Sorry about the Japanese phrase in here. I'd give you the meaning of it now, but that'd be a spoiler... and I just couldn't bear to use an English equivalent. Well, I'm sure you'll know what it means when you get to it.
----
PART VIII
"I thought so."
Three cold words flew into the air and landed, fluttering, on the hard wooden slats of the floor. They melted like snowflakes in the middle of this Bermuda triangle, more deadly than the one of legend, where sounds and thoughts fell into a void of tension, never to be heard from again.
At one point stood Doumyouji Kaede like a white tower of flame. Barely trembling, her face pallid with shock and fury, her monstrous height rising to fill the doorway in which she stood. A monolith constructed of pure outrage.
And far from her yet close to each other, the two other points of the triangle, two young faces with huge quavering brown eyes, suddenly unable to move as if pinned in place by that creature's stare. The lines of the figure pulled taut around them as the pull of this triangle of dark magic took even their gasps of surprise and brought them to naught. The room fell into a deep silence.
Tsukushi had pulled instinctively away from Tsukasa's grasp, but his hand remained firmy wrapped about her wrist like a single point of warmth in the suddenly chilling scene. She had the feeling that if she made him let go of her now, she might never feel that warmth again. So instead, she slipped her hand down into his, and this movement, this gesture of trust and emotion, spurred him to action.
"What do you want now, bitch!?" he shouted. "What are you thinking this time?"
She stood another moment in silence, and then smiled.
"What am I thinking?" she repeated bemusedly. "Why, Tsukasa, I do believe that is the question I ought to be asking you. Are you even thinking at all? After all you've done so far, I must admit I am surprised that you still haven't seen past this..." she waved an idle hand at Tsukushi... "hobby of yours. But I suppose that I haven't been altogether clear with you, in that case."
Tsukasa's eyebrows furrowed in rage. "Whatever it is, spit it out," he said in a low voice.
"I really shouldn't need to." Although Kaede was aiming for the same nonchalant tone as she usually used to deliver her threats, somehow it wasn't coming out right. She sounded too upset, too tense, and Tsukushi knew it and noticed it. She'd been worn down to the core, and she was weak. Still, Tsukushi remained silent, watching the mother and son stare at each other and make unspoken accusations with their eyes.
"Nevertheless," she went on wearily, "let me remind you. Have you forgotten what you've been doing these past few days? You have more than proven your ability to be a leader of this company - no, this family - in the future, and pardon my presumption, but I had imagined you were becoming aware of that as well. I recall you telling me, 'It's fun.' Am I wrong?"
Tsukasa's jaw shut, and he listened to his mother with a steady but suspicious gaze.
"Yet you insist on jeopardizing your future by associating with this young lady, who has no reason to associate with you other than her own ambition, and would truly find herself unsuited for the world she would be entering. Therefore, I have tried to remove her from your path. I would have thought you'd have finally understood by now. Especially given your recent experiences. Consider it well, Tsukasa. This is the happiest I've ever seen you. Do you want to throw this happiness away?"
At hearing this, Tsukasa shivered for an instant, and then his head dropped to stare at the floor. The shadow of his hair obscured his features. He stood stock still.
Tsukushi froze in an instant of shock. Why had his face fallen like that? Had she been wrong? Was there really reason to doubt him after all?
Doumyouji. Why aren't you saying anything?
Her eyes pleaded silently upwards at his face, that face still in shadow, and her heart flew into her throat. You're not listening to her! You can't be seriously thinking about what she's saying! Not after what you told me! her mind begged, not knowing if he could sense her desperation. The very fabric of Time itself seemed to hang heavily from his lowered head.
And then, his eyes lit with fire.
Tsukushi just saw a blur of motion at first... two blazing eyes and then a blur. Then she let out a yelp of shock.
Tsukasa had flown across the room and pinned Kaede to the wall, his fists at her collar, his face a dark stormcloud of anger. She gasped in surprise, lost control of her breath for a moment, and turned white under the pressure of his hands. That cunning mouth, always over-adorned with some shade of blood-red, opened in surprise.
"If there was EVER," he growled, punctuating his words by shaking his mother's shoulders viciously, "EVER a time when I respected you, thought you cared for me just a little bit, it's gone." He burst into a shout. "You just killed it!!"
Tsukushi sat back against the wall, her hands cupped over her mouth. She didn't know what to feel at a moment like this. Tsukasa was raging again, being hopelessly violent, being that frightening untamed beast that she feared so. But he was doing it for her, and no little part of her felt happy at that. Still... still... how terrifying, to be in this room now, alone with a witch and a rampant demon, all at once!
"Screw your goddamn company!" Tsukasa cursed. "If that's what I have to choose, then forget about it! You want to talk about happy?" He punctuated the word with a sharp rise in his voice. "I'm _happy_ when I'm with Makino! And I'm never going to let go of her. No matter what you do or say!" He stood there a long moment, arms trembling with anger, unable to say any more.
Kaede lifted one arm and placed it on his firmly. Slowly, deliberately, she pushed him back, relaxing the tense arms that held her in place. "My poor, naive son," she said, her face a grotesque mask of feigned concern. "I do not doubt the strength of your emotion. But you should know, Tsukasa. You should know what kinds of traps women lay. It will hurt you, but I will show you."
Pushing Tsukasa to the side with a movement that allowed no inteference, she walked slowly over toward Tsukushi. "Women like Makino-san," she began, "work hard all their lives, and never see success. It isn't that they wouldn't like to be noble, I'm sure," she added with the bitter tang of sarcasm hot on her tongue. "But no matter how hard they try, they can never escape from a difficult lifestyle, where they must struggle simply to feed themselves and their family. So they must find a different way to obtain what they need.
"You see, Makino-san," Kaede turned to Tsukushi briefly, "I do know the plight of the poor. You were mistaken to assume otherwise. Let me ask you, Makino-san, and give me a direct answer. After arriving at Eitoku Academy, is it not true that your family's financial situation became progressively worse?"
Tsukushi reddened. She wanted to strangle the witch, but how could she when what she said was true?
"You had to move to a smaller apartment twice, and subsequently your parents left the city to find work. Is this correct?" Tsukushi found herself nodding despite her best efforts.
"And at the same time, Tsukasa," Kaede continued, eyes focusing on her son once more, "wasn't Makino-san's interest in you only stirred after these things happened? Isn't it true that as her family became poorer and poorer, she sought out your company more and more? As I understand things, at first she harbored a very negative opinion of you. Only when she found you were willing to meet her needs did she begin to show interest in you. Am I wrong?"
Kaede's eyes sparkled with long-awaited triumph as neither one of the two responded. "I'm sorry to have to point this out, Tsukasa. Truly, I am. But you must acknowledge that these facts lead to only one conclusion. That what this girl wants," Kaede stretched out her long arm and pointed sharply to Tsukushi, "is not you, but the easy life you can give her. It's the only true way to interpret these circumstances. I had hoped to remove her from your life without having to say these things to you, but it appears that..."
"Hold it."
Kaede and Tsukasa turned.
"Hold it right there," Tsukushi said, steel in her voice. "You stop talking right now."
"Makino-san, you will be quiet," Kaede said in her authoritarian voice, but Tsukushi had begun walking.
Eyes clear, she approached Kaede. "Easy?" she said, striding steadily across the room. "There's not one bit of this whole thing that's been easy. That's the most ridiculous evidence I've ever heard."
She came to a standstill barely a foot from the woman, and looked unabashed into her cold eyes. Kaede stared down at her in response. The weed and the maple, face to face. Both strong, both proud, both unwilling to let go.
"How dare you," Tsukushi said. Her tone was not one of anger; calm, unruffled, she faced her enemy, the light of justice shining in her eyes. "How dare you accuse me of plotting to get your money. If you knew anything about me, you'd know THAT is the one thing I'd rather die than do."
Her clenched fists relaxed and she gazed at the woman with a serene expression. "You have tried over and over to get in the way of my life," she said. "To destroy me, destroy my family and friends, and to destroy whatever connection I may or may not have had to your son. But you keep failing. You're a failure. And do you know why?"
Kaede's expression had become one of horror at the words, but Tsukushi went on. "Do you know why you haven't won against me yet? Because you keep assuming money will control my life. What you haven't realized is that I've been fighting that since day one. It's the opposite of who I am. Your money is something I don't want or need. And until you realize that, you're just going to keep losing and losing."
Kaede stared.
Then before her horrified eyes, Tsukushi's lips curved upwards.
She was smiling at her.
Smiling a smile of sheer truth. Like an angel who knew the way of God.
"You can't defeat me," she said.
Somewhere, something in Doumyouji Kaede's tightly strung brain, something snapped. A chord of bitterness, carefully controlled for years on end, made an off-key twanging noise and burst to shreds inside her head, making her skull vibrate with the force of it. She clapped her hands to her ears, trying to drown out the sound, and she nearly doubled over. Tsukasa's eyes widened in shock, and he started moving towards Tsukushi. But by then, it was too late.
Kaede's head snapped back up and her face was a yellowish-white mask of rage. The color was unnatural - the paleness of madness. Her eyes blazed near orange with their intensity, and every muscle in her face was tensed. A deep throaty scream rose up from within her as she began to move.
"I... will.. kill you!"
And blindingly, at lightspeed, she lunged at Tsukushi.
Her arms were sinewy spears, her face contorted. But she moved so fast - Tsukushi just barely managed to jump backwards to avoid the first swipe of her nails against her skin, but there was no place to hide. She backed against the wall, eyes wide and dilated with fear. This woman truly intended to hurt her, and there was no way to escape it!
But even thinking all this took too much time, and like a rattlesnake, Kaede was poised to strike again. Red nails stretched to the sky, ready to fall, then sliced through the air with a sound like a cracking whip. The witch's claws were almost upon her. Tsukushi winced and opened her mouth to scream.
But then something completely unexpected happened.
"WHAT ARE YOU DOING, KAEDE!?"
The voice was a booming one - one Tsukushi had never heard before. She'd never heard anyone refer to Kaede by her first name before. Even Tama-senpai, who had known Tsukasa's grandfather, had referred to her as Kaede-sama. Who could do such a thing? Who had the courage, against one so imposing? Who could dare...
"...it couldn't be..." she breathed.
Into the doorway strode a man she swore must have been three meters tall.
A dark, thick coat wrapped around broad shoulders, shoulders that seemed to belong to a giant, not a man. His stature seemed to tower up into the heavens, like a statue, a man of iron. His eyebrows furrowed into angry knots over two piercingly eyes of royal purple. The thick clusters of his beard and hair were dark, tangled... and curly. Curly in a way she had only ever seen on one other man.
Tsukasa had run to Tsukushi's side the moment his mother had faltered in her attack, and he held her tightly with one arm about her shoulders, one clutching her hand. But his eyes were fixed on the doorway as well, and his mouth hung open in a gape of astonishment. A choking half a word attempted to escape from his throat, but died. So it was Kaede who spoke first. And the voice in which she spoke was a ghost of her normal tone. "Takehiko...!"
Then Tsukasa found his breath again. His one word confirmed Tsukushi's suspicions... and turned her world upside down again.
"Oyaji...!!"
--
----
PART VIII
"I thought so."
Three cold words flew into the air and landed, fluttering, on the hard wooden slats of the floor. They melted like snowflakes in the middle of this Bermuda triangle, more deadly than the one of legend, where sounds and thoughts fell into a void of tension, never to be heard from again.
At one point stood Doumyouji Kaede like a white tower of flame. Barely trembling, her face pallid with shock and fury, her monstrous height rising to fill the doorway in which she stood. A monolith constructed of pure outrage.
And far from her yet close to each other, the two other points of the triangle, two young faces with huge quavering brown eyes, suddenly unable to move as if pinned in place by that creature's stare. The lines of the figure pulled taut around them as the pull of this triangle of dark magic took even their gasps of surprise and brought them to naught. The room fell into a deep silence.
Tsukushi had pulled instinctively away from Tsukasa's grasp, but his hand remained firmy wrapped about her wrist like a single point of warmth in the suddenly chilling scene. She had the feeling that if she made him let go of her now, she might never feel that warmth again. So instead, she slipped her hand down into his, and this movement, this gesture of trust and emotion, spurred him to action.
"What do you want now, bitch!?" he shouted. "What are you thinking this time?"
She stood another moment in silence, and then smiled.
"What am I thinking?" she repeated bemusedly. "Why, Tsukasa, I do believe that is the question I ought to be asking you. Are you even thinking at all? After all you've done so far, I must admit I am surprised that you still haven't seen past this..." she waved an idle hand at Tsukushi... "hobby of yours. But I suppose that I haven't been altogether clear with you, in that case."
Tsukasa's eyebrows furrowed in rage. "Whatever it is, spit it out," he said in a low voice.
"I really shouldn't need to." Although Kaede was aiming for the same nonchalant tone as she usually used to deliver her threats, somehow it wasn't coming out right. She sounded too upset, too tense, and Tsukushi knew it and noticed it. She'd been worn down to the core, and she was weak. Still, Tsukushi remained silent, watching the mother and son stare at each other and make unspoken accusations with their eyes.
"Nevertheless," she went on wearily, "let me remind you. Have you forgotten what you've been doing these past few days? You have more than proven your ability to be a leader of this company - no, this family - in the future, and pardon my presumption, but I had imagined you were becoming aware of that as well. I recall you telling me, 'It's fun.' Am I wrong?"
Tsukasa's jaw shut, and he listened to his mother with a steady but suspicious gaze.
"Yet you insist on jeopardizing your future by associating with this young lady, who has no reason to associate with you other than her own ambition, and would truly find herself unsuited for the world she would be entering. Therefore, I have tried to remove her from your path. I would have thought you'd have finally understood by now. Especially given your recent experiences. Consider it well, Tsukasa. This is the happiest I've ever seen you. Do you want to throw this happiness away?"
At hearing this, Tsukasa shivered for an instant, and then his head dropped to stare at the floor. The shadow of his hair obscured his features. He stood stock still.
Tsukushi froze in an instant of shock. Why had his face fallen like that? Had she been wrong? Was there really reason to doubt him after all?
Doumyouji. Why aren't you saying anything?
Her eyes pleaded silently upwards at his face, that face still in shadow, and her heart flew into her throat. You're not listening to her! You can't be seriously thinking about what she's saying! Not after what you told me! her mind begged, not knowing if he could sense her desperation. The very fabric of Time itself seemed to hang heavily from his lowered head.
And then, his eyes lit with fire.
Tsukushi just saw a blur of motion at first... two blazing eyes and then a blur. Then she let out a yelp of shock.
Tsukasa had flown across the room and pinned Kaede to the wall, his fists at her collar, his face a dark stormcloud of anger. She gasped in surprise, lost control of her breath for a moment, and turned white under the pressure of his hands. That cunning mouth, always over-adorned with some shade of blood-red, opened in surprise.
"If there was EVER," he growled, punctuating his words by shaking his mother's shoulders viciously, "EVER a time when I respected you, thought you cared for me just a little bit, it's gone." He burst into a shout. "You just killed it!!"
Tsukushi sat back against the wall, her hands cupped over her mouth. She didn't know what to feel at a moment like this. Tsukasa was raging again, being hopelessly violent, being that frightening untamed beast that she feared so. But he was doing it for her, and no little part of her felt happy at that. Still... still... how terrifying, to be in this room now, alone with a witch and a rampant demon, all at once!
"Screw your goddamn company!" Tsukasa cursed. "If that's what I have to choose, then forget about it! You want to talk about happy?" He punctuated the word with a sharp rise in his voice. "I'm _happy_ when I'm with Makino! And I'm never going to let go of her. No matter what you do or say!" He stood there a long moment, arms trembling with anger, unable to say any more.
Kaede lifted one arm and placed it on his firmly. Slowly, deliberately, she pushed him back, relaxing the tense arms that held her in place. "My poor, naive son," she said, her face a grotesque mask of feigned concern. "I do not doubt the strength of your emotion. But you should know, Tsukasa. You should know what kinds of traps women lay. It will hurt you, but I will show you."
Pushing Tsukasa to the side with a movement that allowed no inteference, she walked slowly over toward Tsukushi. "Women like Makino-san," she began, "work hard all their lives, and never see success. It isn't that they wouldn't like to be noble, I'm sure," she added with the bitter tang of sarcasm hot on her tongue. "But no matter how hard they try, they can never escape from a difficult lifestyle, where they must struggle simply to feed themselves and their family. So they must find a different way to obtain what they need.
"You see, Makino-san," Kaede turned to Tsukushi briefly, "I do know the plight of the poor. You were mistaken to assume otherwise. Let me ask you, Makino-san, and give me a direct answer. After arriving at Eitoku Academy, is it not true that your family's financial situation became progressively worse?"
Tsukushi reddened. She wanted to strangle the witch, but how could she when what she said was true?
"You had to move to a smaller apartment twice, and subsequently your parents left the city to find work. Is this correct?" Tsukushi found herself nodding despite her best efforts.
"And at the same time, Tsukasa," Kaede continued, eyes focusing on her son once more, "wasn't Makino-san's interest in you only stirred after these things happened? Isn't it true that as her family became poorer and poorer, she sought out your company more and more? As I understand things, at first she harbored a very negative opinion of you. Only when she found you were willing to meet her needs did she begin to show interest in you. Am I wrong?"
Kaede's eyes sparkled with long-awaited triumph as neither one of the two responded. "I'm sorry to have to point this out, Tsukasa. Truly, I am. But you must acknowledge that these facts lead to only one conclusion. That what this girl wants," Kaede stretched out her long arm and pointed sharply to Tsukushi, "is not you, but the easy life you can give her. It's the only true way to interpret these circumstances. I had hoped to remove her from your life without having to say these things to you, but it appears that..."
"Hold it."
Kaede and Tsukasa turned.
"Hold it right there," Tsukushi said, steel in her voice. "You stop talking right now."
"Makino-san, you will be quiet," Kaede said in her authoritarian voice, but Tsukushi had begun walking.
Eyes clear, she approached Kaede. "Easy?" she said, striding steadily across the room. "There's not one bit of this whole thing that's been easy. That's the most ridiculous evidence I've ever heard."
She came to a standstill barely a foot from the woman, and looked unabashed into her cold eyes. Kaede stared down at her in response. The weed and the maple, face to face. Both strong, both proud, both unwilling to let go.
"How dare you," Tsukushi said. Her tone was not one of anger; calm, unruffled, she faced her enemy, the light of justice shining in her eyes. "How dare you accuse me of plotting to get your money. If you knew anything about me, you'd know THAT is the one thing I'd rather die than do."
Her clenched fists relaxed and she gazed at the woman with a serene expression. "You have tried over and over to get in the way of my life," she said. "To destroy me, destroy my family and friends, and to destroy whatever connection I may or may not have had to your son. But you keep failing. You're a failure. And do you know why?"
Kaede's expression had become one of horror at the words, but Tsukushi went on. "Do you know why you haven't won against me yet? Because you keep assuming money will control my life. What you haven't realized is that I've been fighting that since day one. It's the opposite of who I am. Your money is something I don't want or need. And until you realize that, you're just going to keep losing and losing."
Kaede stared.
Then before her horrified eyes, Tsukushi's lips curved upwards.
She was smiling at her.
Smiling a smile of sheer truth. Like an angel who knew the way of God.
"You can't defeat me," she said.
Somewhere, something in Doumyouji Kaede's tightly strung brain, something snapped. A chord of bitterness, carefully controlled for years on end, made an off-key twanging noise and burst to shreds inside her head, making her skull vibrate with the force of it. She clapped her hands to her ears, trying to drown out the sound, and she nearly doubled over. Tsukasa's eyes widened in shock, and he started moving towards Tsukushi. But by then, it was too late.
Kaede's head snapped back up and her face was a yellowish-white mask of rage. The color was unnatural - the paleness of madness. Her eyes blazed near orange with their intensity, and every muscle in her face was tensed. A deep throaty scream rose up from within her as she began to move.
"I... will.. kill you!"
And blindingly, at lightspeed, she lunged at Tsukushi.
Her arms were sinewy spears, her face contorted. But she moved so fast - Tsukushi just barely managed to jump backwards to avoid the first swipe of her nails against her skin, but there was no place to hide. She backed against the wall, eyes wide and dilated with fear. This woman truly intended to hurt her, and there was no way to escape it!
But even thinking all this took too much time, and like a rattlesnake, Kaede was poised to strike again. Red nails stretched to the sky, ready to fall, then sliced through the air with a sound like a cracking whip. The witch's claws were almost upon her. Tsukushi winced and opened her mouth to scream.
But then something completely unexpected happened.
"WHAT ARE YOU DOING, KAEDE!?"
The voice was a booming one - one Tsukushi had never heard before. She'd never heard anyone refer to Kaede by her first name before. Even Tama-senpai, who had known Tsukasa's grandfather, had referred to her as Kaede-sama. Who could do such a thing? Who had the courage, against one so imposing? Who could dare...
"...it couldn't be..." she breathed.
Into the doorway strode a man she swore must have been three meters tall.
A dark, thick coat wrapped around broad shoulders, shoulders that seemed to belong to a giant, not a man. His stature seemed to tower up into the heavens, like a statue, a man of iron. His eyebrows furrowed into angry knots over two piercingly eyes of royal purple. The thick clusters of his beard and hair were dark, tangled... and curly. Curly in a way she had only ever seen on one other man.
Tsukasa had run to Tsukushi's side the moment his mother had faltered in her attack, and he held her tightly with one arm about her shoulders, one clutching her hand. But his eyes were fixed on the doorway as well, and his mouth hung open in a gape of astonishment. A choking half a word attempted to escape from his throat, but died. So it was Kaede who spoke first. And the voice in which she spoke was a ghost of her normal tone. "Takehiko...!"
Then Tsukasa found his breath again. His one word confirmed Tsukushi's suspicions... and turned her world upside down again.
"Oyaji...!!"
--