http://clampfix.fanworks.net/ss-fix/awaken4.txt </head><body><pre>Big hugs go to Meia for providing dialogue and other input, as always; to everyone that pre-read this scene; and to Kouri for last-minute assistance. Warnings: Um, assassins doing what assassins do. Blood and stuff. Gratuitous spectulation on the nature of the Sakurazukamori's relationship with his tree. Awakening: A Tokyo Babylon "What If..." Four: Of Death and Desperation They were walking in Ueno park the second and last time they met Yami. He appeared seemingly out of nowhere, as assassins do, and grabbed Subaru by the throat. The younger onmyouji struggled weakly. "What are you doing with him?" asked Seishirou, hiding his anger under a mask of indifference. "I thought it was me you were after." "I am," said Yami, visibly tightening his grip. "But don't they always say, it's easier to get someone through the people they love?" Seishirou wanted to break something -- preferably something attached to Yami. That was /not/ the way the Sakurazukamori did it. The Sakurazukamori were all about simple, beautiful, /necessary/ death. Loved ones simply didn't factor in the equation. "Let him go," said Seishirou, somehow managing to stay calm on the outside. "Will you be willing to die if I do?" Seishirou glanced at Subaru, who was still struggling. "Yes," he said simply. "You can't kill me if you don't put him down. Believe me, I know," he added. Subaru's eyes flashed shock and hurt as he was brutally dropped to the ground. "Seishirou-san! You can't mean..." he gasped, hoarsely. Seishirou ignored him. "So, it comes down to this, does it?" Yami smirked. "I'm glad you're willing to be reasonable," he said, readying a spell. Seishirou smiled slightly, a hunter's smile, took a step forward and calmly thrust his hand through the Sakurazukamori's chest. There was total silence in the park. "Seishirou-san," breathed the Sumeragi, horrified. Seishirou lay the body on the ground beneath the Sakura. Petals began to swirl around him. He could feel the tree's smug triumph in the back of his mind. In moves that felt as natural to him as breathing, he secured some of its power and transferred the ex-assassin's energy and soul to the tree. When he returned to himself, he found himself attacked by accusing green eyes. "... You killed him," said Subaru, flatly. "Yes." "You /killed/ him." "I'm sorry, Subaru-kun," he said, although to him it seemed his actions were the only logical ones. "You..." A few tears slipped gently over the boy's cheeks. "It was either him or you," said Seishirou, gently brushing the tears away with his thumb. Subaru pulled away. "I can take care of myself, Seishirou-san!" "Can you?" asked Seishirou, frowning. "Yes!" "Then, why weren't you? I thought he was going to kill you." "I thought you were going to try to convince him to leave us alone!" "Some people just can't, or won't, be convinced, Subaru-kun. That's another of the things I know." "You didn't have to kill him!" cried Subaru. "Subaru-kun, I was raised to be an assassin." Subaru gave him a wounded look. "That doesn't mean I wanted to be. But, sometimes, instinct just takes over. And he was about to hurt something of mine." "Some.../thing/?" said Subaru, in a very small voice. Seishirou looked uncomfortable. "I'm not a thing, Seishirou-san. I'm a /person,/" continued Subaru, gaining volume. "I'm a person, and I love /you/, but... but..." "Yes...?" said Seishirou, beginning to get a vague sense of foreboding. /Will you be able to live without him?/ "But you don't love /me/." "Subaru, I've told you before that I do lo--" "No. You don't. Not until you can see me as a person and not your possession. " Seishirou stared at the Sumeragi as the boy calmly turned his back on him. "Subaru-kun, really, don't you think you're being a little overdramatic?" Subaru spun, eyes flashing anger. "No. I don't. And don't expect me to talk to you again unless you love me, Sakurazukamori." The Sumeragi fled. Just like that, and he was gone. Seishirou flopped to his knees, surrounded by Sakura petals. He could still feel the tree's satisfaction in the back of his mind, and that made it worse. Made what worse? he wondered. He picked up one of the petals, drawing it softly across his palm. Losing Subaru. ~ * ~ Seishirou dreamt... "How can I love him? How can I love the Sakurazukamori?" wept Subaru, into his sister's arms. She stroked his hair gently. "The answer to that is simple: you don't." "Pardon?" "Who do you love? The Sakurazukamori, or Sakurazuka Seishirou, vetenarian?" "S-Seishirou-san..." said Subaru, hesitantly. "But Seishirou-san is the Sakurazukamori." "Is he? You've seen him in Sakurazukamori mode. Does he act like that around you?" "Well, no... But he kills people!" "From what I know of the Sakurazukamori, it should only be people that would threaten the future of Japan, ne?" "But..." "That part, you'll have to talk over with Seishirou-san. But I want you to know that I approve, and I won't care that he's the Sakurazukamori as long as he never harms you." "But, grandmother..." "Doesn't. Have. To. Know." Seishirou woke, with the oddest feeling of déjà vu. He decided he wasn't going to get any more sleep that night, and got up to fix himself a cup of coffee. He pondered his 'dream'. He wondered if it was a reflection of reality, or just another of the Dreamgazer's warped visions. "I felt something for him /before/," he said out loud. "He wasn't just a thing to me then, in that time when..." He paused, as something occurred to him. He dumped his coffee in the sink, grabbed his trenchcoat and made his way to Ueno Park as quickly as possible. The Sakura stood tall and innocent, in magnificent moonlit splendour. Petals rained down around it, disturbed by the soft breeze that shook the branches. Seishirou wasn't in the mood to appreciate the image. "Release it," he said. The tree was silent. "Release my heart. I know you took it," he repeated, firmly. The tree's response was inaudible, but definitely negative. "Release it, or I'll take my /own/ life." Part of him was screaming at him for doing such a stupid thing. The rest of telling him, no, this was right. This was the way things should be. The tree panicked momentarily and then acquiesced, grudgingly. He was expecting something like a flood of emotion. He wasn't expecting the dull ache he'd attributed to missing Subaru to simple increase tenfold. Well, now it was obvious what had to be done. He had to find some way to set things right with the Sumeragi. The tree was muttering dark things in the back of his mind, and he shut off the link effortlessly. "I'll deal with /you/ later," he told it. ~ * ~ He was woken the next morning by a loud knocking on his front door. Groaning, he got up, dressed quickly, and opened it. Sumeragi Hokuto stormed into Seishirou's apartment, glaring at him. "Sei- chan, /where/ have you been?" she demanded. He blinked at her. "At home? Working?" "But you haven't been at Subaru's!" "Hokuto-chan, he doesn't want to see me," he explained, patiently. "/Sei-chan no baka/. I am sick and tired of him moping around because he thinks you don't love him." "Well... What if I don't?" he said, gesturing for her to sit down. She glared at him harder. "Sakurazukamori Seishirou, tell me this once and for all: Do you love my brother?" He thought for a moment. "Yes." "As a person?" "... Yes." "More than anyone else?" He nodded. "Have you been miserable all this time you haven't seen him?" Here he hesitated. "Most of it," he admitted, after a while. "Excellent! Now, go tell him that," said Hokuto, clapping her hands brightly. "But…" "I told you to make him /happy/. Remember?" she said, putting her hands on her hips and cocking her head to one side. "But... how do I know? If what I'm feeling is really love, that is." "More to the point, how will /he/ know that you love him?" Seishirou blinked at her. "There's a reason he's Head and I'm not, you know. It's because Subaru has the Sumeragi 'mentality', so to speak. He's absolutely devoted to his work and its cause. That's why he's being so stubborn about you. "But, you and I are the same, Sei-chan. Well, aside from the cold-blooded killer aspect... And the you being male and me being female... And you being much older... But anyway. We're both pragmatic and very protective of the ones we love. "So, what I'm /saying/ is that if someone was threatening Subaru, I would have done exactly the same thing as you did." "But Subaru's not like that," said Seishirou. "And /how/, Hokuto-chan, am I expected to convince him that it's /okay/ to love the Sakurazukamori?" "Just confront him with it," she said with a shrug. He paused for effect. "How will that help?" Hokuto gave him a patient look. "He really is in love with you. He'd find it hard to turn you down to your face." "He didn't have any trouble turning me down before," he snapped back, stung. "He was hurt. He does silly things and says things he doesn't really mean when he's hurt. I'll bet you didn't know he spent that entire night sobbing, did you? He felt betrayed and he was certain that you'd been lying to him the entire time about how you felt." "That's not true," said Seishirou, firmly. "See, that's my point. You should be telling /him/ all this." "So... you really think he'd welcome me back?" he said, uncertainly. "If you really do love him? I think he'd be more than just happy." He thought about that for a moment, and then gathered her close for a hug. "Thank you." She laughed gaily, and skipped towards the door. "Off to see that boyfriend of yours?" he teased, as she was heading out. Hokuto blushed as red as Subaru did, and didn't deign to answer. ~ * ~ Seishirou woke with the oddest feeling that something was very wrong, somewhere. It took him a moment to isolate the cause. The Tree was sulking. He got out of bed, dressed, and caught a taxi to Ueno Park. He gave the Tree his best Look, and folded his arms. "It's not like I'm just going to abandon you." The Tree was hungry. And Seishirou wasn't feeding it. The Tree was not happy. He groaned. "Fine. Find me someone that deserves to die and I'll feed you." What a cliché, he thought. Like those books about vampires that only take the evildoers. The Tree continued to sulk, ignoring him. In the end, he didn't need its help to find an appropriate victim. They found him, knife in hand with a demand for money in a low voice. The death was easy. Death was always easy. At least that hadn't changed. But the soul... That was different. The thought of consigning his soul to the Tree left him feeling slightly ill. After several moments consideration, he found he had to release it to whatever the fates had in store for it. The Tree had a fit of desperation. In an attempt to appease it, he buried the body underneath and gave the Tree a gift of half the power released by the death. He felt its pleasure, as it dug its roots into the body and fed off the blood, with a certain amount of amusement. "Just giving the soul was easier, was it?" he asked. "How long has it been since you had a /body /to feed on?" The Tree was satisfied. And it wasn't mad at him any more. After first checking no one else was around, he hugged it briefly around the trunk. "Don't worry. I'm not going to abandon you as long as we start working /together/. I'm not your master, and you're not mine. Okay?" The Tree gave him an afirmative reponse. He patted it lightly on the trunk, and turned to go. The first signs of dawn were beginning to show in the sky. Seishirou almost fell over when he realised the feeling he was getting /now/ from the Tree was well-wishing and encouragement to fix things up. With Subaru, he presumed. The Tree had given him its blessing. He found himself feeling inordinately happy. -- Yeah, almost done. Last part will be along eventually, depending on the response to this one. Random notes: Sei-chan no baka - "Sei-chan is an idiot". Or something to that effect. Tree-hugger!Seishirou sort of sneaked up on me, and once I'd written it the thought was too amusing to get rid of. I mentioned my inability to write action before, right? I thought the anticlimatic death worked quite well, but that could be because I really had trouble making it any more dramatic. And, yeah, Subaru is over-reacting a bit.</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>