Submission #25 -- Reticuli, "Shattered Glass"
.
Title: Shattered Glass
User ID: Reticuli
Rating: G
Characters/pairings: Kotori/Kamui
Warnings: None
Summary: Kotori had more than her fair share of regrets about 1999.
Kamui-chan was - oh, quite tall now, quite tall - not as tall as Fuuma had been, but much taller than her. He hadn't hit his growth spurt yet when he'd returned to Tokyo in 1999. Fuuma had hit his by then, of course - not shooting up suddenly the way Kamui eventually did; it was more a slow, steady increase, and there had never been a point where she'd caught up.
She didn't live at the Shrine any more. It was bad for her, someone official had said, and Kamui-chan had agreed.
She didn't live in Tokyo any more. "Wouldn't you like to see somewhere new?" Kamui-chan had said, meaning this is a bad place for you but also meaning that it was a bad place for him, too, so she nodded and said yes.
Another person, authoritative and wearing white had disagreed with all of that, looking disapprovingly down at Kamui-chan from grey-rimmed glasses. "Familiar situations may help her recover. Let her get in touch with her memories," she'd said, and Kotori had laughed, hard and long. Didn't she know that memories were dangerous?
---
The water wasn't the same as it had been before; where it had been warm, it was cold. Where it had drawn her in, it now repelled her, not unpleasantly but as if it was saying this is not for you, stand back, and it was not somewhere she wanted to stay.
But Mother was there, arms spread wide for a hug, welcoming her into her arms.
She wrapped her arms around her mother's waist, with Saya's hair and the smaller fins on her back brushing against her fingers and wrists with the flow of the water, feather-soft.
Feathers. She had seen so many of them, in dreams that wouldn't end and in dreams that never came true. They were everywhere except here, safe underwater.
"Kotori. It wasn't fair on you," her mother said, holding her close.
"No...it's not me who was treated unfairly."
Her mother's long tail curled around her feet for a moment, and the scales on it were cold, cold, cold.
"Are you disappointed?" Kotori said slowly, her face resting on Saya's shoulder.
Saya didn't reply; Kotori turned her head to look at her, unsure, but Saya's face was calm, smiling faintly the way she always did.
"...Mother?"
"You weren't like me after all," said Saya, and then she was gone.
Kotori's arms slipped through the empty water, closing around herself. She breathed deeply, memorising the faint chill on her skin.
---
"Kamui-chan?"
"Yes?" Kamui said quickly, He'd always been attentive - except for those few days of feigned distance, so long ago - and now he was even more like that.
"Are you disappointed with me?"
Kamui's eyes widened, and he took a step back. "Of course not! Why would you think that? Kotori..."
"I just wanted to know," she said, smiling, and then she leaned forwards to hug him, because he looked so sad that she couldn't stand it.
"Don't say things like that," he said quietly.
"I'm sorry."
---
Three years after the end, she was pronounced a complete recovery.
---
They lived in Okinawa, by the sea. Kamui had wanted an old house, so that's what they got: a traditional house, with more space than was needed for just the two of them. Money hadn't been an object - Imonoyama Nokoru had seen to that.
"This isn't far from where I used to live," said Kamui, looking somehow peaceful. "It's better than anywhere you can get in the city."
Kotori wouldn't have minded somewhere modern.
But it didn't matter that the place was too big for them, because there were always visitors. It was as if there was a secret roster.
"Uh-uh, we can't leave such a cute boy and a such a cute girl as you two alone together, you know," said Sorata, smug with his wife in tow.
Arashi looked distinctly unimpressed. "Don't mind him. He's just being an idiot, as usual."
"That hurt my feelings, honey."
"Your feelings are made of rubber," Arashi said bluntly. "And you should go and help Kamui with the dinner."
"Right away," said Sorata gaily, waving after he crossed the room. "It'll be a meal fit for the most beautiful woman in the world ~ and that's you."
"See? He bounced back," Arashi muttered.
Those two took a spare room and filled the house up with chatter and the occasional argument; the chatter was mostly Sorata's doing. He watched over Kamui so carefully it warmed Kotori's heart to see, and Arashi's inexpert attempts at being her friend made her smile.
And when they were gone again, someone new arrived: a man in a tidy light blue suit, with a mop of blond hair and a genial smile. 1999 was a long time ago; they let him in without a worry.
"A young lady needs romance in her life," said Yuuto to Kamui. "Be polite: take her out to the theatre and a nice meal."
And Kotori had giggled at that, and at Kamui's blushing cheeks. "Kamui-chan is always polite." And that was true, as far as she was concerned. He'd always cared in his own way, even if he couldn't say it. Fuuma, too...
"Why are you even here?" Kamui asked after five days of helpful suggestions about dating etiquette.
Yuuto shrugged his shoulders. "Mild curiosity? Maybe I want to see how the saviour of humanity is after the world didn't end. It's not as if we have cause to quarrel any more, and you did spare my life back then."
"That's only because you were no good at your job," Kamui grumbled.
"Not like some people," Yuuto agreed, relaxedly.
Kamui jerked as if stung; they soon heard the sliding door slam as hard as it could without breaking.
"Did I say something to offend? I'm sorry," said Yuuto. "I was thinking about Satsuki."
Kotori kept her eyes focused steadily on the ground. "Some things are still a little...sensitive."
---
She always left her bedroom door open a crack while she slept; Kamui had nightmares often, and would wake up scared. And if she wasn't asleep, sometimes she would pretend she was when she saw the brief flicker of movement of Kamui's eye looking through the crack, seeking reassurance that she was still there.
She knew he had nightmares, because she saw them.
--
The pull from the sacred sword was irresistible. He didn't remember picking it up, but he would know when he put it down - because there were only two options available to him.
Arashi, Sorata and Subaru were still missing, but the others stood with him, and that helped, a little.
And Kotori...she was back at home, as safe as she could be.
Kamui closed his eyes and thought of a girl with pale hair and brown eyes watching him leave the campus, while tears dripped down her face as if she knew what was happening. Someone he needed to protect. And he tried very hard not to think of another person, too.
It didn't take long before the kekkai formed in his outstretched hands.
---
And Kotori had dreams of her own.
"You don't need to keep watching that," said a quiet male voice.
Kotori didn't need to turn to know who it was, but she did, and saw Kakyou standing on the matte surface of her dreamscape. The years had barely touched him. Golden eyes still looked kindly upon her from a face without wrinkles.
She smiled at him softly. "But I do."
"There's even less sense in looking at a dream that's come and gone than one that's yet to happen."
"And yet...you do that, too." She paused to apologise when she saw his expression flicker. "I'm sorry. I couldn't help catching a glimpse of that, once. I know it's none of my business."
Kakyou's laugh was short and mirthless, but not unfriendly. "You're a powerful dreamseer. There's no such thing as privacy, even for those who would seek it. But here I am in your dream, and you have yet to ask me to leave."
"That's because you've already seen it," she said distractedly, watching as the image of a young girl of only fifteen formed out of nowhere, her eyes opening slowly after her bare feet touched down.
Glass shards danced in circling lines through the air, as if they were something beautiful. And they were. She watched the girl reach out, about to touch one.
Oh, but they could cut.
---
She was falling, falling so fast and out of control that it took her breath away, but somehow there was still time to think.
The surface of the water in the reflection looked beautiful. Two pretty, patterned gems hung on either side of it, but they were so much more than that. Two Earths, and on the other side of the water another her, somewhere too far from her view, but still falling.
I'm going to hit it. It's going to break and it'll be my fault, my fault...
The sudden knowledge filling her mind was so dreadful that she couldn't help crying out - but her voice had nowhere to go in the dark void surrounding her.
Kamui...Fuuma...
The odds of saving them both were so minuscule, so small that it was as if fate had wrapped its hands around her neck to choke her. Hope was very far away, but here she was, hurtling down, and something had to break. Something would break, sooner or later.
Kamui and Fuuma are on that Earth, and if it breaks...
There was no more time. She closed her eyes, and - something shattered.
---
Ten years after the end, she and Kamui moved back to Tokyo. Kamui wasn't so keen on it as she was, but she said she missed the big city, and that anyway, there would be more opportunities there for the children. They were young enough that the move wouldn't bother them too much.
Kamui disliked moving house on principle; she supposed it was because of his childhood.
"But you'll get to see your friends more often," she said, and that seemed to make the idea more attractive for him. Privately, she thought it was odd how many of the former Dragons of Heaven and Earth had made their way back to the city over the years. Presumably they had their reasons, just as she had hers.
Without ever discussing the reason, they picked somewhere as far away from the Shrine as was possible. No-one noticed that and mentioned it to them, but then, there were a lot of things that no-one mentioned any more.
But she watched her dreams, and read the papers. With temperatures rising and ice melting away like slush, she knew the Earth was burning away. And maybe the only thing she could do now was watch, but she felt she owed it that much, at least.
Title: Shattered Glass
User ID: Reticuli
Rating: G
Characters/pairings: Kotori/Kamui
Warnings: None
Summary: Kotori had more than her fair share of regrets about 1999.
Kamui-chan was - oh, quite tall now, quite tall - not as tall as Fuuma had been, but much taller than her. He hadn't hit his growth spurt yet when he'd returned to Tokyo in 1999. Fuuma had hit his by then, of course - not shooting up suddenly the way Kamui eventually did; it was more a slow, steady increase, and there had never been a point where she'd caught up.
She didn't live at the Shrine any more. It was bad for her, someone official had said, and Kamui-chan had agreed.
She didn't live in Tokyo any more. "Wouldn't you like to see somewhere new?" Kamui-chan had said, meaning this is a bad place for you but also meaning that it was a bad place for him, too, so she nodded and said yes.
Another person, authoritative and wearing white had disagreed with all of that, looking disapprovingly down at Kamui-chan from grey-rimmed glasses. "Familiar situations may help her recover. Let her get in touch with her memories," she'd said, and Kotori had laughed, hard and long. Didn't she know that memories were dangerous?
---
The water wasn't the same as it had been before; where it had been warm, it was cold. Where it had drawn her in, it now repelled her, not unpleasantly but as if it was saying this is not for you, stand back, and it was not somewhere she wanted to stay.
But Mother was there, arms spread wide for a hug, welcoming her into her arms.
She wrapped her arms around her mother's waist, with Saya's hair and the smaller fins on her back brushing against her fingers and wrists with the flow of the water, feather-soft.
Feathers. She had seen so many of them, in dreams that wouldn't end and in dreams that never came true. They were everywhere except here, safe underwater.
"Kotori. It wasn't fair on you," her mother said, holding her close.
"No...it's not me who was treated unfairly."
Her mother's long tail curled around her feet for a moment, and the scales on it were cold, cold, cold.
"Are you disappointed?" Kotori said slowly, her face resting on Saya's shoulder.
Saya didn't reply; Kotori turned her head to look at her, unsure, but Saya's face was calm, smiling faintly the way she always did.
"...Mother?"
"You weren't like me after all," said Saya, and then she was gone.
Kotori's arms slipped through the empty water, closing around herself. She breathed deeply, memorising the faint chill on her skin.
---
"Kamui-chan?"
"Yes?" Kamui said quickly, He'd always been attentive - except for those few days of feigned distance, so long ago - and now he was even more like that.
"Are you disappointed with me?"
Kamui's eyes widened, and he took a step back. "Of course not! Why would you think that? Kotori..."
"I just wanted to know," she said, smiling, and then she leaned forwards to hug him, because he looked so sad that she couldn't stand it.
"Don't say things like that," he said quietly.
"I'm sorry."
---
Three years after the end, she was pronounced a complete recovery.
---
They lived in Okinawa, by the sea. Kamui had wanted an old house, so that's what they got: a traditional house, with more space than was needed for just the two of them. Money hadn't been an object - Imonoyama Nokoru had seen to that.
"This isn't far from where I used to live," said Kamui, looking somehow peaceful. "It's better than anywhere you can get in the city."
Kotori wouldn't have minded somewhere modern.
But it didn't matter that the place was too big for them, because there were always visitors. It was as if there was a secret roster.
"Uh-uh, we can't leave such a cute boy and a such a cute girl as you two alone together, you know," said Sorata, smug with his wife in tow.
Arashi looked distinctly unimpressed. "Don't mind him. He's just being an idiot, as usual."
"That hurt my feelings, honey."
"Your feelings are made of rubber," Arashi said bluntly. "And you should go and help Kamui with the dinner."
"Right away," said Sorata gaily, waving after he crossed the room. "It'll be a meal fit for the most beautiful woman in the world ~ and that's you."
"See? He bounced back," Arashi muttered.
Those two took a spare room and filled the house up with chatter and the occasional argument; the chatter was mostly Sorata's doing. He watched over Kamui so carefully it warmed Kotori's heart to see, and Arashi's inexpert attempts at being her friend made her smile.
And when they were gone again, someone new arrived: a man in a tidy light blue suit, with a mop of blond hair and a genial smile. 1999 was a long time ago; they let him in without a worry.
"A young lady needs romance in her life," said Yuuto to Kamui. "Be polite: take her out to the theatre and a nice meal."
And Kotori had giggled at that, and at Kamui's blushing cheeks. "Kamui-chan is always polite." And that was true, as far as she was concerned. He'd always cared in his own way, even if he couldn't say it. Fuuma, too...
"Why are you even here?" Kamui asked after five days of helpful suggestions about dating etiquette.
Yuuto shrugged his shoulders. "Mild curiosity? Maybe I want to see how the saviour of humanity is after the world didn't end. It's not as if we have cause to quarrel any more, and you did spare my life back then."
"That's only because you were no good at your job," Kamui grumbled.
"Not like some people," Yuuto agreed, relaxedly.
Kamui jerked as if stung; they soon heard the sliding door slam as hard as it could without breaking.
"Did I say something to offend? I'm sorry," said Yuuto. "I was thinking about Satsuki."
Kotori kept her eyes focused steadily on the ground. "Some things are still a little...sensitive."
---
She always left her bedroom door open a crack while she slept; Kamui had nightmares often, and would wake up scared. And if she wasn't asleep, sometimes she would pretend she was when she saw the brief flicker of movement of Kamui's eye looking through the crack, seeking reassurance that she was still there.
She knew he had nightmares, because she saw them.
--
The pull from the sacred sword was irresistible. He didn't remember picking it up, but he would know when he put it down - because there were only two options available to him.
Arashi, Sorata and Subaru were still missing, but the others stood with him, and that helped, a little.
And Kotori...she was back at home, as safe as she could be.
Kamui closed his eyes and thought of a girl with pale hair and brown eyes watching him leave the campus, while tears dripped down her face as if she knew what was happening. Someone he needed to protect. And he tried very hard not to think of another person, too.
It didn't take long before the kekkai formed in his outstretched hands.
---
And Kotori had dreams of her own.
"You don't need to keep watching that," said a quiet male voice.
Kotori didn't need to turn to know who it was, but she did, and saw Kakyou standing on the matte surface of her dreamscape. The years had barely touched him. Golden eyes still looked kindly upon her from a face without wrinkles.
She smiled at him softly. "But I do."
"There's even less sense in looking at a dream that's come and gone than one that's yet to happen."
"And yet...you do that, too." She paused to apologise when she saw his expression flicker. "I'm sorry. I couldn't help catching a glimpse of that, once. I know it's none of my business."
Kakyou's laugh was short and mirthless, but not unfriendly. "You're a powerful dreamseer. There's no such thing as privacy, even for those who would seek it. But here I am in your dream, and you have yet to ask me to leave."
"That's because you've already seen it," she said distractedly, watching as the image of a young girl of only fifteen formed out of nowhere, her eyes opening slowly after her bare feet touched down.
Glass shards danced in circling lines through the air, as if they were something beautiful. And they were. She watched the girl reach out, about to touch one.
Oh, but they could cut.
---
She was falling, falling so fast and out of control that it took her breath away, but somehow there was still time to think.
The surface of the water in the reflection looked beautiful. Two pretty, patterned gems hung on either side of it, but they were so much more than that. Two Earths, and on the other side of the water another her, somewhere too far from her view, but still falling.
I'm going to hit it. It's going to break and it'll be my fault, my fault...
The sudden knowledge filling her mind was so dreadful that she couldn't help crying out - but her voice had nowhere to go in the dark void surrounding her.
Kamui...Fuuma...
The odds of saving them both were so minuscule, so small that it was as if fate had wrapped its hands around her neck to choke her. Hope was very far away, but here she was, hurtling down, and something had to break. Something would break, sooner or later.
Kamui and Fuuma are on that Earth, and if it breaks...
There was no more time. She closed her eyes, and - something shattered.
---
Ten years after the end, she and Kamui moved back to Tokyo. Kamui wasn't so keen on it as she was, but she said she missed the big city, and that anyway, there would be more opportunities there for the children. They were young enough that the move wouldn't bother them too much.
Kamui disliked moving house on principle; she supposed it was because of his childhood.
"But you'll get to see your friends more often," she said, and that seemed to make the idea more attractive for him. Privately, she thought it was odd how many of the former Dragons of Heaven and Earth had made their way back to the city over the years. Presumably they had their reasons, just as she had hers.
Without ever discussing the reason, they picked somewhere as far away from the Shrine as was possible. No-one noticed that and mentioned it to them, but then, there were a lot of things that no-one mentioned any more.
But she watched her dreams, and read the papers. With temperatures rising and ice melting away like slush, she knew the Earth was burning away. And maybe the only thing she could do now was watch, but she felt she owed it that much, at least.