http://clampfix.fanworks.net/kenichi/xthe-end.txt </head><body><pre> =================================== The End =================================== "...It's been quite awhile, and I really wish I could say I was better now... but... truth be told, I'm not. I've been dreading the day I would return to Tokyo... I feel as if everything I know and care about will end when I come back... Enough of that. I guess I'm sounding more than a bit paranoid by now... I WILL return to Tokyo, in fact I'll probably already be on my way by the time you're reading this. I know I'm a bit afraid to go back... But like you once wrote to me after Mom died, we all have to face our fears and stand on our own someday. Sorry I can't meet with you and Umi and Fuu on the day you asked, but I have some things to attend to that can't wait. I'll make it up to you, though. Will a dozen Ice Cream Sundaes (My treat), plus all the chocolate and cake you guys want be enough penance? I thought so. Your Truest Friend, Kenichi." =================================== You know how your life flashes before your eyes just as you're about to buy it? It's a fact. A real fact. It's scary, exhilarating, and regretful all in one neat little package. I knew I was going to die. Just like everyone else on this one stupid planet was, just because 99.99% of the human race didn't care enough to make a change, and never learned stuff we should have taken to heart since Sodom and Gomorrah became damaged real estate. I saw the steel skeleton of Tokyo Tower bathed star-right in the darkness of the eclipse, a spire of pure light stabbing at the planet's core. I heard prayers, cries, screams, all the stuff you'd expect at the end of the world. My only claim to fame in this was that one: I helped bring this about, two: I got front-row seats to the main event. A small part of me was thankful Hikaru was already dead. =================================== Light... Pure white light engulfed me, and all I saw around, the tower, the streets, the park... all of it disappeared in the blinding bright nothingness that shot away from the tower... Empty save for some strange looking bubbles... One approached me, and like an image from a video, I saw my life play before me. I closed my eyes an instant, disbelieving at first, then opened them to see everything once again, this strange life I led, from boyhood to my grave, as if a distant spectator in the drama. Yes, I remember... I looked back to see my birth, as if floating right above the delivery room while my mother strained and my father, oh how I wish I knew him better, fussing all over me as I... the baby me, that is... awoke... It was quick, the flashes, I wasn't reliving them, I was just watching them like they were on video... Everything I was doing was me in the third person. The view cast away like a soap bubble in the wind, and my eyes then caught glimpse of another one, drawing itself near my field of vision. There, the first time I met Sakurazuka. I was five... Or was it eight? I couldn't remember properly... then, and naive. He seemed nice at the time, but I always had my doubts. As if his presence alone frightened me as a child. Especially after my dog died. Dad said it couldn't be helped, and that my favorite Uncle's Veterinary skills had failed him, but I knew. Hell did I know. It too, then floated away in a river of light, and it was only then that I realized I was floating in nothing but a blank, white ocean populated by the crystal-clear bubbles. Floating in emptiness... ...Like in a dream... =================================== "Feel familiar, Kaeda?" I turned to the source of the voice and saw him. Kamui. No, not Kamui. Whatever or whoever the hell it was looked like Kamui Shirou, even had the same brassy arrogant tone of voice he tossed around when I first met him... wait, Kamui was never brassy... "No, Kamui Shirou wasn't." What the hell? What's with the mind game? "So it's not enough to destroy the planet, you have to drive people like me nuts, too?" I swallowed, then stated the blatantly obvious... "You're not Kamui Shirou, are you?" He...IT... shook it's head. It was then I noted that he had two sets of wings, one set over the other. The larger upper set were white, feathered angel's wings... I bit down and grit on my front teeth as I remembered the image of Fuuma Monou with such wings... Then saw the second set... ...The lower set, bent below the white wings but no less impressive in wingspan, was a pair of leather-wrapped bat's wings. "I am not Fuuma. I am not Kamui. I..." It gave me one of those evil smiles. "...am Kamui." =================================== If there was anything I noticed about strange entities I've met in my entire life, they all had the penchant of playing mind games, all liked plopping me in the middle of nowhere, and all had to play Jedi riddlemaster to every question I had. There was something I could have said to it. Something sharp, snappy, witty, and stinging to his ego. I didn't say anything. It's hard to be funny when you know you're either dying or already dead. It kind of dampens your sense of humor. So I came up with the best thing I could think of under the circumstances. "Oh, bite me." The Kamui-angel-devil-whatever-it-was stood before me and scowled, the way Kamui always scowled when I ragged him every now and then in Sorata's company. "I was expecting something more verbose." Though I didn't feel weightless, the entire space around me was bathed in sheer white light. Yes, he was right. The place was familiar, like the time I dreamed of Cephiro and Zagato's calling of me. Only difference was that... "Zagato met you in the shadow, while I greet you in the light." My lips smirked. "Light, dark... Does it matter? I'm already dead anyway. And don't you dare tell me any different." Involuntarily, I shuddered and gripped myself as the Kamui- figure floated around me like a shark circling its prey. The wings beat silent into the empty area, and I felt a gust as he let one of the bubbles float from his hand to mine. Stern eyes turned to me, I was surprised, because I thought I saw Subaru's face there, but when I blinked again, it was Kamui. "Watch." It was a command I could not refuse. I had just turned ten at that time. It was my father's funeral. My temper rose and I threw the bubble back at the Kamui. "DEVIL! What the hell are you trying to prove by this?!?" A hand caught it, and I gasped as I saw Kamui's face become that of Seishirou Sakurazuka... Sakurazukamori, I corrected myself. SAKURAZUKAMORI. I leapt forward, then realized that I had nothing to leap away from. The result was that I spun head over heels tumbling over, landing on nothing, impacting nothing... Just spinning before stopping as if nothing had happened. I cursed under my breath. "Before you ask..." The Kamui-Seishirou did not smile, and in fact had a very annoyed look on his face. I wasn't sure whether to gloat over finally touching a nerve in Sakurazukamori or worry over what he planned next. "...or shout your usual host of obscenities at me, Ken. I suggest you finish this viewing. It is essential that you learn from this." "Go to hell and stay there!" My other answer was a glare as I simultaneously spat at him. The Sakura assassin's face morphed out. "...Please, Kaeda-San?" ...And Yuzuriha's face... and even her body, perhaps, from the way the uniform shifted... met me. Oh Shit. =================================== Kamui, Subaru, Seishirou... now Yuzuriha. "You're not in hell, Kaeda-San." I was thinking. If it were any other face than Yuzuriha's that this... entity was wearing at the time I was hearing that, I would have slugged its face in. But I didn't. "You're not her, not Yuzu. Not Sakurazukamori, either. You were just trying to press the right emotional buttons to get me to respond, weren't you...?" The Yuzu-thing nodded, but without the cheery smile I had expected from that face. It looked mature and sad as it looked and seemed helpless... ---STOP IT!!! I saw her cringe visibly as the thought in my head hit her. I heard a light whimper as she held her forehead and saw indeed, that it was like Yuzuriha in many ways... ...But not enough to convince me. "Please don't do that...!" I couldn't have hurt it. I knew in my bones that I didn't. There was an undertone of Zagato's own cruelty in my voice. "Stop playing games with me, I told you that from the beginning and I'm not going to tell you again. I'm dead, I have nothing to lose." The Yuzuriha-Kamui figure slowly stood to face me, all pretense of pain gone as she looked at me with Yuzu's expressive eyes. The eyes alone talked to me, pleading with me to give her/him/it time to explain and show me what it was that it was trying to do... I had a mind to just say 'kill me and get it done with', but the fact remained that I was probably already dead, and that I was also curious about what this white mess and trip down memory lane was all about... The figure's eyes softened. "I won't beat around the bush. I'm not Yuzuriha, am neither Sakurazukamori nor Sumeragi, neither Fuuma nor Kamui, and certainly nobody else you think you know. I am..." "...Kamui, I know, I know. Whatever that's supposed to mean." The way the thing used Yuzuriha's form began to be less sudden, and more human... however that's supposed to be, but that was my perception; unlike the broken-sentence conversations I had with the previous forms, this one was more... human. Whatever human means anymore. "Kamui who is born of a mother but no human father." Her... I suddenly found myself refering to it as her... spread the two wing groups, the feathery angel wings upward, the leather bat wings down. "The alpha and the omega. There is a reason this happened, and I am here to let you understand, Kenichi Kaeda. But for that..." The four wings fanned the air around us, and the strange memory bubbles floated towards us. "...I will need your patience." The two sets of wings seemed milder in the current form it chose, the difference between a hawk and dove. I stood back, expecting the Kamui-thing to change face and figure once again, but... "You relate to Yuzuriha best. That's why I'm staying in this form... I hope it is more comforting to look at than the others..." I had half a mind, standing in that sheer blank white there, to question what dictionary she took 'comforting' to mean from, but just then a new bubble floated into my hands. "Please... Look at it..." Wordlessly, I complied. =================================== I saw her. Hikaru. And my heart ached. It was there, where I first saw her, on Tokyo Tower, and how I laughed when she was watching through the pay binoculars. And an instant later, I... and I alone... saw her and two of her friends huddled together in a corner, crying. I remembered that one well. it was the day my dreams of Zagato began, where my real life began. It took a year or so before I realized exactly what they went through, Hikaru, Fuu, even Umi, in that other world of great power and greater pain, Cephiro. I saw myself again, later, this time. I fell through an open window... and a flash appeared. At the end of it, I saw Hikaru grab my hand, pulling me back up... I hadn't realized how much pain she was in when she brought me back... And tears in her eyes... Tears? The bubble floated away. =================================== "...I didn't see Cephiro." Yuzu-Kamui nodded mutely. I was somehow thankful. The thought of reliving the deaths of little Mira and the others was hard; it took me years to fully cope with it, but still... I don't think I could have dealt with seeing that once again. "An avalanche needs but one pebble to start it on its way." I turned, surprised that Yuzuriha would say such deep words... Then I remembered that the thing watching me was not her. "What happened to you... indeed all of us...began with Tokyo Tower... and ends with Tokyo Tower..." Everything. Yes. All of us, not just me. Subaru, Sakurazukamori, Kamui, Fuuma, Ogami and his girlfriend Miyazaki... All of us settled everything at Tokyo Tower. Where it all began for us. Curiosity. "Is that why Kamui... Shirou Kamui... decided to break the seal of the tower after all...?" "You're getting ahead of your story." She made a motion with her hand and another globe fell into my arms, glowing as it showed me the next phase of my life. Ordinarily, I'd be screaming my head off wanting to know everything by now. But I'm dead, or at least I keep on repeating to myself. Got all the time in the world. =================================== The next was filled with pain. I fought to control myself, and barely suceeded keeping from going mad. Mother and I leaving for Okinawa, hoping to start a better life there, and I felt, with my dark taint, that I would only be a danger to Hikaru. I would love someone else, I kept telling myself, but in my heart, it was always her. She was someone I simply couldn't get out of my mind... My very first meeting with Subaru came not long after that, and the short time I spent happy with my new life was ruined. Dark evils, a western myth turned real... mother dying horribly at the sight of a scaly fish-monster... How was I to know all of this was but aforeshadowing of events to come? A single tear ran down my cheek. Mother. The Yuzu-Kamui creature said nothing as she took the globe away from my grasp. =================================== "Are you enjoying this?" I asked the winged creature with Yuzu's face as it brought me another lighted crystal bubble. "No." I'll bet. But the face was not smiling, nor did it have any expression on it rather than that of an unending patience with me, all of a sudden. I peered into the sphere. And my heart stopped. =================================== Voices. And I saw Umi, uncharacteristically somber and morose, dressed in black, as she talked to the me in the globe within. "Ken... I'm so sorry... I..." Umi. I remembered when she said that. She never did finish her words. Right at that moment, she ran away, in tears. It was a month before all of this... this end of the world matter came to light. At Hikaru's funeral. Fuu was next. She said nothing, but I could see that beneath her calm visage and glasses, that her eyes were red from crying. I wondered, just then, how she and Umi could ever learn to cope with the loss. Hikaru's brothers, all of them were there. The younger two were in complete anguish, while the older one was stoic and silent. I knew that she was everything to them, and could not but relate to their feelings. Everyone there... Hikaru had so many friends I felt left out of it all... had their own way of dealing with their grief. Umi, unable to take the loss, ran away and cried herself to sleep. Fuu kept her best face up, and like Hikaru's eldest brother, only let tears fall in private, alone from all. The other two brothers wailed openly in anguish, and even her dog, Hikari, whined and lay at his mistress wake, loyal to the end. I didn't cry. The shock was too much for me to deal with at the time. I returned to Tokyo weeks before and recieved a note from Hikaru to meet with her... for old times' sake, she said. I had not wanted to meet her again so soon, so I postponed it... I had a more pressing meeting with Sakurazukamori at the time. But I did not know, did not expect, her to be taken away from me so soon. I no longer asked how she died; I didn't care. She was dead and nothing I could do would have brought her back to me. So I did the only thing left for me to do. Throw myself fully into my revenge against the Sakurazukamori. =================================== "He didn't kill her, you know." I nodded to the figure as the sphere faded away. "Does it matter how she died or who killed her? She's gone." I bent my head low. I felt despair, for I suddenly wanted a reassurance that I was dead, that I may go and meet with Hikaru once, even just one last time while she goes to heaven and I start my path to hell. "I have the power to call geysers of raging water. My hand can burn and puncture almost any being with its flame. I can summon the force of winds to crush my enemy... Even the very stones of the earth rise up and fight for me if I asked..." My teeth gnashed against each other. "And all of it's useless, because I can't raise the dead." "That you cannot. None of you can." I bit my lip and wondered if there really were some perverse pleasure this creature took, first taking the guise of people I knew and/or trusted, then making me relive the most painful moments of my life. "But did you know HOW she died?" Despite myself, my curiosity came to fore on my face, and she read my answer from a single look. A bubble, darker than the others, appeared before me. =================================== A street? Wait, I don't remember this in my life, I... ...Found myself no longer a spectator, but within the scene. Yet I could not recall, I was never here, I... A rustle of hair, one that brushed past me, and I saw... That face... The cheerful look, the braid that always followed her, all of her that I had loved so before and ever since... Hikaru? I saw her walk past, and immediately ran alongside her, I was reaching for her arm, calling out her name... ...And my hand passed through her like a spirit. I'm not really here. And yet, I saw her, as alive, as full of life as the day I first saw her, as the day I finally spoke to her, like the way we exchanged letters with each other even afterward... I kept close, watching her. I felt like laughing and crying as I saw her, face bright and beaming with cheer, and I saw the notes clutched at her chest as she skipped off, in tune with me. A certificate. She had finally accomplished her dream. It was a certificate that allowed her to intern... as a Veterinarian. Her lifelong dream was now about to become reality... "Young lady?" I stopped and turned just as she did, to the voice. A man, gaijin, speaking in broken japanese with long hair... a biker or thug? I was unsure, but I immediately stepped in between him and Hikaru... ...A futile attempt, as the man approached her and walked right through me... Hikaru, no... Her eyes were quizzical as she stood her ground, papers still clutched to her chest. "Yes, sir... Is there something I could help you with?" I put myself in between the two once again, but I knew that I had no way of stopping what would happen next... "I want to help you. Something important, involves end of the present world..." A chill ran through me, and I instantly recognized the man as a fanatic. There were no tattoos, no religious items... but the way he looked at her, it was like that of an insane preacher, like the legend of Rasputin... Eyes of sheer madness... No, I thought. Hikaru, don't... I saw her back a step away and smile nervously. "I'm sorry... I uh... can't talk about that..." I allowed an instant of relief. she was not as naive as she used to be, and for that I was thankful... but... The next words by the Gaijin turned my blood to ice. "I will save you from the pain of the end of the world." Hand movement. I saw. Glint of a blade. I made to grab his arm, but my grip just phased through. "HIKARU, NOOOO!!!!" =================================== She just stood there for a while, as the blade came down and her lifeblood shot out of her throat. After a moment's hesitation, her body released the papers, drenched in crimson flow, and fell back to the ground. I rushed to catch her... but... A sickening thud was all I heard next as she fell to the walk. Hikaru... I wanted to help her... but... This has all already happened... In the distance, the white man was running. His screams were in english... and I understood. "I killed one!!! I killed one!!! The innocent looking devil!!! I killed one of 'em!!! I saved the world! I saved the world!!!" I didn't go after him. There was nothing I could do. Crowds had formed and many were trying to lift Hikaru's body off the pavement... but I knew it was too late... I saw that look before. But not in the eyes of Mira, the little Nar of Cephiro who died peacefully. No, I saw these in the eyes of other people who died... The ones I had killed, like Gara. The look of questioning... Why? Why must I die for this...? Hikaru... She had that look. And I realized she was looking at me the whole time. =================================== Stunned. Don't believe it. Can't believe she'd... I can't... Yuzuriha-Kamui looked me in the eye. "Ask your heart if it thinks this is a lie." The bubble shattered, and I collapsed on myself, in the middle of the great white nothing that made me feel so small... =================================== I no longer cared whether I really was dead or not. All I knew now was that SHE was dead. Everything else fell apart from there. My face was wet, and some little voice in the back of my mind told me that the dead couldn't possibly cry, but I couldn't care less. Hikaru was gone. I felt a huge pit opening inside me and eating away at my soul. Dead. And I couldn't do a thing about it. Not only that, but it was POINTLESS. Avoidable. She didn't die fighting for a life or a cause, she didn't lose it even in a vain sacrifice. Some fool off the street decided to kill her just because she was there. Without warning, without rhyme nor reason... And worst of all... I could have been there, I could have been there to stop it. But I wasn't. I chose to go away. I CHOSE to not be there for her. And that was what hurt. And if this was hell, it truly was a place of pain. "So... this is where it all ends...?" "No." The eyes were emotionless in their perception. "This is just the beginning." </pre><p><a href="./">Back</a></p><p><a href=http://www.dreamhost.com/donate.cgi?id=216><img border=0 alt="Donate towards our web hosting bill!" src=https://secure.newdream.net/donate1.gif></a></p></body></html>