Chapter 28 - My Twin Skeletons


One Week Ago


When Hyoma had opened that letter that Ryo had left him, he honestly didn't know what it was that he had been expecting.
He hadn't expected anything, really - he was just still surprised that Ryo had actually left him a letter at all, and one that he had written at least two years prior to now where he somehow knew that he'd probably be dead.
Perhaps he had written it when he first came down with the symptoms of the sickness, which, to be honest, definitely weren't that bad to start with. It started like the common cold would; coughing, blocked sinuses, fever, which was honestly the most terrifying thing about it. No one knew if they had the seasonal sickness or the disease that had taken so many lives unless it got worse... Ryo had known these signs, and he had even shown them a bit before anybody had really taken notice to how much worse he was getting, and before anyone really knew he had it is when he must have written the letter, and put it in the photo album.
How the man had ever actually expected him to find it in that photo album, how he had known whether or not he would eventually look through it, he would never know.
No one ever really knew what went on in Ryo's head, which was why the man always remained a mystery and especially interesting to most people.
But now, at this moment, Hyoma could think of him as anything but as he stared at the unfolded piece of paper that he had clutched in his hands, the envelope which it had come in forgotten on the floor as he stared at the black ink words on top of a stark white sheet.

His hands quivered as he thought about them for a moment, but he didn't care, and read through the entire letter again just to make sure that it said what he thought it said (and how he prayed it didn't...) again, and then again, and then a fourth time, before he could no longer bring himself to deny the words that were written in ink, the confession that was a solid as concrete and was as shocking as it was suddenly crashing against it as well.

Ryo had trusted him with this...

But why this?...

Why couldn't he had just done as he had mentioned and let it die with him?

As morbib as that probably sounded, Hyoma would have much rather preferred never knowing what was written on that paper, wishing that he had never become nostalgic and had come to look at that photo album that contained the letter he held.
But the thing that he just couldn't shake was... How could Ryo do that?...

How could he have just hidden that from everyone except for those who had been there at the time? How could he have hidden that from him?...

How could he... How could he...

"Hyoma?"
The sound of his own name being called by the so familiar voice of his mother partially dragged the violent-haired man out of his thoughts, and brought him back into the reality that he had seen as beautifully cruel just a few minutes ago, but now was unable to focus on anything but the paper in his hand, and... His mother... She knew.
"Hyoma~ Did you find what you were looking for, sweetie?" Isha called kindly as she didn't get a first response from him the first time, and came into view in the entrance of the hallway, pieces of her lavender hair brushed behind her ears as she gazed at her only son with a small smile and then a look of concern, and Hyoma realized what his expression must look like at the moment.
"U-um, yeah.." The Aries Blader replied weakly, finding it hard at the moment to even look his mother in the eye at the moment, "I-I found it, it was in there."

"Oh, good." Isha replied with a small smile, but that expression of worry in her crystalline eyes did not fade, "Are you okay? You don't look like you're feeling well."
Of course he wasn't feeling well, not after reading that..
"Y-yeah, I'm okay." Hyoma said quickly, swallowing the lump in his throat as he glanced down at the paper in his hands once more, "I-I just found this.." He gestured to the letter that he still held in both of his quivering hands, "... It's, uh... From Ryo.. H-he wrote it before he died."
A sad smile caressed the lavender haired woman's face, her eyes turning sad yet understanding. Of course, that must be why Hyoma didn't look too good at the moment - he had been affected by Ryo's death just as much as anyone, and there was no doubt that getting what looked to be a letter from him before his death might get him a little emotional.
"Oh, well, that's nice." She responded, brushing some of her long hair behind her ears and crossing her arms, shifting her weight onto her left foot, "What does it say?"
Hyoma was silent for a second before shaking his head with a small and nervous smile, trying not to keep as calm as he could because, oh, she didn't know what it said, but she knew about what it said.
"Uh, it's just, like, a more proper goodbye, kind of..." The Aries Blader said somewhat dismissively, his voice shaky.
That wasn't exactly a lie... Technically, it was Ryo's proper goodbye to him, but there was no way in hell anyone would want a goodbye like that...

"Okay." Isha said with a small smile, understanding her son's behavior at the moment. None of them had really gotten a goodbye from Ryo except for Gingka - no one had really come to see him after Gingka had arrived back then, but they had still worried about him.
Hyoma licked his lips lightly, his heart pounding in his ears, his fingers still gripping hard at the paper in his hands, feeling sick to his stomach to even touch it, and he felt even more sick that he was about to ask what he was.
But he had to hear it.
She knew, and, from what it had said, she had always known, because, really, who else could have done the job properly?
"Hey, mom, uh..." The violet man began somewhat awkwardly, his heart beating so fast it was hurting him, and he saw his mother look at him intently, "Can I... Can I ask you something?..."

Isha nodded her head gently, taking a few steps into the wide end of the hall where both of their bedrooms were with a warm look on her face that he had always known to be hers, and which secretly hid so much that he had never realized.
"Yeah, of course." Isha said, "What is it?"
There was a brief few moments where Hyoma didn't answer, didn't ask anything because how could he just ask something like that when Ryo had made it very clear that she wanted to forget?
He had told him that she knew, told him not to ask her from the apparent amount of emotional damage it had done on her, but... He needed to know the truth.
Even if it was a truth that would at least 20 years worth of damage.
"Mom, d-did..." Hyoma started, faltering for a moment and looking down at the paper in his hands before slowly looking up again into the eyes of the woman he might just about ruin, ".. Did Gingka have a twin?.."

The change in Isha's face was almost instantaneous.
All the blood drained from her face and he eyes widened, all the air escaping her quickly in the form of a silent gasp as she was taken aback by the question that some part of her had prayed would never be asked.
In that moment, as much as he would have loved to deny everything the letter told him, Hyoma knew that it was all true.
Silence stood between them for a few moments, Isha staring at her son almost as if he had grown two heads, eyes filled with horror as everything came rushing back to her all in an instant.
It seemed like a very long time before she was able to speak again, and her voice shook, betraying her as she asked, "W-wha... Wh-what m-makes you ask th-that?"
Instead of answering with his words, Hyoma stepped forward and held out the letter to her, his heart aching with guilt and relief as he passed on the horrid thing to his mother, but was relieved of it all the same.
Shakily, Isha reached out her slender hand and took the paper from him, licking her lips and trying to steady her breathing as she evidently tried so hard to keep calm, holding both sides of the letter in her hands and slowly reading over it, just as Hyoma had. As she descended further and further to the bottom, her eyes only grew wider, crystalline blue being tainted with horror and anguish that she had wished she could have just left behind... But no.. It was there.
It was all there, even if it was just the shortened version.
Even so, it was too much, and Isha, unable to control herself, let the tears fall, quiet sobs starting to escape her as she covered her mouth with her right hand, still holding the letter from Ryo in front of her as she scanned her eyes over it faster and faster. Slowly did she back up against the beige-colored wall, and slid down the length of it until she was on the floor, the tears flowing freely and her sobs just barely muffled by her hand as she continued to hold the cursed thing.
Hyoma had no idea what to do as he looked down at the woman who raised him, grief ever so present on his face as he witnessed her in a state that, as a child, he had never thought her capable of being in.
But he supposed there really was something that broke everyone - and he had, regretfully, been the one to find what would do so to her...


It was at least an hour before Isha finally calmed down, was finally able to sit still in a chair without breaking down into the tears that she had probably held in for the better part of 20 years as all of those memories came back to her.
Hyoma had done what he could to try and comfort her in that time, had her sit down in the living room, made her some tea and just sat across from her, the letter from Ryo sitting hauntingly on the side of the coffee table between them, reigning down it's accursed knowledge upon them and barely allowing any peace to be had in the comfortable setting of the room they sat in.
When Isha finally did calm down, her face and eyes were red, her cheeks tear-stained, her hair slightly disorganized unlike it had been earlier, and, now, she just simply sat there. Her posture was ridged, her eyes filled with sorrow and regret at things that Hyoma had never known about before now, and probably still didn't enough about, as she looked down at her quivering hands, clasped together in her lap and focusing intently on them, almost as if they were the most interesting thing she'd ever seen. But she knew she couldn't do that forever, because Hyoma would want an explanation that would bring back even more memories, every detail of the blood, the screams...
How it had managed to come to this, she wasn't sure, but it had everything to do with Ryo. He had promised he would never bring it up again, but... How many people could actually promises like that forever?
Hyoma simply watched her, sitting in the chair across from his mother on the other side of the coffee table and gazing at her with his own light blue eyes, forlorn yet calm.
He wanted to comfort her, tell her that it was alright, he really did... But he couldn't. Not right now, not until he got the answers, not until he knew all about what had happened all those years ago. He almost didn't even want to know more than he already did, but he had to. The thought of what could have happened at east 20 years ago scared him, and he was almost afraid of what he was going to hear once his mother started talking - if she did that was. At the moment, she just seemed lost, lost in her thoughts and her memory as she recalled everything.
He waited a few more minutes, just looking at her intently and waiting for her to start talking, to start explaining.
But she didn't.
Finally, after several more minutes, Hyoma finally spoke.
"Mom." He said simply, and that seemed to snap the lavender-haired woman out of her thoughts, her own blue eyes darting up to meet his as he looked at her intently. She stared at him for a moment before nodding slightly, brushing some of her hair out of her face and behind her right ear.
"R-right..." She stuttered softly, struggling to pull herself together again but managing it anyway, "What do you... Want to know?"
There was a silence that passed between the two of them once again, a thick tension hanging in the air that almost made her want to choke. Isha was about speak again after Hyoma didn't answer her, but as soon as she thought of it, her son broke the tension-filled silence that hung around them.
"Start at the beginning." Hyoma said firmly, a tone that clearly stated to his mother that she would not be able to hide anything, not after his many years of deceiving unwanted visitors away from Koma Village.
Isha licked her bottom lip, pursing them softly before she let out a soft breath and shakily nodded her head, all of the memories having flooded back to her far too fast, too suddenly. The air was heavy with all of her secrets and the tension that passed between a mother and her son that had never been distant, and Isha, as much as she hated it, knew that it was time to tell the truth.
"Okay." She agreed, and began from the very start.

"You remember.. All the things I've told you about Asuna, right?" The lavender-haired woman asked her son, heart pounding against her rib cage painfully.
Hyoma, hearing the name and recalling everything he had ever heard about Gingka's mother, nodded, saying, "Yeah, I remember."
Isha nodded, and continued speaking. "Well, then, you must remember how I always told you how sickly she was.. She was almost always sick, and there were quite a few surgeries that I had to perform on her to help her get better... It got to the point where I had to take one of her Fallopian tubes, and tie the other one, which meant that she would never be able to bear her own children, as she always wanted... She was a good friend of mine, and I hated seeing her so devastated over it, but... There was nothing I could do. But then, of course, after marrying Ryo, she somehow did get pregnant, and... Well, she was overjoyed." A small smile crossed the lavender-haired woman's face at the memory, remembering her dear friend's excitement, the tears that she had shed. "Of course, I always believed that one of her eggs had managed to get past the blockage in her tube, and, so, I just left it at that. She was so happy about it, and... Everyone was happy for her." Isha paused for a moment before her smile faded, her expression forlorn and filled with grief, "But, of course, she got sick again, as she often did... It didn't seem like much at first, but... Within a week, we diagnosed her with Termina."
Hyoma fought the urge to cringe at the name.
Termina was the name that they had given the disease that had taken so many people in their village through the years, breaking it off of 'terminal' because, well, that was just what it was. It was incurable, slow, and, above all, it would always result in death.
His mother, and the many people that had learned from her over the years, had tried practically method there was in the book, tried everything they could think of to try and find a cure for it, but, as it was, there was no such thing.
The word was almost like poison when spoken at all, and very few people used the proper name, for others would most often flinch at the mere sound of it. Everyone who got it would always wind up dead in the end, no matter how long it took. Some people, Gingka's mother included, could survive months with it.
"Nobody wanted to believe it... Ryo least of all." Isha went on, "But, sadly, it was the truth. We feared, from how sickly she had always been, that she would never make it to be able to see her first ultra sound let alone be able to deliver. That, or it would kill her child before it killed her... But, through some miracle or another, she survived the whole 9 months of it, and I, Ryo, and, most of them, the priests of our village, helped her through it. She was bedridden... She displayed the worst of symptoms that we always feared would bring harm to her child, but, somehow, it never did. I always performed numerous ultra sounds for her, just to make sure that everything was alright, but..." Isha's expression turned troubled, regarding the things that she had always seen on that screen, what she had never been able to make sense of for the longest time, "They were always... Strange. I could out some features of the child, or, at least I thought I could, but.. There always seemed to be something in the way, and it was impossible to tell if it was male or female. But, I knew that some ultra sounds did always look very strange at times, and, considering Asuna's situation at the time, I just assumed that it might be reasonable, so I always left it. And then... 9 months past, and Asuna eventually went into labor. There was only me, Ryo, a few of my assistants, and the priests in the house at the time, it was just... Too brutal for anything else... And, well... Needless to say, things only got more complicated from there..."

"Complicated, like how?" Hyoma asked, listening intently to his mother's story. Isha's hands fidgeted slightly in her lap, and she shifted uncomfortably as all the memories came to mind.
"To answer your question earlier..." She started, her voice shaking slightly and her eyes darting over to the paper on the table for a moment before looking away, "Yes... Gingka did have a twin. But I suppose that was somewhat obvious already..."
Hyoma nodded slightly, but didn't say anything, letting his mother continue.
"We managed to Gingka mostly out, and... and..." No, she shouldn't say that, not just yet.. "T-there were complications with getting him out at all, and I ended up having to do another ultra-sound mid-delivery, which was how I figured out that there ws two of them, and I knew I'd have to preform a C-Section if we couldn't get both of them out properly."

"Why couldn't you get both of them out if you already had Gingka?" Hyoma asked, and he knew that the answer was probably pretty obvious at this point, but... Still. He had to ask.
"They were conjoined..." Isha answered, her voice starting to shake with the distant effects of tears. "But not like anything I'd ever seen with conjoined twins, and... I told Asuna that as soon as we figured that out, but..." Isha shook her head softly, tears starting to brim at the corners of her eyelashes, "She couldn't do it... There was already enough strain on her body as it was, and from the amount of blood she had already lost, her... Her heart gave out..." The lavender-haired woman wiped away a tear that managed to make its way down her cheek' "So I had no choice but to open up stomach and push the twin the rest of the way out, since there was no other way to do it unless we cut her open from her stomach to the vaginal opening, which... We really couldn't do, all things considered... We took both of them immediately into the next room, and cleaned them up, but... They weren't even crying.." Isha let out a shaky breath at the memory, taking a moment to wipe at her eyes as the pain, the guilt, gnawed away at her.
"T-they weren't..." Hyoma started, hesitating for a moment before speaking, "...They weren't stillborn, were they?" Of course, they couldn't have been, right?
At least, he knew Gingka definitely hadn't been, but the other one...
Isha shook her head in response, brushing her hair away from her eyes and behind her ear again. "N-no, they weren't..." She said, a slightly troubled look on her face, remembering those small faces, entirely devoid of color, the bit of blood that still covered them, and... "They were just... Looking at each other. There was no crying, they just looked at each other, and... They were not like any other infants I'd ever seen, let alone twins.."

"How so?" Hyoma asked, his eyebrows knit together lightly at the expression on his mother's face.
"They..." Isha started to say, trailing off for a moment, hesitating, before speaking again with a look that seemed as though she was trying to get the memory right, "...They had no pigment..." The words were almost whispered, but Hyoma heard them anyway, and he almost didn't think he had heard right before Isha kept talking. "They were just white.. All white, their skin, nails, everything... Their hair, it... It was longer than they even were big, and, of course, that wasn't very big but it was longer than anything had ever seen on newborns. Their bodies were covered in marks - black ones, but nothing like birthmarks.. They weren't even anatomically correct, so there was no way for me to determine whether they were male or female... The only color they had was their eyes... They were red. I tried to get the light to hit them, but they didn't reflect any, they just... They didn't look human, at all.."
Hyoma furrowed his eyebrows at this explanation, almost unable to believe it. He honestly thought she was lying, but he could see it in her face, hear it in the way she spoke, that she wasn't. But even so, all of that... That was impossible, right?
He knew Gingka, had been his first friend, and he had never looked as she had described as far as he could remember.
Yes, he had had very long hair at one point, and even as an infant, but...
"Mom, are you sure?" The Aries Blader asked, a sense of disbelief and doubt in his voice, but he did what he could to try and keep most of that hidden, "I... I've known Gingka for years, he's not albino.. And he's definitely not sexless, I know that..."
Isha licked her bottom lip again, and shook her head quietly before looking her boy in the eyes, a solid resolve set in them through the distinct anguish. "No, but he was." She said firmly, her voice shaking with tears, "He was for at least a week after-" Isha's voice faltered again, almost seeming to choke on her own words as all the blood, the screaming, the spiteful words spoken came flooding back again, crashing over her mercilessly like a wave that she had seen coming and had disregarded at the time.
Hyoma, of course, saw this. "After what?" He pressured lightly yet firmly, willing his mother to go on and feeling some other part of him fear the words that she would soon say.
Isha seemed hesitant, glancing down at her lap again before braving herself to look up into her son's eyes. "After we separated them.." She finished, seeming to bite the inside of her lip for a moment.
Hyoma just nodded. Of course, he had been expecting that, because that was what Ryo had said as well - obviously the twins had been separated, but...
If they had been conjoined in some way, than what kind of damage had it done? Gingka seemed perfectly normal, with practically no scars to speak of on his body that Hyoma had ever seen besides those that he had received while they were playing.
"It sickened me to have to do that to them, but..." Isha said, trailing off slightly and wiping away more of her tears, trying to stay as calm as she could with the memories of that day, ".. I said earlier, that they were conjoined, right?" Hyoma nodded his head, and she nodded hers in response, brushing her hair behind her ear again, "They were conjoined, but not like anything I had ever seen... Their skin wasn't even really connected, it was just.. Their hands..."

"What do you mean?" Hyoma asked.
"They were connected through a... Vein or an artery that ran through the palms of their hands. It was almost sort of cute, at the time..." A small, quivering smile appeared on the woman's lips for a split moment before it faded again. "Ryo saw them, and... Well, he had just about the same reaction as anyone else would have. The priests did as well, and... It didn't go over well. They sent me into the other room to clean up Asuna, and... I had no idea what they were talking about, but.. Ryo came in, and told me that we had to separate them, because they were... Dangerous."

"Wait, what?" Hyoma asked, disbelief crossing his features, "Dangerous? They were babies, how could they be dangerous?"
Isha shook her head, tears welling up in her eyes again as she spoke. "I tried to ask him why but he just said that it was for the best. I heard the priests talking to each other, and I... I didn't know what they were really saying, but.. There was just something about needing to protect everyone, and they... They said that they couldn't be together, so..."

"So you did what he said?..." Hyoma questioned, even though he already knew that it was true.
Of course they had been separated, but... Why? Because they were dangerous?
Because they would hurt people?
How could newborns do anything that bad?
Sure, the way she described them, they were anything but normal, but...

Isha just nodded her head, tears once more starting to spill down her cheeks. She covered her mouth for a moment, to stop herself from sobbing again, from breaking down, before she resumed talking.
"I did.." She said quietly, her voice almost a whisper, "I brought them into surgery within a few hours and we severed the vein that kept the artery that kept them together, and there was so much blood, but... They were both okay, as far as I knew.. And, after the surgery, when they were both in recovery, the priests and Ryo decided to keep Gingka, and get rid of the other twin..."

"Get rid of?" Hyoma asked, disbelief and disgust in his voice, "What does that mean? They didn't mean kill it, did they?"

"No!" ISha said hurriedly, shaking her head furiously and caused the tears to run down her already stained cheeks without her control, "Ryo said that one of them would take it away... Far away from here, and as soon as the wounds healed, that's what they did... One of them took that dear boy away, and I never had any idea where too, he just left.."
Hyoma, despite his revulsion, furrowed his eyebrow together at the used pronoun. "'Boy'?" He questioned, "How do you know that it was a boy if they only became anatomically correct awhile after you separated them like that?..."
Isha bit her bottom lip, the skin reddening underneath the punishment as she willed herself to not cry, but knew that it was inevitable no matter what she did.

"B-because... Because... He came back here.." She explained, even her voice moist with tears.

"He- When?" Hyoma asked, almost unable to believe the words coming from his mother's mouth, even though he knew that it was true.
"Years ago.." The lavender-haired woman replied brokenly, "The one priest that took him away brought him back at least once or twice, I can't remember..." A slender hand wiped harshly at tears that refused to stop falling, "I couldn't ever bring myself to look at him... I couldn't look at him after what I did!..."
Hyoma shook his head, unsure of what he was feeling but for the distinct hints of confusion and disappointment. "What the hell?!" The Aries Blader almost shouted, and he saw his mother flinch under his tone of voice because she knew he was more than likely angry with her, "You separated the two of them, and then you couldn't even face what you did? Why would you even agree to something like that when there was no actual good reason for it?!"
In his frustration, the lilac-haired man knew he wouldn't be able stand sitting down any longer and stood up from the chair, moving away from it and walking to one side of the room. "They were babies..." He continued, the mere thought bringing disgust into his voice, "What the hell could they do?! Yeah, maybe they weren't exactly human, but that doesn't matter! You of all should've known that!"

"Hyoma, I'm sorry..."

"'Sorry' isn't going to fix anything, mom." Hyoma retorted as he turned back to look at the woman that sat on almost the other side of the room, trying but most likely failing not to sound as disappointed as he really was.
"I know, but you have to understand.." Isha begged, standing up from her seat as she faced her son opposite her, "I didn't want that to happen! I-I barely knew what was happening myself-"

"Maybe, but you could've done something." Hyoma accused before she could even finish her sentence, looking at her and finding it internally painful to see the tears that rimmed her eyes and dulled their original luster, "You could have spoken up and said something instead of just letting it happen!"
Isha breathed a light sob as she tried to speak without breaking down, but was almost unable to as she looked into her dear boy's eyes and saw the disappointment that was in there. "I know I could've, but..." She began, wiping at her eyes again as she tried to gather herself enough to actually be able to talk.
Hyoma simply waited patiently - a patience that was slowly running out - as she did so, and watched as she brushed part of her hair out of her face, and finally brought herself to try and speak once more.
"I could've said something," She said, "And I would've, but... It was their word against mine, and I... I-I couldn't just go against them.." Hyoma sighed and sucked on his bottom lip as he put hand on the back of his head, trying to keep himself occupied as he willed away the feeling of tears that stirred deep within him - he knew well that it wasn't the time for that, or at least not for him.
"I know..." He sighed irritably, his teeth grazing lightly over his bottom lip while another sigh escaped him, "None of us ever doubt the priests... Nobody ever really doubted Ryo, either..." The Aries Blader ran a black-gloved hand through his light violet hair, shaking his head with nothing to think and confused on what exactly he was supposed to believe.
After all, finding out something like that really did leave a dent in your conscious.
"Hyoma, please..." Isha begged again, a choked sob that she had fought to keep in escaping her as the tears roll down her stained cheeks again, her eyes bloodshot with sniffles and sobs that followed, this time doing nothing to stop them, "I w-wanted to say something, I-I did, and I would have, but... I regretted never s-saying anything, and I know I should have, and I'm sorry..." The last words were nothing but a strangled whisper, swallowed by the anguish and regret that all came back to her after so many years, and this time with no mercy.
Muffling her whimpers, Isha sat down on the couch and covered her eyes with one hand, breathing shakily while her other hand rested clenched in her lap, her nails digging deeply into her skin. It only took a few moments of Hyoma listening to his mother's heart breaking - perhaps all over again - to know that he as much as he was frustrated and disappointed, confused and upset, he couldn't stay angry at her.
After all, they had only had each other all of these years.
The violet-haired man looked over his shoulder and past his bangs, his light blue eyes landing on the sobbing woman sitting on the couch, her hair falling over her shoulders and her eyes helplessly, and he watched in mourning as she covered her eyes with one hand and bit her bottom lip to keep her sobs to herself, even though she probably knew it was futile.
All it took was that sight to break Hyoma's resolve, and he hurried over to the woman who had raised him, sitting down beside her on the couch and gently pulling her into a hug, his arms wrapped around her waist as he let her head rest on his shoulder.

"It's alright, mom..." Hyoma said quietly, gently rubbing his mother's back as he let her cry against him, "I'm not mad at you.."
Both of them didn't really know if it was a lie, but Isha, for one, couldn't bring herself to care anymore. She wrapped her arms around her son's shoulders, buried her face into his chest, and cried for the years that she had taken away from those sweet little boys, for how many years she had spent regretting ever agreeing to separate them in the first place, because she knew that there was nothing she could ever do to take it back and fix the two little skeletons in her closet.
For several minutes, they simply just stayed like that, a tender moment between mother and son that no one would ever see beyond these walls, before Isha's sobs and cries finally died down enough for her to just be whimpering quietly every now and them, and she soon pulled herself away from the embrace of her violet-haired son, gingerly wiping at her eyes to wipe away any other stray tears that were left.
Hyoma simply let her, and sat there with her, his light blue eyes glancing over her as she slowly but surely gathered herself together again with the broken pieces he himself had scattered on the floor.
In any other circumstances, he would have never dreamed of hurting her as much as he did today, and he vowed to himself that, as long as he could help it, he would never do so again. Even as he made that resolve, he knew that he didn't have the full story - but he would not try and get anything else from his mother, because he knew that the other part he wanted didn't lie in her.
"Hey mom?" Hyoma questioned gently, looking intently at the lavender-haired woman beside him.
"Hm?" Isha asked wordlessly, not trusting herself to speak for fear or breaking down all over again.
"You said that the priest's were the ones to take Gingka's twin away, right?" Hyoma asked, and Isha, snuffling softly, simply nodded her head, brushing her hair out of her face again.
Hyoma nodded in response, but he stayed there for awhile, not willing to leave his mother alone so soon while she was in such a delicate state - after all, it wasn't like the priests were really going anywhere...


The sun was still fairly high in the sky by the time dinner-time was soon to arrive, which was exactly when Hyoma finally left the house after assuring that Isha would be able to handle things on her own for awhile.
He set out with a mission, and he was well intent on seeking out the other side of answers that he wanted, because, back then, even though Ryo had given the orders, the priests had been the ones to advise it of him in the first place.
He would hear from them whether they wished to speak of it or not - but, then again, Hyoma didn't see why they would have any reason to hide after it had been so many years and when nothing could be changed. But whether or not the Fathers of the village cared, Hyoma wanted answers from them, and so he walked briskly through the village, ignoring all greetings and polite hellos from the other villagers who could now clearly see that something was going on, towards the monastery at the edge of the forest.
The Catholic priests had almost always been present in their village for as long as most people knew, and were constantly looked at for guidance in either dark times or when important decisions had to be made by the head of the village. While they were mostly caught up in their own religion, they did respect and even help nurture the spirit that the Bey Village was built upon, and, as it stood, they had never once been doubted in their wisdom.
But, of course, wisdom did have a limit, didn't it?

Before he knew it, Hyoma found himself directly in front of the door of the Koma monastery, where he knew that the priests would always be more often than not, and he lifted his hand to knock politely on the oak wooden doors before making his way inside, the creaking door hinges making him cringe slightly.
The front entrance to the monastery was about the same as any church, with the confession booths and altar at the back of the room and the pews lining the walls all the way up the wall and leaving a red-carpeted isle in the middle. The actual living quarters of the building were in the back, where usually only the priests were permitted to go, unless they actually invited someone into them.
At the moment, only two of the priests, Father Fujita and Father Hashimoto, were in the main hall at the moment. Both of them, dressed in their usual dark grey robes, turned at the sound of the door opening to see what had pulled them away from what was most likely a quick session of prayer.
"Hyoma." Father Hashimoto said in acknowledgement and greeting, standing from his seat on the right front pew, "We did not expect you here."

"I know." Hyoma said coldly, not up to putting too much respect into his tone from the knowledge of the dark secrets he knew the two men in front of him - as well as the three others who weren't in the room - had, and walking forward up the isle to meet both of them, "But I need to speak with all of you."

"Well, this is a little sudden, don't you think?" Father Fujita asked with a raised eyebrow after he stood up from his seat as well, "After all, it's almost time for dinner, and I'm sure you're mother would want you home in time to eat."
Hyoma shook his head. "She can wait." He insisted, "I already discussed it with her, so it'll be fine."
Father Fujita looked intently at the violet-haired man for several moments, eyeing the expression in his eyes that showed that he clearly wanted to speak with them about something important.
"Well, then..." The dark-haired man began, "I suppose the two of us can do something for you; we have a few minutes before dinner, so now might be as good a time as any."

"I know that Gingka had a twin." Hyoma said abruptly, and, just like Isha, the effect was instantaneous. The eyes of both priests widened, color draining from Hashimoto's face while Fuhita simply looked shocked at the sudden statement.
Unlike Isha, Hyoma really didn't feel any pity for them - she was his mother, but they, on the other hand, didn't truly mean anything to him unlike she did.
For several moments there was nothing but silence, the walls of the monastery soundless except for faint and small clatters and inaudible chattering in the other room, until Father Fujita gave a slightly bitter smile.
"I see..." He said with slight understanding in his voice, and looked over to Hashimoto, "Get the others... I suppose we do all need to be present for this."
Father Hashimoto nodded, and hurried off into the other room to gather the three other priests that they lived with.
In the meantime, Fujita looked back to Hyoma, a bitter than solemn expression on his face. "How did you come across this, Hyoma?" He asked, his voice grave.
"Ryo told me, more or less..." The violet-haired man replied, "I got my mom to tell me her half of the story, and now I want yours."
Father Fujita seemed to understand, but didn't at all looked to pleased or eager at the idea of explaining such a thing. Hyoma, however, wasn't going to give him, or any of them, an option as long as he could help it. "And what did Isha tell you?" The grey-clad priest asked calmly.
"Enough to know that you separated them for no reason." Hyoma responded coldly.
"I assure you, we had every reason to want to separate those two." Fujita said in response, a hard expression on his lightly wrinkled face, "We knew it practically the moment we saw them. They were-"

"What?" Hyoma interrupted, that familiar feeling of disgust and anger bubbling up inside,"Dangerous? Is that it?"
Father Fujita looked surprised at the outburst for a moment, before narrowing his eyes slightly. "To an extent, yes..."

"They were newborns!" Hyoma protested, his voice cold and harsh, "What they apparently looked like may have been strange, yeah, but what could they have done? Why would think that they could do any harm?"
Before Fujita could speak, another voice broke into the conversation from on the side of the room. "Because we saw the darkness in them that they had inherited..." Said a voice that sounded very old, far older than Father Fujita was, and both he and Hyoma looked towards the back of the room, where Father Hashimoto came with the other 3 priests that inhabited the sanctuary and pushing the wheelchair that harbored the oldest of them all - Father Matsushita.
Matsushita had been the one who had spoken, gazing at Hyoma with grey eyes that were filled with wisdom and forlorn calm.
"What?" Hyoma questioned, a puzzled look on his face as all the priests came up and stood beside Father Fujita, though Father Matsushita now seemed to be the lead speaker.
"When we first laid eyes on those twins, we felt something that we had not felt for the longest of times, and had hoped we never would again..." Matsushita explained in his deep voice, his wrinkled face calm and sad, "We looked at them, and from their mere appearances, we knew that they were not fully human. What we felt coming from them, however, only furthermore proved our suspicions correct."

"What does that mean?" Hyoma asked, eyebrows furrowed lightly, "What did you feel from them?"

"We felt the same aura from them," Began Father Kita, "that had once emanated from the God Of Destruction, who of which was destroyed 7 years ago - by his own child." Hyoma's breath hitched in his throat, his heart seeming to come to a complete stop and, for a moment, he felt as though he had almost died on the spot.
"W-what?..." He stuttered softly, taking a step back to steady himself and assure that he did not accidentally fall backwards.
"Yes..." Father Matsushita continued from Kita, "We don't know how such a thing could have happened, considering he had been sealed away for centuries at the time, but Nemesis, God of Destruction, was the one who fathered those two boys - not Ryo Hagane, by any means."

"B-but..." Hyoma protested weakly, "Gingka looks almost exactly like Ryo, h-how is that possible?"
Father Hashimoto shook his head. "To this day, we have no idea.." He said, "For all we know, Nemesis crafted the way they looked entirely, but we have nothing to prove that... Despite that, we knew we had to separate the two of them. Keeping them together, with the power that we could feel, there was no telling what they could do."

"What could they do?.." Hyoma asked, that feeling of disgust once more seeping away the shock. Shocking as it was that Gingka and his twin were apparently Nemesis's children (however that was supposed to work in the place), it still did nothing to get rid of the fact that they had been separated for some foolish reason driven by fear. "You, or Ryo, or... someone could have taught them!" Hyoma continued, "I was with Gingka throughout our whole childhood, he never did anything to hurt anyone!"

"Yes, you're right..." Father Matsushita said wearily, "Gingka did grow up normal for the most part, and maybe he would have even been so if we had kept him with his brother... But we don't know that for sure.. Even if we regret what we did all those years ago, it doesn't matter anymore. We can do nothing for the two of them..."
Silence fell between all of them, settling the tension that still partially floated around in the stuffy air of the monastery, and Hyoma just continued to look at all of them, his expression showing he was less than pleased with any of those answers, but not saying anything further.
Despite how angry, how frustrated, how disgusted he was with the priests of Koma for separating Gingka and his brother, he knew that it would do no good to shout at them. Yes, they had separated his best friend, someone who was practically like a brother to him, from his own sibling because of something as irrational as believing they would bring harm to everyone at such a young age, but, when it came to it, that was a long time ago. There was nothing any of them could do to change it, and so, really, there wasn't any real purpose to yelling at them at all. But, even so...
"My mom told me," Hyoma began, both his expression and face far more calm than it previously had been, "that after she separated them, one of you took Gingka's twin and left with him."
Solemnly, the priests nodded their heads, and Father Kurosawa spoke up. "Yes, that was Father Hisakawa." He said, "He used to be the head preacher here, long before Gingka and his brother were born. Once they came around, Father Hisakawa was the one who offered to take the twin somewhere else to raise him, where he would not be a threat to people..."

"He came back here with him, didn't he?" Hyoma asked, his voice far more quiet and subdued.
Father Matsoshita nodded. "Yes, quite a few times..." The old man answered, "Though, that had always been because the boy had been far too young to be on his own. We stayed in contact with Father Hisakawa as distantly as we could for many years, but he stopped responding to us some time ago... We haven't seen or heard tell of him for at least 7 years, so... We have no idea what could have become of the boy, either."

"I see..." Hyoma said softly, glancing down slightly towards the floor and feeling slightly intimidated by the eyes of the priests that remained on him.
"O-one more thing.." Hyoma demanded in a soft tone, and, upon seeing Matsushita nod his head, went on, "If Gingka's brother came here a few times when he was far younger, and if you kept in contact with Father Hisakawa about him, then... Did you know his name?"
The priests nodded, and they told him what it was. The Aries Blader almost laughed at the irony of the name, considering what it meant and all that had made up the lives of the two.
He apologized to them for his earlier behavior, and, after receiving forgiveness from the priests with them saying that it was perfectly reasonable, thanked them for their help, before leaving the monastery.
Hyoma did not, however, start to make his way home. Instead, he walked towards the fields just outside of the village boundaries, and gave himself time to think. The only problem was that he had no idea what to think, after all that had happened today.
Needless to say, he had never expected anything like this to happen, never expected anything like this to come to light so suddenly. All he had wanted to do was look through that photo album, go through what seemed like age-old memories, and he had ended up with a heartbroken mother, more than human priests, and a secret that Ryo had kept for years from his own son.
It really was strange, how things like that could happen... And, of course, they always would, whether for the best or the worst, just like this. Really, Hyoma had no idea how to categorize this whole thing in the list of good or bad, and, more importantly, he had no living idea how he would ever tell Gingka.

Hyoma,

Somehow I knew that you would be the one to find this, so I addressed it directly to you. Maybe it's not you who's reading this, but I'll assume that it is for now. Either way, if you're reading this I'm probably already dead.
I assumed that I would be, so I knew there would be no other or better way to contact you at this point. Well, unless you use one of those Ouji boards, but I'm pretty sure we've all seen what those things can do at some point in their lives.
But, since I'm gone, these are my final words to you, Hyoma. However, they're not exactly the heartwarming parting words that you would have expected I say to Gingka if he had been there in the time of my death.
There's something that you need to know, something that the some of the more elder villagers know, like your mother, Isha.
I wouldn't recommend asking her anything about this since she would rather forget about it, but the priests of our village know well about it. What you choose to do with this information inside the village is entirely up to you, but please make sure it doesn't reach outside of it, as my last wish to you.
You're the only one I know I can truly trust with his knowledge, because I know that after I die, the truth will had died with me altogether, even if few of the other villagers know it.
I've hidden the truth for long enough, and if this lie must live on with somebody else, than that is the risk I am willing to take...
You see, I've had a lot of secrets over the years, some that I would have never dreamed of ever speaking of to anyone.
And this is one of those. I know you're good friends with Gingka, and that's why I'm sure that you'll be able to understand - and I'm sure you'll be able to make him understand as well. You know that my wife, Asuna, died during childbirth with Gingka, but that's not all that happened.
We always knew that her pregnancy was never an easy one, considering that fact that she had contracted Termina during the early stages.
But the delivery process was complicated and strange as well, and that was because she had twins. Your mother, who had delivered them, had discovered this mid-way through both of them being delivered. Both twins were alive and healthy, but despite that, there were other things about them that I don't even think I'm capable of writing down.
As you can most probably guess, we separated them.
I knew, and so did the priests of our village, that we couldn't keep them together, and I'm not going to try and make you understand why. I just knew that we couldn't keep them together. So I separated them both, and I never looked back on it.
I always thought I did the right thing for Gingka at the time, but, after all these years, I'm not to sure anymore. Maybe I did do the right thing in sending the other one away, but maybe I didn't at the same time.
Now that I've really taken the time to think about it, I don't feel like it was right at all, let alone humane. I took away a whole other life from Gingka, and, for that, I'm sorry to have done that too him.
I'm not sure if you'll be able to understand either, but I do hope you'll be able to do your best in making right what I wronged, if that's even possible anymore.
I've lied to Gingka for his whole life, and I don't expect him to forgive me for that, whether I'm dead or alive. I know there's nothing I can do to make up for what I've done.
And hopefully, you'll be wiser than I was, Hyoma. - Ryo Hagane