Digimon Fan Fiction ❯ Oasis ❯ Oasis: Beginning ( Chapter 1 )

**This story is written for Herongale's Kensuke contest. *grin* I don't own digimon, pine away wishing it were otherwise, and thus create a universe in their honor. The small parts of the lyrics you'll see are from Celine Dion's "A New Day." Good song…*sigh*

On a second note, you'll notice I've used the zodiac/planetary thingy. That's an actual thing, if you wanna do a search and find out stuff about birth charts. I did myself…and was simply stunned at the result. But anyhoo, I plugged in a few birthdays I thought would work as Ken/Dai's…*winks to the ML* and got the birthchart thingy. I had them saved, and I dunno if they'll work for you, but they work for my story. Lucky me. Heh.

Oh, and this story will (prays) in three parts about this long. And tis long for me…ne? Anyhoo, onwards and enjoy!!

Oasis

~* Cancer of the fourth house, ruled by Pluto *~

~And the world thought I had it all

But I was waiting for you~

From the trees of the Forest he saw them approach, three weary men each on equally tired beasts, animals called horses, he believed. He noted the clouds of dust shaken from the ground, floating wistfully around the slender legs of the animals while the men drooped in their seats. Even from this distance, he could see the sweat glisten on the faces, darkening the dull coats of the steeds.

Curious, and afraid, he hid himself away in highest and thickest crown of his trees, taking care that even if one of the human males were to look up he'd see nothing but green leaves and swaying branches. His emotions ran high, turbulent and new and frightening. It had been a long time since he had any contact with other…humans.

For a long time, watching, he was thankful that he was good at concealing himself. He had been doing the very same thing for several years now, but it had been nearly as long since he had seen travelers near the Forest. The last glimpse of a person, human or not, had been from a long distance only a year and a half ago. This…this was something completely new. For an hour's time he watched, perched motionless, as the small group plodded closer, daring to pass within the shadows of the trees themselves-this act amazed him even more than the fact that there were humans in the area.

Then, to his greatest fear and astonishment, they stopped.

~\*/~

"Here's a place as good as any," one of them said. The bundle tied down across the withers stirred briefly. "This place is cursed, so let's just drop him here." His gaze took in the trees, unnaturally grown in the spreading landscape of nothing but desert and scrubby grass, and shuddered.

His companion nodded with a sigh, then sneered. "I don't care-I just want to get rid of him. He's been nothing but trouble-I don't know why we agreed in the first place."

"Because there was a large sum of money involved?" the third one, leading the group, replied over his shoulder. "Go ahead and drop him here," he muttered and resumed watching the trees. "The sooner we get back to the city, the sooner we get paid. Besides, he's been drugged enough to last another three days."

"Yeah, yeah," the first speaker muttered, and produced a knife from a sheath secured beneath his tunic. He sawed at the ropes around the bundle, slicing away canvas and the only stability provided. Then, sheathing the gleaming blade with one hand, he shoved it off the sloping shoulders with a foul curse. "Dirty half-breed git," he muttered scornfully, then spat.

Bruised and dirty, sweaty and unconscious, the boy crumpled to the hard cracked ground like a stone, with a bone-shuddering thud and looking nearly dead, concealed under folds of ripped and stained fabric.

"Bah…" the leader said and backed his beast away from the trees. "Good riddance."

For a long time afterwards, the noise of the wind, brisk and hot and stale, was the only sound rising off the desert. The trees swayed gently, thick powerful trunks and shade-giving boughs creaking faintly. The sun dipped lower, stretching the cool shadows further into the desert, enfolding the boy as he lay still motionless where he had been cast.

~\*/~

By the time nightfall came, he had decided that the small bundle of whatever the men had dropped off was harmless. It hadn't attacked or moved, given any sign that it was aggressive. Thus, cramped and stiff from sitting still for a long stretch of time, he slipped down the tree and landed softly on the sandy earth just inside the first line of the forest.

For the longest time nothing had came. Nothing had been left, either.

Now, he didn't know what quite to do.

~What about the-rules?~ his mind reminded him.

Reluctantly, he agreed. There was that, although some nights he could barely contain the wonder, the wanderlust and the grief at reasons he lived here, there was that.

It was all he had.

So, thinking in an endless loop about his future and the possibilities of the unidentified crumpled rags, he stood inside the trees, staring out and wiggling his bare toes absently in the sandy earth. The wind, hot and beginning to smell faintly of rain from the far off mountains to the south, blew his hair and his scant coverings in gauzy whirls.

~I wonder what it is…perhaps clothing…or rotten food? I wasn't able to hear the humans speak…but they were eager to get rid of this…~

The wind shifted, picked up strength, and fluttered the edges of the rotting canvas draped over whatever was laying out there.

His heart pounding rapidly, he took the first step forward, easing lithely between trees and low-swinging branches until he was walking along the edge of a fading shadow. The fine-wrought silver dagger was a welcome weight in the middle of his back, hung on a loop of loose twine. If he looked up, he could see the starts speckling the heart of the sky, glinting off the small pieces of quartz in the sand. The night was beginning drop rapidly, and it would be nearly freezing by the apex of the moon's rise.

He stood only a few feet away, then, his shadow an ugly blot upon the sand, stretched and disproportionate from the setting sun, and looked down. Crouching and stretching his arm to the fullest, he yanked the patched and torn canvas away-

And looked down upon a boy.

~\*/~

In ancient times, when the wind was young and fresh as it ruffled over the world, an equally ancient Being, powerful and neither good nor evil, agreed to a vow spoken in haste, in anger, in jealousy.

The vow became a spell, and it bound the boy to the brother whose hatred summoned the power. The glyph-bind keyed into the boy's untapped potential, conveying the incredible power into the dark well of the brother's power and fueling it. The boy became the life and Source of the elder brother, feeding him invincibility and glyph-magic like water. The vow became the spell, and the boy became the Source, and the brother became a demi-god.

The Being warned him the night of his ascension that out of his hatred would spring the spell to un-bind the boy from him, regardless of power, regardless of place.

"Hatred bound, the heart's desire, two of equal force and equal power." spoke the Being, after the glyph glowed into finality.

The brother merely laughed, already feeling the drug-like effect of the bind, and forgot about the words, a prophecy of his own demise while the boy slept. The boy would live, and be his Source, his power, for the rest of his life. "You speak in riddles," he mocked the Being in his pride. "If it is important, then tell me plainly-I have much to do."

The wind moaned long and hard while the Being, invisible, powerful, waited for the right words to come to his mind. "This glyph-bind is out of his love for you, which you return with hatred. The glyph-bind controls his power now, wraps it in a mesh of webbing that is tied to you, a power that you tap into from his heart. If he loves truly another soul..." the Being trailed off, its existence neither good nor evil, and gave the arrogant youngling his own thoughts to mull over.

It didn't take the brother very long to figure out exactly what the Being meant, and took action. The Oasis was created, towering trees and a small spring, far from the cities and populations of the humans he began to rule. The boy became a secret, a weapon, and the brother ruled, safe and untouchable in his rising empire.

However.

Life, destiny, and fate have a way of shifting the balance of power.

If something is unseen…it does not mean that it does not exist.

~\*/~

He stood, frozen, by the side of a boy fallen to the earth. It was the first time he had seen such a boy, something like him…and yet…Greedily, his eyes soaked up the sight, the darkened skin, so different from his own pale skin, the odd mahogany hair, the color of the ember-glowing furniture in the small quarters. Something different, something new…

~Forbidden!~ his mind reminded.

Compared to this boy-child sprawled upon the sands, he knew that he was something completely different. Energy flowed through him like blood, natural and sweet with power. Power that he felt all the way to the core of his soul, ribbons of light and woven color that wrapped around him, stemmed from him and sometimes brought him to his knees in dizzying whirls. When he was young it had been worse, only letting up the exhausting strange drain when he managed to learn how to regulate the amount of power flooding through his glyphs and around him. Magic came at his beck, natural things like breathing and speaking and went-

-somewhere. He didn't know where, and it didn't matter.

He remembered the first words he had heard from the Being, the story told about his brother's greed, and the gifts bestowed upon him while in his sand-surrounded prison. He remembered, faintly, the sound of his brother's laughter, the smile in similar eyes as they would run upon the grass…It seemed so long ago that his brother had been innocent, and laughing freely with him. The Being thought he didn't remember things before the time he had been here…but he was wrong. It was hazy with time and youth, but he could remember some.

And, with those thoughts, came the self-hatred and the conviction that his brother had to love him. Oh, his brother was powerful and strong and hateful, but never to him. His brother had protected him when the people killing their family and taking their land had come-he had saved them both and spirited him away from the scenes of destruction and death and blood. Here, in the desert, surrounded by the magical trees and creatures, his brother had given many gifts to placate him, strange and wondrous creatures that took it upon themselves to protect him-while he yearned to be seen, and hated himself for such folly.

His brother knew what was best, and he should never question it.

The wind shifted then, blowing fine particles of sand against his legs in a sudden flurry, and he knew that a storm was coming.

His eyes strayed to the motionless form, a thin lip gnawed by perfect white teeth, and thought with his clever brain. He was unconscious-if he, perhaps, dragged the boy into shelter and then hid himself away…

His brother would not have to know, and would not become angry, and the boy upon the sands would live.

There were rules to follow.

But the enforced one, the first rule…

"Never evershow yourself to another human-they would kill you on sight! I worry about you, little one and I couldn't bear it if you were taken from me…"

That one was never to be broken.

Never.

~\*/~

…16 years ago…

~* Aries of the seventh house, ruled by the Sun *~

~Where there was weakness I found my strength

All in the eyes of a boy~

The first time he had heard of the wailing creature cradled in his mother's arms, an unlucky servant made the mistake of interrupting his struggling attempts to puzzle out the thick dusty tome discovered in the back of the family library.

Furious, for the meaning of one particular statement had been on the verge of explaining itself to him, he looked up with rage playing across his young nine-year-old face. "You dare?!" he whispered, and thought to himself that when he had enough power and knowledge to do more than simple spells, the man would have been dead for such a transgression.

Even so, the servant cowered, head ducked against the cold wooden floor and trembled. "The lady has given birth," he breathed out. He didn't dare raise his eyes-the temper of the firstborn son was legend among the servants. "You have a brother, young Master."

"That's all?" the young boy muttered. He sounded curiously disappointed. "I knew about that," he remarked off hand and dropped his eyes back to the barely legible scrawling script on the faded vellum. His attention thus diverted, he quickly fell into the entrancing promise of power-something he craved at the young age, being studious and ambitious and clever-and barely noticed as the servant peeked upward, gasping softly at the sight.

The firelight from a dozen candles, kept to shed light upon the spread of books and scrolls, flickered across the stern stubborn-set face, traces of the man he would become glimpsed like planes of glass. The shifting glow lanced across the lenses of his spectacles, hiding the iron blue eyes from view as the mouth twitched, pursing as the eyes roved eagerly over the words the servant could barely read. There was hardness in the set of the mouth, the line of the jaw, a hardness that the servant knew well.

The boy glanced up, alerted to the presence by the soft breathy sound, impatiently frowning as he saw the servant still kneeling just inside the door. "You're still here?"

The servant had ducked his head at the first motion. "Your Lady mother wishes you to attend her, young master."

The book slammed shut with a surprising forceful sound, raising dust and sparking motes into the air. The particles, caught in the updraft of the heat of the candle flames, wreathed the sneering face in oddly precognitive sparkles-and it was then that the servant knew the child seated before him would be dangerous.

"Very well," the voice was modulated, smooth, as the firstborn of the Ichijouji family stood. A clever cunning child, a trait left over from his grandsire, a thin and leanly-muscled form from the early required training, Osamu brushed off his clothing and strode through the cloud of sparkling motes, past the flinching servant and to the door.

~\*/~

His mother, frail and smiling widely after her labor, smiled just as brightly in the bedroom and motioned him over. She cooed down at a mewling bundle as Osamu forced away a sneer. His mother adored him-the least he could do was make the appropriate sounds.

"Momma," he inclined his head.

She looked up again, and he could see the weary lines of exhaustion around her eyes, coloring her skin pale. She reached to touch his face fondly. "My little Osamu," she whispered. She was leaning heavily against the pillows that supported her, but the joy in her frame was boundless. "Look-I have a brother for you."

Osamu looked, then, as she peeled back the blanket to show a small wrinkled face. It was snuffing, and pink, watching everything with sleepy burbles as he rubbed tightly curled fists against his cheeks. ~A brother,~ he thought, and peered at the child. In spite of himself, Osamu reached out to press an ink-stained finger to the velvet of the cheek. A thick shock of blue-black hair, another trait left over from the grandsire on their father's side, crowned the tiny head. For a long moment he marveled at the strange creature, knowing it would somehow grow into a man…

"He takes after Father's side," Osamu pointed out softly. His mother nodded, beaming. "What will you name him?"

"I've named him Ken," the woman, Rika, murmured. The weariness tugged at her, pulling her into a instinctual need to sleep, but she forced herself awake to see her sons. She smiled again, her slim long-fingered hands wrapping around similar hands, young and ink-colored.

~Ken…~ Osamu cocked his head, and glanced into the murky gray-blue eyes that all newborns have and felt a frission of premonition spark through him. ~Ichijouji Ken…ah…little one, welcome to my world…~

~\*/~

…Here and Now…

The storm was already blowing against the protective barrier of the trees by the time he managed to pull the limp heavy body beyond the line and into the low grasses, skeins of skittering sand stinging the exposed flesh in erratic bursts. Sand had caked to him, sticking to the patches of sweat produced from the unusual exertion. Ken panted, promising himself a thorough bath after he had gotten the human deeper into his home. Thank god the boy hadn't awakened yet.

Groaning, Ken readjusted his hold on the leather ropes still wrapped around the wrists and tugged, leaning back and gaining a few more inches. "Damn," he muttered softly, when his muscles proved to be at their limit and the body didn't move another inch.

~What am I going to do now?~

Sighing, he plopped himself down, releasing his cramping fingers and massaging them as sand drifted off in generous amounts. He looked up, seeing the fading light from the sunset nearly gone. The moon would be rising soon, he knew, but that was another half-hour away.

~Who exactly am I saving?~ he thought, brushed at his arms. ~I shall need light to see,~ he thought. Without another thought, he brought his hands together, left palm up and right palm held directly over it, facing down, and spread his fingers. "Sai'yne," he whispered softly, and pulled his hands slightly.

A small spark of pure bluish light flickered into view, whirling and feeding upon itself as Ken focused through his hands until the size was enough to satisfy him. He smiled, pleased at the amount of light given off, and set it to float just over his shoulder. "Let's see, shall we?"

He leaned over the wrists still extended his way, clucking his tongue over the oozing sores and bruises he could see under the sand and cracked ropes. Carefully, reaching past, he set the body upon the back as well as he could, and returned to examine the wrists.

~Those men were cruel to him,~ he thought crossly, and traced a general unlocking glyph over the ropes. Immediately the ropes loosened, and Ken pulled him off and tossed them far away while lifting one hand. Dusty and streaked with blood, it was a slender wrist, narrow and oddly colored, he noticed, as he rubbed at the skin. He had never seen skin this dark. "This will never do," he murmured fretfully to the wounds, and placed the arms into a more natural position.

The boy, his sweat-darkened hair plastered to his skull, mewed in the back of his throat, his shoulders hitching as if the movement pained him.

"Oh, forgive me," Ken whispered, leaning. His fingers slid against the ripped fabric of what was once a tunic. He took a moment to notice the multitude of faded bruises on the smoother and sand-free skin, but the rags he wore would have to go, Ken thought absently, and fingered the strange half-hidden charm held with coarse-woven fibers.

~Odd,~ he thought, and forgot about it as the boy shuddered again.

~I have to get him inside, where I can get to water and bandages…~

Time enough later to wonder about his origins, and the threat he posed.

~\*/~

…11 years past…

"Sam! Sam!"

A tousled head rose, scowling replaced by automatic curiosity. Smudges covered the young face and limber hands, and as he pushed back the silver spectacles, left another on his nose. Footsteps, light and quick, sounded hollowly as the child only five now, ran down the stairs with the intention of coming into his private workshop.

"Ken, stop!" he called, folding up the scrolls and pinpointing the exact moment the child reached the landing. "I'll be right out!"

Knowing the limitation upon the room, a small chubby face framed by a wild shock of straight violet-blue hair grinned in at him from just around the corner. An act that would have any of the servants whipped, but Ken…

Ken somehow had the ability to ease around Osamu's stricter rules without breaking them. "Horses!" he was saying breathlessly.

Osamu, somehow nicknamed "Sam" by the younger Ichijouji, smiled indulgently. "Really? Where?" he asked as he pulled on a cleaner tunic and swiped at his face. The flash of irritation he had felt in his fourteen-year frame was gone, vanished at the interruption of the younger brother. Now, the low constant curiosity gnawed at him. This child, with the indigo eyes a shade lighter than his, had the ability to manipulate his elder brother like no one else allowed. Not even Father held the right to command Osamu…but Ken was able to ask questions and cling and admire him without getting himself hurt.

Osamu told himself that he only allowed it for several reasons. One, it kept his Mother happy to see him otherwise involved, and the delightful benefit of that was she snooped around his rooms less, worried about him and claiming he needed more sun. A second reason, one he didn't quite realize yet, was because Ken absolutely adored him for some reason that absolutely mystified him. All of his curiosity was directed, at times, to discovering this oddity, but he couldn't know that Ken was merely reacting in the way his instincts urged him, that it was the way smaller brothers acted almost everywhere. Osamu, in his own right, was quite suspicious of any overture made towards him-he had been raised to learn and understand everything, and over time, that gift of knowledge soured into a desire to know everything. He assumed, after several bouts of politics and savage power-exchanges witnessed at several late-night meetings, that to know everything was to have everything.

In a way, he was quite right, and yet so far from the mark…

And in a way Osamu was thrilled to have someone fawning over him, giving him the due respect that he knew he deserved, being as powerful as he could be at such a young age.

His selfsame desire to know and learn had led him into the darker arts of a glyph-mage, and the arcane arts. He had become quite proficient in the simpler spells, and the ability to summon them, control and wield them pleased him for only a short while. It was something secret, and however childish, Osamu found that the thought of a secret more satisfying than the ability to control the darker glyph-magic. Of course, the glyphs had their uses as well, being a difficult magic at best, and while only a few specific lines of blood could use them, Osamu had discovered that he was of such blood… It had shown him that having a secret, no matter which kind, was a power in itself, and therefore having a powerful secret was even better.

As he passed out the door, smiling fondly down at the young child hopping anxiously foot to foot, he pressed his hand against the grain of the wood and twisted, leaving a faint and fading mark upon the wood, the glyph for Shielding. Now, after he removed his hand, anyone attempting to enter would find himself wandering the upper halls with no memory of the recent minutes.

"Come, little one," he said to Ken. "Show me the horses…"

~I don't even need my magic to control him,~ he mused as Ken grinned and bolted up the stairs with all the effortless and slightly clumsy luck of a child. ~He does it for me…~

And there was so much more to learn…

~\*/~

…Here and Now…

~A new day has come…~

With the eerie surrealistic quality dreams have as they hover on the edge of a waking mind, Daisuke woke, thinking blurrily that he must have passed into the next world. Then, as fleeting as the half-remembered dreams of his sleep, he realized it wasn't so. His throat was parched dry-he could barely speak, as he opened his eyes into darkness, his body on fire and protesting everything. If he was dead, he wouldn't have felt these things, right? Confusion reigned, followed by a close secondary panic that tasted metallic on his tongue as he became aware that he was somewhere else now…and not in the hands of those damned men.

Sharply, painfully, he inhaled and smelled-green? Plants and earth and something not desert… And he was laying on something soft, a bed, perhaps. A faintly cool breeze, carrying more of the scented green smell, grazed soothingly across his body. Shakily, he inhaled again, blinded by the natural darkness of night, and felt a small tension relax minutely. He was safe. Someone must have-

Hands, cool against the feverish warmth of his healing skin, brushed his face, and for a moment he considered resisting, feeling a thread of fear, thought of grabbing the slim appendages and twisting the bones beneath and fleeing, when the first drops of liquid spattered onto his face. ~Water!~ came his astonished thought. ~Where am I?~ The cool rim of a wooden cup touched his lips, and he opened his mouth eagerly to accept the water without another question.

Again, the thought that he was safe passed through his mind. Fatigue scored through him, pulling him under as the slight refreshment of the water sent his body into an instinctual sleep necessary for healing. Sighing, feeling the cool touch of those hands binding his wrists-it took a second for the impact of being bandaged to strike him-he closed his eyes, and slipped into another span of dreamless unconsciousness, wondering at the strange turn of events even as he fell.

~\*/~

Ken sat back, shaking with tremors too fine to notice, but strong enough to send the remaining water in the cup sloshing. He was thankful for the darkness, thankful that the man-child had been in too deep a fever to realize he was in a strange place.

Thankful that he hadn't broken his vow to his brother.

~Yet,~ a part of him whispered. ~It's a matter of time before a mistake is made…~

~No!~ he thought fiercely, overcome with the unrecognized need for another face, something new, and the loyalty to his blood he kept shrouded around him as a means of sanity. The unreasoning lure that this nameless half-grown manling scared him-he was happy here, in his Oasis with the visits from his avenging brother, still searching for the killers of their family, with his aloneness, with-

-nothing here but himself.

Stricken, torn, Ken dropped the cup from nerveless fingers and rose unsteadily to his feet, avoiding the sight of the other person curled up upon his bed, clean and young and something striking to his eyes. Something new…

~..forbidden…~ his mind recounted weakly.

~..forbidden to be seen…~ he responded slowly, breathing shallow rasping breaths as he found himself backing slowly away from the small divan. ~So I won't be seen.~

For the first time in over six years, Ken found himself scrutinizing the rules that Osamu had laid out, and with a thrill of excitement and a dash of fear, summed up to himself that if he wasn't seen by the eyes of this one…

…then he hadn't broken the rule.

~Besides,~ he convinced himself, a surprisingly easy feat that made him wonder in the back of his mind at how much he missed the sound of different voices and the simple diversity it offered by taking this rejected human to himself.

~I have to give him time to heal…~

~\*/~

~…5 years past…~

"You're back!!"

The moment he stepped into the garden courtyard, a simple delight created from his mother's affection for flowers, he heard the voice call out to him in greeting. Osamu scowled, wishing away whoever it was-he was sore tired and dirty from the road, and didn't feel like being bothered. Idly, as he looked around for the source of the voice, he wondered if his little one was with his mother today, when he saw the face peering at him from the balcony.

Ken. It had to be.

~My little one isn't so little,~ he thought vaguely as the face grinned at him before disappearing from view. He could hear the set of pounding footsteps, familiar and yet oddly lighter, as his little brother vaulted down steps in his haste to greet Osamu.

Then a lithe whipling of a figure, dressed in loose creamy linen and dark worn boots, came into view and pelted for him. "Osamu!" he cried and dashed forward with a laugh. "You're back!" Ken cried again, wrapping his arms around the older and broader form of his brother.

"It's only been a year, little one," Osamu murmured even as his skin writhed at the feel of human contact. To avoid it, he took hold of the narrow shoulders, pushing back the boy before him and ran over him with his gaze. Hair, long and straight where his was coarse and slightly spiked, and brilliant indigo eyes watched him fearlessly. "You've grown," he remarked simply. The linen, he noted, was smudged in places from his traveling gear, darkened with sweat and grime.

Ken smiled widely at the oblique praise. "Did you enjoy traveling as a squire? What places did you see? Did you-"

Osamu smiled at the familiar and yet oddly irritating boy. His little one. "I'll tell you about my travels later, little one. Tell me, what happened while I was gone?" he interrupted, and kept a hand on the shoulder as they turned and began to walk towards the larger estate. Ken barely noticed, only switched gears as he tried to talk, walking in a direction while gazing up at Osamu as if he couldn't quite believe the sight.

"I've learned how to use a sword-" was the first thing of note that came to the eleven year old's mind. "Taichi says I'm quite good and with practice I could beat even him-not that I want to. I've read almost half the library-I'm trying to finish it before the harvest. Did you know that we have approximately two thousand eight hundred and forty seven tomes?" Osamu mentally shook his head as Ken paused for a much-needed breath.

~My little one has a brain as well,~ he thought. And, after all this time, from the way Ken was behaving, the boy was still his…

"But that doesn't include the seven hundred and ninety four that you have-"

"What?" Osamu speared him with a glance so sharp Ken was momentarily at a loss. "You've been in my room?"

Blinking, Ken looked up at him with the innocent confusion. "Why not? I know I'm not to touch your collection…I didn't touch anything…" Then, while Osamu searched him for any traces of a hidden guilt, Ken ventured to ask, "Are you angry?"

With a start, Osamu remembered that Ken had always followed his wishes, and he was being paranoid about a simple matter of a boy caring for the esteemed collection. Too much time on the road had wrought a terrible price on his control and his temper. "No," he said with a faint sense of wrenching anger. "Of course not." Inside he told himself that it was only Ken, and even though his little one adored him ceaselessly, he had no reason to believe that Ken would not have gone through his…things. His things were very important, items and objects needed for his line of work. His secret work.

He thought about that as Ken murmured something about the books he had read so far, idly nodding his head at certain points, and felt a bone-deep urge to just turn and go straight to his private quarters and reacquaint himself with everything left behind. Touch the tomes of old magic, continue his research into the old spells…

~I can trust him,~ he told himself, as he remembered how Ken would watch, wide-eyed and silent from a corner, as he practiced the subtler difficulties. ~He knows already, and he hadn't told then…~ Of course, he had kept the darker sides from the younger Ichijouji, kept his search for the ultimate knowledge and power from him, kept him innocent on the odd urge he might be useful in such a state. Kept the love that Ken so obviously cultivated for him fresh and vibrant.

They walked in silence for a while, trailing through shadowed and cool halls until the room where he knew instinctively that his Father was waiting appeared before them.

"Osamu…"

Distracted from his inner thoughts, Osamu looked down. "Mm?"

Ken was watching him with a shrewd glance, a calculation quite unexpected from such an innocence that Osamu felt that same sort of frission he felt at this one's birth, and shivered. Ken tilted his head faintly, watching, and the elder brother thought that it was how he himself looked at times, this intense. "You've gotten stronger," he said casually, almost whispering. "I can tell. But it's okay, I won't say a word to Father…"

Astonished, Osamu stared.

"I'm glad you're back, brother," Ken said in the next instant, returning to the sweet simple child that had run after him laughing, the only child he had allowed to bother him.

Osamu smiled, a mere twist of the lips, and replied, unsure if he wanted to be pleased or irate at the apparent subtle side to his kin. "I'm glad to be back. I've got a lot of plans for the future, little one." And before him, the doors opened to reveal an older servant, bowing formally from the waist and slipping aside to reveal his parents waiting within.

~A great many, indeed,~ he thought, and stepped inside.

~\*/~

It was an hour later, and Osamu was roaming the halls, having spoken and informed his parents of his travels, and gotten around to cleaning himself up. Now, he walked the halls and rooms of his home, his future estate, and made mental preparations. It would need a lot of work before it would function correctly in the manner he desired-but that was a long way off, yet. He still had to finish up the small matter of finding the tome he needed.

A matter that was his entire reason for returning home.

All his research had come up with a common factor-the glyph spell he sought, the fabled Source spell, was somewhere in this place. A spell, properly done by a student-no, master of his level, would grant him endless power, strength… The only problem with the entire plan was that he had no idea of what a Source could be, or what it would look like. It could be anything, a small locket or an entire volcano. He supposed that it would depend on his choice of power.

His only clue was that the glyph-magic, according to the text he had hidden away, would be tied to his spell, tied to him to use however he felt.

And that suited Osamu just fine.

A smile wreathed his lips, a sweet-looking smile if one ignored the fevered look brightening the indigo eyes. He was passing by one of the first-floor railings, a slight incline kept the stone-work arches several feet above the ground, when he heard the first clashing peals of metal grazing metal. Swordplay.

Curious, he turned his head at the sound laughter paired with the killing sound and saw a pair of figures dancing in a rough-drawn circle. Men waited on the outside, many of them half-dressed in the heat. His father's guards, Osamu realized and frowned delicately, wanting to go over and shout at them for slacking in their duty, when the smaller figure, also minus its shirt, turned enough for Osamu to recognize.

Ken. His hair was darkened and plastered to his young head, and for his slight build he was shining with sweat. Fit, and shockingly fast and supple, he twisted under the flat of the other sword and danced away, laughing.

~He is good,~ Osamu thought briefly, and wondered if the Taichi mentioned earlier was the one in the circle with him.

Ken parried, sword raised, and skittered sideways as the elder male thrust a third time, slicing in for a shot to the ribs. The boy deflected the second and third strikes, narrowly avoiding a slash to the thigh, and whammed his sword against the other blade, somehow raised enough to stop Ken's attack. It didn't stop the boy, as he rebounded-his palms must have stung something fierce after that-and even as he raised his sword for another attempt, the opposing force whistled in, the tip resting slightly in the hollow of the slender throat.

Without realizing it, Osamu had begun the descent to the small group of men, feeling young, feeling outmatched and furious, and determined to do something about it.

"Match," the older fighter murmured, then broke into a bright smile. "Your guard was down again, Ken. You have to keep moving to avoid a blade sometimes."

Ken nodded, panting hard, and wiped at his face with a forearm. "I know. I-" he sentence broke off unexpectedly. "Osamu!" he smiled, looking past the taller fighter.

The older tanned combatant, with a messy shock of coffee-colored hair, turned to regard the paler taller Ichijouji with equally dark eyes. He grinned, nodded once in greeting as Osamu came to a stop on the edge of a circle. "Sir," he said.

Osamu smiled faintly, nodding back, while inside he felt like smashing the face for daring to think he was on equal terms. He merely said, as a distraction, "I haven't seen you before..."

Still smiling, although a faint hardness had entered his eyes, the brunette shrugged. "Taichi, second in command of the lesser guards. I've been teaching Ken some defense-I thought he could use it."

"I see," Osamu raised a brow. "You're only a few years older than me, if not less. A powerful position for a younger man," he remarked.

"I know-only raised this year. it can be a hassle some days," he grinned around. "Especially with this bunch." A chorus of good-natured mutters reached him and a few imprecations, and Taichi turned his head to regard Ken. "Are you finished, then?"

Ken was sheathing the borrowed blade, and reaching for the draped swatch of linen over the lowest branch of a small tree. "That's all today-I have other things to do yet," he said over his shoulder, and shrugged into his shirt. "But I'll come tomorrow!"

Osamu found his gaze drawn back to the second-in-command, found himself watching with a narrowed gaze as Taichi nodded affably, and sheathed his own blade. ~He is growing up…away from me…,~ he thought in regards to his brother, and decided to think about it later. He didn't like the thought-a part of him whispered that Ken was his brother and no one could take him away, no one!

"You must have returned just today," the boy, Taichi, was saying. "Did you have far to travel?" a note of envy entered the smoother voice.

Osamu forced himself out of the dark swirl of his thoughts, feeling a tug of energy ripple through his system eagerly. "Not too far, but far enough for my tastes." The men were dressing slowly-not to far off he could see a group of similar dressed guards gathering. ~Shift changes,~ he thought, and waited out the small flood of praise, good-natured and rough, that the guards were lavishing on his younger kin. The boy was smiling widely, soaking it in and brushing off his clothes.

A stab of twisted anger pierced him, and only by the strongest control he kept his hands still.

~They'll all be dead soon, anyway,~ he thought coldly. When I find the last sequence, I'll have my Source. I'll have my power, and they'll all be dead!~

And deeper still, in the smallest part of his soul, he thought that if all went well, Ken would still be there to stare adoringly at him. Ken, with his burgeoning magic-a small enough power that Osamu was oddly satisfied that the boy would never attempt an overthrow-a magic that was well suited enough to protect him and leave the higher Glyphs to him. Ken would be the one person who would love him for more than his power, not because of it. Ken wouldn't be afraid of him, not like he planned for the rest of the idiots.

Ken would still be his.

He would make sure of it.