Funerals are always the most somber of affairs.
Attended by friends, loved ones, strangers alike- their meaning is to send off the dead with affection and sorrow. To mourn the loss of someone who was dear, or to remember someone who made an impact on your life.
A beautiful, deep mahogany casket laid out on white, faces its captive crowd of the living. It is decorated with the flowers she was named after, their white blooms so innocent in the light filtering through the room. Untainted; pure.
Nearby, a picture of the deceased smiles out at them, radiant, just as sweet as the flowers. It makes him feel sick, knowing she will no longer smile.
He's unable to remember when he arrived, or how. His day felt hazed and confused, like his heart had stopped at the same time hers had.
Regret is the emotion he feels the most. Regret, sorrow… and anger.
At Lily herself, for helping him, for dying, for being there for him when he knew she should have kept her distance.
At Tsubaki, for pulling the trigger and dousing him in his friends' blood, something she's come to have accomplished too easily.
Mostly at himself, for not being strong enough to kill her, for being weak and just one second too late.
Her death will always weigh itself down on his shoulders; and he will not complain. He will bear the burden of this for the rest of his life. It's the least he can do, to atone.
His sight is constant on the closed casket. They wouldn't dare show Lily like she is- her once lovely face marred. His fault, always. The remorse crushes him, squeezing his chest until he feels he can't breathe.
She would tell him to cheer up- mistakes happen. She would tell him to forgive himself because in the end, there was nothing really he could have done.
But he knows she'd be wrong; he could have killed Tsubaki. He could have ripped the gun from her hands and pointed it back at her, drastically changing the fate of their lives- of Lily's...
She is no longer here to offer him false reassurances, and he's left with only the harsh reality of his inability.
The sadness in the large room is palpable; Lily was important to so many people. He knows each person loved her, as a mother figure, as a friend. She was much more than just another victim of Tsubaki… yet here she is. Lying lifeless with a gunshot wound to the head, courtesy of the world's most sadistic assassin.
Everything after that moment was fuzzy, like he had dreamt the entire gruesome encounter, but one thing remained distinct in his mind. One moment that, while crystal clear from adrenaline, still made no sense.
.X.
She's motionless, her blood puddling around her body in an ugly crimson halo. He can't look at her, at the seeping wound or her wide, empty blue eyes. They glare back at him, showcasing his failure, his poor judgment.
How she must hate him, for not saving her.
The sight has stunned him, sent him reeling into chaos. He feels the sword drop from his grip, barely raised more than a moment against her killer, and his legs fold under him. He feels nauseous- he wants to erase her body, this moment, time itself so he doesn't have to live through this.
His hands cover his face, and he honestly doesn't care if Tsubaki strikes him down where he kneels. Lily was his friend, and he had promised her- not just her, but everyone that trusts him, that he would save them. That he would make the killing end.
Lily was added to the list of the murdered, and the people to blame are the only two left alive in the room.
His thoughts are so clouded in panic that he doesn't register Tsubaki's approach until she's upon him. She leans down to his level, heat and venom but suddenly subdued, formal. Her face mirrors his for a moment, her eye seeking within his for something even he can't find.
She murmurs something lost to his madness, but later he remembers it like a sour note played over and over, to taunt him in ways unimaginable. It makes him recoil like a wounded animal, his fingers finding his weapon again to fend her away because she's inhuman, she's a monster and he can't figure out why he still cares about how she feels.
She killed his friend, yet still her words rush through his bloodstream like adrenaline.
"I'm sorry, Ren."
.X.
His grip crushes the lily's stem in his hand, his footsteps heavy as he takes his turn to visit her coffin. He doesn't belong in this crowded room of people who loved her. His place is out there, hunting down Tsubaki and making her pay for this. She had fled the scene so quickly, as if she'd been naught but a figment of his mind- but the evidence of her presence there had already stained the floor of the study, and tainted his heart blacker than before.
He still can't understand why she apologized, and it's infuriating. She would never say something like that- it's 'below her'. He never imagined she would say it to anyone, much less himself.
She is an enigma, every action unexpected, never predictable enough to be caught.
Slowly he lays the flower down amongst all the others, his farewell tribute that doesn't seem like nearly enough. Somehow, he'll make sure her death was not in vain. He will end Tsubaki's killings.
He'll end her.
His sight catches on something hidden amongst the mass of lilies, something just as misplaced as he. A fully bloomed, beautiful white head of a camellia, sitting primly in its near invisible spot- much too foreboding for an innocent flower.
The burning nausea in the back of his throat rears its head again, thinking Tsubaki had been in this room at Lily's side, and placed this here without him even knowing that she was nearby. His eye scans the room of mourners behind him, searching for the familiar gleam of her crimson iris, her figure melded into the crowd- anything that shows her presence.
She had been here, but… why? Why would she risk discovery simply to leave such an obvious mark?
I'm sorry, Ren. Her words replay, whispered in his ear as clearly as if she had just said it once more.
Could she really be sorry?
Could there be something human left in Tsubaki after all...?
His teeth grind together as he leans over the coffin, his hands splayed to the colored wood beneath him. He hasn't let the sorrow wash over him nearly as hard as when Lily had died, but the combination of grief and frustration finally takes its toll, his gaze blurring for the first time in what seems like forever.
(He'd almost forgotten he could cry.)
A bitter recollection takes its place at the forefront of his thoughts, reminding him of why his friend has lost her life in the first place. The ring which means so much to Tsubaki and to him- and the computer at Lily's house that holds everything he needs to know to finally turn the tides of war in their favor. With it, is the key to the end of her.
Brushing his palm along the surface of the coffin, he shuts his eye and inhales deeply. After the funeral, the first place he'll go is directly to that computer. The sooner he finds out what he needs, the sooner all of it can be over. His destiny and hers are linked, and he will discover why.
After he finds her weakness, he will destroy her.
For now, Ren mourns.
.X.
Without Lily in it, the house seems much colder.
Ren's footsteps echo through the silence, foreboding in the emptiness. Her things are left untouched, and seeing the knickknacks she kept throughout, things that spoke of her and who she was- it all burns him, setting his soul on fire and damning him for his failure.
No matter how much regret there is inside him, it will never be enough to fix the past.
He is unhurried in walking back up to the study. Nothing makes him want to see the pool of red still staining the carpet, where Lily had taken her final breath.
Soon it will all be gone. Now that the house is no longer occupied, it will be emptied out. Everything of Lily's will disappear, and it will be as if she never lived here.
Just another of Tsubaki's victims.
He pauses at the door to the study, taking a deep breath and bracing himself for what's to come. Then he turns the knob and enters.
The first thing he sees is the crimson circle embedded in the floor, a grim reminder of the events that took place here. Turning his gaze from it, he takes in the still-shattered window, and thankfully the laptop, unmoved during the ordeal. Tsubaki had either not thought to take it, hadn't checked, or…
...Maybe she wants him to find whatever is hidden there.
Ren strides around the desk and turns the computer on- finding a password screen. He grimaces. Damn it- how can I figure it out? Can I guess it?
He tests it out, typing in various answers that fail. He uses his name, hers, her birthday- but nothing gets through. Frustrated, a half hour later with her computer still locked tightly, he frowns, wracking his brain for the right password. He's checked all her drawers, searching for a note or anything he can use, but it all proves futile.
Am I not looking in the right places? Is it obvious and I'm looking too hard?
A memory resurfaces of an exchange with Lily that seems much too long ago to have been just a few days. Sitting together in the office, a flower in her hair, a sorrowful smile on her face that lasted only a fleeting second before being erased.
"Maybe red isn't really my color."
He remembers staring down at the fallen petals on the floor, and thinking they were nothing like Lily. That they shouldn't be tied to someone like her.
Without hesitating, he types in the first word that comes to mind-
Camellia.
The computer unlocks.
He stares at the screen, dumbfounded. Why would Lily leave her password as 'Camellia'? It doesn't make sense- and he most likely will never understand. (Nor can he ask her anymore.) He knows it's tied to her, and that flower- but…
He doesn't have time to dwell right now. He can question everything later. For now, seeing the information on his enemy is most important. She is first priority.
Thankfully Lily still has her findings up, and he clicks through them, absorbing the images laid out in front of him. It's Tsubaki, certainly; a side profile shot of her. X rays, basic information, the like; her personal records that Miku must have kept. She's constantly referred to as 'Project T'- an experiment.
He's shocked to see that her history includes extended tortures. Miku had been trying to strengthen her, to create a bloodthirsty, vengeful machine. She's been put under intensive periods of procedures deemed animalistic, cruel. No part of her skin hasn't seen pain.
No wonder she's so sadistic. I wonder if most of her scars are from those 'training' sessions.
Something catches his eye. Written words about her headpiece, the bloodstained camellia Tsubaki is always adorned with, locked into her gold strands like a permanent attachment.
The hairpiece keeps Project T in check. Not to be removed under any circumstances. Is able to repress previous memory, and stop experiment from feeling sustained injuries. Controls and sends signals to the experiment under its influence. If subject is disobedient, we are immediately notified.
Ren gazes at the picture of her shown beside the information. When it was taken, her eye was haggard and wild; the crimson color was dulled with pain. He can't imagine the fight they must've gone through to give it to her.
So… she's being controlled by Miku. Like a puppet on strings, she's become just another pawn in a much bigger game. Used, meant to be the trump card that slaughters everything, but still just as disposable as the rest.
Much like himself, he muses darkly.
Wait… This says that the faux camellia represses memory. Could this be why she seems so determined to find her own past? Because it won't let her remember?
Is he tied to her past, like he thinks she is to his own?
Everything about this screams out at him, beckoning him. She does know something. It's clear to him as crystal; but even she can't help him, unless he rids her of that hairpiece.
A sudden burst of anger fills him, and his fist slams into the heavy wooden desk.
Why are we used like this? The question bounces in his skull endlessly, wrecking his thoughts. He shouldn't feel so betrayed, but seeing even Tsubaki used in such a way- tortured into submission, despite her fiery self- it burns inside him like his soul is set aflame.
He's always known he's been a puppet like her. Even Kaito, the man who took care of him when he was young, lost and broken, uses him because he's the only one who can fell Tsubaki.
Ren never cared. It gave him purpose; to fight alongside the people he called family meant that his life had new meaning.
What would become of him once he finally killed her?
Shaking those thoughts, he takes a deep breath, his chest constricting. He can't think this way, he can't. It will break him, and he needs to focus.
Focus… on the bloodthirsty assassin he's ready to lay his life down to destroy.
(Or, perhaps, he'll be saving her from being played around with like a battered doll?)
A memory resurfaces for him- a fuzzy image of the plastic ring Tsubaki had killed Lily over. Nothing but a cheap trinket, it holds so much of himself and of her in its little silver band.
She was so desperate to get it back… but why? Was it to give it to Miku? Is she trying to use it to find her way back to her own memories?
How does it connect to her and Ren? He keeps seeing those children with it, from his dream, so happy and carefree. The picture of the two of them he carries with him right now.
The picture…
He fumbles inside his coat pocket, drawing the fading photo from it and laying it down on the table. His blue gaze scans over it, seeing the faces of the smiling children, trying to connect the dots.
Who are you?
A lightning bolt of pain sears his mind, and he winces, his fingers digging into his messy strands, grimacing. Every time he tries to remember, it's like ripping into his own brain to dig out the truth. Were his own memories repressed like Tsubaki's?
A loud ringing in his coat startles him. He'd been so preoccupied with figuring out the enigma behind everything he's learned, that he hadn't been paying attention to how much time was passing.
Retrieving his phone and seeing Kaito Shion's name, he breathes out slowly and answers. "This is Kagamine."
"Where are you?" The curt, no-nonsense voice asks him, seeming out of breath. In the background, Ren can hear a cacophony of sounds he can't distinguish.
"Doesn't matter. What's going on?" His brows knit together. Something is off in Shion's voice.
"Hatsune's made her move," Ren catches from the other end. "She's sent out a mass amount of troops- and Tsubaki's cleaving her way through our southern border. We need you here now. This is the last time we let her take us by surprise. You need to finish Tsubaki and give us the advantage."
The blond's eyes widen. Hatsune went after the southern border instead of the already weakened northeast? Did she know it was because they reinforced the protection there? Damn it, Tsubaki went there to elude them and take them off guard. He should've realized she wouldn't just make an appearance to cause him trouble, as like her as it is.
"Ren, get here. We're going all out and sending everyone we have. This is our last battle. Are you ready?" Shion's voice crackles, and Ren can hear gunfire in the background.
So this is it. The last time he'll face her, and the muzzle of her weapon. The last time he'll come inches from her malicious smile, and the ruby color of her iris.
The final battle. He'll end it for good this time.
Finally, the cycle of pain will end- and one or the other will be saved.
(One of them will die.)
...How fitting.
A/N: Unbeta'd.
Yes, hi, it's me with a new update after ever so long. My apologies to everyone who waited for this, or gave up thinking I would never again update. Turns out I'm not finished yet, ladies and gents.
Happy anniversary, Red Threads Interwoven. You're a year old. Since I'm posting this half an hour earlier than I should be, it's not quite rght- but whatever. A few minutes won't make that much of a difference.
So here we are, and there should be one final chapter after this (if I ever finish writing it.) Then we slip into a new arc, another tragic destiny- doomed to repeat this very same cycle.
If you haven't heard, my fanfics are becoming a bit far in-between thanks to life and lack of inspiration/motivation. Well- the reason this hasn't been touched is around the time the last chapter was updated, Blessed Messiah and The Tower of AI came out by Hitoshizuku-P and Yama, and I was hit with a burning desire to write for it. Speed forward to now, when that fic is finally finished, and I'm ready to sit back and start working on this once more.
I do hope that my updates will be sooner, but for now I'm lucky if I finish a fic a month. However, I just want y'all to know i appreciate that you read my work and enjoy it. Thank you so much.
Anyway, enough chat. I'll see you in the next chapter.
Read on~.
~Disclaimer~ I own only the idea of a dismal funeral and the tragedy held within tomorrow. Nothing more.