Clamp Campus, Tokyo,
Imonoyama Mansion
in the afternoon of December 27, 1999
...a book was neatly closed and put under a brass lamp. Yellow-tinged lamplight drew the man's features softer than they were, emphasized the soot of the hair, and glittered on the golden wire frame of the glasses. Large glasses, slightly tinged.
"Hello, Subaru-kun."
He took a step forward, awkward, as if his heavy boots suddenly stuck on the feet of a sixteen-year-old. His hand raised to touch, to verify. A choked sound came from his lips–
A hand filled his vision. Soft merciless words reached his ears. He fell. He was falling...
...falling...
...ever since...
December 28, 1999
Subaru woke slowly, gradually, in a nearly dark room. A weak glow along the horizon on the other side of the window, visible through a not fully closed curtain, told of day to come. A day that hadn't arrived yet. The room was silent. He lay on a couch with a flat, pillow-like armrest supporting his head. The cushions under him whispered faintly as he shifted his weight, squinting to make out details. Something soft touched his wrist above the leather glove he still wore. He blinked, stupefied. A plush penguin was sitting next to him.
The leather of the couch had a soft, velours-like texture. A warm, fluffy blanket was thrown over him, tucked around him. Muffled talking, barely more than a murmur, came from somewhere outside. Seishiro-san must have stopped by–
He was dreaming about Seishiro again. About him not being dead. About him waiting...
He propped himself up into a sitting position. The penguin tumbled over his hand into his lap.
He'd never owned a plush penguin to begin with.
He'd never been tucked in on a–
Subaru blinked. He was indeed neatly tucked in under a fluffy blanket on a very comfortable nubuk couch. An edge of the blanket had been carefully placed under his cheek. The soft fur-like fabric was almost sensual to the touch. Somebody had even removed his boots and folded the blanket safely around his feet.
The murmur in the distance grew louder.
Determinedly, Subaru put his feet onto the floor. The plush toy fell over the edge. Involuntarily, he reached for it and froze in the movement. A dried smear of blood across its white chest was visible in the streak of light along the floor. Subaru's fingers trembled.
It hadn't been a dream after all.
Nothing had been a dream.
He walked warily towards the narrow strip of light shining through under a closed door. The white stripes of his socks seemed to glow where the light touched them. The polished wood of the floor was cool and slightly slippery. The rest of the room was shrouded in gloom. The murmur that had roused him separated into two different voices, still low but nonetheless strangely urgent. A shadow moved across the yellow beam of light. Someone was talking agitatedly on the other side.
"–not as if Sumeragi-san being here changes anything." That was Imonoyama for sure.
"Wrong. Things are already changed." A derisive snort. "Thanks to you."
Subaru froze. Seishiro... that was really... Sei–
"In case you've forgotten, I'm no magician. I cannot stand in front of one of you and walk away unscathed! I–"
–shiro!
The slap resounded in the room. "How dare y–" Subaru stared, transfixed, at his black-clad hand caught by Seishiro's larger one against the Sakurazukamori's cheek.
The golden eyes behind painfully familiar and now slightly askew glasses glittered predatorily. "You should divest yourself of these gloves, Subaru-kun. I think we both know that they don't work." Subaru tried to jerk his hand back, but Seishiro held tight, actually rubbing his cheek sensuously against the leather-covered palm.
"Why aren't you dead?" Subaru whispered, choked. His hand felt warm. The skin within the leather tickled as if–
A brow arched. Seishiro's gaze wandered along the arm to Subaru's face. "Because you killed an illusion, of course." The yellow light reflecting on the gold frame of his glasses competed with the amber of his eyes behind them– of his two eyes–
Subaru trembled. The cheek under his right palm was warm, was solid, he wasn't dreaming, yet... this was a dream, wasn't it? His dream. No, a wish. A wish he hadn't even dared to have. "How...?" His left hand was pushed away before it reached Seishiro's face.
"Grown transplants, soaked with adaptive magic. Not a miracle if you attained your degree in a biomedical institute specializing in transplant preparation and had roughly eight years of time."
Subaru's left hand reached out again. His fingers splayed over the chest where they had pierced through, his black glove a stark contrast against the white shirt. Again warm and solid. No blood. He wished for the glove to be gone. He felt a heart that had fluttered to death around his wrist, beating steadily against his palm, strong, fast, unbelievably alive. "Why?"
"I didn't want to face the two Kamui without adequate depth perception," Seishiro shrugged. "At least one of them knows how to use that against me."
Subaru shook his head. "That's not what I meant." He looked up at where his hand was still held flush against Seishiro's cheek. "Why..." He shivered, his left hand clawing fiercely into Seishiro's shirt. "...did you do that to me? – And why confront the Kamui?"
"I'm surprised, Subaru-kun," Seishiro scolded as he took Subaru's hand from his cheek and firmly freed his shirt. "You of all people should know that I'm capable of betrayal."
"The fight about the end of the world is flawed."
Subaru started at Imonoyama's quiet sentence. He hastily pulled away from Seishiro, actually felt his cheeks growing warm. The chairman was looking at them calmly. Subaru took a step back, ran a hand through his hair. There was no space to retreat further in the small, cluttered study. He desperately wished for a cigarette, if only to occupy his hands. He clasped his elbows, felt himself shaking.
Seishiro leaned casually against one of the book-laden tables lining the wall on the left, arms folded loosely, his legs carelessly crossed at the ankles, apparently waiting. Three of the shirt buttons at his throat were undone, leaving his collar to fall open. A half-emptied coffee cup stood, forgotten, next to him on the table. Seishiro's right cuff showed a brown stain. Coffee? The flaw of a coffee stain on– Flawed.
"What do you mean by 'flawed'?" he focussed on Imonoyama, on the problem.
"I found indications of at least five previous fights," Seishiro answered instead. "None of them normally claimed the lives of the losing team, and for sure not those of the winners! The most prominent one was before 1640 during the Tokugawa regime. You might notice that 1637 is the year of the Shimabara Rebellion , followed by the Seclusion in 1638. The forces of Yin, the Seals, won that one on most of the levels."
"Yin had to win, or humanity would have ceased to exist," Subaru stated.
"If that's the case, Subaru-kun, then we aren't here." Seishiro returned calmly. "There was also one at the end of the sixth century during the time Empress Suiko claimed the throne. Her reign saw a lot of change in the land. Scripture, Buddhism, foreign contacts." He tapped onto an overflowing file folder with a prominent coffee ring on its cover. "That's Yang, the Angels."
"Suiko's reign..." Subaru whispered, staring out of the single window in the wall behind the computer desk. The first light of day was creeping up behind the partially bared trees outside. Suiko had followed Sushun... He turned toward his opposite. "Where did you get that information?"
"It should be in the first chronicle of your family." Seishiro said. "It sure is in mine."
"The Sumeragi chronicles start near the end of Suiko's reign, with the foundation of the Onmyo-ryo ." Subaru shook his head. "I have to look those chronicles up." He straightened, brushed his hair out of his face with his hand. "I won't act without seeing for myself."
Ueno-Sakuragi-cho, Tokyo,
House of Sakurazuka Seishiro,
Midday - December 28, 1999
The rusty wall ornament creaked faintly as Subaru walked swiftly down the small alley. The red rust of the iron and the green of the blind brass wound around each other to form a pentacle... a pentagram... a pentacle... as they circled the axis.
A tenth of the circle and the pentacle turned into a pentagram.
A tenth of the circle and the pentagram turned into a pentacle.
A tenth of a circle... He groped for almost forgotten geometry lectures.
A tenth of a circle... a tenth of 360 degrees... 36 degrees.
36 degrees separated pentagram and pentacle. Not 180. They weren't complete opposites, they were but a fifth of that apart.
Was it the same with Seishiro and himself?
Sakurazukamori and Sumeragi. They both had each other's blood on their hands. They each had sought the death of the other, had sought their own death by the hand of the other, though only one had succeeded...
...his leather-covered nails pressed hard against his palm as Subaru clenched his fist. No. Alive. Seishiro was alive. Was... His fist hit the rough wall. The ornament creaked again, spun from pentacle to pentagram in front of his eyes. It was rough, handmade. The imprints of a hammer could be seen where the midday sun hit it fully. Ice crystals glittered a bluish-white in the shallow dents.
He wondered if there was any difference between them at all. He shuddered. Even if not, if Seishiro was right about the fight for the fate of the world, then... Determinedly, he pushed against the gate, found it locked. He pulled his right glove off and fumbled in his inner coat pocket for the set of keys Seishiro had given him.
A moment later he sat on the bottom step and pulled his boots off his feet. The first ward whispered against his shields. He concentrated, but found no surprises. He hesitated before he went up the rest of the steps. Seishiro hadn't mentioned the sleeping spell. It was possible that he wanted Subaru out of commission until whatever he was planning was over; still–
Subaru stopped. The sleeping spell was on the third step, but nothing connected with him. He frowned. Had Seishiro disarmed it from afar? Or–? He shrugged and put the keys back into his pocket. The faintest whisper of the spell touched him. He froze, took the keys out again. The humming faded. He held the keys away from the step and the humming increased. He hastily pulled the keys close, the spell subsided instantly. It was linked to the entrance keys.
The spell itself was impressive, but this... He silently acknowledged the imagination behind this piece of magical craftsmanship as he climbed the last steps and crossed swiftly over to the computer desk in the bedroom.
The dressing gown lay still over the chair in front of it. He threw it onto the bed and slipped onto the seat. A little awkwardly, he opened the silver lid of the laptop. Fax machines he knew how to use, telephones, pagers.
"Young onmyoji are so trendy these days..."
"...up to the latest fashions!"
"Look who's talking," Subaru muttered at the remembered teasing as he searched the button to switch it on. Finally, there in the upper right corner of the keyboard was the symbol Imonoyama had shown him. The screen lit up and glowed bluish. Cryptic white text scrolled over it. After a moment a small box popped up with a blinking black vertical line. That was where he had to enter the password.
..."You'll have to be content with the scans." Seishiro mentioned casually while he searched his pockets for the keys. "I scanned the pages ages ago. The book itself is in a safe place well out of reach."
"Scanned?" Subaru asked.
"As in digitizing them into files." Seishiro finally found the keys and tossed them over to him. Subaru caught them. "They are encrypted on my laptop. Nokoru can tell you how to access them."
"Why don't you download them?" Imonoyama asked. "Our bandwidth is more than sufficient."
"You don't believe I'd keep anything valuable on a connected system, do you?"
"Would have been practical," Imonoyama sighed. "Remember, he'll need the password."
"The password..." A wistful smile ghosted over Seishiro's tight mouth. "Place and date of birth of Sumeragi Subaru." He caught Subaru's wrist in a hard grip. "The real ones, not the fakes you gave me at Sunshine 60. Place in simplified Western writing. Year. Month. Date. Separated by hyphens." Seishiro held his gaze firmly. "When you are there, do yourself a favor: don't snoop."
Subaru still shivered at the intensity of that last glare. What idea did Seishiro have of his abilities? He couldn't snoop on a computer. Most of their talk had gone straight over his head anyway. He just hoped not to get lost in Imonoyama's explanations. Or had Seishiro meant the house? But he'd been here before.
The black line seemed to blink faster, more angrily. Concentrating, he typed: KYOTO-1974-02-19. Black stars filled the space toward the right of the line. Then he hit the key with the bent arrow. The box with the line and the stars disappeared and the screen turned black. In the center of it glowed a crimson pentagram. Various symbols lined the right side of the screen. Another box with a blinking vertical line – this one light blue on black – showed in the upper left corner.
Subaru fumbled the slip of paper out of his pocket and began to type.
cryptoview -ssv-access:"D:\Archive\Chronicles\001\scn-0001.png" -r -dcrpt -vrf -pnfoe
He was glad when the first page was finally displayed on the screen. The chronicle was written in ancient Chinese by a Chen Yue.
~...to find the balance between the Yin and the Yang that best befits the realm. Seven pairs as personifications for the seven levels of existence, as there are Divinity, Spirituality, Nature, Ego, Life, Love, and Humanity. Each level is governed by a combination of Yin and Yang, passive versus active, consolidation versus change. Each level stands on its own but their impact on the other levels vary, with Divinity reaching all, Spirituality all but Divinity, and so forth...
~Part of Yin is in Yang and part of Yang is in Yin. There are always traces of one in the other and the absolute extreme of one always transforms into the other.
~It is natural in this, that we are more connected with our opposite than with our companions of the same kind. My opposite in this shows indeed remarkable abilities, though he lacks the schooling I've come to expect from a scholar of the Arts. He is still of barbarian demeanor, yet it is a shame that I am forced to oppose such a beautiful creature.
~As I write this, decisions have already fallen for Divinity, Ego, Life, Love, and Humanity – all in favor of Yang, of change. This land is going to see remarkable changes in the years to come and I am confident that at some point down the times, my opposite and I will sit together and fondly remember our contest for the realm's spiritual fate...~
Enter password for file scn-0036.png: |
Subaru stared, puzzled, at the dialog box that had popped up instead of the expected next page. After a moment, he tried the password Seishiro had given him for starting the laptop.
Invalid password. Access-attempt logged.
Warning: three wrong attempts lock the system until master password is given.
Enter password for file scn-0036.png: |
Subaru reached for the phone.
=Pages holding magical information require an additional password.= Seishiro sounded tense over the phone. =You don't need those.=
"Maybe not the magic, but the remaining text."
Silence, filled with the electrical background noise of the connection. Then: =Mister Donuts.= Seishiro waited a moment. =The page should be displayed now.=
"Yes..." Subaru's eyes followed the narrow vertical lines.
~...Alas, it was not destined to be. I was confronted with the dead body of the current Yamato Emperor Sushun lying in my protector's garden. After I disposed the damning evidence by the way of the blossoms and calmed the agitated Sakura, which was infuriated by the lack of respect for a divine ruler, I followed the spiritual trace extending from the body which was moved after the Emperor's untimely death. The connection led to my opposite's hut and it is a shame that I was forced to dispirit the beautiful creature that was my opponent.
~Yet it is Destiny's cruelty that she puts such a horrid soul into the most appealing body. I couldn't possibly risk having this vengeful spirit roam free and I wasn't able to ensure the Sakura's safety during dispelling him, therefore I find myself forced to bind his spirit so that he may not be reborn, and that his shell shall be the vessel for a soul befitting its beauty next time it walks the earth. The symbols as they are:...~
The following line was inked in a different shade and the characters were unknown... yet familiar. Subaru frowned. He had seen them, had seen them recently, where...? He put the receiver onto the desk and stood. He had seen them. And they had seen him. They were calling, calling...
The black wood of the basement door was warm against his cheek, welcomed his embrace, held him; carvings embossed themselves in his skin, his blood sang. Excruciating pain shot through his right eye. The pentagram scars on his hands shone white.
The world faded to grey–
Someone told him to be still and leave things to the head of the house.
Someone ancient. And cold. Cold.
He fell, crashed onto a ground he couldn't see in the wavering grey fog. Deadly cold bit into his hands and knees, reached up his arms and legs for– He bit his lip, scrambled to his feet. Red crystals glittered where his pants were torn at his knees. Frozen blood? His hands were numb, white, covered with ice.
Storm gusts battered against him, no warmer than the ground had been. He sheltered his frozen hands in his armpits. Within. He was Within. But... within whom?
:::Begone:::
Scathing contempt for his very existence washed over him.
"Why?" he whispered into the fog, felt precious warmth escaping his mouth with the single word.
A picture formed in the haze, wavered, took shape. A blood-soaked body, the heart ripped from its chest and lying on the corpulent belly, fluttering through its last beats like a gory butterfly feasting on the embroidery. Rice-paper ofuda with primitive spiritual markings were scattered around it.
:::Sushun was a small man in life who took too long to die. The violence he sowed in life, he now harvests in death:::
The picture changed.
The darkness of night obscured the bent figure carrying the body, leaving it in a neatly decorated garden near a well-kept, fortified house.
Change.
:::Whatever prediction comes to your mind shall come to pass, my prince. The onmyodo won't allow anything else:::
That was from his nightmare. He–
Change.
A slender man in Chinese garb walked in front of him, long grey hair in a narrow braid, its tip swishing at every step. He bowed towards a Japanese lord, whispering something, and they ascended the stairs towards the Imperial hall while he was denied access.
Icy determination erased the scene.
:::And by it I shall silence not only the Soga but also my rival under his protection. Your body belongs solely to me. I won't have you interfere in the Emperor's timely demise:::
Himself. He was within himself, controlled by a foreign spirit about to use his body as a vessel to kill–
–he choked at the thought. No, that couldn't happen. He couldn't allow it. He– He needed help. Cold ate away at him. Breathing hurt. The fog was like acid, burning in his throat and lungs, suffocating him. He coughed, choked, desperately fought not to fall. He needed help. Help–
–to save the Emperor.
The sigils on his hands blazed hot in the darkness. Five corresponding points of painful heat burned through the fog. A pentacle... no, a pentagram – he was looking at two tips in front of him – shone around him on the ground. Subaru's skin sizzled and burned where he touched it, yet it erased the fog, the cold, and allowed him to breathe. Subaru curled up when scalding hot air thawed his almost frozen lungs.
Help.
The pentagram under him wavered. A picture, diffuse, moving, appeared in the right tip near his face. Houses... Ueno... the Sakura. If the Tree got hold of his body again, if it devoured him now, the fatal spirit would be sucked in, too... Ueno Zoo. Subaru wanted to scream in frustration. The spirit had avoided the ancient entity. The seeing eye was moving fast. He didn't have time. What could he do? The image of a lake wavered in and out of view with each step. A lake with ice-covered reed grass. A curved roof raised above it from a small island in its midst. Shinobazu Pond with the Bentendo Hall... Bentendo Hall. Benzaiten.
The goddess of all that flowed, of knowledge and wisdom, of music and eloquent speech. A protector of the realm. A realm whose spiritual leader was in grave danger from a spirit possessing the spiritual protector's body...
He struggled to sit up, folded hands that looked burned and frozen, signs of his soul's slipping hold in his body. He bowed his head, put all his devotion and discipline into the single syllable.
°°°Om.°°°
Raw power flowed around him. Benzaiten's mantra was the Word, the syllable, its power was a signal flare on all existential planes the goddess touched. And which plane was not touched by knowledge?
°°°Om.°°°
The flowing power took his last remaining warmth with it. If he lost hold again, he would burst into a million shards and evaporate on the burning ground, as if the Sakura had sucked him into its veins. He fought to keep the shiver out of his mental voice. Somebody had to hear him, had to hear him soon. Somebody–
°°°Om.°°°
A swan sailed past him, stirred the fog wavering outside the pentagram with the strong bashing of its wings as it circled him in increasingly smaller loops. Its deep call echoed in the dark as the red shine of the pentagram illuminated its breast. Hard wing feathers scratched Subaru's face.
Something trickled over his cheek. A thin sheen of blood covered his fingertips after he felt for it. He stared at the brilliant red on his hand, and color exploded in front of his eyes. Images appeared, pictures, he was seeing.
The thick walls of the Tenshukakuato, the ruined donjon of Edo castle, loomed high up to his right Their slightly tilted, irregular form made of nearly man-sized ashlars in different shades of grey was unmistakable. Bare trees raked their skeletal branches into the cloudy sky beyond. Once, the Tenshukakuato had been the foundation of Edo Castle, the donjon built to protect those within its walls. Now it was the symbol that told Subaru how close to the Emperor the deadly spirit in his body had already come. He didn't have illusions regarding the chance the Imperial Guard stood against the spirit controlling him. If they noticed him at all and understood the danger he posed. If they had the nerve to shoot the current chief of the Sumeragi clan straight into head and heart. If–
A slender man stepped out of the shadow of the Tenshukakuato, straight into Subaru's path. Pale grey hair, banded in a long narrow braid, fell down to his ankles. The braid's end and the traditional tunic of a Chinese noble fluttered in the wind, strangely familiar. Long narrow eyes calmly watched the spirit approach.
A jian, its straight, double-sided blade engraved with a snake-and-flame pattern along the ridge, was raised to shoulder height. Chinese characters surrounded the guard. Black and crimson tassels were tied to the handle. Once, people had died for baring a blade within Edo Castle, but the man in front of him was already dead.
The ghost stood tall, unperturbed, waiting, a two-handed hold on the sword, the blade horizontally in front of his chest. An armed ghost to intercept a murderous spirit?
The swan landed at his side. One of its wings was tipped crimson.
Was it the same swan who had returned his sight to him?
Subaru's hands rose; ancient words were forced over his lips against his will. The ghost's narrowed eyes gleamed a steely silver. The swan spread its wings, hissed as the ghost turned the sword, the cutting edge now aimed at Subaru's throat. Help had come, help for the Emperor.
The spirit dodged as the blade sang, skidded down the embankment separating the paved place from the grass. Dark evergreen was crushed underneath heavy boots, then Subaru's feet sank into the soggy ground of the winter lawn. Dry, ice-crusted reed grass lined the pond skirting the meadow in the east. A lone pine ahead marked where a path ran through the grass. The spirit headed straight towards it, stopped, and turned–
–saw the ghost was following, calm and deadly–
–focussed. A new set of ancient syllables in a foreign voice spilled out of Subaru's mouth as the spirit attacked its hunter.
Black daggers struck the earth around his body, nailing black, blood-marked ofuda to the soggy ground, marking a banning field in the form of a pentagram. A tall figure, obscured by the wavering barrier, appeared in front of him. Subaru stared at the glowing black markers. Those were Sei–
The spirit tore at Subaru's barely healed wrist to dip his fingers in blood and draw the pentagrams on Subaru's hands as pentacles. Intention above Reality. Spirit above Matter. No, don't– Subaru struggled, but his hands were forced through the sizzling banning field, striking at the man beyond. One hand, its nails dark with blood, the pentacle glowing crimson on its back, aimed straight for the heart–
–and pierced a white-feathered breast instead.
Lightning flashed; for a heartbeat, the Sakurazukamori was a stark figure against its brightness, the ghost a vague shadow at his side.
A flash of silver, tracing the banning field, slashed through Subaru's arms in the darkness that followed. The jian cut smoothly through skin and muscles, separating the bones. Hokuto's voice cried, "I didn't want it to be like that!" The crippled spirit screeched.
Subaru reached for her, stared at the bleeding stumps of his arms and felt the swan dying around his hand. The thunder of shattering concrete erased her crying. The swan's heart was beating against his wrist, feeling so very much like... when– The bridge was falling again– No, the swan had protected... Protected! Seishiro was alive.
The spirit's control over Subaru's body wavered under the assault. For a brief moment, Subaru saw both, the spiritual and the reality, bleeding stumps and uninjured hands.
The blood of the dying swan washed away the pentacle, revealing the bluish glow of the pentagram underneath. Subaru choked, fell to his knees when spiritual pain set the nerves of his arms on fire as the spirit lost its hold. Yet he forced his hands up, clasping them, focussing. It was his own voice that came from his lips now, his own incantation...
°°°Om. Bazala Darma. Rinpyo Tosha Kaichin Retsu Zai Zen!°°°
The spirit screamed, tore at Subaru's soul and body, trying to strangle, to silence him. Subaru felt his blood freeze. The cold bit into him. Ice scraped in his lungs as he chanted to isolate and expel the spirit. His voice–
The hem of a Chinese tunic ghosted over his cheek.
°°°Om. Barzala Darma. Rinpyo–°°°
The ghost dropped to one knee in front of him. An arm was laid comfortingly around his shoulder. An elegant, narrow hand performed a perfect arch, outstretched fingers striking beneath his ribs. Pain exploded in Subaru's chest. He gagged at the sensation of the ghost's hand groping inside him, of a spirit being torn out of him like a beating heart. Calm silver eyes held his gaze. A tender smile on sensuous lips guided him into darkness...
Kokyo Higashi Gaien, Tokyo,
December 28, 1999 - 15:48
Swan feathers were lying on and around him. A blade stuck in the ground in front of his eyes, its edge gleaming silvery white in the late sun. Blood beaded in the snake-and-flame pattern along its ridge. Someone was chanting...
A strong singing voice, rich, seductive in timbre, the result of the intensive schooling demanded by a profession – or better: a calling – which involved incantations. A voice few were destined to hear, fewer yet meant to hear and live to dream about. He knew it. Knew it without a doubt. It was painfully familiar, he–
Subaru drew air into his protesting lungs, turned his head towards the source of the chanting.
Where the path crossed the lawn, black daggers marked a banning field that held a raging blood-colored apparition. A puddle on the pavement served as a makeshift mirror, reflecting the field's blue flicker.
Seishiro knelt in front of it on the stones, his white shirt torn and blood-stained at the sleeves. He had opened a vein, was dipping his fingers again and again into the crimson fluid that collected in his palm to draw something with it on the pavement. Sakura petals fluttered around him, but didn't condense into the torrent that took away trapped souls. The banning field flashed and contracted, forcing the screaming spirit into an ever smaller space.
The Sakurazukamori stood in one fluid move. A narrow dagger appeared in his hand, was torn in a savage strike across his left lower arm. Subaru gasped at the blood welling freely from the deep cut. What–? Seishiro's fist struck into the banning field.
"FEIR!" Flames exploded in the compressed banning field. The sickening smell of burning flesh wafted over the lawn. Subaru gagged. The spirit screeched again.
"REID!" The banned area flickered and... disappeared.
Seishiro stood motionless, his hand unburned but the blood still flowing from the cut. Almost in slow motion, he dropped to his knees, his ragged breaths loud in the crisp air.
The sword was pulled out of the soil next to Subaru's head. Someone took a long step across him. Grey sandals walked towards the kneeling figure without disturbing the blood-sprinkled winter grass, hesitated, returned to him. Subaru looked up, found considering silver eyes resting on him.
Whoever sees the Sakurazukamori at work is to die... He couldn't bring himself to care. He was cold. The Emperor was saved. The apparition... gone? Seishiro... If his life was the price for that, he would pay it. He met those winter eyes calmly. He just wished it were Sei–
"Yue!" Fiery gold met cold silver. The sigil scars on Subaru's hands flared. "My prey!"
A thoughtful look. The bloodied jian in the ghost's hand glistened in the late afternoon sun. Seishiro had risen to one knee, was dipping two of his fingers into the blood still flowing from the open cut in his arm. Amusement glittered in the grey eyes as they returned briefly to Subaru. A slow nod of recognition, then the past Sakurazukamori gave a courtly bow to the current one. The bow of an equal.
Sakura petals fluttered in growing numbers. A thin twig grew out of a gushing pink wave, brushed along Seishiro's cheek, raised his chin, ran over the skin under the torn shirt.
The hot stab in Subaru's heart at the sight was unexpected and he averted his eyes.
When he looked up again, Seishiro stood alone in front of him. The place behind him looked strangely untouched, as if– as if nothing had happened. The wounds and cuts on Seishiro's arms seemed gone. If not for his tattered, bloodied clothes, and the taut lines around his eyes...
The ground under Subaru was wet, but even the icy water soaking into his clothes felt warmer his body. He struggled to sit up, slung his arms around his knees to steady himself and felt bile on his tongue. "What happened...?"
"He wanted a body." A cigarette was lit. The thin curl of smoke smelled of incinerated corpses. "Yours, to be exact."
"He– he–" Subaru turned over and vomited. He expected ice crystals, but the mud of steaming, partially congealed blood that poured from his mouth was worse. Strong hands held his head, supported his shoulders. The torn shirt sleeve at his cheek smelled of burned flesh, fresh blood, and sakura blossoms. Subaru gagged. A cool cloth was wiped over his lips and chin, then tossed into his lap, as the Sakurazukamori stood. "–murdered the Emperor."
"Emperor Sushun, yes. Emperor Akihito, no." Seishiro shrugged casually, taking a deep drag from his cigarette that had the tip glowing brightly in the dimming light, revealing the tremor in his hand. "This time he failed in all aspects of his plan."
"This time?" Subaru struggled to his knees. "There have been more?" He forced himself up, away from the bloody mess and the icy ground. "How could–?"
"Come." Seishiro's voice was rough. He flipped the cigarette into the falling night. "I doubt Imonoyama can keep the helicopter on standby much longer. The Imperial Guard is rather protective of this place."
"This isn't one of your games!" Subaru's hand clasped hard around the Sakurazukamori's wrist. "You owe me an answer."
Danger flared in the amber eyes as they returned to Subaru's face, then lowered to stare at the offending hand. Seishiro broke the hold with a single twist. "I don't think so."
Clamp Campus, Tokyo,
Imonoyama Mansion
December 29, 1999 – 02:39
He was awake in the dark, sitting upright on his bed, the cover a damp, haphazard twist at the foot end. He didn't know how often he'd jerked awake, freezing cold yet soaked with sweat, panting. His chest was a sea of pain. He still smelled blood on his breath, and the handkerchief had been stained red after he'd coughed earlier. Magical wounds. He wondered how much had been torn when the ghost had dragged the spirit out of his body.
He'd actually given up on meditation and accepted the painkillers someone had left for him on the nightstand, but to no avail; after all, it wasn't a physical pain. The sigil scars were pale thin lines on his hands, but they felt as if they were on fire and wanting to escape from his skin to return home. The large LCD numbers of the alarm clock on the nightstand covered the room in a weak, mocking amber glow.
Amber. Subaru shivered.
He remembered the flicker of weariness he'd seen in those eyes, just before the usual bland mask of anger and threat had slipped into place. Exhaustion.
He thought of the blood that had been spilled to ban the spirit, the power that had been evoked, the pain... He still had the smell of burning flesh in his nose, still felt sickened even by the memory of it.
Was the spirit the kind of soul the Sakura was meant to devour?
Was that what... what Seishiro-san hunted when he didn't go after the innocent?
Was that why the Sakurazukamori was a part of the system in spite of all the bloodshed? Because he could go after those too powerful to be exorcised?
Subaru's head throbbed. He hugged himself, waiting for the tremor to subside, and wondered if he would ever feel warm again.
Ancient Chinese characters in Chen Yue's neat hand appeared in front of his inner eye.
~Part of Yin is in Yang and part of Yang is in Yin. There are always traces of one in the other and the absolute extreme of one always transforms into the other.~
Had he been the Yue who'd fought the spirit with Seishiro today? Subaru hid his face against his drawn-up knees. It hadn't been a pentacle that had kept him from freezing Within.
~It is natural in this, that we are more connected with our opposite than with our companions of the same kind.~
Soft, even breathing whispered in the darkness as Subaru eased into the unlit room. Soundlessly, he slipped under the cover. His hurting hands moved on their own account in the warmth, reached for–
The pain stopped at the contact. The nauseous throbbing behind his eyes eased; he closed them, wearily. The pulse beating against his skin was strong, vivid; no separating gloves this time. Soothing warmth crept into the cold–
A hard hand clasped around his neck. Subaru froze as heat rushed into his cheeks as if– as if he was still a sixteen-year-old who had no reason to be here. He had no reason to be here, none but the words of a Chinese killer written down fourteen-hundred years ago in the secret books of a rivalling clan. Sweat formed on his skin. His breath caught in his throat as he waited for...
The sharp, final snap didn't come. Seishiro's hand clasping his nape slowly eased its grip. Long moments passed. Subaru felt his head being turned... to rest on a silk-covered shoulder. Sakurazuka Seishiro was asleep.
to be continued in
36°-9: Pentagram
Notes:
The Shimabara Rebellion was followed by a ten generation long era of relative peace with no major combat until the 1860s!
Onmyo-ryo (about Yin-Yang-department or authority) is mentioned in Clamp no Kiseki vol. 3 p. 22.
The seven pairs are shown in X-11 p 98f. (Actually, they show six, but the two Kamui are pretty much self-explanatory.) The others are: Seishiro-Subaru (Spiritual), Kusanagi-Yuzuriha, Nataku-Arashi, Kakyo-Aoki, Yuto-Sorata, Satsuki-Karen.
Benzaiten is the Japanese name of goddess Sarasvati. She arrived in Japan during the 6th through 8th centuries, mainly via the Chinese translations of the Sutra of Golden Light.
She is the goddess of everything that flows: words (and knowledge, by extension), speech, eloquence, and music. In Japan, she is a protector-deity of the state, the people, and closely associated with snakes and dragons. A temple of her is on a small island in the Shinobazu Pond at the south end of Ueno Park. The sacred swan of the goddess Benzaiten is the discriminatory power between right and wrong, as well as the real and unreal. It states, "live in the world, but do not be possessed by it."
...and it is Yue's shikigami. ;)
A jian is a double-edged straight sword used during the last 2,500 years in China.
The idea behind the rune magic in this is, that for binding a magician of a similar strength to himself, a magician needs to use magic the other one is not familiar with. Clamp used a similar approach in the figure of Clow Reed (Card Captor Sakura) whose magic included both Chinese and English components.
About the used runes in specific: Feir is the rune of Fire and Ownership. Reid (or Raido) is the wagon (German: Rad = "wheel") or a journey completed (German: Reise)), together they cause a relocation by fire (back into a certain basement) grin.
There's a detail in the myths concerning rune magic saying that during the time the rune is evoked, its wild nature is real. If you show hesitation, fear, or weakness, then the effect will be real. So if Seishiro had as much as twitched while his arm was burning to the bone when he evoked "feir", his arm would have been burned for real.
Why runes at all? I didn't want to do yet more research for a small detail of this story and - compared to the magic we see in Clamp's works - runes are like a two-handed battle axe compared to a scalpel.
Additional information:
The complete Tokyo Babylon technology quotes (as taken from the German version) are:
"Young onmyoji are so trendy these days – receiving work details via fax!" (vol. 2: Dreams)
"Looks like even onmyoji are up on the latest fashions these days – carrying pagers and all." (vol. 3 Call.A)
Baring a blade within the boundaries of Edo castle, the Shogun's residence during the Tokugawa regime, was considered a grave offense that was usually punished by the order to commit seppuku. For an example, in the Legend of the 47 Ronin.