the will to harm

Mion watched through a kind of disconnected haze as the halogen lights spun about, blues and reds firing brief sweeping beams through the dark. Her hands had, for the most part, stopped shaking. The wiry coils of her muscles were slowly beginning to unfasten, blood knots unraveling into exhausted ropes. She let out a soft breath. It was over. The nightmare was everlasting, but this particular shift in the dream had finally relinquished its hold. (The retraction of pain is euphoria.) From the open trunk of the station wagon that served as a makeshift ambulance, she watched with shaky ease as children skirted through the turning colors to latch onto the arms of their teary-eyed parents.

She almost smiled. Would have, at least, had there not been a needle jamming into her skin.

"Ow. Ow ow ow -"

The elderly paramedic dabbed softly at the large gash on Mion's forehead with a cotton swab, frowning for what was certainly not the first time. "Please hold still, Sonozaki-san."

"Right," Mion agreed, stopping herself from nodding. "Sorry. I won't- ow ow ouch-" Fifth stitch. Where was her bravado now, when she needed it most? It wasn't as if the thread work slamming its way through her nerves in a cold slither was thatpainful - it was merely multiplied by the sheer angering embarrassment of being observed by him of all people. Deliberately refusing to look up at the tall observer to her left, she bluntly spoke out to him instead. "Is it over?"

"Oh, this?" Ooishi answered, leaning on the open trunk door. "Yeah, mostly."

Mion rolled her eyes. "Thanks, Captain Vague."

Ooishi grinned, hands fumbling through his pockets for a match to light the cigarette dangling between his lips. "We saved your life, you know. You could at least show a little bit of gratitude."

"Kei-chan and Satoko-chan saved our lives," Mion told him icily. Another throb of the needle caused her fingers to coil in her lap. "You stood around being fat and annoying at the open door of a car with air conditioning."

"Ah, the bitter flower of Sonozaki zeal. I surely will never be tire of its fragrance, hm?"

Another gentle dabbing above her eyebrow touched away a loose droplet of blood. Her eyes flashed maroon in the spiral of color, and not entirely from the lights. Of all the people that she could want to be standing at her side at that very moment, Ooishi had to be in the absolute basement of the list. Where was Keiichi? And how could she ever summon the strength to look Rena in the eyes and tell her that Mion had failed her? That somewhere along the way, Rena had stumbled, cast plunging through an intangible mire, and Mion had not been enough to pull her back onto her feet?

Ooishi wouldn't understand. And Mion did not want him to.

Mion still refused to look up at him. "Go away."

He shrugged, striking the match against the handle of the open trunk. "You think you can shrug this off?" he asked her seriously, mumbling silver around the lit cigarette. "All it takes is one child, one parent to say otherwise. . . Suddenly you won't find me asking for anything."

Mion scoffed sourly. "Don't get so ambitious now- ow ow ow!"

"Sorry," the paramedic told her, even though the fault was not his yet again. "Almost done."

"We're sick of it, Ooishi-san. So very sick of you and your conspiracy theories."

Ooishi laughed aloud, silhouette strobing blue and red. "Not much of a conspiracy here though, eh? I thought we might be able to have a friendly chat."

Mion finally looked up at him, her face blank of the searing emotion she was consumed within. "Look. It's been a rough night. I haven't been able to see my friends yet after watching them try to kill each other. So please don't take offense or anything, but kindly fuck off for a while, okay?"

Even the paramedic had to sigh at that. Mion just didn't care. If they - anyone, everyone - were going to impede her this way, then all of humanity itself was nothing more than a featureless obstacle to be navigated or removed. The night had howled its challenge at them all. Did they honestly expect her to refrain from standing fast against it?

Ooishi let out an annoyed breath. "You youngsters. Fair enough. You're not on trial here. I'll be seeing you later then. Hope you feel better."

"Thank you for your concern," she replied acidly, watching him turn and walk over to another car where several of the firefighting crew had gathered. The wind sifted down through the valley, and Mion suddenly felt displaced; moved by some transforming barrier, cutting her off from the world lying right in front of her. Trees sang about among the voices. Someone had been left behind, and Mion was no longer certain whom. Rena's hand might have been at her back all along. Reaching out, closing, finding nothing but air.

She hissed slightly, brought back to reality by the moving needle.

The paramedic spoke quietly. ". . . Was that wise?"

Mion swallowed, trying very hard not to be frustrated. "Probably not. But no one did anything wrong. I'm tired of that man. Tired of his meddling and his crusade. I don't -" She broke off, blinking, as the gap between the worlds was suddenly bridged. She shot to her feet, oblivious to the sudden tracery of blood that drew across her face from the action. "Kei-chan!"

Keiichi looked over at her, a watchtower against the crashing surf of lights, smiling. "Hey you."

Doing what he could to not place his face in his hands, the paramedic grunted quietly. "Sonozaki-san, your stitches. . ."

Mion stormed forward in a rush. A lot of things whirled about her mind then, photographs of memory haloing the mind's eye - but most particularly was the feeling of his arms about her, his unreasonable and unfathomable despair, his plead to understand his feelings about how he had punctured the womb of trust she spun about him. Then, she had been shocked and hammered into a daze by the reality of his pleading, wordless affection. And now. . . Now, there was no sanity, only need; a pitiful and unceasing push to touch him.

He was stopped abruptly as Mion threw her arms around him, holding him as tight as she could, reaffirming that she still lived in a world where he was alive and they were together as friends. It did not feel strange or alien, but instead necessary, a beating heart suddenly spasming to a pulsing life after agonizing minutes of stillness.

"You're okay. . . You're really okay. . . !"

Keiichi smiled awkwardly, hands reaching up to touch gently at her shoulders. "Uh- Eh heh- Yeah. So I am."

Time and place returned as quickly as they had departed, and Mion realized what she was doing and propelled herself back and away from him. Though it was utterly impossible for her to smother the relief flooding her gaze as she looked at his face. "S-Sorry, it's just - I saw you on the roof with Rena, and. . . I don't know. Even. . . I thought you might never be coming back." She stumbled backwards a few feet before gently sitting back down over the rear bumper. She let out a breath, smiling. "I'm glad you're okay."

He looked to be in almost as much disbelief about that fact as she was. "Almost wasn't. How about you? Miss Eyebrow-Zipper. How many are they putting into you?"

Waiting for Mion to regain her stability, the older man snorted in good humor. "Oh probably a few hundred at this rate, if Sonozaki-san refuses to sit still."

Mion flushed in sudden embarrassment. "Hah. . . Yeah. Just a little scratch."

"She's really sorry," Keiichi said, the words stumbling out suddenly and unrehearsed. "I hope you know that."

Mion needed no clarification about whom Keiichi was speaking. "I know. It's alright. I'm just. . . happy you two are okay."

He laughed, a nervous and bewildered noise, as he sauntered over to the car and sat down beside her. He looked as if he had been crying.

Of course he had.

He watched the same fracas of movement she had been watching as he said, "You're really something, you know that?"

"Huh?"

"Just like that, you drop it. I didn't even need to explain or anything. You just trust her implicitly, even after what just happened. It's amazing."

"Yeah well. That wasn't her. I don't- can't even imagine how it must have been. I'd gladly bear this mark if it meant pulling her back from wherever it was that'd she'd fallen- OW! Damn it old man!"

"All done," the paramedic informed her, his fingers and the tweezers contained within pulling back from her face. He once again used the reddened swab to brush against the wound before placing the object in a plastic bag and standing up.

Mion smiled up at him in appreciation. ". . . Thanks. Sorry for all the name calling."

He laughed at that. "I've heard worse. Be sure to check in with Irie-sensei tomorrow so you can get it properly examined."

She nodded wordlessly as he gathered his tools and left the two of them alone. Again the feeling of detachment descended upon her. She could still feel Keiichi next to her, the heat of his proximity and the edge of his leg against hers, but all the moving lights and lives were shifted behind some screen that was like watching rain gather in the sky. Sleeping, awake, dreaming, becalmed.

Keiichi shook his head. "And then you go and do something like that."

"Say what?"

"I just told you how great it was how you have this unwavering faith in your friends, and then I hear you've been badmouthing some poor old guy to his face just because he was trying to help you. Same old Mion."

Mion looked over at him in a flash, eyes shining malevolently beneath the blue. "Am I going to have to hit you, Kei-chan? Do we have a problem?"

Keiichi let out a strangled laugh as he changed the subject. ". . . So what's going to happen to Rena?"

"I don't know. After everything that's happened, it isn't just us who decides what can be done anymore. Those two that we moved. . . then, it was just the five of us. We could keep that amongst ourselves. Now, though. . ."

"Can't you. . . I dunno. Do something? You've got some pretty persuasive voices in your corner. Is there a way to smooth this over?"

Mion shrugged, looking at all the distant faces, trying and failing to find Rena among them. "I'll try. Believe me, I'm going to try. And I think I can convince most. But I don't know if that will be enough."

Keiichi's hands came together in tightened fists. "Then I'll just have to convince the rest."

She looked over, and began to wag her finger at him in a patronizing gesture. "No baseball bats for you, young man. I hereby revoke your blunt weapon privileges for the next six months."

"Dullard," he complained. They both laughed. It was a hollow and brief gesture, alleviating nothing.

"I really hope that we can. . . go back to the way things were," Mion said quietly, her head tilting to the side to rest against the window of the car. She closed her eyes, the sleep of days churning behind her eyes, aching to be lifted into the world. "You were the best thing to happen to us in a long time, did you know that? Satoshi-kun left this huge hole, and - I don't know. I can't tell you how it is. You didn't fill it, but, you made us all forget about the pain of it being there. That's pretty. . . important to us. You managed to enhance our lives without ever replacing the person we lost. Everyone really appreciates that."

He swallowed. "Thanks. I really - thanks. . ."

Shyly, eyes still closed, Mion's hand moved atop his and gently rested upon it; a soft curtain of warmth lilting onto a shaking and frayed foundation. He hesitated for a moment at the surprise contact before turning his hand over, its rough and calloused shape fixed to her elegant splendor in perfect form, their fingers lightly intertwining.

Mion's eyes eventually opened again, moving to look at him beside her. "Did you really mean what you said before? About. . ."

"Yeah. I don't really know how to explain it. It was like a dream, but wasn't. Some other me, or maybe just. . . myself, in some distant past. I somehow lost faith in you and Rena. There weren't any details I can actually hold on to, but I guess that's why- why I couldn't leave it alone. I saw myself in Rena's position, and knew - knew I had to save her. Like I was somehow saving myself in the process. I'd have done anything to erase that world where I stopped trusting you."

". . . You're really weird sometimes, Kei-chan."

He scoffed. "You're the heir apparent to the most influential family of a village that celebrates the memory of a god of death and disease by throwing cotton into a river once a year. Countered? I think so. We're done here."

"Ass," she muttered, shaking her head. She couldn't help but smile anyway. "I seem to remember a certain someone running around like a puppy at the Watanagashi. Are you a selective fool, or just completely stupid?"

His eyes flashed in that way they always did when he sensed a challenge between them. "If my heart wasn't trying to rip itself from my chest right now, I'd have to ask you to step outside for that, Mion."

The reality of what aftermath they were drifting upon fell back upon her, the permanent image of him standing against Rena as a razor-edge cleaver scythed through the night at his body burning back upon her thoughts. Her hand tightened in his again, reaffirming time after time that he was really here, and that they all had survived to live through the consequences.

"Are you really okay?" she asked him again, her voice small and fragile, saved just for him.

He blinked at her. "Yeah. Um, you know. Adrenaline. I can't even remember what just happened. It's like I slept through it all, in a way."

Mion nodded, closing her eyes again, head resting against the window once more. "Yeah. I - Yeah. . ."

"She was just really scared," he told her. His fingers shook in hers. "Terrified that we'd abandon her. So she thought the only way to live through it was to abandon us first. But she couldn't. It was just too much. I wish I was strong like that."

"You are."

"I'm not."

"Fine. You're not. You suck."

"Yep!"

Minutes stretched out in the gathering silence. Monochrome floes floating over the sinking despair, ice that had formed across their hearts through the day now melting into the night. Mion loathed how it always seemed that something terrible was irrevocably required to bring people closer together like this. How many months - years - might have gone by? Was it okay to hope that everything could correct itself while she held onto this moment too?

He let out a tired breath. "Well. . . I'm glad you're okay, at least. I should talk to my parents. Who knows what rumors they've heard by now."

"Can we just stay like this for a few more minutes?"

He looked over at her, then down at their hands, and nodded.

"Yeah. Okay."