[ Watashi ]

[ Tomodachi ]

[ Saint Seiya ]

[ Clamp ]

[ Fanfiction ]

The furious scowl on the librarian's brow was matched by the baleful glare she had directed my way. They were Shimamura Kimiko's trademark, and most of the time they ensured that nobody dared disturb the profound atmosphere of stillness prevailing in this section of the university library--even when freshmen stumbled inside it, be it by accident or because they wanted to spook themselves by reading all the weird books and scrolls gathered in the occultism and religion section. All the students who didn't belong here swiftly found their way out of the pentagonal-shaped place, and remembered a dragon was watching over it with jealous zeal.

The reading corners were set randomly between the high shelves; their subdued lights added to the feeling of quietness. Dim lights, like small lanterns lighting a secret path upon a lake drowsing under a full moon's rays. Most of the time, I reveled in the atmosphere, but lately it grated on my nerve.

Lately things had changed in small, almost insignificant ways.

Like a balance shifting.

Its scales ever so slightly askew.

A sudden glimmer caught my eye, reflection of the lights of the reading corner I was walking by on the black beads of the bracelet set on my left wrist. For a moment, I froze. There was a grimace crawling up my face, and I forced it away with an inaudible hiss. Looking down, I had realized my right hand had reached up, and was now clasping my left forearm.

Hiding the strange gift of Sumeragi Shuusuke.

The reflex was absurd. Stupid, and senseless. The rosary-like jewel had nothing to do with all the little things falling out of tune around me. If anything, it had stopped Time's lurching around, and it had turned shadows back into the simple, harmless reverse face of the neon lights strewing the streets of Kabukicho. With a brisk shake of the head, I made my right arm come back along the side of my body where it belonged. Then I resumed pacing between the shelves in quick, restless strides.

A pointed sniff reached my ears when I passed Shimamura Kimiko by, and I felt a thin, humorless smile tug at my lips. The middle-aged woman couldn't tell me anything: I respected the rule of silence, and I owned a pass that gave me access to this section of the library, given by Sho. My walking to and fro without ever pausing or reaching for a book must be absolutely maddening. It would have constituted a disturbance in people's work, had there been any student or academic staff present in this end of afternoon. But there wasn't anyone here besides the librarian and myself, so all she could do was to frown upon my unseemly behavior.

To frown in silence.

Silence.

Sho wasn't anywhere to be found. Again. Off on some errand or other, which most likely involved meeting with Sumeragi Ran or digging through archives and using all of his knowledge to help her. The number of Sho's absences had grown in a steady, linear fashion since the morrow of our evening spent together at the Sumeragi mansion. At first, the only signs of Sho's increasing disappearances had been one or two tart remarks of Shinju, about unfair loads of work dumped upon her frail shoulders. That hadn't lasted long, however. Soon, Shinju had stopped complaining.

Hot-tempered Shinju, who was never afraid to speak her mind, whom I'd never have thought would go along with crushing extra-loads of works without making it clear to everyone in hearing range just what she thought about slavery.

Repeatedly.

Until Sho felt shamed enough to do something about it and set things right. Going in for the fight until she won, that was Shinju.

On my right, a door opened and then closed.

Whirling around, I strode toward the source of the slight sound, and found a young woman stumbling out of the archives room. Half-hidden by a pile of books and files that swayed dangerously in her arms, she blindly fumbled for the lights switch set inconveniently outside the room whose lights it controlled.

"Here," I snorted, relieving her of a good half of her burden.

Shinju's dark brown eyes, so dark they were almost black, peered at me from behind her glasses, then a wan smile touched her lips. "Thanks, Na-kun," she nodded at me, then went on her way, but not before I could notice the deep circles under her eyes. They were exhaustion settling in and making itself at home, and that was yet another sign that the world was faltering all around me.

In silence, I followed Shinju to the other end of the library and the door to Sho's office. It was most unusual for a professor's office to be set in a place where students enjoyed a mostly free access, but Sho needed to be close to the books more than he needed to keep a safe distance from students buzzing with questions. Or at least he had needed to, until his absences had become such that most of his academic work had been shouldered by Shinju.

Shinju, who let out a faint sigh as she bent down to set her pile of books on the much encumbered floor. Sho's office was a mess these days, the papers-littered desk the heart of this little ocean of chaos. "You can put them next to the first pile," Shinju said, her words toneless. With that, she sat at the desk and contemplated the tasks set before her with the look of a drunken sailor about to sink with her ship.

Tonight was the auction for a painting by Van Gogh on Havenco's website, a bit more than three weeks after my disastrous visit to Roppongi Hills and Mori Tower. Shinju wouldn't be online to follow every moment of it with shining eyes. "You didn't turn on Sho's computer," I remarked in a casual voice.

"No," the quirk of Shinju's lips was definitely not a smile, "I didn't." From the very moment when she had heard about the theft in whatever corner of the internet she haunted when she went online, it had been like this. No bout of childish enthusiasm had sparked in her, no whoop of delight at the thought of the rather exceptional catch of her beloved Phantom Thief--just a dull lightlessness in her gaze, which was sometimes troubled by unreadable flickers.

When she stole furtive glances my way.

When I asked her about Sho.

At first, I had feared that Sho might be seeing some other woman, and that Shinju thought I was in on his cheating on her, but--it was too much unlike Sho to be plausible. "What's wrong, Shinju?"

There was a muffled smack when three books that had been lying on the desk next to her left hand landed unceremoniously on the floor, wiped away by a sudden, uncontrolled wave of her hand. Her head jerked up from the papers she had started reading, and a shadow darkened her gaze for the briefest of moments before disappearing so quickly I couldn't be certain it had ever been there. "What's wrong?" I repeated the question, watching her. "What made you fall out of love with that Phantom Thief of yours in such an abrupt fashion?"

The question was harmless enough, yet she looked away, covering a barely audible hiss with another wave of her hand that almost slammed another pile of books to the floor. Bending down, she proceeded to retrieve the books she had previously caused to fall from the desk, and I heaved out a sigh.

"A guard almost died," she said, her voice low. Lifeless. She was staring fixedly at the books she had set back upon the desk.

Her fingers were gripping the books' edges, as if for support.

"It wasn't in the newspapers, and the poor man himself doesn't know it, likely never even realized it." Shinju's mouth was drawn in a taut line. "But he'd kill," she added in a murmur, still very much focused on her books. "He'd have killed that poor man." She gave a slow shake of the head.

I had to laugh. Struggling through the icy fog that smothered my thoughts and the clawing thing whose wet, viscous scales had coiled up to my guts and squeezed, I willed laughter to rise up my throat and spill from my lips. "Nonsense!" I used the laughter's momentum to say. "That thief's no killer. An expert like him--I'll bet you he knew exactly what he was doing. In control of everything!"

Shinju stared up at me, the motion of her head a reluctant one. "I wish." In spite of her glasses, there wasn't any way to mistake the troubled light in her eyes.

"How do you know about that, anyway?" the strain in my tone was imperceptible, or so I hoped.

"Heh," a feeble smile had touched Shinju's lips. "I thought you knew better than to inquire as to my source of information on the internet."

Instead of leaning my palms on the other end of the desk and confronting her, pressing the matter like a wild voice inside me demanded that I do, I pivoted and rested my right thigh upon the desk's corner, allowing my foot to dangle aimlessly a few inches from the floor. "Right," I chuckled, an empty sound that wouldn't fool her, "sorry."

Heavy silence claimed the small office, disturbed only by an occasional scratch every time Shinju nervously wrote something down or tore one of her drafts to pieces and dunked them in the waste basket at her feet. I let it stretch on and on, but the young woman held her peace--would hold her peace until my patience ran out and I went out of the office. Until I left her alone and went back to brooding and pacing in the library, pissing off Shimamura Kimiko to no end.

It wouldn't do.

Eyes set on the lazy circles drawn in the empty air by my dangling foot, I asked her in a quiet voice, "Shinju, where's Sho?"

"Away." The words were rushed. "Out helping Sumeragi-sama, from what he told me."

"Oh?" I smiled. "Wasn't his archiving job done when we were invited to the Sumeragi mansion?"

"Looks like it wasn't after all." I could hear the shrug in her voice, just as I could hear how forced it was. Pivoting on my left leg, I--

Stumbled.

Fell.

I caught myself with the left hand, hissing out when the desk's hard edge crushed the palm of my hand, at the junction between thumb and forefinger.

Blind.

Blinded by an animal scream that flooded my whole being in an instant.

Panting, I fought the raw, violent sickness in my stomach and the echoes of the savage scream that demanded to be uttered.

That demanded that I strike out.

Strike out!

With a trembling hand, I groped for my left wrist, and found the bracelet of beads there. It was neither hot, nor cold, nor even warm. It was simply there; it wasn't glinting or darkening, or anything. But then Sumeragi Shuusuke was no Gandalf, no Elric who'd bestow a gift that would suddenly reveal its magical power in times of direst peril.

Of course not!

"Na-kun!" From very far away, I heard Shinju's urgent call, and felt her hands close upon my right arm, pushing me upright and using the desk to help her support my weight. "Na-kun!" she called again, a hint of hysteria seeping into her voice. "Are you okay?"

"Yes." I dragged in a breath, and concentrated on regaining a semblance of balance. "Yes, I'm okay, thanks." There was a hole in Time between the moment when I had started to turn, and the one when I had found Shinju by my side, holding me up as best she could.

A hole in Time.

Again.

"It's nothing," I made myself meet her eyes and smile. "Too few hours of sleep with the new deadlines kindly dumped upon us by New York." She gave me a look, then fumbled for something on the belt of her pants. "What...?" I started, even as she freed her mobile from its support.

"You wanted to know where Sho is," she said darkly. "I'm calling him."

"But," I blinked, "Shinju, I didn't mean--" Her back to me, she keyed in a number and then put the cellular phone to her ear. As I focused on the rhythm of my breathing and on holding on to the chaotic memories of whatever had happened, I wondered at Shinju's reaction. Had my lapse been so bad to make her panic? She didn't look like it. And reaching out to the jumble of brutal sensations that had overwhelmed me was threatening to cause my stomach to heave up what contents of my late lunch that were still available to throw up.

"Sho," Shinju said, shortly. "Good. Na-kun is here, and--" Cutting herself off, she made to step forward, then froze in mid-motion. "Bad." The tone of her voice was flat. "Yes," she slammed her right hand on the desk beside her, hard, "bad is how it looked. Bad!" she spat all of a sudden, whirling around and adding, "and painful and dangerous, and you should never have agreed--" she went silent again.

Her face was contorted with what seemed almost like rage.

"Fine!" she snapped. "Hurry, then!" With that, she closed her mobile with a loud clap, and set it back into place.

"What was that about?" I asked her in a bemused voice, all inclination of my stomach for nausea and vomiting vanished in the same time as my hold on what had taken place was eclipsed by this very un-Shinju-ish outburst.

She took the time to exhale a long, shaking breath, then she shrugged one shoulder. "Sho is on his way back here." That was no answer to my simple enough question, but Shinju didn't seem to care. For a moment she eyed me up and down, then she stepped to the far corner of the office, and started wiping books and papers away from the only other chair in the room. Eyes wide, I watched her dumping precious books and scattering fragile sheets of paper, until I realized her intent--too late. Hooking her left forearm under its back, she lifted the damn chair from the floor effortlessly and brought it to me before I could move.

"Sit!" she growled, and a good look at her told me I'd better not protest. "You stay there and rest," she went on once I had obeyed her. "I'll get you something hot to drink. You look even more awful than I do," she finished with a smirk, then she stormed out of the office.

Observing the sight of books piles blurring into shapeless pyramids and towers before my eyes, I was forced to acknowledge that she was probably right. The temptation to close my eyes was overwhelming, as was the urge to yawn until my jaw snapped.

Hot tea trickled down my throat, and I heaved out a sigh when I set the cup down on the desk, savoring the warmth spreading inside me. Shinju threw me a quick glance, certainly the thousandth since the moment when she had come back with the drink and the stern command to swallow it slowly. Then she returned to her apparently endless work. I had no idea what time it was. After she had phoned Sho, I had drowsed off at least twice, exhausted, as Shinju I told me I looked.

The creaking of a door being pushed open brought my eyes into focus, and I turned to the left in order to greet Sho.

Black eyes patched with pools of pale green were scanning the room.

Weighing.

The brisk motion of my left arm as I twisted my shoulder in order to dissemble my wrist and the odd bracelet on it behind the back of my chair didn't seem to draw any attention. Sumeragi Ran entered the small office, followed by Sho.

"Sumeragi-sama." It was Shinju, scrambling up and bowing--a slight bow, and was that a light of defiance in her gaze I spied from the corner of an eye?

"Hirase-san," Sumeragi Ran bobbed her head, her gaze still set on me.

Focused.

She hadn't seen the bracelet, she couldn't have seen it. "Ayné-san," her lips shaped a smile, "I'm glad to see you're well." Belatedly I remembered I ought to greet her as well, and made to stand. "Please," she made a dismissive wave of the right hand. "I'm not staying. I just brought Sho back as quickly as I could since it's my fault he's so late. Now I have to get back to the Sumeragi mansion and have a talk with my no-good brother," irritation mixed with her words as she said, "who thinks he can tamper with the wards set around the estate without my noticing."

It was a sham.

She was watching me. She had been watching me from the start. And the reason why she had come all the way through the campus and to this office instead of leaving as soon as she had dropped off Sho-- Drawing on my most pleasant smile, I told her, "Please, don't be too harsh on him, Sumeragi-san. After all, artists who can create a magic so precious as your gardens deserve more lenience and license to act as they fancy than us mere mortals."

The hope I had of putting her off-guard was short lived. Instead of being rattled by my taunting words, she gave me a long, thoughtful look, then nodded. "Maybe." With that, she made to turn away.

"I trust your investigation of the Phantom Thief is going well?" I asked her in my best honey-sweet voice.

For the time of a heartbeat, her shoulders tensed, then she forcefully relaxed, and retorted with studied indifference, "It is, Ayné-san, thank you. It is, although perhaps," she pursed her lips, "too well." Issuing that challenge was futile, but then she could hardly know that it was far easier to sustain her steady gaze than to dwell upon puddles of shadows, inner animal screams or holes in the fabric of Time. "So," she bowed at last, "I'll leave you and go have a long talk with my brother. Take care of yourselves." Turning away from us, she reached out for the door handle, then went away.

Just as the echo of the door closing finished dispersing in the air, Sho came to stand before me. "What was that about her brother?" he asked, his voice neutral.

"Good evening to you too, Sho," I sneered. Then I shrugged. "I met him on the day you sent me to retrieve the books from her, remember? I just stumbled upon his share of the mansion, and he was kind enough to entertain me while his sister was otherwise occupied."

"Entertain you?" the dumbfounded expression on Sho's face would have been priceless in other circumstances. "You met that brilliant, anti-social freak and he didn't curse you out of your wits?"

Unable to help myself, I snorted. Dreading Sumeragi Shuusuke seemed the norm for everyone but me--not that this intriguing fact interested me just now. "How is her investigation going?" I asked Sho softly.

"You heard her." He stepped past me, apparently intending to get a look at the papers and books Shinju had brought into the office earlier.

"Yes," I reached out and closed my left hand over Sho's arm, stopping him. I didn't miss a bit of the troubled look he gave my wrist and the beads encircling it. "I did. Why are you still working with her on this, Sho? You've given her all the information there is to be found in the university or your own archives. Your part in her work was supposed to be over," I added in a reasonable tone.

Sho's eyes flicked to my face, then darted away. "That's what she thought, but she realized she still needed me." He gave a pull, aiming to free himself, but I held him back. Sumeragi Ran had found she needed more of his help on the morrow of my trip to Roppongi Hills, a week after she had thrown the name Ichinomiya at me. No coincidence there, not with the foulest prediction of bad luck I had gotten from the oracle of Sensoji temple.

"Did you tell her about my mother?" I pressed on in a quiet, quiet voice. "Did you tell her about the Ichinomiya side of my family?"

"No!" he snarled, wrenching himself away from my grasp. "No, damn you!"

"Stop!" Shinju abruptly yelled, standing up and coming between the two of us. "Stop it, both of you!" She was shaking, and her voice was anything but steady. "You're both exhausted, and in no shape for a serious discussion."

Sho released air from his lungs in a low hiss. "Yeah." Then, nodding at me, he went on, "I told her nothing. Nothing. But if you want to know what she found," he drew in a breath, "I think--" he turned his back on me. "Shit, I think you should go to her." His shoulders sagged, and he heaved out a loud sigh. "She's no opponent anyone in his right mind would want."

Laughter burst from me, chilly. "Right!" Pushing on the desk's hard surface, I stood up and found that my balance was secure once more. "Good night," I gave a small bow to Shinju, who was watching me with a stricken expression on her face. Without another word, I turned away from them, and left the office.

"Ugh."

Stretching over the low table of my living-room, all I managed to do was to topple a pile of compact discs and unbalance a sturdy-looking vase which rolled noisily on the table, spilling its contents of water all the while. "Shit!" With a groan, I gave up on trying to reach the remote that way and instead gathered my legs under me and stood up.

Too late.

Before I could reach the small TV set on the living-room's other side, the screeching sounds of a Japanese idol's so-called singing tore at the universe and made the world shake upon its foundations--well, figuratively speaking. Wincing, I groped for the on/off button, and silenced the wretched thing. Blessed silence reclaimed the room, and I dropped back down to a sitting position, watching out the window.

Watching the afternoon wear on.

Watching Summer dripping past.

Watching the heat make the horizon line shimmer, and turn Tokyo's skyscrapers into bad quality jelly.

With a sigh, I turned back to face the table, and threw the various art show catalogues a weary, irritated glance. It was high time I decided on a new target and started planning my next little foray, but I couldn't seem to make up my mind.

And yet I had to.

Even though I couldn't be sure that Sho had betrayed my confidence, even though it was absolutely ludicrous to even begin to imagine Sumeragi Ran being able to deduce my involvement in the Phantom Thief's exploits, much less finding proof linking me to those events, I had to move. Yet--I kept stalling, delaying the moment of choice. Every time I contemplated going ahead with a plan, the sight of the Mori Tower guard's glassy eyes sliced through my thoughts and churned my insides.

He would have died.

He would have, but for chance--for the bolt of lightning that had flooded the Museum's room and drowned all the shadows there for a moment.

I couldn't be sure it wouldn't happen again. I couldn't be sure the bauble fastened to my wrist served any other purpose than that of a psychological comforter. The only thing that was certain was that my hands had almost torn the life out of an innocent man--be it a shadow's fault, or that of hereditary schizophrenia. And that...fuck, I couldn't risk it happening again.

Still, I couldn't turn back.

A sigh hissed out between my teeth, and I shifted back toward the low table. The grimace pulling at my face grew while I observed the scattered flyers and advertisements, until I blew air through my nostrils and bent down to start gathering the useless papers.

The door bell rang, rousing loud echoes in my scarcely furnished room.

For a moment I just sat there, frozen in mid-movement, then I grabbed a nearby plastic bag--a souvenir from my last visit to the quarter's closest convenience store--and pushed all the leaflets and catalogues inside with a muffled curse.

Now, I wondered while stepping over to the door, who was stupid enough to disturb me on a Sunday afternoon? If Benedict dared show his face and announce yet another delay in obtaining satellite data, I'd throttle him on the spot.

Never mind that he couldn't do anything about the damn mess.

Kill the messenger. Well, it might not be the fairest way to vent frustration upon hearing bad news, but at least it was a way to do that, and one that had been very much used in human history.

"Yes?" I snapped even as I opened the wretched door.

Sho was looking at me from the other side, his feet neatly set on the threshold rug, and his face expressionless.

Inoguchi Shousuke, to whom I hadn't spoken in days, and whose phone calls I had neither answered, nor returned.

"Oh hell," I turned my back on him, opening the door wide in the process, "come in," I muttered before going back inside the room without looking back. I was still sitting down at the table when I heard the door close. The slow shuffle of feet reached my ears. Sho wasn't in a hurry to join me and chat, I smirked at my reflection in the window in front of me, above the TV set and the various cardboard boxes.

"Na-kun," he began, uncertainty plain in the tone of his voice.

So, I was still Na-kun to Sho. Someone whose existence belonged to a circle close to him. "Sit," I interrupted him, gesturing vaguely toward the right side of the table. "I'm afraid a can of beer is all I have to offer visitors these days," I told him while he was folding his legs beneath him.

Ever the perfect, traditionally-raised Japanese man.

"Never mind," he replied, a distracted, reflexive smile on his lips. "I'm not thirsty." Then he retrieved the bag full of ads and catalogues, and set it cautiously next to him on the floor. I found it hard not to laugh when I caught sight of him making sure nothing in the bag had gotten crumpled or torn.

Silence reclaimed the room, disturbed by the regular hum of the air-conditioning system as it kicked in every time the temperature went above the limit I had preset at twenty-seven degrees. Silence, heavy and awkward, during which Sho pretended to study the smooth surface of the table between us. Observing him, I had a hard time deciding whether the pressure upon my rib cage was anger or unease, or a mixture of emotions without name.

"You look well enough." Sho's face had lifted up from its contemplation of the table at last.

"I am," I gave an easy shrug and a smile. "How about you?"

Inconsequential chatter.

Empty.

Meaningless.

Fucking hypocrisy.

"What's that?" Sho was staring fixedly at the rosary-like bracelet upon my wrist. "Do you have any idea what that is?"

I gave him a look, then countered in a pleasant voice, "Perhaps you should ask someone more knowledgeable than I, like your friend Ran."

"Curse you, Na-kun!" Sitting still, I listened to the raw anger in Sho's words, and felt something akin to bitterness twist the smile still hovering on my lips.

"Why have you come, Sho?" I asked him in a voice carefully devoid of emotion. "You shouldn't concern yourself with me or my actions. It's both illogical, and a mistake. I thought she'd warn you, and tell you to distance yourself from me."

"She has done so," he cut me off.

"Then you're a fool," I sneered. "Fuck it, Sho, you know better. You tried to be my friend." I blinked, and drew in a breath, adding, "You tried your best, you gave--" My hands on the table closed into tight fists, but I held his gaze with mine and went on, "And never, I've never--"

Laughter shook Sho's shoulders, but it wasn't a joyful sound.

Sad.

Laden with sorrow.

"You won't manage it, you know," he whispered at last. "Making me leave in anger and chase you from my heart. We're friends," the ghost of a smile touched his lips, "and we both know this to be true. Now," he indicated the bracelet once more, "do you know what that it, and who gave it to you?"

I barely heard the question or the tension in his voice. Focusing on the slowly waning sun outside, I was wondering if there were spells or tricks that could make you unhear words once they had been uttered--wondering where were the hiccups in Time when you needed them. "A trinket," I replied in a breath. "A worthless trinket given to me by her brother."

Silence, then: "Oh, god." The sound of Sho's blanched exclamation broke through my study of the sun slipping behind Tokyo' skyscrapers. The tone of his voice was matched by the pallor in his cheeks. My heart skipped a beat.

"What is it, Sho?" A shake of his head was my only answer. He looked like he might be sick any moment. "What is it?" I repeated the question, fighting down the cold spreading in my stomach and reaching out to my spine. "Why did you come all the way here on a Sunday afternoon?"

Resting his elbows on the table, Sho joined his hands in a slow motion and leaned his brow upon his knuckles. "She knows," he murmured, his voice hollow, "how the Phantom Thief managed all his impossible feats and," he released air from his lungs in a shuddering breath, "she thinks she knows how to stop it." The light in his eyes as he stared up at me was a murky one. Troubled. "For good."

Unbidden, a chortle escaped me. "What?" I made myself grin as I added, "Is she coming here with a squad of cops? Have the ramblings of a self-proclaimed exorcist become evidence admissible in court?"

"No!" Sho shouted all of a sudden. "Stop it, Na-kun, okay? Just...stop it, please." Again he bowed his head, then he said softly, "She's not the police. She's the Sumeragi head of clan, Na-kun. She's the Sumeragi, and she answers to no one but the emperor himself. She neither needs nor care about evidence, about proofs or the laws that bind the way mundane investigations are made. She does what she pleases in her area of authority, and the Phantom Thief has drawn her gaze. She'll stop him, and there'll be no trial. No appeal. She'll--"

"She'll what?" I snorted. "Draw pentagrams on the ground and start chanting black incantations?"

"You don't understand." Once more, there was laughter in Sho's voice, but there was a taint of hysteria to it. "She doesn't know her brother gave you that," he gestured toward the bracelet. "I can't be sure, but I think it changes things, and--" Abruptly he looked away from me, and went on in a toneless voice, "She'll rip the Phantom Thief apart. She'll destroy him. It'll work, she knows it will, and I..." his voice broke, then he managed to go on, "I know it as well."

I blinked. "You know it?" I started waving his words aside, then my right hand froze in mid-movement. "You--" I looked at him without seeing him. Remembering.

A lurch in Time so brutal I had fallen down.

An animal howl that had torn at me inside, demanding to be let out.

"She came to check on me that evening, didn't she?" Sho refused to meet my gaze and I chuckled, when the question I hadn't asked at that moment came back to the fore of my mind. "She didn't have to come with you at the university, but she wanted to see me, how I reacted to whatever it is she plans to do. And Shinju--" Eyes wide, I went silent, as pieces shifted into place on the gameboard.

"Shinju," Sho confronted me with a trembling quirk of his lips, "didn't want any part in this, no more than I did. But what Ran found once she understood the meaning of the insubstantial whiffs of spiritual energy always left behind by the Phantom Thief...." He let his voice fade into silence, his mouth drawn in a thin line. For a moment, he just watched me, immobile, then a self-deprecating smile twisted his lips. "Perhaps I should have accepted that beer you offered."

Instead of scorning him or yelling at him to stop taking me for a fool, I stood up and strode over to the fridge. After all, nothing of what he said made sense, or was even possible. All this talk of spirits and ancient lines of onmyouji who lived beyond the realm of law and logic-- I had told Shuusuke the truth: I couldn't force it in even a semblance of meaning. So, instead of pursuing the discussion and preventing Sho from changing the subject, why not go and fetch him a beer?

"I tipped her off." Stumbling to a halt, I listened to Sho's dead, empty words, unable to plug my ears or to will myself a million lightyears away from this place. "Or at least, my reaction when she mentioned the name of Ichinomiya did." In a slow, slow motion, I pivoted to face Sho. He was staring off into space, the same smile frozen on his lips. "It was the one connection she missed to resolve the matter."

"So," I blurted out, unable to hold back the words, "then you proceeded to assist her in her plan to destroy me?" The incredulity in my question hovered between us during a long, ugly moment before sinking into the floor and the room's walls.

Sho's gaze met mine. "Not you." He shook his head. "Never you. The Phantom Thief."

"Fuck it, Sho!" I dropped down to my knees and slammed my hands on the table, which triggered a ringing noise and sent its glass surface trembling on its supports. "Stop it with this stupid charade and that meaningless gibberish! Stop it with the nonsense!"

"You don't want it to make sense," he retorted. "You refuse, you've fought understanding with all you have--you're fighting it even now."

"I should kill you," I sniggered, "strangle you or at the very least beat you until you stop with the mystical bigotry."

"I came today," Sho was saying, oblivious of my interruption, "because I couldn't leave you alone." He bowed his head, and his voice dropped to a whisper. "Because I couldn't let you face it alone."

The rhythm of my heartbeats faltered when the words registered in my brain. "What?" I reached out to him, ignoring the painful drums inside my chest. "What, Sho?!" Forcefully I made him face me. "Where is Sumeragi Ran, and what does she intend to do?!"

Sho's eyes were frantic birds fluttering their wings in vain attempts to free themselves from a cat's claws. "I swore not to tell you, and I have no way to reach her."

She wasn't at the Sumeragi mansion, then.

She couldn't destroy the Phantom Thief without attacking me, or having me arrested by the police. It was all crazy. She had to know, of course she knew that I was--

"Hell!" I stood up. Groping for the nearest wall, I used it for support, while the floor beneath me swam and I swayed dangerously. Sumeragi Ran was an onmyouji, she believed in all the stuff about ancient families, ancient names tied to powers--things with which bargains were struck.

Forgotten.

Covered with a blanket of dust.

Swallowed in Time.

To her, all those things shrouded in myth and legend were the actual truth. That could mean only one thing, lead her to only one place.

To vegetation-covered ruins.

To a great shadow.

Beautiful.

Old.

Ice shards knifed my guts. "Na-kun!" I never registered Sho's frantic call of the lie I used as a name. Whirling around, I ran for the door, even as the fingers of my right hand pulled at the bracelet of black and white beads.

Pulled.

Pulled and tore at it.

Until it yielded.

Until it came off, and I could stuff it in the pocket of my jeans. Outside, the shadows were lengthening, gathering in sparkling pools beneath the signs of shops and the traffic lights, but I didn't see them.

Devoured by a cold, terribly cold certainty, I ran.

It started while I was pacing in the subway, in an almost empty coach speeding through blurred lines of skyscrapers and spiral-shaped mazes of highways. At first, it was little more than a queasiness in my stomach. Then, all of a sudden a brutal, barbered spear pierced through my gut and I felt my knees buckle even as my body doubled over, shuddering. In a desperate reflex, I grabbed the pole next to me and managed to avoid dropping to the floor in an heap. During a long, awful minute, I just knelt there, head bowed and my eyes closed.

Sucking air inside my lungs in short, ragged breaths.

Feeling gazes set on me, likely appalled at such a spectacle.

"Are you all right?" I looked up as the question registered in my mind, and fought back the almost irrepressible urge to throw up. A woman who looked to be in her early forties had stood up from her seat and walked up to the spot where the emergency switch was protected by its telltale glass casing, set next to the little hammer that served to break it. The worry in her eyes was unmistakable.

"It's--" I gathered the stupid words to me; they had started a dizzying dance around me, and they were busy trying to keep away from me. "It's all right," I managed at last with a feeble attempt at a smile. "Thank you," I could feel a trembling in my legs, but it wasn't too bad. "But there's no need to concern yourself. Thank you," I repeated while dropping into a seat and resting my head against the coach's wall.

Something flickered in the woman's gaze, and the twist in the lines of her mouth clearly meant that she wasn't convinced, but still she went back to sit in her own seat with a small shrug. Likely she wouldn't press the matter any further and impose her help to a complete stranger. That would have placed me in her debt--a bad thing in Japanese society, but fortunately medical personnel and the police weren't included in that rule of help and be owed by the one you saved, which allowed them to do their job.

A faint chortle escaped me when I realized that my mind had again escaped into one of its random thinking sprees. I supposed it made it easier to contain the sickness spreading inside me. This time, though, I could hardly allow myself to drift away into futile reflections, be they on the intricate workings of Japanese society. With difficulty, I made myself focus on the here and now, on which was this subway's next stop, and where I needed to get down and switch to another line.

When I clambered up the stairs that led out of the station I had finally stopped at, the sun had set. Shreds of daylight remained, gnawed away bit by bit by unhurried shadows. The sight of them didn't trigger anything inside my heart: the sickness had smothered anything else I might feel, and not even the second heaving up of my stomach's contents in the subway station's restrooms had managed to quieten it. Swallowing back the bile that was burning my throat, I gritted my teeth, and flung myself into an unbalanced, swaying run.

I didn't lose my way.

Although I had only come to this place once before, I didn't make a single wrong turn or even waver on which direction to choose. Instinct, something distant within me was frantic to believe. A better than average sense of direction, coupled to a good visual memory. For a moment, I paused at the foot of the stairs leading up to the abandoned shrine that had once been under the care of the Ichinomiya family. Then, grabbing my left forearm with a hand, I started up the ascent.

Shadows unfurled from the trees on both sides.

Coiling up to my legs.

Lifting me up.

Pushing me on.

Pushing--

    against the surface of Time.

Sweat was impairing my vision.

        Stupid Time, which refused to yield.

A long shiver went through my body, but it wasn't cold. The light of day was almost gone, and the rustling shadows waltzing around me--

            Hurry!

I blinked when the insubstantial voice cracked inside my mind.

                Even though that revolting seal was gone, somehow the cursed thing had reinforced his soul's walls. Still, there was no choice left.

                    No other way out.

                        Hurry!

This time, the silent voice was a whip which lashed out at me and made me stumble, fall down and hiss in pain when my knees hit the stairs' edge. Just as I was struggling to stand up again, a gust of wind glided down the stairs, coming from the hill top.

Whispers.

Voices.

They swirled with the wind as it brushed past me and rustled the leaves of the trees surrounding me. People. I drew in a sharp breath when the abrupt realization washed away the sick feeling that had overwhelmed my body. People, there were people at the shrine.

Already.

There was no time to come up with a plan, or to consider turning back. On instinct, I left the stairs and entered the wild tangle of trees and bushes on my left. No sound betrayed my movement in the falling night, not even the slightest crack of a twig or the crumpling of a dry leaf. It was as if the vegetation had parted before me, bowed before me and opened a secret path meant for me alone.

    No.

A searing pain blinded me.

        No!

Clutching the earth beneath my fingers, I lifted up my head.

            Too late!

A voice had again risen in the darkness.

                Too--

It was singing.

The voice was out of tune, and yet there was a strange harmony in the sounds, something not quite real in the music that made my skin crawl. I should flee, but instead I stood up, using a nearby tree for support, and tottered up the hill. All around me, the trees were shivering, as if frightened by the eerie song.

A chant.

Staggering to a stop, I leaned against an old maple tree, a few steps away from the vegetation's edge and the shrine's entrance. Beyond the seven men in police uniform set in a half-circle around the torii, barring all access to the shrine, a white silhouette was standing, its back to me. Motionless, the white human shape was standing before a cedar tree so tall it seemed its finely wrought canopy embraced the heavens--so ancient it should send all the people present bowing low in awe and reverence. What I was hearing was a chant, and there was a meaning to it. A purpose.

Deep within me, something rose.

Black and icy.

Terrified.

Another gust of wind flew the long, white robes lined with delicate patterns of purple. As if that had been a signal, the chant faded into silence. The silhouette bent down, and set a knee on the ground before the great cedar tree.

    Stop her!

Beneath me, the ground swam and my vision blurred. Time--

        flickered.

Faltered.

            STOP HER!

In the moment the desperate scream drowned my being, the ghostly silhouette stood, and turned around. Sumeragi Ran bowed her head, her hands closed into fists at her sides, then she started stepping away. Behind her, a faint glow started disturbing the now almost complete darkness. Reddish. Familiar, reassuring sounds rose in the air, crackles so faint they could have been the wind twirling fallen leaves around the old torii. From very far away, I felt my eyes widen in horror.

Warmth.

The soft, gentle glow brightened.

Another crackle joined the first.

And another.

A cascade whose melody grew.

Grew.

With impossible brutality, the shimmering red light erupted into high flames, even as the cascade of soft crackles became a roar that filled the air. I didn't see the police officers take frantic steps back. I didn't see Sumeragi Ran come to a stop and turn to face the result of her handiwork in a slow, reluctant motion.

Slamming my head back against the old maple tree, I shoved the edge of my right hand inside my mouth and bit it savagely to silence the howl that was tearing at my throat. Water, warm and salty spilled from my eyes and mixed with the sweat that had damped my temples and was now trickling down my cheeks. It wasn't enough. Nothing could be enough to douse the fire that had flared up inside me.

I was burning.

The pain when my teeth tore through the skin of my hand, tore through the thin layer of flesh and muscle between the knuckles and covering the carpus of my forefinger was too distant--too small to even brush against the famished flames devouring my heart. The blood's sweet iron taste didn't register in my brain, but its flow into my mouth and down my throat choked the mad scream I could no longer hold back.

High flames were now engulfing the cedar, thundering in its high branches. The wind should spread it to the other trees and imprison all the poor fools who had dared remain to witness the cedar's atrocious agony, but it didn't. That fire was meant only for the cedar. For me.

    For us.

The whisper in my head was weak, as if drained of life.

        Too late now.

Three words which didn't make sense. Shuddering, I sank down to the ground, my body twitching uncontrollably like that of an animal that had just been beheaded. I could feel nothing, see nothing, hear nothing other than the fire gobbling me up from the inside.

            As tasty as withered wild bushes in Summer.

My teeth stopped on the carpus and finger bones. A gurgling, incoherent sound escaped me, too faint to be heard over the fire's deafening roar.

                Ashes, you and I.

Heard jerking up in a wild motion that would have snapped my neck had it not hit the maple's trunk, I let go of my broken hand and screamed. The flames had reached the highest of the cedar's branches, and it was now diving down, as if driven by a purpose.

Plunging toward the ground.

Toward the cedar's roots.

When it splashed them with red, scorching heat, I screamed again.

                    ASHES!

And screamed.

And screamed.

Greedily the fire consumed every single rootlet. Quick, so quick it seemed every inch of root it swallowed made it even hungrier.

Every bit of my soul.

My voice was gone, but still I opened my mouth wide in a futile attempt to release the white-hot pain. My whole body shook and arched up on its own, as if trying to escape the fire roaring within, and then it fell back to the ground with a muffled thud.

The thunder of flames whooshed out in the time of a heartbeat.

Gone like a snuffed candle.

A fire like that should rage during hours, the whole night even--but it didn't. It had served its purpose, and thus it winked out into the darkness.

"It's done." The toneless echo of Sumeragi Ran's voice made the trees shiver. I saw a white ghost glide down the stairs less than five steps away from me, her eyes like obsidian stones, cold and set on a distant goal only she could glimpse. Her police escort followed in fumbling, hurried steps that threatened to make them fall down the stairs--spooked and more than slightly frightened. None of them looked my way.

None of them glimpsed the pitiful wretch huddling against the old maple tree.

None of them ever heard the faint, endless moan that came out of my mouth with each breath.

None of them had heard me scream. No, what they had heard had been the fire's roaring thunder entwined with the cedar's howls of agony.

White.

I blinked, and more white dots appeared in the bleak light of the rising half-moon. Flakes. Lazily they fell, soft when they touched my cheeks and my hands. So soft. Warm.

Ashes.

Pressing my wounded hand against the smooth but hard bark of the maple tree, I gasped in pain but pushed myself upright. Above me, the trees' leaves were rustling with the gentle night breeze, but the echoes of those sounds didn't touch anything inside me. I could hear nothing but the pain oozing out of my being in barely audible moans.

Festering burns.

The air around me was stinking, acrid with fumes, and the lines of my surroundings were blurred. For a while I just stood there, gulping down the remnants of the fire. I could feel it lingering still, clinging to this place, as if desperately searching for any piece left of the cedar, any twig or leaf or rootlet left to burn. I just stood there, showered by a gentle rain of ashes, unaware of the faint sound of blood dripping to the ground from my hand.

I just stood there, until my feet took me to the stairs and then down, of their own volition.

Time spat me out in a place of silence, a profound absence of sounds which meant the dead of night. There was wood beneath my feet and smooth blackness on both sides of me, dancing with undulations of dim lights whenever the clouds' whims led them to allow a ray of moonlight through them. Time had flickered while the flames were still scorching me--the true flames, of which those that had consumed the cedar had been but a pale reflection.

A shadow.

Time had shied away from me and I had let it, unable to know or remember why it would be important to cling to a four-dimensional universe. It was still wavering, even now, but it hadn't managed to escape for good. The consequence of that meant my remembering jumbled images of starkly-lit streets, remembering the low rumble of a subway train entering a station--the screech of brakes, and the overwhelming impulse to step beyond the yellow line and fall forever.

It meant remembering the feeling of walking through walls of flames, the sensation of a smoldering fire that wasn't done yet, not while a shred of me remained.

And in those chaotic bits of Time was the memory of a salaryman who had wanted to help the poor, obviously hurt gaijin occupying the same coach as he, and who now had a few bruises to show for his troubles. Drunk as the man had been, he wouldn't remember the incident come morning--not that I cared in the least, or that I'd have cared if I had cracked his skull open when I had lashed out at him and struck. The only thing I knew was that it hadn't helped the rotting emptiness within.

A sharp clap cut through the absolute silence, and a capricious koi captured Time for me, anchored it solidly around me. Watching the ripples its jump made in the dark waters on my left, I realized I was standing on a bridge crossing Shinobazu pond, in Ueno park. My lips twisted in what might have been a smile, I lifted up my wounded hand before my eyes, and stared up at the blackened blood covering it--stared up at the bits of flesh hanging from it, half-torn.

It hurt.

It hurt bad--not enough.

Not enough to douse the glowing embers gnawing at my soul.

In the warm humidity of the night, the deep wounds must already have started to fester. That was fine with me. From the corner of an eye, I glimpsed high shadows caressing the pond's shore. Dark, beautiful shapes outlined by a ray of moonlight. Yes. Inside me, the low fire purred, and I turned away from the spot close to which a lazy fish had jumped out of the waters to frighten Time into behaving and forbid it to hiccup.

The grimace frozen on my lips that could hardly be called a smile widened when I stepped under the shadow of the sakura grove. Deep within, the flames' purring was growing in intensity. They started to shiver and dance, leaking out, ever so slightly, no longer wholly set on eating me away. "Yes, soon," I murmured to them, insane though it was to talk to a fire that didn't even exist in a Cartesian universe.

Voices.

I froze. One voice--I dragged in a breath, shivering all of a sudden, and pressed myself against the nearest sakura's trunk. Blink though I might, my vision refused to clear. Inside me, the flames growled and burnt, punishing me for having stopped--for daring to be aware of something, anything other than they. Unheeding of the pain, I went further into the thick grove of sakura in slow, careful steps.

"Would you threaten me, then?" Laughter, hollow and lifeless, accompanied the question. Cautiously peering from behind a tree, I saw a tall, skinny man in a long, black coat confronting someone else, his back to me. And the other person--

"I don't believe in threats." There was a sharp, painful lurch in my heartbeats when I caught a glimpse of a man whose light brown hair felt even odder because it wasn't dyed. His quiet snort faded into silence, then a smile curled up Sumeragi Shuusuke's lips.

A cold, cold smile.

But--what was he doing here of all places? Why-- "They're hollow and powerless things. Promises on the other hand, being the heart of bets," the hazel eyes glinted with a terrible light--haughty, almost malevolent, "bind the bristling strands of Fate into many annoying little knots. Too many for anyone to untangle, as I'm sure you remember," he said, his voice so very soft that the sakura trees around him quivered. "So," Shuusuke went on with a small shrug, as calm and unconcerned as if he was talking about the weather, "I promise you this: reverse of a coin or not, balance or not, kinsman or not, it matters nothing to me. When he comes to you, if you harm him in any way, we'll meet again. And I'll tear the sakura apart twig by twig, rootlet by rootlet. Then I'll burn what's left of it until not even ashes remain to prove it ever existed," he finished pleasantly, with the same icy smile on his lips.

For a while silence covered the grove of sakura like a blanket. Then, the man who had once told me the sakura were his domain took a step toward Sumeragi Shuusuke. "You believe you could do it." A short, mocking burst of laughter followed that statement. "You actually do." There was something black and insane beyond the dissonant laughter, like hunger, kin to the flames locked inside me. "You truly don't care about the balance."

Mirth mixed with the frightening light in Shuusuke's catlike eyes. "Why should I?" he chuckled. "I am mad, Sakurazukamori-san. Surely you remember that from the times before you took on this cursed name you now wear. Surely you haven't forgotten how the small embarrassment tied to our branch of the Sumeragi clan can sometimes affect its members?"

Mad? Why was Shuusuke claiming to be crazy, and why was he dangling that claim before an assassin's eyes? Within me, the flames snarled, and swallowed the useless questions. Famished was what they were, ravenous, and it was all they cared about. "Ah," Shuusuke was saying, a smirk twisting the lines of his mouth, "I see you haven't. Have a pleasant night, then." And with that, he vanished in a blurring of light and shadow, gone in less than a heartbeat, as if he had never been there.

"An illusion." I tensed. The assassin's voice had come from somewhere very close, most likely the other side of the tree I was hiding behind. "Finely wrought," he continued in an idle voice, "but still, just an illusion. You might as well show yourself. There's no way he could have felt your presence."

My heart skipped a beat, even as the fire inside me leapt up, blinding me for a moment. Once I managed to suck air into my lungs, I pushed away from the sakura tree, and stepped into the clearing. While the man named Sakurazukamori eyed me with bored curiosity, I stared back at his mismatched gaze with a smile. I had no fear to offer him, only pain, and the shreds left over by Sumeragi Ran's fire.

"Well," he said at last, "that looks bad. Not to mention painful," he added with a little smile. Perhaps he expected to see me wince or even stagger back in dread, for the smile vanished from his lips when he saw I would neither move, nor look away from him.

Burn, it was the voices of the flames rising within. Burn! It was all they knew, all they wanted, and all I wanted as well. Burn me, and be done with it! Their voices and mine were one, impossible to separate any longer.

"Please!" he snorted, gesturing toward the edge of the clearing, toward the path leading out of the sakura grove, "just go away. You heard him, didn't you?" A sneer distorted his mouth when he saw me start. "You," he told me with scorn-filled gentleness, "aren't worth a feud with him, and certainly not worth breaking the balance over." He waved at me. "So, go."

No.

No way!

When he made to turn his back on me, I took a step toward him. "A dark master-assassin frightened into submission by the illusion of a man who wasn't even there!" I laughed at him. "You're a coward!" I spat.

"A coward?" he paused in mid-motion. "My," he looked at me, smiling again that empty, lifeless smile of his, "look who's talking. I think," he came to my level, and walked into a circle around me, musing, "it's the fool who pushed the Sumeragi head of clan until he got what he deserved--the fool who expects me to end his life for him because he doesn't even have the courage to throw himself in front of a train or drown himself in Shinobazu pond. I think," he repeated as he completed the circle and came back to stand before me, his lips pursed and his voice thoughtful, "that it's the coward who presumes to believe his wretched existence is worth my lifting a finger and wasting power over him. Poor," he shook his head, "pathetic fool." With that, he stepped away from me.

No.

Rushing forward, the flames leaked out of my soul.

No.

Crackles resounded within and without.

Growing.

Growling.

Burning and feeding on what was left of me, scorching everything, hurting and tearing at me until they won through the failing boundary of my body. "No!" I screamed, a raw, animal howl, and the fire exploded into being. Red, and glowing, and magnificent.

"No," the assassin's soft, soft voice cut through the flames' angry roars. "Not even that is enough." His mismatched eyes were set on something on my left. Unable to help myself, I followed his gaze.

A proud shape was shimmering less than two steps away from me.

Flickering in and out, in harmony with the labored beatings of my heart.

Its mane and tail ending in sparks of translucent red gold.

Everything around it was blurred, everything but the blazing eyes of the being of fire, which were watching me. Waiting. Struggling to draw air inside my lungs, I stared back at it. It was beautiful and impossible. It was deadly as well, and alive. I could feel its flames burning my soul, feeding upon it, even though the excruciating pain that had torn at me from within was receding in slow, sullen waves.

"But then," the cold, detached amusement in the assassin's tone reached me through the entrancing dance of the flames that shaped the horse of fire quivering by my side. "With that, you might perhaps convince the head of the Sumeragi you need getting rid of, or maybe even force the one who forbade you to die at my hands to take your life. It would be an interesting vengeance. At least," the smile that crept up his lips revealed his teeth as he added, "you'd be getting back at those who tore you apart, burnt you and then denied you the mercy of death."

Beside me, the creature of flames held its head high.

Its fire roared, and thundered down my being. Pain speared me, but it didn't drag me down or rob me of strength, on the contrary. Before me, the assassin turned away and walked calmly back toward the shadow of the sakura, as if certain he wasn't in any danger from the wrathful being burning high and bright next to me.

He was right.

He didn't exist. The Sumeragi did.

Shuusuke did.

Shuusuke. At the thought of that name, the flames engulfed my mind, and I whirled around, going back the way I had come without ever hearing the rustle of the sakura's leaves like soft, mocking laughter gliding through the night.

End of Chapter 5.

On to Next Part

Back to Previous Part

Back to my Fanfic page.