Dein Weg ist Mein Weg

Chapter III

The Memories

"What did you just call the president?" The black-haired girl asked, clearly furious at the comment.

"Momo, calm down, I'm sure she didn't mean anything by it," the brown-haired one said as she tried her best to hold her friend back from attacking Maho. In the meantime, the pipsqueak of a president just laughed.

"Oh, don't you worry about it. I like her style," she said to her companions and patted Maho on the back as if they were merely old friends bickering for fun. This unearned familiarity, as well as her knowledge of what tended to happen to people who became this friendly with her, made Maho's tone even more bitter.

"If there was nothing else, 'President'," she said, putting a cold emphasis on the title. "Then I suggest you leave. Our next period is about to begin, and I'm sure the teachers at whatever kindergarten you escaped from are looking for you." Both Maho's tone and expression made it clear that this conversation was over. She could feel the darkness surround her once again, but this time she was allowing it inside. Letting it shape her actions as it had once done. And she hated every second of it.

"Well, I suppose they are, aren't they?" The president said in a joking manner. "But I haven't given up on you, so you'll hear from us again. Come on ladies, we have other things to attend to." The small girl began to leave the classroom, and after a second or so of looking at each other, her two friends followed. Maho sat back down, and the teacher entered to begin the next period.

Letting the darkness guide her once again had helped to turn away the student council, but much like a vampire or unwanted guest, once Maho had invited it in, it was a cumbersome tenant to evict. Whenever it managed to find perches to grab at her soul, it was next to impossible to rid herself of. Much in the same way as Hana and Saori had proven to be.

Returned to it's old lodgings and once again settled in, the darkness wasted no time submerging Maho in the void inside her. She didn't even notice the class taking place around her, as she fell further into the nightmare than she had in months. Gone were the walls and desks of the classroom, gone were the teacher and her classmates. There was only the rain, the battle, and the river.

The freezing rain chilled her spine as she ran through the raging battle, shells flying all around her as guns from both sides gave off their deafening roars. As she ran past the white-flagged wreck of a Panther, its crew huddled safely inside, she slipped and fell face first into the mud. She got up again as quickly as she could, and continued to race towards the river. She would not be stopped this time. Perhaps this time, if she could just reach the Panzer III a little quicker, if she didn't hesitate before running to help, if she didn't stop to look back at her beloved Tiger, the flag tank, as it fell from a well-placed shot from one of Pravda's tanks. Perhaps if this time she did none of those things, if she truly acted on impulse, maybe she wouldn't be too late. She braced herself for the raging river as she leapt off the cliffside the Panzer had left behind, and dove into the ice-cold water below. The dark and murky river made it next to impossible to see, but in the depths, she could just make out the headlights of the Panzer III as it sank. She swam towards it as fast as she could, but her legs felt sore and useless. Slowly the Panzer grew larger as she made her way towards it, but as she swam deeper to follow it further, she was blinded by the headlights as the tank turned to face her.

"Hey, Maho," Saori whispered from behind her, slowly pulling Maho back to the classroom and the present. The shining beams of light from the Panzer III gave way to the well-lit classroom, the bubbles of air surrounding her shifting shape into desks and classmates, and sounds of the raging battle above the surface exchanged themselves for the sounds of a high school on a normal day. She was not quite back in the real world before the teacher spoke up, her voice full of concern.

"Miss Nishizumi, are you feeling alright? Perhaps you should go to the nurses office?" Maho rose from her seat, and began moving towards the door.

"Yeah, maybe I should," she said, mostly to herself. "I feel absolutely wretched."

She hadn't even gotten halfway down the hall before she was joined on either side by Saori and Hana.

"What are you doing?" she sighed. "Get back to class."

"We couldn't do that," Saori said, cheerful as ever.

"Not when it's so obvious that something's bothering you," Hana continued, worry apparent in her voice.

"Was it the student council? Were they trying to bully you?" Saori inquired. And while she wasn't entirely wrong, the student council was part of the reason that Maho was feeling horrible at the moment after all, the origin of Maho's worries were far in the past.

"No, they weren't," Maho responded, hoping that would end the conversation. Even though she had only known the two girls for a day, she really should have known better.

"So then what is it?" Saori kept pushing for an answer. "Is there a boy involved? Ohmygod, are you in a love triangle with the student council president? Is it some family drama where you're fighting over the inheritance? Is it…" Hana opened her mouth to stop her friend, but before she had time Maho had slammed the side of her fist into a nearby locker, silencing them both.

"Would you shut up?!" She turned to face the two as she raised her voice. "I never wanted any of you to care, ok? I never asked for your help, so stop trying to offer it! Why can't you just leave me alone?" Saori jumped at this, but the two girls gave a short look to each other before they answered.

"Well, of course not," Saori said with a calm smile on her face.

"If you had asked for help, it wouldn't be helping. It would be a favor," Hana said with a similar smile. "We're friends after all, so why should we wait for you to ask for help?" Maho could feel tears start to well up, but if they were from rage or something else she wasn't sure.

"We're not friends, ok?! You don't even know me! You don't know who I am and what I've had to go through! Anyone who gets close to me just ends up getting hurt, and I'm sick of it! So just leave me alone!" With that, she turned and ran down the hall, furiously trying to wipe away tears. A Nishizumi didn't cry, after all. A Nishizumi didn't run. All of her mother's teachings, all of the things a Nishizumi was not supposed to do, flashed in her mind as she ran. For months she had been running from it all. Running from her mother, from the river, from the battle, from her past, and from the ever-encroaching darkness. But the more she ran, the more vigorously the darkness pursued her.

In the end, she didn't even go to the nurse's office. She just ran all the way home. As she sat in her dark apartment, her eyes red from all the tears, she opened one of the many boxes left to unpack. It was filled to the brim with things, none of which had a shared theme or place to be. But as she dug through it, she found what she was looking for. At the very bottom of the box, she found her old sketchpad and pencils. As she flipped through the many pages, she saw her old drawings. There was the Panzer II from her youth, the lake where she would play with her sister, and Kikuyo. There was the park in Kumamoto, the school buildings of Kuromorimine, and the tank garage with all of its Tigers, Panthers and Panzers. And then there was Miho. Page upon page of drawings of Miho. Her sweet, innocent sister. The sister that was lost to her, and it was all her own fault. A wet stain appeared on the sketchpad as she kept looking through the drawings, and so she put it aside to not ruin it with her tears that now flowed freely again.

A knock on the door grabbed her attention away from the memories, and back to the present once again. She walked over to the door, but as she looked through the peephole, there was no one on the other side. She carefully opened the door, and beside it she saw her school-bag, and a note lying on top of it. She grabbed the bag and went back inside, reading the note as she closed the door.

Maho, we're really sorry that we hurt you, even if we don't know what we did. If you want us to avoid you, we will. But if you ever need to talk, or want to hang, don't hesitate to come talk with us, or call.

Your friends, Hana Isuzu and Saori Takebe

The stubborn fools had even written their phone numbers down. And despite their best intentions, the note didn't precisely help Maho's emotional state. As she walked back to sit down on her bed, she glanced back at the opened box. At the very top of the box, on top of everything else, was a small teddy bear no larger than her palm. It was one of the wounded kinds that Miho had loved. It was covered in fake stitches, bandages and band-aids, but this one had a real injury as well. It's head was ripped almost cleanly off of its body, with only a few threads still keeping it attached. Maho stared at the small wounded bear for a few seconds, before carefully lifting it from the box, and putting it beside her on the bed. She got up from the bed and gathered her sewing supplies. If she couldn't put her own life back together, she could at least try to make this one whole again.

Author's Notes:

I gotta say, I'm in awe and disbelief at the amount of support this series has gotten. When I first came up with the idea I though perhaps a dozen people would be interested, but the amount of readers this story has gotten has blown my expectations out of the water. Thank you all so much for reading and supporting this series.