I drop the stone and stagger, my legs giving out for lack of anything to throw my remaining strength against. There is no more need.

My body fails me.

The snow is of the powdery kind, at least on the surface, but further down my feet sink into icy crusts that offer a better grip. Balance still precarious, I clutch my arms to myself out of a vague sense of - neatness? Maybe. They told us back at the inn that no one climbs this mountain in winter, and that we were fools to try. Certainly the snow was immaculate up the marked trail and before the shrine. Now it's trampled all around me by footprints of prey and predator, stained with more blood than I want to claim. I've watched winter hunts where the deer was butchered right after the c�up de gr�ce, organs and guts spilling in the knife's wake, vivid red and steaming in the snow. Such a picture, and I've always tried hard to be lovely. They will find me eventually; I want to spare them that. I want to die on my feet.

It freezes, the blood, and does not darken. But snow should be white.

Miaka... such a strange dream. A fancy born of weakness -- but it felt real, truer than this life of mine. Strange clothing and great machines and cities like clustered stars in the evening. I couldn't make such things up: I haven't the patience, or the imagination. Perhaps it was her world.

In which case I am glad, for she seemed happy.

It was foolish of me, it was. A failed reflex, a precaution missed - and suddenly time is slipping through my fingers, impossible to hold back, impossible to take back, a child's laughter stumbling into the street, the clatter of steel-sheathed hooves on cobblestone� I want to take it back. Bitter in the sweet, this, now that I know what it is to have a future. I'd not understood since the day I died, the first time, on that market street. But it was in her eyes, and in theirs.

I don't want to abandon her, don't want to be the one to make her cry; always, always, I've asked for more choices than I was given. How silly we are, stars whose courses have already been charted.

Everything is dimming. At least I can still see the sun. It should be wrong, staring up like this - shouldn't it hurt my eyes? But nothing hurts anymore. I'm heavy now and light at the same time, floating in my body as if it were water, quiet so as not to disturb. Don't disturb. There's no reason for it to obey me.

Is my body really me?

Am I dying?

Kourin�

Little sister�

How long have you been there?

She calls me. They call me. I smile - sweet conjunction of voices! - and turn, but that disturbs the balance, ripples the waters and I sink down, emptiness that is whiteness, drifting like snow my sister please just a very little more�

Miaka�

I swim up to the warm arms about me, the feel and scent of him familiar. They are here. Don't do anything stupid, Tama dear. No amount of blood or magic would be enough now. The call is too strong. My body fails me. I prized its strengths that brought me acceptance, resented its shortcomings that exposed my illusions - it seems silly now. What price the love of oneself?

What price our meeting?

Miaka, are you crying? I'd rather you don't cry for me; rather you didn't see me like this. If it were Hotohori-sama I'd be mortified - if he knew I'd made you sad, I won't ever be able to show my face again. Don't cry. I've been stupid enough, as stupid as you can ever be. I only wish I had enough time to see the heroine come to the end of her tale. You're a special girl, greedy and feather-headed and utterly you. You were born into your world and brought into ours to make miracles. You've done more for me than you know.

So silly. How can I leave you when you're like this? I have to be sure that you're happy. I'll be with you until then.

Until I'm sure you're happy.

Takemiya opened her eyes to sunlight streaming in her window. For a long moment she stared at the ceiling, wondering why her sight was so blurry. Finally she brought her hand up to her face and felt wetness.

"Silly," she whispered to herself. "It wasn't a sad dream. It wasn't a sad dream at all."

A dozen times in her eighteenth year.

One dream. She couldn't say how she knew: the scenes changed, and little detail had ever remained to her. She had never been certain upon waking whether the tears in her eyes and the pounding in her chest were for fear or pain or overwhelming joy.

This was the first time the dream had returned, since then.

The first time�

Takemiya stared at her luncheon companions over the dregs of her iced coffee.

"You're investigating," she repeated.

"It's not a lead we can go to the police with," Taka said. "At least, not without much more evidence than we have now. But we have good reason to suspect that Miaka or Yui was specifically targeted, and perhaps that the man wasn't working alone. So if there's something you remember-"

"It would be a help, I gather."

"A great help."

The last was Miaka; her gaze was earnest. Takemiya sighed, clicking her spoon against the side of her cup absently. She didn't want to be where she was. The dream always destroyed her sense of balance for the rest of the day; Miaka and Taka's presence seemed somehow unreal, and their mysterious declarations even more so.

That was unfair, she reminded herself. After all, they were the ones who'd been attacked out of the blue, hadn't they?

"Sure," she said finally. "I remember. I was quizzed on it yesterday by Tokyo's Best. They have this guy who smokes constantly-" She glanced up at Taka and Miaka. "Well, anyhow. He said he was trying to kill some priestess. That if he killed her, 'You'll never assemble the Nine and the Shadowless will win,' quote-unquote. Then it sort of went downhill from there. Something about an undead bird�"

Taka was nodding. Takemiya tapped the spoon against her lips, trying to conjure up the same words she'd delivered to the forbidding detective of two days before. "No. Undying bird. The priestess yadda-something, who serves the undying bird. You okay, Miaka-chan?"

Miaka nodded rather jerkily, curling her hands around each other to keep them still. "Yeah."

"Then what?" Nursery rhymes, but that made it easier on the memory, perversely enough. " 'The saving sword, the gold-eyed lord, the blood-red rose born twice'�"

Taka was taking notes on his napkin, she realized. His seriousness was unnerving enough to make her add, "Pure schizo raving if you ask me. Really. I mean, what are you supposed to be assembling anyway? It's not as if he said nine of what."

Miaka looked at her fianc�. "Not the seishi," she said, making it sound rather like a question.

"Practically by definition," Taka said wryly, "unless there are more houses of the lunar zodiac than my philosophy accounts for."

Takemiya stared at them. "I'm sorry," she said. "Lunar zodiac? That's� constellations, yes?"

Taka looked rueful when Takemiya raised her eyebrows at him. Miaka was watching her, though, and her gaze had little self-consciousness in it.

It was almost�

Expectant?

"It's a long story," Taka said finally. Takemiya smiled sweetly and leant forward.

"Try me."

Taka told the story - with constant interjections by Miaka. They were already completing each other's sentences, and Takemiya could just picture what a few years of marriage would do. She was vaguely aware of stretching the definition of lunch hour, but as the impossible tale progressed into death and battle she could only listen, jaw constantly in danger of dropping. If the lovebirds were pulling her leg, they were going to unnecessary trouble to do so.

They really believe it. Phoenix gods and book worlds�

The idea was less funny than it was disturbing. Takemiya recollected Yuuki's dark hints regarding his sister's "adventures," and wondered if this was what he meant. An even scarier thought was that Taka was obviously giving her the bare-bones version. She found herself wondering if they'd somehow lifted the plot from a shoujo manga she'd read in grade school: at moments it seemed so familiar she had a urge to offer her own corrections, no, it wasn't like that at all, what really happened was�

But she couldn't remember where she'd heard it before.

It unnerved her. The obsessive sense of unreality returned; something felt wrong, as if the conversation should not be what it was, or in such a place. As if she'd walked into the middle of a movie and missed the pivotal scene.

Surely things between them should be�

Different?

Takemiya rubbed at her temple, trying to banish the incomprehensible thoughts. The dream always did that to her.

"So basically, you are the priestess."

Priestess of Suzaku�

Miaka nodded. She had that look again: as if she were half-hoping Takemiya would say something, do�

What?

What was she missing?

"Well, at least now I see the problem," she said finally. "If the guy's really plugged into this mess, anyway."

Miaka looked down at the crumbs on her plate - sole remnants of what had been a double club sandwich with side orders and dessert - and nodded again. When had she grown so solemn? At least she ate just about as much�

As she did before�

Until I'm sure you're happy.

Takemiya swallowed. Something skittered beneath that train of thought, elusive and frightening.

Something she should�

I have to protect you, don't I?

Something�

Blood.

Takemiya took a steadying breath. "Look," she said abruptly. "Maybe you should, I dunno, leave it to the police. It's their job, and they can get anything the guy has to say right from the horse's mouth. I mean - listen to your story, for goodness' sake. Magic books, magic scrolls, emperors and summonings and god-knows-what -"

"I don't blame you for not believing us," Miaka said quietly.

"It's got nothing to do with what I believe. It's just that you and Tama-chan have enough on your plate without having to run your own criminal investigation on the side. You're getting married in a month for goodness' sa-"

She paused, looking from one to the other as their expressions registered. "What?"

Taka swallowed visibly. "Sorry. Wh-what did you just call me?"

Takemiya blinked. "What did I-"

Miaka, are you crying?

The dream.

It was�

There was white light then, and sound died.

It�

Oh, crap.

She watched them exchange glances with a rising sense of panic. In the end it was Miaka who spoke. "Takemiya-san, do� do you believe in past lives?"

Takemiya stared at them - the striking young man, the sweet-faced girl - and remembered pain. Blood and snow. Bittersweet pain.

She stood up.

"No," she said. "No, I don't. I've always figured that, you know, one life's worth of problems is more than I'm comfortable handling. No use wearing myself out looking for more." She forced a smile. "Anyhow, I've got to be getting back. Good luck and take care, ne, Miaka-chan? See you two around."

She clapped Taka on the shoulder in passing.

***

"On the other hand, I said my name was Tamahome," Taka pointed out. "I must have."

Miaka shook her head. "That doesn't matter much one way or the other. I� can feel it. It's just different, that's all."

"Well, you're the Miko."

His brown-haired love smiled up at him. "Taka - come on. Just admit it."

He saw the flash of mischief in her eyes and sighed, giving up. "Fine. The ki felt very similar for a second-"

"There! You see?"

"-But what difference does that make? She's another person."

Miaka nodded. "I know. I do. And it� doesn't matter as much as you think, you know, it's just - well, if we could be friends - I'd be happy. Even if it's different friends."

There was a pause, at the end of which Taka sighed. "Yeah - me too. Besides which, it'd be nice to be able to split the protect-and-safeguard duties once in a while-"

"Taka!"

"Not that I didn't ask for it by following you from one world to another, of course. Destiny and all that." Taka glanced belatedly at the only other person in the - antechamber was the only word that came to mind, the place was really one heck of an educational institution - but the red-haired young girl in the next armchair seemed engrossed in the Yomiuri Shinbun's financial section. "Do you think we're going to get to see anybody soon?"

"I don't know," Miaka said, adding rather peevishly, "and I'm hungry, too�"

Somehow it never failed to surprise him even now. Before Taka could open his mouth, though, a voice rang out from the doorway.

"So sorry to make you wait, gentlemen, Miss Yuuki�"

Taka glanced up and registered three figures, but most of all a young boy - about fourteen, blond hair and strikingly blue eyes - who was just now striding across the chamber, smiling, hand already extended in greeting.

"Welcome to CLAMP Campus!"

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