Prologue - The Undecided Future
Life is real—life is earnest—
And the grave is not its goal:
Dust thou art, to dust returnest,
Was not spoken of the soul.
Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,
Is our destin'd end or way;
But to act, that each to-morrow
Find us farther than to-day.
-- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow; “A Psalm of Life”
-----------------------------
“Do you always come here when you dream?”
Fuuma started out of a trance and looked to his side as a smiling young woman sat down beside him—Christ she has green eyes—crossing her legs and leaning on the heel of her hand. He had not felt her approach; he always felt people approach, especially if they were specifically approaching him. He had been meditating on a grassy knoll overlooking the flooded, sunlit manifestation of Tokyo’s ruins, light glaring off the concrete and glass skyscrapers carpeted with lush greenery.
“Not always.”
He observed the woman for a moment, feeling as though he was staring at a doll, all plastic and no mind. He always had an innate, deeply-rooted knowledge of people he met, arriving through no logical progression but all at once and without herald, as though he had always had the information in his permanent memory. He blinked. She can’t be a dreamseer. She can’t be alive, for that matter; she has to be a spirit. But what is she doing all the way out here?
“You’re dead, aren’t you?”
The woman nodded. “Yup, I’m dead. I’m sorry if I startled you, but I like to wander around, and I’ve got enough magical power to go places like this. I don’t know where it is, but it’s pretty.” She leaned back on her hands. “Sad, but pretty. Kind of like you. What’s your name, by the way?”
Another flicker, flashing and gone, and Fuuma stared.
“…Kamui.”
“Aaaaah, so you’re the Kamui I heard about for so many years.”
“You must come from a well-educated background. Few people have heard of me.”
“You might say that. Oh, I’m Hokuto, by the way. Sumeragi Hokuto.” Hokuto offered her hand and, when Fuuma took it, shook it heartily. “I’m so happy to meet you! I haven’t talked to anybody new in ages. It’s so boring here. Everybody in the afterlife acts like they’re dead, which is no fun at all. They act like they’re done with life. I say, I’m not done until I say I’m done living, you know? You don’t need a pulse to do that! Oh, I’m sorry, I’m rambling. What are you doing here? What is this place?”
Fuuma did not notice until a full second had passed that his eyes were wide open, eyebrows arcing under his gelled bangs, though his mouth barely twitched. Hokuto cocked her head. A dangling, coral earring brushed her shoulder. “Huh? What’s wrong?”
“…nothing.” Fuuma smoothed his expression neutral and turned back to the sunlit ruins. “I just haven’t been surprised by a person in ages, and it is disorienting.”
“What, do you only know boring people, or what? People never fail to surprise me, no matter how much I think I know about them.”
“No, no. I… I have a knowledge of people’s minds, so to speak; people are open and clear to me. You are not.”
“Well, that must be because I’m dead.”
“I assume that’s it.”
“But you’re Kamui; why don’t your powers extend to the spirits of the dead?”
Fuuma leaned back on his hands and scoffed quietly through his nose. “The extent of my concern, you might say, concerns those still living.”
“What on earth do you mean by that?”
When Fuuma merely smiled to himself in response, Hokuto snorted and settled back on her hands. Though she was at the fringe of his peripheral vision, Fuuma could tell that she was thinking, studying him carefully. You and everybody else, missie. I’d like to hear what you have to say about what you think I’m up to.
“Looks like you could use a good shaking, anyway,” she finally said. “You’re too self-possessed.” Hokuto poked Fuuma on the nose; Fuuma blinked and turned to stare at her, but did not flinch. It was evident to no one but himself that he had been caught off-guard. “You didn’t answer my questions, by the way.”
“…I didn’t.” Fuuma’s eyes flickered back to the sunlit ruins a split-second before he turned his head after them. “This is a hypothetical vision of the future earth, a symbolic representation of my ideal.”
“You mean, like, you’re a dreamseer?”
“No; I do not have the power to see into the future.”
“Aaaah. It’s pretty, but something’s sad about it.” Hokuto put her forefinger on her lip for a moment, thinking. “Hmmm… ah! I guess it’s because there are no people.”
“In this world, the earth has been purged of humanity.”
Hokuto turned to stare at the ruins, a faint, perplexed look crossing her face. “This is what you think the aftermath of the great war will be? Something this pretty? I don’t know…”
“We refuse to use biological or nuclear means, so the ecosystem will not be harmed.” Fuuma ran his fingers through the springy grass beside his leg. “Spilt blood and flesh will replenish the soil humans have farmed to dust, and the earth will revitalize herself.”
“Funny, it doesn’t seem that’s really what you’re so concerned about.” Hokuto leaned toward Fuuma and stared into his eyes when he looked up, hands on her bare knees. God, her eyes are green. “When I found you, you were looking at something that’s not here. You weren’t thinking about this new earth at all, were you?”
“…in a sense.”
“What do you mean?”
They were nose-to-nose.
She can see the ‘real’ me, can’t she; she doesn’t see a reflection of her heart’s wish. So, in life, what would she have seen in me? She called me ‘sad’… which means—
“…the revolution I long for lies in humanity itself.”
“Huhhh…” Hokuto cocked her head, not backing off a centimeter. “Well, goodness knows humans could use some help with things, but there’s some stuff you just can’t change about them, or they’re no longer human.”
“I can’t elaborate further.”
“You mean, you go around granting everybody else’s wishes, but you can’t do anything about your own?”
Barely a flicker of shock marred Fuuma’s controlled stare. His mouth twitched involuntarily, slightly. Hokuto stared back, trying to maintain the tension for as long as she could, but broke just after the tension had reached its first peak and subsided. She smiled and tapped the side of her nose.
“It’s very obvious,” she said. She tapped Fuuma’s cheek; Fuuma blinked. “You know, I used to know a dreamseer who was very sad because he could only watch the future, but he couldn’t do anything about it; is that kind of what you’re feeling with your wish? Like, it’s up to somebody else, but you can’t do anything about it?”
Something inside Fuuma gave way; his standoffish, defensive inclination evaporated in lieu of a sick, benevolent feeling. He smiled to himself and leaned on the heel of his hand, cocking his head to stare at Hokuto.
“…I’ve done all I can to make him realize it, even if it means ripping his life apart.”
“Ohhhh… who is this mysterious man?” Hokuto pulled away and leaned back on her hands excitedly. “Is he a brother or a best friend? Or… a lover?”
Fuuma laughed quietly. “You know, Hokuto-san, most men would not respond well to being accused of homosexuality.”
“Oh, I’m sorry!” Hokuto clapped her hands together and bowed behind them, using them as both a shield and piece offering. “You see, I don’t even think about it anymore. I grew up with a gay brother and I spent the last year of my life trying to hook him up with another guy, so it’s like second nature to me. I didn’t mean to offend you!”
“I took no offence whatsoever.”
“Good! Wow, I keep forgetting that most men actually only prefer to be with women!” She laughed. “But what’s the answer there, I mean, who is this guy that’s holding the key to your wish?”
“…he is me.”
“Oh, so it’s like that.”
“I’m serious. He is my Gemini, the other Kamui. The reciprocal.”
“…there’s another Kamui?”
“Yes.”
“Huh…” Hokuto held her chin between her thumb and pointer finger, furrowing her eyebrows and looking to the side in thought. “That’s odd; I had heard all my life there was only one Kamui.”
“As I said, he is me.”
“He is… AH!” She looked up. “I get it!” She clapped again and nodded. “You’re his reflection, his shadow! You must be everything he’s not so the world would balance itself out!”
“…you truly were raised a Sumeragi to think so quickly in that way.”
“When you’re raised onmyouji-style, everything is in blacks-and-whites, opposites-and-patterns, reflections and perfect circles of karma. Maybe that’s why I didn’t do so well with training to be an onmyouji; I think it’s all bullshit.”
She laughed and flopped onto her back, folding her hands behind her head. Fuuma felt a response stir within his chest, something indescribable but second cousin to melancholy and longing. For a moment, he desperately wanted this laughing, optimistic girl, pale olive skin and slender limbs, ebon hair and green eyes, orange Mandarin top against the grass and all the while laughing, laughing, cerebral butterflies range in and out of the corners of his eyes—
“…I guess I’m glad I didn’t, you know, get that power, otherwise people’d have been on my back all the time,” said Hokuto. “I wouldn’t want to be trained to make patterns where there aren’t patterns; you start twisting reality around to fit some perfect little model you have for it.”
A butterfly flitted blindingly past, rainbow-film wings flashing the sun, and Fuuma saw—
“I see.”
“It’s like, I never liked physics because, well, I didn’t like math, but also all the stuff the teacher taught us about only happened in a perfect world, but in the real world, things screw with the numbers, and random variables get in the way of the perfect reactions. You see…” Hokuto sat up again. You can’t sit still for twenty seconds, can you, girl? “I don’t believe there is such a thing as a perfect circle. My brother’s been trained to think there’s a perfect circle behind all the chaos he sees in his life.”
“Does your brother really think that way deep down?”
“You know…” Hokuto thought for a moment. “…you’d think… for all you see of him sulking around all the time, that he’s given up on the idea of good things happening to good people, but I don’t think even Sei-chan could shake his circles, deep down.”
“You don’t think he’s lost faith?”
“I never said he hadn’t lost faith, because he sure as hell has, but… I don’t know.” Hokuto thought for a while, hands interlinked and stretched straight out into the air, and sighed, dropping her hands over her head. “You know, when it comes right down to it, even I don’t know what my brother thinks about ‘fate’ anymore. You know, if individuals can do anything to control their own destinies. At least when he believed in karma, he was going a step in the right direction. Karma’s something you do, something you influence.”
Fuuma snorted quietly to himself. Hokuto snapped her head in his direction.
“…you know my brother,” she said quietly. “You know something I don’t.”
“I am familiar with him. Sumeragi Subaru-san, yes?” Hokuto nodded eagerly. “Then I know quite a bit of your history and how you died. You’re a big part of his wish.”
A freeze. Fuuma looked at Hokuto. The girl’s expression had frozen in numb anger, and she was gripping the grass, white-knuckled.
“…his wish is stupid,” said Hokuto.
“You know his wish?”
“I guessed his wish, because I know him, and I know how much he values himself. He wants Sei-chan to kill him, doesn’t he?”
“Yes.”
“How stupid can you get?” Hokuto hissed.
Fuuma watched Hokuto stew for a moment, trying his hardest to know her intentions and thoughts, but to no avail. Various emotions and thoughts flickered in conflict across her eyes, but her face remained immobile in deadly-calm fury. The wheels were obviously turning upstairs, though along familiar, often-traveled paths; this was no new issue over which Hokuto agonized. She finally released the grass and hugged her knees, resting her forehead on her folded arms.
“I made a huge mistake,” she said quietly.
“You had no way of knowing, Hokuto-san.”
“But I did, I did! I knew he’d do this; he’s obsessive… I made the biggest mistake of all when I—I don’t know.” Fuuma expected Hokuto to cry, but she only stared at the grass for a long time, collecting her thoughts. “…I was dumb when I was sixteen. I honestly thought that what I did was the right thing, but it wasn’t. I had all these idealistic ideas that really were just… me running away from anybody giving me any kind of general advice, I guess, anything that said ‘all people are like this’, or ‘this is the way you should live to ensure happiness; these are the rules’. You see, I really do believe that there’s no such thing as ‘everybody’, and that everyone has their own path, so I thought… I guess I thought I was helping Subaru down his path. I guess I thought I was going to help Subaru find his true happiness. You see… my brother is very much an altruist, or as close as you can come and be human.”
“Yes, he is.”
“And Sei-chan was the first person he felt passionate enough about not to let go, and I was afraid if he lost him, he’d have even less self-worth than he had before, so… I cast this spell…” Hokuto played with the grass. “You know. When it comes right down to it, Subaru’s not happy. I’ve been watching him… Beyond all of that stuff I believed about there being no wrong love and each person having his own definition of ‘love’, where none of them are wrong… he’s not happy.”
“…no, he’s not.”
Hokuto was silent for a long time. Finally, she sighed and said, “I’ve learned a lot in the years since I died. And I think… I’m afraid I’ve made a mistake. I used to have all the faith in the world that this would work out, but— Hey, you can love somebody passionately enough to light the sky, and still know they’re not going to make you happy, right?”
“Yes.”
Hokuto curled up more tightly and buried her nose between her knees. Fuuma rested back on his hands, watching her.
“You know…” he said quietly, “I wasn’t lying when I said I didn’t always dream about this place. I dream a lot about humans… and, ah… the way they destroy themselves because they believe they’re bound to a fate. The way they waste their lives and just wish to die.”
“It’s stupid! If there’s such a thing as fate, why bother getting out of bed in the morning?” She stared at her up-curved abdomen. “Destiny is every moment a choice—a chain from one choice to the next to the next—and it’s a blank ticket to the future. You can always change paths. You can always go off the path you’re making, no matter how far along it you are. Why do people have to be so fucking blind?”
“…how long have you been waiting to say that one?”
Hokuto stuck her tongue out at Fuuma over her legs. Fuuma smiled at her before looking off into the distance again.
“You realize… I have never spoken with the deceased, but I know that their spirits remain set as they were at the moment of their death. But you’ve matured. You’ve grown. You’ve learned. Why?”
“Oh, because the rest of them are so dumb!” Hokuto looked up over her knees. “They think they’re dead, so they refuse to change and still learn! Being dead’s no reason not to think young!”
“You realize that, as a ghost, you possess more lust for life than the vast majority of humanity I have encountered?” Fuuma paused for a moment. “If only you were my Gemini… you’re the kind of person who would bring my revolution.” Another pause. “May I ask you a question?”
“Yes.”
“Do you think the future has yet to be decided?”
“Always.” She gave him a look. “You’re not going to give me the usual dreamseer ‘Destiny is foreordained’ bullshit, are you?”
“No.”
Fuuma turned from Hokuto and stared over the flood for a long time, thinking. Hokuto remained still, nose buried in the fold of her forearms.
“May I ask you a question?” said Fuuma.
“Yes?” Hokuto mumbled into her legs.
“My only power in this revolution is granting wishes, and I want to know what yours is.”
“My ‘wish’?”
“Yes. Because something tells me any deepest wish in your heart, Sumeragi Hokuto-san, will lead me further toward my revolution.” Fuuma took a quiet breath, aware that he probably looked quite cold and distant; the muscle-set of his face reminded him of Kamui’s corresponding horrified, determined reaction. “Further toward my own wish.”
“And since granting wishes is your only power, you need my help?”
A sad, sardonic smile flickered around Fuuma’s mouth. “I would much appreciate it.”
“…the thing is…” Hokuto paused for a moment. “…the last time I made my deepest wish come true… I don’t know if I did the right thing.”
Her voice had caught; Fuuma stared at her. She remained perfectly still and rigid, hugging her knees tightly.
“Don’t worry,” she said. “I’m not crying. I’ve already cried every tear in my body. I’m surprised I didn’t become a mermaid in the Sea of Tears, with all the other women who have committed sins of selfishness.”
“I don’t think your situation is the kind of thing that gets you chucked into the Sea of Tears.”
“Really? How do you know?”
“My mother ended up in there for her sin.”
“That’s terrible! I’m so sorry!”
“If you tell me your wish, I’ll forgive you.”
Hokuto laughed a little and shook her head. “I’m scared of making decisions to influence the lives of the living, any more than I already have. I really think that only they have the right to decide the course of their lives, for better or worse; nobody should interfere. That is the most basic human right.”
“How would your wish interfere?”
“Nice try.”
“If I tell you mine, will you tell me yours?”
“Trust me, I’m not being silent because I’m shy; you probably already guessed I’m not shy enough.”
“Nonsense. You’re fine.” Fuuma thought for a moment. “I think you want to show to your brother the same thing I want to show to the world.”
“Really? What is that?”
“That you always have a choice. That your ticket to the future is always blank.”
Hokuto was silent for a long time.
“And how do you show this?” she said into her legs.
“If you make things ridiculous enough in one direction, people start to see the benefits of the opposite direction. It’s… gotten out of hand. It’s extreme. It’s wrong. But it’s high time it was done. And humanity will be better for it when they wake up.”
Another long silence.
“It’s a… it’s a horrible wish,” she finally said. “It’s a horrible, horrible wish, and… I don’t know.” Hokuto picked at the grass. “…I don’t know what my heart of hearts is telling me about what’s right. I honestly don’t. I mean, if you take away the one thing that gives somebody all the joy in his life, but has also caused all the pain, you’re taking away his entire world. And it’s not my place to do it. But, at the same time, I know my brother, and... well, I know he’ll never take the initiative to do this on his own unless he’s forced. But I want him to have that chance… just for a little while. To see what will happen.”
“…you want me to knock off the Sakurazukamori?”
Hokuto shook her head and sighed. “…I want him to have a chance to be happy, too. Everybody has the right to love. I don’t care if he’s a serial killer. Even after what he did to my brother, I still love Sei-chan. It’s awful and selfish, but I do. So much. I desperately want to fix him, wake him up, make him a whole human being again, and have him be with Subaru. I’m pissed at him and if I see him again I’ll beat him absolutely shitless, I swear to God, the blind bastard, but I still love him. And, besides, if you killed Sei-chan, Subaru would just get worse… he’s got to heal right. Straight. I mean, not like—” Hokuto laughed. “—that, but, it’s got to happen subtly. If there’s somebody else out there for Subaru… who can make him happy, and if they can love each other just as much, then I want him to have that chance. And if, in the end, it doesn’t work out and he ends up with Sei-chan, then I guess that’s just the way it is.”
“…you want me to separate them.”
“No. I mean… yes. Yes.” Hokuto swallowed and nodded firmly. “Yes.”
“…you do realize that if either of their deepest wishes change so that they oppose yours, I will comply with them as well.”
“…if their wishes are strong enough to counteract mine, I guess they’re meant to be together. But… huh, no, that makes no sense, because it’s not like that would make things better, unless—” Hokuto thought for a moment. Fuuma blinked. I’m not following you here, miss. No wonder humans get so frustrated when they try to communicate. Words are so clumsy and distorting. “…maybe you’ll do what needs to be done for Sei-chan. Maybe you’ll make him realize…”
“And if Subaru ends up with somebody else, what of Seishirou then?”
“I don’t know. You know…” Hokuto looked up at Fuuma. “You, the real you I’m seeing right now, seems like the kind of person he’d be attracted to.” Fuuma scoffed loudly. Hokuto whacked him on the arm. “I’m serious! I think deep down, despite all the terrible things you’ve done, your heart is in the right place. I think you’re as white as snow deep down. Maybe you’d be good for him.”
“I think you’re as white as snow deep down.”
“Kamui-san? Are you all right?”
Super. I think I just had a heart attack.
“And if Subaru gets his heart broken again?”
“At least he was living again.” Hokuto thought for a moment. “And, then, at least, maybe he’ll see that he can love again. Maybe it will help him move on.”
“And it may just make him more cynical.”
Hokuto shrugged. “I think any chance for my brother to be happy is worth it. He can’t get much worse than he is right now, anyway.”
Don’t speak so soon.
“Besides,” said Hokuto, “he may change for the better if he’s with people who give him a new sense of self-worth. I hope that happens. He… he’s got so much to offer, so many incredible qualities that he’s blind to. Anybody would be crazy to pass him up.”
He’s a cripplingly-depressed chain-smoking self-pitying martyr; who wouldn’t pass him up?
“Do you think he is as ‘white as snow’ deep down, Hokuto-san?”
Hokuto shook her head. “No. Pure as he is, Subaru is still a human. He knows it and he hates himself for it. He has all the compassion in the world for everybody else’s faults but his own. You, though—” Hokuto poked the back of Fuuma’s hand for emphasis. “—you’re like a god. The only thing I mourn for you is that I think you’ve lost your selfish humanity. Even Kamui-san has his own life to live.”
Fuuma watched Hokuto for a long time.
And you’re wrong about me there, young lady. My wish goes against everything objectively ‘good’ for this earth I am supposed to protect. I killed my sister to help my wish. I’ve killed and maimed those close to Kamui. But what was I expecting; you to be a prophet?
“…and I think our wishes will move toward the same goal quite nicely, in the end,” he said quietly.
“…you’re going to grant it?” Hokuto whispered.
“It is forbidden for me to make a pact with the dead, as the conflict at hand right now is reserved to the living, but as far as I am concerned, you, miss, are not dead in any of the ways that matter.” Ask the dreamseers and Kanoe, though, and I think they’d have a stroke. “Your boyfriend, Kakyou, met a woman who also believes that the fate of the world has yet to be decided.”
“Well, she sounds like a sensible woman.”
“She was.” Fuuma smiled sadly to himself, staring into the distance. “And more and more I start to see just how sensible she actually was.”
“Well, that’s because men mature so slowly.” Hokuto wagged her finger. “It would do you good just to trust women until you’re about thirty. And even then, defer to them on all matters of importance.”
Fuuma laughed quietly. “I just have to wonder if our fates will be similar, if I interfere too much where I have no right. She died because she touched the fate of the world. When it comes right down to it, I’m as powerless as the dreamseers.”
“What do you mean?”
“I can only catalyze. The people around Kamui, though they have been designated ‘warriors’, exist only to sway him. It will be Kamui who decides the fate of the world.”
Fuuma stood and Hokuto shadowed his movement, looking up at him as he took her hand and ghosted his lips across its back. He saw Hokuto cover her mouth out of the corner of his eye and looked up, smiling, as Hokuto stared back at him with her fingertips on her lips. A latent flicker of motion as she brushed her lip with her forefinger, bending it at the lowest joint, before she lowered her hand to stroke his spiky, gelled hair.
“If only the world was full of people like you,” said Fuuma. “I would have no reason to exist.”
