Where is Cal…?
It's cold… I need your warmth… Cal…
So cold… Can't move my arms… Can't move my legs… Where are you Cal…?
Wait for me… Cal… I'm coming… just wait… a little longer…
Elen sees the figure staring out the window when her hand closes Reiji's hallow eyes, an exact match to the body slumped in the chair before her to the blood slowly exiting the many wounds upon the corpse.
"Reiji…?" she whispers, not believing the sight before her, as the illusion's hair remains still even as she watches the torn clothes of a corpse in front of the shattered window move in the nighttime breeze. It turns its sightless eyes to her, a dribble of blood exiting the corner of its mouth as it approaches her, stopping no more than a foot away.
"Elen…?" the ghost asks as it extends a hand trailing blood that dripped from the tips of its fingers to touch the top of her head, but it goes through her hair and forehead. The hand returns still dripping to its owner's side as Reiji speaks once more. "An illusion…? This is bad… I am going… insane… I… I need to find Cal…" The ghost turns away from Elen still speaking to itself as it floats around the room, legs unmoving with its movement. "Need to… make sure she is safe… and warm… I'm cold, Cal… So cold…" The ghost slowly returns to its spot in front of Elen and stares at her with eyes that do not see her, but someone else as it reaches out with a hand stained with wet blood once more. "Cal… wait for me…"
Elen sits very still, a dull pain aching in the empty hole where her own heart should be, recognizing his reasons for still existing despite being dead himself. You've… gone insane… that's why you killed all of them… and… you trapped yourself in a dream… that's why you could still move… despite having such serious injuries… for this person that you search for even now, still trapped… and now dead…
With his eyes faintly glowing with a light of desperation, Reiji's ghost continues to speak to an illusion of a person that Elen did not know. "…Cal… I need you, Cal… Wait… where… where did you go, Cal…?"
The burning gaze of the ghost refocuses on her as it lowers its raised hand, and Elen feels a sense of heat wash over her, as if she was sitting in front of a fire, not a too real ghost and its dead, ice cold corpse.
"Elen… tell me… please, tell me… where did they hide her…? Where… where is Cal?"
Elen looks away from his needing, desperate gaze, the words she wants to give him nonexistent as she tells him, his expression briefly falling to a sorrowful one that was identical to her grief-stricken own.
"I don't know where Cal is… Reiji –"
The ghost's gaze hardens into one that matches the corpse before it snarls with a barely restrained mask of fury, eyes burning with passionate anger that sparked with a pained look of betrayal.
"Leave me! Stop haunting me… curse you and that man, Scythe… without her, without Cal… it's so cold…" With blood still trailing from its mouth the ghost then speaks in a less harsh tone, as if to convince himself that he could go on and reach the ends of the earth in his search alone, without Elen's help as he turns away. "…Ein… I know you're not real… but… if you're not going to help me find her… be gone already, Ein… …Wait for me… Cal…"
The hole in Elen's chest hurts again for him, unable to see him in such pain as his ghost moans to itself, red tears flowing down already blood-stained cheeks from the cuts across his corpse's forehead.
"Cal… It's so cold… answer me… please… I need you, Cal… Cal… Why… Why won't you answer…? Where, where are you…?"
"That's enough… let me help you, find her…" Elen states in a broken voice that matches her will to even say the words, broken like shattered glass, hallowed eyes and her existence until she had met Reiji. And yet she still lost him again to the cruel winds of death that constantly flowed around her. Slowly the bloodied ghost turns to face her, a brief manic grin appearing on his face that flickers back to a neutral frown as he nods his head at her words. Reiji's sprit slowly floats forwards until it was less than half a foot away, then shimmering with a pale golden light; fades before vanishing in front of Elen.
She is dimly aware of the passing of time as she walks and sometimes drives around the streets of Los Angeles, the three days seem like three short hours, three minutes, three seconds... Regardless of which it was, she was only interrupted once by the ring of a phone that Elen does not answer. In what appeared to be the moment when Reiji tore apart her mind, soul, heart and replaced it with his own, before slowly piecing her back together around him, she turns down a street corner. It was a familiar yet unfamiliar setting from both her and Reiji's pasts, the third floor to the apartment looming before her like shelter to travel-weary travelers stuck on an abandoned road.
The morning rain creates a fine mist on Normandy Street, as Elen walks on, not truly alone as the ghost she carried stirs inside her body. "Cal… yes… Cal should be… waiting there… waiting in the loft… with warm food… a warm smile… her warm presence… she's waiting… to warm me…" the ghost mummers to itself as it pulls itself from Elen's body from behind. Elen stops and waits, her eyes moving to the side as she watches the ghost walk around then past her with dragging feet, its eyes fixated on something only it could see. Slowly she follows it down the street, her eyes already on what had to be their destination, the black stains on the red brick near the three shattered windows on the third floor of the apartment, the place that she had once lived in so long ago, in another life.
In the time it takes for Elen to duck underneath the yellow police tape, the ghost had already vanished through the door, its faint presence whispering and flickering on the third floor to her trained senses. "I'm back… Cal…" the ghost mummers from where it stood, a few feet in front of a girl with blonde hair and a tearstained face who was sitting in a corner of the wall-blackened room, her arms wrapped around her legs, sleeping.
The girl's eyes slowly open to reveal a pair of green as jade orbs; skin red around the rims from crying or lack of sleep, unfocused until they zero in on the faintly glowing person standing silently before her. "Reiji…?!" Cal exclaims in shock, her mouth dropping open as her eyes widen at the sight of him. Elen remains silent as she watches on from the hallway of the loft, tears falling from her own eyes as Cal's narrow and release tears of their own as the solid ghost takes a few steps forward. It kneels in a crouch in front of Cal, and Elen can easily sense the change in the spirit from the way it's shoulders slump down; and the light dims before fading away completely. It was in a normal yet exhausted voice that Reiji says "I told you I would be back… didn't I, Cal?" before leaning forward, his face briefly covering Elen's view of Cal's own before they part.
"Reiji you stupid idiot! One kiss is not enough for me to forgive you!" Cal angrily sniffles as she raises her fists into the air while Reiji sits back on the balls of his feet, Elen picturing his eyes closed as he replies.
"You have every reason to be mad at me Cal, which is why…" Elen can hear Cal's shocked gasp when her tiny fists go through Reiji's chest and briefly appear from his back; as the ghost continues to speak. "…I'm never leaving you. I'll stay by your side, forever…"
And yet, even as the words left his no-longer-bloodstained lips, the ghost of Reiji Azuma began to turn transparent before the two girls. For a minute that seemed to stretch into eternity, there is no sound, nothing else except the burnt-out room and the person who filled their world with his presence alone fading away. Then with the harshness of a bleaker reality, the world resets without him. Except for words that were no more than an echoed whisper, but still rang loud for Elen and Cal as if the ghost had shouted them instead, the ghost's presence was gone.
"I'm home."
The sound of the drizzling rain outside the blackened room slowly brings both girls back to reality as they stare with frozen eyes and bodies at the spot where Reiji had once been. Cal was the first to move, her body falling forward but stopping as she supports herself with shaking arms, her splayed fingers curling into trembling fists against the ash-covered floor. Elen barely moves in response, only the shifting of her pupils from the spot where Reiji's ghost had been to the crying girl showed she was functioning. Other than this, the former phantom was a lifeless unmoving figure, a ghost mourning the loss of another. Cal, not noticing that she was not alone in the loft, continues to openly grieve. "Reiji…" she sobs, "Stupid idiot… you stupid liar…"
The blonde inhales a shaky breath, her overflowing eyes squeezed shut as she shouts at the ground and ghost that had left her for dead. "Lair! Didn't you promise me… to always be by my side? How can I be… your assistant… if I'm not next to you…?"
Silent as a corpse, Elen's feet move forward over the snow-colored floor on their own until she enters the room, like Ein did in the past while doing missions or existing, acting on an emotionless autopilot. It was in the same detached way that Elen feels her lips move; the words spoken in her own voice. However, the words that fall like snowflakes or ash are being said by someone else, not Elen, as Elen does not exist anymore, she has no reason to…
"Do you…" Cal's head snaps up, widened eyes frozen as the rest of her body like a deer in headlights, the speaker barely pausing before continuing. "…want to be with him?"
"Of course I do!" the girl tearfully exclaims before attempting to wipe away some of the tears with the sleeve of her green jacket. After a pause, Cal warily glares at Elen before softly asking. "….Who are you?"
The single loaded question sent a cascade of answers through Elen's mind, each analyzed against the situation at hand before being tossed aside until the right answer could be selected and used.
Elen. Ein. Phantom. Tool. Assassin. Other half of Zewi, no, Azuma Reiji. Reiji's teacher. Empty shadow…
"His instructor…"
Elen was interrupted before she could say anything more than the two empty words, not that she was going to, the dead look in Cal's eyes now burning away with a gaze of understanding and dim hope.
"Then… you're the first Phantom…! Please, let me go to him… with your help…"
Elen slowly nods her head as she walks forward, the 4-inch Colt Python already removed from her back pocket while her unseen hands that knew the gun both inside and out checked it over for functionality. It will still fire despite the three-day exposure to the rain and weather, one .357 magnum bullet already in the chamber, two more inside of the reloader.
"Do you want to leave in a instant, without pain? Or do you want to die feeling your consciousness slip away?" Elen asks Cal before stopping two feet away from the girl, who had taken out a brass-colored pocket watch which now sat on the floor in front of her, open as it played a low, cheerful tune.
Cal replies with a sad smile as she gazes at the watch, "Through the heart… I want to know… when I see him, on the other side..." tears flowing nonstop from her eyes as the music slowly beings to wind down. Elen is silent as she aligns the rear sight of the revolver with the girl's heart, waiting for a final signal from the girl that it was time to squeeze the trigger and end her life. The signal came in the form of a closed-lip grin Cal gave her as the music slowly decreases, then finally, stops.
The moment in which the Colt goes off holds no emotion for Elen as Cal's face briefly becomes covered with a grimace of pain as she then falls to the side. The dying girl smiles at Elen or at someone unseen as the light fades from her eyes, her final words a broken but still warmth-filled sigh before she closes her tearing eyes with the last of her fading strength.
"Rei…ji…"
There is no sound as Elen stares down at Cal's body, unmoving and uncaring as far as what may occur to the former Phantom from this point on. There is a sudden sense of cold on her nose along with the reverberating sound of a water droplet hitting skin, which was enough for her to react in some way to everything that had occurred. Elen slowly tilted her head back, watching as the dripping water fell from the eves of what used to be the ceiling.
Even the sky is mourning your deaths… she thinks to herself as her downcast eyes returned to the spot where Reiji's ghost had been, and where Cal's body now lay.
I have no purpose here… not as Ein nor as Elen. Because the world I have endured for the past two years without him was a tormenting nightmare… that now continues with his death. I… have no reason to exist anymore…
"I… I cannot survive in a world… without you, Reiji." The nameless girl says in a emotionless voice as she walks forward to Cal's body before lifting it and moves towards one of the remaining sections of wall between the glassless windows of the loft. She already knows what to do as she leans Cal's corpse against the blackened wall before sitting down next to it with her own back facing the same wall. The phantom pockets her Colt, knowing that eventually the police would come but not as quickly if no one heard a second shot fired as she did not want anyone to disturb their final resting place.
The way in which the knife is removed from her pocket and held to her throat is different from the last time she did this, no trembling or hesitance to be found in her steady hands, as she now welcomed death's embrace. Then, the knife is flipped from its position and swiftly slashes one wrist, then the other before it travels to her chest and pierces the windpipe that connects both of her lungs to her throat. There is no pain, only a spreading sense of numbness from where the blood flowed from the cuts and pooled in her lungs. Elen closes her eyes as she feels her body moving towards Cal's, which was limply leaning against her own as there was nothing to make it stay put. It felt as if she was sinking into darkness deep underwater, with nothing around her regardless of how far she tried to sense her surroundings. She barely acknowledges the growing sense of cold that seemed to become colder the further she sank, as Elen was dead, but the person she died for was not here. But then, there was a white flash of light far ahead of her which was akin to a muzzle flash that blasts her spirit or body with a mixture of warmth and heat.
The whiteness faded away as the smell of cooked soup and meat fills Elen's nose, and her eyes slowly crack open to reveal a sight that she had been longing for a very long time. Reiji was standing at the table next to the loft windows, the sunlight streaming through seeming to make his face brighter than it already was with the easy going smile he wore. Cal was standing on the chair placed at the opposite side of the table, jabbing a soup ladle across it in Reiji's then Elen's direction, saying something that Elen was just beginning to hear. "– Elen's not going to eat at the table, she needs to eat where she is resting Reiji!"
Ah… Elen thinks to herself as she slowly comes to the realization that there was a very soft blanket covering her, and that she was comfortably propped up on the couch facing the loft windows.
It was a dream… tears fall from her eyes as she wipes them away with the blanket before rising from the couch, both Reiji and Cal noticing her at the same time with mirrored looks of mild surprise. Elen notes that her body feels lighter somehow as she walks towards Reiji, whose jacket and undershirt were covered with small holes just above the bottom lining of both pieces of clothing. She embraces him in a hug, not caring that Cal was watching with a annoyed pout or that Reiji's strangely overheated body temperature could be felt through his clothing.
Losing him… was just a dream… everything… was just a dream…
"Do you feel better Elen?" Reiji softly asks; as he cautiously places his hands on the sides of her waist.
"Yes." Elen mummers as she glances at Cal out of the corner of her eye, noting the way the other girl's tapping of the ladle against her folded arms failed to hide the single hole in her green jacket, just above where her heart was.
All of that pain and emptiness… was just a nightmare…
She pulls back from Reiji and smiles at him before smiling at Cal and thanking her for setting a place for her at the small table. Elen then sits in the chair taken from the desk in the corner of the loft and placed facing the windows, Reiji sitting down on her left and Cal sitting in the chair she was standing on. The three share a moment of laughter and bright smiles before digging in to Cal's hamburger soup, Elen noticing that there was a faint scar across both of her wrists as she takes her fourth bite. A sad smile flickers across her face before it changes into a true one of joy as she looks up and out the light filled window. The view is of blue skies full of sporadic white clouds flowing on the same breeze that carries several blades of green grass into her view and then out of sight.
This is just a dream… that I want to have forever…