"Hey if you fall in love
Does everyone become this lonely?
Hey are you embracing this pain
Deeper than the darkness?"

-- "Yakusoku Wa Iranai" (Tenkuu No ESCAFLOWNE)

It had to come down to this, ne?

Subaru Sumeragi gazed at the older man across the building roof. The man wearing a business suit and a coat, his beautiful eyes hidden by the eyeglasses that signified his wisdom...and hid his strength. He gave a sad smile.

"We both tried to avoid it," the older man said.

He nodded and looked away. He was older now, too. And wiser. But age didn't release the pain. Hokuto, his sister, was dead. And the man he loved killed her.

That man...once his friend. Seishirou.

"It could never be helped," Subaru whispered.

Seishirou smiled at him. "At least it will be me." He took a step forward. "I wouldn't want anybody else enjoy you."

"You're sick, Seishirou," Subaru spat out angrily.

He took another step. Subaru fell back. "Are you afraid of me, Subaru?" Seishirou asked, a glint in his eye.

"No," Subaru replied, his voice shaking.

"What are you afraid of? The outcome of the world?" Seishirou stopped and shook his head. "Hinoto has poisoned your brain."

"Not as much as Kanoe poisoned yours." Subaru glared at him. Not as much as you poisoned mine. "I believed you, Seishirou. What happened?"

"We happened." Seishirou held out his hand, a small burst of ki appearing before his palms. "It wasn't supposed to happen."

"What should have?" Subaru looked down at his feet. His priest robes flew waved with the wind. He had long discarded of the black tightsuit he used to wear...had discarded everything since Hokuto died. But not his feelings...he could never let go...

"I love you, Subaru," Seishirou said, looking at him intently.

Subaru took another step back, as if the words hurt him. "I--" He became silent. "I know."

"Do you...?"

"I--I don't--don't know." He was becoming scared. But not of Seishirou. Of himself. He was scared that he'll throw away everything for this man...all over again...

"You do, you know. Hokuto knew it. I know it." Seishirou smiled. "You still do."

"NO!"

"Do you remember what I told you?" The older man smiled at the memory, at him. "What I promised you?"

Subaru froze. Unfortunately, he remembered it all too well...

I promise, as long as you're alive, I won't let anyone hurt you.

But, Seishirou, I don't know what you're promising me...

Now, he knew. And knowing what it meant hurt the most. Seishirou hadn't kept his promise. He had gone against it. He still hurt. Hurt bad.

"I still won't hurt you--"

"SHUT UP!" Subaru screamed, clamping his hands to his ears. "Shut up! You promised you won't! What the hell do you think are you doing right now?!" He could feel tears squeezing out of his shut eyes. Like petals falling off a flower...

"Protecting you..." But his voice was sad. "And myself."

Subaru knelt, biting his lips until he could taste blood. Damn you, Seishirou! DAMN YOU! "I hate you," he whispered. "I hate you!"

Seishirou stepped back, suddenly taken aback. "Nanda..."

"You were wrong...wrong!" Subaru shouted, looking at him. "Whatever happened, we would always play opposites! We'll always be against each other! How the hell do you think you can protect me?"

Seishirou closed his eyes. It was the first sign of emotion Subaru had seen from him since three years ago, when it all began. "Subaru..."

"I hate you," he seethed, feeling a dam breaking inside of him. "I hate you!"

Seishirou looked away, from the building. It was getting dark. And, surprisingly, sakura petals began to fall from the sky. He caught one and looked at it.

"Remember what I told you about the sakura tree, Subaru-chan?" he asked softly.

Subaru's hands fell away and he looked up. "Nani...?"

"Do you?"

Subaru hesitated. "H--hai."

"Listen to me," Seishirou said in a hard voice. "The blood of those samurais were seeped from the tree...making the pure white petals to blood pink." He turned to Subaru. "Something so cruel...could become so beautiful."

Subaru stared at him silently.

Seishirou walked towards him and looked down at him, the kneeling man. He held out his hand and caressed his cheek. "Cruel...but so beautiful..." he repeated.

"Seishirou..."

The sakura petals continued to fall.

Subaru stood and shook his head, smiling at his feet. "Seishirou."

"Subaru."

"I--" Subaru hesitated. "I don't--love you anymore."

And the world came tumbling down upon them.

They jumped apart. A large barrier had been brought in between them so suddenly, yet they were closer. So near...yet so far...

"You..." Seishirou whispered.

Subaru smiled sadly. "Tragic, isn't it?" he asked softly. "In your own words. Once."

"Subaru."

Suddenly, they stopped and turned sharply. They felt it, a cold wind...the feeling of total end.

The sakura petals disappeared.

Subaru turned to Seishirou and saw that, he, too, was distracted. "Kamui," he said, remembering the face he saw briefly in his mind and wondered if Seishirou saw it, too. "Kamui...is back."

"To fulfill his destiny," Seishirou agreed, clenching his hands.

They stared at each other.

"Our destiny," Seishirou said, his voice dropping.

"Our destiny to fight," Subaru agreed.

Seishirou smiled. "I am a Shinou-Ryu. You are a Tenou-Ryu. It has always been out destiny to be against each other."

Then why did we have to meet? Why did we have to love?

Subaru nodded and held out his hand. His tears had disappeared, but his heart's tears didn't. A star-shaped kekkai appeared, pulling them into a different dimension.

Seishirou looked at the kekkai forming. "Perfect," he said, impressed.

You always said that...about me.

"I don't want anyone from the outside getting hurt," Subaru replied.

Their eyes met again, and held. An arm's touch away...

Subaru held out his arm and let his ki burst. A green aura flew to Seishirou. Not enough to kill him, he knew, but enough to let him know he was serious.

Subaru is strong, but I'm stronger. And when I kill, I kill without mercy.

Seishirou held out his arms. The ki blast returned, but it was a flock of birds...crows.

Subaru darted away, jumping back for more than a meter, his fluid motions swiftly pulling away from the crows. "Hayah!" He built up his ki inside, aura spilling with green light.

Seishirou put his hands in his coat pocket, the building cement he was standing on pulling away and lifting him. A red aura surrounded him, getting stronger and stronger.

Seishirou.

Subaru.

Dragons rose and met, fighting, yet holding back. Then, fighting willingly, desperately, not for the world but for each other.

Red and Green. Intertwined and drawing back, they bit and roared, screaming angrily from the land and sky, wishing for the end...

That came.

Defeated.

Subaru closed his eyes, feeling himself falling from a hundred meters from the ground, to the building. He still had a chance, if he stood once against Seishirou.

But he was tired of running, tired of flying. He just wanted to fall...to be caught.

Subaru...

My mind is playing tricks again. But he could feel the arms around his body, cradling him. The area will be destroyed if he didn't fight, but he didn't care.

"Subaru."

He opened his eyes slowly. "Seishirou...?"

Seishirou, the Seishirou he knew, held him closer. "Forgive me," he whispered, the Green Dragon still devouring Subaru's Red Dragon, his aura.

Subaru smiled, tears streaming down his face. He embraced the older man. "Seishirou...I still don't love you."

Seishirou pulled back, and Subaru realized that he, too, was smiling and crying. "Liar."

They kissed.

The land was closer, the cement building not intact. They fell hard, fell fast. They still held each other.

But Subaru died first.

~ * ~

Kamui Shirou looked around in surprise as the green thing...a kekkai...began to dissolve and disintegrate. What just happened? Were those dragons I just saw? Where are those two men?

As the kekkai disappeared, he could see the once ruined building return to being intact. He blinked, wondering what just happened.

Then, before his eyes, the building began to fall apart. The glass windows shattering to the streets, the building crushing from an invisible force.

Kamui watched as the very tall building was demolished.

Kaasan...I came back for this...?

He jumped towards the remains, ignoring the screams of the people. Those two men...he had to find them!

Suddenly, he could feel a ki from behind him. It was slow, just watching him, not rising. He whirled around.

A man was standing on top of a shorter building, a street away from the rubble. His voice was soft, but Kamui could hear him better than those other people.

"The fight for the world has begun."

Then, the man turned and blended with the shadows.

Kamui returned to the task at hand. But he knew no one could have survived that explosion...not to mention that fall.

He bowed, just as he felt something fall.

Kamui looked up again, wondering if it was the sakura petals that he remembered so much...the pink petals that everybody, including his own mother, so loved.

But he was wrong.

Instead of the sakura petals he expected, the drops were rains of blood falling on his face. Each drop, he could hear voices...haunting him. Probably of those two men.

I promise, as long as you're alive, I won't let anyone hurt you.

I know what you're promising me now, Seishirou.

Kamui Shirou bowed, turned, and began to walk away from the rubble.