Tokyo Babylon: Sound part 6: Screaming / Collapse Subaru heard the downstairs door close just as he got out of the shower. He smiled. His mother had left for work, just like this was every other morning in their lives. But it wasn't every other morning, was it? he pondered to himself as he toweled his hair dry, looking at his cloudy reflection in the fogged mirror. How many mornings of his life had he woken up with his father in the house? How many mornings had he been this acutely aware of his psychic potential in the fullest sense? None. Sedately, his mind working on problems before him, he ate his breakfast and grabbed his satchel, ready to take off for school. An impulse hit him, and he paused at the stairs for a second and headed up to the guest bedroom, looking in on his father. Sensing that he was there, the older Subaru opened his eyes and smiled sleepily at him. Subaru wondered for a second. "I'm taking off for school," he said, informing his father of his departure. "Have a good day and be careful," his father replied. "I'll see you when you get home...." "Mmm-hmm," Subaru agreed with a nod. "I'll see you tonight after class's out. Take care!" Then he headed back down the stairs and ran next door, his departure coinciding neatly with Seiji's. He smiled at his close friend as they walked to school in the exact opposite direction from where his mother worked. Even with his nightmares and his parents' sudden guarded attitude around him, Subaru couldn't let his psychic existance interfere with his school life. And his mother would come down hard on him if she thought he was slacking.... Subaru shrugged off the latent buzz in his ears and mentally challenged himself to the school day before him. * * * Hajikawa Mari smiled as she looked out at the twenty-eight heads bent forward over test forms. Twenty-two of them she expected to get decent grades on the exam. Four she expected to catch in the middle of cheating any second now. And the remaining two never bothered to study. If she gave them semi-decent grades at all, it would only be to pass them on to another teacher and get them out of her hair. A soft shine of light off of black hair caught her eye, and she turned her head to look at her best student, a young illegitimate boy by the name of Toyuuki Subaru. Despite the fact that his mother had never married and his father was not known to anyone aside from Toyuuki-san and her son, Subaru had achieved a level of popularity with his intelligence and gentle manners that never failed to impress Mari. This boy, despite the stigma of his birth and the suspicious heritage of his green eyes, would go far. His pencil flew over the paper, writing character in rapid succession, and Mari knew even without looking, even with all the other bright children she taught, that his answers would by far be the most comprehensive of the material. Whatever his mother may have failed to give him in the way of a father she had given him in both charm and intellect. He paused as she looked on and shook his head a bit, as if arguing with himself about an answer to a question. He touched the tip of his pencil to the paper again, making a hesitant mark. Mari wondered, as she saw him chewing his lip, which question was giving him difficulty. She might have to see with his mother about arranging for tutoring for him in that area. * * * Subaru frowned as the buzzing built up in his ears. It was beginning to sound like his ears were stuffed full of cotton as far as the rest of the world was concerned; only the annoying tone was clear. It hadn't been this bad since he'd first started having the nightmares of his soul being eaten alive, ripped apart by the psychic talons and shrieks of a monster. Surely... the nightmares wouldn't happen in the day, would they? Subaru frowned and forced his attention back to the paper before him. This wasn't supposed to be happening. Okaasan putting guards on his power was the first thing he could remember, and over the years she'd layered her protections so thick that no one could even sense he was there. Then, only after she'd been satisfied with the levels of protections she had put on him, had she begun his training as a Balancer. Not The Balancer, he knew. That was her. She held all the true raw power until she died. He merely received the training and let his abilities grow on their own, because not everything she was would be passed along to him, and he needed to be able to fill the void with a lot of his own competence. And the answer on the paper in front of him was refusing to make sense. He felt like his mind was being swathed in layers of cotton, too. Maybe he was being drugged or poisoned by whatever was causing the nightmares... maybe it had finally figured out that the best time to kill him would be when his parents weren't around to guard him. He feebly tried to be able to care about that and fight back, but it was like his emotions were numbed too. He watched the pencil slide from his fingers as though they had been anesthetized and were incapable of holding onto it anymore. Subaru fell limply out of his chair and to the floor, his head first hitting the desk next to his--Koyama Shin's--and then the hard floor. It was like a spider, maybe, he realized distantly as he heard the sudden racket of desk chairs scraping around him and the voices clamoring in alarm. Maybe it drugged its prey and wrapped it up and carried it off to its web before sucking it dry of life. "Okaasan..." he thought as he was carried off into blackness, "Otousan...." * * * Subaru started awake with a gasp. he thought, scrambling out of the tangling bedclothes and managing to tumble to the floor. The mind predator had attacked during the day. It had gotten to their son during the one time he and Midori had believed Subaru would not be in danger. Subaru mentally cursed their carelessness and pulled on clothing as quickly as possible, running down the stairs in his haste. Damn, where was Midori?! He didn't know where to go, where Subaru's school was.... He ran to answer the front door as the doorbell rang. It was her. "Come on!" Midori said urgently, running past him through the house. She opened the door to the garage and was backing out by the time he closed the front door behind her and followed. The instant he was inside the car, Midori began to drive down the narrow streets of the residential neighborhood with a speed and recklessness that would have frightened professional racecar drivers. Only then did Subaru remember her driving style and bless her for not losing her knack.