"Hey there. It's been awhile, hasn't it?"
It hadn't felt like too long since Yuki had last heard that voice. A couple of months before graduation, he'd heard Nyx telling his friends that he would return to sleep out in space.
"You've felt it, haven't you? That… strange, eerie feeling from time to time, right?"
Yes, he knew what it was. The only thing that would or even could stir his consciousness was that overwhelming mass of negativity. The first time, he'd resisted it and it had eventually vanished. Occasionally, it would vanish before encroaching upon him at all, but other times it would manage to encroach upon him, surround him, threaten to swallow him and destroy him, and he'd have to resist again, until it would vanish once more.
"Have you noticed how long it's been gone? Whatever was creating, it's probably stopped. Well, at least for now."
Maybe. Maybe not.
"You don't have to stay here any longer, you know. You can leave and return to your life."
Even with all of his time spent in darkness and most of that unaware of it, he knew he couldn't just return to his life. He'd lived, and he died, and now he was here.
"But you're not really dead, are you?"
Yuki paused, his mind almost slipping back into that quiet darkness.
"Your life force is still right here, acting as the seal. Well, the barrier really. But with nothing to keep out, your life force is just… sitting here."
Maybe. But I can't leave you alone.
Nyx laughed. "You don't need to worry about me. I always stay out here when I'm not being called."
Yuki might have laughed if he had a physical form to laugh with. It was an obvious trick; lying probably (clearly) wasn't Nyx's strong suit.
"I'm not lying." If it was possible for an incredibly ancient being to sound childish, it did. "And if I was, you could always return to being the seal, couldn't you? That power is always with you." Before Yuki could respond, Nyx continued. "Anyway, I'm going back to sleep. If you want to stay and sleep too, you can. But it won't hurt my feelings if you choose to leave."
With that, Nyx's presence vanished and silence settled in.
Normally, when nothing was happening, Yuki's conscious would fade as well and time would pass without his awareness of it. This time, he was still aware of himself as the silence stretched on and on. And on and on and on. It didn't take long for it to become maddening.
This is why I always wore headphones.
It's trying to trick me into leaving. But it's gone. It's waiting to take the first chance it can get. It's gone, so is the other presence. I can't leave it alone. It left me alone. It went back to sleep, I can't sleep.
If it was trying to trick me, why would it tell me I could seal it away again?
Could I really do it again?
Yuki tried to will himself back into the empty sleep he was used to (and wondered how he could be used to something he didn't know how to experience), but nothing happened. The harder he tried it, the harder sleep seemed to slip away. Enough time passed for his mind to start drifting from focus on sleep to memories of his life; time spent transferring from school to school, meeting Yukari and Mitsuru, joining S.E.E.S., the journey through Tartarus…
The thoughts of his friends caused a feeling of longing to well up inside him, and he sighed as he looked out at the night sky. Then, a feeling of confusion overcame him; since when could he see the night sky? Or sigh?
Those thoughts quickly turned into panic as he was tackled, then the night sky vanished and was replaced with the mildly warm afternoon sky. When he came to a stop and the person holding him let go slightly, he pushed himself up and looked around. The scenery was almost immediately identified; the chainlink fence, the windmills, the bridge in the distance… he was on the rooftop of Gekkoukan High.
"Yu...ki?" Came a hoarse whisper from beneath him.
Looking down, that initial feeling of confusion returned tenfold as he asked aloud, "Elizabeth? What's going on?"
The elevator attendant was on the ground, looking at him like… he'd been gone for ten years and then suddenly walked backed into her life. She sat up quickly, but her hand reached forward hesitantly to gently cup his cheek. He was about to ask if she'd been crying when he saw her bloodshot eyes and messy hair, but she pulled him into a hug before he could say anything. Yuki returned the hug as she started crying softly, clutching at his jacket and resting her weight fully against him. As he rubbed small circles onto the girls back and waited for her to calm down, Yuki could only wonder why Elizabeth was here. The past few weeks had been nothing but forced smiles and awkward silences as their informal relationship had come to an end… However long ago that had been, Yuki had to remind himself. He had done his best to ignore his disappointment, to focus on the final battle but even so, the idea that he wouldn't be able to see Elizabeth's amazed looks as he showed her around town or be able to answer any more of her naive questions had left him with no small amount of sorrow. He pulled back when Elizabeth's shuddering stopped and her breathing evened out, and rested both hands on her shoulders. "Are you okay?"
Elizabeth laughed, wiping her eyes as she responded with, "I should be the one to ask you that."
Yuki smiled. "Yeah I'm okay." For a moment, a million questions ran through his mind, but he decided to stand up, helping Elizabeth to her feet as well. He took a moment to collect himself, then asked, "Elizabeth, what's going on? Why am I back?"
Her smile fell a little as she answered, telling him about Erebus and how he'd suddenly been freed from the seal for seemingly no reason right in front of her.
"Did Nyx free me? Could it even do something like that? Or was it just because Nyx said I wasn't needed and could leave that I was freed? Did I do it subconsciously, or did it happen naturally? Surely me missing everyone wasn't enough on its own to free me…"
His silence must have gone on for too long as he wondered what was really going on, because Elizabeth gave him a worried look. "Is everything okay?" She tilted her head to one side as she rose on her toes to get a better look at him.
"It's fine. I was just thinking about the best way to get down from the roof without alerting anyone." He responded quickly. "And I don't know what to do now that I'm back."
"Please, allow me."
Before Yuki could ask what she was about to do, she raised her hand and the two of them began to float off the ground. He let out an involuntary cry as they then moved over the fence and then descended, slowing to a stop before hitting the ground. He twisted in the air so his feet were beneath him and then he was lowered the last couple of feet to the ground. "I didn't know you could fly." He looked at Elizabeth with a mixture of awe and curiosity, wondering what else she could do. It wasn't like she had done many magical things in front of him previously.
"Well, to be technical about things, it isn't flight. It's more like… controlled descent." She replied, rolling her hand in the air as she explained. "The closest experience to flight I can replicate is hovering a few feet in the air, but that lacks the actual wonder and desire for flying, doesn't it?" She asked as they began walking away from the school.
"It would be a neat party trick, I guess…" He mumbled as he took out his phone, unfolding it to be greeted by a 'no service' message. "Elizabeth?" He asked, turning to as they stopped. "Do you remember our very first date, when you and I went to Paulownia Mall?" At her nod, he continued. "Then, you remember how you threw a million Yen into the fountains there? You wouldn't happen to have any more coin pouches like that, would you?" Yuki held up his phone, then gestured to the surrounding area, where the train station and the rest of Port Island was. "We won't be able to get very far if we're broke." It didn't seem right to ask for money right away, but all of his savings he'd collected from selling junk that he'd come across in Tartarus had been split evenly between his friends when he'd died. It was the agreement they had all come to regarding a lot of things; they were all closer to one another than they were most family members, so the named beneficiaries on the accounts were each other. It was grim, but their whole situation at the time had been grim.
"Ta-da!" Elizabeth exclaimed as she produced another bulging coin purse. "This should last us a while! I had stowed a few away when I first began my journey."
Yuki smiled and shook his head. "Alright, first things first: we need to find a hotel to stay at while I try to contact my friends. It isn't exactly easy for a dead man and magical girl to just jump into society, so we'll need all the help we can get." He received a nod from Elizabeth, and the two set off for Port Island.
~One Hour Later~
"One room, please." Yuki addressed the man behind the counter.
The pot bellied older gentlemen looked up from his magazine, studied the duo for a moment, and frowned. "No." Then he returned to his magazine.
Yuki sighed. He turned to Elizabeth and motioned to the bag. "We have cash." He said.
The man looked up. "We only accept debit cards." And then looked back down.
Yuki rolled his eyes, reaching into the purse and finding the right type of coin currency. "We have a lot of cash." He said, setting down two stacks of 500 yen coins. The man looked at the stacks, then stared at Yuki for a long, awkward moment, until Yuki pulled out more coins.
"Here." He took the money and handed Yuki a key. "Keep it down, you two. If I get any noise complaints, I'm calling the cops and telling them you snuck in."
"Thank you very much." Elizabeth said when Yuki left without a word. She followed him out of the lobby before asking, "Why would he lie to the police? We purchased the room legitimately, didn't we?"
"Because a boy and a girl getting a hotel room together in the seedy part of town is…"
"My, how scandalous!" Elizabeth gasped as a wild grin spread across her face after she pieced the meaning together. "To think, you would bring an innocent maiden to such an abode!"
"You're not any more innocent than I am." Yuki pointed out, opening the door to their room and stepping inside. It was about as underwhelming as a cheap hotel room could've been; the only reason he chose this hotel and not a nicer one was because there was no way a more expensive hotel was going to allow a teenager wearing a school uniform to check in with a girl by himself. "Well, let's get comfortable. We'll probably be here a couple of days."
Elizabeth sat down on the edge of the bed and looked at Yuki, who let his shoulders fall. He crossed the room and sat next to Elizabeth, who turned to him expectantly. "Elizabeth… what were you doing at the seal?" He kept his tone even; he didn't want to sound like he was mad at Elizabeth for his newfound freedom when he wasn't even sure why he was free to begin with. Truthfully, he wasn't sure how to act around her right now. She seemed happy that he was back, but the last time they had spoken they'd left on uncertain terms at best.
Her smile fell a little and her shoulders tensed slightly, but the cheer in her voice was the same as always. "I was checking on you! If Erebus had done any damage to the seal, mankind would be at risk. But you were still in tip top condition, so no worries!" She explained quickly.
Yuki frowned. "I thought you said you couldn't leave the Velvet Room without Igor's permission."
"Oh, what Igor doesn't know doesn't hurt him."
"Then should I take you back-"
"No!" Elizabeth exclaimed as she stood up suddenly. "My apologies…" She mumbled meekly before sitting beside Yuki again. She exhaled and took a moment to collect her thoughts, trying to summon up the courage to say what she needed to say. For nearly ten years she waited and for exactly this, and now that it was here, she couldn't let the moment get away. "I... abandoned my duties, and am no longer a servant if the Velvet Room. The reason for this is because…. after spending time with you, learning more about your world and growing closer to you, I couldn't close my heart to the things I was feeling. I had fallen for you, Yuki, and after learning that you were trapped at the edge of existence, I went on a journey to destroy Erebus permanently and free you from your fate. But I was unable to do so no matter what I tried, and then- then you suddenly appeared, and you know the rest." She finished quickly, looking down at the ground.
As stunned as he was from her confession, Yuki was touched more by the sincerity of it. He knew she'd probably had romantic feelings for him since even before her last request, but with how desperate things had become in the few months leading up to the final battle with Nyx, he was never able to find out for sure… but no small amount of uncertainty on his part helped the situation, either. It would be difficult enough trying to maintain a relationship with someone when the fate of the world was at stake, even more so with someone as carefree as Elizabeth, but when she had requested that their dates come to an end, he put it out of his mind and focused on other aspects of life. Then, he'd given his life to protect the people he cared about, Elizabeth included, and now she was here telling him that she had spent all this time trying to bring him back. He leaned forward and wrapped his arms around her, smiling when she enthusiastically returned the hug. "That means a lot to me, Elizabeth. Thank you." He knew she hadn't told him everything, but that was okay. A lot had already happened in one day, and there would be enough time later to figure things out.
~A Few Hours Later~
After their talk, Yuki started planning on how he was going to get in contact with his old friends.
Mitsuru owned an entire corporation, so she wouldn't be hard too hard to find, but she would be hard to contact since he would have trouble explaining to a secretary that he was a dearly departed friend back from the grave. Akihiko was probably still boxing and if was as good now as he was before, he was probably doing it professionally. All Yuki had to do was type his and Mitsuru's name into a search bar and he would most likely know what they were up to. The rest posed a problem, however; Junpei, Yukari, and Fuuka hadn't decided on a career path before his death, and they most likely wouldn't have picked one that would put them in the public eye too often anyways. Ken was most likely in college, and Aigis was probably with Mitsuru. As uncertain as he was about meeting his friends, he had no idea how Aigis was going to react to seeing him alive after all this time. He'd pretty much died in her arms while she was promising to stay by his side for as long as she could, there was no way a simple, "Long time no see!" was going to cover things. But at the same time, he didn't feel the need to apologize; he wanted to save the people he cared about, even if it meant leaving them behind.
"At the tone, the time will be midnight."
Yuki turned away from the desk he was sitting at to look at the television set Elizabeth had turned on earlier. While he had been planning, the former elevator attendant had asked him a myriad of questions and wondered aloud at the world of television. Three sequential tones played, followed by a fourth longer, deeper, tone that lasted longer. Yuki let go of the breath he'd been holding in. "I'm glad the Dark Hour didn't come back with me." Of course, he knew it wouldn't, that's why he wasn't worried and why he wasn't waiting for midnight. Once the tension faded, he stood up and yawned, then took off his school jacket and top, followed by his shoes and socks. Elizabeth pulled her off her boots, socks, hat and her gloves, then lay down after Yuki pulled the covers back.
Before he could turn off the T.V. however, an advertisement began playing that caught his attention.
"An all new, never before seen trailer will be showing at the Phoenix Ranger Featherman convention next week! It's not too late to buy your V.I.P. ticket and meet the Pink Argus herself, Yukari Takeba! But you had better hurry! Your time is running out now! Only 200,000 Yen!"
Yuki was floored, staring at the commercial showing his friend doing stylish poses while wearing the costume of the Pink Argus. He had no idea how to react, so he just stared slack jawed for a moment until the commercial went off and his senses returned to him.
"Are you looking for the power button? It's on the right." Elizabeth offered.
"That's not it." He said, turning the T.V. off and turning around with a smile. "I have a plan."
