The earthquake rocked the room where Sorata was standing with 
Arashi.  He shielded her instantly from the glass flying about from the 
shattering windows.  He could sense, even as she could, the source of the 
shaking, and knew it was nothing natural.  Around them, people screamed and 
clung to one another for support.  Only he and Arashi remained calm, 
knowing that this was nothing compared to what was yet to come.
        "One of the Seven Minions," she murmured quietly to him as the 
walls and floor slowly began to stop their dancing.
        "Shall we go meet him?" Sorata asked, enjoying that fact that she 
either hadn't quite noticed yet, or just didn't mind, that his arms were 
around her.
        "Let go of me, and we shall," Arashi replied coolly.


                               Crimson Variant
                                  Part Four
                             By Kristin Huntsman


        The rolling ground forced Suoh to steer the car to the side of the 
road and stop, waiting until the shockwave passed.  Nokoru watched the 
world sway around them, and guessed the earthquake to be somewhere in the 
neighborhood of a Richter five or six.  He hoped the school hadn't taken 
any damage; his hands were going to be too full for a little while for him 
to take care of it.
        "Think that was...?" Akira asked.
        "Related?  Probably," Nokoru said, nodding.  "Very little will be 
coincidental from now on, I think."
        Suoh pulled back onto the road and the three of them continued 
their journey, Nokoru waiting pensively.  The Togakushi Shrine wasn't too 
far away, now....

        Kamui rolled to his feet after the shockwave passed.  If this was 
an earthquake, it was only the first one....
        The Holy Sword was gone from his hand.  He stared blankly at the 
empty space where it should have been.  He hadn't dropped it; it was just 
GONE.
        Kotori giggled.
        Kamui lost his breath, watching Kotori cheerfully clutch Tokiko's 
severed head to her.  This was WRONG....
        He took a step towards Kotori, and was grabbed from behind and 
slammed into the wall.  The Holy Sword glowed as whitely in Fuuma's hand as 
it had in his own.  But how was Fuuma able to hold the sword?  Had it gone 
to him?  Why?
        "Fuuma--" Kamui started, but cut himself off as Fuuma touched the 
edge of the blade to his neck just barely shy of cutting his throat.  He 
didn't breathe as he stared into Fuuma's dark eyes.  They weren't empty... 
but they weren't Fuuma either.
        "Kamui," Fuuma said softly, his voice full of dark undertones.  The 
blade pressed a little forward, and Kamui felt it divide his skin, felt a 
line of warm blood run down his throat.  "The time of choice is nearing, 
Kamui.  You must choose your destiny."
        The sword cut a little deeper.  "Fuuma!" Kamui gasped.  He was in a 
position where he couldn't get away without his throat being sliced open 
entirely, and he knew that if his head came away from his shoulders, it 
would all be over just like that.
        Fuuma smiled softly and the sword's movement stilled, small red 
droplets running down the silken blade to the hilt.  "Kamui," he intoned, 
"choose your fate... the fate of all the Earth."
        Kamui did the only thing he could think of, reaching for the Holy 
Sword's hilt.  If he could just get it back in his hands, maybe Fuuma would 
go back to being normal.  Was the sword causing him to be like this?  Did 
the Holy Sword do this to normal people who tried to hold it?  "Fuuma!" he 
gasped, just as a blast of light came, flinging him to the ground.  Was it 
the sword, or another shockwave from the earthquake?  Both, Kamui decided, 
as the ground kept moving even after he landed.

        "Kamui..." Fuuma said, holding his hand to his head.  Something had 
happened.  Was it an earthquake?  His head must have hit something, because 
he felt dizzy and vaugely nauseous.
        "Fuuma," Kamui breathed from where he was lying on the ground.
        "Are you all right?" Fuuma asked.
        "Are you back to normal now?" Kamui asked in the same instant.
        "...What do you mean?" Fuuma asked, not understanding.  "'Normal'?"
        Kamui stared at him, surprise and shock evident in his violet-gray 
eyes.  Fuuma began to feel really uneasy about what was going on.  What had 
happened?
        Kotori giggled, and the Holy Sword, lying on the ground of the 
room, stilled its incessant white glow.  The earth started rumbling for 
real, and Fuuma instinctively grabbed both Kotori and Kamui to him, 
protecting them from the flying glass shards of the breaking windows.

        The endless ocean before him perfectly reflected the Earth above it 
as the Earth below its surface.  Kakyou patiently waited until water 
sprouted upwards in the shape of a dragon, then fell back to its calm 
surface, leaving behind a Holy Sword.  The sword, too, was reflected 
perfectly in the water.  
        "Two Holy Swords..." Kakyou murmured to himself.  An image of the 
slender boy who was the Kamui that the other Dream-Walker, Kotori Monou, 
knew, grasped the hilt of the upper sword.  Kakyou's eyes dropped to the 
boy's reflection in the water, and what he saw did not surprise him.
        "Kamui's twin star..." he breathed.  He had known that this other 
boy was destined to play some part in the end of the world, had suspected 
that he might indeed be the other Kamui, but it had never been confirmed to 
him before now.  Kakyou felt very sorry for Kotori Monou, now.  Her brother 
and the boy she loved were each other's other.
        The image of Fuuma Monou emerged from the water, and he and Kamui 
Shirou regarded each other calmly for a minute before moving.  "And this," 
Kakyou whispered, completing the thought, "is the destiny of Kamui and the 
twin star."
        He turned away from the two battling forms before he could see too 
much of the future.
        Kotori Monou's future was in flux before him, as were the fates of 
those connected to her.  She, the other Dream-Walker, was the foci of this 
future.  Her death ensured the balance to swing one way, her life ensured 
it the other.  And she was blissfully, blessedly unaware of her role in 
things yet to come, where Kakyou was not.
        He closed his eyes and sat down on the ground, opening his golden 
cat eyes again to search the heavens for something he wouldn't find.  He 
was the only Dragon left in his dreams, now.
        He pictured a fall of beautiful hair, a spill of black silk over 
his hand.  No more.  And never again.
        And even picturing her lovely face, he couldn't bring himself to 
feel anything over it.  His heart was truly dead.

        Kotori giggled as she fell though her mind, not quite sure why, all 
rationality gone.  Pictures passed before her eyes, worlds forming, 
growing, and destroying themselves, until only one world was left with life 
on it.  It was a glass sphere, held in Kamui's hand.  It was beautiful blue 
glass, with hints of an inner emerald, and touches of a warm, living 
brown.  Clouds drifted over its sapphire surface, wisps of silver and 
crystal trailing veils over the pretty seas.
        Was that it, she wondered?  Was the Earth the only world left?  Was 
it the last hope for life, for the universe?
        She fell again, into another world where creatures of such 
incredible beauty and gentleness that it hurt her eyes to look at them, 
hurt her ears to hear their mysterious, beautiful, painful voices, beckoned 
her with pale, glimmering skin, smiling warmly.  White wings of downy 
angels' feathers stretched behind them.  Kotori smiled and got to her feet, 
still holding the head in her arms, and reached out a hand to the creature 
of unearthly beauty who stood before her.
        They saw what she held, and drew back, horrified.
        Kotori fell again, and landed in a warm jungle.  Still holding the 
head, she pushed forward through the bushes, hoping to come across a path, 
or to find someone who would help her.
        A trickle of sweat ran down her forehead, it was so hot.  And it 
was humid too.  She wished for a cooler, drier air.  Something smelled off 
here, and it wasn't just because of the heat and moisture.  She wished for 
the clean smell of the air in Japan.
        And she wished it wasn't so dark, either.  It seemed like it was 
getting on towards twilight.  She could barely see, with all the confusing 
dark shadows cast by the trees and vines.  It was like she could only see 
herself.
        Her hand brushed something that felt like soft leather, and she 
paused, reaching into the dark again to feel whatever it was.  It shifted 
beneath her touch, and she smiled.  It must be the wing of a little bat.  
Then it stepped towards her, and she realized it was part of a man, who had 
dark wings that absorbed the light from around her.  He had a dark delight 
on his face, and she gasped, stumbling back.  She realized, even as she 
dropped the head, that they were all around her, and it was their darkness 
that was eating the light....

        Kotori woke with a gasp, the head tumbling from her arms, and 
immediately bent over in two, gasping in pain.  She was aware, barely, of 
her brother's and Kamui's arms holding her tightly as the world around them 
tossed and tumbled.  Her back felt like she was being whipped, like her 
skin was being flayed off.  Something rippled below the surface of her 
skin, straining the seams of her dress, and she gasped again, a tear of 
pain dropping from her eye.
        Then it ripped through the surface of her skin, and she screamed in 
true agony.  She could feel blood soaking warmly into the fabric of her 
dress, running down the back as the new part of her moved awkwardly 
around.  From what they felt like... from where they were....
        Wings? Kotori wondered distantly, then fell into soft blackness as 
a gentle hand touched them.

        Kotori screamed, and the Earth stilled.  Kamui opened his eyes in 
wonder that the earthquake had stopped so suddenly, and looked up at Fuuma, 
who had glass shards glinting in his black hair.  He had protected the two 
of them from the breaking windows that were behind his back....
        Fuuma's hand lightly brushed in his hair, and Kamui realized that 
he had glass in his hair as well as some of it fell to the floor.  There 
was probably more that he'd have to get out later....  Something warm and 
liquid moved on the fabric below his right hand, and he turned to look at 
Kotori.
        Red blood spilled down the back of her peach-colored dress, and 
Kamui stared unbelievingly at the source.  Wings.  Baby wings that, even as 
he watched, started sprouting white feathers.  He heard a sharp inhalation 
as Fuuma, too, saw the wings growing from Kotori's back.  Hesitantly, he 
moved his hand to touch them, and Kotori crumpled forward into Fuuma's arms.
        Tokiko-san's head rolled from Kotori's lap to rest by her bare, 
bloodied feet, and the Holy Sword was somehow once again present in Kamui's 
hand.  He gently touched the bleeding cut in his throat and wondered what 
the hell was going on here.

        Nataku dreamt.  Although it was not supposed to be able to, it 
dreamt.  More often than not, it dreamt of a former lifetime, when it had 
been a girl-child named Kazuki.  A girl who adored and worshipped her 
father above all else....
        Nataku was willing to believe that Kazuki's soul had indeed been 
reincarnated as it, that somehow Kazuki's love for her father had 
transformed for what it felt for the heir to the Togakushi Shrine.  Fuuma 
Monou, that was his name.  Nataku knew that from the data it had been given 
about the shrine and its residents.
        Nataku, again, was not supposed to have feelings.  It knew it had 
been created as a soulless, emotionless being, a perfect creature, never 
conceived by man, never borne by woman.  And, indeed, its lack of a gender, 
the thing upon which it seemed human existance, human self-conciousness, 
and human identity was based, set it apart from all others as a unique 
creature that could never understand certain things.
        Nataku did not merely obey, however; it was more than a doll, more 
than a simple robot.  For though it lacked a gender and thus much of the 
human experience, it had been created in the shape of a human, educated in 
human languages and human materials, and named for a human god.  Therefore 
Nataku considered itself at least marginally human.  And with the emergence 
of this strange thing within it, this thing on which humans apparently 
placed so much value, this "emotion," it found itself beginning to feel 
something that it could only describe in the alien term of "kinship" to its 
makers.
        Nataku reflected upon all of this in a split second as it garbed 
itself in clothing, to accomodate the sense of decency of the scientists 
around it.  Nataku also did not understand human morality concerning such 
things as clothing.  Perhaps it would inquire upon that today during its 
lessons.
        "Hello, Nataku-kun," the woman who guided his lessons chirped as it 
entered the room that had always served as its classroom.  She alternated 
her suffixes for it between the masculine "-kun" and the feminine "-chan," 
as it suited her whim.  Nataku sat down on the mat across from her and 
waited, as it always had, for her to begin.
        Her name was Matsuri Kiyai, and she was the only person within this 
building who was not a scientist.  She was middle-aged, with a cheerfully 
round body that, while by no means overweight, she and others described as 
"plump."  She wore glasses, as many of the scientists did, but hers had 
always seemed different.  It was because she wore them with a smile, and 
her eyes were happy.  Nataku believed that very few humans were actually 
happy.  Kiyai-sensei was one of those who was.
        Also unlike the scientists, Kiyai-sensei wore clothing of bright 
color and varied design.  She never wore a lab coat, and always arranged 
her hair differently.  She was the most vivid person Nataku knew, and time 
in her lessons on human culture, morality, and ideals always seemed to be 
shorter than the equivalent time spent in lessons on science by other 
instructors.
        She had been a brilliant psychologist and sociologist with a 
husband and infant son before being recruited by the government to teach 
Nataku.  She had originally refused to leave her family to instruct the 
then six-year-old Nataku, but when her husband and child had died in a 
freak accident that left her with only minor wounds, she had agreed to 
come.  Nataku had found out years later that the government had arranged to 
have her husband and son killed in order to recruit her.  For whatever 
reason, Nataku had never told her.  It did not want to disturb her rare 
happiness.
        Yet Kiyai-sensei had rapidly recovered from this loss and regained 
her happiness.  She had seemed to develop a fondness for Nataku that went 
beyond the pure scientific wonder others felt for it.  Nataku had pondered 
why on occasion and had concluded that perhaps Kiyai-sensei had emotionally 
attached herself to it as a partial substitute for her dead son.  All it 
knew for itself is that when it contemplated the thought that Kiyai-sensei 
would die, as would all the others around it, in the forthcoming battle, it 
would count her loss as greater.
        "Where would you like to begin today, Nataku?" she asked it.  She 
was the only one who asked it such questions.  She was the only one who 
treated it as an equal and a human.  She was the strange one.
        "What is 'love'?" Nataku asked.
        "Do you want a dictionary definition, the experiences of someone 
who has fallen in love, or a debate on the types of love?" she asked in 
return.  "Were you speaking of physical love or emotional love?"
        "Emotional love."  Nataku answered the second question first.  "I 
wish to understand what the emotion called 'love' is, in whatever forms it 
may occupy.  I have already accessed the dictionary definition of 'love' 
and found it useless for that purpose.  Therefore, I would like a 
combination of the latter two."
        Kiyai-sensei took a deep breath, closed her eyes, rolling her head 
back a little, then sighed, opening her blue eyes again and looking with 
them into Nataku's pale gold ones.  "You have begun on the most difficult 
question in all of the human experience, Nataku, and I congratulate you for 
that.  Let us begin...."

        Satsuki connected to the computer with a sense of purity and relief 
washing away the dull stains of the human world around her.  What a man's 
touch was to Kanoe-san, the computer's cool energy was to her.  :Hello, 
beloved,: she sent through the network, feeling the systems around her 
waken and touch her eagerly, as if they had missed her far more than they 
should have.
        :Would you like to play?: she asked.
        They agreed, a cool tingly feeling that passed beneath the skin of 
her body.  Satsuki's mind was in the computer now, her body an almost 
emphereal thing.
        :Well, then,: she thought, :let's go find out about this person who 
stole the Holy Sword.:  She'd been intrigued by the idea of finding out who 
had done it since Kanoe had forbidden her to search further.  That meant 
that Kanoe had known something she didn't, and Satsuki wanted to know what.
        She started with the government.  Almost everything in Japan was 
controlled by the government, and all of it had to be recorded, especially 
the financial transactions.  And money was the key to everything in this 
world.
        The guard programs on the government's financial records were old 
friends, and Satsuki merely had to treat them like figurative dogs, patting 
them on the foreheads and walking on.  Then she sat down and started 
browsing through all the transaction documents labelled "Top Secret," 
searching for any reference to someone with the pattern flower petals on 
his or her forehead--a government agent, perhaps?--and any references to 
the Togakushi Shrine or an attempt to recover the Holy Sword.
        Nothing.  None of it was related.  Frustrated at the lack of 
results of her search, Satsuki almost managed to miss the small entry in 
one corner of the database.  Why was that hiding over there like that? she 
wondered.
        Shrugging, she read it, gleaning only one word, a name, from it.  
:Imonoyama?: she wondered out loud
        It might be a clue, she thought, and exited the government 
financial records, expanding her search for all references to "Imonoyama."
        She found a wealth of information available.  The Imonoyama 
Foundation was a financial group whose total assets easily surpassed that 
of the whole of Japan.  There were references in every newspaper, thousands 
of articles on good things they had done for Japan as a whole.  Poor people 
received houses and jobs as gifts after chance meetings with members of the 
Imonoyama Foundation.  Good lawyers were hired for men and women who needed 
legal counsel but couldn't afford to pay for it.  Hospitals and shelters 
were constructed and run free of charge for those people who entered them.  
Schools, businesses, and national preserves could all be credited to the 
Imonoyamas, as could grants for study, artistic endeavors, and all kinds of 
scientific research.  Truly, an amazing family.
        Why had that one-word reference been in the National Treasury 
records, then? Satsuki pondered.  And why had it been only one word?  
Interesting.  Very interesting.