Chapter 12:
"Anywhere You Need To Be"
'No....' the angel whispered as Megumi took off, her bare feet padding softly against the tall gray grasses of the floor, getting farther and farther away from the glow of Heaven, 'Come back...'
But Megumi did just the opposite; she ran faster. From this point on, she could only move forward, never off course and certainly not back. She refused to look back at the angel, even for a brief second, not when she had taken the biggest choice of her life. It would tempt her with it's charm again, she knew it.
She knew the opportunities she had been so silently offered with the walkway to Heaven, but even with knowing that... she couldn't go. There was only one place in all the universe, throughout all time, that she could ever be truly happy in, and that place was with Sanosuke. Come Heaven or Hell, she wanted to be with him more than anything.
'Just over the hill, just over the hill,' Megumi began to chant repeatedly in her head, a never ending rhyme that gave her the strength to climb higher on the tall dirt mound, the one thing that separated her from the person she would risk eternal life for. Her pace only quickened as a figure of doubt hovered above her head.
Megumi didn't even notice it, but her bruises were slowly coming back, seeping their return onto her skin. Her wrists leisurely gained their old blood stains from the binding ropes as she got closer to the real world, her legs gradually becoming numb and stiff. Her hair, once up to her waist, began to shorten to it's original length at her shoulders, slipping away in small inches of chopped strands. Her lips lost their luscious deep color and her youth and beauty began to fade like the stars stealing away the sun's light so they could light up the sky. All the things she could have saved forever in the land among the clouds were slipping right through her fingers for the choice she had made. The angel's voice was no longer heard.
Every step that took her nearer to home brought back the reality she had left, brought back the pain in her body little by little until it returned to it's former state. All too suddenly, her strength gave out, and she stumbled on weak legs and fell upon the grass.
Megumi gasped, not expecting the intense pain that instantly seared through her limbs. She was reminded too early of just what happened that very same day as memories flooded back to her, stabbing at her mind with the gruff images of what the world was like from whence she came. For the last few minutes, hours, maybe even weeks, that she had spent in this blasphemy of a colorless world, she had been able to forget everything. But now it was all coming back in giant spoonfuls of agony.
Megumi gritted her teeth as she saw her image in the real world when she shut her tearing eyes, the fire crackling so near her body, and she felt the burns of her skin, the fire grabbing at her flesh, as if she were reliving the torturous flames of the clinic once more. It hurt her more to see it all happen than it did to relive it. She wanted to vomit.
Gasping for what seemed to be her last grip on breath, she looked up from her place on the ground, the rims of her eyes threatening to overflow with the hot droplets building up from underneath her lashes, but she bit them back, not wanting to admit the pain, for fear that it would only become greater. She had already learned that weakness only gave more power to the captor.
In front of her, as plain as anything could be, was the hole, only a mere two feet away from where she pitifully lay on the floor, slowly turning into the form of herself back in front of the clinic; practically dead.
Had it only been a few minutes ago that she had finally been safe? Every inch that brought her closer to the hole, bursting with every color the universe could conjure up, she felt the pain. The harsh pain of reality. From the state she was in, she could barely move. It was more than she could bear, it was more than just her pain; it was the world's. Megumi could feel every baby's saddening cry rip at her clothes, every person's salty tear falling down upon her shoulders like boulders of lost hope, their angry words burning her like flames. Was this... was this Hell?
"No..." Megumi cried into the soft whistling breeze as she reached up with her burnt and dirtied hands over her head. Her long fingers curled over into fists as she grasped the patches of grass above her, using them as her support hold. "I need... to go.. home..."
Softly Sanosuke whispered, more to himself than anyone else, that he could have done more. He could have saved her. Ruefully, he cried against her, too scared to move her body into his arms and receive no response. He didn't want any sort of proof that Megumi really was gone. He didn't want to believe that after all this time, he had lost her again.
She had left him here, alone and cold on the ground, the clinic's raging fire burning on into the day of no end in the background, filling the atmosphere with black smoke and the smell of gasoline. It offered him no sort of comfort, nothing short of her beating heart would.
Sanosuke buried his face deeper into her neck, carefully lifting her up into his lap, and he set her head down on his chest so gingerly, as if she were the most fragile of all porcelain and glass. She had always been and always would be, precious to him. Through life and through death, Megumi was his. And it was long ago that it began and it was forever more that he would always remain her's. Marriage vows were unnecessary.
"To have and to hold, til death do you part." But the marriage hadn't even happened and Sanosuke was already forced to live one of the sacred promises he had never even agreed to.
With a soft breath that he wished he could send to her, he shut his eyes, completely overlooking the slight movement that came from her left hand as it gave a slight twitch.
Straining, Megumi hefted herself up, biting down on her swollen lip to stifle a cry as she desperately pursued crawling further up the hill, the coarse grass scratching at her battered and burnt clothing as her belly moved against the dirt. Another inch closer to the hole, another inch closer to home, she coughed. Smoke began to rise again in her throat, despite the fact that she was nowhere near any fire; it choked her. A second later, she coughed again.
She was turning back. This was the price she had to pay for her choice, this was what she had to live with.
Determined, her right hand moved up higher, grabbing onto another thick patch of gray grass before her and she steadied her weight onto her stomach. Filling her palm full of the drying blades of what was supposed to be green trims, Megumi gasped as she moved herself up another inch, feeling more of the agony her body had endured earlier.
Megumi told herself again and again that it didn't matter what she had to go through on her way there, the goal at the bottom of the barrel was the only thing that mattered. Getting back to Sanosuke and Suzuki was the only thing that mattered. She'd do anything to be with them again. She could bear the pain, as long as she could make it home in the end.
Warm and fresh blood began to drip from her wounds as she got more proximate to her destination, the pain practically causing her to cry out, yet Megumi found that even if she did, no one would hear her. It was pointless. It scared her to think of what Death still had in store for her for the rest of this god-forsaken journey back. But it was soon ending.
The hole was so close now she could almost reach out and touch it. If it had a smell, she would have been intoxicated with it. Yet against her will, her legs gave out from underneath her, no longer capable of pushing her along the ground by her knees. Desperately, she tried to move up again by lifting her chest up along the ground, but her strength was draining away, like the river of blood she had left along the dark-colored grass.
Rasping for air, Megumi tried to move again, but her fingers merely curled into her palm, weak and begging for mercy from the horrible labor she had put on herself. She tried with her other hand. It hovered above her for only a few seconds until it finally gave way to rest and it fell back down onto the dirt mound, lifeless and limp. Against her will, she was forced to rest her cheek against the lawn of the hill, too exhausted to keep moving, her lungs overworked with trying to ease out the smoke.
'Megumi...' Sanosuke's voice came again, so close to her, so agonizingly close...
She shuddered and swallowed the hard ball of the fire's breeze that buried itself deep into throat and her eyes steadily opened, swollen from her tears and watery from the blackened air.
'I'll die here if I don't get there in time...' she thought, her shallow breath leaving light spots of blood on the dark grass and fogging the bright shine of it's shadow.
Slowly, her body continuing to shake against the lack of power she repeatedly tried to use, Megumi tilted her face up, watching as the color of her blood as it mutated from a darkened black to a slight shade of crimson. She was so close to home, to him, she could feel it... Megumi didn't want to give up. She was admired for her strength and perseverance by many and this proved to be the most difficult obstacle of all.
Stitch up a man's four inch bullet wound in under two minutes? Easy. Go through labor for twelve whole hours? No problem. Come back to life? You've got to be kidding...
But it wasn't in her nature to lose, it was in her blood and heart that she had to win this thing. If she succeeded, the prize at the end was more than priceless, but if she should fail, it was all game over.
Anxiously, Megumi tried to lift herself up once more, even just a little, but her arms refused to move. She strained against the dead weight of her limbs, pulling up with all her strength, but to no avail.
"I... I can't do it..." Megumi whimpered against the cold earth as her tears finally found their escape way onto her cheeks, practically freezing on the spot, "I can't... do this..."
'Megumi...' Sanosuke's voice grew softer from the hole, and she noticed it fading away, growing farther from where she was, like the sunlight receding behind the clouds after a rainstorm. He was leaving, disappearing from her once more.
Megumi wanted to go to him. She wanted to go to him so badly it hurt; more than her injuries, more than anything. But she couldn't move, not even an inch. Her own body had betrayed her at the worst of times, it had given up when she had needed it most, and now she was nothing but a half-dead corpse with free flowing thoughts. And her thoughts were not in the least encouraging.
His voice resumed it's torture of calling her, over and over, so sad and pained, just like she was, until his call was scarcely heard. Megumi wanted to comfort him, to touch him, to be with him. Abandonment from him once was enough to last her more than a lifetime, doing it again would surely kill her.
"Sano... no... Sano, come back..." she pleaded to whatever blessed thing could hear her, anything that had the heart to listen, "Don't go... don't leave me..." It seemed that only her voice was her given right, even if it served her no help; movement had already been stripped away as a privilege. "Don't leave me again..."
"You really love him, don't you?"
"... Yes. Yes, I do."
It was a woman that spoke, standing over Megumi's still form as her breath receded from her and more of her pain came from her untreated wounds. Her feet stood planted in the red river of blood she had created across the grass, soaking up her skin and painting her toes and the long hem of her white dress that dragged on the floor. It didn't seem to bother her at all and it didn't seem to bother Megumi at all to answer the woman's questions without any of her own.
"You were never able to love anyone else, were you, Megumi? No matter how hard you tried, you just couldn't forget him. You wanted to move on with your life so you tried to find love in someone else, but he stayed with you, didn't he? In your mind, in your heart, even after all this time... Was it easy letting him go?"
"No..." Megumi murmured, every syllable that escaped her, stealing away more of her energy until she was practically on the break of falling unconscious, "It almost killed me."
"Do you think you could do it again?" the woman asked her.
Slowly, Megumi shook her head, her dark hair brushing the blades of grass underneath her face so that they bent every which way, and she watched as her teardrops fell harder down the sides of her face, creating an obscure puddle in the browning dirt.
"Never..." Megumi whispered, cutting off the sob that spilled from her lips only seconds after, the saddest of all humane cries ever made, "I can never lose him again!"
It was then that the sob finally fled from her lips, and Megumi cried like she never had before, like all of the oceans had lent her their streams and waves. She cried for every night she was ever alone in her bed instead of in Sanosuke's arms, she cried for every person in the world that had ever missed their one chance at love and turned the other way, she cried for every day Suzuki lived without knowing what a great man his father was, Megumi cried for the life that had been stolen from her time and time again. But above all, Megumi cried for love.
"Then, Megumi, you don't belong here anymore than color does," the voice finally replied after what seemed to be the longest moments of Megumi's life and her sobs gradually died down to the lightest of wheezes. Her time was running out...
Slowly, Megumi felt the woman kneel down beside her on the grass, her knees burying themselves into the blood-soaked dirt and seeping onto her dress. She leaned down towards her still form until she was close enough for her breath to brush against Megumi's face, a soothing air that slipped from her mouth to Megumi's weakened lungs. The woman breathed into her with a breath that shone like the silver sky, illuminating life. She was lending her part of herself, allowing Megumi to borrow her strength.
Life streamed through her and Megumi's chest rose. Silver mist whirled inside her blood. Her left hand twitched.
"Go home, Megumi," the voice whispered into her ear and Megumi felt a warm hand brush the soft skin of her cheek, "He's waiting for you."
That was all she needed to say, it was all Megumi needed to hear and more. Those words were her signal, they snapped something inside of her and forced open her reddened eyes. And with that, followed the rest of her body.
Slowly, Megumi lifted her stiff arms from their place at her sides and shakily pushed herself up from the ground until her chest stood a good few inches high in the air. Newfound strength filling her entire body from limb to limb as she kneeled against the floor, pushing more with her arms until she stood up on her feet.
Cautiously, unsure if her legs would even work, Megumi took a step towards the hole, her eyes opening wide at the sight of beautiful rays of light swirling in huge spirals within. Yet something made Megumi slowly turn back around to face her savior. Possibly curiosity but maybe perhaps it was the small goosebumps that rose all over her skin that made her look and she settled her eyes on the woman behind her, standing there with a smile that would never conclude any description of beauty. She was beyond beauty.
"Go," the woman encouraged, her long brown hair swiveling past her pale face from the wind's breeze, and she gracefully lifted her slim arm and pointed back to Megumi's way home, "Don't look back."
Smiling, Megumi nodded her head and stepped up to the entrance of the hole's opening, accepting it's glow and warmth as if it were Sanosuke himself. She was ready.
As soon as her foot took one step inside, millions of rainbows sprouted and flew out before her in all directions, screaming with color and radiating with tastes and smells that satisfied all her senses. The pain was soon forgotten as it was replaced with faint flashbacks and pictures of her life on Earth.
Memories, wonderful memories of everything that had ever made her happy: Holding onto Suzuki during the rainy nights when the thunder scared him from his room, listening to Kenshin as he told her how to compensate for all her years of sin, convincing Kaoru to go to Kyoto and follow her heart, watching Yahiko become the great man she always knew he would grow up to be, hearing Sanosuke tell her he loved her. It was all so beautiful, so perfect, but it was all brutally interrupted when suddenly, it all went black and dull and the only thing Megumi could hear was the woman's gentle voice:
"Being blind is no excuse for only being able to see in black and white; love paints even the darkest of worlds. Tell Kurotara that..."
It was then that Megumi's eyes closed and they never opened in that black and white world again.
A/N: I particularly like the line I made for the "mystery woman" to say before Megumi goes back home: "Being blind is no excuse for only being able to see in black and white." It's got two meanings, one being obvious, the other being a little deeper. And also, who do you think the "mystery woman" is? I'll hurry up with the end if anyone can figure it out! ^^