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Chapter 4
Mikan's POV:
I folded the letter back, shivering at the words I had just read.
They were not from the man I loved, they were not from my Natsume. They were from someone else. Someone who knew everything, and someone who had orchestrated it all.
She had done this.
I shivered again, knowing I was wrong.
She had helped. More than a person could ever be expected to. More than a human could be expected to.
I felt the tears slide down my cheeks as I understood everything.
But there was something she had not realized. I was not the only one who needed to see the whole truth. Natsume needed to know it all too. He too needed to understand why she had done everything she had. Why it had been necessary.
I took a deep shuddering breath and closed my eyes.
"Natsume, for ten years I have been looking for you. I forced myself to believe that if I just looked hard enough, I would find you. I never acknowledged the fact that you may not want to be found by me. In all this time, I never just believed that you were watching over me, that you would come if I asked. Now I am. If you can hear me, if you trust me, even a little, then please come here. I have something that you need to see." I said steadily.
"You have grown up milady." He said softly, and my heart stuttered before starting up again at five times its speed. I did not open my eyes.
I tried to speak, only to find that I could not. I cleared my throat, and forced the hoarse words past my choked throat.
"The letter, Natsume."
"It is not for me. It was never for me. My task was something entirely different." He answered, and his voice held a cold edge now. I wanted to open my eyes and look at him, but somehow I knew that if I did, he would leave.
"You went to a place where you could hide your daughter. The man, Lucius, became her protector, and you made him immortal, the same way you have made me immortal, so he could take care of her for a very long time, when you realized that instead of hiding for a little while, which is what you had come there to do, you had to leave her behind." I whispered.
I heard his sharp intake of breath.
"I was given instructions and told to open each letter every night, at midnight. The last letter told me to leave my daughter behind, when she knew that Aoi was the most precious to me." Natsume said coldly. I shivered at the anger in his tone. He had not forgiven. Not even after so much time had passed, he had not forgiven her.
"Read the letter. She wanted to tell me everything, but you deserve to know her reasons as well." I said softly.
"She should have told me herself." He answered stubbornly.
My eyes snapped open and he was gone like a smoky haze on a hot day.
"She died for you! Would you not even let her tell you why?" I shouted in frustration and pain.
Then I felt a breath on the side of my face, and a brush of cool fingers against my cheek. Before I could turn, it was gone, and so was the letter. I collapsed on the bed, too drained to even cry, to do anything. I did not notice when the bedroom door opened and Ruka entered, but I could do nothing to stop him when he slid next to me and cradled me close, offering me silent comfort.
Normal POV:
Natsume stood on the beach, letting the icy cold water of the waves touch his feet and then retreat.
"You should read it." Said a soft voice from behind him. He did not turn.
"She loved us. Even I remember that much. You should give her a chance." The voice continued.
"She told me you were in danger. She knew I could only travel time once. Only once. She still sent me to that time to find Ruka, and then, in the instructions she only revealed to me bit by bit, she finally told me to leave you behind. You grew up without her, and without me." Natsume's voice was harsh, but she could hear the pain underneath.
"I only grew up without you because you chose to give in to your pain and stay in the Wasteland. I have lived well and this is not about me. We both know it. You love me father, but you love her more. Far more." Aoi said softly as she finally came to stand in front of her father.
She was five feet nine with skin the color of pale gold and piercing eyes exactly like her father. Her hair was long and fell down to her waist in cascading russet waves. She was stunning, and she knew it, but it was not something that mattered when she spoke with her father.
Natsume stared at his daughter for a long while before he let out a frustrated sigh.
"All the women in my life are conspiring against me." He said forlornly, but Aoi had seen the smile tugging at his lips.
"So Mikan is in your life now? Should I let her know? I am sure she'd be delighted by the news." Aoi said with a sarcastic lift of her well shaped brow.
Natsume suddenly laughed.
"You may look like me brat, but you are entirely too much like your mother." He told her, and she smiled.
"You will read it?" she asked though she already knew the answer.
"Of course, but only if she wanted me to. You know that she could make changes that would prohibit me from reading something I was not supposed to." Natsume answered.
Aoi nodded. "She'd have allowed it. She loved you more than anything else."
Natsume smiled and shook his head. "No Aoi. She loved you more than anything else." There was no heat in his words and before Aoi could reply, he was gone.
She sighed and wished again that she could hide in Ruka's arms. He would promise her that the world would be a better place tomorrow and every time she would believe him, even if he was lying, and they both knew it. They had been together for the past fifteen hundred years, and had only separated when it had become obvious that Mikan would die in her search for Natsume if no one took care of her. Since she was bound to see the similarities between Aoi and Natsume, Ruka had volunteered. It was all good, except that Aoi now missed him.
She only hoped that this letter would make her father see sense. She had found it years ago when she had gone to her birthplace to pay respects to her mother. It had been carefully hidden in a way that no one but her would have found it. Then she had kept it hidden, not wanting to know what it said.
Until recently when she had finally read the letter. It was addressed to Mikan, but it was meant for them all and she knew it. So she had made sure that Mikan recieved it, and then just as she had expected, Mikan had insisted on her father reading it. Good. Now maybe finally her father would move on and give himself a chance to love and live again.
Natsume stared at the letter in his hands and sighed.
Mikan wanted him to read this.
Aoi wanted him to read this.
He... He whispered her name. He just wanted her.
Then he opened the letter and began to read.
Dearest Mikan,
You do not know me, and you never will, but we have something in common. Natsume.
I need to tell you exactly how he came to be where he was when he found you, and why it is that he is such a fool.
Natsume is the only one. His father is an angel and his mother is a demon, and unlike any other union of this sort, he was born out of love. It makes him unique, able to choose his own destiny, and more powerful than any of the other beings who choose to make the mortal plain their home. But that meant that he was always alone, and no one ever knew what he is truly like.
Then he met his wife. A woman he loved with a wild abandon, for whom he would have destroyed the world, for she saw him as he was, even through the bonds of her Priestess hood. Yet, she was more than just a priestess. She was also a Seer, one of the most powerful Seer's to ever exist.
In her seventh year of marriage to Natsume, she saw her own future. She saw her death, and the death of her daughter. She could see only one way to save her daughter, and so she made Natsume go into the future, to a place of her choosing, and take their only child, their daughter Aoi, with him.
She knew that Natsume could only travel through time once. Just once, and he had never done so. But now she convinced him to go, because the life of their baby depended upon it. She gave him letters with instructions, and she told him to open one letter every night. He agreed to everything, because he trusted her. Blindly.
Natsume went to the outreaches of a nation known as Rome, and there he left Aoi alone, until a warrior saved her life. This warrior was going to be her protector, her everything. Then the journey began in which Natsume came to trust the warrior and at the end of the journey, the last letter he opened, told him that he was to return without Aoi. That he was to leave her with Lucius.
Still he trusted her, and he left his daughter behind. After all, Aoi was in the future not the past, and he could come and find her. Natsume came back, and he found it all gone. Destroyed. His wife had loved him more than everything, but not more than she had loved her daughter. She could see the future, and so she had seen her death looming at the hands of fanatics who would kill her for loving an immortal, but she had also seen that they would murder her child.
She knew it was fate she could not change. Either she, or Aoi would die. She chose her death over that of her daughter. She knew Aoi would not be safe in her time, and she knew that after she died, Natsume might not be able to care for her. So she had her sent to her soul mate. A roman warrior, whom Aoi would probably have never met if not for the interference of her mother.
In doing so, she destroyed the heart of her own soul mate. When Natsume came back, all he found was blood stained walls. She was dead. His grief was a terrible thing. He wanted to destroy everything, the whole world that had taken his love from him, and as much as I agreed with him, as much as I hated myself for it, I had to stop him.
So I used all the powers I had, to bind him in the Wasteland. He could leave anytime he wanted to, but he chose to stay. I still remember his words to me.
He told me that he could not bear to look at a world that did not have her in it. He said he would not look at the sky again, until she called him. Until she claimed him as her own once more.
Then I told him the last truth. The future that had been seen too late to place in any of her letters.
The future in which she would be born again as you.
Soul mates always find each other.
I left him, and I am writing this letter in the last moments of my life. It took a lot to bind him, even though he was more than willing. Someday this letter will find it's way to you, of that I am sure. And that will make it worthwhile to use my last breath talking about the fool who married my sister.
He needs you Mikan. He always has and he always will. He is just too stubborn to see good sense. I should have protected her for him, but it was fated for her to die, and Aoi to be by Lucius's side. I know she loved him, but half her sight was in the future and she only loved him as much as she could love anyone. You already love him more than life itself.
I cast a spell upon the blood of the priests in that valley. I knew she would be born in that line. Once the soul of my brother's wife was reborn, if she was ever in danger, that is, if you are ever in danger, then, I may speak through you, protect you, but when you become immortal, I will be gone forever.
Natsume will never forgive me. His wife was not the only one who could see the future. I could too, and I was even more powerful than my younger sister. He will never believe me when I say that there was no way to save both my sister and my niece. In the end, I made the same decision as her, and placed Aoi above my own sister's life.
But I do hope that now that you are alive again, even if you are different, you two find the happiness denied to you before. Especially since you are not cursed with being a Seer again, my dearest sister.
Oh and always remember, to have Natsume come to you, all you have to do is call. He is always listening to you.
Blessed be!
Hotaru
Natsume placed the pages away. He knew who it was. He had not needed to read her name to know it. He could still see her tear filled deep violet eyes and short raven hair as she had spoken to him one last time. As she had told him about Mikan.
He remembered the pain in her expression as she had chained him, because she knew he had meant his word. She had known he would not even look up until he was called by the one he loved. Hotaru had been his closest friend until she had betrayed him.
Natsume sighed.
She had chosen.
Aoi over Kaya.
Natsume stopped. So many years, but only now could he say her name.
He realized for the first time that he did not regret anymore.
Ruka had kept Aoi happy. Always.
And no matter what, he had Mikan now, and he was willing to forget and forgive about his pain, since the ones he loved had come out unscathed. Even he could not bear the thought of losing Aoi. He was glad of the decision that had been made. He only wished they had allowed him to try to save both his wife and daughter. He wished that they had trusted him with the truth.
Yet, he now understood why Mikan had wanted him to read this.
For the first time since he had held the broken and dead body of his wife Kaya, Natsume began to heal his heart, and he started to forgive.
He started to feel the hope he had not allowed to touch his heart when he had left the Wasteland and found Mikan.
