Past Comrades
Author's note: Oh yes -- relevence of Hagunsei senki, since it isn't very well known. Hagun is an unfinished CLAMP story which had both Suoh (of CCD, X) and Yuuto (of X) in it as 2 of "Eight Warriors (Hakkenshi)" reincarnated from 300 years ago, before the events serialized in CLAMP Campus Detectives occured. Their duty was to protect the princess, who was reincarnated (I think) as this boy who doesn't remember except in dreams, and it goes from there. CLAMP only got a few parts into this, so I'm guessing this boy is the Princess. If that's so, CLAMP didn't actually show the reincarnated Prince, who's supposed to be her bro and also one of the members of the Hakkenshi... I made up what happened to them at the end as obviously, CLAMP didn't.
It was a cool night, clear and refreshing. One of those wonderful presents that Nature conspires to give the rest of creation for a few hours, recalling memories of long-gone days when the golden races ruled the Earth. The moon was especially bright, waxing heavily amongst the sparkling black background. It called to mind a celestial court of jewels, with the milky-white orb at its center.
Yuuto looked up at the moon in the sky and sighed before gazing down at the grassy ground of CLAMP Campus. He was in one of the many green, tree-filled lawns which were so pervasive in the self-contained community. Smiling as he sat beneath a large oak tree, he closed his eyes and leaned back against the tree trunk. As he waited, his ears strained for the sound of footsteps against the ground. Yuuto knew he wouldn't be able to hear it, but he resolved not to be off guard.
Still, when he heard that voice he had almost been expecting, Yuuto started anyway. It wasn't every day that someone could steal beside him without his knowledge. Opening one eye with a grin, he nodded in greeting. "You're still too good at sneaking around, Suoh-kun."
Yuuto gestured to the patch of ground next to him and redirected his attention to the clear sky above. Suoh looked down at him for a moment, expression blank, before he slipped down next to the Dragon of Earth. They both gazed up, unwilling to acknowledge the vast, uncomfortable gap between the two of them. Brought on by too many years of walking on divergent paths, perhaps this breach was something that should not have been.
Finally, Suoh shook his head. "What are you doing here? You have to know that the second any Dragon of Earth walks onto CLAMP Campus that-"
Yuuto interrupted in a laughing voice, "Both the CLAMP Campus Investigation and Detective teams are notified?"
Soberly, Suoh added, "Magical defenses are also raised, as you should well know."
Yuuto's expression was menacing for a moment as he leaned over and poked the younger man with the grip of his whip-like weapon. "Defenses that should have kept me out, you mean? Did your precious Imonoyama think that that was going to work?"
Slightly pained at the venom in Yuuto's words, Suoh winced almost imperceptibly. Finally, he looked directly at Yuuto. "It does work. That is why Yatouji-san's probes cannot get past the water, nor any Dream-walker enter the dreams of those who sleep here -- unless, of course, the sleeper is walking the Dreamscape as well."
Yuuto's eyebrow raised as he silently acknowledged his companions' failed attempts at getting access to the Campus grounds. "Why me, then? You don't seriously expect me to believe that it was because you were honoring your past associations." This time, more than bitterness colored his voice. Anger, confusion, betrayal -- and beneath that, a painful loss that ached still.
Suoh matched Yuuto's tone with a tightly-reined harshness of his own. "Of course not. That, after all, would be unwise. Almost as unwise as believing in the past." Yuuto and Suoh looked at each other for a moment longer, before Yuuto broke away from the gaze first. Suoh continued, "The defenses remembered you as a past student of CLAMP Campus. We are not in the habit of rejecting our own without arranging for some personal contact first."
"I see. That's a weakness I should have expected, considering the hubris of the Imonoyamas-"
"Stop it." This was said without anger, without any of the bitterness that had tainted their conversation -- only with a sense of absolute intolerance. Yuuto's lips quirked and he spread his hands, acknowledging defeat.
"So sorry, old comrade. Shouldn't speak badly of your new master, I suppose." This was followed with a sharp, probing gaze. After a moment of searching, Yuuto asked with real anger, "How long did you pretend to mourn before becoming his dog? I'm just asking because I couldn't really stay after-"
"Stop it!" Suoh stood angrily, and walked away from him as if trying to escape from the old pain. Yuuto had touched dangerously close to the memories which were still uncomfortably fresh in every bad nightmare he had. He turned abruptly and stared down at Yuuto, who gazed back up at him with glittering, menace-filled eyes.
Taking a deep breath, Suoh calmed himself down. His face returned to its natural look of serious unconcern as he nodded, conceding to the pain that only a person who had known him for two lifetimes could bestow. He straightened and felt his expensive, well-tailored suit give only a little at the motion. He wasn't a child anymore -- if he had ever been one. His remembered past and expected future had made his childhood little more than a pretense.
"Am I his dog? Yes." Yuuto stood at hearing the quiet pain in Suoh's voice. The earlier bitterness was gone, or at least masked. The moonlight seemed to almost wash away the darkness from both their eyes for just a moment, leaving both of their expressions strangely vulnerable and open.
Suoh looked at Yuuto with a intensity that was akin to madness. "He is my master. He owns me -- mind, body, heart, soul. I would give everything for him."
Yuuto's jaw clenched as he was tempted to bring up what had been carefully avoided during their whole conversation. There were things that even they, in all their anger, had not dared to touch upon, if only for the mutual pain it would cause. "How did you give away your allegiance so easily? How did you manage to forget the young Master and-"
Yuuto stopped abruptly as the sharp point of Suoh's favored weapon pricked at his throat. "Never." Suoh's eyes glinted as he looked at his once-comrade. "Never say such things."
The wind picked up, making the leaves of the tree behind them rustle in the night. Fast moving clouds covered the stars and moon, leaving both men in darkness. Yuuto's whip curled in his hand, barely stayed by willpower as they each stared into a past that both wished had stayed buried.
The dark-haired man broke the tension by taking his shiruken from Yuuto. Managing to hide it in a motion too quick for Yuuto to follow with his eyes, Suoh said in a whisper, "Do not say things that you know you do not wish to say."
Yuuto put his weapon away as well, and then asked quietly, almost plaintively, "How _did_ you manage to find another so quickly? So soon... almost before they-" He stopped for a moment, still unwilling to say those words, even if the reality of them had pierced through his soul so long ago. Finally, he broke through his self-imposed silence and finished. "Before they died."
The last word reverberated through the night and the space between them. It released something akin to relief as the unspoken between them was finally spoken at last. Suoh knelt down on the grass and did the one thing that Yuuto had never seen or expected him to do. He sat in the cold and started to laugh.
It was a laugh which disguised tears too long unshed. Staring up at the blonde Dragon of Earth with barely checked emotions raw in his eyes, Suoh asked in a choked voice, "Do you truly think that it was planned? Or even that it was wanted? He needed me so soon after they died... I wanted to do as some of the others did. I wanted to just walk away from here. But I could not. I would not."
Suoh stood up, his eyes clear and his stance proud. With an strong, firm voice, he finished, "I refused to fail my new master."
It rang between them like a challenge. Yuuto grinned fiercely, a baring of teeth that was radically different than his usual mask of tolerant good humor. "Why don't you finish it? Say it."
Suoh did say it, in a voice icy-cold and without any of the emotions that had clouded it before. "I refused to fail him as we failed our Young Master and Lady."
Then, more quietly, Suoh asked, "Why are you asking this of me now? It was you who first told us that we should not be ruled by our past..."
"I was a fool, then. Just an immature college student who hadn't imagined that the past's tragedies would ever touch us in the real world." Yuuto's self-mocking smile was back on his face as he gestured to the night before him. "After all, we had been reincarnated. Even if we all seemed the same, looked the same, that didn't mean that we had to be the same people."
Suoh interjected quietly. "We are not. None of us are, anymore... You were right. We should not have fallen so easily into the roles that we had played before. We had forgotten."
They both looked at each other for a long time. Suoh broke the silence to ask, "Do you wish to see them?" Yuuto nodded and started to follow Suoh through cultivated greenery which still managed to look wild.
As he walked, Yuuto asked, "Are you surprised that I'm a Dragon?"
Without looking back, Suoh answered, "No, not really. Were you? I am just surprised that the more of the Eight are not involved..." He paused, then finished his sentence. "The ones that survived, anyway."
Yuuto shrugged. "I suppose. I think that I'm happy they're not involved -- if they've made normal lives for themselves, they deserve to be able to live in peace. In a strange way, we chose to be where we were -- though I guess that you chose more than I did."
Yuuto sighed at Suoh's silence and asked offhand, "Whatever happened to that girl that was possessed? She didn't die, did she? Wasn't her fault that bitch took her over, after all-"
"Nagisa is fine."
Yuuto's eyebrow raised as he stopped. Suoh noticed immediately and turned, wondering why. Yuuto's questioning expression made Suoh ask, "What is it?"
"Just Nagisa? Not, Nagisa-san, or-"
Suoh looked away as a faint blush crept up on his cheeks. He remembered a time when any mention of Nagisa would have made him stammer like an idiot. Even now, after all this time, Suoh still could not keep himself as calm when his love was mentioned.
Yuuto's expectant look made Suoh sigh and answer. "We are to be married after -- after all of this is over."
"Oh." Yuuto blinked, stunned speechless. "Well, I suppose that's one way to deal with an enemy..."
"She's not-"
Yuuto chuckled. "I know, I know. Seriously, I suppose she doesn't remember anything."
"Nothing at all. I do not think she really needs to know."
Suoh stopped just outside a grove of trees. He looked back and asked quietly, "Are you ready?" Yuuto nodded soberly and followed as Suoh started to walk on the dark path which started at the entrance. They went in silence through the darkness, until they reached a clearing.
With sorrow in his eyes, Suoh gestured toward the few simple headstones in the center of the glade. "They -- they would not have wanted an elaborate resting place. Besides, the princess was more at home outdoors."
Yuuto knelt before the graves. Suoh joined him silently. This once, there was no tension or anger between them. They felt only sorrow and regret as both paid respects to their Lord and Lady.
Finally, both stood in one fluid motion. Yuuto gave Suoh a look full of grief, which the younger man returned. "Suoh-kun. I think that we need not continue the conversation we were having before."
"No, that would not be appropriate."
"The Eight don't exist anymore... the reason we had for existing is obviously gone."
Suoh nodded and added quietly, "I will defy your side with every inch of my being."
"I wouldn't expect anything else from you." Yuuto looked around, and spread his hands. "Should I expect the Campus' security system to kick in now?"
"For the memories we hold and the bonds that we shared once, they will not harm you as you leave. However, the next time-"
"I know."
"Will you leave now?"
Yuuto nodded. "There is nothing else here for me now -- not even anger."
Suoh looked down at the graves, and asked in a saddened voice, "Do you truly think I betrayed them, by getting a new Master? I serve, best I can, someone whom I truly wish to save..."
Yuuto closed his eyes and leaned against a nearby tree. "I think you are doing what they would wish you to do." He gave a bitter laugh and opened his eyes to gaze at the too-full moon. "Me, on the other hand... I don't know. But, can we honestly do anything against destiny?"
Yuuto turned then, and left. Suoh watched him go quietly, before turning back to the graves once more. He gazed at all of them, while different emotions tugged at his heart. Before his Master and Princess, he genuflected formally. To the demon who had dared to love the Lady, he gave a respectful nod to the once-enemy. Finally, he turned to the two of the Eight who had died, trying to save the Princess. They had never ceased to argue, but at the end, they had died bravely together. To all of them, he paid his respects and then turned to follow the path out, as his once-comrade had done.
Suoh went to the room which housed the defense system. Sitting at the mainframe, he entered the command which formally marked Yuuto as an enemy in CLAMP Campus' eyes. He stared at the screen for a moment before he turned to face Nokoru, who had been waiting at the door.
"Suoh. Are you-"
"I'm fine, Nokoru-san. Just... just very tired."
Nokoru looked at him quietly, and nodded. "I won't ask, Suoh. I trust you to know what you're doing... I hope it went well."
Suoh shrugged. "The past is dead and the future is all. That is everything I need to know."
Nokoru interjected gently, "But the past has an impact on everything that follows it, Suoh."
"Not this one. Not any more."
Suoh nodded to Nokoru, who waved at him to leave and get some sleep. He stood and started to leave when Nokoru asked, "Do you regret-"
Suoh didn't turn to face Nokoru as he stopped. Calmly, subdued, he answered, "The Eight are dead, Nokoru-san."
"They are dead, and I am on the side of the Seven Seals now."
---Finis---
3/4/98