Note: this may, or may not be, a prequel to Lights of Saint-Denis
Rating: PG The characters and setting do not belong to me. They're Clamp's. Trust me on that.
Virtual Future: Ten years later, to the day
by Beth
When it's all over, Subaru does not know what to do with himself.
For a while, he busies himself with helping to rebuild the city, pitching in with the thousands of other volunteers who raise the skyscrapers of Shinjuku back to their proud heights. Then his help is no longer needed, because Tojo Pharmaceuticals has nanomachines that build towers in a matter of days.
The new buildings are shimmering, moving, changing. He cannot help but think that in a way, they're the fulfillment of mad environmentalist dreams, living creatures where once cold stones stood.
The environmentalists don't like them: he finds enough leaflets in his mailbox to determine this. They condemn the new buildings as unnatural and profane. He disagrees.
He still receives mail in the other name, even after the official papers go through. The address remains the same, after all, and he does not think he'll ever change that. He feels too much at home, too much close to the other here. He reads through the vast library and loses himself in other people's nightmares.
Princes and politicians still come to him for advice and aid in removing obstacles in their paths. As he is bound to do, he examines each case and determines whether the danger is real. And takes care of it.
It is what he does, but not what he means. He isn't sure he knows the latter any longer.
One evening, he visits the park. (There is only one park in Tokyo for him. Only one he ever thinks of by that name.) There are paper lanterns in the branches, and with surprise he realizes it's the tenth anniversary of what people call the mother-earthquake, or the Final Day. (The correct name is The Final Day of the Greatest Disaster of Our Time. He supposes it is too poetic for everyday use).
There is someone under the tree.
"He told me to wait for you here," she says. She's five years old at a glance, and wearing a black kimono. "He said you'd come."
"Who?" he asks, but knows before she speaks.
"He was tall, and had black hair, and sunglasses at night," she says with delight. "And then he took them off, and he had no eyes at all!"
Thank you, he thinks, as he looks into her eyes. "And you are?"
"Sakurazuka Rei."
Above her, the tree stretches up, seemingly as high as the nanotech buildings. Petals fall around them, and in the whistling of the wind he hears a voice:
Life goes on, Subaru-kun. So live.
{FINIS}