Tokyo Babylon: Song Ending 2: Who Wants To Live Forever / (Don't Fear) The Reaper Subaru's hand went through Midori's chest as she stepped in front of her brother, with barely the resistance of water. Subaru stared, horrified, as a brief flash of shock flitted over Midori's face. "Mi...dori...." She fell backwards, his hand sliding slickly out of the hole in her body as gravity took over. Seishirou caught her automatically, and she took a gasp of breath in his arms, blood bubbling to her lips. "O...nii...san... Su...ba...ru...." Her pale eyes still held sense, conciousness, but that was waning. Then her lips stopped moving, and she spoke falteringly inside Subaru's head instead. :Destroy.... End.... Begin... again....: Subaru sensed a welling up of incredible energy within her, and had he been breathing, he would have stopped. This magic was beyond anything he had ever seen Midori perform before. The power tore out of her body, rushing into the free air as a wild current of cherry blossom pink, shot through with veins of pulsing green and silver. It immediately slammed into Seishirou's body, and an instant later, Subaru knew the world had been thrown upside down. Sakurazukamori knelt down slowly, placing Midori's body on the ground. He remained by her, softly brushing loose strands of her black hair out of her eyes. He didn't notice the red streaks that his blood-wet fingers drew on her cheeks. "Midori..." Seishirou said softly, brushing the back of his fingers against her cheek. "I love you, Midori. Don't die. Don't die, Midori. You're the only little sister I have...." Silence answered him. She barely breathed and her heart still beat, but her lips held no smile and her voice neither spoke not laughed. "Seishirou-san..." Subaru started. "She's gone...." "Midori..." Seishirou said softly, taking her hand in his. "Midori...." No star lit her palm as he reached out with his power. It was impossible. She couldn't be gone. She couldn't be. She was alive. Subaru hadn't have killed her. She couldn't be dead. Sakurazukas did not die by any means other than their successors destroying them. She couldn't be dead.... Something warm rolled down the side of his face and splashed onto his hand. "Midori...." Hello. My name was Toyuuki Midori. I am looking for the one who was Sumeragi Hokuto. I have something to share with her. I want to talk with her. I have news of her brother. Is she here? ... Hello, Hokuto-san. Your brother is well, and by now, I hope, reconciled with mine. My brother? Oh, you know him. He killed you. Yes, he's my brother. ... We are the sisters of powerful men. That gives us power, Hokuto-san. We have both exchanged our destinies with those of our siblings, Hokuto-san, in a spell that only sisters can cast. Your brother was to die, and mine to live coldly, without emotions, for the rest of his life. Hmm. I think I like you, Hokuto-san. I think we shall be great friends.... *plink* The sound of a drop of water against stone. *plink* Again. *plink* How many drops, how long, until the stone was worn away? *plink* The light was blue. Blue. Blue always reminded him of Subaru, for some reason. Why? Subaru had never worn blue any more than any other color. It couldn't be his eyes, either. Subaru's eyes were green.... Green? Midori! Dear Gods, his little sister... little Midori... she was _gone_. Mi-do-ri, Seishirou counted on his fingers. Beautiful-earth-reason. But "midori" meant "green," too. His beautiful little green sister. And Subaru-kun had killed her. How? Why? Midori had stepped in front of him as Subaru was about to try to kill him. She had had no defenses up, and had not tried to protect herself in any way. In essence, she had committed suicide. Sakurazukamori could feel himself shattering, and wondered what would happen afterwards. What had Subaru felt? Machines softly beeped on both sides of the room that Subaru stood in. It smelled antiseptic and plastic, like all hospital rooms he had ever been in, but he didn't even notice. Like always, there was something more important. Far more important.... "Midori," he whispered, lightly touching the back of her hand. She was too pale, even for someone who had gone through what she had. Subaru barely remembered the ambulance ride to the hospital the other night, but he knew that he had been here since, not sleeping, barely eating. After the emergency surgery, Midori had been moved into the same room as her brother. Subaru couldn't and wouldn't leave. He remembered giving one of the nurses Seishirou and Midori's identities and relationship. He vaugely remembered answering that he was Midori's fiance, so that they wouldn't kick him out. His gaze drifted to the other side of the room, and Subaru walked to stand by Seishirou's bedside. The only two people left in his life, and they were both in comas because of him. If he hadn't been foolish enough to attack Seishirou... Midori wouldn't have accepted the blow... Seishirou would never have gone into shock.... "Killing yourself now won't do any good," Subaru told himself. "It won't do them any good, either. Not yet...." Subaru woke suddenly as someone draped a blanket over him. "Please, go back to sleep," a soft voice said. "You need the rest, sir. You've been up for several days. I'll wake you if there is any change in your fiancee's condition, or her brother's." Too tired to disagree, Subaru closed his eyes again and drifted off to the world of half-concious worry that enveloped his thoughts. "Midori!" He called out her name over and over again, hoping for her to appear out of the thick fog that enveloped him. She was the only hope he had of ever getting out of here, of ever finding his way home. "Midori!" Subaru stumbled and fell to his knees, still seeing only the dark brown ground below him and the fog about him. "Midori!" "She can't hear you, Subaru-kun," said a familiar voice softly, from behind him. Subaru stood and turned, almost unsurprised to see Seishirou standing behind him. Yet this was not the Seishirou that Subaru knew. This Seishirou looked immeasurably sad and pained, with a broken look to him that Subaru knew all too well from what he saw in his own mirror every morning. "Sei...shirou...san..." Subaru whispered, stunned at the change which had come over Sakurazukamori. "You killed her. You... killed her. You killed my sister. My little sister... my only sister, you killed her subaru-kun... you killed her you killed midori you killed my sister...." Seishirou's voice kept going on and on as he curled up in a ball, smaller and smaller still until he vanished altogether. Subaru stared at the swirl of fog that was all that was left behind. "He is in too much pain," a soft voice observed from behind him. Subaru turned to see who it was, and immediately shaded his eyes, feeling blinded by the brightness. "Who are you?" he asked the burning figure of white light before him. A soft laugh. "We have met before, Subaru, though my form was then different and indeed I was a different self." "Midori?" Subaru asked, feeling her in this being before him. "A name for one form that I was part of," came his answer. "It would be far better to call me Toyuuki, or perhaps Balancer, for that is the part of her that I am." The voice, neither a man's nor a woman's, paused, and Subaru felt the entire regard of this spirit upon him. He, who had been exorcising ghosts since he was eleven, felt slightly humbled by this being that had been part of Midori. "Midori was an unusual incarnation," Toyuuki continued thoughtfully. "She truly felt for you, and for Sakurazukamori. Oddly, some of this emotion remains." "What do you mean?" Subaru asked. "_End pain, both his and your own_," Toyuuki commanded, then faded away. Subaru woke after spending the rest of his sleep without dreams. He had no doubt, however, that his one dream had been true. He stood and walked slowly over to Seishirou's bed, looking down at the face that he knew as well as his own. "To end my pain and yours..." he murmured. He searched within himself and found no objections, no trace of an emotional spark that differed in opinion. He closed his eyes and drew a breath, letting it shudder out. "I'm going to end this, Seishirou-san. We're both going to die, and then neither of us will hurt anymore." Subaru gathered power to himself, feeling the twin stars on the backs of his hands, the marks of Sakurazukamori, ignite with a blazing light. He opened his eyes, looking for one last time at the face of his lover. "Goodbye... Seishirou-san," he whispered, and reached out with a hand. Seishirou's eyes softly opened, focusing on him. Subaru's hand faltered. "Subaru-kun?" Sakurazukamori asked quietly. "Seishirou-san...." Midori struggled to the surface, finding the pull of the alluring dreams weakened since both of her anchors were awake. "A... anata...tachi wa... baka desu..." she said weakly. She forced her eyes open, her vision swaying drunkenly and blurring in and out of focus. "Midori!" the two exclaimed as one, and she smiled, hearing the concern in their voices. She became aware of pain riding through her body as Subaru's hand touched hers, followed an instant later by her brother's. Even though they were blurs, she could tell the difference by the fact that Subaru's hand was smaller. Her vision swam back into focus for a second, and she saw blood dripping from her brother's wrist. She put her mind to it, and came up with the vague idea that maybe he had been on an IV drip too, ripping it out to get across the room. "Are you okay?" Subaru asked her. "Oh, sure, fine," Midori replied giddily, aware somewhere that that wasn't really the truth but that the drugs they had her on were making her act strangely. She focused her mind for the next sentence. "Are the two of you okay?" "I... we... weren't," her brother answered, no doubt with a look at Subaru during the pause. "But now that you're getting better, we are." "Nope nope nope, not going to happen." Midori frowned and concentrated herself again. "Whatever's in my system is making me silly. Please forgive me." "Midori...." "I don't have much time," Midori said slowly, forcing her eyes to painfully focus on the two faces above her. "They want me to go back. I just wanted to say that... I made things change." "What do you mean?" Subaru asked. "You can't go back there," Seishirou protested, his hand subtly tightening on hers. "We need you!" "Neither of you need me now, Oniisan," Midori answered, her clarity becoming easier to hold onto. "You're both healed. I... made a 'choice'... I decided to 'fix' Sakurazukamori. I already helped Subaru, so you were next." "What about your 'Balance'?" Subaru whispered. "'m not the Balancer anymore," Midori replied softly, her words almost slurring. "I became too involved, and that's not allowed. So it went away, maybe to someone else. Without it, I can simply be a sister and do what I think best for those I love...." Midori chose her next words very carefully, knowing what rested on them. "Sakurazukamori... is part me now. The impartiality to doing what must be done remains... but the heart is living. You care, and you hurt, Seishirou-niisama. You are... 'human' now. Be... happy." Midori closed her eyes again, taking a breath that seemed to burn through her. "This is not your fault, Subaru. I love both of you...." Then she slowly fell back down into the warm, enveloping darkness, where she felt arms embrace her. "Midori!" she heard cries from far away, but she couldn't go back to them. She smiled softly and asked aloud "Kawaii desu ne?" "Hai," Hokuto answered. "Boys are always cute like that. Too bad they have to feel such pain over it, though." "They'll live," Midori said softly, looking up to where the last point of light was vanishing. "They will have each other." The single tone that had been the steady beeping of a heartbeat for several days buzzed on and on, without end. The two men stood in a corner of the room, watching as the medical staff tried and failed to revive the girl. Tears glimmered wetly on both of their faces as one of the doctors offered his apologies and his sincere regrets. "We'll survive," the younger said softly, "somehow." "We have each other," the other replied. ********* "Anatatachi wa baka desu." means "You (plural) are idiots." "Kawaii desu ne?" is approximately equivalent to "Isn't that cute?" "Hai." means "Yes."