Disclaimers: Not mine! They belong to CLAMP and Chistato Nakamura etc
Another crossover in the making… Angst & inevitability… Needless to say, shounen-ai too.
Kakyou stared out over the reflective surface for the dreamscape. Below him, Tokyo was laid out, just as it always was. Tokyo Tower the dominating feature, lit by the nighttime lights that marked it out. The city shifted in it’s usual patterns of movement, various sounds filtering through. If he chose to listen Kakyou could hear the murmuring of speech, louder random shouts, distant crying.
Then the entire scene shifted. Distant crying becoming louder screams. An image before his eyes suddenly displayed a lab, a bioroid hanging in its tank. And the computerised systems that appeared to be sustaining its life were fluctuating, the scientists started panicking, trying to readjust their machines. For a brief moment Nataku flailed about in its tank, then hung eerily silent. The scientists stared at their now lifeless creation, the fluid that it was suspended in now becoming sickening streaked with leaking red fluid.
The next scene was no more horrifying than the first. A hospital emergency room, with medical staff rushing about, trying to sustain the life of a motionless figure lying on an operating table. Then the cardiac monitor flat lined and the medical staff were stepping back shaking their heads. The man, or what was left of him, was burnt beyond recognition, skin and clothes blistered together in a horrific mesh. One of the medical staff leaned over to draw the sheet over the man’s face and as she did, brushed against the side of the table, knocking his hand free. A couple of burnt ofudas fell silently to the floor.
Another scene playing out. Two strangely similar figures faced each other in the middle of what appeared to be some sort of argument. The shorter of the two flung out his arms in the direction of the other, releasing some sort of physic blast the flung the taller boy back against the steps of the shrine they had been stood in front of. The boy slid down the pillar he had been thrown against, slumping down on the steps. There was a scream and then a hysterical girl ran to the fallen boy, desperately screaming her brother’s name as she clung to his corpse.
“No.” Kakyou said, voice echoing across the silent dreamscape. “This is not the way it should be.” He frowned at the reflective surface before him but the images didn’t change.
“How can it be?” he questioned the empty air and then he had an answer. The images before him continued to play out, all bar one that had changed. It was only a tiny image in comparison to the rest but he studied it closely.
Lying, discarded on the ground an ofuda was burning, smouldering like something fallen from a burnt out bonfire. Of the calligraphic script upon it only part of a symbol remained, an inverted pentagram, the symbol of Sakurazukamori.
Just a quick explanation:
Kakyou (whose name I often spell as ‘Kayou’) is the DreamGazer of the Dragons of Earth/Seven Angels. He sees the future in his dreamscape.
Nataku is actually Katzuki, a little girl whose soul has been put into a neuter, android body, and regards Fumma/Dark Kamui as her ‘daddy’. He/she/it is one of the Seven Angels.
The unfortunate, burnt onmyouji who dies is Sei-chan, who is the Sakurazukamori at the time, and one of the Seven Angels.
The final scene is Kamui (of the Seven Seals/Dragons of Heaven) killing Fumma (who goes on to become the ‘Kamui’ of the Seven Angels). And it’s his sister, Kotori that comes running out.
An onmyouji is a magical practitioner. I suppose the word sorcerer would suffice but to me at least, it doesn’t quite convey the same impression.
Ofudas are the talismans that onmyouji use to cast their spells. They’re ‘spell cards’ I suppose.
18:11, 17/06/02