Author's Note: I'm really, really, REAAALLLY sorry that this is so late. I'm such a horrible, horrible person for making everyone wait so damn long for me to update this fic. Please, please, please forgive me! I blame my school, my PS2, and my friend Tif. Cause she sent me Chain of Memories.
Warnings: Uh. Not much to warn you about. Except for character death. So, yeah. Not much to warn about. And it's also rather short. I'm kinda in a hurry to finish this story off so I can get back to a few of my other ones.
Disclaimer: I still don't own it. Never have, never will, unless CLAMP allows me to join their ranks, which I highly doubt. They don't need me. –huddles sadly in the corner, doodling yaoi on the floor with a permanent marker-

Chapter Fifteen

The next morning, Kamui woke up on the couch in the dorm room. He sat up and looked out the window. It was raining heavily outside. Through the sheets of rain, the violet-eyed boy could see groups of students walking past, huddled under umbrellas. He recognised Ijyuin Akira amongst one group. The black-haired boy broke away from the group and turned another direction. A couple minutes later, the doorbell of the dormitory rang. Kamui got up, vaguely noticing that he was shirtless and his shoulder was bandaged up. He went over to the door and opened it. Akira stood outside with a smile on his face.

"Hello, Shirou-kun," he said. "The chairman asked me to stop by and check on you and Kuzuki-san."

"Oh," Kamui said. "Okay."

"Can I come in for a moment?"

"Sure."

"Thanks," Akira smiled. He stepped inside the dormitory and pulled off his backpack. Rummaging through it, he pulled out a couple of boxed lunches. "Here, I made something for you and Kuzuki-san to eat."

Kamui took the boxed lunches with a grateful smile. He hadn't eaten in a while and he was sure Kakyou was hungry as well. Akira looked around.

"So, where is Kuzuki-san?" he asked.

"Oh," Kamui said. "I think he's still asleep."

"No, I'm not," a soft voice came from the hall.

Kamui turned to see Kakyou making his way through the hall, slowly, as if he barely knew how to walk. The violet-eyed boy put the lunches on the coffee table and went over to the yumemi to help him walk.

"I apologise, Kamui-san," Kakyou said. "I don't get to leave my room at the house. I never really got to walk."

"It's okay," Kamui told him. "Give it time; you'll be walking like the best of us soon."

Kakyou smiled at him. Then he saw the lunches on the coffee table.

"Is that food?" he asked.

Akira smiled. "My best efforts! I hope you're hungry."

"Starved, thank you," Kakyou said.

With Kamui's help, he sat down on the couch and took one of the boxed lunches. Akira smiled as Kakyou ate, obviously enjoying every bite. Kamui helped himself to the other boxed lunch and sat down. About halfway through the meal, there was a loud knock on the door. Kamui set the remains of his lunch on the small coffee table in front of the couch and went over to the door to open it. Hokuto stood outside with a scowl on her face.

"Kamui!" she exclaimed. "Where were you last night! We all panicked when you weren't in your bed this morning and-" She paused, noting the bandage around Kamui's shoulder. "Oh, my god! You're injured! What did you do!"

"It's nothing," Kamui said. "Just a small bullet wound."

A look of horror crossed Hokuto's face. "A bullet!"

"Calm down," Kamui told her. "It's okay. A doctor looked at it, I'm fine."

Hokuto pushed Kamui inside the apartment. "You have some explaining to do, mister! And you'd better do it fast!"

Kamui sweatdropped. "Well…"

Hokuto went into the living room to sit down, but stopped in her tracks at the site of the golden-haired boy on the couch.

"K-Kakyou?"

Kakyou looked up and smiled. "Hello, Hokuto."

The girl stood there blinking for a moment before running over and giving the blonde boy a hug. "Oh, my god, you're out of that house!"

Kakyou carefully put his arms around Hokuto. "Yes. Kamui-san helped me."

Hokuto paused and looked at Kakyou. "Is that how he got hurt?"

The yumemi nodded. "We were pursued by some of my father's men. Kamui-san got hit helping me escape. I'm sorry."

Hokuto hugged Kakyou again and pressed a kiss to his cheek. "It's not your fault," she told him. She turned to Kamui. "It's your fault!"

She went over and whacked Kamui upside the head. "What were you thinking! You know Subaru and I would have helped if you had told us!"

"I promised Kakyou I'd help him," Kamui said, rubbing the spot on his head that Hokuto had hit. "I knew it would be dangerous, so I didn't want to get you or Subaru involved."

Hokuto placed her hands on her hips. "You're still in big trouble, Kamui. You're grounded!"

Kamui gaped. "You can't ground me!"

Kakyou stared quietly at Hokuto and Kamui for a moment, then began to softly laugh. Kamui looked at him, as did Hokuto.

"What's so funny?" they both asked in unison.

"You…two…" Kakyou managed through his laughter.

Hokuto sighed, then looked at Kamui. "You," she said, pointing at him, "will be home tonight RIGHT. AFTER. SCHOOL."

"Fine," Kamui pouted. "I was planning on it anyways. I'm going straight to bed when I get home."

"Uh-uh," Hokuto shook her head. "You are going to have to apologise to Subaru and Ichigo for worrying them, then you'll be cleaning up yours and Subaru's apartment as punishment for getting yourself hurt."

"Um…" Akira piped up. "I don't think Shirou-kun should be moving his arm that much, Sumeragi-chan."

"Then he'll use his left arm for everything," Hokuto said, determined to punish Kamui for running off in the middle of the night.

Kamui groaned.

---

After cleaning up the entire apartment with Hokuto lounging on the couch, supervising him, Kamui crawled into bed with a huge yawn. He was exhausted from his efforts from the past twenty-four hours. Just rescuing Kakyou was hard, but to be forced to clean a whole apartment only using his left arm was added torment to his tired body. He laid his head on his pillow and closed his eyes. Almost immediately when he fell asleep, his Dream changed.

"Kakyou?" Kamui called out.

"I know what you're planning to do, Kamui," the blonde yumemi said.

"I figured that you'd See it. Not much gets past you, does it?"

Kakyou shook his head. "And I'm not the only yumemi to have seen it. I've been watching the dreams of a couple of other people involved in the end of the world."

"Hinoto and her sister?" Kamui asked.

Kakyou nodded. "And not only them, but your friend, Monou Kotori."

"Kotori has Seen me in her dreams?"

"Several times," Kakyou told him. "Though, she doesn't realise it is her friend she Sees. She knows you only as 'the nice man' she met on the street a few months ago."

Kamui smiled. "She wouldn't see that it was me. She likes to stay in the present."

"She doesn't like what she Sees in her dreams about you."

"I know. But it doesn't matter if she doesn't realise who it is," Kamui said. "And as for Hinoto and her sister, I don't care if they see what I'm going to do."

"They think it is the Kamui of the future attempting this," Kakyou told him.

Kamui let out a chuckle. "Serves them right. I don't think I ever did like Hinoto to begin with."

"She's not a very likeable person in the future," Kakyou agreed. "I've Seen it."

"Only those blind to who she hides would like her," Kamui said, thinking of Saiki Daisuke. "Perhaps they're better off not knowing who she really might be."

Kakyou remained silent for a moment. "I wish you wouldn't do this. I would not be the only one who would miss you."

A pained looked crossed Kamui's face. "I know, but I have to go through with it."

Kakyou sighed, then nodded. "I understand. I won't get in your way."

"Thank you."

Kakyou disappeared out of Kamui's dream with a soft and pained smile. Kamui's dreams became the harsh memories that he had been haunted by for months. In them, he saw the deaths of all his friends. He saw the torment that he and the rest of Tokyo had been put through because of the fight for the end of the world. The earthquakes, the blood, and the pain all came back to him in his dreams and he hated all of them.

It would all end soon, though.

---

The pain seared through Seishirou's head. Though it had been a while since he had been released from the hospital, it sometimes still hurt. He had been prescribed some Vicodin for times like this, when his head hurt. The man walked over to the kitchen, to the cabinet where he kept medicines and reached for the bottle of Vicodin he still had. However, the bottle wasn't there.

"What the hell?" Seishirou asked out loud. "Where did it go?"

Perhaps he had placed it on the counter last night and not in the cupboard? He checked, but to no avail. The painkillers weren't there, nor did they turn up anywhere he looked. He knew he hadn't finished them, so there was no reason for them to be in the trash. Giving up, Seishirou decided to wait out the pain. He'd call his doctor and ask for a refill later.

---

Morning came. Kamui moaned as sunlight from the window hit his face when Subaru opened the blinds. He heard the other boy laugh lightly. Getting together with Seishirou and Kamui's influence had changed Subaru enough to the point where he was no longer the shy and easily embarrassed boy he had once been. He walked over and shook Kamui's shoulder. Kamui moaned again and pulled his blanket over his head.

"Come on, Kamui," Subaru said. "We'll be late to school."

"Go on without me," Kamui muttered. "I'm not feeling well."

Subaru tilted his head and walked over to his friend. He pulled the blanket away from Kamui and placed his hand against Kamui's forehead. Ever since he and Seishirou officially became a couple, he had stopped wearing the gloves his grandmother had made for him. Of course, he would have to explain it to her later, but it didn't matter at the moment. The green-eyed boy put his hands on his hips and gave a sigh.

"You don't have a temperature," he said. "I'll go get Hokuto."

"Go to school," Kamui told him. "I'll be fine. It's just my stomach. Probably something I ate."

"Don't let Hokuto hear you say that," Subaru smirked. "She'll never feed you again."

"Wouldn't dream of it," Kamui replied, hiding back under the blankets.

He stayed in bed until he was certain that Subaru had left the apartment. After about an hour, he crawled out of bed, glad that Hokuto hadn't come in, throwing a fit about him being ill. She would have seen right through him. He was thankful that Subaru still couldn't tell when he was being lied to. Otherwise, the other boy wouldn't have allowed Kamui to stay home. There was really nothing wrong with him. He just had plans for today.

Kamui walked into the bathroom and pulled the bottle of Vicodin he had stolen from Seishirou out from its hiding place. The bottle was almost completely full; Seishirou hadn't used a lot of the pills. Kamui vaguely wondered if Seishirou really did ever feel any pain. He stood in front of the sink and looked in the mirror. He had done what he had decided to do. Even if that wasn't the reason he had been brought here, that was what he had decided to do.

"Subaru," he said out loud. "I'm sorry. You'll hate me for this. And so will Hokuto. Seishirou maybe not, but he'll be mad at me for making you sad." He let out a small, meaningless laugh. "I've changed the future and now I have to pay the price for doing so. There can't be three Kamui at the End of the World."

With that, he opened the bottle of medicine. He popped several of the pills in his mouth and swallowed them with water from the sink. He did this a few times until all the pills were gone. He left the bottle next to the sink and staggered back into the bedroom, already feeling the affect the medicine would have on his body. He flopped down on the bed and pulled the note he had written the previous night out and looked at it before closing his eyes.

I'm really, really sorry that I have to do this to you guys, he thought. But I don't belong here.

---

The first thing Hokuto did when she got home was she went in to check on Kamui. Since Subaru had told her that the violet-eyed boy hadn't felt well that morning, she decided to check on him and make sure that he was alright. Subaru himself had gone over to Seishirou's after school and wasn't around when Hokuto found Kamui in bed, cold and not breathing. She let out a high pitched scream and ran to the phone, dialing for emergency assistance as soon as her fingers touched the phone.

When emergency assistance came, Kamui was pronounced dead at the scene. Hokuto began crying and cried only harder when one of the men handed her the note that Kamui had been holding. Its contents only made her sadder. When she had calmed down enough to talk, she called Subaru at Seishirou's apartment and began crying again as she told him what had happened.

They had Kamui buried underneath one of the trees at CLAMP Academy, with permission from Nokoru. In the note Kamui had asked to be buried underneath that specific tree, where, nine years later, Monou Kotori would be buried next to him. Hokuto, Subaru, Seishirou, Ichigo, Nokoru, Suoh, Akira, Kakyou, and Tokiko stood underneath the tree after Kamui was buried and mourned the boy's death. They all spread flowers over Kamui's grave and said their final good-byes.

After a while, everyone left, except for Subaru, Seishirou, Hokuto, and Kakyou. The four of them stood there quietly. Kakyou's hands were rested on Hokuto's shoulders as the girl cried silently. Subaru was visibly upset, but his tears had long since stopped falling.

They would all miss him.

Author's Note: Yeah, I know. Short; really only three and a half pages long. Bite me, I'm having a bad week. But now that this chapter is done with the story is almost to a close. I still have a couple things to write, but those things will be written in the epilogue, so keep waiting for that. Yeah, okay, if you want to flame me for this chapter taking, oh….damn near eight months to pop up on go ahead, I totally deserve it.