Disclaimer: I do NOT own Spiral: suiri no kizuna. Shirodaira Kyou and Mizuno Eita do.
Hi! Thanks for clicking on my fanfic~ If you didn't know, I'm actually miso-hot, but I changed my pen name!
*THIS FANFIC CONTAINS SPOILERS FROM THE SPIRAL MANGA!*... please enjoy~
-SPIRAL DESTINY-
After one quick heave of breath, the candle's flame swirled itself into a grey cloud of smoke. The short moment of silence was interrupted by loud cheering and scraps of colored paper and confetti were tossed up into the air.
"Is all of this really necessary?" Kousuke frowned at his friends, brushing a few bits of confetti out of his red hair.
"It's not everyday you turn twenty, Kousuke." Ryoko, his childhood friend, retorted as she leaned over to remove the candle from the birthday cake. "Just deal with it."
He sighed as the smaller girl, Rio, carefully began to divide the cake evenly with a knife. "This piece looks yummy..." the silver haired girl mumbled to herself. Although Rio had been away traveling the past several months, she had taken the time to come back to Japan to visit her friends. She's still just as childish as ever, Kousuke thought, snickering quietly.
"Alright then." Kousuke said reassuringly, crossing his arms over his chest. "I'll take this day as a start of a new beginning for myself and the other Blade Children. Within this year, as the eldest of the remaining Blade Children, I'll prove that we can over come this curse. The battle begins today, but I'll be sure that we win in the end." Each of them exchanged smiles. It was at the age of twenty that Mizushiro Yaiba, father of all of the Blade Children, had sought to eradicate the human race. But it was different now. These Blade Children were determined to break free from Yaiba's expectations and not to give in to the curse. That was because they all possessed something that Yaiba lacked; they had each other. They had friends.
"More importantly, I think that we should make this day a celebration on behalf of Narumi." Kousuke added on. He turned to look over his shoulder. "What do you say, Narumi-otouto?"
The boy with untidy brown hair stood behind Kousuke, looking slightly surprised that he was suddenly mentioned. He then placed a neat stack of plates on to the table. "Huh. Are you serious?"
"Well, after being hospitalized for over a year, you've been finally discharged from the hospital since yesterday, right?" Rio asked cheerfully.
"That's correct." A modest smile edged itself at the corner of Ayumu's mouth. "But despite that, it still seems unbelievable to me."
It was as if a miracle had happened. The doctors had even thought so. After long hours of research and observation on Hizumi Mizushiro's deceased body, they had finally developed a solution to prolong Ayumu's lifetime to over a decade. Even now they were working on ways to keep him living longer, which increases his chances at living a longer normal and healthy life. Having such a phenomenon take place, Ayumu had changed his fate, he was able to prove to everyone that he could keep on living. It proved that the Blade Children, too, could change their own fate and that they could save themselves.
Ayumu gave hope to each and every one of them.
After tough months of going through physical therapy and taking special medications, Ayumu was finally able to stand and walk on his own again. With outstanding results in his recovery, he was released from the hospital. Although he still had some difficulty in moving and controlling his left hand, he was allowed to go back to living a normal life. All was well.
"So what do you plan on doing now?" Ryoko asked Ayumu, pushing a bit of cake into her mouth with a fork.
Ayumu scratched the back of his head. "Well, I didn't really think I'd be released from the hospital, so I hadn't thought too much of it until recently. Aniki gave me an my own apartment that I could live in for now. Maybe I'll look into getting a job or something."
When Hizumi died, Ayumu remembered that Eyes Rutherford paid him a visit to deliver a message from Hizumi. "Go! To you desired place." Was what he said.
'Desired place,' huh? Ayumu thought, letting out a short and exhaled laugh. He would say something like that.
"But you're free to do whatever you want now, Narumi-otouto." Rio reminded him, smiling sincerely. "You don't have to live in that darkness anymore… Showing that you can pull though it all, you gave us Blade Children more than enough hope to change our futures. You don't have to suffer for us anymore."
Ryoko gave a little nod and Kousuke smirked.
"I'll put some thought into it." Ayumu grinned back at the three, resting his elbows on the table. "But I'm still going to do my best to help you guys and the rest of the Blade Children."
"You can leave that all to me." Kousuke pressed a thumb to his chest, smugly. "I think I can handle it. But for now, let's make a toast." He held a cup in the air. "To Narumi-otouto."
"To Narumi-otouto!" Rio and Ryoko repeated.
The cups clinked against one another harmoniously.
The party soon ended and Ayumu found himself walking around the streets alone in the late summer's afternoon. It felt as if it had been forever since he walked outside, but nothing had seemed to change. From the trees, buildings, and even the open cracks in the sidewalk, it was as if nothing had ever happened since he was hospitalized. The air had that same scent it always carried and the wind still had that familiar breeze. The people who passed by wore the same expressions as before, minding their own business, uninterested by the people surrounding them. There was no change.
Despite that, Ayumu didn't seem to mind. Although things had seemed to remain the same, he was now looking from a different perspective. He never knew before how much he could value his own life. He was taking everything in. Never before had he felt so thankful to breathe, to walk, to live… it was truly a blessing. A miracle.
"Is it really a miracle? I think I'd have to disagree with that." Ayumu's sister-in-law, Madoka, had said to him the day he was released from the hospital. "You're the one who made it possible for yourself, Ayumu. You're the one who pushed yourself to keep moving on. It can't be just something as simple as a miracle, you have to give yourself more credit than that."
It was true. He did put countless hours into trying to recover. Without that, he probably would be still stuck in the hospital, paralyzed. But even so, Ayumu felt that it wasn't himself that kept him to move forward. It was more of something else, or rather, someone else.
It was her.
The girl who went by the name "Hiyono Yuizaki." Although the last time he saw her was almost a year ago when Hizumi died, he thought of her quite often. Her smile, her face, and her voice remained clear in his memory, regardless she was thousands of miles away from him, off doing some mysterious job he had no idea about.
Maybe she's somewhere supporting some other pathetic guy and winning over his affections. Ayumu thought, laughing bitterly to himself. She may have been just a "character" his brother had created and used, but in the time he spent with her, something had developed. There were feelings that had grown from their relationship. Despite the fact he did not know really anything about who she really was, there were these deep feelings he had for her. So deep, he had enough strength to win against his brother even with her betrayal. He cared about her too much. She was that important to him, whether she was "Hiyono Yuizaki" or not. She was her and he was himself. And together, he felt they shared an unbreakable bond.
But even if they did have that unbreakable bond, they came to the conclusion that they could not be together.
"If you're by my side, someone will mistake it as my happiness." Ayumu recalled telling her before they officially parted ways.
Ayumu continued to walk, listening to the sound of his feet against the sidewalk and the buzzing cars that sped by. He slipped his hands into the pockets of his jacket and shivered a little. It was cold and it was getting dark outside.
Things were different now, weren't they? He changed his fate, therefore, he no longer had to suffer. That meant he could live life as he pleased. He could be with her.
He stopped to gaze up at the hazy darkening atmosphere. The moon was now making it's way into the sky as the sun was slowly melting away into the landscape. He closed his eyes for a moment and inhaled. He felt that a part of him was missing. He was incomplete.
"Where are you now?" He murmured softly.
The only reply he received was the quiet whisper of the wind. The sun disappeared from the sky above him.
TO BE CONTINUED...