Chapter 29: Coming To Terms

Earth: April 22, 2014; 6:48 PM; Resort

The feeling of the small rocks and seashells biting into the soles of her bare feet as she ran.

The overwhelming twisting pain that held its cruel, burning grip around her chest.

The chilling unpleasant feeling in her heart that washed all over her body and drained it of warmth.

Ayase felt her strength begin to give way to hopelessness and sadness, and she dropped to her knees and her hands. The pain of the small rocks pressing against her skin didn't register at all with her.

…I can't do anything anymore… She thought, her despairing thoughts driving her imagination back to what she had just seen.

Raph, smiling and laughing as he held out a spoon of vanilla ice cream for Yuki to eat.

And Yuki, doing the same with a blush and a smile that no one could mistake.

The thoughts drove her sanity to the brink, leaving her with nothing but assumptions and what-ifs to consider.

…do they like each other? It would make sense. I know Blanc. I've been with her for years.

But I've never seen that smile on her face before.

Ayase felt another twist of pain register in her heart as she kept thinking. I…like him?

The first thing she wanted to do was deny the thought and bury herself in the sand so that no one could ever find her again, but she warred with the feeling and wrested it down. He's…so kind and…nice. But, then again…he's nice to everyone.

He asked Nepgear out as his date.

He'd done that with Blanc, too.

And when we were at the resort…he helped me get over my uneasiness. He made a promise with me.

And back home, he'd taken everyone in. He taught us everything we know, and helped us get our disguises. And…we had so much fun together.

He gave us so much. Even my name.

Ayase Takanashi, my name, was something that Raph gave me.

"…Ayase?"

She slowly looked up to see a pair of feet standing in front of her.

Further up, she rose to see Kyle crouching down.

"…are you…?" He asked, reaching out to pat her shoulder as if to comfort her.

Ayase felt her heart twist for the umpteenth time, and the words spilled out before she could thing. "I can't do it anymore."

Her words stopped Kyle's hands in its tracks.

"Yuki…" She managed to blurt out, her shoulders beginning to tremble. She felt her fingers dig into the sand slowly, but the pain of the jagged seashells in her hand didn't seem like it hurt at all. "Yuki…she…"

"I'm sorry, Noire."

The words forced her to look up at Kyle, and she felt the Earth stop turning when she realized that his face looked like it was in pain.

So much pain that she felt the words in her throat stop and stay there, frozen. She tried to force them out, and they emerged as weak croaks. "…why are you…why are you saying that, Kyle? You were the one who helped me…you didn't…do anything wrong…"

The boy only clenched his fists, his own face marred with the scars of guilt. It was plain to see now, even for Ayase. "I…"

"Ever since the arcade," She pressed on, as if she were trying to console him now. "You've been helping me! You're not to blame for anything!"

She didn't like seeing his face twisted in pain and guilt as it was.

Kyle looked away, his lips quivering as if he were trying not to break down. "I…I started this whole thing."

She didn't understand. She couldn't understand. "What do you-?"

"Ever since…" Kyle cut her off, trying to regain his composure. But his own guilt began pouring out, and he couldn't keep it in anymore. "Grape and I were setting up things ever since that day on the beach. We set up Formal Night, and we ended up changing things for Yuki and Raph. And for…and for you."

He felt a single tear roll down his cheek, and his gasps for air were like hiccups now. As if he were trying not to break down and cry, but his cracking, shivering voice couldn't hide anything. "…even though I did that, I still told you to go ahead and tell Raph how you feel…it's all my fault. Everything you're going through…all of the pain is my fault."

"Kyle…" Ayase, stunned beyond words, felt her own heart divided into pieces. She tried to reach out to him, but he just stood up and slowly turned his back to her.

"I don't deserve to look you in the eye anymore, Ayase." He said, his fists trembling as if he were about to be thrown into service during World War II. "I can't help you anymore. I don't even deserve to try. I'm sorry."

And with that, he walked away.

Kyle?

Sakura noticed him walking away, fists clenched, and out of sight.

She could feel it.

She could feel the twisting, turning aura of emotions clashing emanating from his body. Sakura walked forward as if to pursue him, and then looked down the path he had just come from.

She spotted Ayase on her knees, and Sakura instinctively ran over to the raven-haired girl.

"Ayase?" She called out, getting down on one knee and placing her hands on Ayase's shoulders as if to support her. "Are you okay? Did you hurt yourself?"

"…Sakura?" The lilac-haired girl widened her eyes in shock at hearing the Lastation CPU's voice.

It sounded spent. Tired.

Strained.

Near-broken.

"I just saw Kyle." Sakura began, moving as if she were about to help Noire up on her feet. "Did something-?"

"Nepgear, I have a question." She asked, gently pushing away the Candidate's hands. "Answer it for me, please."

Sakura just nodded.

"Do you like Raph?"

The question caught her off guard, enough to drive away almost every other thought in her mind.

And only one response came to mind. "…I don't know."

Ayase looked up at Sakura, their gazes meeting eye-to-eye. And Sakura felt a cold sensation run in her gut when she saw the twin-tailed, ever-strong Noire with tears sparkling and ready to fall.

"…what do you mean, you don't know?" Ayase asked, laughing. But her laugh sounded hollow and fake, enough for it to come across as heartbreaking.

"I'm…still trying to figure it out, myself." Sakura replied, averting her gaze.

"…sorry." Ayase apologized, curling back into a fetal position and hugging her knees to her body. "I'm just…so…"

"Confused?" Sakura offered, a bitter laugh escaping her lips. "I know how you feel…"

"…Nepgear…?" Ayase looked up to the girl standing in front of her.

She just smiled and got down on her knees, and the Candidate just placed her hand on the CPU's shoulder in her attempt to comfort her.

"…even I can tell, Noire." She said knowingly, the bitterness in her laugh also apparent in her smile. "You're confused. But at least you know yourself better than I know myself. You can admit to liking him, right?"

Ayase just stared at Sakura, silence her answer.

"See?" Sakura said matter-of-factly, and she patted the twin-tailed girl on her shoulder again. "You know it. Even if you deny it. That's just like you, you know."

Ayase just shook her head weakly. "But-"

"I told him myself that I wasn't sure if I liked him. But I'm not really sure if I do." Sakura replied, her eyes downcast as if she were trying to find something good about herself to feel reassured about. "If I think about it now, I would know that I once liked Raph the way you do now. But growing closer to him made me realize that what I loved most was the Raph that saw me as a friend. Not anything else."

Ayase felt the question rise through her throat and come out before she could even begin to filter it. "Why are you telling me this? I only wanted to know if you liked him."

Sakura just smiled in reply, standing back to her own two feet and glanced at the setting sun that sat like a lazy eye on the edge of the glittering horizon. "I guess your question made me think hard enough about it, and it came out before I could even think about keeping it to myself."

She offered the Lastation CPU a helping hand. "I had the chance to tell him what I wanted, Noire. And…I guess I just want you to do the same."

The raven-haired girl smiled and took Nepgear's hand, staggering to her feet.

Her doubts, her sadness and her hopelessness had all been driven away, replaced by a fiery, burning force that made her toes tingle and set her heart ablaze. She felt her smile reinforced by bars of courage, and the tears of grief that had threatened to spill out had been wiped clean off.

"…thank you, Nepgear." She said, her grip on Sakura's hand tightening for an instant in a friendly, grateful squeeze. "I've got it now."

"You'd better hurry, then." Sakura replied, pointing up at the sky and grinning. "The fireworks will start soon."

Ayase nodded decisively, her fists clenched and her grin fierce & prepared for the worst.

She turned around and began running.

"Raph!"

The boy turned around at the sound of someone calling his name, and was taken aback at the sight of Ayase running at him intently as if she were a missile and he the lone target.

"Wai-Ayase?!" He asked, panicked and bewildered as he prepared for some sort of violent impact to rock his body without any explanation whatsoever.

It never came.

His eyes widened when, just a few strides away from him, Ayase suddenly lost her footing and began to slip backwards.

"Hey!" He called out instinctively, encircling her body with one arm and holding firmly onto her hand with the other arm's hand, stopping the fall magnificently. "You okay? Don't run like that on the beach."

"S-sorry." She said, standing back up proper and distancing herself from him ever so slightly, trying to hide the faint blush that had come on from Raph catching her like that.

"Don't make me worry about you." He replied, laughing. "I won't be able to do that all the time. Come on, the fireworks are gonna-"

"Raph…I-I'm sorry." She blurted out, her voice forceful but sincere as she took an apprehensive step in his direction. "For shouting at you before."

Raph just shook his head. "It's alright. I don't know what I did to upset you, but-"

"I…I have something to tell you." She cut him off, trying to keep her mouth moving calmly so that she wouldn't stutter and ruin it. Every fiber of her being was running on pure electricity, every molecule wanted to curl up and hide in a hole far away from that spot.

But she fought the feeling as best she could.

Raph tilted his head curiously, absolutely no clue to what she was trying to say getting to him at all. "What's that, then?"

She clenched her fists.

She took a deep breath.

She steadied her heart.

And she took a step forward. "I-"

*BOOM* *BOOM* *CRACKLE*

The world instantly turned red, to the pair's surprise. The sound of a muffled, distant explosion rattled their hearts like a subwoofer.

"Wow, they don't look half bad." He admired, smiling before turning back to Ayase. "Sorry, I couldn't hear you. What was that?"

Another colorful explosion of green and orange bloomed in the sky life a flower of fire, and Ayase just laughed to herself and turned around.

"Nothing, idiot."

"Wow, look at that!" Himawari let out a gasp of awe and pointed at the sky. "The fireworks here aren't bad! Earth's pyromaniacs are pretty good!"

"I'm pretty sure you're talking about pyro technicians, Himawari." Grape shot back, grinning as he handed out cans of soda to everyone he could.

As an extremely large firework of dazzling, shimmering colors filled the sky, Vince pointed at it and raised his voice. "GOODBYE, PHILIPPINES!"

Which, of course, made everyone within a fifty yard radius stare at him as if he'd lost his mind, gone to the lost-and-found center for it and then start talking into the pager.

"What?" Sakuya asked, bereft of words and comments.

"It's the name of one of the bigger fireworks around here." Kyle offered, and everyone just accepted that and continued watching.

Sakura, taking it with a grain of salt, just glanced at the raven-haired, twin-tailed girl that stood beside her. That same raven-haired, twin-tailed girl just smiled back at Sakura.

"You're okay with this?" Sakura asked quietly so that no one could overhear, and she indicated Raph, who was standing a good distance away, with a gesture of the head.

"I already told you everything, didn't I?" She replied, taking a sip from her drink and sighing. "Besides, I think I realized something important."

"What is it?"

"Well…I think my feelings may have been misplaced."

"…you mean you never liked Raph in the first place?"

"No, that's not what I meant. Just…that I think I love someone else instead."

"Oh, really?"

"Mm. He's been helping me all this time. He's been kind to me…even before Raph was. I realized it earlier. I really was in love with Raph."

"Well, not until a few minutes ago."

"Haha. Yeah. Well, how about you?"

"Me?"

"Yeah, you. What are you going to do now?"

"I think I want to keep being friends with everyone forever. I think this whole thing has me exhausted."

"Really?" Ayase nudged Sakura playfully, her tone becoming teasing. "No one comes to mind?"

Sakura tried to reply, but an image came to her mind that stopped the words in her throat.

The image of her sleeping on Matt's shoulder as they sat on the terrace.

Huh? She thought, surprised at herself. Why did I…?

"…? Something wrong, Sakura?"

"No, it's nothing."