X/1999 Fan Fiction ❯ Yuuzai ❯ Chapter Two ( Chapter 2 )

Yuuzai

Chapter Two

Kamui.

The monk and hidden priestess told him that the name of the small, shocked, wide-eyed boy was Kamui, a name which proclaimed him to be the chosen of God, a name which he would carry upon his shoulders as a burden for eternity. His lifeless, pupilless, dreamless eyes told that he was he was nothing more than a shell of what he previously had been -- an abrasive, back-talking boy of sixteen, as the priestess had described him. What remained was this empty child, who had no dreams left, no quavering hope left within his soul, and no love to be given or received. He was broken, shattered; mere pieces of what once was and could have been.

Slender fingers came to settle upon either one of the boy's temples, gently prodding them, gaining no warmth for their small amount of stimulation. The faint, almost non-existent beat against the tender, thin skin of the temple was the only sign of true life from the boy. His hands drifted away from the boy's temples, casually flicking away the dark strands of chocolate brown which tickled his fingertips, to allow the tips of his fingers to touch the boy's cheek and the tender area beneath the eyes. Applying a small amount of pressure to the skin and pressing upward, he searched the boy's eyes, finding nothing but the same emptiness.

His lips parted, beginning to sound the soft vowels of an incantation. The fingertips did not stray from the boy's face as he continued to chant below his breath, casting the proper protection over both of them to allow a safe gateway into the mind of this boy. Such a feat was not one that scholars of onmyoujitsu encouraged, as the drawing inward process could heavily damage the onmyouji attempting this incantation, and what the onmyouji did within the mind of the person could very well shatter an already broken psyche. Therefore, Subaru knew that he would have to be cautious.

"Noubou akyasha kyarabaya on arikya maribori sowaka."

He dipped his head forward, ebony touching chocolate brown, and his long eyelashes fluttered closed. His words did not falter and the incantation was not broken. It continued until he felt himself becoming perhaps lighter, perhaps heavier, but drifting further and further away from the comfort of that room where the boy was resting. The incantation carried him away from the reassurances of the real world and into the hazy, broken, illusionary world. This was the place where there were no rules. The subconscious was the dominant force.

Dark lashes lifted to regard his surroundings as he fell downward into a deep black pool of nothingness. His attire, consisting of a white jacket over his black t-shirt and slacks, billowed around him, inspired to move by unseen, unheard gusts of wind. He felt anger here, hot and fresh, seeming to surround him and push him back -- but Subaru was not about to give up. He pushed back against the anger of the subconscious, the anger it possessed to have been invaded in such a way.

Yet never had he seen it like this before. Never had he seen an actual guardian of a heart. The dragon, the guardian of the boy's heart, was at the bottom of the pool he was descending upon. Its jaws parted, the bottom and top rows of jagged teeth held together by fresh saliva. The long, snake-like body coiled upward, propelled by the immense muscles along the backbone; coiled upward and around the invader of its sanctuary. A deafening roar echoed through the crevasse of Kamui's mind. He felt something flick out across the arm that had been thrust up to protect himself from the jaws of the dragon, but did not wince until he actually saw his own blood streak through the air.

"If I fight back," he muttered to himself, drawing that wounded hand away from his face to look into the deep, hostile eyes of the guardian, "I'll only endanger his heart . . ."

As his booted feet would have met with the ridged scales along the dragon's eyes, the guardian was gone. Subaru's eyes widened briefly. The sudden disappearance of the guardian told him that the boy was allowing him into his heart, granting him permission to explore this place to his own free will.

Rather than touching the head of the dragon, Subaru's feet touched what could have been ground, had he not glanced down to see that he was standing upon the surface of that dark, empty pool. A small frown creased his delicate features. The boy was here. He was there, upon the surface of this dark pool, but not alone; there was the Dragon of Earth with him.

"Kamui?" Subaru attempted to draw the boy's attention to him, but his heed was lost in the darkness. The frown returned. "This is . . ."

The tall, broad-shouldered young man stood with his body pressed against Kamui's, the girl cradled between them within Kamui's arms. His hand, much larger than that of Kamui, held the boy's fingers trapped within his, his forcing Kamui's to be pressed against his cheek. The corners of his mouth were quirked upward as he spoke in soft, calming tones. His voice would have soothed any ailing child.

"You've chosen," he whispered. His eyes were closed, and as though savoring the boy's hand -- although forced -- against his cheek, his face tipped inward and into that touch.

"Fuuma?"

His wide eyes, not dead and as lifeless as Subaru had seen them within the real world, watched the movement of the Dragon of Earth as though he would die should he allow their gazes to be broken. He could not draw backward, could not escape the grasp the one he called Fuuma held on his own hand, and he could not awaken from what he felt to be a nightmare. His emotion could only be expressed when he said his friend's name, a hopeless, miserably confused tone, that longed for someone to tell him what was happening -- tell him why such a fate had befallen him, when all he wanted was to be left alone.

"You've chosen the Dragons of Heaven . . . the seven Seals . . ."

The quirk of his lips became a full smile.

"And if you choose to become the Dragon of Heaven, it is my destiny to be the Dragon of Earth."

This image faded away, replaced by another. The girl who had been cradled between the two young men was crucified upon a cross, which seemed to only be standing due to the cables that ran to and from it, to the ground, to hidden places where they must have latched on and kept the cross suspended. Those cables held her body in place. She hung limp, her head bowed forward, waves upon waves of golden hair washing over her shoulders and catching the tears she had shed. Kamui, a much more horrified Kamui than the onmyouji had viewed before, stood before the cross.

"Kotori!" he screamed. "Kotori!"

His legs propelled himself forward, rushing toward her, as though there was some hope in his mind that he could do something to save the girl. But there was nothing he could do. The sudden arms looping through his armpits and drawing him backward furthered these thoughts. A mirror image of himself held Kamui back. He struggled, attempted to fight back against the one that held him, but as it was always told, the only one as powerful as the 'kamui' was 'kamui' himself . . . and there was nothing he could do. The mirror image smiled, a devilish smile akin to the one present on the face of the Dragon of Earth.

And then he was watching, watching as that person who had held him back stood on the horizontal strip of wood on the cross, stood above the girl with a sword posed in both hands. The mirror image smiled, its eyes wild with the thought of what would soon come, and he drew his hands backward, arching the sword behind his back. The true Kamui stumbled forward, reaching out as though he could reach them . . . but he never would. He could only scream.

"Don't!"

The sword plunged forward and entered her rib cage. Her body shuddered with the movement, her eyes widening as pain consumed her, and a weak scream filled the air around them as the tip of the blade pushed through her heart to come clean on the other side. Subaru watched, expression surprisingly blank to see the blood flow when the sword was drawn out of her body -- an expression that did not change to look upon the sight of Kamui cradling the girl's lifeless body in his arms, knowing that he was useless and did nothing to stop the death of the person he cared about the most.

It was like Hokuto.

The pool reacted to the shift in images and the dark water sputtered up around them. It encircled Kamui, who still cradled the girl in his arms, and swallowed both of them. Knowing he would lose him, Subaru rushed forward, reaching out much like Kamui had, though as Kamui had known, he knew too -- there was nothing he could do to stop the shifting of pain inside of Kamui's heart. He could only allow the dark waters to surround him as well. If he dived any deeper into Kamui's psyche, it could very well shatter, but he knew that he could not turn back now. He would not let this boy surrender to his pain anymore than he had already.

The waters swallowed him whole.

The previous scenes were replaced with lighter ones, dreams of a time where everything was perfect in the world, and there was nothing but happiness to fuel their days. Three children were running together, laughing and possessing the wide-eyed innocence only youth did. The smaller boy stumbled toward the older one. He laughed as the older boy caught him around the middle and his small head lifted to regard the boy. Dead eyes looked back at him.

Trembling, unsure of what he should do, the small boy lifted his hands and let his fingertips drift toward the older boy's cheeks and temples. There was a rip in his face. There was a rip in his Fuuma's face, and why his fingers were drawn to it, why he wanted to find what was behind that crack . . . he did not know. But that pure need to know was what drew his fingers closer toward that tear in the surface and began to part the tear, making it larger, searching for what was there.

Subaru burst through the dream.

"Kamui! Don't look!"

The tip of a blade shoved through the crack in the older boy's face. It parted the gap, made it larger than the boy's fingers could have possibly done, and from the two pieces, an older boy emerged dressed in dark clothing, wielding a sword, and with nothing but pure hatred in his dark eyes. The young Kamui stumbled backwards, his hands falling back to his own face, covering his mouth from screaming out to show his complete and utter confusion with the situation. He could only stare onward in wide-eyed shock as the tip of that blade reached out further and pressed inward into the small girl's chest -- and ripped her apart as it had done to the older of the boys.

"I will . . ." the dark young man whispered.

"N . . ."

Kamui grasped his head between his hands and shook it furiously.

"Kill . . ."

"No . . . !" Kamui gasped.

"You."

The child Kamui screamed. He shattered to his knees, hands clinging to his hair, trying vainly to stop the movement of his head that tossed it back and forth in violent denial of what was happening around him. He stumbled forward further, vaguely surprised to feel something supporting him in the movement. In his mind, he did not register the sword that was pressed into the dark ground before him, which his arms cradled and his forehead was bowed against. He only felt the flutter of feathers against his body and the feel of his wet, hot tears against his cheeks. And he heard a voice.

"Kamui . . ."

Subaru stepped forward, allowing himself to drift forward to his own knees before the boy. He tried again to speak the boy's name softly. The reaction which he gained was not the one he was looking for. The child only clung to the blade that was pressed into the ground before him, clinging to it as though it were his mother's bosom, and he was a toddler again, crying to her when he had fallen and scraped his knees. But this was not scraped knees. And Kamui could not draw him this far into psyche to actually believe that this was the real world . . .

His hands snapped out and seized the boy's wrists. "Kamui!"

The wide, horror-filled eyes lifted and stared at the onmyouji in a mixture of wonder and confusion. "Who . . . ?" he managed to whisper, his voice broken due to his tears.

"Subaru Sumeragi."

The boy looked away. "Don't know him . . ." He seemed absorbed in the dancing feathers for a moment and watched them, a fleeting look of complete innocence present on his face, rather than that horrified, shattered look those eyes had held only a moment ago. But the moment was short-lived, as he seemed to come a sudden horrible thought, and he looked up sharply at Subaru. "Don't kill Fuuma and Kotori . . . please . . . don't kill them!"

"Kamui . . ."

"Please!" the boy gasped.

The horror that had come with the thought of this invader to the sanctuary of his mind might harm his beloved friends was consuming him, enough that his psyche was beginning to consume him, as well. The feathers which had been drifting about aimlessly came to life now, surrounding the boy, nearly swallowing him in the same way the water had done when he had not wanted to face the reality of the girl being dead.

Subaru could not let him. He would not let him.

He reached out, seizing the boy's shoulders rather than his wrists this time. Had the fear of losing the boy to his own psyche been present in Subaru's mind, he would not have jerked so forcefully to draw the boy over to him, but jerk he did. It was perhaps that jostling which froze the young Kamui in place.

"Listen to me, Kamui!"

The feathers that had dared consume the boy faded away, fluttering to the ground beside them. Subaru relaxed somewhat, allowing himself to fall back to settle down on the ground in a kneeled position, but he refused to release the boy. He had not come this far to allow Kamui to leave now, not to dive even deeper into his heart than he had already to a place where Subaru would not be able to venture -- a place where Kamui would never be able to return from.

"If you don't escape this dream," Subaru murmured softly but firmly, "nothing will begin and nothing will end. Everything will just get worse." He paused. "The same as it happened to me.

"You are deep within your heart right now. Something terrible happened and so you left that world to walk in one of your own . . . Can you hear my voice?"

The boy nodded meekly, and Subaru continued.

"You're running away from reality."

The world began to shift around them again. The feathers, which had stilled around them, came to life again and whirled through the air around them, stirred to movement by that unseen gust of wind that seemed to be constantly present within Kamui's heart. The wide eyes of a child followed them, as did the clouded emerald orbs of the older man, who had not had a chance to experience the good of his own childhood . . . and the feathers carried their gazes to the person that had caused him the inability to experience childhood after death . . .

"Who is that?" Kamui asked.

"My sister."

She stood with her back to them, the ceremonial robes of the onmyouji her attire, wind filled with feathers and petals broken off from a Sakura tree whirling around her. Her dark hair, styled casually in its short, trendy fashion, stirred with the movement of the feathers and petals as her hollow image walked forward, away from Subaru and Kamui -- toward the hollow image of a man and a tree.

"Do you know anything about onmyoujitsu?" Subaru asked.

"My mother taught me about it," the boy said quietly.

Subaru looked up, watching as the two images neared one another. Yet he continued speaking. This scene meant nothing to him. "I am the head of the Sumeragi Clan . . . so I govern over Japan's onmyoujis."

"Is that person . . . an onmyouji?"

"No."

"I know that person," Kamui said suddenly, in regard to the second of the images. The one he spoke of was the older man, far older than he was, and some odd years than Subaru himself, Kamui supposed offhand. He was dressed in an expensive suit and seemed amused with everything happening around him. His arms were folded neatly across his chest as he looked upon the girl in ceremonial robes who approached him.

"You've met Seishirou?"

"Seishirou?" Kamui repeated.

Subaru nodded. "Seishirou Sakurazuka . . . a man who uses onmyoujitsu to kill."

His eyes closed. For a long moment, Kamui did not think that the onmyouji would speak again, and the panic that washed over him for such a thought was nothing he needed right now . . . he wanted to believe that this person, whoever he was, would stay here with him. The dark-haired young man was a welcome change to the hollow images of his childhood friends, because unlike them, he was real . . . and he could stay here. Kamui did not like it here. It was so lonely, with only those hollow images of Kotori and Fuuma and then . . . then the dreams of Kotori dying . . .

"I loved him for a time."

Kamui felt relief to hear Subaru's voice again, but the relief faded when he noted the blankness in Subaru's tone as he uttered these words. He spoke of a love lost yet did not seem affected by the loss. Kamui's mother had told him that a love lost could be worse than dying yourself. He thought he was beginning to understand what she had meant by those words.

"At first I didn't realize it," Subaru continued after a moment "For an entire year, he was so kind to me and protected me, even losing his own eye to save my life. It was when I couldn't stop crying for him that I understood . . . that he was the one 'I didn't want to hate me.' That he alone was 'special' to me."

His voice hardened.

"But that was only my illusion."

The girl in ceremonial robes, an enigmatic angel against the dark contrast of the gentleman dressed in the finely pressed, expensive Italian suit, stood now across from him as he leaned lazily against the trunk of the tree. Her hands were balled into fists, her thin eyebrows lowered and expression fiercely protective. Yet the man continued to smile, only a slight quirking of his lips, much like the Dragon of Earth's expression in Kamui's dreams . . . He could remember that man's smile from somewhere. It never faded, always seemed to be there, always mocking, but it was never real. His was a smile that was nothing more than a façade. It meant nothing else to him.

"That man once told me there is no difference between humans and things."

He devoted his attention to the boy, rather than the images of his own memory swirling around them. It was nothing he had not seen before. This was a scene that was constantly repeated in his nightmares. It was a dream that awoke him in the dead of night and left him cold and alone. Now, to watch the images hardly affected him at all.

"Kinda like . . . everything is alive just like people are?" the child asked.

Subaru frowned. "No. That's not right. It means whether he breaks something, living or not, he thinks nothing of it."

The boy did not understand and could only stare at Subaru. He did not understand how anyone could feel such a way. Though his own world had been shattered, he had always cared for people and things . . . because he had his mother, Aunt Saya, Kotori and Fuuma . . . all of them made it possible for him to care about things and love other human beings. How this man that Subaru spoke of, the man that he loved, could feel nothing for the people he killed . . . he did not understand.

The images of the man and girl joined together now as Kamui watched, transfixed by the scene passing before him. The man reached out, seized the girl around her shoulders and drew her closer to him, as her arms flung out and around his neck. He drew his opposite hand back, further and further until his fingers were within striking distance of her heart . . . and then the hand plunged forward.

"N-no!"

Kamui leapt to his feet, naïve in thinking that he could do something to stop this, naïve to think that he could reach them in time. He felt a hand clasp around his wrist and halt him in his steps. But he refused to turn around and face the onmyouji who held him. He watched as that hand plunged deep within her chest . . . and was horrified when he saw fingers pressing out through broken flesh on the other side.

So much like Kotori.

"That's only my memory," Subaru said firmly, drawing the boy's eyes to him. "You won't get there in time."

The man's silhouette faded away. Without support, the wounded body of the onmyouji's sister fell to the dark pool that served as ground within Kamui's heart, onto a bed of sakura petals. Stirred to life due to her weight suddenly thrust into them, the petals flew into the air all around them, pushed by the same constant gusts of unheard wind. The petals fluttered and settled over the girl, beginning to devour her -- the same as they would have to Kamui had Subaru not drawn him back.

"Your sister . . . !"

Subaru reached out and settled the palm of his hand against the boy's cheek. He felt warm tears splash against his fingers. This child had been through so much and now was taking upon Subaru's own memories of pain on his shoulders . . . it was the last thing that he needed if Subaru had any hope of healing Kamui's broken heart. He could not let Kamui feel this way when what pain he should be concerned with was his own, not Subaru's.

"When my sister was murdered, there was nothing I could do. I was hiding within myself . . . I was hiding from reality . . . and now you're doing just that."

Absently, he reached out and caught one of the petals swirling in the air around them. He closed his fingers around it.

"It's alright to stay here, if that makes you happy," he said. "But if you don't get out of here . . . nothing will begin and nothing will end. You won't be able to do anything important. You'll be trapped here as a spectator, the same I was . . .

"Kamui, I too had a person I loved killed by another person I loved. However . . . my scars and yours are not the same. When I lost my sister, I came back to reality with the hurt I felt . . .

"And so, I . . . in order to make my wish a reality I live. That wish will make who loves me very sad . . . but I will never give up my wish."

The small child reached out to him, his eyes showing that he was beginning to understand. "Because . . . that man is special to you?"

The boy was changing. He was becoming less of a child and more of a young teenager before Subaru's eyes . . . and the onmyouji felt an immense amount of relief to see that his words had been able to break through to this boy . . . and he was willing to come back to reality.

"He once was," he replied. "It's only right that you choose, too. Will you live through your memories, blaming yourself or will you wake for the sake of your wish?"

"I want . . . to bring Fuuma back. Because I couldn't protect Kotori . . . now I want to protect Fuuma."

Subaru stood up, startled to find that the boy was no longer so much smaller than he. Kamui was drawing himself out of the shell of a child he had taken upon when he had drawn himself deep within his heart and was becoming that person in the real world again. He stared past Subaru, through the feathers in movement all around them, to the image of his childhood friend wielding the sword. A determined look overcame him.

"And he is not Fuuma."

"If he returns to being 'Fuuma' he might remember that he killed that girl."

Kamui's head fell and he squeezed his eyes tightly shut. He knew that Fuuma had always loved Kotori more than anything. When and his mother left Tokyo, their bond as siblings had only become stronger. The real Fuuma, his Fuuma, would not be able to face himself day to day knowing that he was the one that killed Kotori. Kamui felt tears stinging his eyes. Could he do that to Fuuma? To his best friend, the person he loved the most . . . could he bring him back knowing that by having killed Kotori . . . Fuuma would not be able to live for himself again?

"E-even so . . ." he began, no longer attempting to hold back the tears that spilled down his cheeks, "I don't want to lose Fuuma."

"If he returns to himself will you tell him that you were the one who killed Kotori? Even if there are people who will call you selfish?"

"Yeah . . ."

"Even if there are people who will blame you?"

"Yeah."

"Even if no one understands your wish?"

The façade of a child was gone, replaced by the image of a young teenager, only sixteen, who had seen more than any adult would in their entire lifetime.

"Yeah."

Not knowing what else to do, Subaru embraced him.

"Then, for the sake of that wish . . . return."

Sorata paced, unable to conceal his anxiety any longer. He did not seem to recall when the onmyouji had first begun to drift away from them, entering the mind of their shell-shocked friend. It could have been minutes ago or hours. The young monk from Osaka was not paying attention to the time. He could only continue his pacing to and fro across the room, gaining quite a few irritated glances from Arashi, and Yuzuriha's eyes deadlocked on him, following his journey around the small room. Seiichirou and Karen seemed to be the only calm ones amongst them, but Sorata could easily blame that upon their being adults, while he had every right to be a nervously pacing teenager. He was worried about Kamui.

"What's taking so long?" he demanded.

"Things like this take time," Arashi interjected quietly.

She brushed casually at a strand of ebony that fell across her cheek, tickling the corner of her mouth. Sorata eyed the movement for a brief moment, knowing that by watching her in the approving way that he was, he would likely have her beautiful, dark eyes turned upon him in a glare, but right now he did not care. He did not think that she realized how beautiful she honestly was. Even so simple of a gesture as brushing her hair aside made Sorata notice that internal and external beauty she possessed. But then, he would of course think that of Arashi -- she was, after all, the one he intended to give his life to.

"Oh!" Yuzuriha exclaimed suddenly. "Sumeragi-san's coming out of it!"

Five heads whipped around to focus upon the onmyouji kneeled before Kamui. He was in fact coming out of the trance he had put himself into. His eyelids were beginning to flutter, though still closed securely over his cloudy green eyes, and his fingertips were beginning to draw away from either one of Kamui's temples. As well, movement was coming from Kamui himself. His fingers began to twitch. The empty, lifeless eyes came to life, blinking several times before opening fully . . . and revealing clear, bright, liquid blue eyes.

"Subaru?" Kamui asked hesitantly.

The onmyouji's eyes fluttered open. His lips parted slightly to murmur, "Kamui . . ." He looked faintly relieved, knowing that he had been able to draw the boy away from 'that place.' But his eyes could not reflect the smile. All the hazy green saw was Kamui before him, his hand pressed against the boy's cheek, and those images beginning to fade around him. He did not know how much longer he could hold on. Exhaustion was tugging at his body and he was more than willing to surrender.

"Sumeragi-san!" Sorata exclaimed suddenly.

Subaru had fallen forward against Kamui, his face burying into the boy's shoulder as he allowed the need for sleep to consume him. Worry propelled Sorata and Arashi forward to Kamui and Subaru, but the two backed away when they saw that there was nothing for them to be concerned with. Kamui smiled and looped his arms through the onmyouji's, unconsciously drawing him closer to embrace his sleeping form against his own small, tired body.

"Thank you . . . thank you . . ."

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