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Don't Forgive - 2 : The Consequences of Kindness

An X fanfiction by Ariane Kovacevic, AKA Fuu-chan.





Dawn was rising over the city. A grey dawn, which revealed a sky full of dark clouds that would hide the sun during yet another day. Dark clouds, full of rain, heavy and threatening. At the edge of one of the huge city's parks, the tree leaves shed a few drops of morning dew which silently fell on a listless human form sitting against the park's iron gates. The bowed head didn't move when the waterdrops hit it and slowly ran down the dirty grey blanket covering the body. He didn't react when the everyday crowd rushed into the streets to get to work. He didn't flinch when some stumbled against him and cursed angrily, wondering how they had missed the sight of the wretched beggar and why the police hadn't taken action to remove him from where he was.

When rain started to fall, umbrellas opened like so many flower petals, and people ran, hurrying to get to their subway station or a taxi. The beggar didn't move, showing no awareness of what was going on around him, as if unfeeling of the cold rain soaking the shabby blanket that was his only protection against the cold. As if unable to feel the world and life around him, as if everything was illusion.

Or as if he simply didn't exist.




Kishuu Arashi looked back in annoyance, to find Arisugawa Sorata busy depicting the wonders of a raindrop rolling down a blade of glass to Nekoi Yuzuriha. The young teenager was listening to the fool with rapt attention, and of course both of them had forgotten about the time. She sighed silently, knowing they were going to be late, again. She waited for about twenty seconds, then asked :

"Are you coming, or do you plan on staying in the rain until it stops ?"

As expected, Arisugawa Sorata looked up at her and flashed her a smile he surely thought charming. Arashi quickly hid any trace of the laughter bubbling up inside her from her expression, distantly wondering why the young man always triggered the same conflicting feeling within her heart : anger, frustration, laughter and surprisingly enough... happiness. In the same time, both Sorata and Yuzuriha walked towards her, and the young man bowed extravagantly :

"Forgive me, o lady of my heart."

Arashi looked down on him with no small amount of frustration shining in her eyes, and asked him :

"Will you ever do me the grace to stop this nonsense ?"

At this, Sorata's expression immediately became one of stricken grief, and Arashi snorted, adding :

"I said : stop."

Noticing the glint in his eyes, she shook her head, thinking this had definitely been a close one. She had no wish and no time to let herself be embarked on one of those dramatic speeches the Dragon of Heaven enjoyed giving her, along with what he thought were witty or romantic love declarations. Ignoring the faint bittersweet feeling rising like the lost echo of a stranger's voice in her heart, she wished Sorata would grow up. She wished he would understand...

"Hinoto-hime looked upset last night, don't you think ?..."

Arashi's eyes fixed on the young girl who had come with Sorata. Yuzuriha's gentle eyes were shadowed with worry.

"She felt so... distraught..."

Her right hand softly patted the head of the invisible wolf spirit which was always at her side as she added softly :

"Even Inuki felt something was amiss."

Sorata's expression lost all trace of laughter or prank in an instant, and he nodded.

"Yeah, we all felt it. Something happened, a Vision maybe..."

Arashi shrugged, cutting short to any possibility of this turning out to be a long discussion under the rain, which wouldn't lead them anywhere.

"Whatever happened, we'll know when it's time for us to know. And we're late."

Incomprehension flashed in Sorata's eyes, but they fell into step with her as she resumed walking. Oh she was as worried as they were, maybe even more. Because deep inside her heart, she knew. She had always known, that they would all...

"Inuki ?..."

Yuzuriha had stopped, looking on her right at the other side of the wide avenue. When they had walked, the wolf spirit hadn't followed. Not even warning her, he had left her side, and crossed the street towards the park on the other side.

"Inuki ?..."

The wolf spirit didn't give any sign of having heard her voice, and on impulse she crossed the avenue as well, unheeding of the cars passing through, dangerously close to her.

"Yuzu-chan !"

She didn't listen to Sorata's worried shout, confident he and Arashi would follow her. Something was wrong, if Inuki had left her side... As she set foot on the other sidewalk, she froze.

Two meters away from her, a man was sitting against the park's iron gates, his head bowed so low that it was impossible to discern anything of his face. He was covered by a sodden and dirty grey blanket, dripping with water. Inuki had stopped a step from the man, unmoving. Shaking her head slowly, Yuzuriha wondered how she could have missed seeing this man, even from the other side of the street. Her right hand suddenly came up, and clutched the front of her coat. There was something so terribly sad in this sight... Something so... Sorata and Arashi joined her side, and the young man asked :

"You scared us Yuzu-chan I thought you were gonna get run down by all those cars. What's your wolf doing here ? Does it like beggars for breakfast ?"

At this same moment, Inuki went closer to the motionless man and froze right before touching him. Slowly, the inugami tilted his head backwards, and silently howled in the rain.

Sorata held Arashi close to him as he saw the wolf spirit howling. He couldn't hear the cry, but still the feeling that the sight summoned...

Grief, grief so unhumanly deep...

"Inuki..."

Yuzuriha walked to the side of the wolf spirit and knelt beside him, hugging him and feeling tears burning her eyes. The keening howl went on and on, tearing through the air, inaudible and yet engulfing the hearts of the three Dragons of Heaven in sorrow greater than anything they had ever known. Yuzuriha closed her eyes, hiding her face in the wolf spirit's fur, unable to bear more, and abruptly the howl stopped. Inuki gently freed himself from his young mistress' hold, and softly licked her cheeks, wiping away the tears that had run down her face.

Yuzuriha looked into the wolf's eyes, but saw nothing there, nothing but kindness and love for her. What had prompted the long howl of mourning, likely she would never know. Beyond Inuki, she saw the unmoving shape of the beggar, and shockingly realised he hadn't reacted at all during the time when she had been holding Inuki close. As if he hadn't even felt the howl.

As if it hadn't even reached him.

She stared at the strange man, but even though she was kneeling on the pavement, she couldn't get a glimpse of his face. His head was bowed so low... Pity rose in her heart as she watched the wretched human shape, and she held out her umbrella to him, saying softly :

"Please, take this, it'll protect you from the rain at least..."

The man didn't react, and she pushed it in his right hand.




The howl had stopped. It was good that it had, good...

The pain in it, the sorrow...

No, I didn't...

Deserve.

Besides, there had been no howl, it hadn't been. Just as I...

Wasn't.

There was nothing. Nothing but the grief and pain burning within.

Nothing but the laughter...

No...

Mad, wild. Raging, furious.

Please no...

Forever devouring the pitiful shreds that were left.




Yuzuriha watched numbly as the hand she had pushed the umbrella into let go of it, as the fingers didn't even grip the umbrella's handle, and the object slowly fell in a pool of rain beside the beggar. She asked in a whisper :

"Why ?"

No answer came from the motionless human shape before her. Nothing.

"Yuzu-chan..."

A hand gently squeezed her left shoulder, and the young teenager looked up to see Sorata had walked up to her. He added softly :

"Come, leave him, it's better..."

Yuzuriha felt tears coming to her eyes again as she saw the expression of sorrow and angry helplessness on Sorata's face.

"There's nothing we can do for him. He doesn't want to be helped, or he'd have taken the umbrella. Let's go, we're hurting both ourselves and him by staying here."

Arashi came towards them and nodded.

"He's right for once. We must go."

Reluctantly, Yuzuriha let herself be led away from this place, unable to understand why it was so. Why a man could want to refuse help freely given when he needed it so, why a man could so much want to die, or...

Not to be.




You have no choice...

The laughter all around was wind, the kind of wind one experienced only during the harshest storms. So it stood to reason the words couldn't be heard beyond it and the pain. It was perfectly logical. There were no words. No voice.

Nothing. Nothing !

You know you have no choice in this...

Images flashed in and out.

A beach, an ocean...

Lies.

There was only darkness.

Your only choice lies in the way it will come. You're lying to yourself, you know the truth. You know it better than I... Eventually, you will yield. So choose, at least choose this small thing...

The cry within rose even more.

Despair, desperate refusal.

No...

There was only darkness, and the fall.




Kakyou bowed his head, unwilling to watch the peaceful inifinite ocean of dreams in front of him. It was hard, much harder than he had thought it would be. But, as he had told the young man, there was no choice. No matter how it could have been wished otherwise, the truth was that there wasn't.

It was coming, and the young man couldn't, wouldn't escape it. No matter how brave and terrible his attempt was. Oh yes, it was coming...

Fate, like a storm of fire.




The view from the inside of the park was most interesting. The two girls and the young man eventually left, with in their wake the insubstantial shadow of a wolf. They hadn't stayed long, as if the sight was too hard for them to bear. He laughed silenltly, finding their lack of strength and willingness to confront the truth more than amusing. They were far too weak, they were foolish. He had heard the wolf's keening howl of mourning, it would have been impossible to miss it, even for the ungifted, which none of them were. They had heard all right, they had felt.

But their spirits had shied away from understanding. His had not. Fondly patting the trunk of the sakura tree he had stood under, protected from the rain and invisible to any stranger's eyes, he walked away, and exited the park.

The beggar was still there, of course. He didn't move when he approached him, nothing in his body indicating awareness of a close presence.

Of danger.

Smiling slightly, Sakurazuka Seishirou wondered if he shouldn't have felt vexed at the strange homeless' lack of reaction. There was something vaguely insulting to being ignored so completely. He had observed Kanoe standing up jerkily from her throne after she had shared a Dream of her sister, he had seen the light in her eyes, he had heard and felt her heartbeats. He knew absolute terror when he saw it, indeed, he was much used to being the source of that feeling himself. And that this wretched human shape should be the source of it...

On impulse, Sakurazuka Seishirou reached out to the slumped human figure, his fingers slipping under the beggar's chin and gently forcing it up. Forcing the young man to show his face. The hood slowly fell back, revealing long grey hair that was invading a face whose features were so pure and perfect they looked like masterfully wrought porcelain, half hiding russet-gold eyes in which shone...




Emptiness, a veil behind which...

Pain...

Loneliness...

Hunger...

Despair...

Anger...

Hatred...

Guilt...

Denial...

Grief...

Shame...

Had waited.

To reach out now, and engulf...

Drown...

Devour...




Sakurazuka Seishirou's sharp intake of breath was almost inaudible in the haunting music of the rain. It took only a fraction of a second for his ever-ready shields to drop down and protect him from harm, but even that was almost too long. His fingers gripped the young man's chin, hard, hurting a flesh that he knew wouldn't feel any wound inflicted upon it. There was no change in those seemingly empty eyes.

How could there be ?

At last, Sakurazuka Seishirou's fingers released the young man's chin, leaving marks that would be so many painful bruises, and he berated himself for being a fool. It had been a near thing, almost he had been taken by the howling tidal wave of emotions relentlessly raging within the young man, battering at walls, wanting, demanding *out*... Because he had been confident the lost soul in front of him wouldn't even be aware of his presence, because he had been confident the other wouldn't lift a finger even if he came to bring death, he had let his defences down, ever so slightly. A stupid mistake, one he would never let happen again.

Slowly, with surprising gentleness, Sakurazuka Seishirou's fingertips chased away the unruly locks of grey hair, and he stared directly into the young man's eyes.

Perhaps he should have killed this one.

Perhaps he should have done him this mercy.

Perhaps...

The raindrops soaking the young man's face were tears he himself couldn't shed. Tears he couldn't let himself shed, tears which couldn't exist or have meaning... Sakurazuka Seishirou smiled, understanding, and whispered :

"You have strange shields, very interesting..."

His fingertips softly traced the outlines of the young man's face, caressing ever so gently.

"But I wonder how long they'll hold..."

Not forever, that was certain. No matter how much pain, how much torture the young man was willing to endure.

Yes, perhaps it would have been wiser to end this one life now...

But, first he certainly wasn't in the charity business, and second, new pieces on the gameboard brought so many interesting new twists...

Besides...

Releasing one that had almost been, and yet never could be his prey, Sakurazuka Seishirou stood up and concluded :

"I'll be watching you. You are beyond me, but still I'm sure I'll find your coming to the game to be a very good thing. We'll meet again, Wolf Lord."

That said, he silently walked away, and disappeared in the rain. The unmoving figure sitting against the iron gates of the park didn't react. The young man stayed where he was, his head still bowed in the same fashion, the hood of his shabby blanket thrown back, raindrops running down his long grey hair and soaking his face.




The rain had stopped some time during the afternoon. Avoiding the drops still falling from the high branches of the trees in the park to his left, Sumeragi Subaru absentmindedly thought he was thankful for that. To have to walk from the Clamp Campus to the place which the Dragons of Heaven had decided to call home under the rain would have been inconvenient. He shot a quick look on his right, and saw Kamui a step behind him, walking in silence, his face a carefully expressionless mask. They could have used the subway of course, but the young man had expressed his wish to walk all the way back. Somehow it helped him to do this, it helped him to close himself to the outside, to revel in silence and think. Subaru understood the need, but doubted there was peace of any sort to be found thus.

He knew...

There had been a time when he himself had tried silence. To no avail. Some things could never be forgotten, some wounds could never heal, some scars kept hurting, more and more, until one eventually died.

And then some truths just couldn't be faced.

Sumeragi Subaru felt a smile coming to his lips, half bitter, and half contemptuous as a part of him judged his thoughts, and found him to be a fool who indulged far too much in self-pity. For the time being, it was better to leave his particular demon alone, he had enough with Shirou Kamui's. More than enough. Not that he had wanted or welcomed the burden thrust upon him, that one had thrown himself on his shoulders without even a by your leave.

And had perhaps touched the last parcel of the person he had been, once.

Sumeragi Subaru instinctively tensed as he saw the pitiful shadow against the iron gates of the park, but went on his way without even looking at it. Knowing better than to meddle.

"Oooops..."

Something bumped into his shoulder, and he stopped, turning around to see Kamui stepping back with embarrassment written all over his face and stammering :

"I... I'm sorry... I tripped over something and... I..."

The young man belatedly turned around, wondering how he could have made a fool of himself so completely, and saw.

There, against the iron gates of the park, someone sitting down. Dripping wet, covered only by a miserable sodden blanket... But there had only been a shadow a moment before...

Sumeragi Subaru felt the movement in the same time Kamui made to step towards the beggar, and reached out to restrain him.

Too late.

Shirou Kamui never felt Subaru's attempt to stop him. Without thinking, he walked to the beggar, and knelt down before him, so he could see the face hidden behind the heavy curtain of light grey hair. Very gently, he asked :

"I'm sorry, are you all right ?"

There was no reply. Frightened, worried for a reason he couldn't have named, Kamui reached out and and pushed at the young beggar's right shoulder.

"Don't !..."

Sumeragi Subaru's hiss was never heard by any of the other two, for in the same moment the push on the homeless' shoulder caused him to bump against the park's iron gates and reflexively lift his head.

Purple and russet-gold eyes met.

Deeper than the darkest lake.

Burning...




Two...

Halves of one.

Falling...

Lost.

Alone.

Utterly.

Shame and guilt...

Falling...

Hurting...

Grieving...

Falling...

Falling...




Before Sumeragi Subaru's eyes, life suddenly came to the eyes of the beggar, terrible to behold, gripping the soul, and the beggar's right hand reached out.

And froze, midway from Shirou Kamui's face.




The eyes were watching me.

Purple, deep.

Beautiful.

They were *watching* me. Seeing me...

Looking at me without shield to protect the soul behind them.

The need in those eyes tore through the veils around me, the plea in them rose beyond the cry ripping my soul to shreds, it rose beyond the laughter engulfing the remnants of my self.

I knew.

The terrible pain in those eyes...

The loss...

The need that couldn't be denied...

The call I had to...

Suddenly, I saw my right hand reaching out and froze.

No...

Within me, the laughter resounded, triumphant, mocking, harsher than ever.

No !...

It couldn't be allowed to happen. I couldn't allow this to happen.

I couldn't !

Focusing on the cry that was clawing at my heart, focusing desperately on the pain, on blood, I closed the cloak of suffering over me, and ran, horrified at what had almost come about. Forgetting the weakness of my body, the cold icing my bones and the terrible weariness engulfing my spirit, I ran.

Ran...

Arms grabbed me, wrapping around my chest, as a body hit mine from behind, stopping me. I tried to win free, but the other was far stronger than I was.

"No..."

I shivered, trying to be deaf to the voice.

Trying not to remember the eyes and the light in them, the emotions.

Twins of my own.

"No you're not going. I'm not letting you go... I can't let you go. I can't..."

I understood. I understood better than anyone might have. And yet, this couldn't be. It was too late already, yes it certainly was, but still...

I'll never yield...

If I had no other way... I reached deep within myself, and gathered a strength I had desperately hoped never to use again. If I had to, I would...

"You won't do it. I can feel the power rising in you, but you won't do it... I know you won't..."

The voice was barely above a whisper, gentle, full of sadness and regretful. Pleading... Needing...

No...

Within me, the laughter was echoing, endlessly.

Please, help me...

It couldn't happen, he had no idea what this would bring about, I couldn't...

I couldn't...

Don't let me...

Be.

Please...

The warmth of the body pressed against mine was slowly envelopping me, reaching me through the cold and the pain. Tearing through all the shields I had woven around my soul. I could *feel* the other against me. Holding on to me for his soul. Needing me more than air to breathe, more than life... I could feel his spirit calling out, and I could feel mine answering, unable to help myself. Unable to deny...

I shuddered, lost to myself, and to him, shame burning my soul like fire. I wasn't strong enough to deny this, I wasn't strong enough to strike at him while I still could. Slowly, I let my right arm drop and the power escaped me. Within me, the laughter eclipsed everything else.

Victorious.

"I'm sorry. I couldn't let you... Forgive me..."

The laughter faded, and I heard the muffled sobs in the voice.

Could it be he knew ?

I bowed my head, and stopped fighting his hold. He hugged me tightly as he felt my surrender, and a wave of pain rose within me, crushing my chest. Closing my eyes, I savagely swallowed down the howl of despair in my throat, feeling something hot running down my cheeks.

Tears.




Sumeragi Subaru watched as Fate struck before his eyes, and did nothing, knowing there was nothing to be done. Silently, he helped Kamui to support the frail young man, and quickly took off his own coat, covering him with it and throwing away the dirty blanket with disgust. Careful not to lose himself in the russet-gold eyes and the bottomless pain they were hiding, Subaru looked at the finely wrought face, and noticed the ugly purple bruises marking the lines of the jaw, as if someone had gripped the young man there, very hard. Fleetingly, he wondered who could have hurt the young man so, who could have noticed his presence and had enough strength to confront him thus...

At last, they walked away, helping the young man, who didn't fight them. Kamui's body was radiating a confused mix of emotions, each stronger than the other. Subaru saw all this, and thought that it was possible a burden had just been lifted from his shoulders. A part of him briefly experienced regrets, but this quickly passed. It was far better this way.

Now he would be free to walk down the path that had always been his.




The prone body wasn't reacting. At all. No matter how hard he was being shaken, he wouldn't wake. The one who had been called Monou Fuuma and now was "Kamui" looked down on the man on the bed, feeling very frustrated. As he was about to give up and turn back, the other's eyes slowly opened. "Kamui" told him :

"I kept trying to rouse you, but you wouldn't move. You wouldn't answer my call..."

Kakyou stared at the young man with the faintest hint of a smile on his lips. The Dragon of Earth's dark eyes were a funny mixture of restrained anger, and, strangely enough, worry. But then it was true that the DreamGazer hadn't yet fulfilled his own task as Dragon of Earth. Not quite... And so "Kamui" still had need of him. Kakyou shrugged slightly, replying :

"I was Dreaming."

The other nodded slowly, as if that explained everything and was justification enough to him, which was surprising, and asked :

"And what did you see ?"

For a moment, Kakyou thought of keeping to himself what he had just witnessed, the too strong emotions that had been unleashed, the despair that had engulfed the Wolf Lord as he had understood he was lost... But finally, he looked into Monou Fuuma's eyes and told him softly :

"You."

End of Part 2.


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