Submission 4 - Exodus
Title: Exodus
Author: TBA
Rating: PG
Characters: Nokoru, Suoh, Akira
Warnings: None
Summary: It was their most massive undertaking to date, and they had very little time to do it.
“I believe we can say the concert was a resounding success. You must thank Nagisa-jo for me, Suoh.” Nokoru brandished his fan, hiding a smirk behind it. Suoh might be older, but some subjects still made him blush, much to his amusement.
His bodyguard looked annoyed even as his cheeks colored slightly. “I’m sure she’d appreciate it more coming from you, Chairman.”
“Nonsense. I’m sure nothing I could do would come close to your personal touch.” Akira and Utako had married a few years ago, but it seemed that Nagisa and Suoh hadn’t made up their minds on how to proceed with their relationship. Nokoru knew it was partially his fault; Suoh spent so much of his time following him around and ensuring his safety, not to mention his official job as his personal secretary. Akira was working in one of the pediatric offices on Campus, but he still insisted on stopping by to give Suoh and Nokoru his handmade desserts as snacks during lunch - though lately, with all of the wounded, they were seeing less of him than usual as he lent his skill wherever possible. Nokoru missed having him around as much as he’d been when they’d all been in the Elementary Division together, but he knew things had to change.
Ah, those days when their biggest worries were helping damsels in distress, finding lost items, solving fake ghost mysteries, evading Suoh to get out of paperwork…
Nokoru looked out over the campus, surveying the sights of the school. So many good things had happened here. So many fond memories had been made, relationships forged, talents honed - he had hoped that, for the Dragons of Heaven, this would be a safe refuge where they could set aside their fates for a moment and be the children they were. And yet-
“What was your next idea, President?” Akira asked as he served tea, the old title slipping from his lips. They never had been able to get him to switch to Chairman, even if that was the more important designation. Nokoru found it endearing and never bothered to correct him. Suoh had given up some time ago.
Nokoru made a point of pondering for a moment, his fan touching his chin. “This, I think.” He flipped the fan down so they could see the microdisk attached to it.
“What are you up to now?” Suoh raised his eyebrows, looking annoyed. Nokoru knew it was only for appearances though - and frankly, his bodyguard would approve of this. He had been working on this file since he had learned of Final Year and the Campus’s roll in it.
“Evacuating Campus.”
His best friends went absolutely still. “…are you sure, Chairman?”
“We can’t afford to put it off anymore,” Nokoru admitted. “We’ve had more structural damage than I’m comfortable with, and getting supplies in is becoming more difficult. It would be better to remove those not involved from the scene.” He took a bite of Akira’s apple pie, allowing the flavors to caress his tongue. “Akira, I’m going to need your help with this.”
Akira nodded. “I’ll tell the office I’m with you.” He smiled brightly, a reassuring sight - it seemed some things really didn’t change. “I guess implementing all of President’s plans was good practice.” He rose, taking his empty plate with him. “I’ll stop down there now and get Utako-san. I’m sure she’ll want to help.”
Nokoru put his fork down as his former treasurer left. Once he was out of hearing, he turned to his bodyguard. “Suoh, I want Akira gone with the students. Even if you have to tie him up to do it.” The Imonoyama had no doubts that there was no way he could get Suoh to stay away, even if he drugged him, but Akira, at least, they could protect.
“I’ll see to it. If nothing else, Utako-san is likely to agree with us. And she’ll do well running things once we send them out."
Nokoru had to smile at that. Suoh had already figured out that he intended to stay and help the Seven Seals until the last. “I’m sure she will. In fact, I counted on it.”
_-__-__-__-__-__-__-__-_
Suoh watched Akira soothe a child from the Kindergarten Division and turned to the young physician’s wife. “Seems like you have everything taken care of.”
"Imonoyama-san was well prepared. Most of the credit is his.”
"Still, you carried his plan out well.” Nokoru would normally be overseeing such a crucial operation personally, but he was still trying to refine his threat program to determine the Dragons of Earth’s next move. Unfortunately, even if you were a genius, it was difficult to anticipate the movements of enemies who refused to act in a predictable, logical manner. They didn’t even have a complete list of all the kekkai in Tokyo. It was almost as if someone wanted the Seven Seals to lose.
Utako smiled. Marrying Akira had been a good grounding influence on her, Suoh thought. She still had much of her youthful energy and spark, but was more practical than she used to be. Even so, she could execute things brilliantly as any Clamp Campus former class president should. “Is there anything else you needed before I head back?”
Before Utako could reply, they were interrupted by a worried-looking student darting through the crowd. “Excuse me- excuse me- has anyone seen Shirou-kun? Shirou Kamui, he’s about this tall-” the young man gestured animatedly “-pretty face, big eyes - no, you haven’t seen him? -Yes, I’m looking for my friend - he’s in Class Z, too- ah, Ijyuin-san!” The student - Segawa Keiichi was his name, if Suoh remembered correctly - skidded to a stop in front of them. “Have you seen Shirou Kamui? We saw each other this morning before we left, but I couldn’t find him when we got here - I want to make sure he’s okay. I know he’s gotten hurt a lot lately…”
Suoh, Akira, and Utako exchanged glances. It appeared that Kamui hadn’t let his friend know what was going on - or at least that he was staying behind. Utako took a deep breath. “…Shirou-kun’s still back in Tokyo, Segawa-kun.”
The student looked shocked. “But the earthquakes - he’ll be hurt. He should be here with the rest of the class-”
“Shirou-kun is part of… an experimental program, so it’s important that he stays in Tokyo. He might be able to stop the quakes,” Suoh interjected. It was certainly true, at least in a way. The Dragons of Heaven were something experimental in nature, really; there certainly weren’t any records they’d been able to find of anyone like them before…
It was a measure of Segawa’s good manners that he didn’t give them a look of complete disbelief. Kamui was on the lower end of his class as far as performance went, though that was more a reflection of his constantly interrupting circumstances than any lack of natural ability. Nokoru thought, and Suoh agreed, that there was a lot to Kamui that they hadn’t seen yet. Back in the beginning, when things had looked more optimistic, they’d talked of getting the young man a permanent place on Campus once everything was finished. They even had all the paperwork filled out and locked in the bottom of Nokoru’s desk drawer. With any luck they would still get to use it someday.
“But Shirou-kun…” Segawa protested.
“He’ll be back,” Akira interjected firmly, the belief radiating off of him an almost physical force. Souh and Utako both hid smiles at that. “He will - just wait and believe in him, Segawa-san. If you want, you can write to him and we’ll try to get your letters delivered. He needs people to believe in him more than anything else right now.”
“…All right.” The student didn’t look convinced, but clearly accepted that he wouldn’t be able to change their minds or get anything more out of them. That was one of the things Suoh loved about working with Clamp Campus students - they were smart and often very perceptive.
“For now, though, we could use your help," Utako put in, having no intention of allowing the young man to go off and worry. “We need to get the kindergarten students paired up with upperclassmen…” Nodding at Suoh, Akira went off to gather a few of the other students milling around to help as Utako took Segawa’s arm and guided him towards the school’s youngest members.
Seeing his chance, Suoh slipped away. He could safely leave things here and return to his charge.
_-__-__-__-__-__-__-__-_
Akira wondered sometimes if they remembered what - who - he was. True, his thieving days were all but over, but he’d thought perhaps they’d remember it would take more than a few passwords and locks to keep him out of Campus. He could appreciate their concern, but he also understood where his place was.
He had to smile to himself as he continued to assemble the Chairman’s snack. Nokoru hardly resembled his childhood self these days - he was working almost eighteen hours a day, searching for the clues he needed to help the Seven Seals. Suoh was right behind him, of course, following in his footsteps with his silent grace. While everyone thought the Dragons of Earth could not enter Campus, there were certainly more mundane ways they could cause trouble. The other side hadn’t hired agents yet, but it wasn’t an impossibility, and Suoh had no intention of allowing harm to befall his charge due to any carelessness on his part. Akira walked quietly as a phantom thief could over to the door, listening to the conversation within. He wanted to time this right. Nokoru had been known to lose his train of thought if interrupted when he’d been shorting himself on sleep.
“But if Yasukuni Shrine is a kekkai, it doesn’t fit the pattern.” Nokoru frowned over the diagrams in front of him. “I feel like we’re missing something.”
“It is possible we don’t have accurate data on all the kekkai that have been destroyed. If there are minor ones…”
“Sounds like you could both use a snack,” Akira said cheerfully as he entered the room, tray in hand. Suoh and Nokoru looked at him as if he were a ghost. The pediatrician made sure his smile didn’t slip; at some point the Chairman had made a point to let him know - without actually saying anything, of course - that he and Suoh were aware of his former occupation as Twenty Faces. Sometimes, however, they seemed to forget that he did know how to get in and out of just about any building. Clamp Campus had state-of-the-art security - but Akira was also intimately familiar with it by now. He had no intention of breaking in and robbing the campus of anything, no matter how much his mothers begged. Utako had insisted she had all rights to Twenty Faces’ services since they’d been married.
On the other hand, knowing the system so intimately made it possible for him to break in for other reasons, should the occasion require it. Suoh wasn’t the only one who worried about their former class president.
It also made getting back in after his friends had tried to throw him out - ‘for his own good,’ he was sure - much easier.
“…Akira. I thought you would be with Utako-san,” Nokoru said quietly. He placed his pen down and automatically took the plate he was offered.
“She has everything well in hand,” Akira said lightly as he poured his famous milk tea. “I can try to go over the record of the police files for the last few months - see if there are any records of strange vandalism resulting in destruction of shrines or other famous objects around the time of a minor earthquake.”
“Ijyuin, are you sure- I mean, your wife-”
“Will be fine,” Akira said firmly. “She’ll take good care of everyone and make sure they get to where they need to go. If she can, she’ll come back here and help as well - but if not, I’ll see her when this is over.”
Suoh and Nokoru exchanged glances… and then moved their papers so Akira could join them at the table. He felt a bit of tension ease out of him at their unspoken agreement to let him help. The Chairman could make quite an argument, and there was no way he could counter all of his points if Nokoru really worked at it.
Akira could understand what they had been thinking by trying to send them away; there was a very great possibility that no one on campus would make it out alive. Utako knew that just as well as he did, but if they failed without his help - and he knew that perhaps an extra set of hands could have made all the difference - he would never be able to forgive himself for the short time he had left in this world. Utako knew that also, which was why she had let him go.
“Well,” Nokoru finally said, a bright smile on his face, “there is one good thing about all this!”
Taken aback by the sudden change in his mood, his friends looks at him in surprise. “What?” Akira asked.
Clearly making the best of the situation, Nokoru gestured empathically at the papers beginning to build on his desk. “I have a legitimate reason to avoid my paperwork!”
Author's Note: I couldn't actually find in the manga if they evacuated Clamp Campus or not. However, it did say that the city had been evacuated, which made me think it wouldn't be much of a stretch for Campus also to have been evacuated, considering they were getting some of the shakes there. It also explained why Keiichi vanished from the manga. So I hope this makes sense.
Author: TBA
Rating: PG
Characters: Nokoru, Suoh, Akira
Warnings: None
Summary: It was their most massive undertaking to date, and they had very little time to do it.
“I believe we can say the concert was a resounding success. You must thank Nagisa-jo for me, Suoh.” Nokoru brandished his fan, hiding a smirk behind it. Suoh might be older, but some subjects still made him blush, much to his amusement.
His bodyguard looked annoyed even as his cheeks colored slightly. “I’m sure she’d appreciate it more coming from you, Chairman.”
“Nonsense. I’m sure nothing I could do would come close to your personal touch.” Akira and Utako had married a few years ago, but it seemed that Nagisa and Suoh hadn’t made up their minds on how to proceed with their relationship. Nokoru knew it was partially his fault; Suoh spent so much of his time following him around and ensuring his safety, not to mention his official job as his personal secretary. Akira was working in one of the pediatric offices on Campus, but he still insisted on stopping by to give Suoh and Nokoru his handmade desserts as snacks during lunch - though lately, with all of the wounded, they were seeing less of him than usual as he lent his skill wherever possible. Nokoru missed having him around as much as he’d been when they’d all been in the Elementary Division together, but he knew things had to change.
Ah, those days when their biggest worries were helping damsels in distress, finding lost items, solving fake ghost mysteries, evading Suoh to get out of paperwork…
Nokoru looked out over the campus, surveying the sights of the school. So many good things had happened here. So many fond memories had been made, relationships forged, talents honed - he had hoped that, for the Dragons of Heaven, this would be a safe refuge where they could set aside their fates for a moment and be the children they were. And yet-
“What was your next idea, President?” Akira asked as he served tea, the old title slipping from his lips. They never had been able to get him to switch to Chairman, even if that was the more important designation. Nokoru found it endearing and never bothered to correct him. Suoh had given up some time ago.
Nokoru made a point of pondering for a moment, his fan touching his chin. “This, I think.” He flipped the fan down so they could see the microdisk attached to it.
“What are you up to now?” Suoh raised his eyebrows, looking annoyed. Nokoru knew it was only for appearances though - and frankly, his bodyguard would approve of this. He had been working on this file since he had learned of Final Year and the Campus’s roll in it.
“Evacuating Campus.”
His best friends went absolutely still. “…are you sure, Chairman?”
“We can’t afford to put it off anymore,” Nokoru admitted. “We’ve had more structural damage than I’m comfortable with, and getting supplies in is becoming more difficult. It would be better to remove those not involved from the scene.” He took a bite of Akira’s apple pie, allowing the flavors to caress his tongue. “Akira, I’m going to need your help with this.”
Akira nodded. “I’ll tell the office I’m with you.” He smiled brightly, a reassuring sight - it seemed some things really didn’t change. “I guess implementing all of President’s plans was good practice.” He rose, taking his empty plate with him. “I’ll stop down there now and get Utako-san. I’m sure she’ll want to help.”
Nokoru put his fork down as his former treasurer left. Once he was out of hearing, he turned to his bodyguard. “Suoh, I want Akira gone with the students. Even if you have to tie him up to do it.” The Imonoyama had no doubts that there was no way he could get Suoh to stay away, even if he drugged him, but Akira, at least, they could protect.
“I’ll see to it. If nothing else, Utako-san is likely to agree with us. And she’ll do well running things once we send them out."
Nokoru had to smile at that. Suoh had already figured out that he intended to stay and help the Seven Seals until the last. “I’m sure she will. In fact, I counted on it.”
_-__-__-__-__-__-__-__-_
Suoh watched Akira soothe a child from the Kindergarten Division and turned to the young physician’s wife. “Seems like you have everything taken care of.”
"Imonoyama-san was well prepared. Most of the credit is his.”
"Still, you carried his plan out well.” Nokoru would normally be overseeing such a crucial operation personally, but he was still trying to refine his threat program to determine the Dragons of Earth’s next move. Unfortunately, even if you were a genius, it was difficult to anticipate the movements of enemies who refused to act in a predictable, logical manner. They didn’t even have a complete list of all the kekkai in Tokyo. It was almost as if someone wanted the Seven Seals to lose.
Utako smiled. Marrying Akira had been a good grounding influence on her, Suoh thought. She still had much of her youthful energy and spark, but was more practical than she used to be. Even so, she could execute things brilliantly as any Clamp Campus former class president should. “Is there anything else you needed before I head back?”
Before Utako could reply, they were interrupted by a worried-looking student darting through the crowd. “Excuse me- excuse me- has anyone seen Shirou-kun? Shirou Kamui, he’s about this tall-” the young man gestured animatedly “-pretty face, big eyes - no, you haven’t seen him? -Yes, I’m looking for my friend - he’s in Class Z, too- ah, Ijyuin-san!” The student - Segawa Keiichi was his name, if Suoh remembered correctly - skidded to a stop in front of them. “Have you seen Shirou Kamui? We saw each other this morning before we left, but I couldn’t find him when we got here - I want to make sure he’s okay. I know he’s gotten hurt a lot lately…”
Suoh, Akira, and Utako exchanged glances. It appeared that Kamui hadn’t let his friend know what was going on - or at least that he was staying behind. Utako took a deep breath. “…Shirou-kun’s still back in Tokyo, Segawa-kun.”
The student looked shocked. “But the earthquakes - he’ll be hurt. He should be here with the rest of the class-”
“Shirou-kun is part of… an experimental program, so it’s important that he stays in Tokyo. He might be able to stop the quakes,” Suoh interjected. It was certainly true, at least in a way. The Dragons of Heaven were something experimental in nature, really; there certainly weren’t any records they’d been able to find of anyone like them before…
It was a measure of Segawa’s good manners that he didn’t give them a look of complete disbelief. Kamui was on the lower end of his class as far as performance went, though that was more a reflection of his constantly interrupting circumstances than any lack of natural ability. Nokoru thought, and Suoh agreed, that there was a lot to Kamui that they hadn’t seen yet. Back in the beginning, when things had looked more optimistic, they’d talked of getting the young man a permanent place on Campus once everything was finished. They even had all the paperwork filled out and locked in the bottom of Nokoru’s desk drawer. With any luck they would still get to use it someday.
“But Shirou-kun…” Segawa protested.
“He’ll be back,” Akira interjected firmly, the belief radiating off of him an almost physical force. Souh and Utako both hid smiles at that. “He will - just wait and believe in him, Segawa-san. If you want, you can write to him and we’ll try to get your letters delivered. He needs people to believe in him more than anything else right now.”
“…All right.” The student didn’t look convinced, but clearly accepted that he wouldn’t be able to change their minds or get anything more out of them. That was one of the things Suoh loved about working with Clamp Campus students - they were smart and often very perceptive.
“For now, though, we could use your help," Utako put in, having no intention of allowing the young man to go off and worry. “We need to get the kindergarten students paired up with upperclassmen…” Nodding at Suoh, Akira went off to gather a few of the other students milling around to help as Utako took Segawa’s arm and guided him towards the school’s youngest members.
Seeing his chance, Suoh slipped away. He could safely leave things here and return to his charge.
_-__-__-__-__-__-__-__-_
Akira wondered sometimes if they remembered what - who - he was. True, his thieving days were all but over, but he’d thought perhaps they’d remember it would take more than a few passwords and locks to keep him out of Campus. He could appreciate their concern, but he also understood where his place was.
He had to smile to himself as he continued to assemble the Chairman’s snack. Nokoru hardly resembled his childhood self these days - he was working almost eighteen hours a day, searching for the clues he needed to help the Seven Seals. Suoh was right behind him, of course, following in his footsteps with his silent grace. While everyone thought the Dragons of Earth could not enter Campus, there were certainly more mundane ways they could cause trouble. The other side hadn’t hired agents yet, but it wasn’t an impossibility, and Suoh had no intention of allowing harm to befall his charge due to any carelessness on his part. Akira walked quietly as a phantom thief could over to the door, listening to the conversation within. He wanted to time this right. Nokoru had been known to lose his train of thought if interrupted when he’d been shorting himself on sleep.
“But if Yasukuni Shrine is a kekkai, it doesn’t fit the pattern.” Nokoru frowned over the diagrams in front of him. “I feel like we’re missing something.”
“It is possible we don’t have accurate data on all the kekkai that have been destroyed. If there are minor ones…”
“Sounds like you could both use a snack,” Akira said cheerfully as he entered the room, tray in hand. Suoh and Nokoru looked at him as if he were a ghost. The pediatrician made sure his smile didn’t slip; at some point the Chairman had made a point to let him know - without actually saying anything, of course - that he and Suoh were aware of his former occupation as Twenty Faces. Sometimes, however, they seemed to forget that he did know how to get in and out of just about any building. Clamp Campus had state-of-the-art security - but Akira was also intimately familiar with it by now. He had no intention of breaking in and robbing the campus of anything, no matter how much his mothers begged. Utako had insisted she had all rights to Twenty Faces’ services since they’d been married.
On the other hand, knowing the system so intimately made it possible for him to break in for other reasons, should the occasion require it. Suoh wasn’t the only one who worried about their former class president.
It also made getting back in after his friends had tried to throw him out - ‘for his own good,’ he was sure - much easier.
“…Akira. I thought you would be with Utako-san,” Nokoru said quietly. He placed his pen down and automatically took the plate he was offered.
“She has everything well in hand,” Akira said lightly as he poured his famous milk tea. “I can try to go over the record of the police files for the last few months - see if there are any records of strange vandalism resulting in destruction of shrines or other famous objects around the time of a minor earthquake.”
“Ijyuin, are you sure- I mean, your wife-”
“Will be fine,” Akira said firmly. “She’ll take good care of everyone and make sure they get to where they need to go. If she can, she’ll come back here and help as well - but if not, I’ll see her when this is over.”
Suoh and Nokoru exchanged glances… and then moved their papers so Akira could join them at the table. He felt a bit of tension ease out of him at their unspoken agreement to let him help. The Chairman could make quite an argument, and there was no way he could counter all of his points if Nokoru really worked at it.
Akira could understand what they had been thinking by trying to send them away; there was a very great possibility that no one on campus would make it out alive. Utako knew that just as well as he did, but if they failed without his help - and he knew that perhaps an extra set of hands could have made all the difference - he would never be able to forgive himself for the short time he had left in this world. Utako knew that also, which was why she had let him go.
“Well,” Nokoru finally said, a bright smile on his face, “there is one good thing about all this!”
Taken aback by the sudden change in his mood, his friends looks at him in surprise. “What?” Akira asked.
Clearly making the best of the situation, Nokoru gestured empathically at the papers beginning to build on his desk. “I have a legitimate reason to avoid my paperwork!”
Author's Note: I couldn't actually find in the manga if they evacuated Clamp Campus or not. However, it did say that the city had been evacuated, which made me think it wouldn't be much of a stretch for Campus also to have been evacuated, considering they were getting some of the shakes there. It also explained why Keiichi vanished from the manga. So I hope this makes sense.