The solemn geography of human limits

Set after the Full Moon in October. I know my interpretation of Akihiko and his resolve after Shinji's death is slightly different here, but bear with me.

Mitsuru Kirijo started hearing it about two nights after the full moon:thwack, twack, thwack, thwack-thwack, thwack, thwack. The sound of two clenched fists and ten knuckles connecting to an unyielding surface. It was something she had become familiar with in middle school, in the Dark Hours she had spent as the one girl in a team of kids barely old enough to really understand what it meant to put a gun to your head. She stayed up that first night, lying on her side and staring at the wall, noting the rhythm, listening to it as it sped up, slowed, sped up, slowed, waiting for it to whittle down into silence. It started at 25:00, and stopped by 3 AM. By the end of the week she was used to it, and in the next she could no longer go to sleep without the rhythmic pounding below her, somewhere on the second floor.

They carried on much as they always did after exams. Mitsuru suspected that it was not because they were over it, but because they were propelled by the sheer force of Ken Amada's newfound strength, and by his insistence that everything was perfectly fine and he was ready to beat some Shadow ass straight through the gates of Hell.He haunted the corridors of their school by day, paced the halls of the dormitory like a caged animal by night. No one seemed to notice anything amiss. He said he was over it, and they believed him. And the nightly pounding continued.

It was Fuuka Yamagishi that forced her to act. SEES' information analyst came to her one Sunday evening, after their leader had declared that they would not be going to Tartarus. Mitsuru looked up from what she was reading as one often does with thought-provoking texts, and found the girl in her doorway.

"I'm worried about Akihiko-senpai."

"Oh?"

Fuuka lowered her eyes. Her hands twisted about; a nervous gesture.

"Um… I don't know whether you have noticed, Mitsuru-san, but…"

And she had noticed. She heard it every night, saw it every morning, lived with it every hour, and never said a word.

"I'll talk to him."

"Eh?"

"I'll talk to him." Mitsuru turned away. "You should get some rest. We might go to Tartarus tomorrow night."

Fuuka left. Mitsuru set her readings aside and waited. When the dormitory fell asleep around her and the pounding started, she stepped out of her room.

Defying the limits and pushing himself far beyond what he was currently capable of was what Akihiko Sanada was all about. He was the risk taker and risk breaker, the boy who lived to destroy whatever stood in his way. He alone could make combat look like something elevated, something almost beautiful. Mitsuru used to watch him practice in the past and remembered how it used to take her breath away. That evening it was different.

If Akihiko had noticed her coming into his room, he didn't appear to care: his feet didn't miss a beat, and he continued battering the punching bag with the same gusto he had showed in destroying the last Guardian they had come across inside Tartarus. She saw him in the strange, yellow light of the Dark Hour moon: where she used to note his figure and perfect form, she saw cold sweat and old scars. Three steps was all it took to cross the room to him but she was rooted in place, eyes wide open, watching a friend silently self-destruct.

He was first person Mitsuru saw in the morning, when she came down for breakfast; pale eyes flickered up to appraise her, and then returned to the plate. He muttered something about being unable to finish it, picked up his jacket and left. Mitsuru watched him walk out the door. Something about the sunlight and the doorframe made Akihiko's back look so small.