Death of an Angel
By, Shinova
Chapter 1
"Who's there!?"
"It's me, Kitsune."
"Oh, hello Kitsune-san."
Kitsune walked out onto the patio, followed by Su-chan. She watched Motoko take a few practice slashes at the air before turning her gaze up to the sky. The stars shone brightly in the black-blue sky, like thousands of shining candles. The view was beautiful. If only the mood of Hinatasou were the same.
* * * * *
This year's Christmas party was an especially festive one. Kitsune got herself drunk very quickly and had managed to get Keitaro and Naru drunk as well. Even Motoko was consuming more than her usual share of alcohol. Sarah and Su were dashing all over the living room, spraying confetti everywhere while Shinobu served delicious chocolate chip cookies.
Somewhere along the way, Keitaro had decided that he had done more than enough partying for the night.
"God, I drank so much. I'm gonna call it a night for now," he announced, standing up on shaky legs.
"Aww, Keitaro! So soon?" Kitsune whined, trying to feed Keitaro more sake, which the ronin kindly refused.
"Yeah, Keitaro! It's only three in the morning!" Su added.
Keitaro shook his head and said, "Sorry, but I'm really out of it right now. Good night, everyone!"
"Good night!"
With that, Keitaro went to his room. For the rest of the tenants the party went on like normal. Occasionally one of them would leave to go to the bathroom, but other than that the party was still in full swing. It was only when Sarah came running back into the living room, her chest heaving as she tried to catch her breath and her face deathly white, that the whole party atmosphere came to a sudden halt. A terrible silence permeated the room as Sarah told them.
"Ke-Keitaro! There's something wrong with him!"
* * * * *
Kitsune could remember what happened after that, one week ago, as if it were yesterday. She and everyone else were dashing toward Keitaro's room while Sarah, between panting breaths, said something about Keitaro convulsing and his face an unnatural blue. The residents of Hinatasou burst into the kanrinin's room a few moments later. There, lying on the floor, was Keitaro, his skin pale. He did not move. There was no pulse.
Keitaro had died. And with him went all semblance of happiness in Hinatasou.
Kitsune drowned herself in sake. Motoko trained nearly every hour of every day. Su's personality went from its usual care-free hyperactiveness to a solemn, subdued one. And the same for Sarah. Mutsumi took walks to nowhere, her gaze fixed on the ground in front of her. Because of this, she ran into objects repeatedly, and took no notice of them, keeping a same detached, expressionless look on her face the whole time. Shinobu reverted to something resembling her old self: depressed and almost completely silent, dragging through her day-to-day chores in a robotic fashion. Even Tama-chan was left unspared by Keitaro's death. Nowdays she spent her time alone, wandering aimlessly through the halls of Hinatasou. Naru, on the other hand...
Kitsune broke from her thoughts and gazed to her left toward Naru's room, which was completely dark--as it had been for the whole week. Kitsune sighed as she remembered her best friend's actions and behaviors on and after that fateful day.
* * * * *
The doctor left the emergency room and into the waiting room. Sitting there were the residents of Hinatasou. The doctor could almost feel the waves of worry flowing from them, and his anxiety level took another leap upwards. Perspiration formed on his forehead. He was relatively new to the business and this was the first time he would do this sort of thing. It was no walk in the park.
"Uh, I'm...I'm sorry to tell you....Our efforts to revive him were unsuccessful. Your friend, Urashima Keitaro, has passed away."
A collective gasp went up around the waiting room. A long five seconds passed. Then Shinobu flung herself into Kitsune's embrace and cried her heart out, her wails of misery muffled by Kitsune's jacket. Kitsune tried her best to comfort the young girl while struggling to do the same for herself as her own sobs made themselves known. Mutsumi replied with her trademark "Ara ara," but with an expression of horror etched onto her pale face. Even Motoko had twin streams of tears flowing down her cheeks, trying to hide them behind a hand to her forehead. The same could be more or less said for the other residents in the room--except for one.
In the leftmost seat inside the waiting room sat Naru, whose empty eyes stared ahead into empty space as she took the news in. She then lowered her head, her hair hiding her face, as her fists clenched tightly until the knuckles went white and blood seeped from where the nails had pierced the palms.
Her shoulders began to shake.
"No....That's not true....Can't be true...."
"I'm sorry miss," the doctor said, "but he's been dead--"
"NO!! It can't be true! It can't be!"
Naru dashed from her chair and knelt in front of Su. She took the girl by the shoulders and shouted, "Am I right, Su-chan? He can't be dead! He's invincible! You said so for yourself!"
"N-Naru," Su said. "But--"
"But what!?"
"B-But the doctor said so. Keitaro's de--"
"Liar!!" Naru stood up to face everyone. "You're all lying!! This has got to be some stupid, perverted joke that idiot's playing! You idiot!!"
Naru dashed toward the emergency room, shoving aside everyone who stood in her way.
"You perverted idiot! This joke's not funny anymore!" Naru yelled as she burst into the ER, where an aide was just about to finish zipping up the white body bag.
Naru pushed the aide away from the table, sending the poor man flying through a wall. She jumped onto the operating table and ripped open the bag with her bare hands to reveal the pale face of Keitaro underneath. She reached down and grabbed the deceased ronin by the throat, bringing his face up to hers.
"Wake up, you pervert! This isn't funny anymore! Wake up!!"
Keitaro replied with a silence only the dead could give. Tears trickled down Naru's face to splash on the deceased ronin's. Her grip relaxed as she gazed down through tear-filled eyes at her former study partner.
"K-Keitaro....Why won't you answer me?" Naru pleaded in a shaky voice. "Is there something you won't tell me? Did I do something wrong? Did I? Please....You promised to go to Toudai with me, didn't you? Didn't you!? Answer me!!"
Naru began shaking the dead body once more. Tears flowed freely as she screamed incoherent words at the face below her, eyes frantically searching for a spark of life...to prove once again that Keitaro was invincible.
A pair of security guards followed by a few aides dashed into the room and pulled Naru off the table. They began to drag the hysterical girl kicking and screaming out of the ER.
"NOO!!! Wake up, you pervert!! ANSWER ME, KEITARO!! ANSWER ME!!!"
One of the aides came up behind Naru with a tranquilizer in his hand.
"COME BAACK!!!!"
* * * * *
The Hinatasou residents carried an unconscious Naru back to the dorm. From that morning forward Naru locked herself in her room, coming out only to use the bathroom. From what Kitsune could see during the times she went outside Hinatasou, Naru also kept her windows and curtains shut all day and night, blanketing her room in darkness, ranging from slight during the day to complete during the night. Every day the other residents would take turns leaving a tray of food and water outside the door for Naru. When they came back for the tray it would sometimes be empty...and sometimes not.
Kitsune sighed and turned her gaze from the closed shutters of Naru's room back to the skies overhead. Somewhere, up there in that dazzling display of light, was Keitaro, looking down at them. That thought brought only small joy to her depressed heart.
On the second day after...what had happened, Kitsune had volunteered to go see Naru. No one visited her again after that.
* * * * *
"Naru? It's me, Kitsune. I'm coming in now, okay?" Kitsune announced before carefully opening the door to Naru's room. Thank God she had chosen to do this during the day, otherwise she wouldn't have been able to spot Naru sitting against the wall, her eyes gazing forward into empty space.
Kitsune entered the dark room, closing the door behind her. She approached her friend and kneeled down next to her.
"Naru?" Kitsune said softly.
Naru gave no reply, her eyes devoid of emotion, her face slack and her mouth slightly open. This worried Kitsune a bit, and she lifted one of Naru's arms and felt the wrist. The beating pulse and a quick examination of the rest of her body told Kitsune that her friend had not attempted suicide...yet.
"Naru, are you okay?" Kitsune asked. "Talk to me, Naru. Do you need anything?"
Naru was still silent. Kitsune sighed, her spirits sagging as she lowered her head.
"Naru, it's been two days and...well....Yeah, I can't and am in no position to say how you feel but that doesn't mean you should hurt yourself like this. Please, Naru."
Still nothing.
"Please, Naru. I don't think Keitaro would've--"
At the mention of Keitaro, Naru's eyes widened. Kitsune's spirits lifted when she saw this. Finally, some progress....
"Naru?" Kitsune asked...and was suddenly flung backwards.
"Hey! What the--" Kitsune stopped when she saw Naru, who was standing and glaring at her. Kitsune got back onto her feet and backed away. "Hey, Naru, I didn't mean to--"
"Get out."
"Huh? Wha--"
"I said get out! GET OUT!!!"
Naru began grabbing anything nearby and throwing them at Kitsune, who threw open the door and backed out into the hallway.
"Hey! Calm down, Na--" she stopped when Naru began to lift the table into the air. Kitsune saw this and ran down the hallway as fast as her legs could carry her. Nothing followed her, except for the tortured screams.
* * * * *
Kitsune remembered that a shadow of some sort had fallen over Hinatasou that day. The rest of the tenants had gone through the day in a fearful state, listening to the sounds of destruction as Naru went through everything in her room like a hurricane, sometimes throwing furniture--or pieces of furniture--out her window. Eventually the violence had stopped, but the screams and wails had gone on for at least another half-hour before going silent.
All the tenants, even Kitsune herself, had worked outside to clean up the broken furniture, all the while giving fearful glances at Naru's darkened window from time to time. Thankfully there had been no more furniture taking flight that day...and no screams either.
After that, no one was courageous enough to actually go into Naru's room. Of course, they left meals in front of her door but that was all they could find the strength to do.
And now one week had passed since Keitaro's death and it was New Year's Eve. Soon to be New Year's Day, once the minute hand on Kitsune's watch hit twelve.
"Hey, Kitsune. Aren't the stars pretty?" Su-chan asked as she hopped onto the railing. Kitsune noticed that the younger girl lacked her usual vitality when doing her jump. Instead of an excited leap it had seemed mellow...tired, even.
"Yeah, they sure are," Kitsune replied as she turned her gaze skywards again.
Motoko stopped her routine and walked over to stand by Kitsune. She turned her eyes to the skies as well.
"Legend has it that when someone important died, they would--"
"Become one of the stars and look down at us, watching over us, right?" Kitsune interrupted Motoko.
"Yes, but how did you know?"
"Well, I guess you can call it a cliche, but stories like that--about people being in the stars after they're dead and all--are pretty much universal. I can't think of any one culture that doesn't have at least one of those star stories."
"Even my people have it!" Su piped up.
"See? Something the world can share, don't ya think?" Kitsune said, turning to Motoko.
Motoko was looking elsewhere, as if preoccupied with something. "Kitsune-san. Have your parents ever told you ghost stories?"
"A few," Kitsune replied, "but I never really believed them anyway...or I don't believe them now. Why?"
"It's just that ghosts are also common ground among different people. I have been told ghost stories before, and now I believe them."
"Why?"
"That's why!" Motoko pointed. Kitsune and Su turned to look and nearly died from fright.
A dark figure was gliding towards them through the air, the trees parting in its path. It floated closer until it was only a few meters away from the terrified residents, then stopped in midair.
Kitsune, trembling from fright, stared at the figure shrouded in darkness, and broke out into a nervous laugh.
"Hahahahaha! Some ghost! It's probably just that silly boy, Keitaro, playing a joke on us!"
"Um, Kitsune-san?" Motoko said.
"Oh yeah." Kitsune remembered that their kanrinin was no longer of the living world.
"Well, it's a ghost, and I've got the perfect thing for it!" Su said, whipping out another of her gadgets. "My very own Ghost-Vacuum! I'll suck you up and just dump you off for the garbage men to pick up!"
Su advanced with her Ghost-Vacuum and the figure pulled back. The shroud over its features began to lift.
"Su-chan! Wait!"
Su stopped. The shroud of darkness lifted completely to reveal a very familiar person underneath.
"Ke-Keitaro!!?" the three girls exclaimed as one.
Indeed it was Keitaro, wearing what he had been wearing at the Christmas party, face a bit pale and his expression blank. He raised a pale hand towards the residents.
Suddenly a bell somewhere jingled loudly, and the ghost froze. A moment later he floated backwards, the shroud of darkness pulling over his features, and drifted back into the white mist. Down below, on the Hinatasou grounds, the three old men gazed up at where the ghost had been. The lead man put away his bell and the three disappeared with the fog.
* * * * *
The room was dark, its curtains closed, blocking out the light from the stars. Furniture lay in pieces all over the floor. Among them were shredded books, some mutilated beyond recognition. The walls themselves had small craters where the room's occupant had punched them in fury. Only a Liddo-kun doll remained unscathed, but it was evident that the room's owner had casted it aside and left it amongst the debris.
As for the owner herself, she was nowhere to be seen. The board covering the hole on the floor was gone however. That hole was one known by all the residents of Hinatasou as one of the most prominent sources of the chaos that went around the dorm from each day to the next. It had also been a source of cherished memories for the late kanrinin.
The kanrinin's room was silent, fitting for the room of a dead person. But if one listened very closely, the sound of sobbing could be heard through the curtain of silence. It was coming from a futon in the center of the room, or rather from someone in it.
Naru lay there, curled up under the futon's covers. The tears had long gone dry and Naru was unable to shed any more. So she lay there, still able to sob, as the pale light from outside poured through a small opening in the curtains. And where the light shone was an open photo sticker book, the one belonging to Keitaro. Naru would flip through the pages slowly, staring for minutes at a time at each photo before moving on to the next. When she was finished with the last two photos, she would close the book and cry, hugging the photo book to her chest, her wails muffled by blanket as she wrapped it around herself.
When she was done crying, Naru would open the photo sticker book and gaze at the photos again, softly caressing a few of them. She would finish, cry for a while, then look through the book again.
And again...
And again...
And again...
Author's Notes:
I hope you enjoyed my first chapter. I intend to finish this fic (I hope), and will be putting forward updates as often as I can. And thank you SO much for the wonderful reviews! They've been a great boost for my confidence. Now all I have to do is to make another chapter as good as this one....Easier said than done, of course.
Anyway, I would like to thank everyone once again for reading and reviewing. Until next time! ^_^