The Last Wish - 24
XXIV: The Price of Knowledge. To Protect You.
~*~
He'd been sitting quietly on the porch, staring at the glitters of sunlight against his bracelets, when the car pulled up.
It was about one thirty, the heat of morning just starting to settle into the lazy warmth of afternoon, and--for the first time since his injury many days earlier--Nuriko was without the rib belt. It felt surprisingly good, to be free of the thing, despite how greatly he knew it helped with the pain--and, his ribs still hurt when he breathed too deeply, still sent a sharp pain into his chest when he twisted too much or moved too quickly. But, it was better; he'd even gone shopping with Miaka the day before for her Prom dress, and hadn't felt the usual burst of weakness and agony at driving, walking, ducking beneath the punches of other frantic last-minute dress shoppers.
Now, though, he felt an odd twinge of pain as he turned to see who it was who'd parked in front of the house, and--as he rose to his feet and stepped forward to get a closer look--he couldn't help but notice that it didn't come from his ribs, but...somewhere else.
He moved carefully down the porch steps, paused there at the edge of the yard with one hand resting on the banister.
It was a sleek black sportscar, shining like obsidian in the sunlight, the windows rolled up and tinted, the driver's side door just starting to inch its way open. He couldn't recall ever having seen it before, either at school or around the neighborhood or anywhere else, but something about it felt oddly, achingly familiar... Frowning, he took a few more steps forward, arms folded lightly over his chest, and watched as a head poked up above the roof of the car, was followed moments later by the click-slam of the door being shut.
And, then, the driver was circling the car and moving towards him, and something like memory lanced into him.
The man was tall, towering more than a head above him, with thick, unruly hair of black and streaked grey. The hair looked greasy and uncombed, clinging to the man's thick neck and whispering down against his shoulders; strands of it dangled over his eyes, stuck to the flesh of his forehead. And, his...his eyes...
It was hard to tell, with the distance that still separated them, but he could've sworn they were yellow, thin and narrowed and dog-like, crowned with furry grey eyebrows that only made his heart beat faster. Because...because, he looked like...
A wild animal. He...he looks like a wild animal.
The man was clad in a long dark trenchcoat that would've seemed out of place considering the heat, but which somehow looked fitting on him; it was buttoned up to the neck, leaving Nuriko's imagination to decide whether the thickeness of the arms and the chest were fat or muscle or a combination of both.
He wanted to take a long step back, flee back into the house and lock the door, but... He swallowed.
Miaka isn't back from seeing Tamahome yet. She isn't back, and...and, she's gonna be coming back soon, and what if she comes back and he's still here and he hurts her and I can't do anything about it because I'm locked up in the house? What if he hurts her??
He frowned, wondering for a moment why it would even come into his head that this man might want to hurt Miaka. After all, what did appearances matter? This man could very well be one of the nicest people in the world, harmless and caring and...
No.
No. He...he might be, but...no. He's a danger to Miaka. I know it. I don't know...how I know it, but...
He's a danger to her.
The thought that the man might be a danger to him, too, didn't trickle into his mind until he'd already stepped forward, stopped just in front of the man, and drawn breath to speak.
"Hello," he said cautiously. "What can I do for you?"
The man's voice was low, gravelly--like a distant rumble of thunder. "I'm looking for Yuuki Miaka," he said. "I was told I could find her here."
Alarm bells went off in his head.
Told? Told? Who told him? Why? Why didn't he just go to her house and leave a message with her mom if he needed to see her? Why come here? Why come here to the place where we're all alone with just me and her and...
Muscles tensing, he brought his arms calmly down to his sides, gazed into those haunting yellow eyes. "I'm sorry, you must be mistaken. Miaka's not here."
The man took a slow step forward; his shadow flooded over Nuriko in a wash of chill darkness, blotted the sun from his view. "I know she's staying here," he rumbled. "I'll wait for her to come back."
The fear was trembling through his muscles, making it difficult to breathe, let alone speak, but he managed to speak anyway, and was surprised by the cool strength to his voice when he did. "You're mistaken," he repeated icily. "If you want to get in touch with her, give me your name, and I'll tell her you stopped by next time I talk to her."
A low, frightening growl worked its way from the man's throat, and for a long moment Nuriko was so sure that he was going to be hit that he found himself tensing for the blow...but, then, the man took a small step back, folded his arms over his chest, and smiled. "My name is Ashitare," he murmured. "And, I said...I'll wait."
And, then, while the sound of that name--that name that name that NAME!--was still shuddering through him, Ashitare turned to the left, stepped forward, and walked right by him...to the house.
The sight of that man climbing the porch steps, moving towards the door, was enough to draw him out of his shock, and he turned, moved as quickly as his ribs would allow after him. "Wait a second!" he shouted angrily, hurrying up the steps just as Ashitare gripped the door handle. "WAIT A SECOND. You can't just barge into my house like that when I--"
Before he had the chance to finish the sentence or move out of the way, however, Ashitare had let go of the doorknob, spun around, and wrapped one meaty hand around the collar of his shirt. The man hefted him up into the air so far that his toes were just barely scraping against the porch, his hands clutching vainly at the thick fingers that trapped him; no matter how he struggled, though, the grip was too strong, and he realized with a scary, sick feeling that he couldn't breathe...
And, suddenly, those yellow eyes were looming just in front of his own, and as he stared into them, choking and lightheaded and struggling against the grip, a flash of memory ripped into him, and he knew it wasn't just a coincidence...no...no...it wasn't a coincidence... No matter how it was possible, no matter what might've caused it, this, somehow, was the same Ashitare.
It was you.
He felt the rage bubbling in his heart, aching more thickly and more painfully than his cracked ribs, burning more intensely than his straining lungs.
It was you who killed Kourin.
It was you.
Ashitare smiled. "I tried to kill you then," he whispered. The breath was hot and foul against his face. "But, you moved. You moved, and I had her, instead. You remember, don't you? But, don't worry. It's all right." The smile drew upwards, revealing a row of sharp, pointed teeth that glistened like ice in the light. "You want to see her again...don't you, Nuriko?"
The world was starting to tilt, go dark at the edges from the lack of oxygen...but before he could pass out, Ashitare's arm tensed, pulled the dangling seishi towards him, and then hurled him violently away. For a moment, he was flying, soaring backwards, able to breathe again and so angry that he could feel the rage burning inside of him like a flame...
...and, then, he was arcing down towards the ground, and the realization of what was coming hit into him with pain and anguish and a terrible, terrible certainty.
I'm...
He'd fallen on the concrete of the steps once before, when he was six years old and Kourin was still alive. They'd been playing tag with Rokou, he remembered, and porch had been Base, and he'd come running up the walk and had tripped over the end of his shoe and fallen onto the steps. He'd torn open his elbows and his knees with that fall, bitten his tongue hard enough to make it bleed, and had only been able to lie there, crying and in pain and bathed in blood, and wait until Kourin realized what'd happened and went to get their mother.
But, there'd been a moment, as he watched the hard concrete rushing up towards him, grey and dark and jagged, that the knowledge of the coming pain had trickled into him, and he'd been able to brace himself against it, be ready for it.
There would, he knew, be no bracing this time, no way to prepare himself for what awaited him.
I'm...
Ashitare was watching him, standing there with his back pressed to the door, the trenchcoat flooding around his legs in waves of flickering black. Those eyes were boring into his own, dark with power and an angry satisfaction, just watching...waiting...
I'm...
I'm gonna die.
Aren't I?
His back hit first, just beneath his shoulder blades. The edge of the second step.
A sickening crunch. Pain in his back. Pain in his ribs. His legs curled up reflexively, knees pressing to his chest; he tumbled backwards, rolling, feeling the resounding, deafening thud of the back of his head striking into the concrete. Arm, bent beneath him. Leg. Twisted painfully, slammed into the iron railing.
And, then, the grass was cool and wet against his stomach, and everything had stopped.
Somehow, he rolled onto his side, onto his back, found himself staring up into the shifting sea of the clouds above him, unable to breathe, unable to move, only able to feel the pain and hear the creak of the front door being pulled gently open. He tasted blood in his mouth, remembered hearing somewhere that when there was internal bleeding...
He tried to breathe, strained and struggled and managed to draw a tiny wheeze of air into his lungs. The arm he could still use lifted up from his side, wrapped itself around his chest to push back against the pain--but, as it did so, he felt something move inside of him, felt something scrape against the flesh of his arm and knew that something was very, very wrong, that something was where it wasn't supposed to be and...
His neck bent; his gaze shifted from the sky to the tops of the trees to the pines that surrounded the yard to his feet to...to his shirt, ripped and tattered from the fall down the steps, and to the flash of bloodied white, rising up through the skin of his chest like a blade. He stared at it for a long moment, silent and uncomprehending, not understanding what it was or why it felt like something had broken inside of him or how he could be looking at something that had been stabbed into him but from the inside, from the inside...
And, then, the pain washed over him, hot and dizzying, and he could only lay back, arm falling limply to the grass, and stare at the sky.
~*~
"Miaka...Miaka, please."
Hotohori.
He was trying to be comforting. Make it seem like everything was okay.
But...
She clamped both hands to her face, barely able to breathe through the tears, and leaned forward a little; the seatbelt cut into her chest, but she scarcely noticed.
he said he'd be fine he said he'd be fine why did he lie to me how could he why did I leave him I don't understand why I couldn't fix this why he couldn't love me what did I do wrong why can't I fix it please please don't let him be dead don't let him be dead because if he is then it's my fault because I left him and how could I be so stupid he said he'd be all right but he isn't he isn't isn't isn't
"I shouldn't've left him," she managed, voice so muffled from the hands and the tears that even she could barely understand it. "I-I knew it might happen but I left anyway--why did I leave?" Her hands fell limply from her face, voice rising into a shriek that resounded from the glass of the windows, echoed back at them so loudly that the wheel jerked in Hotohori's fingers. "Why did I leave?!?"
Hotohori turned his eyes from the road to look at her, looking as sick and scared as she felt but trying, for both of their sakes, to be strong, to deny what they both knew--what they'd both felt. "I'm sure he's fine," he assured her, voice wavering only slightly on the words. "I-I'm sure he is."
She shook her head, fists pressed to her mouth, eyes wide and tear-filled. "No no no no," she whispered. "No, he's not okay he's not he's not--I-I felt it he's not fine he's not..."
"Shh. Miaka, it's all right. We're almost there."
~*~
Niisama.
He slept fitfully, as if in a dream; there was a weight on his chest, a great burning in his throat and a taste on his lips like salt.
Niisama. Get up. You have to get up.
He tried to roll over, curl his legs to his chest, but found he couldn't; his mouth was dry, his eyelids as heavy as his limbs.
Ryuen! Get up! Get up, now!
His eyes flew open; the breath surged into his lungs, and the explosion of pain that accompanied it was enough to jar him back into consciousness, into life.
I'm...still alive?
The sun was bright and blinding, its heat wrapping itself snugly around his body, its light glaring in his eyes, making it hard to see anything but searing light and warring spots of darkness. For a moment, he squeezed his eyes shut against the brightness, wanting only to slip back into the painless darkness, but...but, something stopped him. His eyes slid open again, squinted upwards...and a chill shuddered through his body, sent a flash of barely-noticed pain flooding outwards from his chest.
The light...
It was as if the warmth of his own blood had surrounded him in a crimson cocoon, placed a screen over his vision that gave the world this strange, reddish tint... But, no. It wasn't the world, just...just that light. That light, far above him and so brilliant that he couldn't even tell where the sun was anymore--it was warm. And...
He drew in a surprisingly-deep breath, got his working arm beneath him, and pushed himself into a sitting position on the grass.
...she was there, wasn't she? Within that light? She was there. And...she was calling to him.
"Kourin," he whispered; the word sounded weak and strange through dry, cracked lips.
Staring into that light, that beautiful, soothing, perfect red light, it was as if all the questions he'd ever had were answered, as if every dark and secret longing of his heart had been fulfilled--as if he'd been walking around with his eyes closed all these years, and only now, at the brink of death, could see the truth.
I'm...something more. I'm something more than this. I'm...
Five minutes earlier, it wouldn't have seemed possible--it wouldn't even have seemed plausible. But, now, with the warmth of that light inside him, the power of those convictions circling through his brain, he had the strength to twist in the grass, get the functioning leg beneath him, and propel himself forward--upward. A moment later, he was standing, right arm clutching the banister of the bloodied stairs, right leg standing strong and solid beneath him, and even though he could hardly breathe for the pain and the sickening sensation of having things inside of him moving as he went...it was all right. Because...
I'm...Nuriko.
Su...Suzaku...no Shichiseishi...Nuriko.
He laughed once, very lightly, at the sound of those words in his mind, those foreign and strange and perfect words that gave him everything he'd ever been missing.
Hai. I...I understand, now.
Miaka. We belong to you, don't we? All of us.
Tamahome. Hotohori. Mitsukake.
Chiriko. Chichiri. Tasuki.
Me. We belong to you.
To protect you.
To protect you, Miaka. It's our duty. It's why we exist--why we are who we are and why we're with you.
To protect you.
He closed his eyes, spent a brief moment focusing his strength on the metal that circled his wrists. When he opened them, his forearms were cinched in steel, and the power and strength and determination that followed was enough to let him take a step, clutching the railing and using his great strength to support himself. The broken leg screamed in agony as he moved, and he could feel the flow of blood from his chest increasing, pouring down over his stomach and darkening the fabric of his waistband.
Suzaku. Please. Give me strength.
He took another step, dragged his weakening body up with it--just three more steps. Just three more steps, and he'd be on the porch, on the porch and close to the door and he could get inside and stop this monster before he could hurt Miaka...
You thought this would work, didn't you, Miaka? You thought...you could change things.
Another step. The blood was starting to cool on his flesh in some places, to grip his skin like tiny claws.
Your last wish... You wanted to be with Tamahome so badly, but...you wanted to help all of us, too--ne, Miaka? You thought this would change it. You thought...you thought that if you changed where we were, you changed who we were--our fates.
Another step. Almost there. Almost there almost there...
You even...tried to change yourself, didn't you? You thought...if you changed who you loved, you would change who you were fated to love. You...you thought it would make everything change.
Last step.
Baka. You can't change destiny. You can only...delay it for awhile.
Calmly, Nuriko limped to the door, grasped the handle, and pushed. Ashitare was waiting for him inside, sitting at the kitchen table as if waiting for a meal. The man rose as he entered, a flash of surprise trickling into his eyes, and spent a moment undoing the buttons of his trenchcoat; the fabric dropped to the floor a moment later, and Nuriko swallowed hard.
Muscle. Definitely muscle.
"I'm not...gonna let you
hurt Miaka," he managed, and was startled by how strong his voice sounded,
how...deep and rich and in-control.
"I killed you, then. I can
kill you, now."
Ashitare smiled at him, a low growl working up from his throat. "Come on," he said, lifting both
arms from his side and standing, unmoving, in front of the table. "I'm waiting."
The strength suddenly flooding through his body, deadening all pain and all injury, Nuriko charged.
~*~
The rest of the car ride passed in tense, weeping silence, Hotohori driving quickly but carefully, Miaka sitting curled up in the passenger seat with hands pressed to her face and tears streaking over her cheeks. And, then, they were pulling onto the street and creeping up past the neighbors' houses and there was an unfamiliar car parked out front and through the breaks in the pines they could see--
Hotohori's foot slammed onto the brakes, sent both of them surging forwards against their seatbelts. "Oh...oh...my God," he whispered.
Miaka had ripped off her seatbelt and thrown open the door in a matter of seconds, was racing towards the house screaming, "NURIKO! NURIKO!!" She stumbled as she ran, nearly falling face first on the walk, and the sight of her surging forwards like that, nearly falling, was enough to jar Hotohori from his stunned, horrified stupor, send him out of his own seatbelt and out of the car and towards the lawn. The lawn that, even from this distance, he could see was trampled and bloodied...and, despite all that logic told him, he knew who the blood belonged to.
By the time he reached her, Miaka had fallen to her knees in the yard, was clutching at the strands of crimson-soaked grass as if trying to rip them up out of the ground. "Where is he?" she was sobbing, tugging at the blades and rocking back and forth on her hands and knees. "Where is he, Hotohori? Where is he?"
He was just opening his mouth to tell her that he didn't know when they heard it--the crash of something shattering, a scream like the howl of a...of a...
"Oh, God," Miaka managed, her voice coming out as little more than an anguished squeak. "A...A...Ash...Ash..."
And, then, she'd leaped to her feet and was charging up the porch stairs, and Hotohori was right behind her, not understanding but knowing that Nuriko was in danger, bleeding, maybe...maybe dying...
He's not dying! For goodness' sake, why would he be dying? Who would want to hurt Nuriko? And, how would you know, even if they had?
As he hurried in front of Miaka, wanting to shelter her from whatever sight might await them inside, and gripped the doorknob, he couldn't help but remember the last time he'd been with Nuriko, several days earlier: holding him. Letting him cry. Comforting him. Looking into his eyes and seeing...seeing someone beautiful.
Please, he begged, discovering that the door was slightly ajar and tensing his muscles to push it open.
Please.
Nuriko...please.
We need you.
Then the door opened before them, and everything went grey.
---