though in embarrassment.

"Su… baru?" he asked, a terrible feeling clenching the pit of his stomach.

Subaru raised his head and Kamui felt a wave of nausea as he caught sight of the blood running down his friend's cheek and the long strands of hair caught shining slickly over his eye.

"Subaru…" He stepped closer but was suddenly distracted when Saya shoved the bundle she had been cradling into his arms.

"Come back here you little devil!" She screamed, flying out of the kitchen in pursuit of Fuuma.

Kamui looked down at the baby in his arms in shock, then back up to find that Subaru too had vanished.

"Subaru!"

The bundle in his arms squirmed and Kamui looked back down and noticed that the baby's face had been partly covered in Saya's efforts to shield it from the pepper. He pulled the blanket away and felt his blood run cold.

"Fuuma…"

"No."

The Fuuma who had disappeared from the kitchens seconds before was suddenly at Kamui's side. Kamui stared up at him. "But… it's you… as a baby. I'm sure of it, I've seen so many pictures of you when you were little at your house…"

"You're wrong."

"But it's you, Fuuma." Kamui insisted, feeling the few tendrils of coherent thought in his mind snapping.

"There is no such person."

"But there is! In fact, there seem to be two of them right here right now!"

"No, there never was a Fuuma. There are two of someone, but that someone is Kamui."

"What…" Kamui frowned back down at the baby and noticed Fuuma disappear again out of the corner of his eye. He gasped to see that it was no longer Fuuma's face but his own staring back up at him. He screamed and dropped it. He immediately knelt to the floor in horror that he had just dropped a baby. He didn't know whether to be relieved or creeped out when he discovered it was not a baby but a doll but either way, stood back up and, shuddering, made his way out of the house.

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Characters:

Kusanagi = The Frog Footman (Yeah this character never appears in movies. You know why? Because his role is to not do anything. In the book he really does just sit there and kind of accept that everything is nuts.)

Arashi = The Cook (I don't think they named the cook in the book, but if anyone recalls them doing so, please inform me. In the book, as I recall the cook keeps adding too much pepper to the food, making everyone sneeze like here.)

Saya = The Duchess (She asks Alice to watch her baby for a while as I recall in the book and it turns into a pig. I remember that being one of the weirdest scenes for me reading it.)

Fuuma = Okay, again, he's the Cheshire Cat, but also temporarily appears as the baby, reminding us once more that he's kind of all over the place.

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Notes:

1. This description was meant to throw Kamui back to memories of his mother and their house burning down before he moves back to Tokyo at the beginning of X.

2. Just a reminder as she is not very big in the series and only showed up at the beginning, Saya was Kotori and Fuuma's mother, which is why she looks at first like Kotori to Kamui.