It was noon, but the black clouds in the sky rendered it impossible to distinguish at first glance if it was really day or night. A summer thunderstorm had rolled in and blanketed the area in torrential rain. Thunder rocked the foundations of the village buildings. More often than not the constant lightning was the only light strong enough to pierce the gloom.
It was a storm the likes of which no one had ever seen. Newly formed rivers and streams of water snaked around the village walls and the trees in the forest. Half of the homes had already started to flood.
Roiling anxiety killed any appetite Subaru may have had – should have had in fact. He'd not had a bite to eat all day but the bubbling, stinging sensation in his stomach caused every morsel of food to look repulsive.
Everything felt like it was coming to an end, roaring and raging and so utterly final.
The cup of tea rattled mournfully against the plate it rested on as Subaru stumbled into the infirmary. He did not know why he felt so responsible for all of the recent troubles. Perhaps if he had said something sooner to the council that first night he'd found Doumeki collapsed in the empty alley his capture could have been prevented. Perhaps if he'd tried to do more for his late captain, Doumeki would have been able to fight more, and their tiny village with its rather poor inhabitants wouldn't be dying every day...
The words of Watanuki and that little girl – although she's not really little, is she? She's likely older than the tallest tree in the forest – chased each other around in his head. Doumeki went willingly... if he had fought he would have died... Watanuki would stop the chaos...
He shook his head to force the memories away for a little while. He didn't trust the Travelers, not one bit, so he didn't know how much of what they told him he should allow himself to believe.
But if they did have any motive to lie to him, what other conclusions were there to draw? What else could they possibly gain from his world?
The nurses on duty shuffled around him as he made his way to his commander's cot. It was his guilt that had brought him do such a thing. Whether he was supposed to feel guilty or not did not matter, it didn't make the pain in his gut change at all.
Seiichiro blinked his one eye open when he heard someone approach his bedside. Subaru sat in the chair next to the cot and held the tray out. "I brought tea."
"Tea," Sakurazuka whispered.
Subaru was still afraid of what his commander could do to him, so he was not inclined to offer help as Sakurazuka pushed his pillows up to better sit upright. Once the man was marginally sitting up, Subaru offered the cup of steaming jasmine tea to him. "Hungry?" He asked.
Sakurazuka looked at him, his one half-lidded eye betraying exhaustion through suspicion. "Subaru, you're not usually so helpful to me. Where's the cute nurses?"
Subaru's cheeks flushed. He really disliked how this man could be so forward. "They're too busy with the other wounded. I offered to help."
"Of course," Seiichiro agreed mildly and sipped his tea.
The dishes on the ensign's tray rattled and clanged together as the walls around them shook with the thunder. It sounded like the storm was getting worse outside.
"How long have I been sleeping?" Sakurazuka asked over his cup.
"About two days now." Subaru handed him a plate of buttered rolls.
"Hn." Seiichiro bit into the roll and closed his eye. The other eye – his right one – felt heavy in his head. He felt like he had a hand pressing against the spot, blinding half of his normal vision and pushing a nagging ache up into his forehead. He wondered how long he would be that way.
The sound of the warning bells echoed hollowly in the infirmary. Subaru jerked up to stand and didn't even pay attention to the tray that hurtled to the floor. "No, no, it's still daylight!" He dashed towards the door.
"Subaru!" Sakurazuka wrestled himself from the cot and yelled after the ensign.
Someone burst in through the door at the other end of the room with terrible news. "The walls! The walls are crumbling!" The man's raincoat was dripping wet, as if it had been pushed around in a full bathtub before being worn.
"What?" One of the nurses cried and covered her mouth with her hands.
"How?" Someone else asked.
Sakurazuka did not wait for any more information. He stood up, stumbled back down, got up again with a grunt of pain and headed to his quarters for his gear.
Of course, Subaru was a stupid boy sometimes, so did he even have time?
. . . . . . . . .
Subaru held his glass lamp high above his head as he tried to see the commotion out in the village. The black clouds in the sky blocked nearly any sunlight from leaking through. The rain made everything look fuzzy and far away. The few other lamps in the village bobbed and swayed in the wind like dying stars in a dead galaxy.
The sounds of the wood walls crumbling was loud. Behind the wall a wave of muddy waters poured over the broken bits of wood and debris into the village proper.
And there, right above his head, Subaru spotted the tell-tale signs of vengeful spirits coalescing overhead. Subaru drew his sword and prepared himself as the storm clouds swirled and opened up like mouths that vomited the supernatural upon them.
There were other hunters all around him but even still they were too few. The hunter's council had been trying to send more reinforcements for them, but of the extra fifty they'd accepted so far already thirty were dead. No more had been able to make it to them through the awful weather.
Well, he wasn't going down without a fight. The ensign bit down quickly on his thumb and forced out a bit of blood. He drew a line down the blade of his sword with his wounded thumb and watched with satisfaction as arcane symbols immediately lit up with power.
When the first wave reached him he was able to slice through most of the spirits and acquired only a few scratches. He did his best to ignore the screaming of the newly wounded as they endured wave after wave of spirits.
Subaru felt a chill at his back that had nothing to do with the rain soaking him to the bone. He had just enough time to turn around and have his sight filled with nothing but a large, throbbing red eye hovering in a cloud of purple gassy-smoke. He knew without any doubt it was one of the spirits that actually possessed people into becoming witches. Could he fight it? Why did his knees suddenly lock up and his throat and chest feel like it was stuck in a block of ice?
"Get down, idiot!"
The spirit lunged but just as the oily tendrils of smoke were about to reach him Subaru found himself flat on his back and another person covering him.
"C-Commander?"
Seiichiro was still wearing the thin white garments the infirmary had put him in, though he did have a sword in hand. His one eye was narrowed and... worried? The ensign wiggled uncomfortably as sand and mud wormed its way into his armor as the rain continued to fall.
"Hold still!" The officer barked. He appeared to be trying to make a seal in the air with his free hand. Subaru recognized it as a shield defense, and a highly advanced one at that. Unfortunately for his commanding officer, Sakurazuka didn't have time to finish it as the spirit that had been about to attack Subaru started to bore down on his back. Sakurazuka gasped in pain. His blood sprayed up in a red shower into the dark air.
"No!" Subaru pushed at the other man's shoulders to move him away from the onslaught.
"I said ho-hold still!" Sakurazuka gritted his teeth against the pain and pushed back, acting as a shield for the person beneath him.
"Idiot," Subaru choked back.
Sakurazuka went still after a flash of gold flew over him and the spirit vanished in a puff of air. His body agitated with pain but the feeling of teeth scraping down his skin was finally gone.
"Stay down," someone above them commanded. Subaru gasped in shock as Doumeki strode into view while he fired another projectile. As soon as the spastic energy of his gold energy arrow was released there were more people – people that Subaru had never seen before and a couple that he did recognize – dart past them like back-up cavalry.
There were Travelers, a dozen of them perhaps, and their Intendeds all fighting the raging storm around them. Watching them fight was nothing short of breathtaking. The Travelers themselves were far easier to spot than anyone else. While some of them looked dressed to fight, others still refused to wear anything other than their favored kimonos. The spaces around them lit up like fireworks as their magic pushed back the tidal wave of spirits. Some moved too quickly for human eyes to follow.
The rain soaked ground became a patchwork of shining and mismatched patterns of ancient seals and symbols. The glyphs throbbed and pulsed like veins pumping blood, like lightning arcing across the sky.
The others, their partners, were all powerful in their own right. Some of them summoned enough fire to burn up a lake. The rain fizzled and hissed as it came in contact with the raging infernos. Some could summon ice, others lighting, and some, like Doumeki, used a unique energy of their own. It seemed like all of them were in some way protecting those that had already fallen.
"Touya, Rikuo!" Doumeki yelled out. Two black haired men made their way to him from close by. Doumeki motioned for them to follow as he rushed to the village's center.
Sakurazuka had yet to get off of Subaru. The ensign really wanted to get up from the ground. While he couldn't get any wetter, his pants seemed to keep on accumulating more and more dirt.
"Where's Kimihiro?" Someone next to them yelled through the wind. Subaru did not recognize the man.
"He's on his way! Hurry, Yukito! We have to form the circle!"
The last one the ensign did recognize as Kazahaya, the one that had come for Watanuki's younger sister.
The ageless beings did seem to have some sort of plan in motion. Subaru and Seiichiro watched as they started shouting instructions to each other and all line up in a large circle. Once it was complete, they all moved one hand towards the center of their circle, then the earth beneath them came alive.
A massive circular seal lit up on the ground and cast an eerie shine upon them. Blue and silver light danced and waved around them like a living thing.
Once, when he had been very young, Subaru had seen a meteor fall from the sky. He hadn't understood what he was staring at in the beginning. It had merely appeared to be a large star in the sky that twinkled and glistened more than usual. Eventually the size continued to grow until a line of fire could be seen behind it.
Subaru had been too far away from the place of impact so he didn't really know of the kind of destruction it could leave behind, but he clearly remembered the sight of the sky torn in two by an object that was hurdling through it. The sight of a blue streak of light coming for them rather reminded him of the fright and exhilaration he felt as a child when he watched the rock fall from the sky.
Watanuki landed in the center of the seal the others had created with all the noise of the tectonic plates of the world colliding. Subaru's ears rang in the seconds following his landing.
The Traveler stood upright from his landed and extended one hand extended towards the sky, a ball of fiery white energy pulsating in his grip. He was staring up at the black storm above him, his eyes sharp and deep, deep blue.
The clouds above him started to grow thicker, larger and swirl around like a vortex. "What is he doing?" The ensign wondered out loud.
"He's summoning the spirits together," Sakurazuka remarked.
"How...?" Subaru's eyes darted around as much as they could. He could see a few of the remaining entities get sucked up into the angry vortex above Watanuki, adding to its already enormous size.
Doumeki broke through the circle to join his lover, and as he did the Intendeds gathered around the outside of the glowing seal and dug their swords into the ground. The light the weapons created became so bright it hurt to look upon it.
Doumeki drew his arm back and formed another arrow in his bow. He aimed up but did not fire yet. What was he waiting for?
"Come!" They heard Watanuki shout. "Come for me! Come and eat me as you've always wanted to!"
"He's acting as bait," Sakurazuka realized.
The lines of power that spiraled out along the ground from the Travelers and from the swords pierced into the earth fed up through the late captain's feet, across his back, along his arms and into his weapon.
"What are they waiting for?" Subaru asked.
The clouds heaved and a giant, bulging yellow eye with a red iris emerged from the clouds and stared wide and hungry at Watanuki's relatively tiny form below. With one heartbeat for a pause it hurtled itself downward. "NOW, SHIZUKA!" They heard Watanuki scream.
Doumeki released his arrow, and the seal beneath them all exploded in a blinding glory.
Subaru thought his heart might leap right out of his chest. The hair on his body stood on end and energy filled every crevice of space around them. He closed his eyes and held his breath. If reality itself could have a seizure he was quite sure it just did.
When the light receded he realized the rain had stopped. The sky was no longer black and unseeing, it was now merely gray and steely.
Finally Sakurazuka pushed himself up and off the smaller person beneath him. Subaru used the opportunity to sit upright. His armor squelched with mud and water as he moved. He looked back to the gathered Travelers with a hungry interest.
Watanuki had collapsed into Doumeki's arms. Doumeki himself was on his knees and leaning over the body he held, visibly panting. Kimihiro was covered in blood. "What happened?" Subaru gaped.
Sakurazuka shook his head but did not voice a guess.
Kimihiro's fellow Travelers slowly walked towards him and Doumeki. Multiple hands helped Doumeki stand up as he continued to hold the unconscious man in his arms. One of them whispered something into Doumeki's ear. Subaru and Seiichiro were too far away to hear it, but Doumeki merely nodded.
Without even a goodbye, someone summoned their magic and transported all of the Intendeds and Travelers away.
The village was as silent as the dead. A few people on the ground started to gingerly pick themselves up.
"That's it?" Subaru asked. "That's the end of it?"
"It would appear so." Seiichiro looked at him, his one eye crinkled in a half smile, then swiftly passed out.
. . . . . . . . . .
Kimihiro awoke to the pleasant feeling of a hand cradling his head and fingers digging through his hair. When he opened his eyes he was greeted with the sight of a broad, muscular chest.
"You're awake," Shizuka said. His chest rumbled in a pleasing way as he spoke.
"Hmm," Kimihiro agreed. His spare hand found itself running up along the skin that covered that irresistible bust of its own accord.
"Thank goodness," the other man continued. The hand that had been buried in Kimihiro's hair moved to pull his shoulders a little closer. "You've been asleep for days."
"Have I?" He asked. He sat up a little and leaned over for a kiss that was eagerly returned.
"You worried me," Shizuka continued.
"There was nothing to worry over." Kimihiro lay back down to nibble at the man's expose earlobe. "We are immortal. I am the only one capable of taking my own life."
Shizuka pushed him down fully on the bed and looked at him pointedly. His body fully covered Kimihiro's and pressed him into the mattress. "Still... don't do that again." One of his large hands once again found purchase in Kimihiro's fiber-thin hair. "I can't stand the sight of you hurt. You should never bleed, not even for me."
Kimihiro chuckled and moved his legs aside to better encompass Shizuka's hips bearing down against his groin. "My love, you are the only one I would ever bleed for." His hands reached up and pulled the other down for a heated kiss. "But I promise, I won't do that again."
"Good," Shizuka breathed deeply, then contented himself with applying a love bite to the left side of Kimihiro's pale neck.
"Who brought us home?" Kimihiro asked as he pulled aside Shizuka's troublesome clothing.
The lips against his neck paused as he searched his memory for the name. "Kakei... and Saiga. They transported us home, but the others helped as well."
"Ah!" Kimihiro inhaled as two digits slipped inside of his entrance. "Very well." He sat up and allowed himself to drown against those delicious lips.
"I love you," Shizuka said into the kiss.
"I know," Kimihiro whispered back. He laughed, small and light and airy. "I know."