A/N: From my 'A Breath And A Moment' comes the future under What Will You Choose tag. After Tsukune left Moka and Gin, he considers taking his own life when Ruby comes across him. She tries to heal his broken heart while Moka chooses to wait. In that moment, Tsukune decides to make another choice, one he should have made a long time ago.
The world never stops changing. What matters is what one chooses to do.
Chapter 1:
Green And Red
Pink And Silver
Love And Peace
Pride And War
Two Hearts Beat As One
Two Hearts Break Another
Wandering The Darkness
Solitude, Sorrow
Fear, Insecurty
Wavering Heart
Scarred Heart
Trembling Heart
Who shall tend
To The Incurable Wounds?
To The Broken Mirror?
To The Wounded Soul?
Tears stung his eyes.
Tears that burned him as harshly as Holy Water.
Tears and a gaping wound in his heart, a heart torn open with viciousness no being should feel.
The unforgivable sin.
The greatest betrayal.
And she, his beloved. His mate. The one for whom he had sacrificed everything.
His lover, though she were two. His beloved, though she were two.
How could she? How could she do this to him? How? Why?
How could she do it?
Did she not love him?
Did she not respect him even?
Did she hurt him?
Had she planned for it?
Had she thought about it? Planned, meticulously, how to best rip his heart? Tear it asunder?
Tsukune walked alone through the city streets, lit by cold, harsh lights. They flashed around him but he didn't care. People bumped on him but he didn't care. People called out to him but he didn't care.
All that he cared for was what she had done to him, how she had betrayed him.
How she had ripped out his heart and torn it apart, how she had driven that stake of pain deeply within his chest.
Damn her.
Thrice be she damned.
Six times six and then six times again be she cursed.
How dare she? Had she felt nothing? Had she faked it all? Had she planned it all along?
How could he have fallen for her? How could he let her trick him like that? How could he not have felt anything was wrong? Was she that good of a liar or was he that pathetic a man?
To see his beloved wife ready to invite someone to their marital bed and yet do nothing but leave, tears in his eyes, ashamed, hurt? If he was another, he would have killed Gin and tossed the woman out of his house. If he were another, he would have torn into them with all the fury his blood roared, loud in his ears.
But he wasn't.
He was Aono Tsukune.
A human, or former human really.
He no longer had any claim on his humanity, long ago given up for her.
Just like everything else. His pride, his innocence, his love. His heart.
A river ahead of him. So pretty, so beautiful
The water refracted the light in a mystical dance that captivated the eye if one were to look.
The moon reflected on the roiling surface of the water, its silvery light offering him the comfort noone else could.
It looked so beautiful. So captivating. So inviting.
His smile was broken, mourning, pained.
Because so was he.
Eyes once full of life, kindness and love now were the opposite, a broken mirror only showing the highest levels of pain, sorrow and, dare he say it even, death.
Not of others, but of his own heart. His soul. His essense. Who he had once, a long time ago been.
He didn't know how long he stood. He didn't care to count.
Could have been an hour.
Could have been ten days.
Could have been a hundred years.
All the same.
Nothing changed. People were insignificant, pointless, small, petty. They didn't matter. But the river did.
It must have been many hours, what remained of his sanity reasoned. Why? Because now there was no soft, silver glow over the flowing river beneath him. Now there was a golden light growing stronger, warmer, if but on his body.
Hopefull.
Ironic. So ironic. He loved the sun once, now he wanted nothing to do with it. He despised it. Hated it.
It and its happiness and hope and joy and... it was so annoying!
Could it not understand his pain?
Did it want to hurt him as well?
Tsukune glared at the sun. It glared back.
But he won out in the end, in some way; he never moved, not an inch. He didn't even breathe. He just didn't care enough to. All that he wanted was the darkness, blessed, cool, calm, ever-covering, ever-comforting darkness to come.
And when it would, he would still look at the moon, just as he had when the silver gem was in the sky before. It would go away, of course. Everything had to.
Except him. He would wait and watch, wait and see, wait and surrender to the cool balm that only the moon could give him.
A man dressed in blues and whites came in front of his face. Annoying, angry, stupid, blind, deaf, annoying, hatefull, annoying, inconsequential man. Annoying man.
Tsukune didn't hear a word, but his snarl, the look on his eyes, narrowed and hostile told the man to back the heck off.
The policeman left, still screaming and shouting and annoying Tsukune. Little man. He was forgotten.
Tsukune didn't care for him anyway, he only cared for the coming darkness when he would see the moon again. When the river would be alight with many, many lights, like the stars he could never touch, like the spirits just out of his reach, just like the love he wanted to feel.
His laugh was insanity. His eyes were sorrow. His essense was pain.
In the whole city, a single man mourned and noone cared.
But there was someone who did. A black-haired, rose-eyed witch, a friend from long ago, though he hadn't seen her in years. He hadn't done anything to see her, so consumed he had been by his 'love'.
But that didn't mean that she wasn't there. Even for once in the past five years, she had taken a vacation and planned to use it to reconnect with her old friend, even if it would never grow to anything more.
But, that didn't mean that she had the courage to do it. Because she didn't. She was scared of seeing him, meeting him again after so long. How would he react, what would he do? And if not him, then Moka? She remembered very well what had happened the last time someone even suggested that Tsukune have a lover. It didn't end well.
So, she did what she always did when agitated and insecure; take a walk. Walk around and listen to the nature around her. Muted as it was in the city, it was still there.
Her senses expanded as far as she could, and it was not something easily looked over; she had trained long and hard and her magic was strong.
In the edges of her supernatural perception, she could feel an immense well of sadness and sorrow and pain. Pain like nothing she had felt before.
Nature herself mourned around that well and, as a self-respecting witch, she felt it was her duty to fix whatever it was that hurt the Eternal Mother so.
She followed the signs, through weeping parks, along a mouning river, towards the source of pain.
The more she closed in, the more she could feel like the presense, the source, was familiar. Like she would recognize it anywhere. And another thing; the pain was not caused because of that presence, but rather in an effort to console the immense sadness of that being.
Who was that by mere presence and emotions alone could speak to Nature? Who was it that made Nature herself wish to console and shoulder his burdens? Who, from those that she knew, could it be?
But time waits for none and her steps, light and sure, made short work of the distance.
When she got there, she gasped.
She would recognize that face anywhere.
Then she began crying as well. Exposed to the full force of the sadness and sorrow of a single heart, she could do nothing but cry and mourn with him.
Tsukune didn't care any more. About anything but the river, calm and cool and so inviting, that flowed in front of him.
He could feel it, calling out to him, inviting him to join the plays of the waves, to float away in blessed lethe, to let go of his sadness.
He smiled a broken smile.
He got up from the bench in noone knows how long.
His hands straightened out his tear-stained shirt in a mechanical motion, in a way to look as best as possible to the river awaiting below him.
His steps were slow, staggered. But accurate and brought him ever closer.
Water splashed at his feet, yet he only saw gentle hands reaching out to hold him, as if the river didn't want to wait for him to come and instead chose to come to him.
He raised his leg to take the final step, when two hands, gentle yet strong, wrapped themselves around him.
Who was it? Who had dared stop him? Who stopped him from letting go of the pain?
Why was everyone so cruel, so evil to him? Why did everyone hurt him? Why couldn't they just leave him alone.
He broke down sobbing. Crying on a shoulder he didn't recognize, held by hands he didn't recognize, who belonged to a person he didn't recognize.
Just like he wouldn't have recognized himself.
Tears stained his shirt and he knew that whoever it was, it cried with him, shouldered his pain, if but a little bit.
He only wept harder.
In the city, where lights danced the sky and people lived more closely to their animalistic ancestors than they thought, a pair was reunited in sorrow and sadness.
Tsukune found himself walking, but having no memory of doing so, no understanding of doing so. He wasn't walking exactly, he was led away from the inviting, kind, beautiful river, held in the familiar yet still unrecognizable hand of another. He tried to go back, tried to escape, but the person held tight, held firm. Not that he had much strength to begin with. He felt so empty, in every aspect, like a huge void growing inside of him, separated from the world only by a film of skin. He felt so... fragile... in a sense. No, more like the feeling of being fragile after being broken.
A cup filled with warm something found itself in his hands and he realized he wasn't walking any more. He also realized he was sitting, on a couch, inside a house. Away from the flowing, beautiful water. But the moon was still there, it still shone from the windows and it felt so calming, so nice, so beautiful.
It was then he realized the presence sitting next to him, a similar cup in her hands. Tea, his nose would tell him, a rare blend with a touch of milk and extra sugar. It smelled nice, natural. Unlike other tea blends, must be home-made he surmised, somewhere in the chaos that once was his mind.
"Tsukune..." The voice, female, young, vibrant and yet bearing his sadness.
"Ru...by?" Ah, yes, that was her name. How could he forget? How could he notice?
Then again, he didn't even notice when she got him to her house.
The witch cringed at the sound of his name. Where once his voice made her tingle with excitement, now the sadness was palpable. He was so... broken... so... weak... so... defeated.
She had never seen him like that. She hoped she would never have to either.
She began talking to him, cajoling looks of caring from his eyes, a little bit at a time. She spoke in soft, kind words of nothing in particular. Just spoke, freed her voice from a throat that threatened to close from the withheld sobs. She let her voice flow outwards and into the broken man in front of her.
And little by little, he spoke as well.
He didn't say much. If anything important. But the witch was more observant and wise than any gave her credit for, sans perhaps the Headmaster of Youkai Gakuen. After all, there had to be one reason for him to have her as his personnal aide.
She wasn't a fool. She knew how strained a relationship could get and she knew how arrogant Moka was. She knew how the vampiress, both sides of her, believed herself superior to all, confusing her arrogance to be pride. But she also knew how much of a coward she was, how scared she was to do things that couldn't be solved with strength of blood or arms alone.
And she knew just how hurtful she could be, seeking to defend herself by unloading her own insecurities and fears unto others. Even her own friends, even her own husband.
She knew that very well; when Moka, either side, could not defend herself, instead of adapting, she lashed out defencively, striking at others in an attempt to veil her shortcomings. Oh yes, Ruby was very well aware of how the vampiress thought.
Which is how she understood some things about the situation, even when they were not voiced at all. She knew that Tsukune and Moka were having trouble. She also knew that Tsukune was completely and utterly broken, which meant that Moka did something very bad to him, something that hurt him deeper than any wound ever had before.
She didn't know what it was, but she knew one thing; Tsukune needed one thing right now and that was companionship. Someone to be with him, someone to help him, someone to save him from himself.
That night, Ruby slept right next to the broken man, his head on her lap, wracked in heartfelt pain even in his sleep, tortured by nightmares even Ruby's more-than-respectable alchemical prowess couldn't devise a potion to defeat.
She awoke to the sound of a bathtub getting filled with water. Then a splash and a burst of youkai.
She ran to her room and her heart stopped for but a second before she took action.
Tsukune had filled a tub with pure water and then submerged himself completely in it.
For a vampire, that was suicide.
At that moment, Ruby swore to herself that she would find out what happened, and she would make Moka pay.
Anyone who could do that to a person as kind and caring as Tsukune deserved nothing more than the cruelest tortures available to her.
And let it be known that Ruby had an imagination for pain as inspired as the one she had for daydreaming. Humanity's worst torture chambers had nothing on the infuriated woman. Hell itself probably had nothing on her either.
The witch tried to pull out her friend from the tub, cursing Moka with every heaved breath she took. Tsukune didn't even try to help her, he was just dead weight on her hands.
He just didn't care about being saved or living.
Damn her, damn Moka and her stupid arrogance. How could she do this to him? How could she hurt someone like Tsukune?
Once Tsukune was out of the water and dry, helped along the way with a few handy spells from the witch, he just lay there, looking at the wall, a million yard stare in his eyes.
He flinched when a pair of arms wrapped around his shoulders, holding him tightly, as if missing him, as if caring for him. As if. Who would care for him? He was nothing, his own love, his own mate, his own wife didn't love him, so how could another do? A lie.
All a lie.
Tsukune burst from the witch's arms, running away from her, hudding in a corner, sobbing.
But Ruby wasn't one to let go easily nor one to give up at the first sign of trouble. She went on, hugging him, embracing him, helping him as much as she could.
She gave everything and asked for nothing in return.
She got him to speak. "Why? Why? Why did she do this to me? Why? Why me? Why is it always me?"
The question she couldn't answer. "I don't know Tsukune... I don't know... But I am not her and I would never do that to you. Please Tsukune... tell me what happened... tell me so I can be there, with you... so I can help you."
"Shut up! It's a lie! You don't want to help me! You just want to hurt me! You'll say you love me! And then you'll marry me! And then you will say that you don't want our children in the human world! And then you'll call him! And you'll fuck him on our bed! You lie!"
Oh.
Oh. Oh gods... Oh merciful Luna and kind Sol... Oh Eternal Mother and Everlasting Father.
There were few monsters in the city that didn't feel the spike of raw hate the witch now emanated.
Ironically, the one for whom it was meant for was amongst those to escape it.
Ruby was a kind individual. Even when in the throes of her mistress' control, she cared for others. But, at that moment, Ruby couldn't find in her heart even the slightest remnant, the slightest strand of care for one specific vampiress.
At that moment, every inch of Ruby absolutely loathed the existence of a certain vampiress. At that moment, Inner Moka herself would have rather fled than face the infuriated witch.
But, right now, she didn't have the target of her fury in front of her. She had a broken man in her arms, a sobbing, broken man who thought nothing of his life.
So she held him tighter, against his cries of denial and lies, held him tighter when he struggled to get free and held him even tighter when he gave up.
Sweet nothings, sweet words, calming words, calming voice, caring voice, caring words.
Sounds began to trickle into Tsukune's awareness and he, maybe for the first time in days, understood their meaning, if not the spirit behind them. He understood what each word meant, a sign of his returning sanity.
He became more lucid as the day went on, uncaring of his hunger or thirst, and the witch remained next to him too. Huddled in that small corner of a small apartment in a city, a man was slowly healed.
The next day he didn't try to bathe in water. He still thought the river was very enticing though and he still wanted to see just how deep he could drive a knife in him, see if it would hurt, and if it did, would it hurt more than his broken heart? He wanted to try that out, see if the pain of a knife stabbed in his flesh would overtake the torture in his heart. Because if that would help him not hurt so much, he would gladly do it.
Ruby had never before been so thankful for her mistress' insistence on learning household spells, including some basic charms to blunt the edges of various items. Such as knives for example.
Slowly, yet steadily, Tsukune's heart was healed. The mirror was slowly being put back together, though the glue had not set. And Ruby knew it would forever be marred.
Moka would never know how many curses the once-kind witch had thought up in a matter of days. Truthfully, mind-reading monsters avoided her ever since; the malicious thoughts in her mind about the pink-and-silver vampiress would make even the most battle-hardened veteran loose their dinner, breakfast and lunch at the same time. If Ria had access to that wellspring of imaginative torture, she would have gladly sacrificed her right arm for it.
And so the vampire began to function, partially. From making and eating food to drinking the small quantities of blood Ruby could get him.
And in that small appartment, a man found a reason to live again. It wasn't strong, but it was enough.
In the end, Ruby had to let him go. She knew she had done all she could, but she knew he would also need help from others.
Others like Kurono Kurumu and Shirayuki Mizore and maybe Sendo Yukari.
All his childhood friends except the two traitors. Moka and Gin.
Some would claim that hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. The truth is that hell had no fury like Ruby pissed. And she had gone beyond that.
The rose-eyed witch used any and all links with any and all people she knew. Contacts and friends and allies and even blackmail were all called forth by the witch, all directed towards the downfall of a single person.
Moka never knew why things turned so bad, so quickly. Seemingly overnight, every secret she ever had, every dirt anyone had on her, every skeleton in her closet, was unleashed upon her.
When she tried to call her old friends to help her, she received no answer, and she wondered why.
When she tried to call Tsukune, she couldn't get a line and she was angry and sad.
When even her father refused to side with her against the veritable onslaught of accusations, her frustration could not be put to words.
In the end, because of a single infuriated witch, who mind you had held significantly back in her revenge, at least physically, Moka took nearly a decade to free herself from the trouble that seemed to haunt her.
A decade since she last saw her mate, a mate who's trail had gone cold and vanished.
Because it was after nearly a dozen years since he left that she decided to look for him.
Mostly so she could properly apologize, without wounding her pride of course, and drag him back home. It had gone far enough after all, enough for him to realize his mistake and come back to her.
Unfortunately for her, nothing like that happened. Tsukune had realized his mistake and that had been putting his love into the wrong person.
Because Kurumu never demanded of him. Mizore never persecuted him. Yukari never tried to control him. And Ruby never stopped healing his wounded heart.
Moka had held love in her hands and instead of cherishing it, she squandered it in petty wants and pointless desires.
In one sense she was lucky in her collection of wrong choices; Ruby never got to unleash her repertoire of tortures on her. And with the free time Ruby got in the end, there was enough in the witch's head to make demons cringe.
But, that is a story for another time, as this is time for this story.
Few know what happened when Tsukune went to Las Vegas and the succubus who loved him enough to go against every instinct in her race to save herself for him.
What did become known was that Kurono Kurumu vanished abruptly one day after seeing a man enter the club, and promptly jumping in his arms, screaming a foreign name like a warcry and ignoring her routine.
When Tsukune went to the village of the Yuki-Onna, he came across a man trying to make Mizore bear his children, an arrogant orc that wanted to have her.
Then, the world itself reacted to his fury and magic answered the call of his will as readily as it answered the mourning of his heart.
Mizore would not be seen for days after and when she was seen, she radiated an aura of joy and happiness while the smile on her face left many wondering about what had caused the woman so much joy.
Her mother would never say that she had to destroy the house she had been in due to the smell never leaving.
The Exorcist was not-so-pleasantly surprised when his former student Aono Tsukune visited the dimension. He was even less overjoyed when his greatest teacher, Sendo Yukari, handed in her resignation a few days later, a face-splitting grin on her face.
High on the mountains of the Yuki-onna, a family was born from the shards of a group that had split many years ago.
High on those mountains, a man, a vampire with the heart of a human and the power of a mage, loved four women who loved him back with all their soul.
And while he never forgot his former mate, he never held any significance for her either; their shared chapter had been long over in his story. And he never felt happier in his life than the moment his four treasures accepted him as their husband.
He lived long and happily, keeping a smile on his face even when his beloved wives died, one by one. First Ruby, followed by Kurumu and Mizore, before he was left only with Yukari.
As the young witch lay on her bed, ready for her final rest, a rest that wouldn't be long in coming now, she smiled at him. She had had her wish and he had had his own.
They had been together and lived happily.
She remembered her life, from her childhood to the day before and she could say with honesty, she wouldn't change a thing.
The vampire next to her, still looking as vibrant as almost two centuries ago looked at her with adoring eyes.
He knew it wouldn't be long now, for either of them.
He placed his head on her shoulder and hugged his beloved wife under the sad looks of his children. But his smile held nothing sad, only happiness.
As she breathed her last, so did he and his eyes closed one last time.
As he traversed the eternal black of non-existence, he heard familiar laughs ahead, so familiar despite not having heard them in over twenty years.
His walk became a run, a happy run towards the women he loved still. The women who loved him back.
And in their arms, he was whole again.
A/N: This is it for the TsukunexHarem future of 'A Breath And A Moment'. Hope you liked it.
I tried to portray the emotions of an emotionally broken man as well as possible, despite me being unable to sympathize with such a case; had it happened to me, I can assure you neither my former wife nor my friend would have walked out of the house. Then again, each is his own and I have long since accepted my more ferocious side.
I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it and were as touched as I was when writing it. It may be short, I know, and it may not be 'complete' but, keep in mind, what matters is not the word but the spirit behind it.
For a more in-depth look at it, turn to the next chapter please.
Today, on this 9/6/2012, I, Soulblazer87, do hereby leave this site, possibly forever.
I shall not update this, or any other story.
I shall leave them on, however. Should you desire to follow my stories, do so in my new site of residence: www dot yourfanfiction dot com.