X: Sides
by K.Huntsman
Dance, dance, dance of pain, of words, of the past. It was all a dance, Arashi reflected. And she was the dancer.
She moved her bare feet along the ballroom floor, letting her body express what her mind and heart felt, trying to interpret, to understand, to control.
Control her emotions, control her dreams which were more like memories, control herself.
Maihime.
In her dreams she bore that name.
Maihime, the dancer, one of the clan of siblings that ruled one half of the Celestial Court. Maihime, by love betrayed. Betrayed by Souryo....
She shook her head and concentrated on the now. Best not to think of it. Best not to think of the dreams. Best not to think of the spark inside the eyes of Sorata Arisugawa that reminded her far too longingly, far too painfully, of Souryo.
It was only a dream.
Kusanagi paused and looked upwards into the bright sun. It was time for him to return, to meet the others who were the siblings of his former life. Already Yumemi had met him in his dreams and given directions, directions to a place where he would meet up with Maihime and Bushin... and a warning that not all of the others had yet fully remembered. Kishi and Maihime still clung to the idea, his brother had said, that they were merely gifted humans. Kusanagi wondered how long that innocence would last if the rest of them were already aware.
He stopped before the door of the dance studio for a moment, then entered, looking around in the dimmer indoor light. A tall young man leaned against one wall, examining him with cool, dark eyes.
"Senshi," Bushin greeted him calmly.
They were in next to one another in order of birth, so there had never been much formality between Senshi and his elder brother. "Bushin," Kusanagi returned, just as civilly.
"I'd wondered when you would show up," Bushin said without his expression changing from its impassive state.
It was becoming so much easier to fall into the trap of being solely Senshi, here with his brother, and Kusanagi had to remind himself that he'd changed more than a bit during his mortal incarnations. "I didn't know where to go until Yumemi found me," he replied. He nodded towards the door that Bushin guarded. "Is Maihime in there?"
"Seeking her answers in her dance," came the short reply, meeting with a nod. "She'll remember soon; the memories merely confuse her now."
"And she'll remember Souryo...."
"She'll remember that he broke her heart, and from that will no longer feel anything but hatred for him," Bushin replied, fury biting into the back of his eyes. "She will not betray us this time!"
And Kusanagi remembered--
--spying on his elder sister, sneaking a peek around the edge of a building as she met with Souryo, her blushing and soft laughter as he gave her a bouquet of flowers and kissed her hand--
He shook his head and felt only guilt.
They had been children then, he and Bushin, and incredibly jealous, in the way of younger brothers with an adored elder sister.
And Bushin still hadn't grown up, had never grown up, had never gotten over the hatred and jealousy of their sister's suitor. Not to mention the more private hates, the hates of Yuusha, once his best friend, and Hime-sama, once his idol, that ate away at him even now.
Bushin was either mad, or close to it, Yumemi had warned, from the way life had played upon him.
And Senshi knew his brother well enough to be wary.
Yuuto threw the blade negligantly and watched it land neatly in the dead center of the target, twenty feet away.
Deadly accuracy was his gift. He could turn anything into a weapon, and never missed. Whip, blade, anything.
And at times it almost scared him. It had when he was a child and had injured a friend, not meaning to, just playing. And it scared him a little to think of himself being around his middle sister and her family and possibly injuring them. But around the other Dragons of Earth, it didn't bother him so much, his potential to kill. They could defend themselves quite competently against any slips, any accidents that might be fatal.
And he would have to kill, as would his youngest sister. He and Arashi alike would have to kill at least once to lose their shadows. Shadows of fear, of guilt, of differences between them and others. To be completely normal, to never fear injuring another, to be at last completely in a sane world, they would each have to kill their opponent.
To kill an assassin... Yuuto mused as he picked up a sai from the table he stood by. To kill an assassin, that would be no bad thing, would it?
"Hello, beloveds," Satsuki crooned to her pets. "You missed me? But I told you I'd be back...."
The cords and wires curled around her nonetheless, seeking the comfort of her presence. "All right, so tell me the news," she asked them. "Has anything interesting happened while I've been away?"
The silver and black cables pulled her gently forward into her seat and waited attentively as she sat down before merging with her. She gave a soft gasp of pleasure as she felt the electricity, the power, the information start coursing through her. She was no virgin, and she knew this was better than sex had ever been for her in this form... though before, with Kishi....
She gently turned that thought aside and paid close attention to the data that she was being given, lightning-fast series of 0s and 1s that she translated even faster into images and words. Only she could think so fast as to be able to keep up with her computers; only she was capable of thinking in computer-language; only she was able to understand her darlings.
"Oh ho..." she mused. "Is that my dear little brother Senshi? My, he's all grown up in this lifetime. That uniform--he's with the JSDF, isn't he? How adorable for him." She focused on the image of the big, burly man who was the reincarnated shape of her delicate, artistic sibling. "He looks healthier now than he did then. I wonder if he still likes music as much?"
And then the data changed, focused elsewhere, to the hotel where she knew Yumemi to be still. "Nothing changed with him," she murmured. "I wonder if we should get Bushin to wake him up again? Maybe he's not doing himself as much good as he thinks he is, sleeping his life away like that."
And then it changed again, this time into the variances and fluxes of psychic energy over the past night, and she smiled.
"Oh, so easily they get trapped and caught..." she murmured. One hand stroked the cool, smooth console. "Such good work you do, my darling. Now, can you see if you can sort these out to the different lines of their family? Thank you."
The computer whirred and hummed, a warm tone in its "voice" that told Daishonin it was happy. "I know you love me, my darling," she told it, opening her eyes, "I love you too."
And it finished sorting and compiling with a bright "ping!" and she closed her eyes again, seeing the charts form behind her eyes. She sorted the colors herself and labeled them. She knew the members of the Celestial Court and knew who was who. Most of them she disregarded; such as Jiisha and Shukujou held no interest for her.
But some... Kanshisha, for example, and Koutei, their relationship a weakness she could use to break the Heavenly Dragons, and that damned bitch Himesama who had caused all this by her cold rejection of Bushin... oh, yes, some Daishonin was extremely interested in. Not to mention the three Angels, but they could wait.
The computer's hum took on a defensive tone. It adored her, and was utterly on her side as no other had been. "Shh, my darling." She calmed it with voice and touch. "We'll get them yet, just wait. Even the best-laid plans of Dragons and computers may go astray without patience." She smiled. "See this line here?" she asked, pointing to one. "That is what we will use to bring Koutei and his low."
She laughed. "And then," she confided, "this world goes boom."
The computer burbled happily.
"There's a hole in the planet, dear 'Liza, dear 'Liza, there's a hole in the planet, dear 'Liza, a hole..." Sorata sang as he sat down for breakfast. Kamui looked at him strangely, and the Kansai-jin grinned back, unrepentant.
"That's not the version I learned in school, Sora-chan," Yuzuriha said, bright-eyed in the morning sun. "Where did you learn it?"
"I got it off the Internet," Sorata replied. "A friend of mine in California made it up concerning an episode of Gundam Wing. I think it's appropriate to 1999, though...."
"Shall we wait to discuss the theoretical End of the World until after breakfast?" Seishirou asked, sitting down as well.
"What's 'theoretical' about it?" Sorata asked, leaning forward on his elbows. "It's now, ain't it?"
"'Theoretical' because the planet still appears to be in one piece," Seishirou replied.
Nataku remained shy and silent, not joining in the bantering as it entered the dining hall. Kotori walked beside it, utterly beautiful in a misty, swirly kind of pink dress, Kamui thought. He stood instantly to pull Kotori's chair back for her.
"Thank you, Kamui-chan," she said, smiling at him as she sat down.
Seiichirou looked up from the morning paper he was reading and looked around the group, seeming to count them up in his head. "Where is Kou-- ah, Sumeragi-san?" he asked as Kamui sat back down.
Seishirou seemed to give Aoki an odd look, but that was gone so quickly that Kamui wasn't sure he hadn't imagined it. "Subaru-kun never was very good at remembering to eat," was all he remarked.
"Ah. I see." Seiichirou gave the assassin a second look back, one as odd as the one Seishirou had given to him, and this time Kamui knew he was seeing things correctly. He wondered what was going on between the two of them that they weren't telling everyone else. "Well, shall we eat then?"
A general murmur of thanks for the food went around the table, and Kamui didn't miss Sorata catching his eye and nodding subtly towards the two. So. He wasn't the only one who had seen it, then....
He nodded subtly back, knowing that Sorata would track him down later and swamp him in theories about it. In the meantime, he ate.
Subaru leaned against the balustrade and thought. He'd been doing that for several hours now, thinking. His sleep hadn't lasted past 2 a.m., so he'd watched the sun rise, still thinking, and now it was several hours later, and he hadn't stopped.
Something was happening. He knew that with the core of his being. Something within his own self was changing... awakening.
Onmyouji, know thyself.
Futiley, he reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a pack of cigarettes. He gazed at them for a long minute, then crushed the package in his hand. They wouldn't help to keep the pain away anymore. Nothing could stop it now, and if it overwhelmed him, and he broke or drowned, well, then it was long overdue. He'd been running from a confrontation with himself for five years, and it was time to get ready to face it.
He looked at the sky overhead. It was bright and clear here and now, at this school, but he could see the storm clouds gathering not too far away. A day in Tokyo without those clouds was a joke. It always rained, sooner or later, and he'd almost always found the rain comforting. No longer.
Now, the rain scared him.
"Oh, Gods," he whispered, murmuring a prayer, "keep the others safe, if not myself, and let this world continue. Hokuto-chan would have wanted that...."
He watched the clouds, coming towards him, fast, much too fast for the air currents alone to be carrying them, and waited for his enemy to reveal himself, and knew that his enemy was in his own soul.
The rain began to patter around him, then heavied, then broke something inside him.
The pain consumed him from within, burning, killing, and he fell, soundless in the pain, and the world vanished. And then so did he.
Nokoru ran to the windows of his office, Suoh and Akira behind him, and stared through the rain at the gigantic sapphire-blue dragon coiling and stretching into the sky.
"Koutei-sama has Awoken," was all he said.
My, I'm feeling productive. And Sorata's pen-pal in America happens to be Melinda Miller; she gets credited with the origin of that particular version of the song.
X: Sides
Part 8
by Kristin Huntsman
Kamui felt the shock go through his self before the house started shaking even. And before the wave of sound that was below his hearing level swept over him, nearly deafening with its vibrations. And before the several things that seemed to happen at once occured.
Something... had happened.
Then the house started violently moving.
Kotori shrieked and covered her head with her hands, closing her eyes. Yuzuriha's eyes widened and she immediately went into the same duck-and-cover routine. "An earthquake?" she yelled out over the noise.
"Holy--" Sorata choked, looking out the window he faced. Kamui followed his gaze and saw... something... blue, with scales, moving, twisting, the source of the shaking.
Nataku just watched, looking stunned.
"Koutei-sama," Seiichirou Aoki breathed.
Sakurazukamori smiled. "Subaru-kun."
Kamui got to his feet and ignored the shaking of the room, ignored everything else, and ran to the doors, slamming them open with his shoulder to get out onto the balcony. Then he stopped and stared.
A magnificent dragon, blue beyond the deepest blue of sapphire, royal blue, twisted and curled about itself up towards the sky. Kamui could almost hear the scream of pain that was below his hearing, and his heart twisted, stabbing him. Subaru. This was Subaru. And somehow he'd unleashed the power of the Emperor Dragon that rode in his bloodline and transformed into this shape and it was hurting him--somehow Kamui could now feel the pain, distantly--and the pain had driven him mad, beyond sense....
"It seems our brother has remembered," Seishirou Sakurazuka remarked, all the others suddenly on the balcony with Kamui. "Good."
"'Remembered'?" Nataku asked in a soft, hesitant voice.
Kamui didn't have to look at him to hear the smile in the assassin's voice. "Subaru-kun has remembered his past life, remembered who he truly is," Sakurazukamori replied. Kamui turned, staring at him in disbelief. "He has remembered he is Koutei."
"Koutei-oniisama..." Seiichirou breathed. He glared at Sakurazukamori. "I know what he did, Kanshisha-oniisan, but hasn't he paid enough yet? Will you destroy us all for your revenge?!"
Kamui lost his breath. If they were falling into madness, more than just Sakurazukamori alone had been pulled down into it... but if it was true.... He looked up at the dragon again.
"Oh, Gods," Kamui breathed, then glanced back at the two who knew what was going on. He completed the thought. If it was true, Gods help them all, because this was even bigger than just the Earth alone.
Seishirou looked at Seiichirou for a long moment, then turned away to keep admiring the view of the insane dragon. "It matters not at this point," he replied. "Either Subaru-kun will regain his sanity and his control, or he will not. There is nothing any of us can do about it."
Flicker of thought through the pain.
Half an image.
Scales of deep bluest-black.
A tall young man with hair and eyes of the blue-black.
A touch of emotion.
A name, almost.
Ka...
Gone.
Another.
Palest blue, almost white.
Gentle, changing, tidal.
Jii...
And another.
Blue-violet, endangered.
Chosen, and hated because of it.
Who?
Sibling.
Name...?
Names out of reach.
Selves out of reach.
Himself out of reach.
Ground and center.
Balance.
Find the balance in the maelstrom, in the tsunami.
Hard... so difficult.
Blown off balance.
Struggle to feet.
Try again.
Keep on trying.
Balance. A name.
Any name.
My name.
Kou...
Koutei?
Koutei.
But another....
Subaru.
Koutei and Subaru. Which is real...?
And suddenly he became aware again. A dizzying height, the ground so far below, and if he fell....
He wouldn't fall, he realized. He was still on the ground. Only, he was different now. And he looked down... saw the path between the offices and the house, saw the three figures running along it, running towards him, controlled panic in their eyes, blue, gold, watercolor gray, as they looked up at him.
Luce. Faith. Hope.
He knew them even though they looked different. The form was nothing; the essence was all.
And he saw the seven clustered on the balcony looking up at him. Yuusha, his eyes confused and not quite understanding. Hime-sama, beautiful in her terrified innocence. Souryo, awed and impressed. Mahoutsukai, upset, worried. Shukujou, near-ready to cry. Jiisha, silent and confused. And... Kanshisha.
His heart tore even as he remembered their other names. Kamui. Kotori. Sorata, Aoki-san, Yuzuriha, Nataku, and... Seishirou-san.
Seishirou-san.
Kanshisha.
It hurt. It hurt too much. He couldn't... he had to... alone....
With a desperate cry, he turned inward and sought to be somewhere else... anywhere else... anywhere....
And he folded in on himself and vanished.
Arashi felt it go through her heart, a blow of pain-filled twisting sensation that drove her to her knees with its force. She tried gasping around the sensation, around the pain, trying to get air, to breathe, to move, to do anything but feel something like that....
Then it was gone, as suddenly as it had come.
"What... was that?" she half-breathed, getting to her feet again.
"I have no idea," Karen Kasumi replied, her face shocked as white as Arashi thought her own probably was. "Maybe the DreamGazer will know."
"In a minute, Kasumi-san," Arashi replied, leaning against the wall of the corridor that led to Kaga-san's apartment. "I need to get my breath back...." Not to mention her wits and a steadier pulse. "That hurt."
"Agreed," Karen replied, leaning against the wall and facing her. "I don't know if it was an attack by them, but if it was, I won't forgive the Dragons of Heaven for it."
Kakyou watched through dreams and let them dilute the pain and the shock that came from Koutei's violent Awakening. None of the others had been like that... they were gentle ripples caused by a pebble in a pond; this was a boulder's reaction, and he knew what it signified. An Awakening... and a Change. At the same time. And both completely involuntary.
He shuddered to think of the pain that caused that and was caused by that. And then he turned his attention to the two Earthly Dragons approaching his door, in the real world. He smiled a bit to himself and let them into the DreamScape just as they entered his apartment.
"Kasumi-san, Kishuu-san," he greeted them.
"Kaga-san," Arashi replied, bowing formally.
"Yumemi," Kyuuteishoufu added. He and she remembered being siblings; Maihime, Arashi, did not. And they had all agreed to let each Awaken in their own time, so they danced carefully around Yuuto and Arashi until the time came that they, too, would wake fully....
Kakyou smiled. "What may I do for you?"
Kamui rounded to face Sakurazukamori as the great blue dragon faded into nothingness. "What have you done with him?" he hissed.
Seishirou actually looked wounded. "I've done nothing," he replied, protesting his innocence. "You needn't worry about Koutei, Yuusha; he can and will return to us on his own." His eyes glittered. "I have faith in his ability to take pain."
"Whoa, hold it, hold it!" Sorata interrupted, stepping between the two of them. "This ain't helping us get anywhere! What I think the rest of us would like, Sakurazuka-san, is an explanation of exactly what the hell's going on around here...."
"Agreed," a soft, familiar voice concurred from the deserted dining room. Sorata turned around to look at Nokoru Imonoyama... and gaped. "Shall we continue this indoors?" Imonoyama asked, wings furling and unfurling softly behind him, crystal and glass transparencies of feathers gleaming in rainbow colors. "Even Dragons can catch colds while in human bodies."
"Kamui-chan..." Kotori whispered, clutching Kamui's arm.
Nokoru smiled. "Come back in and let us explain this to all of you... Koutei-sama--Sumeragi-san--I trust to return in his own good time."
"What the hell are you?" Kamui asked in a quiet, defensive voice.
Nokoru's eyes became serious. "My companions and I, Yuusha-sama, are what you would call Angels. We knew you millenia ago, before those of the Celestial Court buried themselves within mortal bloodlines, and perhaps we may answer a few of your questions for you... if you wish."
Kamui watched him for a few seconds longer, and Sorata could practically see the balances being weighed in the back of his blue-violet eyes. Then he decided and turned to Kotori, offering her his hand and gesturing towards the house.
Imonoyama smiled again and stood aside as they milled back into the mansion.
Subaru choked back a gasping sob of pain, curling up into a ball of soaked, freezing misery and pain in the rain-drenched alley where he had gone. Oh, Gods, to know anything but what he now knew, to be anyone else... to not have to understand, to not have to have to accept the fairness of it all. Oh, Gods, to be able to think that Seishirou-san, Kanshisha, really just did care nothing for him, not to have to face and accept that instead of indifference, there was the deadliest hate... only the hate....
The icy rain did nothing to ease the burning tears that streaked his face. He moaned once in heart's pain, then was silent. If only the rain would wash away the pain as easily as it washed away the sensations of the body....
But that wouldn't be fair.
It wouldn't help anybody except him.
Slowly he opened his eyes and turned over, blinking against the raindrops that fell to his eyes.
"Hokuto-chan..." he whispered, then laughed, suddenly understanding, seeing the bittersweet pain and irony of it all. Oh, Gods, the irony. The justice. How horrible could it get?
He stood then, knowing he wasn't doing anyone, not even himself, any good by staying where he was and getting drenched like the fool he was. He couldn't just stop. The worlds wouldn't just stop spinning because he had problems. Gods, everyone had problems. Even Gods. So he closed his eyes and willed himself elsewhere, and opening them, found himself there. Elsewhere. Anywhere elsewhere.
He stood in his apartment, and it felt warm after the outside of icy rain.
He heard a slight gasp behind him and said, without turning around, knowing already who it was, "Hello, Obaachan."
"Subaru-san...."
He did turn then, not caring that he was soaking wet and his hair was plastered to his face with the ice water, obscuring his vision. He looked at her for a minute and saw without needing to the reverence and slight terror in her eyes.
She knew he was Koutei. She knew that her grandson had been the reincarnation of Koutei, the Emperor Dragon, head of the Clan of Heavenly Dragons of the Celestial Court. She knew who and what he was... as she had always known. She had always known.
"Why," he asked simply, "didn't you tell me?"
She had no answer for him.
"Why, Obaachan," he asked again, "if you knew I was Koutei, didn't you tell me? It might have saved her life...."
At the mention of his twin, Subaru's twin, a small spark of deep pain, deep in her eyes, flared for half an instant, then twisted out.
"Answer me."
She remained silent. Too silent. A flame of anger grew to consume him, and he struck his hand against a mirror on the wall, breaking it into a thousand shards held together with a spiderweb. "Answer me, damn it!!"
She moved forward then in her wheelchair. "Your hand..." she murmured in concern, taking it in her own. A trickle of blood ran down his wrist from the cuts.
"...Why didn't you tell me?" he whispered again, not bothering to keep things out of his voice that he probably should have.
Her eyes looked at the mirror and his couldn't help but following.
From behind the shattered bits, Koutei's reflection gazed back at Subaru.
X: Sides
Part 9
by Kristin HuntsmanBlack hair reached to the image's waist, curling over shoulders and loosely hanging, unbound, on white fabric with yellow-gold-blue decorations. Eyes sapphire gazed back at Subaru, set in a face that was not his own... a face that was far too perfect, too beautiful, to be his own.
"That's what I looked like then," he murmured. "That's what I looked like as Koutei, Obaachan. Mirrors will always tell the truth if you let them." He concentrated just a little, and the mirror rippled, settling back into the reflection of Subaru Sumeragi. "It's part of why we decided mirrors would make good tools when we were setting up systems of magic for this world."
"And Sakurazukamori...?" she asked.
He closed his eyes and pulled his injured hand free of her light grasp, knowing what she was asking. She knew, as she had known that he was Koutei, that Sakurazukamori was also a reincarnated member of the Celestial Court. "Seishirou-san is... was... my brother Kanshisha. He has reason to hate me. He has a very good reason to hate me. I killed his wife, the lady Shay-Lien."
His grandmother was silent for a long moment, then asked, "Why, Subaru-san?"
He sighed and slumped down the wall next to the mirror. "That part isn't covered in the myths, Obaachan; it never got to your world because things fell apart so quickly after that. Shay-Lien was a human, a special human, one born with the gift of immortality. It happens sometimes, maybe once or twice in a millenia, that such a person is born. When it does happen... well, our kind generally take notice." As long as he kept the distance, he could talk about it. He could handle talking about it. All he had to do was see Koutei's life from Subaru's viewpoint, and Subaru's life from Koutei's viewpoint. It was running away again, he knew, but he needed to do this to give his grandmother answers. And he owed her that much, surely....
He gestured in the air with his hands as he spoke, trying to describe with soft motions as well as the words. "We take the immortals from you very young... we leave simulacra of their bodies, so you humans never know anything but that they died. We raise them among our own, and they go the way of all godlings eventually, off into their own lives. But some, a few, chose to stay within the Celestial Court. At the last, there were five... most of whom I've met since in this lifetime."
Good. Keep the distance. You're not human... and you're no longer a God. You are nothing, and something in between.
"What happened?" his grandmother asked gently as he paused. Subaru opened his eyes and studied his cut hand, then extended a slight bit of power to heal the wounds seamlessly. It happened, and then it was like the cuts had never been.
"Shay-Lien and Kanshisha fell in love with one another," he replied, remembering the time of soft happiness, the days, years, of courting his brother and Shay-Lien had gone through before finally choosing to spend their immortalities together. "They wed. But something within Shay-Lien was not quite whole. We had taken her from her family quite late, you see. She was a teenager before we 'kidnapped' her, and she had emotional ties to her human parents and siblings. She watched them and her former friends grow old. She watched them die. It unbalanced her, and I was fool enough not to notice. I trusted my brother's judgement with her; I should have known his love would blind Kanshisha to Shay-Lien's faults."
His voice dropped to a whisper as he closed his eyes again, remembering, keeping behind the diamond wall of safety and separation. "She went mad."
"How long have you been Awake, Oniisan?" Kanshisha heard.
He looked into Mahoutsukai's calm light brown eyes and smiled. "Since I became Sakurazukamori," he replied. "Since I was fifteen." He watched the color drain from his younger sibling's face at that, and felt some kind of pleasure from upsetting the Mage Dragon so.
"Here, Kanshisha-sama, Mahoutsukai-sama," the youngest of the three Angels said, offering them some of the large towels that had been distributed to the others already while the two of them lingered in the doorway.
Seishirou accepted the warm, soft cloth with a murmured thanks and began to dry off his icy-wet hair. "Subaru-kun would have to Change and Awaken in the middle of a torrential rain, of course," he observed out loud.
"The rain wasn't due to hit CLAMP Campus until late this afternoon," the middle of the Angels observed, his golden eyes carrying a quiet censure of Seishirou. "The energy of the Change likely disturbed the weather patterns."
Seishirou shrugged.
"So what the hell is going on around here?" Yuusha, Kamui, demanded as Seishirou found himself a seat in an overstuffed armchair.
Imonoyama, Luce, leaned back against the mantel of the fireplace, his arms crossed on his chest. "I trust that all of you learned in school the mythology of the Celestial Court... I believe it's a standard part of the Japanese curriculum these days? Anyhow, what's important is just this: those stories aren't myths. They're your--and our--pasts. Most of you don't remember them yet, but it's likely, no, beyond likely, that you will soon."
Arisugawa cleared his throat. "So then, what you were talking about the other night wasn't the truth? Not the whole truth, anyway?"
Imonoyama looked calmly at him. "The truth, yes, Souryo-san, but, yes, not the whole truth. What I meant by each of you being descendants of the Dragons Gods is a bit more complicated than just divine-mortal coupling to create a child, though that's been done, too." He paused and touched a finger to his lips, seeming to search for a way to explain the concept to them. "Okay. Suppose you have a mortal woman who is pregnant, then send into her unborn child all the essence of a God - of yourselves, to be precise. The child will die, but the power, the essence, will linger in the woman's body, keyed to a pregnant state, and her subsequent children can all be said to be descended from a God. The potential is passed down along the bloodline like a dominant gene, a key to the power if the circumstances and soul within the body are correct."
"That's horrible," Yuzuriha whispered. "To kill a baby like that...."
"It's only a body, though, isn't it, Yuzuriha-san?" Nataku asked, surprising Kanshisha with its astuteness. "The soul is the part that matters, right?"
"So our souls remained loosely tied to the bloodlines we Chose, and Awoke into bodies and power on occasion," Aoki concurred, "though never all of us together, at one time, until now."
"You Awoke before, Aoki-san?!" Yuzuriha asked. "When?"
Seiichirou smiled, his eyes meeting Luce's briefly before he answered, "Twice. The last time was a few centuries ago in Italy, where I ran into Luce and found out that he, Faith, and Hope had followed us into mortality."
Imonoyama smiled. "It was either that or stay where we were and be bored out of our minds for millenia."
"So why did we supposedly chose to become human?" Kamui asked, his blue-violet eyes distrustful. Seishirou wondered if he would be less so if Subaru-kun was there, joining in the explanations.
"Shay-Lien did not go quietly mad; she went insane and quite simply blamed all of us. She destroyed a good portion of this world with her intentions and the skills she had learned." Subaru paused, remembering. "When we made it, the moon was a lovely twin-world to this one, beautiful and green. She destroyed it, stripping away the surface until it became what it is today. A lot of mortals died, flooding the afterlife because of it; I imagine it took millenia to get the system working fast enough to drain that backup. Then...."
He paused and looked up at his grandmother. "Did you know that it's possible for even immortals and Gods to die? There are weapons that can kill us quite as easily as if we were mortals. I think only two of them have appeared yet in this world with us; the twin Shinken. Anyhow, Shay-Lien got ahold of one of the weapons, and attempted to kill Shukujou and Jiisha, my two youngest siblings. I had to defend them. Remember how you always said I was talented while I was training in kendo? Well, I was good with swords then, too. But Shay-Lien wasn't bad herself, and had the strength of insanity on her side... I killed her. I didn't think I had a choice, but maybe I did. Certainly Kanshisha thought I did."
He looked back down at the floor. "That's why he hates me, Obaachan. That's why the Sumeragi clan and Sakurazukamori have always been mortal enemies; he set it up so he was supposed to kill me, even if he didn't Awaken, and I set it up so I would theoretically know to defend myself. I was Seimei, did you know? The first head of the Sumeragis. That was the only time he and I Awakened before now, and he was after my life then, too. Not that I blame him in the least. I can't, not after what I did."
"Subaru-san...." His grandmother paused in what she was saying, then continued, her voice quiet. "You're right, of course; I saw the power in you when you were born, and knew that you were Koutei-sama, reborn. I didn't know all of what had happened, and I didn't know why you were being reborn into our bloodline now, of all times, so I just tried to ignore it and raise you as if you were only my grandson Subaru. If I had known...."
He looked up and met her dark eyes, smiling a little to reassure her. "It's alright, Obaachan. You couldn't have known. I'm glad I got to be only Subaru Sumeragi for so many years. And I'm sorry I got angry at you just now; I shouldn't have. Awakening hasn't had a very good effect on me, I think, and I'll try to be more mindful of that from now on." He took her hand and held it in his. "And I shouldn't have said what I did about Hokuto-chan. She would have died anyway by his hand, even if I had known. It's part of the fairness we set up in this world. Things are given and taken equally, even for us."
She looked surprised and more than a little quizzical. "What do you mean by that, Subaru-san?" she asked.
"Why, Obaachan," he replied, a bit surprised, "You were the one who taught me the tenets of the different faiths. Remember that if you do something in one life, it will be done back to you in another?"
She nodded.
"It was fitting that Hokuto-chan be taken away from me because I took her away from Seishirou-san." He searched in her eyes. "You see, Hokuto-chan and Shay-Lien were the same person, the same soul."
Nataku sat and listened quietly. Somehow all of this made sense to it. Certainly more sense than many of the things it had thought of before. It looked around the room, at the two who had already Awoken, at the three Angels, their wings near-transparent behind them, at Sorata-san, Yuzuriha-san, Kamui-san, and Kotori-san. For whatever reason, it was having an easier time accepting a story of past lives than the other Dragons of Heaven, than the young woman.
It was the reincarnation of another, of a Godling named Jiisha. Which meant that it did indeed have a soul, and that its memories of being Kazuki were very likely indeed memories. That was good. It could lose the fear, something that it did now indeed realize was fear, that it would just vanish when it was killed.
If it had a soul, then it had emotions. And it was a person.
But... if it was a person, then what kind of person was it?
Nataku sighed a little inwardly, seeing a new set of problems unfold before it. Would the problems never stop? Now that it had determined that it did indeed have a soul and was a person, a human even, it had to find out what kind of person it was....
Still, it was better than being without a self entirely.