Disclaimer: I still don't own Fafner, Xebec does.
Author's note: This one isn't quite as long as the first chapter, but quality (hopefully) over quantity, eh?
There's a flashback to the "eye incident" in this one, because I never though the Anime made it quite clear what was going on there. It almost made it seem as though Soushi stabbed himself in the eye, but that can't be, or else Kazuki wouldn't have had so much blood on his hands, or felt so guilty about the accident. I concluded that there were two reasons why Soushi didn't blame Kazuki for what happened, both of which are in this chapter.
I also wanted to explore the idea of a new core, and thus "Shin" (meaning core or heart) was born. I was a little apprehensive about adding my own characters to story, but I suppose you can decide for yourselves if you like it or not.
I've included Yumiko and Michio's child in this chapter, too. A little girl named "Kibou" (which means hope). I thought it was a rather fitting name, because of that scene in episode 10, " The sign in the classroom says hope, because the children are the hope".
I also noticed that I've made Sakura obsessed with chocolate. I'm not sure how that happened. ;
Soushi's second dream is a reference to an official picture of Kazuki and Soushi (the one where they're snuggled up together during the sunrise, or sunset, I couldn't tell... Anyway, Kazuki is wearing his new uniform in the picture, and it is apparently set "a year later" after the TV series ended). That picture was pretty much the inspiration for this whole story.
And just in case you don't get the joke near the end of this chapter, there's a type of camera called "Canon" (though it mat be spelled with two n's).
But enough of my rambling. I hope you enjoy this chapter!
PART TWO: SLEEP - CORE
All Kazuki could do was stare.
" Hey, Kazuki, snap out of it!" Kenji ordered, shaking him by the shoulders. " We've got to get Soushi back to Alvis."
" Shouldn't we get him some clothes first?" Maya asked, a blush on her face.
That snapped Kazuki out of it. In an instant he was at Soushi's side, tearing off his own jacket and covering him with it.
" Come on, we've got to take him home," Kazuki said, happiness shining in his eyes as he pulled Soushi into his arms. Not that Soushi noticed, as he had fainted after his brief few words to his friends.
Canon was dialling away on her phone. " Hello? This is Canon Memphis here. Could we have a little assistance, please? Minashiro Soushi has returned."
" Hey, Sakura! I've got great news!" Kenji bellowed, bursting in the door with a loud crash.
Sakura, who had been resting peacefully up until now, sat bolt upright and snorted in a rather undignified fashion as she was jerked from her sleep.
" Ah! Kenji, don't do that! You'll give me a heart attack one of these days," she cried in annoyance. Her eyes then came to rest upon the box in Kenji's hands. " Ooh, you brought me a present. What's the occasion?"
" Seeing as today marks three weeks since you first woke up from your coma, I thought you deserved something special, so here, happy anniversary," Kenji said, handing her the small box of chocolate toffees.
" Aw, that's so sweet. Thank you," said Sakura, eagerly accepting the chocolates and pulling the lid off. " But why didn't you come back to visit me again yesterday? I wanted to know what happened with that Festum."
" We were a little busy yesterday," Kenji said, sitting down on the edge of the bed. " Guess what we found when we went to look for the Festum."
" I can't be bothered to guess, just tell me."
" Minashiro Soushi."
The chocolate she'd been about to eat fell from Sakura's fingers, hitting the metal floor with a resounding 'plop'.
" Wow, Soushi's back?" A sly smirk played at the corners of her mouth. " So how did Kazuki react? Did he leap up and down in joy, before ravishing him in front of all of you?"
" Not quite," Kenji chuckled. " He just gawked at him, looking like a fish out of water, until I snapped him out of it. I'm sure the gawking wasn't at all caused by Soushi's lack of clothing, of course."
" Naked Soushi? I'd liked to have seen that." Sakura noticed the dark look Kenji was giving her. " Oh, don't get jealous. I just think Soushi's cute, that's all."
" Hmm, well it's a good thing he wouldn't be interested, or else I'd have to fight him for you," Kenji said, glaring at the bedspread.
Sakura leaned towards him, cupping his chin in her hand and tilting his face towards hers.
" You really don't have to worry, Kenji. Not about anyone," she said in a velvety voice. " You're the only one I love."
Moving in closer still, she kissed him soundly on the lips.
" S-sakura, I--" Kenji stammered as she pulled away, his face as red as a tomato. " I love you, too."
Sakura smiled and nuzzled at the side of his face. " Now come on, tell me what else happened yesterday."
" I'll tell you in detail if you want," Kenji said, swallowing. Sakura nodded. " OK, we went down to the beach and quickly spotted the Festum. It asked us if we were there, you know, the same old line. Then we noticed that Kazuki was looking at something in the sand. Maya asked him what was wrong, and Kazuki just said 'Soushi'. It was then that we realised that Soushi was laying in a heap on the sand."
" It sounds like something out of one of Mamoru's Mangas," Sakura murmured.
" Heh, yeah. Then Soushi said 'Kazuki, I kept my promise', and proceeded to pass out."
" Oh, how dramatic!" Sakura exclaimed, holding the box of chocolates out to Kenji, who happily accepted one. " What promise did he keep then?"
" I have a vague idea. Every time I've asked Kazuki why he thinks Soushi is coming back to the island, his answer has always been, ' I know he will - he promised'. It seems he was right."
" He sure was," Sakura said. " I guess Kazuki's real birthday present came a little late, eh? So, where are they now?"
" Soushi is sleeping in one of the medical rooms, and Kazuki's probably watching over him," Kenji said.
" Sleeping? You mean he's in a coma?"
" No. He just seems to be sleeping. That's what Tomi-sensei said," Kenji answered with a shrug. " We'll go and pay him a visit once he's awake. But for now, we should just leave him to Kazuki."
Kazuki sat by Soushi's bedside. Watching. Waiting. Hardly able to believe it. Soushi was back, he was really back.
Soushi mumbled something in his sleep, his fingers clenching and twitching, his face scrunching up in a frown.
Kazuki reached out and trailed his own fingers across Soushi's scar, still perfectly intact.
" The Festum even let this remain, huh?" he commented, unable to take his eyes away. " Tomi-sensei, are you sure he's alright? Why isn't he waking up?"
Chizuru looked up from her desk, where she'd been writing up Soushi's medical reports, and gave an exasperated sigh. " Kazuki-kun, I've already told you three times; he's perfectly fine. No sign of injury, or even a trace of assimilation. His body is just completely drained, no wonder he's asleep."
" But he's been asleep since we brought him here yesterday!" Kazuki insisted, his tone worried. " Shouldn't he have woken up by now?"
" Kazuki-kun, God only knows what happened to him when he was with the Festum. From what you've been saying they had to rebuild his whole body; that's quite an ordeal to go through. So can you please stop fretting and just let him sleep? From our calculations he should wake up sometime tomorrow."
Kazuki finally accepted defeat, and just settled for staring at the sleeping boy. " Do you think he's having nice dreams? He doesn't look all that happy."
" I don't know. You'll just have to ask him when he wakes up."
As he slept, Soushi dreamt. Or maybe he was simply remembering. Either way the memories came rushing back to him, of that fateful day almost seven years ago. The day when everything changed.
He could still remember it; that whispery voice coming though the radio, asking them if they were there. And even when they'd replied, it still persisted.
That's when panic had set in upon the group.
Kouyou had been the first to bolt away, with Maya and an ailing Shouko struggling after him. Kenji, Mamoru and Sakura, ever the tight-nit trio, had been next, running past the shrine, the chimes jingling at their retreat.
Leaving just Kazuki and Soushi to gaze at the radio in wonder, unable to comprehend what this event would do to them, or what was about to follow just moments later.
Soushi often wondered if that was why they'd been the first of their generation chosen to fight the Festum, because they had all been there on that day. They had answered the question.
Soon after the others' departure, Soushi knew something would happen. It started off as a tingling in the back of his head, as though something had awoken deep within him.
He then turned to Kazuki, eyes glazing over and becoming a deep shade of red, the brilliant green crystal jutting out of his palm.
" Anata wa soko ni imasu ka?"
Kazuki's eyes widened in fear, and he backed away up against the tree.
" Soushi, what are you doing?" he asked weakly.
" We can become one now, Kazuki," Soushi whispered, his voice hollow and emotionless. " Let's become one... Kazuki."
Kazuki screamed in terror as he grappled with Soushi, trying to keep the crystal at bay. And then in that instant Kazuki shoved Soushi's hand away, straight into the blond boy's left eye.
Soushi froze. Kazuki froze. And then the blood began to pour from the wound, coating Kazuki's hands.
The crystal burst and Kazuki hastily pulled away, staring down at his hands in shock, then back at Soushi, his mouth agape.
Soushi's hand instantly went to cover his eye, a cry of pain ripping from his throat as the reality of what had happened set in.
And then Kazuki turned and fled. As fast as he could possibly go.
Soushi sat upon the bloodstained grass for what seemed like hours, staring after Kazuki, before realising that he needed to get his eye patched up before he bled to death.
He stumbled through the doors of the clinic a few minutes later, hand still pressed to his face.
Tomi Chizuru looked up, nearly screaming in horror at the sight of him.
" Oh my God! Soushi-kun!" she exclaimed, running over to him as he continued to lean wearily against the doorframe. " What on Earth happened to you?"
" I--" he started, falling against her stronger body.
" Yumiko! Call Commander Minashiro. Tell him to get down here right away!"
" OK, mother!"
" I--" Soushi tried again, before everything went out of focus and the world faded before his eyes.
Soushi remembered waking up in bed a few hours later, a bandage over his eye.
His father had been sitting by his bedside, waiting for his son to wake up. And now he demanded to know who'd injured him like this.
" It was my fault," Soushi had answered tiredly. " I was out playing tag with Kazuki, then I trip over and landed on some rocks. One of them must have dug into my eye."
Soushi knew that Kazuki had often wondered why he never told anyone that he was the one who'd injured his eye, why he'd never blamed him or hated him for it.
And Soushi knew why he didn't blame Kazuki; because he'd tried to assimilate him, and Kazuki was just defending himself. And because even at the tender age of eight, he'd loved Kazuki more than anything in the world.
Their footsteps echoed in the gaping darkness as Doma and Seri made their way down the seemingly endless flight of stairs to the core's room.
" Doma-kun, we really shouldn't be going down here. Let's go back," Seri said, hurrying after her friend as he ambled down the stairs.
" I only want to take a quick look, just to see how he's doing today," Doma said, continuing on towards the core room.
Doma gazed up at the enormous carved doors before them. " Look, we'll stay for five minutes, that's all. If he didn't want us to be down here, the doors wouldn't unlock, right?"
Seri gave in as the doors slowly opened. " OK, five minutes. I guess the new core must be terribly lonely, being down here all by himself. I wonder if Tsubaki-chan ever felt lonely?"
" Her brother probably visited her allot, just to make sure that she wouldn't," Doma said. Taking an apprehensive Seri by the arm, they stepped into the darkened room.
The Coagula stood in the centre of the room as usual. Immense and tall, the tank, full of red, water-like substance, housed the new core. Unlike Tsubaki, this core was a boy, and he had already grown to just over two years old.
The workers of Alvis weren't sure why the core was growing at such a fast pace, assuming that it had something to do with the fact that it was created directly by the Mir.
Doma and Seri crept slowly forwards along the metal pathway towards the tank, almost as though they were worried about accidentally disturbing the core from his sleep.
As they came to a stop in front of it, the core's eyes sprung open, staring at they intently with a gaze wise beyond its years.
The children jumped, holding in their gasps of surprise.
" Hi. We're sorry for waking you up," Seri said, holding her hand up in a half-hearted attempt of a wave. " We just thought you might be bored in here by yourself."
The core continued to stare at them, blinking his dark, forest-green coloured eyes. Stiffly and shakily, he held up one of his own tiny hands and waved back at them.
" Hey, he's saying hello!" Doma proclaimed excitedly, grinning at Seri. " Hi! I'm Doma, and this is my friend, Seri. Do you have a name?"
The core blinked at them, before shaking his head. Jerkily he moved his hands and feet, kicking them about in the water-like substance, he swam over to the front of the tank and pressed his hands up against the glass, gazing out at them with a sad look on his face.
" We'll have to ask commander Makabe what his name is later on," Doma mumbled quietly to Seri. " I don't like referring to him as simply 'the core'."
" I know what you mean," Seri agreed. " It makes it seem like he's some kind of thing. Just an object."
The core began banging on the sides of his tank, his mouth moving as though he was trying to speak.
" Oh, you can't come out of there yet," Seri said, trying to calm the child, and feeling like a monster when she saw the scared look in his eyes. " I'm sure you'll be able to leave once you're as big as Tsubaki-chan was."
" That could be sooner than we think," Doma said. " Remember when we visited a few weeks ago? He was only as big as Yumiko-sensei's daughter then."
" Yeah, I can't believe how much he's grown." Seri gave the young core another friendly look. " We have to be going now, but we'll visit you again soon. We promise."
As they left the core's face scrunched up in despair, and throwing his head back he began to sing a far more depressing, agonising version of the song that Minashiro Tsubaki had once sung.
The waves lapped at the shore. The sun shone high in the sky, making the rippling azure water shimmer. And for once Kazuki felt that the weather was perfectly in tune with his mood.
It was a beautiful day. A wonderful day. The most wonderful day of Kazuki's life. Soushi had returned, just as he'd said he would.
" I wonder if he'll wake up soon?" Kazuki pondered, his voice quiet amidst the churning ocean. " How will he act once he is awake? What if he's forgotten who I am? No, that can't be. If he'd forgotten, he wouldn't have returned."
Kazuki didn't know why, but he was suddenly overcome by a great sense of sadness. But he didn't have anything to feel sad about. Everything was perfect. Soushi was back.
" So why do I still feel sad?" Kazuki wondered. Pressing his hand to his face, he was surprised to find it wet with tears. " Why am I crying?"
" You can hear it, right?"
Kazuki started and spun around. " Kouyou! What are you doing here? How did--"
The brunette held a finger to his lips, effectively hushing the stuttering Kazuki.
" You can hear it, right? Listen closely."
Kazuki obediently closed his eyes, straining to hear anything else over the sound of the sea. It was faint, but he could hear it; a song, sad and mournful, echoing hauntingly across the land.
" Who's singing?" Kazuki asked. " They sound so sad. Why?"
" That is Shin."
" Shin?"
" The new core," Kouyou replied. " He is calling, and that is why I came."
Kouyou smiled at Kazuki serenely, eyes full of that odd, all-knowing quality that Tsubaki's had once possessed.
" You don't have to worry, you know. Soushi will awaken tomorrow."
" But when he does, will he still be himself? Or will he have become a Festum?" Kazuki asked, finally voicing the concern that had been praying on his mind.
" Soushi is not a Festum. Soushi is Soushi," answered Kouyou. " Akane listens, Tsubaki teaches and I answer. But Soushi does all three, while still remaining as himself."
" Why are you really here, Kouyou?" Kazuki asked.
" To answer Shin's call... and to offer my services."
Soushi was dreaming again. This time he was certain it was a dream, as it was one he'd dreamt many times before.
He was on a beach, the radiance of the sunrise before him, giving everything an orange tinge. The air was warm, yet with a hint of winter chill to it.
He'd be staring out across the sunlit water when a voice - his voice - calm and soothing as ever, would call out his name.
Soushi would turn and smile with relief as his blue eyes locked with familiar brown ones.
" Kazuki, you're here. You came."
Kazuki, looking slightly older and, though Soushi hated to admit it, a few inches taller than himself, returned the smile brightly.
" Of course I'm here. Why wouldn't I have come?"
" I don't know," Soushi replied softly, stepping forward and pressing against Kazuki, resting his head on the other boy's shoulder. " I love you so much."
Kazuki placed his own hand on Soushi's shoulder, pulling him closer still.
" I know," he murmured back, voice muffled by Soushi's hair. " I love you, too."
Just as Soushi closed his eyes and allowed himself to drift off to sleep in Kazuki's warm embrace, he heard the voice that he dreaded.
" Hey, you two! Say cheese!"
Click.
And from behind closed lids, Soushi could make out the flash of a camera going off.
" Kazuki, make her stop!" Soushi moaned in his sleep, twisting about on the bed.
Chizuru looked up from where she'd been working at her desk, and blinked in surprise.
" Well, I certainly hope he isn't talking about me," she said, laughing despite herself.
" Hey, big sister, you said you wanted to talk to me about something, right?" Maya said as walked through the doors of CDC.
Yumiko flicked off her computer monitor, and nodded at her sister. " That's right. I was hoping you could do me a little favour."
" What kind of a little favour?" Maya questioned suspiciously. Her sister could come up with some of the oddest plans, most of which involved matchmaking, something Maya never wanted to be a part of again.
" It's just, well, I promised one of the new girls that I'd stay behind tomorrow night and help her out with her shift. So I was wondering if you could... baby-sit Kibou?"
" Baby-sit!" Maya exclaimed shrilly, making everyone in CDC glance at her, much to her humiliation. " I don't know the first thing about taking care of a child."
" Well, it's about time you learned, or else the guy you end up with will be disappointed."
Once upon a time Yumiko would have made some sly comment about her Kazuki, but even she could see now that it would be a pointless endeavour.
Maya glared back at her as best as she could, nodding reluctantly, knowing that there was no way she could wriggle out of it.
" Alright, I'll do it. But I expect there to be plenty of food for us to eat. I'm not doing it if it means I have to cook anything."
" Us?" Yumiko repeated. " Who's us?"
" I'm going to try and convince Canon to join me in this little adventure," Maya said.
" That's fine with me. Bring the real camera, too, while you're at it," Yumiko said with a wink. " I know you're good at taking pictures."
" Very funny, big sister," Maya said, rolling her eyes.
The main doors opened again and Kazuki came inside. His gaze was cast to the floor and he seemed lost in thought.
" Oh, Kazuki-kun, hello. How are you--" Maya came to an abrupt halt as she noticed who was following Kazuki. " Kasugai-kun! What are you doing here?"
Kouyou was looking around CDC with great interest. After a moment he answered Maya. " I'm here to answer Shin's - the new core - call. Did you hear him singing just now?"
" The new core? We have a new core now?" Maya asked, thoroughly baffled by this revelation. " I did hear a sad sounding song awhile ago. That was our new core?"
" What!" Rina's angry voice made all heads turn to her. The girl had stood up from her post, fists clenched as she stared at them in angst.
" You mean Tsubaki-chan is really gone? She's not coming back? You've already found a replacement for her?"
" Minashiro Tsubaki does not exist here anymore," Kouyou answered in that bland, yet somehow mystical tone that only a Festum could manage.
" What about Minashiro-senpai? You Festum killed him, yet he still came back!" Rina retorted hotly, oblivious to how white Kazuki's face went at her words. " Why him and not Tsubaki-chan? What makes him so special? Maybe it's just a trick; he'll wake up and be dead on the inside. Just like you."
" Minashiro Soushi had a promise to keep. That is why he was rebuilt and allowed to return to this island." With that Kouyou turned to Fumihiko. " Commander Makabe, I have something I need to discuss with you."
Kazuki couldn't bare to hear anymore.
' Rebuilt? He makes Soushi sound like some sort of robot,' Kazuki though, feeling sick to his stomach. ' What is Soushi has changed? Then what will I do?'
The end of part two.
I'll start writing part three soon.