NREM 4: Recovery and Relapse

"Can I speak with you alone for a moment, Yumeji?" That was the ever simple question Chizuru Kawanami asked. The same Chizuru Kawanami who had her soul and dream destroyed by shooting a bullet made of the despair of her own Dream Demon, Lestion. The same Chizuru who had not spoken a word to Isana in the months since the incident occurred. That Chizuru was now sitting in Isana's family coffee shop as if none of that had ever happened, and asking specifically to speak with Yumeji.

Immediately Yumeji thought to his meeting with Yoru at the start of class that day. Yoru had described how he had found Chizuru and told him of how she was now in the same position he had found himself in by killing his Dream Demon.

Knowing because of this that Chizuru's coming here could mean nothing good, Yumeji put on a stern face and answered her. "Yeah, let's go upstairs," He told her, and began walking that direction.

Chizuru took another sip of her coffee then stood up and followed behind Yumeji. Yumeji led Chizuru upstairs and into his bedroom, after which he closed the door behind them. "Is this about Yoru?" He asked immediately.

"So you do know about Yoru." Chizuru said. "Yes, it about him; yesterday, he pulled me into a Daydream/"

"He already told me about that, he said that you had inadvertently been the one to kill Leon?" Yumeji inquired, not knowing all the facts.

"That's what he told me. Apparently, when I used Leon's despair to forge the bullet capable of wounding Mystreltienn, his soul was still alive. So by firing off the bullet, I killed what was left of him." Chizuru explained.

"So that means… you still have Leon's gun?" Yumeji questioned, as a gun was the weapon Leon had used.

"Yeah," Chizuru responded. "He also said something about my level of recovery, that maybe being in a Daydream again accelerated it, I didn't understand what he meant though."

"Yoru killed his Dream Demon and was reduced to a state like anyone who's Dream Demon has been slain. But, according to him, because he had been the one to do it, he recovered to a state most can't achieve; dreamless but capable of interacting with others regularly."

"He told me I should be at that state in about a month, but I already…" Chizuru began, but her words were lost for some reason.

"Chizuru?" Yumeji asked. However, Chizuru did not respond this time. Instead she looked around the room as if she didn't know where she was anymore. "Chizuru, are you alright?"

Chizuru suddenly began to walk past Yumeji and opened the door to his room. She walked out and down the stairs. Yumeji tried to stop her, but she just continued to walk like he wasn't there.

When Chizuru got back downstairs she completely ignored everyone there and left the restaurant. "What was that about?" Isana asked quizzically.

"I'm… not sure," Yumeji replied while scratching his head. It wasn't just that he couldn't tell her about Dream Demons, but to the question of why she had left so suddenly, he honestly had no idea how to answer that question.

"Well, what were you two talking about?" Isana followed up.

Yumeji found this question much harder to answer. He obviously couldn't tell her what they actually talked about. But what kind of excuse could he give to her that wouldn't lead to another question he couldn't answer.

In a quick and desperate attempt to end the conversation before things got out of hand, Yumeji replied. "It's kind of personal…"

Unfortunately, that turned out to not be the best way to end the conversation. In response to this excuse, it was Isana's father to spoke. "Oh, could this be unrequited love?" He asked, which Isana responded to with a shocked gasp leaping from her mouth, and Yumeji by straitening his back in surprise to the conclusion that only he could have come to. "Ah! I got it didn't I Yumeji? Finally becoming a man are you?"

"What?" Yumeji jumped. "No, no, no, no, no, no, no; it's like that!" He denied.

"Eh, wait a second, when I asked you about Chizuru this morning you were dodging my questions too!" Isana realized. "You even said 'she might have something important on her mind.' Is this what you meant by that!?" She blurted out.

"No, nothing like that is going on, I swear!" Yumeji tried desperately to assure Isana of that, but her face showed it was to no avail. Suddenly, the door to the store opened and Merry walked in, and everyone turned to her, and as she noticed their strange expressions, an awkward silence was created.

Yumeji secretly made a sigh of relief in his heart, as this silence at least got everyone off the topic of Chizuru. "Ah, Merry, can I talk to you for a minute?" Yumeji asked, and then grabbed Merry by the wrist and pulled her back up the stairs to his room.

Yumeji dragged Merry up to his room and told her about everything that just happened with Chizuru. "So, Chizuru is getting better?" She confirmed.

"Yeah, but we need to focus on what do from here on out." Yumeji replied. "Yoru is a major threat. He plans to kill all the Dream Demons he can find, and he doesn't even care that it means destroying the possessed persons dream in the process."

"But he's still a human," Merry noted. "I can't send him to the Dream World if he isn't a Dream Demon."

"I know that. But we still can't just let him do as he wants." Yumeji said. "We can't send him to the Dream World; but maybe we can find a way to strip him of his Dream Demon powers."

At this idea, Merry looked up a bit. "But how would we go about doing that?" She asked.

"I don't know, but we've got to figure something out, and we've got to do it fast."

The next day came and Yumeji and Isana went to school together, although Yumeji couldn't help but think Isana was still thinking about what happened yesterday with Chizuru. When Yumeji got to class, he looked around but saw neither Chizuru nor Yoru around.

Class began without either of them showing up, and so Yumeji went through the normal steps of his day apart from Isana half ignoring him. When the lunch break began, Saki suggested they all go up to the roof to eat.

They made their way up to the school roof, but when they did they saw someone already there, sitting at the edge hanging his legs over the side and wearing a black leather jacket over his school uniform. They didn't even need to see his face to know it was Yoru Fukui.

"Huh, you're… Fukui right?" Isana asked. "What are you doing up here, why didn't you come to class?" She asked, but Yoru didn't seem like he even registered they were there.

Isana started walking toward Yoru and reached her hand out to him, but before she touched his shoulder to turn him around, he suddenly shot a glare at her as if he thought she was about to push him off the building, making her retreat her hand in fright. Without so much as saying a word, Yoru gets to his feet and walked past everyone to the door and slammed it shut behind him.

"Well what was that about?" Saki questioned after a moment of surprised silence went by.

"The transfer student, mysterious and angry, wants to be alone: by Takateru Akiyanagi." Taka recited in response.

"What kind of poem is that?" Saki asked with a slightly disturbed expression.

Despite the strange incident, Yumeji and the others began to eat their lunch together. However, when Yumeji noticed Isana looking down and not eating, he spoke up. "Hey, you alright Isana?" He asked.

"What," Isana said, apparently having been lost in though until Yumeji spoke up. "Oh, I'm fine, I'm fine." She answered unconvincingly.

"Is this about Yoru?" Yumeji asked.

Isana looked down again and clenched her hands. "It's just, his eyes were so cold. I've never seen someone filled with so much anger before; it looked like he was directing hatred at me." She told Yumeji.

Since Yumeji knew what Yoru's problem was, he wasn't sure how to comfort her or assure her it was a misunderstanding. "Just try giving him some space. He never really seemed to be the social type." Was all he could think of, and although it didn't seem to do much, Isana smiled at Yumeji's attempt to make her feel better.

After leaving the roof, Yoru completely left the school and headed to nowhere in particular, just so long as he could get away. He wandered around until he got to an empty alleyway and then slid his back down a wall behind a dumpster. His anger on the roof was not intentional or directed at anyone there.

"Another blackout," He whispered to himself and put his hand to his head.

As he said this, he thought about what he saw during his blackout. They had been images from before he killed his Dream Demon. Ever since he recovered and started fighting against the Dream Demons, every so often he would blackout for a random stretch of time and remember things about his Dream Demon. The anger he had displayed was a natural reaction to those memories for him.

But recently the blackouts had been becoming more frequent, and longer. He had no idea what this meant or why it happened at all. But he did know it was a bad thing. He felt something inside of him as if it was trying to escape, and made him fear that perhaps his Dream Demon wasn't completely gone.