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Background Stories	By : Meirav Category: +S to Z > X/1999 Views: 1718 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own X/1999, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 1
- 2
- 3
Disclaimer:
X/1999 belong to Clamp. Grave of the Fireflies belong to the devine Studio Ghibli.

A.N:
AAAAAAAAAH!
Must break out of this chapter�s spirit to tell you that X VOL. 17 JUST
ARRIVED!!!!!! *crumbles to the ground in tears of joy and gratefulness* oh�..oh
god��.*raises hands to the heavens* thank you Clamp! Thank you Clamp, god, his
Holy Messenger Mister Bunny Rabbit-san and anyone else involved in this
brilliant volume!!!! Chibi Kamui and Chibi Fuma��*sobs**sobs* walking in the rain holding hands��..AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!

Ahem�..

Author�s
Thanks: many
thanks to Hellcat81 and Roxane1! And thank you Studio Ghibli
for one sleepless night (after watching that movie) and for the inspiration for
the flesh of the story.

Warning:
spoilers
for Grave of the Fireflies. Oh and�..solo sex��nothing too graphic and nothing
that might need to raise this story�s rating.

********************************************************

Sakurazuka
Seishiro: Teen Rebellion

At
the age of fourteen young Sakurazuka Seishiro walked past a newspaper shop on
his way home from school.

What
was it that caught his eye amongst that particular stand is not something
Seishiro can remember, after all, the following events he would rather bury as
deep as he can into the void of forgetfulness then scrutinize to seek it�s
catalysts.

Was
it an exposed nipple (or a pair of them)? Maybe, but the whole stand was filled
with such pictures so, if he did choose to look back upon the reason why he
stopped, the exact nipple (or the pair of them) would be difficult to pin-point.

Was
it one of the silver stars which covered the exposed girls� privet parts,
catching the sun and flashing to grab the youth�s attention? Maybe.
But then again, like the nipples, there were many stars on that stand.

Was
it a unique color of a particularly interesting underwear item, �accidentally�
exposed, that caught Seishiro�s attention? No. If it
was then Seishiro would remember it and condemn it, even with his last breath
as he whispered his heart to Subaru on Rainbow Bridge.

Was
it a particularly pretty face amongst the many faces on the magazines in the
stand? Perhaps. Then again, the same as the unique
color, Seishiro would remember. If he�d meet her, even ages after that day,
he�d slay her in the cruelest of methods, after various tortures.

Nope,
there was no particular reason why Seishiro stopped before the porn magazines stand
in the �Green horse Newspapers and Light Books� shop on that particular day.

If there was he would have remembered it.

Seishiro
would remember it until his dying day.

Surrounded
by Subaru�s arms, by his own blood, by destruction, debris and broken metal,
Seishiro remembered fragments of that horrid day.

The cheap porn magazine. His
mother. The pain. The movie.
The fireflies. The death. The pain. The exhaustion. The pain. His mother. The Sakura. The pain.

Seishiro
would remember.

************************

As
he flipped through the cheap magazine, sat on his bed, locked in his room, young
Seishiro noted his physical reaction to the pictures before him.

(It
was a boy�s magazine that he chose, just to be noted in order to explain future
events in young Sakurazuka Seishiro�s life)

The
reaction and it�s source were no surprise to Seishiro.
Unlike other boys his age, Seishiro did not stare at himself, did not freeze in
fear, did not hide it in shame, did not poke or prod
to try and get to the bottom of his arousal.

He
was a child who watched his mother always. From watching her, and from her
initial instructions as his training began, he learnt how to become invisible
as he sat in the most remote spot at class or in the school yard.

He
learned to open his ears and pick up every word, every trail of conversation,
every idea and every subject.

He
heard what happens to boys when they are aroused, what to do with it and how to
hide it from wandering parents.

And
so, with the help of that knowledge and the magazine, Seishiro began pleasing
himself.

The
boys in his schoolyard had average parents. Average parents with average
hearing, average sense of smell, average-to-naught sense of the change in
energies and auras in their surrounding.

Unlike
the boys in his schoolyard, Seishiro had an anything-but-average mother.

She
picked up the sound, the smell and the change of atmosphere her son and his
magazine brought about her house.

She
picked it from the yard where she was watering her magnificent garden. Her
son�s room was on the other side of the house and it�s
window opened to the other side as well, forcing Sakurazuka Satsuka
to drop the watering-can and storm all the way around the house.

She
stationed herself under her son�s window for closer observation.

When
she drew her final conclusions, she stormed into the house and burst into her
son�s room, charging on him like a mighty bird of prey charges a defenseless
rabbit.

Seishiro
learnt how to move his hands quickly (for faster prey killing when there isn�t
much time to do so or when pursued while the Sakura is hungry) only a week ago
but, as we already mentioned, he was an quick pupil.

He
managed to retrieve himself and re-zip his pants before his mother yanked him
off the bed.

Satsuka was not angry at her son for what he did; it was only
natural for a boy his age.

She
was not angry at the fact that there were beautiful naked young men she saw on
the glossy pages of the cheap magazines, though she was wondering if it might
indicate low chances of her ever having a grandson in the future.

She
was not angry at the fact that he locked the door between them; she was angry
that he thought so less of her and imagined that a simple lock such was on his
door would keep her out.

But
that anger was a spec in what was going through her mind.

Sakurazuka
Satsuka was not angry at her son for this, not at
all.

She
was panicking.

In
her panic the only thing she could is harm, as was the natural instinct for any
high-level predator such as her (unlike fleeing as any low-level predator or
prey would do) when faced with something alarming and unfamiliar.

She
dragged her confused and ashamed son to their house�s living room, stopping
there as she realized she really had nothing to do for initial punishment.

She
spun around to face her son (�face� being a slightly wrong word for Satsuka, as her son was already a head taller then she was)
with a perfectly refreshed and re-frozen calm expression.

She
delivered him one of her sweet little smiles, the same smile her victims over the
years saw last before death, the same smile Lady Sumeragi saw in her child and
his wife�s funeral, the same smile she will put on when her son will come back
home with a Sumeragi in his �to hunt� list.

Her
large eyes, black as her heart, captivating as a black hole to light, two
perfect jet stones, were cold as ice. The storm in her head and her heart she
concealed well with every skill and trick she learnt in her own Sakurazukamori
training.

Seishiro
was caught by her eyes, fixated by their beauty, and nailed to the ground by
his sheer terror of her reaction.

She
still held his right wrist, the one that was most active when she burst into
the room and a little before that. And so, without warning and without
hesitation or fret, she snapped it between her two delicate, almost babyish,
hands.

Seishiro
thought he heard someone scream inside the full-fledged tempest raging in his
head.

It
was he who screamed.

His
mother never hurt him physically with her own hands.

She
would send him off to plow her garden in the middle of a hailstorm, and then
order him to stand still all night as the cold winter air blew at his drenched
and exhausted limbs.

She
would not feed him for days, weeks even, allowing him only a glass of water
before school, during school and on his return, and expect him to behave
casually.

She
would send him out to steal something from a house�s garden where she knew
there will be a vicious blood-thirsty dog or two, and then taught him how to
tend his wounds (orally without even showing him how to do it, careless
to the many mistakes he did as his shaking painful hands fought to help
himself).

She�d
send him on a mission to anger a yakuza man and make the gangster shoot at him,
promising horrific punishments if she�d find a single hole or tare from a
bullet on his clothes.

But
she never ever harmed him with her own hands.

Seishiro
was shocked.

*********************

On
her way to the hospital Satsuka thought of the reason
for her panic and that reason�s solution.

She
didn�t think about what she�ll say to the doctors.

That was simple.

�My
son here, such a rascal� little shy laughter of an embarrassed mother, now
fully aware of the pains of raising boys �got into a little fight at school��Yes,
yes, the student board president handled it well��No, no notes from the teacher�.�
a lighter laughter in case an extra nosy nurse tries to start light conversation
�But he is a brave boy, my son,� shoot a proud glance at the miserable,
pathetic excuse for an assassin in training, standing like a big dummy by your
side, his face still red with embarrassment and shame � He didn�t tell me anything so I won�t worry��Yes�..Yes, I only
realized it when I noted his wrist wasn�t quite in it�s right angle�
lighter laughter, mixed with a convincing amount of motherly worry over her
son�s pain.

Nope,
the doctors and nurses were nothing but lambs to Satsuka,
and lambs was easy to deceive.

Lambs to the slaughter. To the
Sakura. That was the human race to Sakurazuka Satsuka.
She should have been the harbinger and not her son; she would reach the same
distaste to humans as Satsuki developed.

But
that is another story.

What
made her panic was the danger of sexual awareness. The very awareness was nothing
for Satsuka to worry about. If her son was sexually
aware and, better still, sexually active, then he will be like his grandfather
and would one day raise an heir to the Sakurazuka clan.

It
was the side effects, the access phenomena that sexual awareness brought about
with it that worried Satsuka.

In
her feverish, not-quite-sane mind, it went like this:

Sexual
awareness and the need for a sexual partner will open a great big hole in the
shield that keeps emotions out of a Sakurazukamori�s
mind.

The
reason for that is that if a Sakurazukamori find a sexual partner they might
fall in love with them.

How
do you stop love? What makes love happen? Satsuka
raked her mind for all she knew of an emotion she was never capable of
harboring.

Love
was part sexual attraction (O.K by her, her son had to be attracted to somebody
in order to have sex with them and produce a heir, ne?), part friendliness or
brotherhood (her son had no friends, he hated the company of other boys, girls
or anything human his age, younger or older then him since he could make up his
own mind about anything, no reason to worry about that) and the need to
protect.

The Need to Protect. If it were a statue, Satsuka would hurl stones at it and scream profanity at it
like a maddened priest gone astray.

If
it were a human being she would slay it, slice it and feed it bit by bit to her
Sakura.

The
Need to Protect, to embrace a lovely maiden (by now she must have grown to deny
the beautiful naked boys in her feverish thoughts about an heir to her
clan) in his arms, to promise her the protection of his love, the comfort of
his arms, the soothing of his words.

That�s
it! The Need to Protect came from mercy!

Mercy
was her new enemy, pity was her sworn adversary, and compassion her nemesis.

She
must destroy them, rip them out of her son�s body like a cancerous growth, she must!

But how?

As
she sat in the hospital�s waiting room, awaiting her son to come out of the first
aid room, Sakurazuka Satsuka�s eyes lay on a
newspaper.

She
hated newspapers. She hated the shop that sold her son the cheap magazine he
brought home today. None of this would have happened if it weren�t for that
damned shop.

Well�..that
was not true, her son�s sexuality would have awakened eventually��.but why now,
when she was not yet prepared, when she panicked and feared for her son?

Her
thoughts wondered off and so did her eyes.

Scanning
mindlessly over the pictures in the newspaper, she noticed a picture in one of
them.

It
was of a picture promoting a new movie. An animated movie called Grave of the
Fireflies.

Like
her son, she knew not what about that picture made her eyes stay on it, she
only knew it�s aftermath.

She
picked up the paper and scrutinized the text under the picture. It was a review
by a movie critic, explaining what he could reveal of the movie�s plot and his
opinion over it.

She
knew what words in that little article made her come up with a decision.

�Horrific
yet wonderful� �Shocking, terrifying, but you can�t leave the movie theater,
you cannot remove your eyes from the screen� �Painful��.painful�..�

Painful��..

Sakurazuka
Satsuka and Seishiro will go to the movies tonight.

By
the time her son emerged from the first aid room with a thick white layer of
cast on his tormented wrist and enough painkillers in his blood and digestion
system to erase the pain from his memory, his face still slightly flushed and
his eyes still refusing to meet hers, it was late enough to go to the nearest
movie theater where they screened Grave of the Fireflies.

She
rose to her feet and accompanied her son to their car. That damned little smile
was back on her lips.

As
he walked to the car beside her, Seishiro first realized what it was like to be
in his mother�s herd of lambs.

*****************

The
first scene hit through young Seishiro�s mind like a
lightning bolt, and he did not yet know what the contents of the little
metallic candy box were then.

The
shock spread through his body, immobilizing it, forcing him to watch and watch
and watch and watch.

Watch
as World War II sent Seita and Setsuko deeper and
deeper into misery, pain, desperation, hunger, helplessness and hopelessness,
nearer and nearer to death�s bitter embrace.

Watch
as Studio Ghibli handed him every gentle stroke of a
serene and happy scene, then deal him a sharp slap with the sudden appearance
of a dead body, another horror, another mind numbing, troubling scene.

Watch
as hunger�s noose slowly closed on poor little Setsuko until she died, mindless
and powerless, out of her brother�s reach forever.

Watch
the short sequences in which the brother and sister�s spirits travel their
life�s terrain, and realize that these did not allow him any comfort or repose
from the movie�s general distressfulness; after each allegedly refreshing
sequence came another horror, and another and another.

Watch��..

Watch
as the brother holds his dead sister in his arms at night, begging silently for
her to revive and break his loneliness, his miserable life�s constant chain of
torments.

Watch
and take note that through the tares in his ragged white vest, it was clear he
too is starving like his sister on her deathbed.

Watch
the painful flashback sequence of the little girl�s best (and last) moments of
happiness in their little air raid shelter of a home, and listen to the music
in the background. The clich� �Home
Sweet Home� never sounded bitterer, more scorning, more insensitive and most
painful when played in the background of those scenes when it was well known
she was dead.

Watch��.

With his mother by his side. Watching as he was,
unflinching and uncaring she sat there.

How
can she be so careless? How can she hide her emotions? Surely she felt what he
felt as the scenes rolled before them.

Seishiro
felt the brother and sister�s pain, every fragment and shade of it. He felt the
despair, the helplessness, the insistent need to survive overflowing then
subsiding and crushing at the cruel wall of a harsh reality.

He
wanted to reach out towards and yank the characters out of the movie. He wanted
to hold them in his arms and swear to make sure they will suffer no more. He
wanted to feed Setsuko until she was healthy and energetic, alive again. He
wanted to help Seita fetch food, help him work for
his cold hearted aunt (whom he hated and called a murderess over and over in
his mind) he wanted to grab the train station worker who threw Setsuko�s bones
and punish him for what he�s done. He wanted to grab the people who walked past
the dying Seita and make them take the youth to a hospital,
make them feed the boy.

But
he could not do so. He could not reach forward because his mother sat by him,
observing him at the corner of her eye, testing him, judging him.

He
couldn�t because his wrist was broken, the much needed dose of painkillers were
deprived of him because his mother never bothered to use the prescription the
doctor handed her along with her shameful son.

He
couldn�t because he knew why his mother did this.

His
will must be broken, his emotions must be eradicated, whipped out by pain and
suffering.

He
was rebellious when he bought the magazine�..No, he
was rebellious to have emotions at all.

He
is being punished.

He
is a rebellious teenager and his mother is dealing with it. Her way to do it is
right because she is trying to raise him to be a good Sakurazukamori. Emotions
were never part of that profession, ever.

They
were forbidden. He should be sitting before this movie screen and be an empty
stone statue like his mother; careless, emotionless, composed, cold.

But
he wasn�t.

He
was freezing the wrong way.

He
was on fire.

He
was delirious.

He
was developing a fever.

His
mother knew it, he knew she did, and she did nothing.

Her
son must learn.

Her
son must be punished.

Her
son must learn.

*********************

When
the movie ended, his mother walked out of the cinema without saying a word or
shooting a glance at him.

Seishiro
followed her on feet that registered air under them.

His
head was light as a cloud yet heavy like a block of concrete. His bandaged arm
hung limply by the side of his body, pulling him to it�s
side as if the white wrapping around his wrist weighed a ton.

His
mother moved on air as well, floating between the crowds around them.

They
buzzed and hummed by him, moving in incredible speed while his mother�s movements
slugged ever so slowly forward.

He
was delirious and feverish; the busy city streets were not the place for him.
But who cares about that?

She
lead him forward, forward, beyond his mind�s
capability at the moment, beyond his body�s capability after the stressful day.

Forward,
to Ueno Park.

************************

Where
she picked her victim Seishiro didn�t notice.

Why
she picked her victim he chose not to fret over, the vague reason sending
shivers down his spine.

When
she picked her victim he lost track of.

Who
she picked up he noted like a cow notes when it�s being branded.

It
was spring. The city�s citizens took their families to have picnics under the
blossoming cherry trees. They had picnics above the silent, never changing
tombs and graves.

Spring. when the cherry trees
blossom. That is when the Japanese nation reminds itself of death. �Born to
blossom, born to perish� is what they say of the lovely pink flowers, the
falling petals serving to prove their point.

It
had to be springtime, the time of death�s reminders, in which this day came
upon young Seishiro.

If
it wasn�t springtime then Satsuka�s victim would not
come to Ueno Park for a picnic. Satsuka�s victim would not linger with her family under the
trees until the night fell around them and the predators began crawling out of
their dens.

�Setsukooooooooo�

Satsuka picked the sound like a hunter picks the shuffling of
it�s prey�s feet on the earth.

She
pin pointed the sound�s source and targeted the little girl like she did to her
son earlier that day.

Seishiro
tried to wince at his mother�s choice of prey: A little girl, like the movie�s
heroine, same haircut even. Named Setsuko��named badly�.

He
tried to wince but his face will not comply.

He
tried to talk to his mother, beg her not to kill the girl, beg her to stop, to
choose another prey. But his voice was taken by the day�s events.

He
tried to look away from the girl�s little eyes, staring upwards at the
beautiful woman coming at her from the park�s shadows like a divine and deadly
angel of death.

He
tried to look away as her hand pierced through the little chest for the death
blow.

He
tried to look away and not see that little smile of his mother�s.

But
he could not; His body turned into stone.

He
was reduced to nothing. He was a petal on the wind; cast this way and the other
at the wind�s whims.

He
was helpless. He was nobody and nothing.

He
was sick and tired and exhausted and drained of any emotion or sensation
besides sheer pain.

The pain in his wrist. The pain
in his temples. The pain in his eyes begging for tears shedding. The pain in his heart.

The
pain of Seita and Setsuko who still clung to his
mind, branded into the back of his eyelids so they will pop before his eyes
whenever he tried to shut himself from the world.

Suddenly,
in the black void of his mother�s maboroshi, comfort came. Empty and useless,
fake, more demanding then rewarding��

�..Was
it really comfort? Seishiro couldn�t care; all he wanted was for the pain to
stop.

The
air before him filled with pink as a storm of petals headed before him.

Two
arms reached out from the storm, made of the immaculate pink of his family
tree, and wrapped themselves around him.

Seishiro
knew this was no comfort, no shoulder to cry on nor a
listening ear and if he had the energy to do so he would wave the petals away.

But
he was empty. He was full. All the emotions in him created a huge tempest rampaging
inside him, raging to burst out.

He
let go of it, allowing it to take his body with it.

He
fainted into the cloud, crushing into it�s arms.

The
arms grabbed him gently and cradled him.

He
didn�t know it cradled him, he wasn�t there anymore.

He
was no more.

*******************

He
woke up in his bed, dressed in his pajama and well tucked in.

His
alarm clock woke him to a new day.

As
he sat up in his bed his mind held no �How did I get here?�, �What happened
last night?� and thoughts of that kind.

As
he placed his feet on the floor he felt them, failing to fully register the
sensation. They meant nothing.

Nothing
meant anything anymore. His mind was blank.

His
sole was comatose, his free will fully succumbed and beaten, wallowing in it�s own blood as it slowly shriveled and died.

That
morning Sakurazuka Seishiro woke up to the first day of a new stage in his
Sakurazukamori training.

Now
he was ready to learn how to kill.

His
mother taught him how, but that is another story, a story so dull and over-told
it lost it�s meaning. At least to Seishiro who
eventually, under the influence of a certain Sumeragi member, began to seek out
and find meanings to things.

***********************

That
morning drowned in the abyss of oblivion, forgotten, meaningless.

Carved
deep into Seishiro�s mind was the day before it.

Over
the years he tried to face many fears and traumas he gathered during his life�s
early stages.

He
faced off gigantic dogs patients brought to his veterinary clinic. He finished
them off with access delight, gloating as they whimpered for his mercy.

He
traveled to the mountains in the nastiest weather, hiking through rain, hail
and snow, his anger�s flame heating his body for him.

He
slay amongst the yakuza until the various families dominating Tokyo were on the brink of war,
sure it was the other family�s fault their men were dead.

He
even walked into the �Green Horse Newspapers and Light Books� store, ordering
the whole porn magazines stand. Naked women, naked men, children, animals, in
bondage or free, whatever, he bought it all. He flipped through them, serving
himself if the need came.

He
walked into a shop where they rent movies and walked (casual, yes, on the
outside. On the inside he was quivering like Shinjuku in 1999) all the way up
to the shelf where they kept Grave of the Fireflies.

He
reached out to take the cassette.

Ice
began flowing through his veins.

The
fever was back, the pain and exhaustion returned from wherever it was he tried
burying them.

It
was hard to breathe, it was hard to think, it was hard to keep his muscles from
tensing and relaxing then tensing again, it was hard not to shake.

For
the first time in his life, Sakurazuka Seishiro fainted.

(end)
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