Encounter

This is something that just popped into my mind from thinking about the
similarities between X and EVA too much. ^_^

BTW, I have only read the translation for he first manga volume and watched
5 minutes of the X movie. All other information was gleaned from friends and
net sources...so please be gentle with this.

	It was night. His favorite time.

	He wrapped his black cloak around  him tighter as he flew silently through
the still night. He could almost laugh at the events now unfolding...he was
returning, again. Still returning to Tokyo, even though the original had
been destroyed in a blaze of fire and the broken remains of years-old magic
not 15 years ago. So many things had changed since that day. The world, the
seasons. The views of people, the whirling, twisting eddies of fate that
could not, refused to be read. In a corner of his mind, he reflected that
only Hinoto, of all of them, had ever been concerned with ephermal things
like that.

	His life. That had been changed, too, irrevocably. He whispered their names
again, futilely, as he had done so many times. As the words escaped his
lips, he realized why he had come back again. This was the day they had
died, the day the world had changed, 15 years after the 2nd Impact.

	"Kamui is returning to Tokyo!"  The old words rang in his mind again. No
one had ever mentioned Fuuma. 

Fate. Life. The Dragons had fought for them, making it all the more ironic
that neither had succeeded. He still remembered the look of shock on Kazue's
face as the kekkai began to rupture during their battle, torn asunder by
forces neither side had summoned. His face stained with his best friend's
blood, Seishirou's corpse at his side and the glowing Shinken in his grasp,
he'd looked towards the crimson and gasped. The breaking of the magical
sub-realities had caused, along with the initial explosion, 2nd Impact. Not
one, not the other.

This was surely the end of the world, he'd thought. They'd all thought.

As if things would end so neatly. He had always wondered; with the twin
priestesses divining, Sorata's stargazing, and Satsuki's Beast, why no one
had sensed the First Angel. Why no one had paid attention to a lowly group
of scientists tracking their weary way towards the North Pole. Science was
as powerful as magic in its own way. Both were responsible for the deaths of
2 billion 15 years ago. How bizarrely appropriate.

But he had only cared for two. Two that had meant the world to him. 

His feet touched the ground as he descended, gently brushing the ground like
a mother's caress. He certainly seemed to be one for nostalgia today. Why?
The old question returned. Why the swords? Why did his mother and theirs
have to die? Fate again, perhaps. Somehow that didn't satisfy him, not then,
not now.

The cloak swept back over his shoulders with a sibilant hiss. There was
enough thinking done. He shoved back the memories into the familiar recesses
of his mind; now was the time for action. If he'd learned anything during
those years, it was not to cry over spilled milk. Or blood.

The moon rose above. Softly, gently, with nary a sound to mark their
passing, the sakura began to fall.

Another one. He let his gaze pass over the tall, nondescript building on his
left. Another Child. So much like him...he also had the ones he wanted to
protect. Somewhere, pity stirred, and he felt again for a moment the keening
pain of his mother's passing. He shook that away as well. It was a mistake
to have returned. He should have stayed away, biding his time, until events
progressed, until at least the Spear made it's appearance. But then again,
that was what they had done last time.

He brushed the pink petals from his shoulder as he regarded the single room
above. A solitary breeze wafted some past his nose, and for a moment, he was
back at the shrine, hand on Fuuma's shoulder, laughing with Kotori as their
mothers shared a joke.

A mistake. Definitely a mistake.

"Are you sure, Dragon of Heaven?"

That voice. He'd heard it before. But then, that had been...there were no
more Dreamspeakers!

"We do not need those. We are beings from a higher plane of existence and
speak to the soul."

The first notes reached him as he saw the white hair, pristine strands
framing red eyes and a strangely childlike face. And then he felt the surge
of power, of, of magic around him as a kekkai sprang into existence,
orange-red hexagons flaring bright against the night sky.

Wait. That wasn't a kekkai. It was the energy that Gomes possessed, the...

"AT Field.. Correct." It was so hauntingly familiar, the voice.

He stood and regarded the floating figure. Incongruously, his hands were in
his pockets, an enigmatic smile on his face. The sakura were still falling.

"What now, Dragon? Or perhaps I should call you the "majesty of god." The
voice turned scornful, mocking.

The old anger surged back. "Who are you? What do you want?" He kept his fury
barely in check; even so, he was sure the other could see the blue strands
of energy that had danced across his fingers seconds ago. He had returned,
it seemed, to what had awaited him before. Cryptic sayings and more foes.

"Kamui has returned to Tokyo!" He was not fooled, this time. The smiling
figure in front of him nodded his head, as if confirmed that fact, then
spoke again.

"Kamui." Black orbs stared into red ones. "Who are you?"

"I don't know." Partially correct. He did know, sometimes. Not often,
though. He suddenly recognized the voice, the expression. Nataku.

The eyes narrowed.

He was sent flying back, reeling from the shock as blast after blast of both
psychic and physical force was sent at him. With a howl, the energy exploded
around him, a blazing corona of cyan light. He focussed the power and lashed
out with it, smiling in satisfaction as the Angel went tumbling backwards. 

Still the same enigmatic smile as he rose out from the debris. He growled
and flung out another bolt of azure lightning, only to see it hit and play
harmlessly against on the peculiar orange-red field he'd seen before. He
struck again with no effect. For a moment he wished he had the
Shinken...it's sacred lightning would have pierced this Angel's barrier soon
enough. The ambient force swirled around him again as he prepared another
attack. The Holy Sword...for a moment, he saw his mother again, engulfed in
flames.

What was it that made the memories return so fast, with such force?

"You being to understand, Kamui." And then the world dissolved into the
hazy, misty outlines of  dream realm.

Not again. This was another return, in another realm. Hinoto's first attempt
at contact came back to him as he looked around. Shattered, broken buildings
everywhere, huge cracks splitting the ground below. The cries, the cries of
pain, and the dark, formless void that stretched overhead like a gaping maw.
Everywhere, dead, everywhere, destruction. The cold, frigid winds swept by
him again, their touch icy upon his skin even with his cloak.

He let their names pass from his lips again as he saw them.

Her hair, just as he remembered it, twisting and floating freely upon the
wind like a living entity. His eyes, large and dark. Still friendly. They
looked up at him.

He could not meet their gaze. "It is not a trick, Hunter. They are there,
alive for a time. Go to meet them." He was no fool. Fools died. He raised
his arms and muttered a spell again. Magician; that was what he was.
No change at all. It was still a dream. Only the howling, ceaseless wind and
the two below.

"Kamui-chan..." he froze at the voice. So like her's..."Kamui..." It was
hers. He swept down to them, a dark angel as his cloak parted. Fuuma greeted
him with a smile.

"I never held it against you, you know. It was fate." 

"Who ARE you?" The words came unbidden. Regret. Hope. They rushed from the
musty corners of his mind, fresh but uncertain from long disuse. He could
see them in Kotori's eyes as well. For a time, they simply sat there,
staring at each other.

"The end of the world." Both Dragons hissed the words, then turned to each
other. 

"Why?" Again, the eternal question. Fuuma simply smiled back, a sad, sad, smile.

"It is not from him to know. Nor for you. You must simply understand."

They faded from his eyes, and he screamed out his frustration to the empty
sky. Taunted within his dreams yet again. Yet, there was something else that
he felt amidst the pain. A hint of...premonition?

"You begin to realize. The majesty of god still lies within you."

They would not taunt him! He reached out with his magic, sending tendrils of
force snaking out to towards the sky and rend chunks of stone from the
fallen works of man. And yet the voice continued.

"You have returned, Kamui. Kamui has once again returned to Tokyo."

Wiser. Sadder. The words came unbidden again, and he saw Kotori's and
Fuuma's faces flash past him. "Why have I returned?" he thought. Mixed with
the hope and the anger were seeds of a greater understanding.

"Look upon destiny." The voice left with a final sibilant hiss, and the
visions began. A sea of red blood. Strange half-mechanical creatures, the
tortured souls inside screaming for release, yet locked in an unholy
symbiosis with the children of sorrow inside them. A giant, bleeding bright
ichor from a spear embedded in it's chest. Nataku's face. No, not Nataku,
the one he had seen earlier but female. She smiled at him.

A lance, it's power shining like a miniature sun before him, forged by the
same magics that had created the Shinken's. A tree, twisting roots reaching
out to all humanity as the rain fell and the wind blew and the end of the
world was nigh. A boy and a girl on a deserted beach, the remains of a
once-great city around them. Then suddenly they were Kotori and Fuuma. The
rain fell, with the soft pink petals of spring dancing slowly with it.

God's tears. He brought his hands up to his own wet eyes. For a moment, he
had seen the light, an intersection of events wrought together in symmetry
beyond mortal knowledge. His destiny.

But now there was only the street, and the harsh glare of streetlamps as
they cast their yellow beams into the darkness. And the rain pattering
around him.

Now resolute in purpose, he began his journey.

*****

	My first non-EVA fanfic (oh well...^_^)! I know I was probably a bit off on
the X details, but read the above.

	Yes, like most of my stuff, surrealistic and confusing. It's not intended
to show or say anything; basically a quickie that I thought up one night.
Hope you like it anyway.

	This fic is dedicated to Christmas! ^_^





Zhou Tai An (kain@pacific.net.sg) "There is no one simple truth." - Rune Walsh

"Who is this? This is I. Who is I? What is I?		   - Rei Ayanami
I am myself. This object is I. The figure that forms me."

When someone stands in the light but does not give it out, a shadow is created.

The ways of nature and of life are strange and deep. They are not to be
understood. In the midst of angers and of wars love's secret work goes on,
and binds us all by blood, and this, whether love is denied or bestowed. -
Pearl S. Buck