X: Sides
by K.Huntsman
"Reincarnations..." Seiichirou whispered. "Oh Gods." He did not for a minute doubt the truth of Imonoyama-san's statement now. Something in him knew it was true. Something in him remembered being the Mage.
But Seiichirou's rational mind shut that out. Reincarnations weren't logical. Dragons weren't logical. And... Angels weren't logical.
But that was what Nokoru Imonoyama was... wasn't he? And his companions as well.... Seiichirou looked up as he heard footsteps.
It was like a veil had been lifted from between Seiichirou's eyes and the trio. He saw them in truer forms, shapes with wings of light and energy glowing softly behind them.
There was a slight smile in Imonoyama's sapphire eyes as they looked directly into Seiichirou's. :I see you seeing us,: he said quietly. :We meet again, Mahoutsukai.:
The name, given telepathically, was right. Mage was his position and Mahoutsukai his name. His private name, allowed to only to a few. A special few, a trusted few.
An Angel who had been one of those few....
Luce. It is you, isn't it, my friend?
Oh hell.
She felt it like a blow.
One of the Dragons of Heaven had Awoken.
"Damn them," Satsuki hissed. "The Three have Awoken the Mage."
"How?" Seiichirou whispered.
Faith, known here and now as Suoh Takamura, had left the two of them alone, as had Hope, who now wore the form of Akira Ijyuin. The Three, as always, had been born close together and easily found one another. That never changed during their journeying through mortal lifetimes. Seiichirou wasn't quite sure why.
Imonoyama shrugged, glowing translucent wings gently opening and closing behind him. "The same way as always, Mage. We allow our shapes to transmute, to fuse with the bloodlines, to become mortal through a new-born child. We sleep for a while, until the mortal and immortal parts of ourselves can balance one another acceptably. Then we wake."
"What are you doing here, then, the three of you?" Seiichirou asked. "And why the Imonoyama family, Luce?"
"Why not?" the angel replied. "It was convenient, and I've always preferred mortality, if you recall."
"I do." The last time he'd seen Luce, the Angel had been inhabiting the form of an artist of a several centuries before. "Still wishing for dark hair?" Seiichirou asked irrelevantly.
Imonoyama frowned at the reminder. It was the bane of his existance that he had never been able to have the dark hair he so adored. "I'll get that right yet, just wait," he muttered.
"So what are the three of you doing here and now, besides obviously having the times of your lives?"
"Helping your side to win," Luce replied.
"By causing us to Awaken?"
"The Earthly Dragons have always been quicker to act than your Family," Nokoru answered. "We sought to even the score. And it's no secret that we prefer you to them; you created this world, and we like it just fine here. They want to ruin it."
"You don't want them to take away your playground, in other words," Seiichirou observed with a smile. "You haven't changed a bit, Luce."
"Did you expect me to?" he retorted. "How run things between the others, by the way? I haven't yet gotten much of a chance to observe."
"The Champion is pain due to the Warlord's betrayal... Gods help us all when he Awakens and remembers the whole truth..." Seiichirou said, using a human expression to vent what he foresaw to be a major disaster. Strange, somehow, to know he himself was an actual god. The God of Wind.... "The Princess, too," he continued, "though she is largely unchanged. The others are as they have been... except for the Emperor and the Guardian."
"I had heard rumors," Imonoyama murmured quietly, "and I saw a little of it. I had hoped that mortality might help them heal their feud, but if it isn't so...."
"It isn't," Seiichirou assured him. "In fact, it may be worse."
"Damn," Imonoyama muttered. "When they Awaken...."
The Mage nodded.
Kamui watched from a bench as Kotori wandered through the enormous rose garden of CLAMP Campus. His hands still hurt, healing a bit too slowly where the Shinken had pierced one, where the shard of glass had been rammed through the other. In fact, through all of his body he could feel the distant aches and pains where he had been injured.
Where Fuuma had injured him.
Kotori turned, as if sensing his thoughts, and came to sit next to him. "Kamui-chan..." she murmured. "Oniichan...."
"Yeah, I know," Kamui said roughly as Kotori began to sniffle. He put his arm around her as she put her head on his shoulder. "Go ahead and cry, Kotori-chan...."
"He tried to kill us," Kotori whispered before starting sobbing.
Kakyou perched patiently on an imaginary boulder by the imaginary sea, waiting for the imaginary illusions to begin.
"Seiichirou..." he murmured quietly, closing his eyes and bowing his head forward. Seiichirou, too, had Awoken.
"I don't want to fight you," he said quietly to himself. "I won't fight you, Seii-kun, not when our fight is completely irrelevant to the future. There is only one future, and it is not for us to choose. The Mage and the Dreamer were never at the center, never the Changers. Those were the others. Let them wage their wars. I do not want to fight you, Seiichirou...."
A Dragon, colored delicate sea-green and darkest sapphire blue, stirred, extending talons of golden color, fanned tail and fanciful wings laced with the same hue. He waited, biding his time, trying to heal his own wounds and failing at them.
Siblings.
For them it was here. It had been so lonely without them... it had been so lonely without finding them, the same lonliness, only greater, than it had known before the Mother gave birth to the six others. He named them all in the order of their births, counting them off on his gold talons. First there was himself, Koutei. Then came Kanshisha, his beloved and beloved best friend, who had ended his lonliness. And then came Mahoutsukai, who he had seldom quite understood but had always respected and liked. Next was Souryo, whose antics both as a scaled infant and as a hided adult had always amused them. Then Yuusha, whose abilities and loyalty surpassed any of the rest of theirs. He had always adored Yuusha, for they were so similar yet so different. After Yuusha was Shukujo, his sister. Sisters were strange but fascinating creatures, he had first found through her. Girls. And then came the youngest, Jiisha, the one of life and lightness and change. He had always sheltered Jiisha, who was so different and had so seldom been given to the worries and intrigues that surrounded the rest of them.
But when had things gone wrong?
The other family, the ones created by the Father, had they caused it? When Bushin had done... that... to Hime-sama and Yuusha.... Or had it started before then? He couldn't remember. When he had had to betray one trust in order to keep another... had it started then? When Shay-Lien had died? When Kanshisha had....
The drowning sorrow became overwhelming again, and he retreated from his own thoughts, still unable to avoid the final accusations. He had brought this upon Heaven and Hell and the Earth between. He had caused this by his own actions....
Nataku woke from its usual dream of Kazuki's death with a small gasp, sitting up, suddenly aware... aware that what? Besides the fact that it had slept outside of its normal pattern....
Aware of another. Another Dragon?
It turned its head at a noise and saw Sumeragi-san returning a book to the library, sliding it quietly into its place on the shelf. He turned to go without a glance at Nataku, merely a quiet murmuring of its name in acknowledgement.
"... Oniisama..." Nataku whispered for no reason at all, disturbed by the avoidance in the green eyes. Then it blinked, not understanding the reason it had said such a thing. 'Oniisama'?
Nataku returned its attention to the book that had slid off of its lap as it... 'napped'... and wondered.
"Kazuki-san...."
"Huh."
Sorata regarded the high wall surrounding CLAMP Campus without much respect. "Nowhere near tall enough to keep me in," he decided, and easily vaulted the twenty-foot-high construction.
He landed in crouched position and looked back at the wall. No harm done by getting out for a few hours, right? He'd be back before anyone missed him. How long would he have to explore Tokyo before the End, anyway? Not long, and he wanted to hit a few of the places his friends at school had told him about before the city was totaled.
(Two hours later....)
Sorata looked up from the shelf of mangas he was examining as he caught sight of a fall of beautiful shining dark hair. His heart seemed to stop as the perfect visage of his chosen opposite came into his view.
It was her! His Dragon of Earth!
He grinned and made his way over to the section of shoujo manga she was examining. She liked manga too? Wow. He wouldn't have expected that of her. Luckier and luckier....
"Long time no see, miss," he greeted her.
She whirled to face him. Her eyes grew wide. "You...!" she breathed.
He looked at the doujinshi in her hand. "Sailor Moon?" he asked curiously.
"Ahm...." She blushed a bit at his noticing that first. "I know one of the artists who's in this anthology," she explained. "I've been looking for a copy for a while."
Sorata grinned. "Would you like to get some tea, miss?" he asked, using one of the corniest decent pick-up lines he knew. She'd likely slap him if he tried one of the indecent ones.
"Ahm...."
He bowed politely to Arashi. "I'm harmless, really!" he reassured her.
"I doubt that," she retorted, her icy, implacable calm returning.
"So, tea?" he asked her.
"Let me pay for my purchase first," she replied cuttingly.
Sorata just grinned and followed her to the check-out desk of Mandarake. He hadn't been able to find any mangas he'd particularly wanted, but the trip certainly hadn't been wasted!
Yuuto watched amusedly as Satsuki-chan dove into the video game with relish, destroying tanks and helicopters right and left. She was very good at such games, and they always seemed to calm her down. Karen-san giggled over her cup, also watching.
"So, the Dragons of Heaven have won the protection of a member of the Imonoyama Foundation?" Yuuto asked Karen, turning his attention to the vivacious redhead. "That might cause us a few problems."
"Imonoyama-san seemed a perfect gentleman in his refusal to give us access to them," Karen replied thoughtfully, still smiling. "I'm afraid we may have to destroy him, or attack outright with a frontal assault."
Yuuto considered this as he sipped at his coffee. For some reason, he really wasn't interested in the strategy of this war. He entrusted that to Satsuki-chan's incredible mind. He knew that when it came down to it, he and Sakurazukamori would find one another and simply have their last battle in some area of Tokyo, most likely away from the other Dragons. He wasn't really worried about planning attacks and skirmishes at all.
"I personally leave the plans up to Kanoe-san and Satsuki-chan," he said with a shrug. "A good soldier knows his limitations, and planning battles is outside of my experience." He smiled across the table. "So, what else can you tell me, Karen-san?"
X: Sides
Part 5
by Kristin HuntsmanYuzuriha smiled at Inuki as she returned with a cup of ice cream. Ice cream always helped her think more clearly. "What do you think, Inuki?" she asked her best friend. "Do you think Nokoru-san was right?"
The inugami whined softly and pushed his cold nose into her hand. "You think he is?" she asked, understanding him perfectly. "But that means I was around in another lifetime." She poked at her ice cream, deep in thought. "Hmm. I wonder if you were with me then, Inuki? I'd hate to think of having a lifetime without a best friend like you!"
Inuki sat there, looking at her with his big brown eyes.
"Hey, Inuki, you were there, weren't you? I bet you remember!" Yuzuriha gestured with her spoon. "And if you could only talk, you could tell me all about it!"
Inuki gave her the canine version of a smile, and, as always, kept his own counsel.
"So, miss, where're you from?" Sorata asked, smiling across the table.
"... I'd prefer to know where you're from," Arashi said, avoiding the question. No matter that she liked his candid attitude, she shouldn't tell him too much. "Kouya-san, you said?"
"Mm," he agreed. "You don't trust me, do you?"
Arashi started. She hadn't thought that she was being that obvious.
"I've dreamed of you, you know," he continued. "I don't expect you've thought of me at all, miss, but I think of you a lot."
"... With pick-up lines like that, I can tell you're a monk," Arashi said disbelievingly, ready to sink into her seat in utter embarassment.
"Hey, it's the truth!" he exclaimed. "I really have dreamed of you!"
Arashi remained doubtful. Sorata just smiled.
"Okay, you're not a Tokyo native, are you?" he asked. "That's not a telling question, because you needed a map too."
"I'm from Ise Shrine," Arashi told him, making a decision that it wasn't really knowledge he could use against her. He seemed too honest to try, in any case. Her sense of people had never been bad.
"Ise Shrine? Wow." He paused and considered for a moment. "I guess you would have to be the 'hidden priestess,' then, huh?"
"... I could be," Arashi replied, sipping at her coffee. "But if I was, I certainly wouldn't tell you, would I?"
"You are," he said with certainty. "Will you marry me?"
Arashi choked on her drink. "What?!" she demanded as she recovered.
"Well, it'll only be for a few days, until I die for or because of you--whichever it's supposed to be--and that way I'll at least have died a happy man...."
Arashi stood, suddenly angered by his audacity and levity concerning so serious a subject. "I wouldn't marry you if you were the last man on Earth!" she informed the arrogant Kansai-jin as she turned to leave, forced to use a line as cliche as his.
His hand caught her wrist and she was forced to look back at him. "Hey, miss, you may be mad at me now, but I think we were meant to be together in more than warfare, and I want to prove it to you," he said, dark eyes serious. "Why would it be so bad to spend some time with me?"
"... We're on different sides," Arashi said. "We each have a job to do...."
"Then you'll have to kill me, miss," he said, "since I don't think I'd be able to kill you, no matter what. Tell me, will you do that? A few days from now, a few weeks, whichever it is, whenever it is, do you think you'll be able to kill me?"
"... I...." Arashi found that she genuinely had no answer for the look in the Dragon's deep eyes. "I have to go now. My brother is expecting me back at any time." She pulled her wrist free and walked away, aware of his gaze upon her the whole way to the door.
Why did he disturb her when he spoke like that...?
Seishirou watched with a smile as Subaru-kun walked straight past him without even noticing. So it was beginning. This part, the remembering, would be the sweetest part of his revenge.
"Koutei, you have barely begun to feel pain," he murmured, relishing the thought. "For the death of my beloved, you shall pay to no end."
"Sakurazuka-san?"
Seishirou turned around to look at Nataku. "Yes, Nataku?"
"Do you think Sumeragi-san will be all right? He seemed a bit... distracted."
Seishirou smiled at the bioroid who had been Jiisha. "I believe he will do that which needs to be done, no matter what the cost to himself. Subaru-kun has a unique honor in that way. The consequences... well, who can say?" He shrugged.
"I hope he will be okay," Nataku said with concern.
Seishirou looked a bit more closely at Nataku. "Are you feeling all right, Nataku-san?" he asked. "You seem a bit... tired, perhaps?"
Nataku smiled, a strand of platinum hair falling into one eye. It brushed it back. "I'm fine," it replied, "merely a bit... overwhelmed, perhaps, at experiencing so many things for the first time."
Seishirou watched as the artificially created life, neither young man nor young woman, bowed politely and walked on down the hall. He marveled at how modern science had grown so complex that it could duplicate, with near perfection, the sexless form of Jiisha. Of the lot of them that had been reincarnated, Nataku was the closest in seeming to the shape of its former lifetime. Seishirou smiled a bit at that thought, and wondered why his beloved had not been among them in the reincarnations. If only Shay-Lien had appeared to him in this lifetime, he might have almost been able to forgive Subaru-kun, Koutei, for his crime in the past one....
With closed eyes and aching heart, Kamui looked at the wreckage of the poolhouse where Fuuma had... changed personalities.
Choice. He had chosen to protect the present, the place where he knew that Kotori and Fuuma could be happy. But by chosing that, he had condemned it to end. The Fuuma he had known and loved was gone... buried forever beneath the dark personality, perhaps, or maybe even destroyed. He didn't know. He couldn't risk it. He couldn't risk hurting his friend. If Fuuma, the real Fuuma, was still alive somewhere, there would be nothing to stop him from freeing his friend's soul from whatever held it.
Nothing except the risk of traumatizing Kotori more... or possibly killing her. That was something that had occured to Kamui, that the darker Fuuma, the other "Kamui," might use Kotori as a shield, or as a hostage.
His hands clenched into fists.
Or "Kamui" might just kill her.
"I can't let him do that..." Kamui whispered. "I can't lose Kotori too."
"Hey, Takeshi," one of the figures in the tree whispered to the other, "why do you think the Chief wants us to watch this kid? He doesn't look too special or anything...."
"Shh!" Takeshi hissed. "Do you want him to hear us, Kentarou?"
Kentarou looked hurt. "Don't you love me anymore, Takepon?" he asked, dewy tears forming in his eyes.
"Knock it off!!" Takeshi threatened. "We have a job to do, remember? Even if it did take us away from a day's work...."
"The Chief assured us that the Chairman of the Board of Directors had been informed of the situation and understood the reason why we had to cancel the meeting," Kentarou replied, his brown eyes becoming momentarily serious. "He did say that this assignment was due to a special request from higher up in CLAMP Campus, didn't he?"
"You think that maybe the Chairman himself requested our assistance?" Takeshi asked, looking at Kentarou. "Hmm. That would mean that Imonoyama-san knows about us... maybe even who we are."
"No way!"
"He's moving!"
The two figures moved lightly from tree to tree, following Kamui Shirou. To the credit of Duklyon, Kamui noticed neither of them.
Kakyou reached out with his mind across the DreamScape and lightly touched one on the shoulder, wordlessly asking a permission that he felt granted. Gently, he surrounded his friend with the DreamScape, bringing him into its world.
"It's been a while, Seii-kun," he said as the form of his friend, older now than he had been before, dressed like a salaryman, appeared before him. "I felt you Awaken, so I thought we might talk."
"Kakyou," the Mage Dragon said simply in return, in greeting. There wasn't really a need to say more.
"I had heard that you'd gotten married, Seiichirou, and had a daughter?" Kakyou questioned, sitting down on the warm sand of the eternally deserted beach. Seiichirou followed suit.
Gentle brown eyes met his as Seiichirou smiled in happiness. "Yes."
"Shimako-san, I assume?" Kakyou asked, feeling no envy of his friend, and strangely, no joy for him either. They had both fulfilled their paths....
"Who else? Kakyou, where did you disappear to? I wanted to invite you to the wedding, to other things.... You could have at least reached out to me like this before...."
Kakyou laughed slightly and turned his attention back to the sea, trying to avoid the hurt accusation in his friend's eyes. "When did we see each other last?" he questioned. "High school graduation, right? I still went by my full name then, so that must've been it." The waves of the imaginary sea ran up the sand and then back down. "Not too long after that, I decided to disappear. I Awoke, remembered I was Yumemi, the Dreamer. I realized who you were... I didn't want to cause you to Awaken too." He fell silent for a moment, remembering. "That's why I fell out of touch," he said in explanation.
"What Awoke you?"
"A girl, my partner, got lost in a Dream... I couldn't get her out. Losing Tatsumi-chan...."
"Did you love her?" Seiichirou asked, removing his glasses. "You did, didn't you, Kyousuke?"
"More than life itself. I ran away after that, I think. My real body, back in that other world, is comatose. I live in Dreams now... as I was meant to do."
"Remember, before, how we used to spend hours playing with our powers?" the Mage asked quietly. "How I'd show off with the winds and you'd top that with your dreams?"
"Two lifetimes, and nothing changes," Kakyou said, smiling a bit, almost against his instincts. "Dragon and human both. Gods and mortals. When did it come to this? I won't fight you, no matter what the others say. No matter even what Daishonin-sama says."
"I know." Seiichirou sounded at peace with himself. "Koutei-sama won't ask me to fight you; he understands, I think, the value of friendships. Why the ocean, by the way?"
Kakyou shrugged. "It suited me when I made this place for myself. The water is soothing and the sand is warm."
"It's lonely. The wind says so."
"Still listening to the voices you hear on it?" Kakyou asked as the breeze ruffled his blond hair. "Does your daughter have the Talent?"
"For being a Wind Master?" Seiichirou shrugged. "I'm not sure yet. Yuka-chan's only five. Daisuke and I manifested it at around seven, so she's got a couple years left before we know for sure."
"I always knew you'd be a good family man," Kakyou commented, looking sideways at his friend. "So what mundane occupation are you in?"
"I'm an editor at Kadokawa Publishing," Seiichirou replied. "It keeps me away from home far more than I'd like. They just recently moved me over to the Asuka division."
"Shoujo manga?" Kakyou couldn't help but tease. "I always suspected you of being the kind to chase after little girls, Mahoutsukai...."
"Bite your tongue!" the Mage Dragon retorted.
They laughed easily, having decided on their futures for themselves.
Author's Ramblings
Guess as you may. And I'll tell if you're right.
X: Sides
Part 6
by Kristin HuntsmanNokoru sighed and adjusted his shades for the fiftieth time. Well, forty-seventh, he corrected to himself, having a mathematical mindset. He was having to pull all his resources in for this battle, for a fight that hadn't even begun in earnest yet. That worried him.
He had been friends with the Heavenly Dragons of the Celestial Court for millenia and longer. He had kept his ties to their Court in deliberate defiance of the orders of his own Lord, who felt that Angels should keep to themselves and not interfere with others. Yet he had regularly interfered, until one day his disobedience had been too blatant and he had been asked to leave. He had been given the circumspect job of running the place at the other end of the spectrum from where he had been before.
"All that paperwork, just for giving a human a piece of hot coal which he dropped into a pile of dried vines," Nokoru mused. The paperwork had been far more of a punishment than the expulsion, he thought. The paperwork was his main impression of Hell. But he was too curious, too active, to stay in any one place forever, which was why he had been sent there, and what had gotten him re-assigned elsewhere.
That was why this Earth, with all the lovely things on it, fascinated him so. It was ever-changing due to entropy, the creation of his Lord one day, the creation that had most directly affected Luce. This world was the sole combined effort of his Lord with the Heavenly Dragons, one that had been given completely, in the long past, to the Celestial Court as a gift of goodwill. The fact that the two other most disobedient of the Angels, his closest friends in all of creation, had been given as well, to guard it, had eventually confirmed his decision and made him, as Luce, ask his Lord for a transfer, for a position of Ambassadorship, the role of Peacemaker, within the Celestial Court.
Surprisingly, he had gotten his wish.
A soft knock on the door brought his attention back to reality and he called out, "Enter," knowing already who it was.
Kentarou Higashikunimaru and Takeshi Shuukaidou entered the room. "Chief!" they both said, saluting sharply, their precise maneuvers somehow strangely at odds with the business suits they wore. Nokoru stifled a giggle.
"At ease," he bade them, watching as they relaxed. "Please, be seated."
The two of them settled themselves into two of the easy chairs that faced his desk. "Report."
"We followed the boy all day," Takeshi reported, his manner precise and to the point, as Nokoru expected from the serious half of the team he had formed on a whim when he was in sixth grade. Eleven years, and the two of them still hadn't figured out who he was. Though to their credit, he believed that neither member of Duklyon really gave much thought to discovering his identity. "He wandered around CLAMP Campus, unseen by any of the students or staff. He met up a few times with other individuals from the group you had informed us of, and returned to the house with the girl approximately an hour ago."
"I wonder who he is...?" Kentarou murmured, propping his head on one hand as Takeshi obviously tried his best to stifle his annoyance. Nokoru giggled, then became serious. If he was to involve these two in the battles of the Celestial Court, they had a right to know everything.
"That boy," Nokoru informed the two of them, "is one of the two most powerful individuals on this planet currently. He and the others hold its fate--and ours--in their hands and their choices." He spun his chair around so that he was looking outside the gigantic windows that had formerly been behind him. "His name is Kamui Shirou, and though he does not yet know it, does not yet remember it, he is a reincarnation of one of the seven Heavenly Dragon Gods of the Celestial Court. Nineteen ninety-nine, balanced at the edge of a millenia, is apt to be a dangerous year for Tokyo. All of the Celestial Court gathers here to determine the fate of this world." He looked out the windows for a moment further, seeing students walking about after classes, socializing before going home. Humanity. So brief, and now so endangered.
He moved the chair back around to face the two. "So what do you think of that?" he asked softly.
Takeshi looked as though he was having problems swallowing the entire concept, which did not surprise Nokoru. Takeshi was very firmly rooted in his version of reality... which was so firmly "normal" that it was amusing. But Kentarou's ever-sunny smile had vanished, and he looked directly at Nokoru as though seeing though he was seeing through the sunshades for the first time. He was being serious, absolutely serious for once. That surprised Nokoru a bit; he hadn't thought that the genki Kentarou had a truly serious bone in his body.
"Is that why the Chairman lent you his office?" was all he asked. But his voice held a tone, very faint, very subdued, of challenge in it. Nokoru's blue eyes, Luce's eyes, watched Kentarou very carefully through his glasses, his expression unwavering. Kentarou met the gaze without wavering.
"Yes," Nokoru replied, wondering if he had just seen Higashikunimaru finally see through his disguise. And wondering, too, if it really made much of a difference to him if he had.
Kanshisha watched, a smile on his lips, as some of the ladies of the Celestial Court worked in the gardens they adored. The family gardens of the Clan of the Heavens were tended only by members of the Clan, and access granted to only to a very specific few others.
His own contribution to the gardens were to keep the trees in flower, especially the twin sakura trees, one flowering white, the other a blushing pink, that his wife and elder brother both liked. It was seldom, very seldom indeed, that the two trees came to fruit, and then they bore sparsely though the fruit was indeed far superior to any other. Even Jiisha's abilities with green living things gave the youngest of them no sway over the flowering and fulfillment of the cherry trees. Kanshisha, however, had a gift with tending them, with understanding the delicate plants' needs and moods, so it had been given to him to tend them in trust.
He leaned gently against the trunk of the snowy sakura and watched as his beloved wife tended some of the ostentatious flowers she had introduced into the garden... and the delicate, pale blossoms that hid in their shade. It was very like Shay-Lien to do such things, to have an almost garish display of color and form hiding yet emphasizing something that was of rare beauty and gentle taste. Her presentation of the flowers in such a manner was startling and surprising, yet all the more effective, for the showy blooms that caught the eye first had little to no scent, while the shy pretties that hid beneath them gave off the elusive, tantalizing scent that she herself favored as perfume.
He loved her, all of her, from the dark red curls that tumbled and wound about one another, loose as she worked in the garden with bare hands, dark soil showing the soft, pale beauty of her skin, to the deep brown of her eyes, to the not-quite-as-tiny-as-they-should-be feet that bore her upon the earth. Shay-Lien, one of the few Humans to ever enter the Celestial Court, one of the few Humans gifted with immortality, was Kanshisha's greatest delight. She had allowed him to love her, to court her, and eventually, with his elder brother's permission, to marry her and make a Human a member of a Dragon Clan. He would do anything for her.
Beside his wife, kneeling also in the earth, was Shukujou, his sister, carefully tending the herbs that she gave to the creatures that flocked to her. The wild creatures, the ones who knew no Gods, bowed to none, adored his sister, seeking her as a cold man might seek a fire to warm himself, watching her as a hungry man might watch a table laden with feast. Even now, she had a small furred creature perched on her shoulder, chittering into her ear in a speech that she could no doubt understand, content just to be near her, and another winding itself around her legs, time and time again, purring with happiness. And watching her was her guard, a man who was tall and silent, speaking little, his silver-gray hair seeming strange compared to his youthful brown eyes, eyes that watched Shukujou with the same adoration that could be seen in those of the wild creatures'.
The man's hand gently touched Shukujou's deep green hair as he knelt and murmured a question to her that Kanshisha could not hear, asking most likely about the plants. Shukujou nodded excitedly and replied, strands of the forest green sliding into her black eyes. She pushed them back with an absent hand, leaving a dark streak of earth on her face that her companion lovlingly brushed away, she seeming unconcious of the gesture. Kanshisha smiled a bit; Shukujou was oblivious to it and its affects, but he rather suspected that her companion, her closest friend as well as guard, was as deeply in love with her as he himself was with his wife. And that would be no bad thing, he mused, if it ever went further. Koutei approved, always, of his siblings' relationships though the Emperor Dragon himself indulged in none, abstaining completely from romance or even passing, casual relationships. His love, all of it, was directed upon his siblings, and his energies devoted themselves to their welfare and the politics of the various factions influencing the two Clans of their Court.
Seishirou Sakurazuka woke from the dream-memory, stifling his tears. The memories were the sweetest thing he knew, the memories of his beloved, but they were also the worst. They hurt... they hurt so damn much.
Hinoto fell into her dreams, dreams of a future that had already been, and dreams of a past that had not yet happened.
There was no sensation of being asleep, or in trance; there was merely the sensation, odd, strange, as she was still able to breathe, of being underwater.
And she opened her eyes and found herself in a kneeling position. She dared to raise her head and saw before her a girl, a young woman, of breath-robbing beauty and innocence. And she marveled at the perfection of the princess.
"Ohime-sama," she murmured in the same breath as her twin. Startled, Hinoto looked to her left and saw the other in her dream, of identical appearance, yet somehow she knew that it was her younger sister Kanoe, sharing in this dream of the unwritten past with her.
Kanoe's fathomless eyes, green in this dream, her hair a short, silken brown that framed a teenager's face, met Hinoto's for the merest of instants.
"What news have you found in your dreams?" the princess asked, her voice like the chiming of crystal glass, like the fall of the sunlight through the rain.
"Bushin-sama comes to court you," Kanoe answered.
"Yuusha-sama comes the same," Hinoto replied.
The princess turned from them then, her silken hair moving lightly in the air as she considered. "They are the best of friends, and I have no wish to part them, but I cannot choose..." she murmured. "I cannot choose one and hurt the other."
She was silent then, and Hinoto expected her to dismiss them. Instead, she murmured, for only them to hear, for they were the only ones within her gardens, "I thank you for this, my ladies, my friends. In the future, I ask that you each protect my beloveds... for I can see no choice that will not greatly hurt Bushin and Yuusha both."
And Hinoto woke from the dream to the concerned voices of Hien and Souhi, and did not know if she was yet awake, or if all of life was but one long, complex, dream.
She had died.
She had died by his hand, her insane laughter suddenly silenced.
He could never forgive himself.
Subaru woke from the dream-thought with pain and guilt and an endless sadness and sense of loss filling him. He didn't know why, but something was coming too close to happening, and it... hurt... too much for him to bear.
And then he straightened up, hearing familiar footsteps walk softly past the library where he had fallen asleep. He glanced at the clock without needing to; it was after midnight, and only now was the priest from Kouya returning?
He smiled a bit to himself and reassured himself that Sorata had been safe; what could harm a Dragon?
Still, he remained disturbed despite the thought. For in addition to the unease the dream had unfolded within him, he felt something new, and it disturbed him even more. A fierce protectiveness towards the other Dragons of Heaven. Towards Kamui that would not surprise him, and not towards some of the others, as well... but towards Sakurazukamori it collided with the hate and pain and he no longer knew what he felt. The protectiveness was stronger than the hatred, and even the pain had changed now....
"Oh Gods," he breathed, burying his head in his hands, not knowing, no longer understanding, "what is happening to me?"
In the darkness, Satsuki smiled.