X/1999 Fan Fiction ❯ Stigmata ❯ Chapter Three ( Chapter 3 )

Chapter 3

It seemed to Subaru that his and Kamui's definitions of the word 'alive' were as different as their interpretations as the word 'grieving.'

He gazed down at the form in the hospital bed evenly. Five years he had lied here, his body still actively working, hairs and limbs growing, but muscles fading away into nothing. It was amazing that someone could live for so long yet never live at all, but Subaru supposed that was the fine oddity of a coma. The person was alive, most certainly, but sleeping, perhaps forever if it was not meant for them to ever awaken.

"How did it happen?" Subaru asked.

Kamui was seated on the other side of the bed, opposite of him, staring at the life support machines and their steady sound of the 'beep-beep-beep'.

"I'm not sure really," he admitted, frowning in that painfully adorable way of his when he was having trouble fully understanding something. "I remember being on the Tower, and I remember fighting him, and then I think we were falling.

"When I woke up I was in the hospital. He was still out of it then, and they didn't tell me until later that it was possible he would never come out of it at all…

"They told me to give up hope. That there was no way he would ever wake up. After five years, I think they're right, but I just can't stop hoping. When I do, I've lost everything.

"I looked for you those five years because I thought, if I found you, you'd be able to go within him and bring him back out like you did for me. But I gave up on wishing for that a long time ago."

Subaru looked up at him. "He has not drawn within himself, Kamui. Even if they say a person in a coma is fully aware of their surroundings, it's a completely different thing if you were to enter their mind… they're not really there. Not completely."

Kamui smiled a mirthless smile. "Can't blame me for hoping."

Subaru shook his head 'no', but said nothing more. He was surprised that Kamui had waited this long and was still waiting in the hope that Fuuma would ever awaken from his coma. And, were he to awaken, Subaru wondered what would stop him from still being the 'Dark Kamui' and the Dragon of Earth. Kamui was hoping for far too much if he believed that Fuuma would awaken and miraculously be the person he had once been.

There was something admirable about his determination, however pathetic that it might be. Subaru did not know if he would have ever had the resolve Kamui now possessed to wait this long in vain hope. When something seemed impossibly unattainable, he had always been quick to give it up and face reality. That he had learned from Seishirou.

"I don't know if I should wait anymore." Kamui was speaking again, startling him from his thoughts. "But I just… I just don't want to think I've really lost everyone I loved, you know?"

"I know," Subaru agreed. "When you have nothing, hope is the only thing you can possess."

Kamui only nodded miserably. He had been so defensive when they were in the park, it came as a shock to Subaru to see him like this, unguarded and openly sharing his feelings. Subaru did not want him to continue like this. He would have much rather preferred the way Kamui was before than the way he was now. It was not so much depressing as it was frustrating. Kamui had suffered so much, and yet continued to suffer, even when those things that had once plagued him were long gone now.

It was his protectiveness for the boy that inspired these thoughts. Subaru knew that he did not love Kamui, nor had he ever felt anything for him aside from a higher level of affection than that he expressed with others. But he did not want to see him suffer, no more than he would want to see a dear friend in pain. Never mind, he thought, that Kamui was not quite his friend, much less anything to him that could be labeled. Theirs was a complicated relationship that Subaru had never been able to fully understand.

On the one hand, he had recognized and accepted that Kamui cared for him and had developed some bizarre kind of hero worship for him, but on the other, he had wanted to deny this to no end. He did not want Kamui to become attached to him when it was likely, more than likely, that he would only be hurt in the end. Kamui had been hurt enough; he did not need more sorrows to add to his growing pile.

The existence of Fuuma made it no easier for Kamui to cope with all that had happened in the past. As long as Fuuma continued to live, in this state of body and mind, Kamui would continue to suffer. A part of Subaru, a darker side, thought perhaps it would be far more easier to simply 'pull the plug' so to speak and rid Kamui of his burden. But the other part, the more dominant trait of his personality, told him that this was not his place and that he should accept Kamui's wishes for what they were.

"I do not think I would be able to do this if I were in your position, Kamui," Subaru said suddenly, his tone almost but not nearly reflecting awe and admiration.

"What do you mean?"

"This." Subaru gestured vaguely toward Fuuma. "I would not be able to wait this long in vain hope that someone I cared about would wake up someday."

"You said yourself hope is the only thing you can have when you don't have anything else," Kamui said pointedly. "And if it were someone you loved… you'd be able to do it too."

Subaru did not answer. Maybe he could have. Maybe he would have, a long time ago, if he had cared for someone as much as Kamui did for Fuuma. But though he recognized that there were many parallels between his life and Kamui's and the ways they had been forced to suffer, he knew that in the way they had each dealt and coped with the trauma were far different. And so were they, in the ways they had turned out in the end.

"How long will you wait for him?" he inquired at length.

Kamui smiled a little. "Maybe another five years," he answered. "Maybe another ten… fifteen, or maybe just til I'm dead."

Subaru stared at him. "That long." It was not a question, only a statement of awe.

"Sure," Kamui said, sounding puzzled that it surprised him so much that he would be willing to wait that long. "It's the least I can do for him."

"I could go within him, Kamui."

Kamui's head snapped up, his eyes startled. "You said you couldn't if the person is in a coma…"

"It's dangerous," Subaru said, shrugging, "but not impossible."

For a long moment, Kamui was silent. Finally, he shook his head. "No. I don't want you to if you'll get hurt."

Subaru flashed him a grin. "I'm flattered you're so concerned with my well-being, Kamui."

Kamui returned the comment with a sour expression, but said nothing. He was not sure that he wanted Subaru to do this. He had wanted him to, a long time ago, in the hope that he could bring Fuuma back to him and to the world of the living, but now he had his doubts. Age was what had caused those doubts. Though he still had hope, he was twenty-one now, and unfortunately, that meant he was more realistic. It seemed more than a vain hope that Subaru would be able to do anything.

"It might be fun," Subaru commented.

"It's not supposed to be /fun/," Kamui returned below his breath.

Subaru shrugged. "A learning experience, then. I've never seen a mind when someone hasn't specifically shut themselves within."

"Fine. If you want to kill yourself, be my guest."

"I doubt /that/ will happen… but who knows. There's always a chance."

Somehow, Kamui was not comforted.

Subaru pulled a chair beside the bed and smiled at him charmingly as he sat down.

"See you in a few."

Kamui did not respond, only watched closely as Subaru reached out, settled an index and middle finger on Fuuma's temples at each side, and then bowed his head forward. He began to chant the incantation, softly and evenly.

For Subaru, the world around him faded away. He had a glimpse of Kamui watching him anxiously and then it was gone, and he had the sensation of falling through black space. Maybe he was actually falling through outer space; he could never tell what exactly was happening when he first drew within. Everything was a blur of colors and images, and he concentrated so much on keeping control of his own mind that he could never quite place what was happening around him.

His feet seemed to touch something solid. He waited a moment, listening. Something that sounded remotely like the distant sound of an ambulance siren was coming from far away. Aside from this, there was nothing, and after a brief moment, Subaru opened his eyes. What he saw was far worse than what he would have imagined.

The ground was charred and burned, like the land after a terrible forest fire. But rather than being charred black, it was the color of red, a deep crimson, blood red, for blood seemed to have stained the land. The red, the blood he assumed, was the only thing that seemed to give any color to the barren wasteland. It seemed to glow, giving everything a red sheen, but as he glanced skywards he saw that it was not the ground that lit the area but the moon that hung low in the 'sky'. It too was scorched red.

Buildings surrounded him, some he recognized as monuments in Tokyo, but all of them black and twisted and stretching far too high to the skies than was natural. The glass of the windows had been shattered, leaving each with a gaping black hole into nothingness. Doors hung off their hinges. In the distance, Tokyo Tower was twisted into a mockery of its splendor. It was split straight down the middle and stretched out both to the right and the left. Lights that would have normally been white lining the Tower were red and blinked constantly.

Subaru took a step forward and found that his feet made no sound, but the earth fell away as he placed his weight on it. He lifted his foot and looked to the ground he had just stepped on, and to his disgust, found that several black worms had wriggled up from beneath the surface and were dying under the harsh light of the red moon. He wondered vaguely why the light did not affect him as it did them, but he supposed it was because he was not a reality here. To this land, he was nothing. He doubted that any of this, if any of it could, knew of his presence.

Ignoring the worms and the death surrounding him, Subaru ventured forward. He seemed to be walking far away and no where at the same time. The buildings around him did not move, but as he continued to walk, they seemed to change shape, as though he had gone from one block in the ruined city to another, and yet had not at all. He kept his mind from focusing on it too much; there was no easier way than to be consumed by a mind such as this one than to start to begin to wonder how it was logical and in what way did it function.

The sound of the siren had faded away into nothingness, he noted. Now, there seemed to be the sound of voices, dozens and dozens of voices, all around him but so faintly heard he might have mistaken them for being far away. He paused and listened. He could hear scattered pieces of conversation, none of it very relevant to him, and all of it broken down so much into single words or phrases that had nothing to do with one another that he could not make sense of them. It took a moment for him to realize that this is what he would hear were he walking down a busy street in Tokyo, only the scattered voices of people as they tended to their every day activities. But here, those people were mere phantoms, washing over him and around him and never to be seen.

He blocked the voices from his mind and continued to walk. Piece by piece, the broken, scorched wasteland of Tokyo began to fade away. The red moon grew brighter as he drew nearer to it, but still did not hurt him as he advanced closer to it. Soon, the city was gone, and he found himself walking through a true barren wasteland, where the ground was completely scorched black and red and brittle beneath his feet. He continued to walk, until it seemed that hours had passed him by, and until no time at all seemed to have gone.

The red moon hung low in the sky and chilled him to the bone when he arrived at the destination he had been striving for without knowing. But here, the land was not bathed in the red glow of the moon. The scorched earth beneath his feet faded and was replaced by lush green. Light, true light from the sun beamed down on him. He stepped forward and a house materialized before him. A common house, like any of those seen in Tokyo, and beside it was a shrine. The house did not matter to him; it seemed no more than a holographic image. It was the shrine that he began to walk toward without knowing why. What he knew was that it seemed to be beckoning to him and he followed.

A broom was lying on the porch surrounding the shrine, discarded in a single moment. A collection of flowers, recently plucked from the gardens surrounding the temple, rested not far from it. Subaru stepped over these things and ventured to the double doors that would permit him entrance into the shrine. Nothing seemed to be wrong, yet everything seemed to be wrong, all at the same time. This was a world of parallels, he realized, and what might appear to not be harmful to him at all could be what caused him death, and what appeared to be dangerous would be his salvation. Subaru took caution to mind as he neared the shrine doors and pushed them open.

Light would have flooded the room, but for some reason, none did. He stepped inside and the doors immediately closed behind him. Surrounding him, lining the walls, hanging from the ceiling, were a great many candles. All were of the same design, no different from the other, all with wax dripping off in the same strategic places. All the flames flickered in the same way and were at the same height and width. Together, they created a pattern of a pentacle across the floor and hanging from the ceiling, and within the center of the pentacle was the one that was trapped within this mind.

Fuuma, or Fuuma as Kamui had known him, yet at the same time as Subaru had known him as the Dark Kamui, was in the center of the room. His arms, painfully thin from lack of nutrition, were stretched out above his head. Cuffs were snapped around his crossed wrists and the chain connecting them was looped around a crude hook in the ceiling. A single chain wrapped down his right arm, across his chest, and then around his left leg. His feet were bound the same as his wrists. His body, whatever little part of it that was clothed, was wrapped up in a bloody shroud. A blindfold was secured around his eyes. Dark hair hung matted down by blood and sweat. This was Fuuma as he truly was.

Subaru took another step forward. Fuuma moved slightly, clarifying for him that he was in fact alive, or at least as much alive in the sense of the word as he could be. Within his mind, he was alive. Outside his mind, he was as well, but not quite in the same way. Actually… Subaru was not sure about the whole thing. There were too many parallels in this world. Time moved, yet it did not. The moon existed, yet it did not. Fuuma was alive, but then, he was not that much alive, was he?

The lips moved to speak, but were unable to form words, having been parched for so long. Subaru glanced around. Conveniently, there was a stone goblet on the floor filled to the brim with water. He knelt down and picked it up, finding the stone cold, which meant that the liquid within was the same. He carried it over and held it to Fuuma's mouth.

"Drink," he commanded quietly.

Fuuma did as he was instructed, with some difficulty, considering that if he had been like this for long, he had not actually had anything to 'drink' for five years. Subaru waited until he had drank his full before taking the goblet away and returning it to its position on the floor.

"Subaru, is it?" Fuuma asked, having regained his voice. "Subaru Sumeragi."

"Aa," Subaru confirmed. "This is quite a world you've created for yourself, Fuuma."

Fuuma laughed at that, but it was a dry, brittle laugh. "I didn't create it," he answered. "Some of it, yeah, I guess I did. I made the shrine and the house, but the city… that's all the beautiful masterpiece of the Dragon of Earth."

"The Dragon of Earth?" repeated Subaru. "It is separate from you?"

"In a way. It's complicated. One of those I am him, he is me things. But why, may I ask, are you here?"

"You're in a coma. You have been for five years. Kamui's still waiting for you. I offered to come in and see if there was anything worth waiting for."

Fuuma made a brief motion with his head, which seemed to be some kind of nod. He might have been able to do it were he not quite as weakened as it seemed he was. Considering he was trapped within his own mind, and only in his mind, it was not as though he could receive the nutrition that normal people needed to survive. It was provided for on the outside, but not within.

"Can you waken?" Subaru inquired.

"Wasn't aware I was in a coma," Fuuma returned. "Can't exactly wake up unless you know you need to be waking up."

Subaru slipped a hand inside of his crimson jacket and found that his cigarettes were in fact there. He drew one from the pack and lit it up. "Am I speaking to Fuuma Monou, or Fuuma the Dark Kamui, or what?" he asked.

"Fuuma," was the answer. "Or as close to me as you'll find."

"So then the Dragon of Earth persona was always separate from yours."

"No. The Dragon of Earth was a piece of me that I never had until Kamui made his decision. When I became the Dragon of Earth, I became a whole person."

"You are not acting as the Dragon of Earth I knew."

Fuuma laughed again. His voice was not quite as bitter this time as it was before, likely because his throat was not nearly as dry. "Come here," he commanded, "and look beneath the shroud."

Subaru frowned, but took a step nearer to him. He reached out and moved aside the bloody shroud from Fuuma's chest. Behind it, there was nothing. A gaping hole, the size of a fist, went straight through Fuuma's torso. He could see the opposite wall through it. Its exact position was where his heart should have been, Subaru realized.

"You have no heart," he said slowly.

Fuuma smiled, but it was a mirthless smile without the affect of his eyes reflecting it, as they were hidden behind the blindfold. "The damned can't have hearts. But you see, I'm not quite whole. The Dragon of Earth has my heart. When I acted as him, as the Dragon and Kamui's enemy, then I had it. But I guess after I went into this coma you tell me I'm in, he made off with it."

"Why?"

"How should I know? He always was a greedy son of a bitch."

"This is all very painfully symbolic."

"Yeah, I know. Gives you a headache, doesn't it?"

"A little," Subaru admitted.

He was attempting to make sense of all the symbolism. In the mind, it was very rare that anything was painted in a very clear picture, but rather, everything was jumbled together and looked as though the artist had been doing nothing but flinging paint around. There were a few assumptions he could make as far as some of this was concerned, however, but he doubted that he would ever completely understand.

The ruined city he had walked through he assumed was Tokyo. The city was the part of the mind that was dominated by the Dragon of Earth persona, while the shrine and the house were what had been created by Fuuma. They were, as Fuuma said, not separate from one another as a person, but they were each two different personas that went in to create one full person. And as long as they were separate from one another, as in physical proximity, then Fuuma was not a complete being.

He assumed that the chains referred to the chains of fate that clung to him, and he would not be surprised if Kamui had something very much like this within his own mind. The shroud he was not quite as certain of, but it most likely was a reference to how, in a bizarre way, Fuuma and Kamui could be seen as figures of Christ. He was not very knowledgeable about Christianity or any other Western religion, but he was fairly certain that the position in which Fuuma was now was the very way they saw their Savior.

"The city belongs to the Dragon of Earth," Subaru said at length. "Is that true?"

Fuuma gave some semblance of a shrug. "Yes. It's both of ours, but more his than mine. That's Tokyo as it would have been if I had won. Which I assume I didn't, since I'm the one in a coma and you're here."

"No, you lost," Subaru answered vaguely. "Then if I were to look for the Dragon of Earth, that piece of you, would I be able to find him and speak to him in the city?"

"I wouldn't recommend it. He doesn't like visitors."

"Then I could."

Another vague shrug. "Sure you could. But I don't recommend it."

"Will you wake now, that you two are not one whole person, and you will be able to return to Kamui the way he once knew you?"

Fuuma did not answer him. Subaru tried again. "Will you?"

"Don't know," Fuuma answered. "I could, but I don't think my being 'alive' and with him will help him. I don't know… I don't want to be alive and incomplete, and not while the Dragon of Earth is still in me and could take over at any time… I don't know."

Without warning, the ground beneath them began to tremble. An earthquake swept over the shrine, so violent that Subaru was forced to keep from falling by gripping the doorframe and grounding his feet to the floor. But as quickly as it had come, it had passed. All of the candles continued to flicker their dim light.

"You've got to go," Fuuma said slowly. "He knows you're here."

"What?"

"I told you he doesn't like visitors. If he comes here, he'll kill you, and I think as an onmyouji you know what happens when you're killed within a mind and your own mind."

Subaru did. Forced to be like Fuuma, comatose throughout life, did not strike him as a very inviting idea.

"I'm not through talking to you."

Fuuma smiled. "Didn't think you were. So I'll see you soon, ne, Subaru-kun?"

Subaru had already begun the incantation that would take him from Fuuma's mind to have the chance to be insulted by the use of the honorific.

Drawing out of a mind was not a process like that of going within. The images that he saw when diving into a mind all vanished. Around him, there was nothing but black nothingness, that steadily and steadily grew brighter as he seemed to be drifting further and further away from Fuuma, from the shrine, from the ruined city, away from the red moon. There was a flash of white and within the real world his eyes snapped open.

"Subaru?"

Kamui was leaning over him, a hand resting on the small of his back. His voice was filled with concern. Subaru waved him dismissively away as he attempted to regain the breath he had lost on his return.

"Subaru? Hey, Subaru!"

"I'm all right," Subaru managed, his voice coming out more forceful that he had intended. "You of all people should know what that spell does to me."

Kamui winced slightly at the tone. "Sorry, I was just worried, and a few minutes after you . . . well, after you went out of it, you started to bleed from the mouth."

Subaru frowned and touched a finger to his lips. As Kamui had said, warm blood was there. He laughed a little. "It happens sometimes," he replied, "if entering is difficult for me."

Kamui feebly offered him a Kleenex. Subaru wiped up the traces of blood and allowed himself to rest for a moment, his head leaning forward against the bed. He did not look up at Kamui until his breathing had become even and natural. Kamui was looking at him, amethyst eyes wide with worry. Subaru smiled.

"Come on, give me a hand," he said, forcing himself to stand up. Kamui came immediately to his side and slipped under his arm to support him.

"We'll go to my place," Subaru continued, "and I'll tell you about it…"