A/N: Hello! Sorry for the long wait. I've been doing a long soul search and gaining some new perspectives about character arcs, understanding the flaws, etc. But I've seen your responses.
The rain poured a gentle trickle over the streets as Kirie, covered in bumps, bruises, and bleeding cuts, was on her knees, with her bloodied hands up in the air, as an act of surrender. Across from her, at a good distance of roughly three feet away, with watery dragons at the ready, the water elementalist, Yukina, glared at her with angry eyes that could stare into the souls for the faint of hearts.
For the first time, in her life, Kirie has felt an inhuman surge of fear, it threatened to tear her apart. She felt as if her entire psyche and resolve was crumbling to the foundation like a house of cards. Now she understood what Yukinari must've felt.
"So..." Yukina hissed. "You've finally given up. You've decided to finally accept your fate."
"I don't want to fight anymore," Kirie croaked.
It hurt the brunette to even speak. It was like all the injuries that Kirie had sustained in fight were beginning to catch up. Her throat felt as if it was torn from the inside out, after being forced to drink a jet stream of water with the intensity of a tsunami. Still, Kirie strained to speak up.
"I...I don't want you to hurt me anymore. This is a fight I can't win..." Kirie sobbed. "I get it now...I get...All those times I...I hurt Yukinari I...I never gave him the chance to win at anything. I was unfair to him."
It hurt her so much that Kirie quivered from the coldness of the rainy air, and the sudden drop of her body temperature. She could hardly keep her words straight. She just felt cold, all around and within her.
Kirie looked up, with her vision blurred, barely seeing Yukina's shape.
"But I swear...I never...I mean...I tried. I really tried to keep myself...composed. But...I just..." Kirie shook her head, trying to find the right words, while also shaking the waters and blood out of her hair.
"I had tunnel visions. I...I lost my temper. I...I forgot who I was talking to. Or...even who my friends are and...I just...I just went with it, like how I always do...I fight. Like I always have..."
Kirie wept tearfully as she pounded the concrete street with her injured hand.
"You have...no idea, the crap... we've been through... Yukinari wasn't the only one suffered. We've been friends since we were kids... When all the other kids picked on Yukinari, I...I...I protected him. I fight...I put up a lot of shit...it all got too much and so distressing that I..."
Kirie looked up and watched as Yukina stepped forward, with her water dragons hissing louder the closer they approached her. But Kirie could hardly care less.
"I know I haven't been...the nicest of friends and...I know...the things I've done to Yukinari...the brutal beatdowns I've subjected him to...the cause for his allergies...and...all the mess I've dragged him into...they're unforgivable. I never meant them...but it doesn't change the fact that I'm the cause for everything."
Kirie looked up into Yukina's hateful eyes for one last time.
"I was selfish. I didn't just hurt Yukinari. But...I've also hurt you and...Miharu. I'm truly sorry. And I'll accept whatever punishment you have for me..."
With that, Kirie closed her eyes and bowed her head, awaiting for her upcoming fate.
But it didn't came. It was then that Kirie released that the water dragons were no longer hissing. She cautiously opened her eyes up to see only Yukina, standing face-to-face, at a close distance that their nose nearly touched. Yukina's angry expression was no more. But her face was more of a neutral glare, making it hard to determine her true expression.
After a long awkward silence has passed, with nothing but the sounds of the gentle rain, Yukina finally spoke.
"You're willing to accept whatever punishment I have for you?" The girl asked, with the obvious toxic in her voice.
"Yes," Kirie sighed. "I'll go to the police. Turn myself in. I'll do some time and...maybe do some community service? Hell, I'll even take a job as a maid and...and put up with Fukuyama's perverted harassment, or even Kosame's...romance, and...I guess that includes Hijiri."
All those options Kirie had listed have left a bitter taste on her mouth. But she hardly cared.
"Because honestly...and for what it's worth...all of those are fates worse than death for me," Kirie swallowed another lump in her throat and sobbed, "But they're nothing compared to what I've done...to Yukinari...my best friend. And...secretly the love of my life," She whispered the last part.
Kirie looked up at Yukina and pleaded, "Just...take care of Yukinari for me. I know you'll do better than I ever have..."
Yukina remained stone-faced. But she arched an eyebrow up to show a clear expression of skepticism. It appeared that she's finally regained her resolve and has come to a final decision. Kirie immediately shuts her eyes closed as Yukina raised her hand up.
*SMACK*
A burning sting slashed across Kirie's face. It bit at her right cheek, painting across the end of the scar on her face. Kirie's eyes burst open in shock to see Yukina turning away.
"Do whatever you want, go wherever you want. I don't care," Yukina spatted.
"Yu...Yukina?" Kirie asked, reaching her hand out.
"Don't get me wrong, Kirie," Yukina hissed. "I want you dead. I really do! But...sometimes, I wonder if it's true. If there are fates worse than death. So I'll let you live...for now. But mark my words, if you so much as even look at Yukinari again, then it will be the last time. Do you understand?"
The angry girl asked, shooting Kirie a cold glare that it frozen her on the spot. But unable to muster up the resolve to argue, Kirie broke down and nodded her head in compliant. She didn't bother to look up. She listened to the sound of Yukina's footsteps, walking away, until the ambient sounds of the rain was her only company, all around her.
Kirie broke down in tears. She felt completely lost and alone in the world. With no home, no family, or friends to turn to, she only has herself to blame. Her future is in ruins. She has no directions on where to go next. No one else to guide her, or for her to turn to for help. It's just her against the world now.
For the first time, in her life, she asked herself, why did she do it? Why was her life so hard? Is it because of how hard she's been to Yukinari? Her one and only true friend since childhood?
What did he ever do to deserve such horrid treatment? After all those times he's been nothing but nice to everyone? Why was she even mean to him to begin with?
Her memory flashes back to when she first sent Yukinari to the alternate world called "Seiren." That was the day when Kirie had came over to Yukinari's house, to bathe, because the shower in her home was broken. Yukinari had just gotten back home from school, when he entered the bathroom, to find Kirie clad in only a towel.
Kirie struck first, impulsively believing that Yukinari was a pervert, when in actuality, the blunder was on her, on the account she had forgotten to remind him that she was in the house, and even forgot to lock the door for added measure.
The realization of her past karma stung harder, as she remembers what followed.
When Yukinari attempted to explain himself, in defense, that he never meant it, Kirie, being the idiot she was, took it the wrong way, and still brutally attacked him, regardless. And from then on, she hasn't been any better. From failing to hold her punches back, giving Yukinari a chance to explain, to even dragging him into the crossfires between her and Fukuyama. Such as being suckered into playing a perverted version of Mahjong, instead of simply being the bigger woman and kick Fukuyama out of the house, to even manipulating Yukinari to pose as "Yuki" at a video game convention, against his will.
And now, at long last, all the karma has finally caught up to Kirie, and this is how she is punished. Her oldest and dearest friend, Yukinari, out of her life, because of her idiocy and impulsive rage. Whether he is dead or alive, it matters not. Either way, Kirie's life is now bleak. No longer full of the color it once had. She had taken it all for granted, and now it's been taken away from her, along with the boy she secretly loved.
"I'm...I'm sorry, Yukinari," Kirie sobbed. "For all of it..." Barely getting up, on her feet, limping and nearly falling to the ground, she proceeded to walk away. "Goodbye...forever..."
Kirie shivered in the freezing bitter cold air of the rainy night. She has to find a place to get dry soon, or she would freeze. She wasn't looking where she was going, when she happened to pass an old man, who asked her.
"Young lady, why are you so sad?"
Kirie answered, "I gave into my hate and my anger...and I blindly hurt my old friend. Without him...I'm lost."
The old man replied, "You've inflicted wounds upon yourself. But now, you must heal. Walk the earth on two feet as I do. Find value in humility, then you will find peace."
