Chapter Twenty-Eight: Cycle Back
Disclaimer: I don't own Trinity Blood or Naruto!
"The sunlight is going to be quite strong." Abel told her for what felt like the umpteenth time.
"I know, Abel. Can we just get it over with?" She replied.
He hesitated, but nodded. She saw him briefly draw his lower lip through his teeth…something she had never seen him do before. It almost made her nervous…
"Are you sure?" He asked, his hands hovering on the curtains.
"Yes, Abel!" She cried in exasperation.
He pulled the velvet aside and instantly she regretted it. Light flooded her vision so intensely the pain overrode any other sensation. She steadied her all too rapid breath, gently pulling her hand away from her eyes, little by little, until she could see without the agony of its intrusion.
"Abel…how long will this last?" She finally asked.
"A few weeks." He replied.
"A few weeks!" She cried out.
"Yes. And all of your senses will be similarly heightened."
"Abel…this is…how do you live with this?!" She finally asked.
He smiled as he pulled the curtain back down, "I think you just get used to it."
Sakura swallowed hard, forcing her vision to correct before she slid off of the bed and onto her feet. She stretched briefly, finding her muscles again and remembering how to hold her weight on her legs. But even if she was hesitant, her body just seemed to know.
"Abel…I really want to get back into the field." She finally stated.
The priest opened his mouth but the voice that reached Sakura's ears was decisively feminine. She turned to see Caterina standing in the doorway.
There was no way to describe the mixture of emotions that rose up in the kunoichi: anger, relief, sorrow, hatred, frustration, love…
"That's not a bad idea, Sister." She repeated, as though she wasn't sure they had heard her.
She closed the door behind her, her blue eyes coming to rest on them.
"Let me begin my apologizing to you two. I was wrong."
It took Sakura a moment to realize what a difficult position she was in…she didn't really have the chance to be wrong, and when she did she most certainly didn't have the opportunity to apologize and make it right. And Sakura couldn't help but forgive her and find a sudden release in the vacuum that sucked away her initial rage.
And just as quickly Caterina fell back into the iron shell that the world knew.
"There has been a rash of murders along the borders of the Empire. If it weren't for a reason victory against the Order of Rozenkruez, we can't simply attribute this to senseless violence. I want you two down there to investigate."
"And when do we leave?" Sakura asked.
"In an hour." Caterina replied with a playful smirk as she held up two tickets.
"Here. These will make it a bit easier." Abel said as she slid a pair of glasses over the bridge of her nose.
He was right, she realized before she could protest. It did make it easier. A lot easier. The dark tint of the glasses caught and reflected most of the painful glare, and they limited her peripheral vision; which had been giving her heart palpitations left and right with how much it detected. Everything seemed so much closer…and more dangerous, as a result.
"And wear some gloves." He added.
She nodded; he didn't need to remind her of that one. She was grateful for any barrier between her and her surroundings. Her sense of touch was so sensitive it hurt to pick up cold silverware. But, according to Abel, she would adjust in due time.
The noise on the train station was overwhelming. It seemed like she could hear things for miles around, and had to twine her fingers so hard against each other that her nails drew blood from her palms to keep from clapping her hands over her ears.
She didn't even really register Abel's arm coming over her shoulders as he pulled her close, using his body against some of the noise.
"I'm here." He mouthed to her as he led her onto the train and as far back from the jammed platform as he could.
She slumped in the first seat available.
"Abel…maybe I wasn't ready to be back in the field." She admitted, glancing down at her hands, where small crescent-shaped wounds wept watery blood.
"Nonsense. This is good for you. And it's not likely to be a dangerous mission. Better to start small than not at all." He smiled as he traced his hand along the wounds, picking up the crimson tendrils with his glove.
She shivered at his touch. It was just so intense. And she knew he was pressing at lightly as possible…
And just as quickly he pulled away and she found herself groping for sensation again. It took her a moment to pull herself out of the sudden depravation of feeling.
"That was...scary…"
"Your neurons and synapses are rearranging themselves. Gaps in sensory perception and moments of highly intense sensitivity aren't uncommon." He replied.
"And…that gets better, right?"
"Oh, yes!" He assured her.
And the train began to pull forward.
It was sometime well after midnight that she woke up in a cold sweat. It took her a moment to remember where she was and why, and another long minute to regain her sense of time and balance. She let herself adjust to the pull and ebb of the train before she stood up and slipped out into the hall.
It was quiet…and dark. Which was a little eerie given her elevated senses…But it was also kind of nice to not feel the panic that accompanied the overwhelming deluge of information for her mind to process that came in waves; and the horror of feeling nothing a moment later…She imagined that was what death was like…panic, a wave of sensation, and then nothingness…emptiness…the void…
She realized with a start that her breath was coming in hard pants and quickly forced her breathing back down. She leaned lightly against the metal wall, afraid her senses would find her suddenly and overwhelm her in the hall.
She wiped away the icy slick away from her pale pink hair, trying to clear her vision and halt the chill that seemed to be creeping up her spine.
She glanced down the hall, only to find it suddenly…warping. It was twisting…turning in on itself and losing its shape. Color blurred and faded and mixed…Shape and hue lost all definition…
It seemed to be tunneling towards her, condensing into nothing short of a black abyss. She stepped back, tripping up on the rich red carpet behind her. She stumbled, colliding against one of the seats. She hardly felt the blow, knowing that later she might and somewhere in the back of her mind there was dread for that…but it was completely overshadowed by the horror in front of her face.
She felt a hand come across her shoulder and nearly screamed before she realized how familiar it was. She sprung back on her heel, pivoting hard and burying her face against Abel's chest.
"Abel." She sighed in relief, pressing herself flush against him.
"What's wrong?" He asked.
She shook her head, refusing to respond. She had to be going crazy, she reasoned. And she didn't want him to know that.
"Sakura, tell me what happened."
She drew her bottom lip through her teeth before responding, "I thought the train was collapsing on me."
He glanced up, seeing nothing. But he already knew he wouldn't.
"I think you just experience a moment of perception too intense for you. So your brain shut down as a defense mechanism." He explained, "I had the same thing happen to me on more than one occasion."
"So…I'm not going crazy?"
"Not at all."
It felt like the next breath of air she took in was her first. The relief was so acute it was almost its own kind of hurt.
"You're tired, Sakura. You need to rest more. Sleep makes this whole thing much easier. And we're still several days from the border. You have time." He told her, knowing that her neurons and synapses suffered the least trauma if most of the configurations were done while she was asleep, as they would occur in nature under more normal circumstances.
She nodded as he slipped back into the compartment, holding her close. She heard the door slide back and latch and a moment later he had laid her down on the leather seats. He sat opposite of her, glancing at her as she lifted her head.
"Are you alright?" He asked.
"Do you think…you could lay over here with me?"
He hesitated for a moment: he could bump her in the middle of the night, and with her senses on the skew, he could inflict an agonizing amount of pain on her without ever so much as bruising the skin. But he weighed that with the lonely, lost look in her eyes and in the end he simple couldn't refuse.
"Of course." He replied as he stood up, stepped across the narrow lane, and slid in behind her. He wrapped on arm loosely around her waist, using his other arm as a pillow. She curled up against him, fitting perfectly against the delicate S-curve of his body. He adjusted his jacket around both of them, covering her slight frame with the heavy fabric.
He hadn't even finished that small task before she had drifted off.
The dark, heavy fabric of the velvet curtains around the window blocked all but a miniscule column of daylight from their cabin. And based on the color and texture of that ray, he deduced it was around six in the morning. The thin line of light was soft and hazy…the sun was only just starting to cut through the fog of the chilly morning, he realized. But with the thick cloud cover, even that small bar of white would soon fade back behind the thick gray veil.
He lifted his head to glance around the curtain and, sure enough, he had been right.
He smiled. That was good; without the blaring sunshine she might actually stay down and rest. And the more she slept the better, at least for the first week or two. After that she was free to be as active, within reason, as she desired.
He looked down at her, glossing over the silky pink hair that curled temptingly against her pale skin. Her lashes stood out against the vaguely opalescent, a dark fringe beneath slender arches of rose. Her lithe limbs curled around her toned body…but his eyes still caught the pearly marks along her arms and the sliver of her bared stomach.
The still-fading scars of her fight with Cain…
His fingertips traced along them, the lightest touch he could manage. Even with her heightened perception, she wouldn't have been able to feel it. But he could feel every ridge and dip in the healing scar tissue.
He felt his features harden despite himself. These marks…these were…these were the proof of his failure. But just as quickly he felt his muscles slacken again with the relief that he had defeated Cain. He no longer had that burden, that weight on his shoulders.
His pale blue, wintry gaze turned back to her. She was a reminder of his failures, but so much more importantly, she was the promise of a future. She was her own time whorl, her own spiral of eternity.
She turned over in her slumber, a sleepy moan escaping her parted lips. He smiled, shrugging out of his jacket and laying it across her shoulders. She curled up instinctively, seeking the latent heat of his body that still radiated from the cloth.
He stood up so smoothly that the lurch of the train completely disguised the movement and in another clean stride he had entered the hall and disappeared down the corridor.
Sakura's eyes fluttered open and flickered down as Abel stepped into the compartment. She smiled, sitting up slowly and pulling the jacket over her lap.
"Hi there." She smiled.
He smiled sitting down next to her and balancing a tray on his lap.
"I brought you some breakfast." He told her as he stirred a sugar cube into a cup of tea. It was only lukewarm, for her own comfort, and liquids would be easiest on her stomach.
She took the cup from him, letting the bottom of the porcelain rest in her lap.
He smiled at her, tucking a lock pink hair behind her ear as he leaned in a planted a chaste kiss on her cheek.
The next few days passed in a similar manner. Mostly, she slept and recuperated and he watched over her. But somehow, between that rift that her need for rest created and the divide his still settling mind was attempting to reconcile, they found each other again.
TBC
