Atmung

A Rozen Maiden fanfic by Aondehafka

Disclaimer: the characters and concepts of Rozen Maiden are owned by Peach Pit, not me. This story is based on the anime, not the manga.

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Chapter 4: Lights Will Guide You Home

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Black sand and cinders crunched and shifted beneath their tread. The void above them, equally dark, pressed down as if trying to smother the young man and Rozen Maiden. Jun gritted his teeth against the oppression and strode onward, trying not to let it get to him. After all, they were making progress, probably—it had just been sand underfoot at first. He was pretty sure the change was a good sign.

"I wish Micchan was here," Kanaria said, trying and failing to keep a tremor out of her voice. The faint light cast from Pizzicato and Amethyst Dream showed her paler and wider-eyed than usual.

"I don't think she'd like this place much," Jun replied. "It's way too ugly."

"I know. But that means she'd be concentrating on me, and that would make it easy for me to ignore all this too."

"You're not supposed to be ignoring it!" Jun pointed out. "Shinku and Suigin Tou are dealing with Laplace—or at least I really hope they are—but we don't know if Kira Kishou is with him or not. She could be waiting for us. This could be a trap with Suisei Seki as the bait."

"D-d-don't say that, Jun!" Kanaria moaned.

"I have to say it! I'm depending on you, Kanaria. I couldn't possibly handle Kira Kishou on my own." At least not if she was as powerful as any of the other dolls. No-one had fought her yet, but it hardly seemed likely that the Seventh Doll had been created without the strength Rozen had given all the others. "You're the smartest Rozen Maiden, right? That means you can make sure we don't fall into a trap!"

"R-Right," Kanaria said, stiffening her spine and walking with a little more confidence.

'I wish Shinku could have been here. It's hard, being the one who has to be strong,' Jun thought. 'I hope she'll be okay.'

The cinders were more numerous underfoot now, but the sand had given way to a brittle, dull black stone. Jun squinted as far ahead as he could, looking for anything other than the ground beneath and the emptiness above. "Amethyst Dream? Can you tell if we're getting close?"

The green light that was Suisei Seki's artificial spirit bobbed in a quick, complex pattern. "She says she doesn't know," Kanaria translated, as Amethyst Dream resumed her path ahead of them. "She's sorry she can't go faster, but it's hard to follow the trail. Laplace created this N-field himself, and it's really twisty."

Jun blinked. "But we've been going in a straight line this whole time."

"No, it just looks like that," she said.

"Stupid rabbit," he muttered. "This is just another game to him, I guess."

"That's a good hypothesis," Kanaria said quietly. "Something to replace the Alice Game, since we know we don't have to play it now. He can't watch that anymore, so he's making up his own game... something just as bad, or worse maybe."

He'd been trying not to think about that, trying not to wonder what they might find waiting for them at the end of Suisei Seki's trail. At least she had to still be alive, he thought as hopefully as he could. Amethyst Dream couldn't track her if she wasn't, right?

They walked on through the seemingly-endless darkness. The cinders underfoot were replaced by withered, blackened leaves. Bone-dry twigs began to sprout from the shale. The long-dead vegetation grew thicker and thornier, though no matter how dense it became there was still no hint of life.

They couldn't see the lack of sky now; the branches wove above and around them leaving only the path clear. 'At least that probably means Kira Kishou couldn't sneak up on us,' Jun thought grimly. 'But if it gets any tighter, we're going to have to crawl.'

Thirty steps later, his guess proved correct. The thorny ceiling dipped sharply down, leaving just space enough for Kanaria to go on her hands and knees. For him to continue, he would have to squirm along on his belly.

The two of them paused, contemplating this with equal parts anger and dread. Amethyst Dream suddenly gave an excited bob and darted ahead, blazing brighter. By the light she shed, they could make out a clearing on the other side.

As Jun caught the gleam of one green eye and one red, he gasped. All hesitation forgotten, he dropped to the ground and twisted his way through the final hole, Kanaria following close behind him. He got to his feet and hurried forward, only to stop dead after his third step.

The clearing was littered with a myriad of objects, all as dismal as everything else had been. A sundial, a tricycle, a painting, a rocking horse, a thousand other things... his eyes passed over them without really seeing them, or the dead vines as thin as yarn that wove throughout everything. But there were eight particular items that grabbed his attention by the throat.

A left arm. A right arm. An upper torso. A lower torso. A pelvis. A right leg. A left leg. And finally, and most forlorn of all—a head with long brown hair, one eye green, the other red. None of the pieces of Suisei Seki was less than five feet away from the closest other, though they might still be connected by the vines that threaded through them.

After a moment of horrible, shocked immobility, Jun staggered forward again. He knelt down next to Suisei Seki's head, staring desperately into the vacant eyes. "S-Suisei Seki?" he whispered. "No. No, this can't... it can't end like this..."

Kanaria pulled out her binoculars, fiddled with the controls, and stared desperately around at the pieces of her sister. "She's still there," she said, her voice tiny and choked with horror. "She still has her Rosa Mystica. I don't think she can see, or hear, but she can feel."

"I... I knew it was going to be bad, but this...?" Jun said helplessly. "How... what can I...?"

Kanaria did her best to pull herself together. "It's another game," she said. "Or a puzzle, maybe. That's what it says over there." She gestured toward a battered wooden door lying flat on the ground. She could just make out riddling words scratched into the paint—in German, of course. Jun certainly would have been out of luck without her here to help him, she thought, trying to build her confidence back up. "We have to figure it out from the pieces he left."

"The hell we do!" he snarled, making her jump. His fists were clenched at his sides, and his face wore a scowl like a thundercloud. The helpless uncertainty of a minute past was gone, or at least hidden by his anger. "I'm not playing any games! Amethyst Dream!" he shouted, holding out his hand. The spirit apparently understood his meaning, because it blurred over to him and summoned Suisei Seki's watering can.

"H-How can you do that?" Kanaria asked feebly.

Jun ignored her, swinging the can with wild abandon. Glowing water covered the clearing, leaving only the space around them dry.

"W-Wh-Wha-WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!" Kanaria squealed, waving her arms furiously but too stunned to do more than that. Had he lost it completely? When those huge plants came tearing up out of the ground, that would scatter Suisei Seki and the pieces of the puzzle so that they might never find them all!

It was almost anticlimactic, she decided later, when the dead vines struggled into a faint green-brown life. They twitched for a moment, then went limp. And that was all.

Jun swung the can again, sending more water flying. Kanaria wasn't sure whether the vines became any greener, but there was at least one response—they twitched again, then twisted, then coiled freely. The pieces of Suisei Seki were brought back together, lying atop a pile of the healthiest-looking vines with none of them threaded through her any more.

Jun stepped up to her bier, pulling off his sweater and laying it over her, leaving only her head and feet exposed. The anger was gone now, and all Kanaria could see on his face was a profound sorrow. "Suisei Seki..." he murmured. "Please, wake up." The ring on his left hand glowed green, so faint at first that Kanaria wasn't sure it was real, then stronger and stronger.

The faintest of clicks and clacks heralded Suisei Seki's parts joining back together. Her eyes fluttered, closing, then opening again without the vacant stare that had been there before. They stared into Jun's relieved brown ones for a long moment, and then flooded with tears.

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"I'm sorry!" Suisei Seki wailed, at last recovering enough composure to do more than just cry. She had held it together long enough to scramble into his sweatshirt and sit down next to him, but after that she had lost it completely. Jun's undershirt was soaked with the tears she'd shed into his chest. "I'm sorry I let him trick me like that. I should have known better than to fight him all by myself."

"You don't have to apologize, Suisei Seki," Jun said as gently as he could, rubbing her back reassuringly. "Yeah, it turned out to be the wrong thing to do. But it could have been a lot worse, right? You sent Amethyst Dream to us, to let us know Laplace had Sousei Seki's and Hina Ichigo's Rosae Mystica and you were chasing after him. If you hadn't done that, we still wouldn't know what happened to them, and we might not have been able to find you either."

The Third Doll shuddered and clutched tighter to him. "It was so horrible," she choked out. "I think the only reason he didn't take my Rosa Mystica was because it would hurt more to leave me like that."

"That bastard," Jun growled. "I hope Shinku does pull his tail off, and stuff it down his throat!"

"Shinku?" Suisei Seki echoed, forcing away the memory. It was over now, and if Laplace dared to show his face with Kanaria and Jun to back her up, she'd make him pay! "Why isn't she here, anyway? She's not going after Laplace by herself, is she?"

"No," Kanaria answered. "She teamed up with Suigin Tou to chase him down and get rid of him for good."

"I hope they skin him alive!" she spat. "Turn him into a fur coat and unlucky rabbit's feet!"

Jun managed a tiny smile at this. Any sign of her recovering her spirit was good news in his book. "Come on, we need to get out of here."

"Yeah!" Kanaria declared, finally stopping her fidgeting. She'd been doing it for the last five minutes, wishing that they'd hurry up and get moving. So far there was no sign of Kira Kishou or Laplace in the tunnel leading to the clearing, but that didn't mean they weren't out there waiting for just the right time to strike. And it was hard to forget that Laplace could open those rabbit-holes to step through, maybe to anywhere he wanted in an N-field he'd made himself. Trying to watch every direction at once was exhausting, even for the most intelligent of the Rozen Maidens.

"Not yet!" Suisei Seki declared, provoking a gape from Jun and an indignant squawk from Kanaria. "That's just like you, chibi-human, starting something important and then walking away with it halfway done!"

Jun gestured at the flotsam choking the clearing. "We're not digging through all this just to find your dress," he deadpanned. "OW-OW-OW!!"

Despite all the gratitude she felt toward him, as well as less easily understood or identified feelings, Suisei Seki had to admit that kick had been satisfying. "I didn't mean that! It's all torn up anyway," she said sadly. Then, recovering her fire, she pointed to the vines Jun had woken up. "You gave them something he never would, but if you leave them like this they'll die a long, horrible death!"

"So what do we do?" Jun asked. "They may be alive now, and not as bad as the rest of this place, but they're still planted in the ground here. I don't think taking them with us is a good idea." Kanaria nodded, fidgeting once again.

"That's why I'm one of the Gardeners, and you're the chibi-human who just piggybacks on my power!" Suisei Seki declared. "Amethyst Dream!" The spirit darted to her, forming the watering can once more. Suisei Seki marched over to the biggest knot of vines, upending the can over them. Jun's ring glowed brightly green. "We'll just give them enough help to hold their own..." She stopped pouring, and turned to look back at Jun with a strange, surprised expression on her face.

"What is it?" he asked.

Suisei Seki stared a moment longer, then turned back. "Or even enough that they can eventually take over this place and make it clean and alive?" she said hesitantly, tilting the can again and half-turning to keep one eye on Jun.

This time the ring's blaze was enough to drown out Pizzicato and Amethyst Dream. After a few moments, Jun frowned. "Hey, Suisei Seki, that's enough. If you keep pulling that much power, Shinku would be in trouble if she suddenly needed a lot too."

"It's okay," she replied. "I'm done anyway." She turned away from the vines, which were now a bright, healthy green with flourishing leaves. "Um... Jun?"

"Huh?"

"When did you get so strong?" she asked quietly. "When you started out as my medium, taking half that much power would have knocked you out."

"I practice every day," he said. "I'm not real good at using it yet, but I've at least built a lot more up."

"I never felt that," she said. "I... I guess you just used Shinku's bond?"

"Yeah," he answered. "Why?"

"N-No reason!" she declared with a huff. "Now stop wasting time, we need to get out of here!"

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Author's Notes

Tears stream down your face

When you lose something you cannot replace...

Lights will guide you home

And ignite your bones.

And I will try to fix you.

The above are lyrics from the song Fix You, by Coldplay. I highly recommend listening to the entire thing. It was a primary source of inspiration for this scene, which is one of the key ones I wrote the fic for.

The idea of Kanaria's binoculars having diagnostic powers didn't hit me until several days after I finished the first version of the scene. But there needed to be some reason why it took them so long to figure out that Hina Ichigo's and Sousei Seki's Rosae Mystica didn't return to their bodies after the events of Traumend, even though in this scene Kanaria was able to immediately confirm that Suisei Seki still had hers.