I was almost in tears, it's been five or six months since Ikuto last went missing, and around four of those we've known about Easters 'death rebel plan'. Each month I feel more pain and guilt because I can't find him. Each night I sneak out with Yoru, a Chara I now found out I could do transformations with, and look everywhere for him. But each time I do, it's like he's dropped off the face of the earth.
But here he was again, 'death rebel' plan activated as the rest of the guardians tried to get through to him while he's being controlled by his step-father. Each moment it was tearing me up inside, I was fifteen, had helped him as much as I could, had tried to get through to him, but that stubborn bastard just up and left again and got himself caught.
I understand now why he said those things to Tadase, we weren't meant to be. I realised the one thing he wanted me to. I was in love with him, and whether he was toying with me or not, I knew he shared at least some feelings for me, otherwise he wouldn't have left.
"Ikuto-oniisan, come back, this isn't you!" Tadase yelled, everyone else had already transformed, but I stood to the side, nobody paid me any attention as tears ran down my cheeks.
"Amu-san, we should transform" Ran said, worried about getting hurt as Ikuto's large scythe sent out X-energy and blew back the rest of the team, but I had braced myself and now stood in front of Ikuto while the rest of the guardians were thrown to the side. Yoru flew next to me, both of us determined to get the one person we love the most back into our life.
"Ikuto…" I whispered, seeing the dead look in his eyes flicker, but he simply raised his large scythe again and swung, he must be hearing me, because he had pulled it back at the last second, making only the X-energy hit me rather than the blade.
"Please, Ikuto! Hear me, fight, fight for us, fight for Yoru, your father, Utau, fight for me!" I screamed, finally past my breaking point as tears ran down my cheeks like rain falls, I saw the scythe falter, and knew that he was trying to fight it, he just needed more of a nudge. I wiped at my face, secrets soon spilled past my lips, leaving the guardians gaping after me.
"Come on, Ikuto. I helped you, I let you stay with me, sure we argued twenty-four seven and it was stupid hiding you from my parents and maybe in the end you were caught, but goddammit I thought we had at least become friends. Your insistent teasing pissed me off to no end, you slept with me in the same bed and either stole all the blanket or more than half the bed, and at times I'd have to punch you to wake you up because you'd somehow wrap your arms around me when we'd sleep. But those were the damn reasons I came home!" with each one of my words he seemed to gain more strength to fight, he was groaning in pain now, and I knew Utau was gasping for breath, but now trying to force the hundreds of thousands of millions of X-eggs to go to sleep, but she was still listening. She was going out with Kukkai, but it was no secret that she still liked Ikuto a little.
"What are you doing? Fight her!" his step-father screamed, in his hand was the metal musical piece that forced Ikuto to begin to fight me again. I only just managed to dodge his blow, and knew something that may force him to falter for a moment.
"Yoru!" I cried, he nodded and even my Chara's looked at us in confusion, not knowing what I could do.
"My heart: unlock!" I yelled, people around me gasped, and thankfully I did see Ikuto falter, actually he completely stopped, but that was more due to his step-father halting his movements than anything.
I was lifted into the sky, suddenly dressed in black leather pants, a black leather crop top that had a red cross on the front and was slit down the centre of the shirt at the top of it to show some cleavage that I had developed, but the back of the shirt came down but split through the centre. My hair was down and hung around my waist and I now wore knee high black leather boots. I now had blue-purple cat ears and a blue-purple tail, and if I had to say something, I looked damn good in this outfit.
I hit the ground, easily landing on my feet as everyone looked at me in shock, but the tears never stopped. Especially when Ikuto swung his scythe and I easily flipped out of the way.
"Stop, Ikuto! I know you have the strength to fight this! Please! Fight for Yoru and me!" I screamed, his moves became less accurate and each second his scythe faltered more and more.
"Goddammit, blueberry!" I screamed, using the nickname I had given him when he'd called me strawberry. It was childish, but hey, I'd been twelve when I said it, and if I'm called strawberry because my hair's pink, why can't he be called blueberry for his dark blue hair?
"Goddammit, I love you!" I screamed, many people gasped as a sob tore its way through my throat, but I got what I needed. He had completely paused, his step-father screaming at him, but his scythe was off to the side, and if I wanted to end this I had to now. I ran over, faster than I normally would be able to and now stood so close to him that our bodies were almost flush against each other. The lock hung around his neck, and his pained eyes stared down at me. I clasped the lock around my neck, and grabbed the key that hung around his, and slowly joined them together. They fit.
A bright white light flashed out, no doubt blinding everybody around, a now painless Ikuto stood dressed in death rebel clothes. He stared at me, searching my crying face with everything he had, looking for lies or deceit.
"Do you? Do you really?" he questioned, now doubt and slight pain entering his face. We were in a white world, there was nothing around us but white, I was afraid that if I moved I would fall.
"Yes, you idiot! We searched for you every night, we didn't give up-nya" screamed Yoru, only his voice being heard because he had still transformed with me. Ikuto's eyes met mine, they were obviously tired, dark shadows lined my face, but nobody had thought much of it, thinking it was just me worrying myself silly. I gave a slight nod, confirming what Yoru had said.
"Thank you" he whispered, but just because his voice was barely audible, it didn't lack the emotions that went with it. Suddenly, his lips pressed against mine, his hand cupping my cheeks as his other arm went around my waist. The white light disappeared and I heard many people gasp, and vaguely got a look at what Yoru was seeing, despite the fact that my eyes were closed.
Ikuto and I were suspended five metres in the air, hovering over the ground but being supported by nothing, Ikuto had transformed into the character he would be whilst with Yoru, and our tails had curled together. The guardians and Easter stared up at us in complete shock, and it seemed that the white light had purified the X-eggs, that slightly shocked me considering there had been so many that even with all the guardians they hadn't been able to purify them all. I knew that they thought this would be the end of them, and it was simply Ikuto and I who were the ones to cleanse them, not even meaning to.
I couldn't help but wrap my arms around his neck, our lips moving together slowly as he placed his hands on my hips, our bodies were flush together, and the kiss was an outpour of the emotions we felt. But mostly love and pain. Love and pain and longing, that burning ache we've both had in our chests since we've last seen each other normally, not while he was forced to try and kill us.
Finally, we pulled away, breathing deeply and I vaguely felt our feet touch the ground, as he rested his forehead on mine.
"Oh, by the way, I love you too" Ikuto said, making me smile, which in return made him grin. But soon it turned into a frown as I turned, my gaze hardening as I pulled from Ikuto's grip, facing the Easters van. They all gulped, seeing the glare on my face. I took a step forward, and then continued until I was standing in front of them. I knew for a fact that everything they had ever used to find the embryo or to make Ikuto dance for them was in the van. I was about to destroy it when a voice stopped me. A voice that sounded familiar, but I didn't know, until his words caught up with me.
"Amu-Oneesan?" I froze completely; turning to Ikuto's step-father before pushing him out of the way with so much force he flew back a few metres and landed on the ground with a grunt. I ran to the back of the van and pulled open the back doors, crying out in relief when I saw the small seven year old boy with blonde hair and odd gold eyes. He looked up at me, tears in his eyes before I opened my arms. He jumped at me and I stumbled back due to his weight before righting myself and holding him up, I could feel eyes burning into me as I walked away from the van, but glanced at the female scientist, knowing she had protested against Ikuto being used from the beginning.
"Is anybody else in that van?" I asked her, she shook her head and I nodded before I held my hand out, Yoru knew what I want and suddenly a shadow of a very large cat hand came out, it was bigger than the van and as I brought my hand down, the shadow claw hit the van and completely smashed it, crushing it so that it was barely a few inches tall. For a big van to be that size, well it was kind of comical.
I turned, walking over to my friends and knelt on the ground as I put this boy on the ground, only to envelop him in another hug so tight I wasn't sure if he could breathe.
"Oh, Otouto, I missed you so!" I cried into his ear, tears streamed down both our faces I was sure. I heard people gasp as yet another lie came into play. I did have another sibling, Hikari Hinamori. He was taken from my family when I was merely eight years old; Ami had been one and only knows him from pictures.
"Neesan, I'm sorry, I'm so, so, sorry!" he cried into my chest and I forced myself to stop crying as he pulled back and wiped at his eyes.
"Why?" I asked, confused. What I really wanted to ask was what he was doing in the can, why was he with Easter, and what was his play in all of this?
"Because I'm the boss at Easter, I just wanted you to find me! I didn't want anybody to get hurt, I wanted the embryo so that I could wish to be with you again" he said, tears streaming down his face.
"Why would you be the boss, though?" Ikuto asked kindly, simply out of curiosity as he came over and knelt by us, his hand resting on the low of my back.
"B-because my family isn't only famous photographers, Ikuto, dad was meant to be the heir for Easter, his great-grandfather was the one who made it, but dad wanted to pursue his dream, and so dad was going to give it to a very good friend of his whom happily accepted. Aruto Tsukiyomi, he agreed, but suddenly when the day came to accept it he went missing, that was the day my family and I were in a car accident, Ami was a year old, I was eight, and Hikari had just been born. My family had passed out, but I was sitting in the middle but was suffering from a head wound, it was bad enough that I could only watch as my baby brother was taken from me, I couldn't move, couldn't even recognise the guy who took him" I said, loud enough that many people had heard and gaped at me, I held Hikari to me though, and Ikuto stared at me with slight betrayal in his eyes.
"I'm sorry I didn't tell you, I wish I could say that I couldn't or that I wasn't allowed, but that's a lie because I could. But until I met you I hadn't even realised that Easter wasn't good, I had been willing to give up all my dreams on my eighteenth birthday and accept the position to take it over. It's the reason I have three Chara's, because I'd be giving up everything I've ever wanted to do, to take a job that my father was meant to. I had hoped that nothing bad would happen, and on my eighteenth birthday I'd leave everything behind me and take the responsibility I should've. I was going to set you guys free, all of you. I would've made sure that everything was okay, but then this happened. They began to control you and I was thinking whether or not I should just take the position, what's three more years anyway, right? I was just hoping to keep it a secret, because that way I could just disappear when the time came and leave no traces of where I went. It had seemed like a good idea at the time" I whispered, my voice breaking and more tears leaving my eyes when the information spilled past my lips.
"Oh god, Hikari! Amu!" I heard people scream and looked up, shocked to see my parents. They turned and glanced at my Chara's and shook their head, Hikari left my arms and ran to our parents.
"Why are you both cats? I thought it was only Yoru, and he's Ikuto's" dad asked, they all gaped but I shrugged, suddenly Ikuto changed back to normal, and Yoru came out of him. Huh? Suddenly, I was back to normal and I gaped at a female version of Yoru, only instead of black and blue, it was purple and black.
"Hi, my names Yori!" she grinned and I gaped at her as she smirked and winked, but I instinctively relaxed into Ikuto's arms.
"Wait, I have five Chara's now!" I screamed while people continued to stare at me in shock, my feelings matching theirs.
"It's okay strawberry, you're just stronger now. I always knew you were special, but this just proves how much" Ikuto grinned, making me smile back up at him as I stood on my tippy toes, pressing my lips to his.
"You're right; everything will be fine, because blueberries and strawberries are a wonderful mixture" Childish? Yes. Corny? Perhaps. But I didn't care. Ikuto didn't care neither as he chuckled and kissed me again. I smirked against his lips. This was more than an eventful day, but I was never one to oppose a happy ending. It seemed I'd just gotten mine.