Boss Rush

LI: Chain Energy

Detective Inspector Kaname Yuuko was a patient woman. Not by nature, certainly; years of experience had taught her calm, even around the hardiest and most irritating of subjects and people alike. Yet, the moment she'd seen the two profiles, compliments of the NDPD, she knew her patience would be stretched to the limit. Not because of any one particular thing. It was never one particular thing that irritated the crap out of the First Investigative Brigade. Rap sheets – she could deal with them. Bad attitudes... well, she'd come across quite a few. Arrogance? She wished she had a hundred yen for every smug look ever cast to her by a suspect later judged guilty.

Although it was unusual for a Captain of the First Investigation Division to be on the scene, there was political pressure being placed upon the NDPD to resolve this issue. Therefore, she walked into the interrogation room, trying not to clutch the portfolio as if it were the last strand to her sanity. The kid, Fudo Ryuusei, was already looking at her. She stared at him.

The kid unwaveringly stared back.

...dammit, I can't tell.

Sure, the Hispanic Duelist, Adrian Rodriguez, had fallen by the fault of Fudo Ryuusei, who was a known psychic Duelist. Yuuko had always prided herself on her knacks. But Ryuusei was... not hostile or overtly guilty, as much as unreadable.

Hasegawa had drawn the short straw, and ended up facing off against the terrifying Shimotsuki Setsuka, whose own opponent had fallen in almost the same manner. There was no bad cop to play good cop to this time.

"Fudo Ryuusei." Yuuko tossed the now-useless file on the table. It slid across the smooth surface so far that it would have fallen into the boy's lap, had his hand not reflexively come up to stop it in its path. "Born in Neo Domino City. Father is Dr Fudo Yusei, one of the best Duel Monsters players in the world and our resident specialist in Momentum. Mother is Dr Izayoi Aki, again our pride and joy. Overall very... innocent, though you seem to attract the worst people. You're studying in DA Kings, and shaping up like your parents to become one of the top Duelists of the world; a goal that some claim you've achieved and others claim you never will."

"I see that the NDPD has made every effort into my background," Ryuusei quietly murmured. "How may I address you, Ma'am?"

"Captain Kaname Yuuko, First Investigative Brigade," Yuuko answered. "Mind telling me what happened?"

"It's not kidnapping or murder." the boy observed. "Am I being charged?"

"We don't know," Yuuko answered politely. Since the two incidents had happened well after the holograms had faded, the police could hardly blame it on Psychic powers and heightened emotions, not with two of the Movement's most powerful known Psychic Duelists. There were journalists asking painful questions outside the building. "Why don't you tell us what you saw?"

"I finished the Duel. Rodriguez-san fainted after that, and the MC was yelling." The account was flat, as if practised by rote. "After that Ushio-keibu called us in to... 'assist the police' was his exact words."

Yuuko nodded. "Yeah, Ushio can be like that. I'm surprised he actually knows where you live."

"I live with my parents. It's not hard."

Yuuko conceded the point. "And... you won the Duel, didn't you?"

"I did."

"Were you... excited?"

"Rodriguez-san was an able Duelist. The Duel was satisfactory."

"Satisfactory..." Yuuko mulled over the word. "You played against a Pro and won."

"I have faced pros in the GeneX earlier this year. The glamour tends to wear off after a while."

"Okay..." Yuuko noted that the boy was not easily impressed. "You met Adrian Rodriguez during that time, right?"

"Only in passing. I did not face him in person," Ryuusei shook his head. "He Dueled my friend, Chase."

"Chase Princeton," Yuuko nodded. "He lost that match, we note. So..."

"Well, Rodriguez-san was defeated soon after, so everything works out," Ryuusei shrugged, a careless motion that still drew the eye.

Yuuko swallowed. "Did you think of it as a coincidence that Ishihara Takeshi fell in almost the exact same manner as Adrian Rodriguez, at the same time?"

"In what manner?" the boy's eyes were truly distracting, both cobalt blue like the sky.. truly enthralling, even with the hint of green within.

"Erm..." Yuuko glanced down. "Both looked like they were struck down by some unseen force."

"I see," Ryuusei shut his eyes, before opening them again, and Yuuko had to wonder at the deep green tint those eyes. "Kaname-taicho... I have seen many degrees of Psychic power. Yet I do not believe that even I could have struck Rodriguez-san down in such a manner. Someone would have seen me."

"I see..." Yuuko's voice was faint. "I... I believe you. Thank you, you've been a great help."

"You are welcome, Kaname-taicho." Ryuusei got up. "May I leave now?"

"S-Sure!" Yuuko was tripping all over to get him out, and she was blushing heavily when he left the interrogation room. "Damn... what's with that guy? It's so hot in here..."

Outside, Marguerite nodded approvingly. "You are mastering the use of your aura to fight."

"It was not a fight. I was truly assisting the police," Ryuusei pointed out as he walked down the hallway. "Kaname-taicho just could not seem to ask the correct questions. Who do you think could have done it?"

"An assassin, no doubt," Marguerite considered. "Perhaps one of the Different Dimension people. They can attack swiftly and well, and often they function as the best assassins on both sides. Given that they can work for either Winter or Summer, I do not know..." she trailed off.

Ryuusei looked forward to meet Setsuka's eyes once more, the tingles of iciness playing on his very skin, like being in an industrial fridge. As she walked past him, he could see Dewloren giving a baleful glare at the both of them, and then... and then Setsuka's green-tinged eyes met his own, before she left in a swift saunter that was not unlike a power walk.

Ryuusei paused at the nearest mirror. The green was fading back to blue already, but it was still apparent, still a sign that something was happening to him.

"You will remember," Marguerite whispered. "Titania's feelings, Titania's reactions. You are King of Summer, and as such are subject to the demands placed upon you."

"But we are roles," Ryuusei whispered. "Interchangeable roles."

Marguerite's answering nod was sad. "Yes. Weeks, months, decades... soon, Fudo Ryuusei, the Fudo Ryuusei you were will cease to exist. You realised it, when you used your aura without scruples on the mortal enforcer. In the end, you might not turn out all that different from what Titania was."

"And she's experiencing this at the same time," Ryuusei muttered in a hushed voice, fear lending a pallor to his features. "So this is what she faces... this is what Shimotsuki faces."

"Missy, this..." Nakamura Iemitsu set down the papers. "This should have been made clear when Master James was still here!"

"He is not needed," Setsuka plainly replied, crossing her arms. The two of them were in the apartment where Setsuka had been staying for the past twenty years, set on top of the Arcadia Movement building. "I am quite clear on that subject."

"Missy..." Iemitsu grimaced. "Are you... happy?"

The answer came quickly. "I'm fine."

"That was not what I meant." Iemitsu considered. "Do you remember... when you finally claimed revenge? That we could have gone anywhere in the world, instead of back to this city. Satisfied, if not completely happy... you could have stayed in Australia permanently, Missy."

"I could not have."

"Madam would not have wanted-"

"You do not know what my mother would have wanted, Nakamura-san, because she is dead." the words were hissed with no small amount of venom. "The great and mighty Diana Hunter is dead, and even she must bow down to that inevitable fate."

Iemitsu's lips thinned. "Very well, it is not about Master or Madam. It is now about this new... decision. My work would not change, for all this legal quibbles, and yet... yet you intend to place Miss Seika into this position? She would be hunted, she is not a Psychic. She is no relation of the Hunter family, nor of the Knighton family that Master belonged to before he changed his name, nor was Miss Seika ever registered in the Shimotsuki family. Professor Kannazuki also made it clear that Miss Seika is and will be her own person."

"In managing the payment of ten million yen for Seika, I have already transferred my majority to her," Setsuka defended. "Sixty-five percent of the Arcadia Movement is already listed under the name of Kannazuki Seika, including your employment contract, to be placed into effect under my demise. Nakamura-san, I hate to tell you this, but you are not going to change my mind."

"Very well. I know better than that," Iemitsu conceded. "But why, Missy? I... I would not know how to account to your parents. I have mourned a master, and after that a mistress, and once I have mourned you. I have to mourn again, do I?"

"You don't have to, Nakamura-san, and that is the beauty of death, that the dead do not have to care about the living." Setsuka snapped in irritation. "Talk to their graves if you like."

Iemitsu tried another way. "Missy... your sacrifice has never been needed."

His entreaty was met with a cool stare and a dismissive gesture. "This... this has always been my purpose. This has always been the fate she has been hiding me from. That effort had her killed. Does it look like I can turn back now?"

"I would rather serve a monster than to see my missy die," Iemitsu quietly murmured. "Is there really no other way?"

"There is nothing whatsoever to be done," Setsuka reasoned. "There is nothing you can do. Just know that... It will be a wonderful thing."

"You'll be alright?"

"Yes, Rex," Ryuusei nodded solemnly.

Rex nodded, but his grey eyes were still scrutinising the other. "You're sure?"

"Rex," Chase groaned, still perched on his red and black D-Wheel, Carpe Jugulum. "Come on, we've got to go."

"But... fine," Rex jabbed a finger at Ryuusei. "You. Be careful."

"Yes, Rex," Ryuusei nodded. Now was definitely not the time to get shirty after the hypothetical possibility that someone might have been about to strike Ryuusei and Setsuka instead of the two that did get struck.

The reaction at home was about the same after any brush with danger; Mom being worried, Dad giving him an assessing look, Seika cooking up a storm. It took that much longer before he was alone, in his room, and facing the mirror.

Cool blue eyes stared back at him.

Mirrors are magical things, the Madame's words whispered back. To reflect, to show a world vastly reversed from that we see, opposite in the most fundamental of ways. Yet, we look into a mirror, and we can see ourselves, yet they can also be used against ourselves. So, mirrors must be treated with respect.

He was distracted momentarily by a thump against the window. A stray plum rolled in, as if in offering from the tree that permanently grew outside... even in October, when winter was approaching, and its bearing season had clearly passed.

Staring at the fruit, Ryuusei sank to grab the nearest pillow in a gesture of comfort. "Marguerite... you knew. That... that this could happen to me."

The ghostly form of the Sorciere de Fleur stared coolly back at him. "Why, of course. The mantle changes whoever wears it."

I'm not Tytannial.

Neither was she. Not at first.

"How did you feel?" Marguerite blithely continued.

"Angry," Ryuusei quietly reflected. "Calm. The calm anger of a Duelist."

"As expected of a king who has been challenged, and must put down the challenger," Marguerite nodded. "And you finished him most mercifully with the mark of the Bloody Rose. Ten years, twenty years. It makes no difference, it may well be a long spell for immortals. Death may claim us, but we shall return. Such is the meaning of immortality."

"No."

"It builds," Marguerite's expression was one of pity. "And it will not stop. And then you cannot face yourself-"

The plum lay innocently on a parquet flooring, as if it weren't proof of plant life acting oddly around Ryuusei. "You can't tell me that," he said. "Not you. Do you think I wanted this? Do you think I wanted pain and death and fear and war? Do you think I wanted this mantle, this responsibility?"

"Does what you want matter?" Marguerite lazily asked.

His eyes threatened to well, though his expression didn't change. "What will happen to me?"

The witch tilted her head. "You will forget, slowly. You will grow angry, more easily. Your emotions will become more intense, fiery even. Perhaps your mortal perspectives will be lost to time, as you grow into that which strengthens spirits. Perhaps that knowledge of mortal-kind you hold so dear, which allows you to piece together devices of mortal ferromancy, you will forget, for they are mere facsimiles of what there is. Reason, logic, the cold numbers, they are the domain of winter. Titania has always differed, in that she believed in the wisdom of the heart. Maybe... just maybe, what makes you what you are, in your heart..."

"I'm Fudo Ryuusei. I'm a mechanic," the protest came out harshly, the air stiffening as if in a sweltering summer's day. "I'm a Duelist. Logic, numbers, reason, they are part of me! I'm not Yuuki Judai, I'm someone who reads their Duel strategies! And yet... and yet..."

"And yet you will forget, and there is nothing you can do," Marguerite quietly finished. "It has only been a while. Compared to the Winter Queen, who has been holding this mantle for nearly ten years already, you are a mere babe, and you feel it. Imagine what she must feel, seeing herself slowly degenerate into a monster-"

"She's not one!" Ryuusei shouted. "She's... like me. Powerful, but shut away from making choices all her life because of her power."

A knock sounded on the door. "Ryuusei?"

Ryuusei wiped his face quickly. "Mom? Come in."

Aki entered, quietly shutting the door behind her. "Ryuusei... are you alright?"

"I'm fine," Ryuusei nodded in answer. "The police said it was an accident."

Aki nodded, though she did not seem entirely convinced. "It smells like plum in here."

Ryuusei pointed to the windowsill. "Plum tree."

"Oh." Aki shifted her stance. "Ryuusei... don't worry, okay? The security cams showed that you weren't responsible. Setsuka is also firmly behind you."

"Setsuka?"

"Well..." Aki wrung her hands. "Though officially Nakamura-san is the head, Setsuka is still running most of the works. You know, she's always been like that. Ever since... that day."

"Why? She's just a member now, isn't she?" Ryuusei blinked. "Even my tenure was more smooth-sailing than hers."

"Well, Setsuka will be Setsuka," Aki murmured. "Ryuusei... that Duel, against the pro, Rodriguez... you were angry."

"It's... just a bad day," Ryuusei shook his head.

"You can tell me, you know," Aki sighed, taking a seat on the roller-chair. "You've always kept your problems to yourself, even though we're behind you all the way. We love you, you know."

"Then why couldn't you teach me?"

Aki shook her head. "Ryuusei... I have little experience in controlling my powers. I have never actively used them since my time as a former member of the Movement with... Divine. I... I don't have your strength, Ryuusei. There was so much I couldn't have taught you, and so much of myself I saw in you, I couldn't afford to fail you. Diana... no, Seiran, she already had Setsuka, and look how well she did. Our family owes her a lot. For training you, for taking Seika in, for so many things, even for Setsuka. Did you know, Seiran foretold that Setsuka and you would have an impact on each other's fate?"

"Then why is Setsuka still running the Movement?"

"She..." Aki shook her head. "Setsuka is... very queer. She's... very driven. It's almost impossible to do anything but stand aside and let her have her way. We tried to adopt, and maybe we could have done it, but-"

"So we let her do whatever she wanted alone," Ryuusei flatly replied. "Without guardianship or adult help."

Aki's cheeks turned pink. "Well, Yusei and I had a discussion with Setsuka... and we couldn't have done anything. Nakamura-san was also clearly desperate to keep the last reminder of his Madam with him... we couldn't have done anything. We had one Psychic to worry about. She could have chosen a lot of things... or even waited, but... well, you know what she's like."

"We should've stopped her."

"We..." Aki sighed. "Perhaps. But... it was something to do with the Shimotsuki family, and you know what they're like. Proud and stubborn, even for a child."

"We threw her into a cruel world." Ryuusei stared at his mother. "Her power by itself was a curse, like your own was for you, Mom. She was raised practically from birth to be the next head, there wasn't any other way she could have seen, no other choice for her than to be her mother's daughter. And we took that away from her." His mask cracked. "I think... I think I know what's it like for her. And for us. Mom, you gave me Black Rose for a reason, and do you know what I think? I think the reason why you didn't want to teach me was because you couldn't bear the thought that I was going to be like you."

Aki's face flushed scarlet. "Ryuusei... I never meant it like that, I- I couldn't have taught you. I didn't want you to hate yourself. That's why I-"

"Then why weren't you ever in the Movement when I had to go there for my fittings?" Ryuusei tilted his head, eyes boring at her.

"I am your mother!" Aki huffed.

"It's a perfectly valid question, Mom. You're a doctor. Limiters are listed under medical equipment. And don't insist that your speciality is pharmaceuticals. For a doctor, and a Psychic Duelist, weren't you ever curious enough about the procedure to attend with me?"

Aki paled. "I- I can explain, Ryuusei-"

"I notice things, you know," Ryuusei quietly murmured. "You were hardly ever around to see me Duel. You always left when Black Rose showed up. Dad taught me to Duel, not you, Mom."

"I..." Aki sighed, not meeting him in the eye. "I know. Where... are you going?"

Ryuusei considered the polished brass of the doorknob. "I'm going to do what we should have done a long time ago. And... thanks, Mom."

Meteor Stream's action was smooth, coordinated, and definitely not in need of calibration for a while. Ryuusei rode it on the highways, feeling slightly miffed about not having school for the duration of the tournament, but DA Kings was persistent in getting the honour of winning the Dirge.

He made a parallel park in front of the Arcadia Movement building, staring up at the cliff-like face of the building, parts of the polished surfaces gleaming in the darkness of night.

He pulled a card. "Reed Butterfly."

The insect spread delicate wings, already taking to the skies long after, leaving a trail of glitter in passing. The murmurs of the local spirits, faded and muted in shadow and night, passed with it, bubbles of curiosity floating about them. Then the howl of dogs echoed, and with them the harsh pants of a man, running up behind Ryuusei, desperately reaching out towards the entrance but then sinking to his knees, horror written in every line of his face before he spied Ryuusei.

"The Queen's hounds," he whispered, before he closed his eyes.

Ryuusei did not move at all.

It was a while more, when Ryuusei was sure that the small messenger had already passed its message, that the other appeared in a bell tone of awful silence.

The outside of the Arcadia Movement had been kept scrupulously clean. There were legends about what happened when people started to vandalise it. Torture was involved in some manner. Either way, the outside, usually sans dead body, was now much more creepy, and Ryuusei swallowed as he considered the trees planted around it. With so many trees and buildings and non-disclosure agreements any fight that took place on Arcadia Movement ground was as good as being arrested, that is, officially disregarded. Then she appeared, and the air morphed into one of cold, crisp winter night.

Shimotsuki Setsuka negligently kicked the dead body, before looking at him. "You called me."

Ryuusei lifted his chin, meeting her eyes. "Are you... aren't you... under-dressed?"

She wore leather short-shorts, military boots, and a bikini top, all of midnight blue. The top came without straps, and the shorts dug distractingly into bunched thigh muscles. The boots were calf-high, and laced up in a criss-crossing manner that seemed at once practical and yet drawing the eye. Black hair was plaited to match, coiled around her neck like some dark serpent of a pet against pale skin. If Ryuusei cared to peer at her thigh, he would have seen the criss-cross of fine scars, scars he knew came from an accident once upon a time in the Black Garden over a misunderstanding. There was no wind. Just pure, brittle, crystalline silence and a sudden bleak black presence. She wore no weapons or DuelDisk, but her eyes were wide with the certainty of one who knows that she is armed well beyond the ability of her enemy to withstand.

There was silence. The air stilled. There was virtually no sound.

"You got my message." Ryuusei nodded.

She was a statue for a few seconds. She didn't so much as nod back, to any measurable degree, but some micro-change in her body language indicated acknowledgement. Overhead, a curtain-cloud of jackdaws, ravens and other assorted types of urban fowl began to gather in a cloud overhead, their squawks curiously muted.

"I need to talk to you."

Her expression did not change. "Speak, then."

Ryuusei opened his mouth, and then shut it. "This man... Fumizuki? Is that-"

"I caught him attempting to dump a corpse on our steps." her voice was toneless, dismissive, uncaring. "That was about three days ago. I set the hounds of Winter upon him, as I promised vengeance. It looks like he has run for three days straight, tiring of exhaustion only for Doma's embrace to take him."

Ryuusei suppressed the shiver that threatened. Handling Setsuka always meant clamping down and holding onto his poker face for dear life. "Is this what he meant? Rodriguez-san, he said that he was doing this for individuals who have the right not to have their lives taken from them."

"So he did," she murmured.

"Did you start this?" Ryuusei took a step forward. "Shimotsuki, did you kill people? Like you did now, so casually and... those were people."

"They ceased to be people to my eye when they touched those I protect," Setsuka stared at him. "You came to talk. So talk. Or you have already begun, and coincidence has granted you the perfect opening volley."

He took a deep, calming breath. "... I thought Marguerite was the big deal all year round. But she wasn't. There are events in motion. Very large events, with serious ramifications for basically the whole world. Marguerite was just the... opening act."

Her eyes narrowed. She nodded her head a fraction of an inch.

"Tsugare-san, my power..." Ryuusei shrugged. "Rodriguez-san and Ishihara-san falling against us in our respective duels, the Duel Spirits gathering..."

"The coming storm." Setsuka clarified. "The natural world in chaos. Tension between the Courts. Odd activity in the mortal and magical world alike."

"Mostly the tension," Ryuusei shook his head. "Is it... an imbalance?"

"Do you think I know?"

"You're the Winter Queen," Ryuusei argued. "You don't get power without knowledge."

"That is true."

"I need to know," Ryuusei shook his head. "What to do? What should I do?"

Setsuka did a statue impersonation for a long moment. Then she turned her head to one side and stared out toward the lake, the glimmer of the Infinity monument clear in the distance. "I do not know."

"Will you help me?"

Something flickered over her face when he said that, an emotion that he could not place. She turned abruptly away and seemed to consider her surroundings. "We shall see," she said. She turned back to him, her eyes intent. "Why did you come here?"

"This is the Arcadia Movement," Ryuusei slowly replied. "Our sanctuary. The shared place Madame Shimotsuki protected, and now you protect. Where so many began to take different paths. Madame would call it... a conjunction. A kairotic moment."

She turned her head slowly, as if listening. There was no sound but the constant, muffled white noise of thousands of wings beating. "But this place is more than that."

Ryuusei shrugged. "It's just you and me. Honestly, who would get between two of the Movement's more powerful Duelists?"

"What do you want to do?"

"I want peace," he automatically answered. "Family. I want to build D-Wheels, I'm good at it. Maybe... maybe, I'm not cut out to be a Duelist. I Duel well, everyone tells me that, but... I'm content as I am. I never wanted pain or fear or responsibility. I never asked to be King of Summer. I just wanted... I just wanted to protect people, and live in peace. I thought offering Marguerite a link would mean that."

She nodded sharply, her expression thoughtful. "Samildanach. Master of All Arts. A title for the Light. That was yours." She tilted her head the other way, the beating of wings growing slower and more quiet. "The 'seeds' were meant to find the two who holds the souls of Maeve and Titania, and then find the two whose destinies were connected to oppose. And slowly... slowly, those who hold the 'seeds' will be drawn to either side. It is the way it is."

"And what is the way?"

She smiled, and did not answer. "What do you think of Tsugare and Koichi?"

"Huh? They're together?" Ryuusei blinked, and his expression indicated that he had been thrown off balance. "I don't."

"Meaning?"

"Meaning it doesn't have a lot to do with me," he said. "It's none of my business what they do."

"You don't feel that they are morally wrong to do so?"

"I have no idea if it's right or wrong," he said. "To me, it mostly doesn't matter."

"And why not?"

"Because even if they are doing something immoral, I'd be an idiot to start criticising them for it if I wasn't perfect myself. A lot of things are self-destructive and wrong. But people do that stuff all the time. I'm not qualified to lecture other people about how they live their lives."

"Are you not 'only human'? Will you not always be imperfect?"

"Now you're catching on," Ryuusei crossed his arms in suspicion. "Weren't you the one who started the mandatory... sex talk thing?"

"Sexual education sessions," she absently corrected.

"Yeah. Which means that you don't have a problem with them as well. So why are you asking? It's a cruel world. It's hard to find love. We should all be happy when someone manages to do it."

"Love," Setsuka said. "Is that what happens here? Are Tsugare and Koichi in love?"

"Maybe, maybe not." Ryuusei suddenly felt tired. "But they aren't hurting anyone."

"Why should that matter?"

"Because people should be free." Ryuusei insisted. "The Madame said it before. As long as they aren't hurting anyone else, they should be free to do it."

"Judging from the world, it does not seem to be."

"Yeah. A lot of people don't get that," he said. "They get caught up in right and wrong. But, none of that stuff matters if people aren't free."

Setsuka glanced at him, still not moving. The October chill did not seem to disturb her as it did him, and he was wearing a jacket while Setsuka wore things that should be on shounen manga covers featuring military exploits. It probably knew better than to disturb her. She was Winter, after all.

"Why are you asking me about that, of all things?" he asked.

"Because it felt appropriate. Because my instincts told me that your answers would tell me something about you that I needed to know." She took a deep breath. "Tonight, the fifteenth of October, was the day of the White Witch Massacre. It started because of your stolen Blood Rose Dragon and my mother recovering it."

Ryuusei swallowed, nodding.

"The Massacre brought home to authorities the power of the Movement, and of my mother," Setsuka continued. "We were one of the strongest Psychic Duelist movements, arguably the first ever. I was proud of my mother. I still am. My mother was the storm that swept in the revolution."

A deep breath. "But I did not miss her too much. My mother was powerful, for that was what she was. But she was not strong. My father was strong. Even if you took the fact that he had no Psychic power, no special ability past being able to see the spirits, he was strong, because that was what he was. I loved my father, for all the humanity he had. But humanity did not save him in the end. One summer day, the mother I was proud of, and the father I loved, were attacked, brought low by the same powers of people my mother has been fighting all her life; oppressors and ignorant people like Fumizuki. They don't understand, that the spirits and we are of the same worlds, and of different worlds. That we are not so different, that we do not understand each other or even ourselves sometimes. My parents' death, precipitated by the fact that your Blood Rose Dragon was stolen."

"I couldn't have helped it," Ryuusei shook his head. "I was ten then."

"I know." her lips actually twitched. "In many ways, you and I are alike. In many more, we are different. Mostly, we follow the supremacy of the mind. Sometimes, though, we follow the wisdom of the heart. Though, I follow my instinct."

"Meaning?"

Setsuka lifted her hand and spoke a single word, and the air rang with power. The ground buckled, ripping the concrete under her feet apart and flinging him onto his back.

"Meaning," she said, her voice hot and furious, "that you might as well have murdered my parents."

The clouds overhead rotated faster. Birds flew shrieking in every direction, as if released from a centrifuge. She raised a hand again, and a bolt of lightning fell from the tempestuous sky and blew a smoking crater an arm's length away from him. At the same time, the ground cracked, and at his feet erupted the roots of trees and a warm wind. Lightning flashed overhead, and winds howled, tropical and arctic forces alike clashing in the hundred-metre radius overhead to protect him.

"You dare!" she screamed. "To come here this night! To ask me to interfere in your own business! You, who placed the target on my mother!"

Lightning split the skies overhead, Ryuusei blocking one strike with another, a light drizzle beginning to fall and yet touching neither of them, an Arctic blast charging head-first into a tropical front. Technically fate had thrown them for a loop, but he should not have taken it out to show others, even though it was his property. A child waving rare cards around was a prime target, and the Shimotsuki family had paid for his mistake. One way or another, in helping him, the Madame had outed herself... and the guilt still bit deep.

Thunder rumbled, heavy and basso against high and sweet, and the birds continued chirping overhead, sparrows' chirps and ravens' caws in a discordant symphony.

"I could have killed you in a thousand ways," she snarled, her lean and lush proportions oddly predatory even with her lack of clothings. "I could have scattered your bones to the far corners of the earth. I could have fed you to my pets and make you scream the entire while. I could have visited torments on you that would make my worst victims' fate seem kind by comparison. I want to eat your heart."

The vines and their thorns bristled as Ryuusei scrabbled to his feet, elbows and knees tucked close, enduring and ready. He met her eye to eye, blue-green against blue-green. The wind blew colder and stronger, throwing cold droplets into his face. One gust of wind brought the sound of an airliner overhead, and another the lonely whistle of a freight train. Distantly, a bell rang out several times, a solemn sound like a funeral dirge. Beyond that, nothing stirred.

And then, she lowered her hands, the droplets frozen into frost once they touched the ground. "I could have done these things. But none of them," she whispered, "would give me my family back. None of them would fill the emptiness within me. I have with me fifty thousand followers within this very city, and I estimate forty percent to have been abandoned by their families. I have people I protected out of obligation, if nothing else, because it is my mother's wish."

"You can choose," Ryuusei whispered. "That choice hasn't been taken away from you."

"In that case, why are you coming to me for help?"

He opened his mouth, and shut it again. "Because..."

"Because people have grown used to my being in charge," she answered. "Because no one else is motivated enough to take this responsibility. Because no one else can make the sacrifice, or is willing to ere my retirement. I had no one to help me with the mantle of the Winter Queen. I had no one assist me, advise me to temper the rage, the hate, the predator. Dewloren might as well have made his intention for me to turn into something closer to Maeve in bright neon colours and painted it in fireworks across the night skies. And you still insist on coming to me, still insist on keeping me to this responsibility."

"You're right," he quietly murmured. She lost her parents, she had to put her life back together after losing her home, and she had power, power easily abused. A grieving Nakamura-san couldn't have been an able mentor for her. Even for all her tremendous psychic power and wealth, she must have been horribly afraid, and sad, and lonely. "I'm sorry. I never thought... you still have a choice."

"Now," she said, her freezing voice bitter. "Now you give me a choice. Thus do I choose, you son of a bitch. See yourself degenerate, losing all moral impulse until you become what you fear; the monsters of the summer's darkness. See yourself turn into as disregarding as the plagues, the heat. Fire and death all around you." Fury in her eyes and a smile on her lips, and Ryuusei could not quite stifle the shiver. "And I will not even lift a finger to help you in the night to come. You will suffer, and you will be alive to see it coming, and that is the destiny I will leave you to. You have cursed yourself more admirably than I will ever do to you."

"But then what happens to my parents?" Ryuusei burst out. "What happens to Seika? You can't blame me for something Madame chose to do!"

"I am not a fool. I know. I know what had to be done. But, my family. I cannot forget that you had a hand, however unwitting, in taking them from me. I cannot forgive you. I hate you, whatever my reason might say. I will not help you here, or now, since my obligation is over." She paused. "But this thing I will tell a Lord of the Ever-Green, who believes in freedom: You must learn greater discretion. All things will end, but you can see that they will end later, rather than sooner."

With that she turned and began walking away. "You say that people should be free. I agree. I will not shackle you. Make your choices. We will face each other on Halloween."

A relatively small flock of birds, only a few hundred, blurred by between the rulers of Winter and Summer. When they had passed, she was gone, leaving Ryuusei for once to curse fate.

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