Lyric: Return to Innocence
by Kristin Huntsman

        The body fell to the ground, and he watched calmly.  Smiled a 
little, even, sad, sweet.  At last the game was over.  The hunt was ended.  
His prey, his heart, was gone.
        Why did it hurt so much, this coldness?  Wasn't to be empty what he 
had wanted?  Empty among the sakura flowers?  To be pure that way, 
untainted by human emotion, by love, by pain?  Why wouldn't it stop hurting?
        His heart was gone - why did it still hurt?  Why did the pain grow 
rather than fade?  It should stop, right?
        It should... stop....
        Tears traced silver down his face, tears he'd never wanted to 
shed.  Why had his other half hurt him so much, both in life and death?  
Why... why?  Why did he love?  Why did he hate?  Why wouldn't it just 
/stop/?!
        "Seishirou-san..." he whispered, and fell to his knees.
        The world flared white around Subaru, and that was all that he 
knew, that and the memories.
        "The sakura should be white, like snow...."
        But they weren't; they were pink with heart's blood, with heart's 
pain.  They were a spring whirlwind about them both.
        "Oh, no, I was only protecting the one I love...."
        Had that been a lie?  How could the Sakurazukamori know love?  How 
could the empty person know what it felt like to be smashed, broken?  
Broken as easily as a glass cup.
        "Then the date for my and Subaru-kun's wedding...."
        That was today, wasn't it?  What better wedding than death?  
Without his heart, he would die too.  He would die with Seishirou-san, 
death as both their bridegrooms.
        "No, it's one-sided...."
        Never one-sided.  Never since he had come to realize how much he'd 
loved in that one year.  And love and hate were only one another's 
mirrors... closest reflections and dearest friends.
        "Do I look like I'm joking?"
        No, never....

        Kamui watched breathlessly as the white light obscured both Subaru 
and the fallen Angel.  He couldn't see them, but somehow he knew....
        Love.
        Devotion.
        Feeling.
        Emotion.
        Subaru... and Seishirou.
        A love story.  He knew that.  But one with an ending so bitter, so 
painful....
        He shook his head and cleared the tears and watched the rain of 
light fall upwards into the sky, incredible, beautiful.  Was it a soul, 
going to the realm of the kami?  Was it a trap?  Who could know?  Who could 
leave?  Not the four of them, not until they got Subaru back from it.
        The Kekkai stood around them, and the white rain poured through its 
top, going into the stars.
        It weakened, faltering, until Kamui and the others could see the 
mourning form on the ground near Sakurazukamori.  Then it ceased 
altogether, and they waited.
        "Subaru!"  Kamui vaulted the torn-up ground to get to the onmyouji 
as he crumpled, Sorata and the others following him.  He knelt down beside 
the head of the Sumeragis and pulled him into his arms.  Subaru's face was 
hidden in shadow.  Arashi knelt across from him to take the sorceror's 
pulse, then froze, her hand on his wrist.  She tilted Subaru's face into 
the light.
        "Oh my Gods..." Sorata breathed.  Yuzuriha gasped.  Kamui stopped 
breathing.
        The person in his arms /couldn't/ be any older than the four of 
them!

        In a Dream, he knew that.  He knew the difference between Dreams 
and Waking.  And in the Dream, he had all the time that had ever existed.  
Time enough to live, to weep, to die.  Time enough even to accept.
        He raised a wrist and a shikigami landed on it.  He looked at the 
bird and it looked back.  A beautiful falcon.  Sakurazukamori's shadow.  
His, now.  With a thought, the spirit-thing raised itself from his arm and 
dove into the shadows at his feet, becoming part of his shadow.  He could 
feel it, feel the change.
        The stars on the back of his hands were a soft blue-white-green, 
everpresent.  Now that the one who had put them there was gone, he would 
never be free of them.  Never free of his lover's mark.
        He was truly alone now, as he had not been ever before, and it was 
his emptiness that contemplated him.  Emptiness and no small bit of fear of 
it.  "Seishirou-san..." whispered he.  But he was still alone; the name 
didn't end that.  He looked at his hands, at the stars.  Bangs drifted into 
his eyes; his hair was longer now.  He hadn't cut it until the first 
anniversary of his sister's death.  Somehow Seishirou-san had sent his mind 
and heart back in time.  He was sixteen again in form and spirit both.
        The betrayal... had been repaid, nullified.  Seishirou-san's last 
gift, given with his death-energy.  The pain, the anger... it was almost as 
if they had never been.  He could feel the cool film of blue-green energy 
on his mind, a web of healing that held his psyche in a comforting embrace.
        Seishirou's embrace, not Sakurazukamori's.
        He knew now, knew that the two had always been different somewhere 
within.  The new part of his soul, the part that was Sakurazukamori, the 
shadow that was the falcon-shikigami, whispered it to him.
        A little hard to think, to believe, that he was the Sakurazukamori.
        /You have two choices,/ something within him whispered.  Subaru 
swallowed; it used the voice of his heart.  But it wasn't Seishirou-san, 
though it could have been....
        "That way lies madness," he whispered.  "... What are the choices?"
        /Either be both... or be neither./

        Seiichirou watched as the pretty young man opened his eyes, 
stirring as the moonlight painted his hair silver.  Sumeragi looked at him, 
leaf-green eyes clear and calm.  "What time is it, please?"
        The voice....  "Half past eight," he replied, wondering what must 
have happened within Sumeragi to change the quiet voice into something so 
soft and melodious.  The effect of the removal of a heart's deepest pain?
        The now-teenager slid out of the bed, then bent down and began 
rolling up his cuffs.  Seii smiled; however many years he had regressed, 
Sumeragi was now barely taller than Kamui.  His clothes were too big.
        "I'd forgotten I'd grown this much since then," the onmyouji 
observed as he straightened and started on his sleeve cuffs.
        "... What happened?"
        Sumeragi paused, then replied, "Seishirou-san returned that which 
he had stolen from me."  His eyes didn't meet Seiichirou's as the onmyouji 
left the room with no further words.

        Subaru found the dojo within the Imonoyama mansion quite easily, 
and found it empty and quiet.  Perfect.
        He bowed in and went to the middle of the room, centering himself, 
then bowing again and beginning his katas.  Twenty-two years old, he'd 
spent nineteen of those years studying the Art.  But it was only now that 
he found delight in it, release in the motion, the precision, the grace.  
It helped him think.
        /I can't stop being an onmyouji... but I can't countenance killing 
either.  I don't want to kill; I won't have more blood on my hands, on my 
soul, than..../
        "Than mine, Subaru-kun?"
        The familiar voice made him freeze, trip in the kata he knew by 
instinct, made him stumble and fall.
        Seishirou Sakurazuka chuckled a little as Subaru looked up at him.  
"You've regained your cuteness as well, Subaru-kun," he said in greeting.
        Subaru scrambled upright and stared.  "Seishirou...san?"
        "The same."
        A ghost, it had to be.  Yet there were none of the signs of one of 
the yuurei that Subaru would ordinarily see.  Had he slipped into insanity, 
then?  He had killed Seishirou-san, seen the body flutter away into sakura 
flowers on the breeze.  Was he dreaming?
        "Not dreaming, Subaru-kun," Seishirou cautioned, taking a step 
closer.  "I'm truly myself."
        "H-how..?!
        The assassin-onmyouji smiled.  "Who better to be assigned as your 
guardian angel than one who was both Guardian and an Angel in life?"
        Subaru stared, feeling like he'd been slammed into a brick wall.  
Seishirou took a half-dozen steps and closed the space between them, 
catching Subaru in a tight hug.  He was warm and solid and the dark fabric 
of his coat was wool-rough against Subaru's cheek.  "Oh Gods..." he 
choked.  "I thought...."
        "I know," Seishirou murmured.  "I'm sorry for everything, 
Subaru-kun.  Everything."  Subaru didn't say anything, just held his 
heart's life in his arms for a long, long time.
        "I have to help you choose," Seishirou said eventually into the 
soft silence.  "And then you can't see me again."
        "What?!"
        Seishirou's eyes, both of them brown again now, restored as Subaru 
had been restored, touched deeply into Subaru's.  "I'll always be watching 
you, guarding you.  Sometimes you may sense me, sometimes feel my touch... 
but never see me, never hear me except in blackest need.  Never until you 
die."
        "No...!"
        "It's the way it is, Subaru-kun," he said gently.  "I'll always be 
with you, but I'll never be /with/ you."

        Seishirou watched Subaru's green eyes break and this time he acted 
to save the boy's heart, catching him up in a kiss that held all the fire, 
the passion, the love, the need he could bear to muster.  He wouldn't, 
couldn't, let Subaru-kun slip away.  Not this time.
        When they finally broke apart, Subaru gave a wavery laugh.  "You 
know, you don't have any scent anymore.  You always /used/ to smell like 
tobacco."
        "I know."
        "What do I do, Seishirou-san?"
        "You live.  you grow strong.  And in your time, you join me."  
Seishirou brushed the hair out of the clear emeralds.  "You become 
Sakurazukamori and Sumeragi both.  You find your successors.  You make sure 
things continue.  And you keep your secrets."
        "How could I condemn someone to being Sakurazukamori?!" Subaru 
argued.  "I don't want to be party to destruction and killing!"
        Seishirou let his smile soften a little.  "You already are.  Don't 
think that my blood is so different from anyone else's.  And someday...."  
He brushed his fingers across the smooth cheek.  "Someday you'll find a 
child who makes your heart ache the way you did mine.  And then you'll let 
it grow up, and you'll make it strong enough to kill you, and maybe you'll 
fall in love the way I did, and then you'll die."
        "I can't...."
        "It's far better a way to die than to grow old and lose first your 
body, then your mind," Seishirou pointed out.  "And don't forget, you'll 
train a Sumeragi to take your place as well.  You're the only one who was 
ever able to be both."
        "But the killings...."
        Seishirou kissed him again, this time sweet and gentle.  "We don't 
kill randomly, Subaru-kun.  We kill with a purpose.  The shadow-self will 
tell you who, when, and why."
        "What if I lose myself?"  The whisper was frightened.
        "That's what I'm here for."

        Subaru found himself crying, not daring to let go of 
Seishirou-san.  No matter when this moment ended, it would be too soon.  
Too soon for a lifetime.  Only for Seishirou had he ever cried.  "... You 
never even touched me," he whispered.  "I'll never know what it's like to 
be touched now."
        Seishirou stroked his hair.  "You were pure," he replied.  "I was 
anything but.  I didn't want to tarnish your innocence.  It was too 
precious."
        "Damn nobility."
        Seishirou laughed.  "Now, now," he admonished, "my virtues or lack 
of them are hardly the thing to be discussing at a time like this."
        "Then what is?" Subaru looked up into the deep eyes above him.  
"Tell me."
        "Choose."
        "... And if I can't?"
        "'Even if you do not choose, still you have made a choice'."
        "Then I will be what you and that shikigami of yours want me to 
be."  Subaru felt a flash of hate.  "I'll damn my soul for you."
        Seishirou laughed and touched his lips to Subaru's forehead.  
"Brave, Subaru-kun.  I think your own torment will repay the damnation, 
though.  Remember, always... I am here."  He touched his lips to Subaru's 
forehead one last time, then stepped back.  Subaru held his hands for as 
long as he could, watching his heart dissolve into light, into 
nothingness.  Then Seishirou-san was gone.
        Subaru choked a little and rubbed at his eyes, then straightened.  
He'd made his choice and become what he might never have been able to 
otherwise.  Totally whole.  A Sakurazukamori with a heart.
        He turned and smiled at the six who waited at one end of the dojo.  
He hadn't known they were there, but it didn't surprise him.  He crossed 
the room and bowed out before turning to face them.  He searched each of 
them as they searched him.  No more fears.  No more pride.  Only a sense of 
wholeness that had never been there before.  Slowly, each of their faces 
faded from the fear or suspicion that had been there before into hesitant 
acceptance, and then, smiles.
        As a whole they left the dojo, and Subaru paused to look back at 
the empty room once.  Then he turned and went with his friends into his 
second chance.

                                   *Owari*

A note: sometimes the "Lyric" stories work really really well if you listen 
to their title songs.  I think this is one of those times.  "Return to 
Innocence" is by Enigma, on their Cross of Changes album.