X~37~X
Len crawls out of the smoking car, his body having finally repairing itself. Large jagged cuts line his arms and hands from the flying shards of glass. IA whimpers from beside him and he feels her small hands wrapped around his arm, squeezing with a gentle violence. Her right cheek is pressed into the flesh of the same arm and she's made a point of squinting her eyes shut. That's when Len sees it.
A very large, long, and thin chunk of shrapnel has embedded itself deep within the flesh of her left leg. The leg itself is bent at an angle, probably broken, and whatever part of her skin that wasn't impaled with the metal chunk has glass shards stuck through it like needles in a pin cushion. The skin looks like raw meat except it's soaked in steadily flowing blood. Her eyes plead for comfort when they open and the small child struggles to avoid tears. She squeezes Len's arm harder after realizing he noticed her injuries.
"I-I'm sorry, Lenny." She whimpers, biting her tongue to the point of drawing blood.
"Hey," Len says in a soft voice almost resembling the coo of a dove. "You have nothing to be sorry for. Everything is going to be fine, I promise you. Just don't stop looking at me and I'll get you out." He cradles her small cheeks in the palms of his hands, the small lines that run through his palm caked with dried blood. He leaves a small dark brown stain on her cheek. IA leans into his hands, almost drawing out the warmth from his palms for comfort. "Does it hurt?" He asks her as a part of flaming shrapnel pops behind them like popcorn.
IA shakes her head. "I don' feel anything past here." She points at her left knee.
"Okay, that's good." Len lies, putting his hand on the top of her head and using his other hand to brace himself as he unbuckles his seat belt. Once the car rolled into the park it landed on its side, landing the two in a puddle of broken glass. The other side of the car, or the top of the car from the two's perspective, is badly dented. The space directly across from them is missing the door but the frame where it once was is crushed in, making almost a triangular tunnel of smoldering metal. Part of the front of the car still crackles with small and insignificant flames that will put themselves out eventually.
IA's eyes fling open, flashing brilliant red with a flaming intensity. Her mouth opens just slightly. Slowly, as if creeping into her mind, a high pitched buzzing begins. It grows in volume and soon she is no longer able to push it away. Len's words are swallowed and dominated wholly by the domineering sound. And once the sound has reached its peak of volume and become entirely unable to ignore, feeling as if the sound itself is about to burst her skull open, a bright white flash of light explodes behind her eyes and an image jumps into IA's head. The image of a bullet whizzing through Len's forehead as he attempts to free her leg, and the image of his blood splattering her face as he falls.
IA lunges forward, grabbing Len by the hair and pulling him as flat as he can get to the ground, piercing her own skill with more glass only seconds before a bullet whizzes where the shocked boy's head was. IA pants as the buzzing fades.
Len stares at her astonished, his mouth gaping wide open. "How did you-"
IA screams as a pair of hands reach in through the window above his head and flail around attempting to grab onto him. Len moves just in time, laying himself over IA as a human shield. The hands are unable to get a grip onto him steady enough to pull him out. Len slowly moves IA out of the reach of the hand. Its owner cusses bitterly above them.
A female voice says something inaudible and then bullets rain down through the window, flying every which way. Some fly into Len's arms, and one into his right calf but he doesn't dare move. IA clenches her eyes shut to shield them from the raining bullets when Len's voice floats to her.
"I'm so sorry, IA. I'm so, so, so, so sorry but I need to leave you if we're going to escape. I need to and I'm so, so, so, incredibly sorry. Please forgive me. I'll come back for you, but I need to take care of them first. I'll come back and get you out of there. I promise, everything is going to be okay." He slowly moves off of her as the guns above re load. IA's hands reach out for him as he creeps out of the small opening behind them. His face becomes clear through the dust kicked up from the accident and the smoke from the van behind them. To IA he suddenly looks a little sad, but only for a moment. His blonde hair framing his dirty and blood smeared face, a melancholy look in his eyes and hollow sleepless purple bags draping down from them as well. His face looks masculine and his eyes are a shining red, like a polished apple. Then he disappears from her line of sight and she's left alone as she suddenly falls dizzy. Her small eyes travel down to her leg and she gasps with horror at seeing all of her blood, spilled out under her feet, nearly hiding the glass.
"Please hurry, Lenny."
Gumi stands, panting before Luka. Her crowbar hangs lazily from her side, the hooked tip dragging on the floor. Her shoulders are hunched as she catches her breath, and for a moment her expression wavers before she resumes studying Luka.
The bizarre cotton-candy-haired woman has not tired at all, though the two seem like they've been fighting for hours. Each swing Gumi takes, Luka dodges. Each attack Luka makes, Gumi dodges. The woman ran out of bullets a long time ago, and resorted to only using kicks. Gumi realizes that Luka has not once blocked, punched, jabbed, or used her hands for any techniques at all yet, except for shooting.
Luka has not lost her breath, in fact she seems to have put no strain on her lungs at all, let alone any part of her body. She looks virtually mint-condition, almost a relaxed stance with no physical strain. Her lungs don't gasp for breath, her eyes don't move around, she doesn't even swallow any unusual amount or seem to have a thirst at all. This intrigues Gumi.
"I'm gonna' make you a deal." Luka raises an eye brow. "I'll answer any one question from you if you answer one for me."
Luka watches Gumi with a slight air of curiosity. She has noticed throughout their fight that Gumi has no style, no technique. She doesn't even have a clear point to her attacks, it's like fighting a rabid animal running only on a mere primal instinct. And it's a damn good instinct too.
"Okay, go ahead."
"What's your name?" Gumi asks.
"My name?" Luka watches her a little shocked. Her expression is the same, virtually unchanged when inside she's laughing herself to death over the idiot girl's question.
"I can tell you're shocked." Gumi announces suddenly. Luka is momentarily stunned. "You tend to mask your emotions a lot, yes? The only reason you don't mask your anger is because you can't. You see, you can't hide anything from me. I can see everything in your eyes, candy-hair. And frankly, been there, done that."
Luka frowns just a little. "Luka Megurine. My name is Luka Megurine. Now my turn. When I kill you would you ascend to God's loving embrace, or fall into the smoldering depths of hell?"
Gumi grins maniacally, slowly sulking forward and gaining speed gradually. Luka is filled with a deep dread, the girl's madness leaking through her heavily tinted goggles and peering into her soul with its icy hands. Gumi lifts her crowbar above her head, draping it over her shoulders.
"Oh dear little Luka Megurine. Don't you know? I never could hold a deal."
Oliver runs with Yuki in his arms. His legs move so fast they burn and ache, his hands hurt with cuts and bruises and Yuki cries silently into his shoulder. Oliver doesn't know where he's going, but as long as it's better than there, it doesn't matter to him. Out of the corner of his eye he sees a flash of vibrant red. Without stopping or slowing he turns around to be faced with the second van that crashed into Miki's mother's car.
The van crashed at such an angle that the trunk was broken open, spilling out ten dog crates. Some of the crates have collapsed in on themselves, others are too badly damaged to use. About four out of the ten have survived, and one of them contains a girl with vibrant red hair.
Oliver is suddenly faced with a decision.
"Yuki…" He stops to think. "Just… just hang on." He runs forward, down the hill of the park and back from where he came. He avoids the small group of people that seem to be entirely invested in the car they drove and he runs around the back of the van to the cages, setting Yuki down beside him, but keeping one arm wrapped around her at all times. Part of him feels guilty for not getting IA too, but the other part knows he couldn't have carried two kids and one tiny nagging part of his mind knows that even if he had the option to take IA too that he probably wouldn't have.
"Miki, Miki, I'm here." He smashes the already damaged cage to pieces with part of a car tire lying beside him in the debris.
Miki slowly blinks to life. Because Gakupo set off the explosion a little too early, Luka didn't have the time to give the girl the full injection of the sedative. It was also an extra injection measured to Lapis' weight, and considering that Lapis is quite smaller than Miki and still received an overdose it is surprising that she woke up. But then again it just could be that different drugs have different effects of people. Especially immortal ones.
"Wha-" She mumbles incoherently.
"No time to explain, come on!" Oliver uses his free hand to lift her out of the cage, nearly draping her over his shoulder. As they stand something blue catches Oliver's eye and he glances back, only slightly, to see another cage containing a slightly familiar blue haired girl. She is fast asleep with a little bleeding cut just under her eye.
"Oliver…?" Miki mutters.
"Wait here." He groans loudly, rushing off to the blue haired girl's cage. He uses the same rock he used on Miki's cage to bust the lock, then rushes off back to the two. "Okay, hurry." They move off, up the tallest hill in the park.
Once on top Oliver pauses, panting for a moment. Miki has regained herself and stands on her own, her arms wrapped around Yuki. From beyond the hill storm clouds roll in, blocking the fiery sunset with their looming shadows. Just beyond the hill the ocean is visible, just a small blue line on the horizon, but the smell of salt lingers in the air and seagulls caw overhead. Something yellow, bright yellow, catches Oliver's eye. A yellow topped figure moves as if in slow motion out from behind the large tree sprouting from on top of the hill.
"Miki! Get down!" Oliver screams as a gunshot goes off.
Miku presses her palm flat against her forehead, gasping for breath in large gulps of air. She watches Len's yellow head bob up and down not too far off in the distance. He is surrounded by the masked bird-men and the man who calls himself Gakupo, but seems to be doing reasonably. Somehow the adrenaline in Miku's body has overflowed and soaked into her blood, drenching every muscle in her body with the screaming urge to run, run, run, and don't stop.
She has no more injuries that need to heal, but her body can't stop screaming. The image of the hammer swinging down on Len's skull again flashes through her mind and she lets out a yelp like whimper as she rocks back and forth on the balls of her feet.
"Such a bad child you are! Demon child!" Her shaking hands fly to her ears and struggle to remove the echo in her mind.
"No, no, no, no!" A bright white light flashes in her vision like a firework, and her ears buzz with rapid intensity. "If this world could just be me and them… If only everyone else could just… be… gone…" A strong pair of arms wrap around Miku's arms, pinning them to her sides. She kicks and thrashes, tears streaming down her eyes wide with intense and pure panic.
"Not a chance." Meiko hisses through clenched teeth, forcing Miku down on her knees and into the ground.
A voice rises from somewhere inside Miku's mind. A small cry, buried deep, deep within the domain of her subconscious. It's almost as if she can feel it reaching out, pulling at her from far deep inside of herself. The voice is so familiar, but so distant, a part of her that just seemed to disappear within the recesses of her mind. It reaches out, tugging at her mind, dancing behind her eyes until Miku can make out the words.
"Okay." It was the voice of a small child, herself.
Miku surges upwards, filled with strength beyond Meiko's. She cranes her neck backwards at an awkward angle, eyes pulsing and flashing with deep, swimming shades of red, red, red. And that's all she can see, red.
The power welling up, the power bursting inside of her is starving, hungry, craving death, screaming for it with all the force it has, burning with insatiable hunger. Miku caves, tears drying immediately upon leaving her eyes, yet screaming with all she can muster, sobbing with all the force she's ever had.
Rin, who had been waiting on the opposite side of the tree for a chance to take out Meiko, stands, dumbfounded at Miku. Her eyes contain such rabid ferocity, her pupils entirely swallowed whole by the swimming pool of red. Miku is in agony, flopping around in the grass like a fish out of water, only this fish has lungs.
Meiko scrambles, eventually getting to her feet and flailing for her gun. Rin already has hers aimed at Meiko's bobbing brown head. With a growl of frustration Meiko throws her gun down, taking off running back to the vans, leaving Rin and Meiko alone. Maybe it was the sheer terror of what was happening to Miku, or the simple choice between the fight or flight response, or maybe, just maybe, the primal instinct to just run and never ever stop that compelled Meiko to up and leave like that. And she was so close, so, so close to obtaining glory in this battle. So brutally close, but she let it slip from her grasp and fall into God knows where. And now she's running, like a coward. But can't stop herself, if it's all the same to you.
Rin wraps her arms around Miku, whose eyes have gradually dulled slightly, back to their blazing red. Too exhausted to even sob, Miku simply collapses onto Rin, her arms even lacking the simple strength to cling to Rin's bloody form.
Len runs up to them from the distance, Gumi not too far behind. A grim look of panic is plastered onto Len's sweating face and he doesn't even pause for breath once he reaches Rin and Miku.
"Where's IA?" He shouts. Just then the group hears a loud gun shot from the top of the hill, and their heads turn ever so slowly to see four figures framed on the hill top, one of them holding a gun.
Lilly smirks at her work lying on the floor. Her bullet merely grazed the red haired girl and sent the eye patched boy into a full-fledged panic, but it served its purpose. Yuki cowers in Miki's bleeding arms.
Miki slowly eases her arms open, looking at Yuki's color drained face. She sees the clean bullet hole wound in her arm, smiling gently down on Yuki's face.
"It's okay, I'm fine see?" Miki says kindly. Her breath stops short when she still sees a steady gush of blood. She looks down, her eyes following the trail of dripping blood to a wound in Yuki's stomach, bleeding steadily. Lilly's bullet may have passed through Miki's arm clean, but upon hitting into Yuki afterwards the bullet shattered, scattering shrapnel throughout the small girl's insides.
"N-n-no…" Oliver falls to his knees.
Yuki blinks slowly, eyes welling up with tears. "You-y-you're gonna' be just fine, Yuki. You, my sweet, sweet, little Yuki Kaai, are going to be fine." Miki blinks back tears, her voice breaking.
"M-Miki, I… I had… I had a d-dream last night… e-everyone was there… O-Ollie, IA, M-Miku, big sister M-Miki… w-we played… we played together…" Yuki's voice is soft, drained of all emotion, cold and soulless, dripping away slowly. Her brown eyes dull slowly to an empty grey, then blink and send water cascading over her pale cheeks. Yet somehow she manages to smile, a small little thing, just a tiny little smile up to the grey clouds overhead. Miki brings Yuki's face up to hers, holding her in her shaking arms and kissing her on the for head through her own sobs.
"Y-you're going to be okay, Yuki. I promise you, everything, everything is going to be just fine." She cries silently, bringing her sister's small round face up to her own.
Lilly stalks over slowly, placing the barrel of the gun up against the back of Yuki's head. "L-let's play together… again…" Yuki whispers, closing her eyes to smile again, letting out a tiny little bubble of a laugh.
"Please, everything… everything's gonna be fine…"
"No, it isn't." Lilly pulls the trigger.
"NO!" Oliver screams, unable to control his shaking body anymore, he falls to the ground on his hands and knees.
"Y-Yuki?" Miki shakes the girl in her arms, but her body has gone cold and limp. The gunshot was angled horizontally, sending chunks of Yuki's brain out her forehead, drenching every inch of Miki with thick blood and covering all of the child's facial features, drowning them in a thick swimming red. A tiny rain drop splashes onto Yuki's forehead as the skies begin to weep. "Y-yuki?"
Rin begins shooting at Lilly from a distance, her aim almost acute. Lilly checks her clip in her gun.
"Tch." She moans, realizing she is out of ammo. She has no other choice but to go get more. She dashes madly back to the car, sliding down the now muddy hill and taking off with a sprint. Rin stops at the hill with the others.
Miki lays Yuki's body down on its side, facing her as she lies down the same way, facing it. Yuki's grey eyes stare out into oblivion, her smile gone and replaced with a hollow opening, just another place where blood trickles down from.
"Yuki…" Miki can't even cry anymore, her eyes wavering, blided by tears. "Oh Yuki…" Her hand gently traces around Yuki's cheek, down to her chin. "Such a little dreamer… I remember… you always used to come down from your room in the morning, sit on my bed, and tell me about your dreams. You are the definition of a day dreamer, Yuki. If Mom could see you know… oh how proud she would be of her little dreamer, still stuck on her little clouds, hanging over the heavens. Now you can be there forever, hanging down from those clouds. It's sad though… oh it's so sad… your… your big sister is here, Yuki. Your big sister is here." Miki brushes a strand of hair out of her face, smiling to herself. "Such a pretty little girl… Can you- can you promise me something? Promise me, Yuki. Promise me you'll dream of me. Promise… promise me you'll dream of me, because I'll dream of you. Just you watch me." Oliver then saw something change in Miki. With her exhaling breath the light seemed to vanish from her eyes, the rain now pouring on their heads seemed to somehow slow around her. With her exhaling breath something seemed to leave her, passing between her pink lips, no more than an indistinct whisper. Her face relaxed just then, part of her withering and dying, floating away with the rain on the grass.
"Uh, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but we've got company." Gumi says, gesturing to two women approaching the hill once again.
"Oh, shit. Shit, shit, shit!" Rin screams at the top of her lungs. She is so filled with rage that her shoulders quake and not knowing what else to do, she cries. Not because she's sad but because she's literally so filled with anger that the only thing she can do is cry. Len approaches her gently, wrapping his arms around his sisters quaking shoulders. Rin sobs and wretches into him, her arms squeezing him so hard it hurts.
"Guys, we need to go. We need to go." Len whispers yet commands. Miku turns her head away from the two sisters, still clutching each other's hand.
"The sky… the sky is… crying." Miku says, looking up into their swelling grey depths.
"We need to go, Oliver." Len tries to nudge him up. Rin breaks free of her brother's grasp, turning and looking at Oliver.
"Stand. Please, stand. Yuki's gone. We need to move on. So stand." Rin wears an expression no one but Len has ever seen before. Her eyes swell with tears, but her face seethes with anger but a stern demand. She reaches a hand out to Oliver. "Take it."
Slowly he stands, clasping her hand and staggering to his feet. "Miki…" He says, taking a step forward. The girl shows no response. She lays there, alive, yet dead inside. Her eyes still red but dull and lifeless. An empty echo of the girl he grew up with, the girl he played with, the girl he rescued, the girl he stood up for, the girl he watched grow with him. The girl he loves.
"We need to leave her." Rin says. Everyone looks a little taken by surprise except for Gumi.
"She's right. Miki will save us if we let her. If they have her they won't follow us wherever we go, at least for a while. We can escape. She's in shock, there's no way we can move her, Oliver. You don't know me, and I don't know you, but I think it's what she would want. Miki can save us. Let her."
"We can't… we can't leave her. I can't do that again." Oliver whispers to no one but himself.
"We need to move on, Oliver." Rin releases his hand, walking past him and back into Len's arms. Miku clutches Len's free hand, following close at his side. Gumi takes one last glance at Yuki and turns to Oliver.
"I don't believe in God, I don't believe in heaven, or hell, but if anyone ever deserved heaven more, it's that little girl." She turns, with her crowbar over her shoulder, and follows the group down the hill.
Oliver stands over Miki and Yuki, his eyes solemn.
"Go." Miki says, but then her voice disappeared, like it was never even there, like Oliver never even heard it.
He moves forward, bending down over Yuki's body one last time. He opens the child's small palm and places inside a small bunny backpack charm, a nice plastic red one, with silver button eyes on a light silver chain, like one you would find on a diamond necklace.
"Goodnight, Yuki. Dream well."
His footsteps follow Len's, Miku's, Gumi's, and Rin's, down the hill and off into the pouring rain.
Miku glances up at Len, seeing the tears stream down his face.
"Len-"
"I promised I was going to come back. She was taken before I even got close." He states simply and dryly, letting the tears mix with the cold rain and drip down his bloody front.
Oliver takes one glance back, looking up at the tree on top of the hill framed by weeping storm clouds and the final red glare of the setting sun, with the oceans rolling in back, just a little blue line on the horizon. And for a moment he thought he saw two figures, standing together, holding hands on top of the hill. A child with pig tails wearing a little bunny charm necklace and a girl with long red hair and deep eyes walking her off into the sunset. He smiles, just for a moment. And then he blinked and the two girls up on the hill top were simply sucked up by the sunset and vanished into air.
X~Book One~X
~End~
~X~ Disclaimer: I, Tiruneko, do not own vocaloid, Crypton corp, or the song A Tale of Six Trillion years and An Overnight Story, all credit goes to their respectful owners.
~AN~:
Hi guys! Before you enter into full fledged panic mode, let me ease your fear, yes, I WILL continue this story. This was simply the end of Book One. First I'd like to thank EVERYONE who's ever looked at my story, I love you guys. How I suspect I will continue this is by adding the new chapters right back onto this story so I don't lose all the views I have on these chapters too. I'm not sure when I'll begin Book Two, but it won't be long.
So, thank you all again for all the reviews, support, follows, and favs over the last few months. I appreciate every one of them. Look at me, talking like I'm something big. XD ignore my cockiness everybody! ^^
Special thanks to all my reviewers for supporting me throughout this whole story since chapter one! It means so much to me to have so many people that enjoy my writing and my characters.
Have a good weekend everybody, and for now, sayonara!
~Tiruneko ;3