Aishuu Offers:
How Could an Angel Fall so Far?
Disclaimer: CLAMP is the creator of Subaru and the
like; I�m merely playing.
Spoilers: Tokyo Babylon OAV 1, and X:1999 all the way
through!
~*~*~*~*~*~



When you accept the badge, you accept both the best
and worst in humanity.  You just rarely see it in the
same human in one lifetime.

Tonight, I did.  And it almost broke my faith in the
world.

I�ve been a cop for going on twenty-five years now,
and I�ve seen my share of strange cases.  Bodies turn
up, they don�t turn up� and the mystical is entwined
far more often then I�d like.  It was through those
mystical occurrences I met Sumeragi Subaru, and he
saved my life.

I never figured out how the small teenager managed to
drive back Nagumo Shinji, or how he and his friend
saved my life.  Subaru was always at the back of my
mind when I thought of how I wanted my grandchildren
to turn out; sure, he dressed a bit strangely, but his
heart was true and he was powerful.  He loved the
world, and something in his eyes told me he genuinely
cared about everyone, even those who hated him.  

Whenever my thoughts drifted towards him, I remember
his eyes, which were so piercingly green that
emeralds, if I may wax a bit poetic, paled in
comparison.  Something about him struck me as fey, not
quite of this world, and I always wondered if he was a
figment of my imagination, an angel I had summoned to
guide me through the hardest trial of my life.

Now�
	
The night was just entering its darkest part, with the
moon high in the sky.  The stars were hidden by all
the light pollution from night sky.

I looked up at the night sky, hoping for a glimpse of
one of the brightest stars, as I entered the station. 
I was on a murder case, not all that unusual. Tokyo
was a large city, and there are many deaths, but�
these were my least favorite. Murders, especially the
murders of young girls.

I have a daughter who was once that age. I was glad I
wasn�t the one who had to call the parents this time.

Still, this time, things were even more uncomfortable
to me, since the prime suspect who had been found near
the scene was someone I knew. 

I walked in and went straight to the questioning
rooms, and entered after knocking briefly.  It had
been nearly a decade since I�d seen him last, and the
years hadn�t been kind to him. He was leaning against
the opposite wall, obviously waiting for someone. 
�Hello, Yamakawa-san,� he said, and his eyebrow rose
slightly to acknowledge my presence, before he glanced
away. His voice was deeper and smoother than the high
treble of his teens, but that wasn�t the most
remarkable change.

Sumeragi Subaru had grown up. His clothing was solid
black, but still expensive. I had half been expecting
him to be wearing the outrageous colors of his youth,
but perhaps� I shook the thought away. His hair was
shorter then it used to be, and he was taller than he
had been at sixteen.  Still, it was his eyes that
shocked me most. 

One was still the brilliant emerald I remember so
well, but the other was a brown amber that seemed to
pierce through me and dismiss me as worthless. When
Subaru looked at me, it was like one eye was promising
me heaven as the other banished me to hell.

I wondered exactly what the intervening years had done
to him, to change him so.

I looked at him levelly, forcing myself to stay calm.
"I�d say it�s nice to see you again, Sumeragi-san, but
this really isn�t the place for it. Can I get you
something to eat? Drink?" 

Establish familiarity, I counseled myself. I
remembered the lessons I had been given so long ago as
a rookie by my mentor, and those lessons steadied my
nerves, even as I stared at the unnatural eyes of the
man who had saved my life nearly a decade ago. The
routine was the only thing that kept me from going
completely over the edge, and I wondered why he was
here... It had to be a mistake. 

He smiled at me, and it was quiet, and without joy or
comfort, more of a rote expression. "I'm not hungry,"
he said. He slid into one of seats and plucked at the
gloves he wore idly, and I noted them. 

Damn it... Gloves meant no fingerprints. A good
prosecuting attorney would point that out as an act of
premeditation. That is, if Subaru ever got charged
with the murder.

I knew I should get myself reassigned due to conflict
of interest, but most people had had dealings with the
Sumeragi at some point. None of us were impartial. We
wanted to get him free as soon as possible. That is...
If he was innocent. Favors only went so far, and we
loved justice even more, or at least most of us did.
We weren't a dirty precinct. 

"Subaru-kun..." I started, but then hesitated as he
turned his focus from the wall he'd been staring at
blankly to my face. There was something so
disconcerting about being the center of his
attention... Rather like being a bug under a
magnifying glass on a hot summer's day. 

"Yes, detective?" he asked, placing his elbows on his
table and resting his chin on the back of his hands.
He tilted his head my way inquisitively, and for the
first time since meeting him, he seemed alert and
interested in his surroundings. I wondered if he was
on drugs. Lord knows, with him losing his sister
like... 

It clicked. 

His sister had had her heart torn out... 

Tonight's victim... 

Was he.... 

My thoughts were racing a mile a minute as I tried to
piece things together, but after a second of rookie
enthusiasm, I forced myself to take a step back. Don't
leap to conclusions, I chided myself. Let him tell his
story, and figure it out from there. "Can you tell me
why you were out tonight?" I asked him. 

He seemed to fade in and out- that's the only way I
can describe it. One second, he was completely there
mentally, and the next, his mind was somewhere else
for a second. It was brief, but it made the hairs on
my back stand on end. I wondered if he was doing
something supernatural. 

"I was working," he said, and his eyes seemed to
regain their focus. 

"Can you tell me for who?" I asked, taking a sip of
coffee. The coffee in the questioning room was the
worst in the building, and that was saying something.
Privately, I'm convinced it's a subtle form of torture
to elicit confessions. 

He seemed to grow melancholy, but that, too was washed
away almost as quickly as it had come. "An old friend,
I guess you'd say..." 

Something about that made me wonder. With mystiques,
you never knew what they meant. I had once questioned
a woman who had sworn that she had eight past lives,
and each live had its own burdens. It had driven me up
a wall when life six had stonewalled life four...
"Does this friend have a name?" I asked. 

I had thought he was distant before, but somehow,
whatever warmth remained from our former friendship
was forgotten and he turned into an ice cube in front
of my eyes. His hands fell to the table and he
straightened, and something about Subaru seemed to
become hard. 

He seemed to pull that same stunt of disappearing
right in front of my eyes; his body was there, but his
mind was elsewhere.  �It doesn�t matter. He�s not� of
your world anymore.�

I shivered. It was going to be one of those things. 
He was the Head of the Sumeragi Clan, and in the
decade since I had seen him, he had become divorced
from my mundane world.

"Someone died tonight," I finally said, trying to
bring him back to the topic at hand, and into my
reality. It felt like try to tie-down an extra-large
helium balloon with thread. I knew the thread wouldn't
hold, but I had to at least make the token effort. 

Had he been the boy I had first met, he would have
been sorrowful at my pronouncement. Now he merely
toyed with the fabric of his gloves, before sighing.
"Someone dies every minute we live. That's the way of
things... Usually the spirits are okay with that." 

I took a sip of the horrid coffee to keep from
committing another homicide. I wondered if he was
trying to be intentionally irritating, or if he really
was that gone from the values that most people
accepted. I knew that as an onmyouji, he wouldn't see
death quite the same way I did; he spoke to people
after they died, but for me, I saw death as an end.
Not even he, supposedly the most powerful member of
the Sumeragi clan since it became the spiritual
protectors of Japan, could bring the dead back to
life. 

"Subaru-kun... Someone was murdered," I said, trying
to redefine the situation. "You know that upsets the
spirit, and it's my job to figure out what happened.
You were found near the site, and I need to know what
you were doing out there. This should just be a
routine questioning, but you're making things
difficult." 

Subaru seemed to vanish again, and I wondered if he
was holding a mental battle against a spirit that was
trying to possess him. "You know me, Yamakawa-san...
Do you think I'm capable of killing someone?" 

I stared at him. Ten years ago, I would have answered
with a resounding "no." Now... "I think anyone is
capable of murder, given the right circumstances." 

"Diplomatic answer," he said, and a smile played on
his lips. He sighed, and then produced a cigarette
from seemingly no where. "I need to smoke, want one?" 

Some investigators liked to deprive people of their
cigarettes, but I had always found it made them
irritable and less cooperative. 

"No, but go ahead." He smiled and I watched his
slender hands expertly dealt with the lighter. 

I wondered how long he'd been using the cancer sticks;
my father had died of lung cancer, and I was less than
tolerant of those who chose to use them. "Smoking will
kill you, Subaru-kun," I said. 

"People in my line of work don't tend to live long
enough to get cancer," he said softly. 

He was acting so fey, I thought, but I forced myself
back to the investigation. "Are you going to
cooperate? I know you have friends higher up than me,
and you can to pull strings over this..." 

I knew that his grandmother had probably already
kicked the gears into motion, and the longer he
stalled me, the more likely it'd be that he'd walk out
without giving me anything. I hated dealing with those
in power. And I was starting to hate the man Sumeragi
Subaru had become. 

It wasn't just that he was powerful politically
(though I'm sure he is), but there was an intangible
power that was rolling off him in waves that made me
draw back and shiver slightly. He was powerful in more
ways than I could wrap my mind around, and it
frightened me. 

He sighed. "I was out... On a job. I didn't hear
anything that was, out of the ordinary, but then might
out of the ordinary varies wildly from the ordinary
person's." 

"Did you see anyone running, acting suspicious?" 

"Most people would say I'm was the most suspicious
person there, Yamakawa-san..." he said, and he took a
long drag of his cigarette before tapping the ash off.
"I wear black, gloves... Work with spirits..." he
trailed off. 

He was feeding all the suspicions in my head, almost
as though he knew they were there, and was having fun
toying with me. 

"We're working with a serial killer, here. This
killer's been on the prowl for a very long time, and I
think your sister may have been one of the victims," I
said bluntly. 

That got his attention.  He removed his cigarette and
crushed it into the ashtray, but I noticed he pocked
the stub� something most people didn�t bother with.
Police had been know to collect DNA evidence from
cigarette butts, and I wondered if he was thinking
about that.

Still, what he did next chased all thoughts of DNA and
evidence from my mind.

Subaru blinked his mismatched eyes slowly, and I
almost shivered at the preternatural quality he now
held.  �Yamakawa�� and this time he dropped the
honorific, and rose out of his seat so he could lean
across the table.  He was so close to me that I could
feel his breath on my cheek, but it wasn�t warm; it
was icy, and it felt like I was standing naked outside
in the middle of a blizzard.  �Do you believe in
destiny?� he asked me.

 There was something terrifying about the way he
waited for me to answer.

His eyes� damned me and redeemed me, and I felt like I
was falling into a collidescope.

I forced myself to stay calm; it was one of the
hardest things I had ever done.  There was no way a
good detective lost his cool when questioning a
suspect, especially when the suspect went psychotic on
you.  You played their game, to a point, so they would
play yours.  �I know there�s such a thing as destiny-
but I know we can make our own.  I remember Nagumo,� I
said.  �He avoided destiny, but you managed to turn it
around on him.�
	
Subaru smiled faintly, and fell back into the seat,
and adjusted his collar.  He seemed amused and
saddened by me.  �There is a destiny for all of us,
even Nagumo� his destiny was to be destroyed that
night.�

�What does destiny have to do with it?� I demanded. 
�I�m investigating a murder, and if a murderer says �I
was destined to do it,� as a defense, we�re still
going to lock him up!�

For the first time that evening, I had his complete,
undivided attention.  �You� are a good man.  The world
needs more men like you� you want things to be fair
and just, but do not shy away from the shadows and
truth�� He smiled bitterly. �You have only one fault,
though� you let your friendship blind you to those you
care for��

I looked at the Subaru sitting in front of me, and
tried to transpose the memory of the boy I had known�
and I could not.

Sumeragi Subaru, the Thirteenth Head of the Sumeragi
Clan, was gone.  What had replaced him was something
out of the nightmares of children.  

I knew then.

He had killed that girl we had found� and we would
never find the evidence to pin it on him.

His attention faded again, even though I was also
convinced that he knew exactly what I was thinking. 
�The phone�s for you,� he informed me.  �I�ll be going
now.� He rose to his feet, dusting off nonexistent
dirt from his dark coat.

�The-� I began, but the phone rang, right on cue. I
turned to picked it up and a gruff voice informed that
the Sumeragi was to be released, and the case was to
be buried. Then the line went dead.

And I almost died inside as well. Was this the justice
system I served, that let a girl�s murder go
unchallenged? Was this the world I loved, that twisted
a sweet boy into something dark and sinister? I forced
myself to take a deep breath before turning around,
ready to beg Subaru for the truth, though I doubted he
knew what that was anymore.

�Subaru-� I started, but the room was empty, with only
the heady perfume of sakura blossoms to mark that he
had ever been there at all.
	
~*~*~*~*~*~


Notes:

This is a companion to �Just Someone I Used to Know�
^_~  I�m thinking of a third fic to round this series
out. I think The little girl from �Save Me� is due for
another encounter� I know it�s been done, but� ^_~ not
MY way.

Yamakawa is the detective from the TB OAV1�. Thought
we�d let him encounter Sakurazukamori Subaru, ne?

Thanks go to Xandra and Ly for the prodding on this
fic- it took over a MONTH to write, which is a very
long time for one of my oneshots!  Credits MUST go to
Leareth. Not only did she answer my question on
Yamakawa�s name, but this DOES have a distinct flavor
of �In My Line Of Work.� Wasn�t intentional, but�
well, you bring Subaru to a police station for
questioning� still, I think it�s distinct enough to
stand.


=====
Sing what you can't say
Forget what you can't play
Hasten to drown into beautiful eyes
Walk within my poetry, this dying music...
My loveletter to nobody
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Quicksilver/
http://www.midnightrevolution.org/quicksilver/

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