X/1999 Fan Fiction ❯ Yuuzai ❯ Chapter Five ( Chapter 5 )

Yuuzai

Chapter Five

Night seemed to cling to those who clinged to it in return.

Dark eyes trailed after the tendril of misty, gray smoke as it wafted into the chilled air around him, smoke that he watched in an almost hypnotic manner. That smell that could only be associated with nicotine was almost intoxicating on nights such as this one, when the air hung with a chill, moved with a westward wind, and whispered simple nothings to be carried away by that absently moving wind.

Tokyo Tower was a brilliant landmark against the darkness that had settled over the city for the evening. Towering buildings had their own small moons and stars illuminating the city, but none did it as much justice as the Tokyo Tower itself did. He felt his eyes being drawn toward that magnificent tower, an object completely out a dream. If that was so, the dreammaker that had brought the tower into existence was a prodigy in his own time.

"Don't become too fond of it," a voice advised near his side. "It will not be there for much longer."

"All the more reason why I should admire it while I have the chance, Fuuma-kun."

The 'Kamui' of the Dragons of Earth had perched delicately on the thick branch of one of the many Sakura trees in Ueno Park -- only this one happened to be rather unique. While the others bloomed only with white sakura blossoms, this had pink blossoms instead of that pure white, like freshly fallen snow. This tree was a unique case though, was it not? Fuuma liked the tree. He liked to feel those souls beneath it in the barrow below. He liked to feel them struggle and scream. He liked to feel their pain. It was all a terribly good rush and with how dull the Diet Building became, he needed a rush.

"I do not suggest making friends with it," the dark man below warned absently.

He regarded his cigarette for another moment before flicking it away to the base of the Sakura tree. It did not seem to appreciate his loitering. Fuuma felt it rumble beneath his legs.

"You have upset it, Seishirou-san."

Seishirou Sakurazuka spared the tree a rather bland look of contempt and some amount of disdain. The barrow really was too picky sometimes. This evening it seemed to find an almost kindred soul in Fuuma of the Dragons of Earth, who had appeared completely out of no where and settled himself down to become acquainted with Seishirou's tree. The Sakurazukamori did not like that. The last thing he needed was for their 'Kamui' to begin meddling with the things that were his own, personal affairs. The Sakura tree was completely separate from what Fuuma and his happy little Angels were doing. Fuuma did not need to become concerned with the Sakurazukamori assassins.

"I don't go out of my way to please the tree."

Fuuma did not seem to have heard him. The young man had knelt forward against the branch he was straddled over, and ducking low, he was able to press the side of his face against the rough bark of that branch. The screams of the souls so far below in the barrow greeted his ears. They were restless tonight, as was the tree. Something aside from Seishirou's loitering was upsetting the tree.

"It's hungry."

"As am I. Now, would you come down from there and do something more productive with your time? It's not too late to have dinner, I suppose."

Fuuma smiled faintly and began his descent down to the ground. He slid down the trunk of the tree with his back to it, fingers digging into its bark to keep some amount of his balance. The tree seemed to not appreciate the lack of concern for its back and rumbled what Fuuma thought to be a rather unflattering thing. Pushing away from the Sakura tree, he offered it one of his grins -- the smile that was hostile and yet so pleasant to look at all the same.

"My sincerest apologies," he declared, bowing to the tree. It grumbled at him again, though this time there was no hostility in its cry. Seishirou heaved a sigh. The last thing he needed was for the Sakura tree to make friends with a megalomaniac teen.

The 'Kamui' of Earth was an irritating charge to be saddled with, but Seishirou supposed the teenager had his moments. There was something rather intriguing about Fuuma, his bloodlust for Kamui put aside for the moment. He had taken upon an aloof outlook to the world around him and did not seem concerned with much of anything any longer. Seishirou supposed in a rather far-fetched sort of way, Fuuma reminded him of who he had been once long ago -- the new Sakurazukamori with his own taste for blood. That need had settled over the years, however. Now he killed only when it was necessary to please his greedy charge.

It must have been somewhat odd for the hostess of an elite, classy restaurant in the city to have two tall and darkly attractive men walk into the establishment sometime nearing ten in the evening. They had grown accustomed to late night visitors, most who went directly to the lounge and bar, but the elder of this pair requested a booth toward the back and away from the other customers. She only shrugged and followed the instructions given to her. Business was business and tonight had been slow in comparison to most Friday evenings. The managers would be happy for any business, even if the chefs would no doubt be somewhat vexed to be forced to cook this late in the evening.

Seishirou slid into the seat opposite the one Fuuma had settled himself into. He waved away the offer of a menu and smiled pleasantly at the hostess that had shown them to their table. He was somewhat of a regular at this restaurant. The menu was nothing he had not seen before and it hardly mattered what they served. His order was always the same here.

Fuuma took the menu Seishirou had denied and offered the young woman a friendly smile. "Thank you. I won't be long in deciding."

The young, dark-haired woman returned his infectious smile. Seishirou watched the exchange of meaningful glances between them, wondering absently if Fuuma ever did become bored with playing with the emotions of those around him. The moment their Dark Kamui found something intriguing about a person or saw that they could not know him for the sadistic person he had become, Fuuma was able to take those feelings and expose them. There was nothing more Fuuma enjoyed than to toy with people's emotions and to strangle them. Seishirou supposed he should be grateful that he had none that the Dragon of Earth could use to his own personal, sick advantage.

"Fuuma-kun, behave," the Sakurazukamori advised quietly upon noticing Fuuma staring after the girl as she shuffled away -- or rather, ogling a few of her more . . . obvious features.

The Dark Kamui's eyes abandoned their target to settle upon the Sakurazukamori seated across from him. Sharp eyes pierced out from behind the long, carelessly styled ebony bangs, eyes that he used to probe into the deepest parts of a person's mind into their own subconscious. There he would begin his search for their one single wish that they wanted more than anything in this entire damned to death world. Were it a wish he could expose and use to his advantage, he would prod deeper still, perhaps in search of another wish as though the one he found the first time was no more than a cover-up.

But it was different with the Sakurazukamori. Fuuma supposed that was why Seishirou Sakurazuka had intrigued him. When he looked into Seishirou's eyes, he saw nothing. He could not reach back into the assassin's subconscious and search for his solitary wish. He could not find any feelings toward anything or anyone that he could exploit and use to his own advantage. For that, Seishirou was stronger than the other Angels. Fuuma had made it a point to surround himself with only those strong enough to aid their cause. Though Seishirou did not care one way or another about the end of the world, his strength was something the Dark 'Kamui' had never seen. It was fascinating.

Though he did not care should something have been bothering his stoic companion, Fuuma noted that Seishirou acted like a man perturbed by something this evening. He did not even flirt in his shameless way with the waitress when she returned to take their order. The two had dined once before together, and Fuuma had seen for the first time how disturbingly normal Seishirou could be at times. To the world around him, no one would have ever imagined that this kind gentleman was the Sakurazukamori. Someone as refined and normal as Seishirou Sakurazuka could not be that emotionless assassin.

Still, the world had always been a playground for Seishirou, there for his convenience and nothing more. Or so, this is what he seemed to believe, and with the amount of power he possessed, it very well could be.

Seishirou watched absently as Fuuma flirted with the waitress when she returned to take their orders, wondering for a moment what this woman would think if she knew that he was bent on world destruction and ultimately the death of each person roaming this planet. Though, were one of them to mention this as casually as possible, she was likely to either laugh it off or consider them a pair of lunatics that enjoyed teasing waitresses late at night. This was two of the reactions Seishirou had seen at least, when he and Fuuma chose to speak a little less than discreetly about their current 'situation.' The reactions really were quite amusing.

But he could not bring himself to allow his thoughts to linger on this for long, no matter how he attempted to keep them away from the thing that was nagging at the back of his mind. What he found most infuriating about that nagging thing was the fact he had not a clue what it was. There simply seemed to be something suspicious about this night. Not one struck by intuition often, Seishirou had learned that the few and far between moments that he did experience any sort of 'sixth sense' to not take it lightly.

"What are you thinking?"

Startled from his thoughts, Seishirou allowed his gaze to slip from the single candle that was flickering at the end of the booth to look into its reflection in Fuuma's amber eyes. The briefest flicker of irritation passed his usual expressionless face. The Dark 'Kamui' was analyzing him again. He did not know what the teenager expected to find or, if he did manage to find anything at all, if it would be something worth knowing. Yet he continued to search. Provided he did not probe his mind as he had done with the other Angels, Seishirou did not care. Let him search. It was not as though Fuuma would be able to expose him as he had done to others. One had to have emotions to be exposed in the first place.

"Nothing of great importance," he replied, smiling faintly to cover the look of irritation that he had not been able to conceal.

Fuuma watched him for a moment longer, a slight frown tugging at the corner of his lips, before smiling almost completely to himself and leaning back in his seat. It was a smile Seishirou had never felt bothered by before, but this evening it was slightly disconcerting to him. He could easily blame it upon that other lingering thought in his mind, as it was distracting him. There was nothing the Dark Kamui had ever done, or would ever do, that would succeed in disturbing him or cause a reaction of some kind. Because, after all, that was what Fuuma seemed to be searching for -- a reaction from the emotionless Sakurazukamori.

He really was wasting his time.

Seishirou took a brief sip from his water. He still would not stop him. It would be rather pointless to tell Fuuma to stop searching for something that was not there, when that would only intrigue him more and make their time together a rather uncomfortable thing. Seishirou enjoyed the company of the Dark Kamui because the teenager happened to be rather amusing. Nor was he irritating company. They could spend an entire evening together in perfect silence and it was not uncomfortable to either one of them. Words simply had no mattered very much in his relationship with Dragon of Earth. Having dealt with numerous people that did need those words, it was a welcome change.

(trespasser)

He frowned and set the glass of water down.

"Something wrong?" Fuuma asked.

"Aa." Seishirou smoothed over the frown with another relaxed smile. "It seems the shrubbery is calling," he explained casually while sliding out of the booth. He turned an apologetic eye to Fuuma. "I'm afraid I'll have to be leaving you a little earlier than usual, Fuuma-kun."

Fuuma smiled. "That's alright. I see how I rank in the scheme of things."

Seishirou pretended to look wounded. "Fuuma-kun, really. I'm hurt."

"Go before the tree gets too jealous."

"I'll make it up to you."

With that promise Seishirou completely faded from view, leaving in his place a handful of sakura petals that moved across the floor as though propelled by some unseen wind -- something he oftentimes did when he simply disappeared to show off, Fuuma believed.

Smiling slightly to himself, Fuuma reached out and caught one of the petals in the palm of his hand and closed his fingers around it.

"Seishirou . . . don't you know what a door is?"

Cigarette posed between his lips and hands settled uselessly on either side of him, Subaru sat across from the single blooming tree in Ueno Park, watching its branches sway in the dull wind of the evening expressionlessly. He exhaled a thin tendril of smoke and let his gaze follow it as it began its twisting, winding journey into the air. It was not often that he came to Ueno Park and even less often for him to come to the Sakura Tree. It was not because of the memories it harbored for him, but because of the countless souls trapped in the barrow beneath the tree that would scream helplessly for all eternity there; screams that he would always hear. And there was nothing he could do about it. All of his training these past nine years was worthless. The barrow was the one thing he could not exorcise, making him a poor excuse for an onmyouji in his own mind.

More than an hour's time had progressed since he had first left the Imonoyama mansion where he lived with the other Seals, for nearly more than two uneventful weeks now. He had left well after the others had retired for the evening, aside from perhaps Sorata, who tended to stay up until all hours of the night and yet still be rested enough for a full day ahead of him the next morning. If the Kansai monk had been awake, he had not noticed or spoken when Subaru left through the main doors. Had he, Subaru would not have explained himself to him. Coming to Ueno Park was because of his own, personal reasons, part of a life that he did not intend to share with the other Dragons of Heaven. He had barely divulged in his own past as the others had done, and as it was, Kamui was the only one who had a true concept of where Subaru came from. It was nothing he wanted to share with the world. Each of them had their own reasons for fighting, as he did. It did not need to go any further than that.

Subaru glanced away from the dying embers of his cigarette to settle his gaze upon the Sakura Tree. It continued to move gracefully with the wind that brushed against it gently, but with enough force that a few petals detached from their blossoms and rode the wayward wind. Several even pooled around Subaru's feet, a bright contrast to the coal black of his boots. He gave no heed to the pink petals that washed over him, only continued to stare at the tree -- the final resting place for hundreds, perhaps near thousands of souls, one of which belonged to his own twin sister. And as he stared at the tree, he continued to berate himself for doing nothing for Hokuto and those hopeless souls.

Eyes hardening, Subaru stood and ventured a step nearer to the tree. As though anticipating his movement, the branches began to move in an almost violent manner, almost in attempt to tell him to move away or beware. He did neither, only continued walking forward until he stood beneath the low-hanging branches. Yet he still continued to draw nearer until he stood between the twisted roots and could touch the bark of its trunk. He hesitated a moment, hand posed before the trunk, within inches of touching. He could not help but wonder -- what would he feel? Would the screams of thousands of loss souls reach him, perhaps even his own sister's? Or would it just be cold and dead, just like everything else in his life . . .

But he never did touch the Sakura Tree. Before his fingertips could even brush along its bark, a hand reached out and seized him in a deathly tight grip. Subaru was only barely able to hold back the startled cry that threatened to escape. He swallowed that urge and pursed his lips, eyes turning slightly upward to regard the dark shadow that had apprehended him. The shadow stepped forward, nearer to him, but did not release the grip upon his wrist. Subaru did not think to fight, knowing that it would be a hopeless struggle.

"Seishirou."

A pair of mismatched eyes watched him expressionlessly in a gaze that any other person would have wanted to break away the moment those haunting eyes settled upon them. Subaru did not. He continued to stare into those eyes, his own expression unwavering. It seemed he had irritated the Sakurazukamori, if the briefest flicker in his eyes when he had seized Subaru's wrist was any indication of that. Subaru found it almost amusing that he had been able to received even the slightest of reactions from a supposedly emotionless assassin.

"Hello, Subaru-kun."

The irritation in his eyes was not present in his voice. It was as carefully calm as it always was, without a note of it changing in the least, even to stress a single word.

"Let go," Subaru commanded firmly. He watched as amusement sparked in Seishirou's single eye before he dared to release his prey. As his wrist was released, Subaru drew his hand back and rubbed at the bruised flesh absently. He frowned at Seishirou. "This is the first time you've ever appeared before me here in all of the times I have come."

"Did you expect that I did not know?" Seishirou inquired curiously. "Oh, I know. If not because of the tree alerting me, but because I know your masochistic tendencies tend to draw you to this place."

Subaru seemed amused. "Am I a masochist now?"

"You always have been."

With his hand released and movement once again free to him, Subaru took a step backward away from the tree. It rustled in almost pleased manner, but when it realized he was taking no step further away, it became irritated again. Subaru suddenly wondered why the tree had not sent him away on its own. There was a demon inside of there, and despite being limited in the fact it was trapped inside of this tree, it could still defend itself. Frowning slightly, the Sumeragi wondered if Seishirou had anything to do with that. His own control over the tree was something Subaru was unsure of, but certainly Seishirou could keep it from bringing harm to one of his victims until their soul was safely inside of the barrow.

But he could not help but wonder -- was Seishirou protecting him or the tree from him?

"I have been here each and every time you have come," Seishirou continued. He smiled at Subaru. "You simply have never seen me."

//Why am I not surprised . . . ?//

"Too bad," Subaru replied.

"Is it?"

The Sumeragi shrugged and took another step backward. This time, Seishirou followed his movement. The Sakura Tree rustled impatiently behind him, as though it did not appreciate the single moment he chose to dedicate his attention to anything aside from the barrow.

And then Seishirou was upon him, catching each wrist in both of his own hands and resuming the death grip he had held Subaru in moments ago. Though he new the attempt was useless, Subaru struggled against the hands that held him this time until it became apparent that it was hopeless to try. Seishirou seemed unaffected by his prey's resistance. His face lowered until his own cheek touched Subaru's and his lips were within whispering distance of the younger man's ear. A faint smile creased his features.

"Why do you come here?"

Subaru controlled every fiber in his body that longed to shiver when the detached voice filled his senses and caused an unwanted chill to run along his spine. "My -- my sister's in there," he whispered.

"I don't think that's what you're looking for at all, Subaru-kun."

He flinched as Seishirou nipped his ear in a seductive manner. He did not stop there. Wandering lips traveled along Subaru's jawline, leaving a trail of soft, gentle kisses. Subaru attempted to lean his head away from the pursuing lips -- a movement that was restricted by the sudden hand that settled against his cheek. Having been more concerned with Seishirou's sudden attentions, he had not noticed when the older man had released his wrist, nor did he seem to take in the dull pain in his wrist due to the grip held on it. His eyes flashed quickly to greet Seishirou's mismatched pair as the Sakurazukamori drew back to regard him.

"Sei . . ."

He was silenced as the hand touching his cheek moved slowly to the back of his head to lace through black, silky hair and Seishirou's face drew even nearer to his own. He savored the soft feel between his fingers and the feel of Subaru's rapidly beating heart against his own chest. Amused by the reaction he had been able to draw from the carefully emotionless Subaru attempted to be, Seishirou could not help but wonder how far Subaru would allow this to go. His lips drifted closer to the startled Sumeragi's, and in a surprisingly gentle manner, covered the younger man's mouth.

Subaru's eyes widened. He thought for a moment to struggle to escape the hold Seishirou had over him, yet he did not. He surrendered to the kiss and allowed it to consume him. Seishirou did not pressure him or take more than Subaru was willing to give, yet to his surprise, the recently freed hand came to press against Seishirou's chest. The latter took this and the lack of resistance to be a sign that Subaru did not feel the need to stop this, and with that window of opportunity, he drew the younger man closer to him and deepened the kiss.

Seishirou eventually drew away from him, but did not stop there. Subaru lifted his chin helplessly as Seishirou dedicated his attention and lips to the tender, untouched skin of the younger man's neck. He felt the hand that had been fastened around his waist slide beneath his thin black t-shirt and begin to stroke the flat of his stomach and nearer to his chest absently.

He knew there was more.

//But I don't want it . . . not now.//

With Seishirou's attention elsewhere, Subaru was able to slip his other hand through the grip Seishirou had held upon it to come up against the Sakurazukamori's chest. With both hands free, he pushed Seishirou away from him, firm enough to show the message he was attempting to give, but with not enough force that it would startled the older man. Rather, Seishirou seemed quite the opposite. For the briefest of seconds, Subaru thought for a moment that Seishirou was pleased that he had pushed him away.

But that was quickly concealed by his constant, fake smile.

"It's late, Subaru-kun," he commented. "You should be getting home."

Subaru opened his mouth to reply, but it was for nothing. Seishirou's image began to peel away into dozens of sakura petals as he completely vanished from Subaru's eyes, leaving him alone with the quietly rustling Sakura Tree for his company.

He sighed softly.

"Good night, Seishirou-san."

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Notes: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . uh . . . . . . . . . . yeah.

-.- Hey, at least I finished it.

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