04 - [X/1999 + XIAOLIN SHOWDOWN] a demon holds my place on earth
Rating: pee gee 13 just because of suspeciousness
Characters: dragons of earth, chase appearances
Fandom: xiaolin showdown + x/1999
Summary: some pastimes are more costly than others.
Notes: took great liberties on timelines and powers, specially on kamui's case. 8|a
once in a while he knows that dreams cross, because all dreams have threads which weave with each other in one inevitable stroke. the threads tighten, fall into place; the tapestry is stretched taut and all dreams become connected in one unbroken line. this doesn't happen often; too many things detract from the path of the weave, but once in a while it does. kamui knows this as well as dreamseers do who watch the ripples of fate affect them one by one with an imposing hand changing color and weave at turn, and kamui can't help but wonder how much space one actually occupies in the face of this force.
kakyou's dreams are filled with the vast expanse of the blue sea spilling onto the corners of the dream, drowning the shadows that desperately try to claw back at his heels. a pale hand dips into the water, emerges dry. this is about the extent of creation they have. kamui smiles. kakyou looks at his face with his catlike eyes, noting the smile. it is one that belongs to him, and kakyou hears the earth shudder at a distance (very far away. like he's listening through the void where only the slightest vibrations can disturb the air). "i think i'll have a walk today," kamui says cheerfully. he steps on the sea. it doesn't part, but the waves orient themselves around his force. in the mercy of the dream-sun kamui doesn't even have a shadow and probably will never have one, as far as both of them can tell.
kakyou hears the voice of a dark-haired girl behind him and he can see her lips forming his name in his mind and he nods. he understands. "we'll wait for you," kakyou whispers. behind him a girl moves at the corner of his eye. he feels soft hands running on the side of his hair.
(this is a scene kakyou has seen before and has memorized in his head: the girl's head snaps back and a hand plunges into her chest and into the darkness. blood runs unreal on the floor of his memories and kakyou has the indecency to think that cannot be real.)
kamui smiles, and doesn't turn back as he walks quietly away. "everyone waits for me perpetually. they just don't know it yet."
(outside of their dreams the ground dies and wails and kamui walks in perfectly controlled motions over the crests of the water dancing around his feet.)
+
water is always present in their dreams. kamui cannot hear himself breathing, or moving -- there's only so far a dream can provide, and it's a lot more unstable than wishes are -- but he can split the atoms of his body to turn into black fluid (inhale) that dissipates as soon as it touches the grounds of the mind (exhale). in dreams there are no walls that can keep him away: he knows that somewhere beneath the weaves of this tapestry they all share there's a watery prison that a waif-like dreamseer has kept her self locked in. the other waif walks in the guise of a maiden with blood-red eyes. in the shadows the other dragons fail to see the lingering blue pigments around her mouth: kamui whispers, she is dying and the only word you will accept is that she has been assassinated; not that she has split herself in half in order to save the world. there is no small sacrifice that will go unnoticed. understanding it is entirely something else. compassion is a terrible thing, kamui thinks as he moves through shadows and waters of dreams, simply because it requires one to feel for the other and that is always a terribly difficult, sacrificial act. he doesn't need to do that to himself, to keep running whatever's left of his form on the edge of their self-destructive wishes but he has no choice. he walks where he is lead.
(he can debate as long as he wants that he doesn't dream. the simplest excuse he can provide is that fate always ties one of the threads of the weave around his neck and hangs him from the needle to keep him from being alive. that's not always true, but sometimes, it's close.)
all dreams connect. water is the voice of the transient mind and kamui follows where it goes because fate moves him with her velvet tongue, and kamui can only ignore it so much. he wasn't surprised to find himself lonely, but in solitude one can imagine their heart beating with such vigour that perhaps the only way he can be sure he's alive is by knowing his silence from the inside out. it's not a bad thing: dragons are, after all, not meant to associate with their own kind. but they inevitably call to each other anyway because the sphere of their solitude coincide with one another and force presences to be shared. how cruel, he thought.
he opened a pomegranate with his hands (in his dreams he has a pomegranate) and ate one of the seeds as he walked in silence.
+
it's not often, but sometimes he gets lost in dreams. this isn't really that hard: all threads run in different directions, it's just a matter of picking one that you like and running with it. kamui likes bright colours like flashes of red and green and gold. he's done with neutral colours because he's seen the spectrum they can offer while awake. so today he follows one the colour of copper and green and he thinks, that can't be that bad. he makes a joke of the whole affair and leaves the seeds as he walks.
he arrives in a dojo, the wood polished to a respectable age, and smiles at the feel of the wood in his palm. unreal. subtle, the detail of the beams and the grain of the floor. you'd half-expect to feel the ridges on your palms but you won't. someone has taken great pains to only recreate as far as they will allow themselves to see.
interesting. kamui felt like destroying something beautiful, so he walks on. (because this is not his dream he takes the time to remove his shoes inside. he doesn't want to be rude. even the seeds stop at the foot of the stairs.) he takes the time to admire the scene, because each dream is a work of art of its own. it's also a personally revealing tribute to the dreamer's life. kamui's eyes are catlike as they slowly move from place to place: the wooden doors lovingly worn on the side. the table in its familiar place like it's been there forever.
he bends down to touch the floor. dents, everywhere, a footprint ingrained in one spot. the soles were smaller than his.
it was also warm.
kamui smiled. he looked outside; he listened. a voice. two things that breathe: one loud and angry, the other quiet, seductive. hideous. and small, very slight. he walks out of the room, slips his shoes on, resumes spilling pomegranate seeds.
and because this is not his dream, he doesn't have the terrain memorized. inevitably he trips on a stone inelegantly (why was it even there.) two things happen: one, the dream shifts, changes, the ground turns from soft grass to the dry sands of the desert and kamui feels the grains on his tongue once he falls.
second: a roar reverberates in the dream. kamui takes the time to dust himself off and wipe the sand from his face when he hears somebody snarl (or growl, or did he even speak in something human). he hears a jaw open wide.
he has never seen so much teeth in his life.
+
kamui is then rudely awakened and he's in his throne, massaging his temples. kazuki looks at him quizzically. "papa, you are awake."
"something like that," he sighs. "ah, well. that's too bad."
kazuki frowns. "i do not understand."
"bad dreams," he replied, laughing. "or rather, i woke up in a part that was going to be really exciting, but what can you do. some people are just too private." he stretches his arms. "nevermind, we have work to do. is beast up?"
"yes. satsuki has finished with the proper upgrades."
"good. let's go out for a walk."
+
that evening he comes back with his hands red and his uniform dirty, but that's nothing new. kanoe waits in her car with a chauffer, lips pursed at the sight of her child-messiah so dirty he might as well be some ordinary kid in the street. kamui smiles, kanoe forces him inside. "your hands are so dirty. god, didn't you even bother to wash them off?"
"it's not like it'd matter. it's always like that, anyway."
"well, that doesn't mean you can't act like a decent guy," she snaps, and opens her purse, fishing for a sanitizer. her purse is soft leather, lined with silk red. she slips the bottle in his hands. "use that."
"thanks, i guess." he cleans his hands. he doesn't really care much, but okay. "did you get kazuki?"
"when he's done. the roads around his area are not exactly navigable. beast helped us."
kamui smiles and nods. kanoe looks at him, scrutinizes his appearance more (too much, too much like a child and there's a sense of hopelessness in that realization and kamui knows it well), finds herself thankful she doesn't see anybody else yet though the flash of red eyes were there. kamui wonders if he should say anything.
"you ever been that hopeless before?"
"... pardon me?"
"think about it: leaving your fate to the hands of a teenager barely even your age." kamui laughed. this never-ending joke was just driving all of them insane, weren't it. "too much like a child; but entirely transient and godlike."
he looks back into her eyes and kanoe is enthralled with the gold of his own. "you don't need to worry," he says softly. "i will grant it."
that he can see what she wishes for before she even wished it frightens her, but everybody is always unsettled, terrified in the presence of kamui. "that -- are you telling me my -- "
"i'm giving you a guarantee," he replied. and he closes his eyes. after all, even messiahs can get tired of holding other people's hands.
+
"don't follow that thread," kakyou warns him softly. they were both sitting at the edge of the cliff; below them was the sea, and the gulls that cried overhead were as plaintive and haunting as the people who screamed above the ground. "some people don't like it when you intrude."
today kamui is feeding the gulls beside him with a small piece of bread. he didn't get to do this earlier because the rooftop of the mall exploded, and that was a nice place. "i was clumsy the first time around. next time i'll look out for things like, i don't know, stray piece of tree root or something that i can trip on."
"they'll be more prepared. that they reacted to your presence is a sign that they might be stronger than they look."
kamui, being kamui, waved it off. all dreams being connected mean to him that in some level they either undermine or side with the wishes of the earth. as he is kamui he is greater than anything else, he knows. "nothing i can't handle, i'm sure."
kakyou sighed. "i just don't think it's fair for -- "
"you're one to talk." kamui laughed. it came out a little hollow. below them the sea turns from tranquil to violent as the winds pick up. "i never thought any of this was fair. did you ever think of that?"
the girl was behind him again and kakyou shivered as he watched kamui stand and take one step off of the cliff, plunging to the waters below. "it's alright," the girl behind him has taken her place, her dark hair blowing in the wind. he dares not to touch her. "he's only out to see a reflection in one of the dreams. he'll be back when he finds he doesn't like what he doesn't see."
the sea is kind to kamui and leads him down to dreams of hot desert and jagged cliffs.
+
what was surprising was inside of the cave because it didn't look like a cave. it had grass, for one thing. and cats, which he was really surprised with. (he expected bears.) big cats like tigers. there was even a fountain, and kamui smiles wryly as he pokes at the dream. unlike the other one, everything here was detailed and the dreamer spared no expense.
the water gurgled quietly as he sat on one of the steps. one of the cats pawed at him, curious, and kamui did his best to rub behind its ears. it didn't purr -- the dream didn't account for this one to purr, how odd, perhaps it eats and just hunts a lot -- but it did move closer.
soon he has two or three more at his feet and all of them demanding his attention and kamui frowned, a little confused. odd. "you guys are ridiculously spoiled," he says, laughing. "very soft, though. cool."
he knows he's being watched. he can feel someone trying to contain him in a dream and trap him, someone manipulating the seam of the tapestry and trying to take his thread away from the whole. good luck with that, kamui thinks, and runs his hand through the mane of a lion that came to rest on his lap, heavy and large.
+
he met the dreamer in another scene with the blistering sun (he knows he's not wanted) and carrion birds on a dead tree. all of them quiet and watching him as he emerged in a mass of water warping the very fabric of the dream, bursting out of its threads in a slow stream of colour, black and gold and power, endless power he'd brought in from inside of him. dragons attract one another and force themselves upon imposed solitudes. this is no exception.
you are not welcome here, a hundred different birds caw at his appearance and he smiles.
"I'm just visiting," he replies. "i won't be long."
are you deaf? one of them asks in a shrill tone. kamui is indifferent to birds, he wouldn't know their names. leave, while i am generous enough to let you live.
"oh? how's your luck with that, so far?" kamui smiles.
the birds caw, snapping their beaks angrily, and kamui watches the commotion when he hears the sands shift. the birds go quiet and still, as if a switch has been turned off. he listens to himself breathe. he listens to the sand shift, move. by the time he exhales he catches a claw on his hand when he turns and meets with a dragon, a real one, snarling and angry as another claw reaches to scratch the skin off of his face. (it may be a dream, but it still hurts.)
"ow," he said politely.
"leave," the dragon snarls. "this is my dream. i will not let anybody else intrude, much less teenagers." and here the dragon scoffs at him and gives him a look of disdain. kamui looks at him with fascination, maybe a little of admiration.
"how utterly human," he whispers.
"-- what."
"i mean, when you look like that. like -- when you move your eyes to the side, and have that look. okay, that didn't make sense, but still. how utterly ... " and he reaches a hand to touch those scales. "also, i never knew that lizards can grow this -- "
he woke up by having his neck snapped in half by huge jaws.
+
kakyou gave up warning him after three nights, so kanoe took it to herself to antagonize kamui instead, because she sees his dreams, too, and knows that night after night he's consorting with dragons who snap his neck and have eaten him alive in the desert, in various caves, in a dojo at the edge of a forest, on top of the mountains where nothing grows. "we don't know if they're from the other side, kamui," she says exasperately. "they might be a spy!"
"they're not," he replies. "i'd know."
"well, they could be working for them! we are close to our goal, kamui, i can feel it and so do you, and we cannot afford to have any more distractions -- " kamui washes his hand in his dreams because kanoe doesn't like messy dreams. he rolls his eyes when she goes off in a tirade, being very much a teenager. honestly, old people. geeze.
+
in one dream he arrives in an opulent banquet and his dreamer is not a dragon but a man. kamui stares at his long hair and his eyes which were even more similar to him and the man stares right back at him with vehemence. he finds it interesting that the same thread runs to both forms of essentially the same person; kind of like kazuki's dreams, who are both kazuki and nataku themselves. behind him was the polished perfection of glass everywhere and kamui sees himself reflected by the facets.
"i didn't know i have a reflection," he laughed.
the man raised an eyebrow. "for shadows to appear, the substance generally has to go before form," he replies. "though for someone who lets himself be eaten almost every night, i wonder what that'd mean to you." he makes a face after, and then continues. "you've ruined my sleep."
"i tend to," kamui replies, smiling eternally. "i call it 'rearranging'."
"it's not needed." there's an undertone of steel in his words. kamui imagines bones ripping and skin stretching to thin colors over a deceptively proud, human frame, like a kite that soars indifferent skies. "above anything else, it's an annoyance. be glad we don't meet outside of it."
"we probably never will," kamui said musingly. a cat approaches him curiously, and he extends his hand, scratching the back of the ears lightly. it leans forward to his touch, pleased. "what's today, tuesday?"
"depends on where you live."
"tuesday, then." kamui laughed. "i have a date on the yamanote line. you might see me there, if things go well."
"i will make sure to eat a light lunch."
+
yamanote line is uprooted at around 5 pm, wielded like a ribbon, twisting concrete and metal with it. something else happens around it: a weapon shudders, comes to an epiphany, and in its death realizes that there is a name for the sound that comes from the vibrations that occur when the breath leaves the throat for the very last time. he arrives in the array of black and white and he leaves with the same orderliness as he entered the shield shaped in a cross.
after that, he discarded his clothes and folded them neatly in subaru's new room, changing it with a simple white shirt. the sumeragi -- no, the sakurazukamori -- watches him carefully. "discarding more shells?"
"something like that," kamui smiles. "fall's coming. did you see the birds? they know it's about to end."
his brow furrows and subaru goes back to inscribing ofuda mechanically on his table, replacing the sigils of his former clan with etches of the clan of the dead. "i believe in humanity," subaru whispers. "i believe that we can change. i believe that perhaps, kamui will realize that not all ends have to follow one singular thread."
kamui looks at him, smiling. "you believe in the dead."
"that, too." he waits for the papers to dry, arranging them in neat little rows across the wood. time doesn't wait for them anymore.
+
the last night goes like this:
they are in the desert again in the late afternoon. the sun is burning off in the air over the horizon, turning the sands into murderous red. the warmth tries to go through his bones, but fails. the attention to detail is impressive, almost vain in its fanatical realism to widths and curves of the world, but it is not real. it is something often wished for but never realized. kamui sees the outline of this dream, knows that it has a place in the seam, in the fabric of fate, in the fabric of the world.
"all things are inevitable," kamui murmurs. he sits cross-legged on the sand and lets it run through his fingers thoughtfully. "japan is not only the one who bears the strain. did you see me? i waved a little for you."
he remembers the sound of the metal and concrete scraping as it folded and twisted into itself like a never-ending snake with a hunger for its soul, and inevitably the sound enters the dream and nearly shatters his ears. he smiles.
from the distance, the dragon crawls on the earth with its golden eyes piercing his own, eyeing his pale skin, his naked throat.
"your idea of a date is horrible," the dragon replies. "as for fate, it can be changed. a single, powerful stroke of hand is needed to force it to kneel. that you do not realize this shows me the limits of your so-called strength."
the sky was beautiful enough to have the first stars appear as the sun gives its farewell (not even dreams are safe from the end of the world) and he shades his eyes from the last of the rays, counting the seven that can split the earth in two and let the light billow in. the dragon made an impatient snap with its jaws; its tail swished in the air in slow, decisive motions. "why are you here?"
"no reason, really." he laughed. "i wish i can explain to you, but i really don't know. maybe i just like dictating how dreams are to fold in themeselves, especially among dragons."
the dragon gave out a very much disagreeing sound, half-snarling and half-mockingly laughing over that. him, a dragon. how when he is barely even anything, digging his fingers in the softness of the ground, its roughness. "leave."
kamui leans back until he lies flat on the ground. "you'll have to make me," he replied. "tonight is the last night. tomorrow is the last sunrise. when i wake up, everything must fall into its place."
"and if they don't?"
"i'll haunt you," he promised. "it's inevitable."
the dragons snarls. kamui forgets that certain words are not to be used. he'd like to apologize, but it's a little useless. even when awake he has no cause to do so. "i'll find a way," he laughed. "you won't remember. but one day you'll find my throat underneath your teeth and you will not kill me, out of some twisted sense of nostalgia, or something equally banal."
+
subaru shakes him gently awake and when he opens his eyes he realizes that his throat is dry, his hands are shaking and cold. somehow, somehow, kamui knows that today is the beginning of his true death. he smiles.
he is afraid.
Characters: dragons of earth, chase appearances
Fandom: xiaolin showdown + x/1999
Summary: some pastimes are more costly than others.
Notes: took great liberties on timelines and powers, specially on kamui's case. 8|a
once in a while he knows that dreams cross, because all dreams have threads which weave with each other in one inevitable stroke. the threads tighten, fall into place; the tapestry is stretched taut and all dreams become connected in one unbroken line. this doesn't happen often; too many things detract from the path of the weave, but once in a while it does. kamui knows this as well as dreamseers do who watch the ripples of fate affect them one by one with an imposing hand changing color and weave at turn, and kamui can't help but wonder how much space one actually occupies in the face of this force.
kakyou's dreams are filled with the vast expanse of the blue sea spilling onto the corners of the dream, drowning the shadows that desperately try to claw back at his heels. a pale hand dips into the water, emerges dry. this is about the extent of creation they have. kamui smiles. kakyou looks at his face with his catlike eyes, noting the smile. it is one that belongs to him, and kakyou hears the earth shudder at a distance (very far away. like he's listening through the void where only the slightest vibrations can disturb the air). "i think i'll have a walk today," kamui says cheerfully. he steps on the sea. it doesn't part, but the waves orient themselves around his force. in the mercy of the dream-sun kamui doesn't even have a shadow and probably will never have one, as far as both of them can tell.
kakyou hears the voice of a dark-haired girl behind him and he can see her lips forming his name in his mind and he nods. he understands. "we'll wait for you," kakyou whispers. behind him a girl moves at the corner of his eye. he feels soft hands running on the side of his hair.
(this is a scene kakyou has seen before and has memorized in his head: the girl's head snaps back and a hand plunges into her chest and into the darkness. blood runs unreal on the floor of his memories and kakyou has the indecency to think that cannot be real.)
kamui smiles, and doesn't turn back as he walks quietly away. "everyone waits for me perpetually. they just don't know it yet."
(outside of their dreams the ground dies and wails and kamui walks in perfectly controlled motions over the crests of the water dancing around his feet.)
+
water is always present in their dreams. kamui cannot hear himself breathing, or moving -- there's only so far a dream can provide, and it's a lot more unstable than wishes are -- but he can split the atoms of his body to turn into black fluid (inhale) that dissipates as soon as it touches the grounds of the mind (exhale). in dreams there are no walls that can keep him away: he knows that somewhere beneath the weaves of this tapestry they all share there's a watery prison that a waif-like dreamseer has kept her self locked in. the other waif walks in the guise of a maiden with blood-red eyes. in the shadows the other dragons fail to see the lingering blue pigments around her mouth: kamui whispers, she is dying and the only word you will accept is that she has been assassinated; not that she has split herself in half in order to save the world. there is no small sacrifice that will go unnoticed. understanding it is entirely something else. compassion is a terrible thing, kamui thinks as he moves through shadows and waters of dreams, simply because it requires one to feel for the other and that is always a terribly difficult, sacrificial act. he doesn't need to do that to himself, to keep running whatever's left of his form on the edge of their self-destructive wishes but he has no choice. he walks where he is lead.
(he can debate as long as he wants that he doesn't dream. the simplest excuse he can provide is that fate always ties one of the threads of the weave around his neck and hangs him from the needle to keep him from being alive. that's not always true, but sometimes, it's close.)
all dreams connect. water is the voice of the transient mind and kamui follows where it goes because fate moves him with her velvet tongue, and kamui can only ignore it so much. he wasn't surprised to find himself lonely, but in solitude one can imagine their heart beating with such vigour that perhaps the only way he can be sure he's alive is by knowing his silence from the inside out. it's not a bad thing: dragons are, after all, not meant to associate with their own kind. but they inevitably call to each other anyway because the sphere of their solitude coincide with one another and force presences to be shared. how cruel, he thought.
he opened a pomegranate with his hands (in his dreams he has a pomegranate) and ate one of the seeds as he walked in silence.
+
it's not often, but sometimes he gets lost in dreams. this isn't really that hard: all threads run in different directions, it's just a matter of picking one that you like and running with it. kamui likes bright colours like flashes of red and green and gold. he's done with neutral colours because he's seen the spectrum they can offer while awake. so today he follows one the colour of copper and green and he thinks, that can't be that bad. he makes a joke of the whole affair and leaves the seeds as he walks.
he arrives in a dojo, the wood polished to a respectable age, and smiles at the feel of the wood in his palm. unreal. subtle, the detail of the beams and the grain of the floor. you'd half-expect to feel the ridges on your palms but you won't. someone has taken great pains to only recreate as far as they will allow themselves to see.
interesting. kamui felt like destroying something beautiful, so he walks on. (because this is not his dream he takes the time to remove his shoes inside. he doesn't want to be rude. even the seeds stop at the foot of the stairs.) he takes the time to admire the scene, because each dream is a work of art of its own. it's also a personally revealing tribute to the dreamer's life. kamui's eyes are catlike as they slowly move from place to place: the wooden doors lovingly worn on the side. the table in its familiar place like it's been there forever.
he bends down to touch the floor. dents, everywhere, a footprint ingrained in one spot. the soles were smaller than his.
it was also warm.
kamui smiled. he looked outside; he listened. a voice. two things that breathe: one loud and angry, the other quiet, seductive. hideous. and small, very slight. he walks out of the room, slips his shoes on, resumes spilling pomegranate seeds.
and because this is not his dream, he doesn't have the terrain memorized. inevitably he trips on a stone inelegantly (why was it even there.) two things happen: one, the dream shifts, changes, the ground turns from soft grass to the dry sands of the desert and kamui feels the grains on his tongue once he falls.
second: a roar reverberates in the dream. kamui takes the time to dust himself off and wipe the sand from his face when he hears somebody snarl (or growl, or did he even speak in something human). he hears a jaw open wide.
he has never seen so much teeth in his life.
+
kamui is then rudely awakened and he's in his throne, massaging his temples. kazuki looks at him quizzically. "papa, you are awake."
"something like that," he sighs. "ah, well. that's too bad."
kazuki frowns. "i do not understand."
"bad dreams," he replied, laughing. "or rather, i woke up in a part that was going to be really exciting, but what can you do. some people are just too private." he stretches his arms. "nevermind, we have work to do. is beast up?"
"yes. satsuki has finished with the proper upgrades."
"good. let's go out for a walk."
+
that evening he comes back with his hands red and his uniform dirty, but that's nothing new. kanoe waits in her car with a chauffer, lips pursed at the sight of her child-messiah so dirty he might as well be some ordinary kid in the street. kamui smiles, kanoe forces him inside. "your hands are so dirty. god, didn't you even bother to wash them off?"
"it's not like it'd matter. it's always like that, anyway."
"well, that doesn't mean you can't act like a decent guy," she snaps, and opens her purse, fishing for a sanitizer. her purse is soft leather, lined with silk red. she slips the bottle in his hands. "use that."
"thanks, i guess." he cleans his hands. he doesn't really care much, but okay. "did you get kazuki?"
"when he's done. the roads around his area are not exactly navigable. beast helped us."
kamui smiles and nods. kanoe looks at him, scrutinizes his appearance more (too much, too much like a child and there's a sense of hopelessness in that realization and kamui knows it well), finds herself thankful she doesn't see anybody else yet though the flash of red eyes were there. kamui wonders if he should say anything.
"you ever been that hopeless before?"
"... pardon me?"
"think about it: leaving your fate to the hands of a teenager barely even your age." kamui laughed. this never-ending joke was just driving all of them insane, weren't it. "too much like a child; but entirely transient and godlike."
he looks back into her eyes and kanoe is enthralled with the gold of his own. "you don't need to worry," he says softly. "i will grant it."
that he can see what she wishes for before she even wished it frightens her, but everybody is always unsettled, terrified in the presence of kamui. "that -- are you telling me my -- "
"i'm giving you a guarantee," he replied. and he closes his eyes. after all, even messiahs can get tired of holding other people's hands.
+
"don't follow that thread," kakyou warns him softly. they were both sitting at the edge of the cliff; below them was the sea, and the gulls that cried overhead were as plaintive and haunting as the people who screamed above the ground. "some people don't like it when you intrude."
today kamui is feeding the gulls beside him with a small piece of bread. he didn't get to do this earlier because the rooftop of the mall exploded, and that was a nice place. "i was clumsy the first time around. next time i'll look out for things like, i don't know, stray piece of tree root or something that i can trip on."
"they'll be more prepared. that they reacted to your presence is a sign that they might be stronger than they look."
kamui, being kamui, waved it off. all dreams being connected mean to him that in some level they either undermine or side with the wishes of the earth. as he is kamui he is greater than anything else, he knows. "nothing i can't handle, i'm sure."
kakyou sighed. "i just don't think it's fair for -- "
"you're one to talk." kamui laughed. it came out a little hollow. below them the sea turns from tranquil to violent as the winds pick up. "i never thought any of this was fair. did you ever think of that?"
the girl was behind him again and kakyou shivered as he watched kamui stand and take one step off of the cliff, plunging to the waters below. "it's alright," the girl behind him has taken her place, her dark hair blowing in the wind. he dares not to touch her. "he's only out to see a reflection in one of the dreams. he'll be back when he finds he doesn't like what he doesn't see."
the sea is kind to kamui and leads him down to dreams of hot desert and jagged cliffs.
+
what was surprising was inside of the cave because it didn't look like a cave. it had grass, for one thing. and cats, which he was really surprised with. (he expected bears.) big cats like tigers. there was even a fountain, and kamui smiles wryly as he pokes at the dream. unlike the other one, everything here was detailed and the dreamer spared no expense.
the water gurgled quietly as he sat on one of the steps. one of the cats pawed at him, curious, and kamui did his best to rub behind its ears. it didn't purr -- the dream didn't account for this one to purr, how odd, perhaps it eats and just hunts a lot -- but it did move closer.
soon he has two or three more at his feet and all of them demanding his attention and kamui frowned, a little confused. odd. "you guys are ridiculously spoiled," he says, laughing. "very soft, though. cool."
he knows he's being watched. he can feel someone trying to contain him in a dream and trap him, someone manipulating the seam of the tapestry and trying to take his thread away from the whole. good luck with that, kamui thinks, and runs his hand through the mane of a lion that came to rest on his lap, heavy and large.
+
he met the dreamer in another scene with the blistering sun (he knows he's not wanted) and carrion birds on a dead tree. all of them quiet and watching him as he emerged in a mass of water warping the very fabric of the dream, bursting out of its threads in a slow stream of colour, black and gold and power, endless power he'd brought in from inside of him. dragons attract one another and force themselves upon imposed solitudes. this is no exception.
you are not welcome here, a hundred different birds caw at his appearance and he smiles.
"I'm just visiting," he replies. "i won't be long."
are you deaf? one of them asks in a shrill tone. kamui is indifferent to birds, he wouldn't know their names. leave, while i am generous enough to let you live.
"oh? how's your luck with that, so far?" kamui smiles.
the birds caw, snapping their beaks angrily, and kamui watches the commotion when he hears the sands shift. the birds go quiet and still, as if a switch has been turned off. he listens to himself breathe. he listens to the sand shift, move. by the time he exhales he catches a claw on his hand when he turns and meets with a dragon, a real one, snarling and angry as another claw reaches to scratch the skin off of his face. (it may be a dream, but it still hurts.)
"ow," he said politely.
"leave," the dragon snarls. "this is my dream. i will not let anybody else intrude, much less teenagers." and here the dragon scoffs at him and gives him a look of disdain. kamui looks at him with fascination, maybe a little of admiration.
"how utterly human," he whispers.
"-- what."
"i mean, when you look like that. like -- when you move your eyes to the side, and have that look. okay, that didn't make sense, but still. how utterly ... " and he reaches a hand to touch those scales. "also, i never knew that lizards can grow this -- "
he woke up by having his neck snapped in half by huge jaws.
+
kakyou gave up warning him after three nights, so kanoe took it to herself to antagonize kamui instead, because she sees his dreams, too, and knows that night after night he's consorting with dragons who snap his neck and have eaten him alive in the desert, in various caves, in a dojo at the edge of a forest, on top of the mountains where nothing grows. "we don't know if they're from the other side, kamui," she says exasperately. "they might be a spy!"
"they're not," he replies. "i'd know."
"well, they could be working for them! we are close to our goal, kamui, i can feel it and so do you, and we cannot afford to have any more distractions -- " kamui washes his hand in his dreams because kanoe doesn't like messy dreams. he rolls his eyes when she goes off in a tirade, being very much a teenager. honestly, old people. geeze.
+
in one dream he arrives in an opulent banquet and his dreamer is not a dragon but a man. kamui stares at his long hair and his eyes which were even more similar to him and the man stares right back at him with vehemence. he finds it interesting that the same thread runs to both forms of essentially the same person; kind of like kazuki's dreams, who are both kazuki and nataku themselves. behind him was the polished perfection of glass everywhere and kamui sees himself reflected by the facets.
"i didn't know i have a reflection," he laughed.
the man raised an eyebrow. "for shadows to appear, the substance generally has to go before form," he replies. "though for someone who lets himself be eaten almost every night, i wonder what that'd mean to you." he makes a face after, and then continues. "you've ruined my sleep."
"i tend to," kamui replies, smiling eternally. "i call it 'rearranging'."
"it's not needed." there's an undertone of steel in his words. kamui imagines bones ripping and skin stretching to thin colors over a deceptively proud, human frame, like a kite that soars indifferent skies. "above anything else, it's an annoyance. be glad we don't meet outside of it."
"we probably never will," kamui said musingly. a cat approaches him curiously, and he extends his hand, scratching the back of the ears lightly. it leans forward to his touch, pleased. "what's today, tuesday?"
"depends on where you live."
"tuesday, then." kamui laughed. "i have a date on the yamanote line. you might see me there, if things go well."
"i will make sure to eat a light lunch."
+
yamanote line is uprooted at around 5 pm, wielded like a ribbon, twisting concrete and metal with it. something else happens around it: a weapon shudders, comes to an epiphany, and in its death realizes that there is a name for the sound that comes from the vibrations that occur when the breath leaves the throat for the very last time. he arrives in the array of black and white and he leaves with the same orderliness as he entered the shield shaped in a cross.
after that, he discarded his clothes and folded them neatly in subaru's new room, changing it with a simple white shirt. the sumeragi -- no, the sakurazukamori -- watches him carefully. "discarding more shells?"
"something like that," kamui smiles. "fall's coming. did you see the birds? they know it's about to end."
his brow furrows and subaru goes back to inscribing ofuda mechanically on his table, replacing the sigils of his former clan with etches of the clan of the dead. "i believe in humanity," subaru whispers. "i believe that we can change. i believe that perhaps, kamui will realize that not all ends have to follow one singular thread."
kamui looks at him, smiling. "you believe in the dead."
"that, too." he waits for the papers to dry, arranging them in neat little rows across the wood. time doesn't wait for them anymore.
+
the last night goes like this:
they are in the desert again in the late afternoon. the sun is burning off in the air over the horizon, turning the sands into murderous red. the warmth tries to go through his bones, but fails. the attention to detail is impressive, almost vain in its fanatical realism to widths and curves of the world, but it is not real. it is something often wished for but never realized. kamui sees the outline of this dream, knows that it has a place in the seam, in the fabric of fate, in the fabric of the world.
"all things are inevitable," kamui murmurs. he sits cross-legged on the sand and lets it run through his fingers thoughtfully. "japan is not only the one who bears the strain. did you see me? i waved a little for you."
he remembers the sound of the metal and concrete scraping as it folded and twisted into itself like a never-ending snake with a hunger for its soul, and inevitably the sound enters the dream and nearly shatters his ears. he smiles.
from the distance, the dragon crawls on the earth with its golden eyes piercing his own, eyeing his pale skin, his naked throat.
"your idea of a date is horrible," the dragon replies. "as for fate, it can be changed. a single, powerful stroke of hand is needed to force it to kneel. that you do not realize this shows me the limits of your so-called strength."
the sky was beautiful enough to have the first stars appear as the sun gives its farewell (not even dreams are safe from the end of the world) and he shades his eyes from the last of the rays, counting the seven that can split the earth in two and let the light billow in. the dragon made an impatient snap with its jaws; its tail swished in the air in slow, decisive motions. "why are you here?"
"no reason, really." he laughed. "i wish i can explain to you, but i really don't know. maybe i just like dictating how dreams are to fold in themeselves, especially among dragons."
the dragon gave out a very much disagreeing sound, half-snarling and half-mockingly laughing over that. him, a dragon. how when he is barely even anything, digging his fingers in the softness of the ground, its roughness. "leave."
kamui leans back until he lies flat on the ground. "you'll have to make me," he replied. "tonight is the last night. tomorrow is the last sunrise. when i wake up, everything must fall into its place."
"and if they don't?"
"i'll haunt you," he promised. "it's inevitable."
the dragons snarls. kamui forgets that certain words are not to be used. he'd like to apologize, but it's a little useless. even when awake he has no cause to do so. "i'll find a way," he laughed. "you won't remember. but one day you'll find my throat underneath your teeth and you will not kill me, out of some twisted sense of nostalgia, or something equally banal."
+
subaru shakes him gently awake and when he opens his eyes he realizes that his throat is dry, his hands are shaking and cold. somehow, somehow, kamui knows that today is the beginning of his true death. he smiles.
he is afraid.