Tokyo Babylon: Song Part 13: Total Eclipse of the Heart The city of Tokyo is one of those that is perpetually awake. However, even it has its more restful times of day and night, and a subway station at half past two in the morning is generally empty.... "Seishirou-san," Sumeragi Subaru greeted his enemy. "Subaru-kun," Sakurazuka Seishirou replied, standing up from the wall he had been leaning against. "Shall we go?" "I didn't think that you had planned for our business to be concluded in a subway station," Subaru said as he followed the taller man onto the train. "It's not your style." "Trusting me to lead you to a 'safe' location, where we can fight even without your 'kekkai'?" Seishirou asked, smiling softly. The doors of the train closed and it started moving. "Be careful, Subaru-kun; that almost smacks of trusting me." "You have never broken your word once it is given, Sakurazukamori," Subaru replied, his eyes never leaving the other figure. "In that respect, I trust you." "You are a fool, then, Subaru-kun," Seishirou replied. "Unlike you, I don't really care where we fight." "I have always been a fool where you are concerned." Midori sat on the edge of the bed, her arms wrapped around herself. She knew what was happening, what Subaru was doing. Long minutes flowed past, marked only by the counts of her own heartbeats. Finally she moved, standing and going to the window. She pressed her palms against the cool glass and closed her eyes, seeing beyond sight. Subaru stood in a dark lot, looking up at the sky. "There aren't enough stars, are there?" Seishirou asked, looking upwards at the sky. "The Pleiades of your name are too dim to be seen, but the Big Dipper is there, with all the stars visible. You used to love looking at the stars, Subaru-kun." "I did, didn't I?" Subaru asked softly. Breeze ruffled his hair. "I thought you liked looking at them with me. How wrong I was." Seishirou crossed the space between them. He touched Subaru's hair gently, in a loving caress. "How wrong you were." Midori sighed and opened her eyes, turning to the dresser. "Time to be noble," she said to herself, pulling open a drawer and pulling out a pair of jeans. She pulled them on and tucked Subaru's shirt into the waistband. "Time to find out what I'm made of." She tugged on socks and slipped her feet into a pair of new sneakers. "Time to make sure I can finish what I start." Midori tried to focus her mind as she grabbed her purse and left the room, heading towards the elevator. The garage was thirty-two floors below her, and in the time it took the elevator to rise that far up and fall back down again, she could answer her own questions. Midori found her car easily and leaned back in her seat for a second, savoring the brief taste of life. Then she turned the key, and the car roared to life. She drove carefully to street level, then headed towards her destination. Slips of white parchment, carefully imprinted with characters and symbols, needed mere syllables to turn them into shikigami. Subaru knew the words needed, as did Sakurazukamori. He spoke them, and birds with jeweled heads and white feathers flew, attacking, at Sakurazukamori. His shields turned them into mere splashes of blood that mixed with drifting feathers. Spells of power that would have destroyed most men warped around him, sliding away like beads of water. And through it all, Seishirou stood there, unwinded. Subaru felt like screaming. The one he loved, the one he hated, did not even acknowledge his existance. But he restrained himself, and his feelings poured into a glimmering blue pool of light and energy. Subaru dipped his hands into that fury, and found it a weapon. Seishirou's shield cracked, letting a needle-fine arrow of energy through. It sliced across his left cheek. Seishirou lifted his hand and wiped the line of blood away. "Very well, Subaru-kun," he said softly. "You seem to have found your power. Your attacks blossom in strength now as they have never done before. Let us fight." Midori closed herself off from the entirety of her emotions, shutting herself off in a way that was entirely too natural. But it was also very practical... and an ability that the Balancer needed to have. Still, the physical distance between her and the ones she had too hard of a time shutting out was so far.... When lashing strikes of lightning power had worn both of them down, Seishirou smiled and paused with Subaru, their timing with each other nearly perfect, as always. "You do realize, Subaru-kun," Seishirou commented softly, with a smile, "that even if you kill me, it is not ended. _You_ will become Sakurazukamori." That gave Subaru pause, and Seishirou smiled again. "You don't like that idea, do you, Subaru-kun?" The biseinen's green eyes narrowed. "What position I inherit from your death is of no concern to me. Don't think I haven't considered the fact that I will become Sakurazukamori. _It doesn't matter._" "Don't be so sure that it's merely a position," Seishirou taunted. "I cared, once upon a foolish time. I cared for Midori, after all. I made sure she got help. I might have even cared for you, little boy, if we had met under different circumstances. But I inherited the position, and all that comes with it." "Don't call me 'little boy,'" Subaru said softly, his voice underlined with anger. "And don't think that I don't know you're trying to play mind games with me." "You have always reacted so cutely, Subaru-kun," Seishirou observed. "That's why it was so ridiculously easy to destroy you. I struck, and you froze." "I LOVED YOU!!" Subaru screamed, finally giving vent to his emotions. "Does that mean NOTHING to you?!" "No," Seishirou answered easily. With that, certain things fell into place within Subaru. Seishirou had never responded to him, and never would. It was time to give up the dream, if not the feelings. "I love you," Subaru said slowly, feeling his heart stab him like it was made out of ice. His voice was threatening to fail on him with his overwhelming emotions, but he didn't care. "I have loved you for as long as I have known what love is, Seishirou-san... and you don't care. I wish you could feel the pain that I do, or indeed anything at all. You cared once... can't you remember how it was? Were you ever happy?" "Happiness is overrated," Seishirou replied coldly. "Things were always 'wrong' when I felt, Subaru-kun. It was so much clearer when I stopped. Nothing was confusing." "Life was meant to be confusing," Subaru answered, his voice gaining strength with the conviction of something he _knew_. "Life was meant to hurt and be difficult. Without that, it isn't life, it's cowardice." "So you think that you are braver than I, simply because you feel and I do not?" "Give it up, Seishirou-san," Subaru replied. "I refuse to _let_ you play with my mind and heart anymore. I will do what I promised myself long ago that I would." Midori closed her eyes for a second as she locked her car. "No," she whispered, what she saw threatening to break through her emotional blockades. She spun and immediately started running, getting everything out of the pair of sneakers that the ads promised, and a bit besides. Subaru gathered power to himself, the living energy of the city's inhabitants. Currents of emotion danced around his senses. He had felt them all his life, and thought them to be the patterns of natural magic. But now that he faced Seishirou again and realized the difference between his own heart and Sakurazukamori's empty one, he knew them for what they were. Energy roared around him, raw power that bound him and bound itself to him. It became part of his being, part of his flesh and bone. His eyes opened again as his feet started running forward. Emotion burned through him, pure and clean. It surrounded him, and he would do what he had to. Then, something changed. A blur of white and black rushed out of the shadows, running between him and Seishirou. "NO, SUBARU!!!" the blur screamed. Screamed with Midori's voice. Subaru's sight focused in painful clarity on Midori's pale, anguished face in a split-second. Midori barely felt the pain as she took the attack meant for her brother. ********* A note: "Subaru" literally means the constellation Pleiades. Check out the back of any Subaru (the car); you'll see the constellation as an insignia. "Seishirou-san dake wa, boku ga koroshimasu...." means "I will kill only Seishirou-san," though a few native speakers have said that it means "Only I will kill Seishirou-san." The first is correct according to the grammar rules I have learned, but the second presents interesting possibilities. This line appeared in vol. 7 (the last book) of Tokyo Babylon.