TITLE: Heartstrings
SUMMARY: How terrible it is. To love something death can touch.
Rated T.
The Worst Fear
When Nagisa woke up he heard drilling.
"C'mon, only a few more..."
He opened his eyes. A darkened sky was above him, but it wasn't completely night time yet. He was laying on his side. Hands tied behind his back, his feet were bound at the ankles as well. he looked up to see a few men drilling a crate below them. When they were done they loaded it into the back of a truck.
He looked around, a few of his siblings were laying around him. Some of them were still unconscious, and all of them were bound the same way as he was.
"Karma..." he whispered looking around but he didn't see him...
Manami wasn't too far from him, bawling and shaking.
"Manami... it's okay..." he meant to say it louder than he had, but his voice was having a hard time working with him. His brain felt heavy, like when you wake up from a nap but very clearly hadn't gotten enough sleep.
One of the men reached down and grabbed her by the arm. "NO! PLEASE! PLEASE DON'T! DADDY HELP ME! DADDY!'
They put her in the next box and then placed a lid over top of it. The sound of the drill again, they were drilling it closed.
You could still hear her muffled screams. Nagisa thought for a moment he was dreaming. Clearly he had to be dreaming, this couldn't be real. No one is this cruel, this evil...
"Yanagisawa please stop this!"
It was their Dad's voice. Nagisa turned over looking up at the man in white who was holding a small Orb that had their Father's face in it. He knew his Dad could take other forms, but this one... this one he had never seen before.
"I was ordered to conclude my experiment years ago, and you know how the government gets if you don't properly dispose your wastes."
"They're children, you can't just dispose of them! This is murder!"
"Their biological parents believe them to be dead, you ensured that no one would miss them, aside from you."
"What are you doing!?"
"Ugh... and her..."
A woman had come running over. She had short black hair and bright kind eyes and... Her voice sounded familiar...
"Yanagisawa what are you doing! Stop this!"
"Tsk, did you bring the girl..."
"She's... she's in the car."
"Good, put her in the pile with the rest."
It only took her one sweep of the scene to understand what he was doing.
"If I had known you were doing this, I wouldn't have brought her."
"Aguri!"
"AH! It's you!" she gasped staring at the orb.
"Yes, a happy little reunion for the pair of you," Yanagisawa explained.
"I thought you were dead," their father exhaled softly.
The woman's eyes filled with tears as well. "I knew you weren't. After all, you had to protect our children..."
Nagisa's eyes widened. It couldn't be... Was that... Their Mother... She was human after all... And she was alive...
"Please Yanagisawa... if I can get the government to fund the experiment again, will you spare them?"
"That could take months, I need to present the proof of disposal to the committee by the end of the week," he explained. "Besides, if I do get the experiment going again I'll just get a new batch of kids. Now grab the girl, and bring her here."
"I'm not bringing her, all you're going to do is kill her!"
"Don't worry Sir, I got her," shouted one of the men who were walking around in matching face masks. He had an unconscious girl over his shoulder. Her hair was long and pink and he had never seen her before.
"Is that Ritsu!" their Father gasped.
"No please," Aguri ran over to the man holding her and was kicked hard in the gut for trying to stop him.
She collapsed to the ground holding her stomach.
The man carried the Ritsu girl over to the crate and laid her down in it.
"Please..." Aguri struggled to sit up. "Please don't do this..."
"I have to do this! You know I do," he spat. He held the Orb containing his Father's likeness up to his own face. "It took us some time to get here, so your twenty four hours is almost up and you know as well as I returning to your regular form will cause a small explosion. But I need you to hold off while we pour in the new experimental hardener and wait until it has dried. If all goes as planned even your explosion won't penetrate it. To ensure this I'll bury you alive with one of your children. Their air should deplete right around the time the hardener has finished, and knowing how much you care for your precious children, I know you won't take on your regular form until then out of the fear of hurting them."
One of the men walked over to Nagisa picking him up, he put him none too gently into one of the boxes.
"This one is as good as any." He threw the Orb in with Nagisa, it just narrowly missed his face.
"No please!" Aguri had gotten to her feet rushing over in an attempt to grab them. Yanagisawa grabbed her by her hair throwing her backwards on the ground, and then the lid was put on his crate. Everything got dark, and then the noise of the drill started.
"Nagisa are you alright?" his Father asked concerned.
Their wasn't really a response he could give to that. Was he alright? Of course not... But even among all that was going on, his thoughts were on...
"Was that Mom?" he asked his voice shaking slightly.
"...yes... that was her..."
"She's pretty," Nagisa pointed out. It didn't really matter he supposed, but he hadn't really imagined her as being pretty. He had always imagined one of those over worked middle aged house wives you saw on TV shows. Ones with kind plump faces who baked lots of cookies.
"She is indeed," he answered.
"Why are they putting us in boxes?"
"Yanagisawa... he... He's burying us."
"Are we going to die?" he asked softly. He couldn't see his Father, it was too dark in the crate, but he was happy to at least have his voice.
"No, of course not. I... I'm going to come up with something..."
"That guy... he mentioned pouring something. Is he going to pour water on us?"
"Uh... it's something like that... but please don't worry about it. I'll come up with something. I know it will."
"If air can get in here... Then water can too."
"Yes it..." he stopped. He had only been half listening devoting most of his thoughts to trying to think of a way to escape. But he suddenly understood what Nagisa was getting at.
"I'm going to drown..." he said those words with an odd tone of softness that the creature had not expected of him. Nagisa had a fear of water, and would cry and scream and get emotional whenever a situation arose where he had even the slightest chance of drowning. This time, he had said it so simply, so peacefully, that it was almost as though he had accepted it already.
"No Nagisa, you're not going to drown. I promise. I'm going to figure something out. Anything... I just..."
"Can't you take your normal form?" Nagisa asked, his tone was almost pleading.
"I probably could about now," he explained. "But I've been too close to you and the other children, when I change out of this form it creates a decently sized explosion. I can't do it now it would kill you."
"..."
"I'll just... maybe if I can spin really fast I wear a hole in the crate and... no..." he suddenly realized that would make what the hole was being filled with get inside, and that would be sure to kill Nagisa.
"It's okay."
"What's okay?" he asked. Most of his brain power was going towards trying to think of a way to escape so he was only half hearing Nagisa."
"It's okay if I die."
All his attention was on him now. The creature felt the heavy weight of the ambiance around them and it felt almost as if it were pushing him down. It was the strange switch in tone when a small child suddenly sounds very grown up and out of character, only this instance was laced with deep realization that this child was talking about death and accepting it.
"Don't talk like that," he scolded.
"If you go back to your original form now, you'll probably be able to save everyone else," Nagisa explained.
The creature could just about imagine the expression on Nagisa's face but it was so dark he couldn't see it.
"Nagisa, even if I were willing to sacrifice you, which I'm not. I don't know how close the other children are, my transforming could kill many of them as well. I'm not willing to make that decision."
"Everyone else is alone right now. " his voice was oddly steady. A sense of calmness he hadn't displayed the rest of the time they had been here had seem to wash over him. "Their is no one to talk to them, no one to reassure them they'll be fine. They're just alone, in the dark, every second wondering if the next second will be their last. I think the others would rather die quickly in an explosion than endure that."
"..."
"Nagisa, what you're asking me to do requires a level of confidence and bravery the likes of which your father just doesn't have..."
Their were so many muffled sounds going on around them. most of which sounded like mud being being poured into a swimming pool. Their was a loud crack. The creature thought it might be the sound of the wood beginning to break from the weight of the hardening substance being poured onto it. Sure their hadn't been that much time that had passed.
It felt hot in the crate. Nagisa already felt like he was having a hard time breathing. He felt something wet on his fingers behind him, and knew whatever was being poured on top of them was seeping through the cracks.
"Dad please... Please don't let me die like this," he felt burning tears come to his eyes.
"Nagisa it's okay, just keep your breath steady... We're all going to be fine... We..."
CRACK! An even louder one than before and their was no mistaking it now. The substance was pouring in.
"Dad!" he cried out one last time before the liquid covered his face. He tried to turn and lift his head but their wasn't any place where he could feel air hit his face. The mud pressed in upon his clothes soaking them, right down to his shoes. His eyes were closed tight, but he knew it would get into his eye eventually. It had already filled his nose and his ears, and though his mouth was closed he could taste the muddy substance and... it wouldn't be long now. So this was drowning.
He wondered if Karma was already at this point, or... maybe he was already gone.
He didn't feel like he could hold his breath any longer, but it didn't matter anyway, the liquid had already entered his nose and started descending to the back of his throat.
The weight of this liquid seemed most predominant on his arm... Only it wasn't... What was...
He felt himself being pulled upwards, and he felt air hit the parts of his face where the mud had slid off. He heaved, he coughed, he shook his head trying to clear out his senses. Muffled words. What were they saying.
"Was your Dad in there with you? said the frantic voice. Nagisa coughed again.
"Damn it kid! Answer me!"
He found he couldn't talk even when he tried. All his senses burned every time he opened his mouth he felt like retching. So he settled with just shaking his head yes.
"Thank God!"
The hand that had been holding him up dropped him and he fell almost chest deep back into the mud.
He heard sloshing, and he recognized the voice. It was Karasuma.
He sifted frantically around until he found the orb that was the creature and he pulled it from the grime wiping it off just enough to see the creatures small face reflected in it.
"Karasuma!" the creature gasped. "Hurry, throw me as far away as you can!"
He did, he wound his arm back and with the a speed that would have rivaled many professional pitchers he threw the ball into the air. The second the creature thought he was far enough away to not hurt any of the children he erupted back into his normal form.
The force of it caused the mud to even slosh back away from them, it knocked Karasuma to his feet, and had Nagisa not already been kneeling in the mud he would have been knocked down as well. The mud that retreated from the force of the blast came back in a small wave covering Nagisa's head once again.
What happened next happened very quickly. More noises than he could count, his Father's limb wrapped around his torso pulling him from the mud and he was sat upon solid dry ground. He still coughed. It seemed like he could only take every other breath. Then in a flash he was untied, His airway, eyes, and ears seemed to have been mostly cleared of their obstructions. At least enough so he could open in eyes and look around.
All his siblings were there, their clothes covered in the mud just as his were. Their faces in varying stages of shock and terror. The new pink haired girl began to cry causing many of the other girls and a few of the boys to follow suit. Nagisa felt his own tears well up and he started shaking.
"Alright now," their Father's voice was trying to be as soothing as it could be, a limb went out to each of them touching their necks and they all felt their heart rates calm in unison. The fear didn't go away, nor did the shock, but their heart beat pacing at a normal level was giving them a false sense of calmness. "You're all okay now. It's alright."
It got oddly quiet, a few minutes passed with everyone in this state of shocked serenity, and then their father retracted his limbs staring at them all with a saddened expression on his face.
"I owe every one of you an apology, as well as an explanation. I'm not sure if now is really the time though. We should take you all home."
"Dad, just tell us what's going on," Rio was surprisingly the first one to speak up.
"Alright, I'll tell you all quickly," he turned to a woman with short black hair. She was covered in mud as well. "Everyone this is Yukimura Aguri. She is the woman who took care of you after you were brought to Yanagisawa's custody. She isn't unlike your Mother in that respect. As for what you were doing there... that was regrettably my doing. I was back in the day an assassin but when jobs got slow, I was often hired to do other things. In this case, kidnap twenty-eight children for his experiments. Which I was more than willing to do. Back then their wasn't much I wasn't willing to do for the right price..."
The dread of what they hadn't wanted to hear for so long was building up, and Nagisa almost felt heartbroken to see the lie go.
"Then, one day his experiments were deemed unethical by the science community, and he was ordered to stop the experiments. That meant... getting rid of those twenty-eight children, and so I grabbed the nearest child to me and started to drown them. I planned to do this one by one until all the babies were dead. It was just another day at the office for me. Aguri however, happened by at at time and she pulled the child from my clutches. With CPR brought him back. I was so intrigued by her bravery of standing up to me that I didn't stop her aft first, but eventually I explained that this project was scrapped and all traces of it needed to go. She wouldn't hear of it, she pleaded and begged me to spare all of you, and like the callous soul I was. I refused. So she fought me, being small and frail I easily got the upper hand on her and knocked her to the ground. I turned my back to her to continue my job, and suddenly I felt the needles enter my back. Aguri had stabbed me with a number of needles from their experimentation with substances that shouldn't have been combined. Slowly, painfully my human body changed into that of the creature you see before you. But my appearance wasn't the only thing that had changed. My heart had as well..."
Aguri walked over and put a hand on his shoulder.
"I was so overcome with remorse at what I had already done and almost done to you kids, that I very nearly wanted to take my own life. Aguri explained that if I truly wanted to repent for my crimes, then I should spend the rest of whatever time we had left to help you children live," he explained. "With my new form, I actually had the means to do so. No perfectly normal human could have cared and looked after this many children all on their own, nor could I have escaped successfully with all of you. This form was a blessing in disguise."
"Considering your alterations, I couldn't return you to the families that I had so heartless torn you from. Your limbs and your actions would be too unpredictable, so I spent all this time creating the best home and family I could for you all. I knew it wouldn't ever replace the one you might have had, had I not mettled in your lives so thoughtlessly."
There it was, the truth they had been wanting to know all these years, but had been to scared to ask. Now, Nagisa was almost wishing he didn't know.
"I'll understand if you hate me. I wouldn't blame any of you. What I've taken away from you is more than I will ever be able to give back, and for that I am truly sorry," their Father bowed to them, putting his head to the ground in a groveling stance, and to their surprise Aguri did the same.
Just like that... childhood was over.
Sorry for the wait. Hope you all are enjoying!
