Those Who Cannot Be Saved Nor Save Others
"...and did you see his face when..."
"...yeah, and then she..."
"...so what if he'd just..."
Takamachi Ryouko listened half-heartedly to her friends' chatter, nodded and made sounds of agreement now and then. It was lunch break, and they were all perched on one of the benches outside school. The two younger girls sat close together, giggling and exchanging pieces of minor gossip that could hardly be interesting even to themselves, but it was pleasant enough to listen to. Ryouko sat right beside them, her arms casually flinged behind the back of the bench.
It was a nice, warm spring day. Ryouko closed her eyes and turned her face upwards, enjoying the sunshine. She looked forward to the afternoon training session; this was the perfect weather, neither too cold nor too hot. Winter had passed, summer was yet to come.
Her stomach grumbled in disagreement of her contentment with the situation. She sighed and considered going off to the cafeteria to buy a bun or two, which she usually did for lunch, but it was too comfortable to just sit here. Too bad she hadn't seen Kousuke around since morning. She would have been able to make him buy her a bun again. But since he wasn't around, she really should go buy one herself...
Ryouko's eyes were still closed when she suddenly noticed a shadow blocking her off from the sun. She blinked a couple of times and then opened her eyes completely, staring at the familiar redhead that was looking down at her.
"Yo, Ryouko," Kousuke said. "I bought you a bun." He held out a little bag with a big, tasty-looking melon bun.
Ryouko's friends stopped their gossiping immediately, but Ryouko had already forgotten about them. She frowned slightly. "Really?" To be true, Kousuke had been acting nicer than usual this morning, giving her a ride to school and everything. "How did you know I hadn't already got one myself? I haven't even asked you to buy one today." She reached eagerly for the bun in the boy's hand, but he pulled it away.
"Do you want it?" he asked, smiling. It was a nice, friendly smile - it would have fooled most people, Ryouko knew. But she had known Kousuke for longer than anyone else, and she knew his smile wasn't real. His face looked happy, but it never reached his eyes. She could remember, vaguely, a time when Kousuke had been able to smile for real. A long time ago, before he had consciously realized that he was one of the Blade Children. Before he had become a murderer. She pushed the memories away.
"Yes," she said with a wry look. "If you bought it for me, I want it." When he just kept looking expectantly at her, she added, "Please."
"Then I'll give it to you," Kousuke said, and threw the bun high into the air. It landed in her lap with a small thud. "But don't eat it here - come on, I want to show you something!" He grabbed her hand and pulled her away. Ryouko could hear the girls back on the bench continue their discussion, and she caught her own name and the word "boyfriend" before she was pulled out of hearing range. She smiled weakly at the thought. Weakly, because she had forgotten how to smile from the heart herself a long time ago.
"So," she said when Kousuke continued to pull her along into the school, "You're going to show me something? Or did you just want to talk to me alone?"
"Both," he answered, and turned towards the stairs. Ryouko followed him in silence until they reached the top floor. There, Kousuke turned a few steps down the corridor, towards a locked door.
"Cover for me," he asked her and took out his lockpick. No one was within sight at the moment, but Ryouko knew what he was thinking and placed herself between him and the stairs, blocking him from immediate view if someone would come.
Luckily, no one did, and a few seconds later Kousuke opened the door and let her in. Or rather out, she realized. This door led to the fifth floor balcony, a place she remembered well from that incident a few months back.
"Heh," Kousuke said. "They haven't even put the fence back up. They just keep the door locked. Lazy bastards." He got out into the balcony and closed the door behind him.
Indeed, no one had fixed the fence. Part of the balcony was completely open to a 20 meter fall. Kousuke didn't hesitate, but sat down immediately on the edge, his legs dangling in the air. He motioned for her to sit down next to him, and she did.
"Well, this is a pretty nice spot," Ryouko admitted. "I don't think anyone's going to disturb us here. And I like the view." She opened the plastic wrapping and took a bite out of her melon bun while she talked. "Was it anything in particular you wanted to say?"
Kousuke went through one of his pockets and found a bun of his own to start chewing on. "Did you notice anything happening last night?" he asked at last.
Ryouko pondered the question. "I didn't see anything myself, if that's what you mean," she replied. "But yeah, when you mention it, I did have a feeling of something big happening. I didn't sleep very well. And Rio, she was all worried about Rutherford last night, but now she seems confident that he's alright."
"Yeah," Kousuke murmured. "Something must have happened." He shook his head ruefully. "But we don't know what." He took another bite of his bun and chewed on it silently. "So," he said at last, "what do you want to do after this?"
"After this?" Ryouko wasn't sure what he meant. "I have English class after lunch, and then I have training this afternoon..."
"No, no!" Kousuke gestured wildly with his bun. "I mean, the future. If you have a future, what would you want to do with it?
"Run..." Ryouko smiled, echoing Kousuke's words this same morning. "Honestly, I'd go to a sports university. If I did have a future, I could have a career on the track, and maybe later I could become a PE teacher..." She stopped. She had come to understand this was useless dreaming, especially after the incident with Superintendent Kanzaka. "What about you?" she asked anyway.
"Never thought much about it," he shrugged. "I've always known it would end soon... That I'd never be an adult. Ever since that first time I killed. You know, kill, and eventually be killed, that's the curse of the Blade Children." He frowned. "I've never really believed in Kiyotaka's talk of salvation, but still... I'm not sure..."
"Kill and eventually be killed?" Ryouko whispered. "Kousuke, after you disappeared those years ago... How many people did you kill? Altogether?"
Kousuke counted on his fingers. "That'd be... five, I suppose. Six if you count Kanzaka. But I didn't mean to, that time."
Ryouko shuddered. "That was my fault. If I hadn't lost my grip..."
Kousuke took another bite of his bun. "We're Blade Children. We can't be saved, and we can't save other people. We tried, but it seems fate really can't be changed."
"Unless Kiyotaka's brother really..." Ryouko started, but she wasn't sure how to continue. How exactly was Narumi Ayumu supposed to cancel the curse that was with the Blade Children since birth? He was unnaturally intelligent, just like Kiyotaka, and from what Ryouko had seen, he did have a good amount of self-confidence, but what could he do? What could anyone do?
Kousuke pulled out his knife out of somewhere under his clothes. "At least you're still clean, Ryouko," he said while gazing at his mirror image in the knife. "You've never killed anyone because you wanted to."
"I have wanted to," she admitted. "But I've resisted the urge so far. I wanted to have a normal life. As long as possible, at least."
He smiled. "I wanted you to have a normal life too. That's why I left." He turned his gaze from the knife downwards, to the sheer 20 meters fall that was under his feet. "You know, sometimes I've wanted to just jump off a height like this one and get it over with. It's not like I enjoy living like this."
"Kousuke..." She looked at him worriedly. He had never said something like that before.
"But I never did." His green eyes met hers steadily, pupils catlike. "I guess, somewhere in the back of my head I wanted to believe there's hope... And besides, I didn't want to leave you behind." He smiled again, that half-smile of his.
Ryouko didn't know what to say, so she said nothing. She just looked at him with unspoken affection in her eyes. "Kousuke," she said at last. "Thanks."
Suddenly he took his knife and threw it straight up into the air, then caught it by the handle as it came down again. "I've promised you I'll not kill again, haven't I?" he said. "I don't imagine that's enough to erase what I've already done, but it's a start." He threw his knife up again, but this time something must have put him off balance, because his hands fumbled in the air when he tried to catch it on the way down.
"Damn!" he exclaimed and instinctively tried to grab it with his feet. Ryouko, also acting on instinct, stretched out her hand towards the falling knife, at the same time pushing him slightly. That was all it took. Kousuke lost his balance and fell.
"Kousuke!!" Ryouko could hear her own voice scream and see him slide off the edge as if in slow motion. In the very last moment she managed to grab hold of his left arm, momentarily stopping his fall. He was hanging with his back towards the school wall, and she was still sitting with her legs over the edge, leaning forwards with both hands desperately clinging to his arm. But she could feel herself slide, slowly, and there was no way she could stop it, no way to pull him up.
"Ryouko," Kousuke said quietly, and he suddenly looked scared. Really scared. "I'm sorry... I didn't mean to..."
"It was my fault," she replied. She could feel tears filling her eyes, but she blinked them away. Think! There must be something she could do before... "Don't worry, I'll never let go!"
"But you must," he panted. "Otherwise, you'll fall too."
"No way!" He was right, too right. She was sliding, a millimeter a time, towards the inevitable plunge. "I'll save you!"
"Blade Children..." Kousuke said, "Blade Children cannot be saved... or save others. You have to let go! I don't want you to die too!"
Ryouko's eyes slid past Kousuke's desperate face, to the ground far below. She could see the knife, so small, lying on the asphalt. Probably broken. At least it hadn't pierced anyone's skull. No one down there seemed to have noticed anything going on up here, and it was too late to call for help. She shivered and felt herself slide even further towards the edge
"Please..." Kousuke begged. Very unlike him to beg, part of Ryouko's consciousness noted. "Don't let yourself fall too."
"I'm not going to!" she said stubbornly through clenched teeth. "But I'm not going to let you leave me behind! I'm going to save your ass, idiot!"
"But..." Kousuke stopped. Slowly, all remaining light disappeared from his eyes. "Maybe this is fate, too," he said. "Maybe this is a good way to die."
Ryouko didn't bother to answer. She was only seconds from sliding off the edge, and she didn't want to spend these last precious moments talking. Here, on the brink of death, she could see things more clearly than ever before. Even though they were both Blade Children, there had been good times in their lives. And if it would end here, then so be it. Life had been worth it, after all. She could hear a noise behind her, but her brain didn't register anything anymore.
"Yes," she said. "A good way to die." Then she fell off the edge.
But instead of falling through the air, she was caught by a pair of hands under her arms. Then another pair joined the first, and suddenly she didn't feel like she was on the brink of death any longer. Kousuke looked up at her in surprise, and then shock when he saw who was holding her.
"Hey, you," a familiar voice said. "If you really want to die, don't do it here. I don't want any more trouble because of this mess!"
"That's right," another voice added. "You've already caused enough trouble to Narumi-san, haven't you?"
Neither Ryouko nor Kousuke answered. This was too much, too unexpected. Too impossible. Blade Children couldn't be saved. All that fate held for them was violent death. Yet, the two of them were slowly but surely pulled back up to safety, to face Kiyotaka's little brother, Narumi Ayumu, and the girl who always followed him around, Yuizaki Hiyono.
Ryouko's heart was racing. She couldn't even thank them. She still couldn't understand she and Kousuke were both alive.
Finally, Kousuke spoke. "Narumi-otouto," he said. "Hiyoko-chan."
"That's Hiyono!" Hiyono raged, as usual. "I'm not a chicken!"
It wasn't even very funny, and Kousuke had made that joke many times before, but for some reason Ryouko started giggling. And then laughing. Kousuke joined in, and a moment later both Ayumu and Hiyono were laughing as well. It was such a wonderful feeling. Ryouko hadn't really laughed for years, and neither had Kousuke. And she had never seen Kiyotaka's brother laugh either. But now, somehow, it came so easily.
They were saved.