Title: You Don't Belong Only To Yourself [4/?]

Character(s): a Hitachiin twin, Kyouya, Fuyumi, Akito, Honey

Rating: T.

Disclaimer: Ouran High School Host Club belongs to Hatori Bisco and related companies. Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle & xxxHolic belong to CLAMP and related companies.

Spoilers: Almost none for Ouran, quite a fair bit for TRC.

Word count: 2155

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YOU DON'T BELONG ONLY TO YOURSELF

With the bottom tip of his staff, the flame-haired magician finishes the final inscription of the notoriously difficult and magic-consuming transportation spell.

He closes his eyes and smiles to himself. Sweet dreams, Empress Grandmother.

"Well then," – he triggers the runes – "I guess I'm off to see the Witch."

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"Damn it!" Prince Kyouya curses at his only sister, usually the family member he loves best. She has him mired in an enchantment of her making, and nobody knows why but only the women of his family have ever inherited the magic present in their bloodline. "What do you think you're doing, Fuyumi-neesama?!"

In the empty throne room of Shirasagi Castle, his second eldest brother Akito is beside him, also squirming in vain. "Have you gone mad, Neesama?! Let me go!"

Tellingly, neither of them shout for their father or eldest brother even though those two can override their sister – their father will just think that they deserve it since they'd gotten ensnared in the trap, and their brother will be most delighted at their plight.

"It's not fair!" Prince Akito yells, lurching about violently in an attempt to break the spell-shackles on his limbs. "You're not doing this to Yuuichi-niisama just because he's lucky enough to be older than you, and it's not fair!"

"Neesama," Kyouya says through gritted teeth, "you have no right to hand the victory to Yuuichi-niisama! You can't decide the heir from some misguided," – he contorts his body – "individualistic," – he twists again, harder – "moralistic," – he kicks out in frustration and finds the spell tendrils rapidly coiling around his rebellious ankle – "and utterly idiotic selection criteria! The most talented person should rule the country for the good of the people! You can't do this!"

From her lofty position on top of the dais, Princess Fuyumi gazes at them compassionately. "Is it really for the good of the people?"

Kyouya is in no mood to put up with this nonsense, and apparently, neither is Akito.

"You aren't Mother!" Akito roars, using the most hurtful tactic in their arsenal. "Don't pretend to discipline us so you can act like her!"

Fuyumi is unfazed; she must have known they would say things to wound her. With a gentle sigh, she says, "My dear Akito, getting what you want and being happy are two different things."

"What would you know about it?!" he retaliates spitefully, an undercurrent of misery in his voice.

From the corner of her eye, she notes that their youngest brother is taking advantage of her distraction to surreptitiously scrape away at the restraints. Really, the silly boy thinks everyone around him is stupider than he is. How insulting. "More importantly, what you want and what Father wants are also two different things."

She knows she is right. Years she has watched them, cared for them, done things for them that they will never be able to do for her, like changing nappies and teaching them to walk in the gardens – tasks that she, the Princess, had not been obliged to do but actively wanted to be involved in because she loves them. Fuyumi doesn't need her brothers to repay her anything, but she needs them to be happy in a way that is beyond their comprehension.

It is her hope that unconditional love will not always be beyond their comprehension.

"I am going to send you both to another world." Fuyumi concentrates on her magic, channelling it into the bonds around her brothers to open up a cross-dimensional portal. "You will surely meet many other people there and go on a great adventure."

Alarm flashes across Kyouya's fine features. "No, don't!"

"My my my, my baby brothers are finally venturing out on their own!" She wipes away a few tears that are leaking out. "I will miss you both so much! Our parting is hard on me, yet for your sakes I will endure!"

Akito snorts incredulously even as the floor he's standing on is swallowing him up. "But you're the one who's doing this!"

"If you'll miss us, let us stay beside you! Neesama!"

One prickly, the other glib. Truly, they do not know that they are predictable.

"To you, Akito, I gift you with the reminder that Princesses are often the chosen ones blessed with the most magic in the land," she says cryptically. He will want to come home, and if she says so herself, magic that allows passage through worlds is one of the highest and most challenging forms. This clue will register in Akito's head sooner or later, and he will know to seek out the Princess of the kingdom that he's going to for the return ticket. What he doesn't know is the price that the Princess will demand for the service and how this Princess will change him.

"Stop it, Neesama! You can't get rid of us like common nuisances!"

Fuyumi giggles slyly to herself and dispatches Akito amidst his annoyed and aggrieved howling.

Her brothers do not know it and she has no intention of telling them, but she is capable of such absolute conviction because she has seen what it is that is waiting for them… for Kyouya, there are many trials ahead, and most of them will leave scars that will never fully heal.

She turns to him, torn between the desire to spare him the pain and the vision of the great person that he will become after the ordeal.

"I'll listen to you from now on, Neesama! I'll do what you want!" Kyouya says, clearly desperate and deeming it pointless to hide it. Fuyumi reels a little, her resolve threatening to crumble from the well-aimed hit to her big sister heart – he's actually playing the baby brother card for the first time in nearly two and a half decades!

Aww. He's so cute when he does that.

Reprimanding herself sternly, she walks to him with her customary grace and lightly skims his cheek with her fingertips. "The freedom to live your life as you please won't come from the throne, my Kyouya. I know you are ambitious, that's why I don't want you to fight for power with everything that you have, only to realise at the end that the power you've earned isn't giving you the freedom that you want."

"Fuyumi-neesama, please!" says the boy who hasn't expressed any humility for years.

Her magic swamps him, ready to take him away. "I will cast another spell on you, first." She makes a circle with her hands, and a protective spell plus a curse becomes branded across the glass planes of his spectacles before they set into transparency.

"What's that?!" By this stage, her brother is properly nervous.

"It is a Shu curse. Every time you tell a lie, your intelligence will decrease."

Appalled beyond speech, he glares at her and resumes his thrashing with newfound ferocity.

"You too will encounter many people, then you will learn the true meaning of power," she says fondly. "All right, please take care of yourself."

When she is left alone in the hall, she dismantles the silencing and diversionary wards and goes off to seek an audience with her father, the Emperor, to tell him that she has had a premonition about trouble at the outermost borders of their vast empire and has taken the initiative of sending the two youngest princes off to do their duty of defending the realm.

Heavens, she has picked up some bad habits from her brothers, hasn't she?

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The men cheer wildly, drunk on bloodlust and triumph.

Tonight, that long-awaited for moment has happened at last.

At last.

General Haninozuka is atop the Moon Castle, furled flag in his hand poised to be struck into the dusty soil as proof of their decisive win over the opposing troops. He was a one-man army in the battle, felling foes left right and centre in the most impressive display of Haninozuka formidability. It was a single-minded frenzy unlike any they've seen before – such raw power, such tenacious drive. The men are terrified of him; their respect for him has seeped into their very bones, a soul-deep idolisation that they will never be free of.

Instead of the name of the current King of Yama, they are thundering the name 'Haninozuka' over and over.

There is a part of the General that is crazed like them – more, perhaps, because he is so superior and dominant, and his circumstances are a constant poison that is injected into his ego until it is fit to burst – and this is why he has chosen to do what he will be doing even knowing that it will tear down the venerated name of Haninozuka in one terrible stroke.

At the apex of their rejoicing, Haninozuka shakes out the flag. It catches the wind and billows majestically.

The hush spreads out from the soldiers nearest to him, plunging them into noiseless shock.

Proudly, the insigne of the Haninozuka clan is emblazoned onto what should have been the flag of the King.

Treason.

Lifting it above his head, the General stabs the pole down to claim the Moon Castle for himself. Commandingly, he declares, "This is my wish, grant it! I ask for purposeful, fulfilling lives for all who have fought in this war and their descendants!"

As soon as he finishes speaking, the Moon itself starts to self-destruct.

The multitudes of men are clamouring and screaming at him all at once – he can't discern what they're trying to say, and some of them are cut off by the activation of the Moon magic that transports them back down to Yama in random groups.

"Haninozuka-sama!" his deputy cries, a hand outstretched. The troops are rallying around the transportation areas to escape the rock avalanche and the cracks that are rapidly becoming yawning chasms.

General Haninozuka doesn't take it. "Go," he says with a relieved smile. "Go, and live a life free from carnage."

He really hadn't wanted to die here, but maybe he should – it's a better alternative than returning to face public execution for his betrayal. Originally he was going to use the wish to save himself, to find another country that he can settle down in and live in peace. But, his soldiers. People who have fought for him, died for him – he couldn't bring himself to be selfish. Deprived of the option to be ported to a secret faraway place, there's nowhere else he can go and death will result either way. Let history judge him how it will.

He rides away without looking back.

"General! General, no!"

In a matter of minutes, the Moon has disintegrated into large chunks of useless space rock. His troops should be gone by now, safe and sound on home ground. Haninozuka reins in his horse and slows to a trot before hopping off at the spot where Yasuchika had fallen. The grave is unmarked – they all are; to mark them is a luxury denied even generals – but he will never forget the place.

Removing and discarding all of his military gear, Haninozuka kneels down with an air of resignation and fishes in the cloth pouch tied around his waist for a figurine of a baby chick. Handcrafted by their esteemed grandmother and given to them as children, the two Haninozuka boys had exchanged theirs – Yasuchika's chick to him and his rabbit to Yasuchika – as a pact that they would have each other's backs on the battlefield no matter how bad it got.

The day that he'd failed his brother had been his darkest.

His mind made up, Haninozuka uses his bare hands to dig a hole in the earth in order to bury the chick in replacement of the ceremony he could not give his brother.

The sound of hooves makes him whirl around. What?

"General!" His deputy chases after him doggedly. "You can't die, General! We owe you so much!"

"Are you going against my direct order to evacuate?" Haninozuka demands of him, straightening up and balling his hands into fists. The beak of the chick pokes into his palm. "I said, go! The portals are closing; there's no time to lose!"

"Exactly, Haninozuka-sama," the deputy says staunchly, still riding hard and fast when he should be easing up – too late, it dawns on Haninozuka what his deputy hopes to do.

He is jerked backwards by the collar – his deputy had seized him while passing by on the horse, and harnessing his speed and his strength, the deputy throws him in the direction of a portal that is five seconds away from going to pieces.

"No!" Haninozuka rails in disbelief as he instinctively somersaults in the air and lands on his feet expertly, involuntarily coming into contact with the portal. On this hunk of rock there are no other portals, he knows this from observing the explosive division of the Moon, and what has his stupid deputy done?!

It activates and whisks him away promptly.