Song of Death

Author's Note:

This story is an AU, alternate universe. This universe is the universe of Sylumclan, and more info. about the site can be found at the website. Sylumclan is an online yahoo RP group.

The clan consists of Vampires, and Chosens, who are the humans who have sworn loyalty to Shogun to help protect the Vampires. Chosens can be Turned to Vampires, but only by their Mates. Mates are chosen by a strong bond that forms, and the bond is connected after the exchange of blood between vampires.

Quatre and Heero are well over 3,000 years old, them being two of the eldest Vampires in the clan, they natuarlly get quite a bit of respect from the others. Their relationship is that they are close enough to be considered brothers, them having known each other since they were pretty much in diapers. Quatre being the royalty, a noble prince, and Heero being his trusted bodyguard since he was born..it's only natural that they have such a strong bond.

Duo's past life, Shin, his full name being Naibunsendo Shin, is a trained assasin, and one of the best in the current area. He and Heero have mainly just talked and have done sparring matches, but Shin is fully aware of their bond, Heero being oblivious to it due to taking care of his younger brother. The story starts after Shin has just finished his latest mission, one that he will never forget.

This first chapter was written by my online RP buddy/Mate, Duo. The next chapter was written by me, and beta'd by Duo.

First part written in a sort of out-of-body POV, being Shin/Duo's POV. Second part written in Heero's POV.

Warnings: Angst, Character Death, implied relationships

Pairings: Heero/Shin

Thanks for reading, and please review!
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To Paradise


Kaze tsukumu

Hana: hasu nagasu

ue aoi

The fight finally over, Shin planted the haft of his scythe, his Zetsumei tame Te, into the ground at his feat and leaned upon it for a moment as he caught his breath and assesed his condition. He was overall unharmed, but for the arrow that had peirced his side at some time during the fight, so he took his scythe back up and stumbled, exhausted, into a near-by dojo to tend to himself.

Not much longer, he sat within the dojo, resting his back against a wall, and gently pulled the arrow from himself. Frowning, he lifted the arrow to his nose and took a gentle sniff, and quickly confirmed the tingle of fear that had run through him as he looked at the head of it- the arrow had been dipped in a poison, one he himself had used more than once, before it had found its mark in his body.

Though it was the only serious wound he had taken, and of a sort that would in time heal well, the addition of the poison garunteed that he would not be much longer for this life, unless one of the living ancestors, the vampires, to whom he swore his alleigance should come upon him quickly and add himself to their ranks.

It was, Shin knew, an unlikely chance, but a small beacon of hope none-the-less. After all, should he be found, there was no reason not to Turn him- he knew that he had a soul-mate who was already among their numbers, and far older than most, who would welcome him as any vampire welcomed their mate new-turned.

Sighing, he gently placed his scythe on the ground, in a corner where it should be safe untill his body should be found, and then returned to where he had been sitting before. As he rested, saving his energy as best he could lest someone even now be searching for him, he reflected on the life he had led thus far.

By all accounts he should have been no more than any average rice-farmer in another average rice-farming village, but for the fact that the family he was born to, and the in fact all of the families in the small village they lived in, were humans who were aware of and knowledgeable about vampires, who in japan were revered by those who knew them as living ancestor-spirits, chosen by the kami to remain on earth to impart their wisdom.

As a young Chosen, he had learned weapons-work and the skills of fighting along with all the other boys in his village, and had quickly shown great skill in their use. His natural skill was proven to be so great that he was sent to holdings of the vampire Clan that he served, to be trained by the best of their warriors in all the skills of fighting.

Once his training was done, he had left to become an assasin, taking the humble name his parents had granted to him, which was Shin- truth, by the kanji they wrote it with- and adding onto it a more fearsome 'Naibunsendo', which meant Secret Death, and he felt some grim humor in that his name as he now claimed it described exactly what he did- true secret death.

His skills as an assasin, and all the jobs he had succesfully completed, led to those he stalked giving him another name- Shi-no-kami, or Shinigami, calling him a God of Death, which he also took some pride in, and he took on that name as well.

More fearsome than his reputation for killing so many humans for money, he thought, was the knowledge, known only to those who seved his clan and the vampires that filled it, was the fact that he had also, and on more than one occaison, removed rogue vampires whos crimes were not so great or so well-known to have attracted the attention of the Clan's hunting vampires.

Most often those vampires he killed were in amongst bandit-gangs who thought to make their money by taking it from simple travelers, and who had often mis-judged the skills of what looked like a simple if well-off farmer walking hte roads between one village and another.

As he sat, contemplating the life he had led, other, more frivolous thoughts flowed through his mind as well- he had always enjoyed composing haiku, a hobby he indulged in often while visiting the Clan, often coming up with them on the spot over a cup of green tea or saki as was traditional.

Even as he was dying from a poisoned wound, this hobby arose again- if he should die before he could be found, it would be an approprate way to leave one final message, as well as voice his hopes and prayers through a method thatto him felt more freeing than any.

So it was that, after a moment's thought, he lifted his hand from where it had been pressed to his wound, still slowly seeping blood, and lowered his crimson-covered fingers to the floor of the dojo. Carefully, so as to ensure that the kanji he wrote were all legible, he wrote out his final words, his last haiku, on the floor of the dojo he was now certain he would die within, painted in his own blood.

The first line, two carefull kanji- kaze tsukumu - followed slowly by the rest of this most precious haiku, were painted carefully on the floor, his fingers returning often to the wound in his side, as he had nothing else to write on and nothing else to write with than the floor he sat on and the blood that flowed from the wound in his side.

When it was finished, he sat back to look at it, with a sense of some pride, before moving to lay on the floor on the opposite sode from where his haiku lay, lest the blood flowing from his body mar the carefull lines of his last few words.

The haiku, completed, represented hsi dying prayer to the kami, and his final words to those left behind, at the same time, for the kanji read, "Wind seizes up flower; lotus sheds blood over blue", representing his prayer that he might be allowed reincarnation, to be with his Mate again in another life, for the lotus was a symbol that took a soul on to paradise; for him, the only paradise would be to return to another life, and be able to be forever with his Mate.

In the same way it was ment to tell Heero, his mate, who meant all the world to him despite the short time he had known the elder vampire, that if his soul had any choice, any chance, any option at all, he would return so that the two of them could be together.

As he lay on the floor of his dojo, head turned to he could contemplate what he could make out of his haiku from the awkward angle he looked at it from, the last of his life fled him, and his soul arose from his newly-dead body.