//This chapter gets weird. And by weird I mean stupid Sue cliches as well as reasons to reiterate the R rating.//
When she began to adapt, as humans are able to do, she grew restless with his gentle regard. "Stop treating me like I'm made of glass. Go back to how you used to be around me. Tease me about something! Make me melt into the floor!"
It was the most she'd said to him since calling him an idiot with tears of blood.
"It won't take you back in time," he said softly.
"Fuck time! Quit pussyfooting around me like I'm some invalid. Unless you think I should be in a mental home."
"Of course not!" In fact it was quite a relief to hear her ranting. It meant she was getting her strength back. "Not unless you want to be there."
She'd wanted the kind of useless banter with which she used to make him laugh, but he was right, it was no good to pretend that they were at any other place than now. She was out of self-deprecating sarcasm, out of laughter, as though the first vital organ to go was her sense of humor. Nothing came out but harsh truth. "I don't know where I want to be. I'm broken on my feet. Why don't you leave me?" And go back to the one you love, was what she meant.
"I don't want to leave you."
"You should," she mumbled.
"No." If she was going to go off on that tangent again, he really would have to quiet her the best way he knew and make her melt into the floor.
How is it that I keep standing? she wondered. But even more than she hated what fate had dealt her, she hated to see him deny it. And she was getting used to unbearable agony. "When? When will you stop this? If you still feel that way, you cannot truly believe that it's gone!"
She must be trying to provoke him, he thought; she must want him to seduce her the way he did when there were feelings to bury. She wanted her old illusions back. And who could blame her for wanting to return to her fool's paradise?
Or else she was just horny and he hadn't been giving her enough, treating her like she was made of glass, as it were.
Either way she knew now what kind of words would get to him, how to bend him to her will with the threat of their cruelty, even if she didn't consciously intend it. So he swept her up and gave her the smoldering gaze that made her weak-kneed and breathless. "Everything you think you know...you'd do best to forget," he told her in that low bedroom voice. "Forget it all. I'll empty your mind, and fill...your body..."
She sighed, waiting for his lips to meet hers.
But he made her wait. It was better that way.
She seemed to float in a state like a waking dream, feeling as though reality was losing hold of her rather than the other way around. She walked around the campus with a sense of utter detachment from everything, wondering if the effort of survival was consuming her very soul, turning her back into something unseen and unknown, or if perhaps the bindings between her body and spirit were fraying like rope stretched too tight, soon to break in death. The more she adapted to pain, the farther she got from the world.
Words lost their meaning, so she ceased to speak except for yes and no, and when others spoke to her it sounded like distant mumbling. Books could no longer hold her attention. The most complicated thing she could concentrate on was a blade of grass twitching in the breeze, or perhaps the droning of a cicada. She saved all her clarity for fencing practice, so that Juri and Miki would not think her a complete wreck. But Juri, of course, noticed anyway.
"What on earth is happening to you?" Juri demanded.
Yumi looked at her, blank-faced, sorrow-eyed.
"Have you gone deaf and dumb?"
"No."
"People's personalities don't do a one-eighty for no reason at all. Either Himemiya made you some curry, or something's ripped the world out from under your feet. Why is Kiryuu acting so sweet and apologetic around you?"
"You might try asking him yourself, sempai." She stalked away. That was more than anyone had gotten her to say for some time.
Miki had no opinions to offer on the matter. He was upset by Anthy's departure, which hadn't even included any farewells.
Yumi was hoping that Juri did not decide to confront Touga on the issue. She didn't want him to have to fend off such questions. But the Student Council was no longer meeting, and there were no more letters from End Of The World, so perhaps there would be no chance for Juri to interrogate him.
She felt like he was slipping farther away from her just like everything else. Even when he held her close there seemed to be impossible distance between them. But it was just the space inside her heart. Was this the meaning of "loneliness"?
Still, he was the only real part of this half-reality in which she existed. She clung to the idea of him, the truth of her feelings that even now refused to change, the one shining thread that could not break.
It was summer vacation. There was nothing to do, and if there was, Yumi probably wouldn't have done it. She sat by herself in a corner of the high bleachers. The sun had just set, and she was listening to the cicadas. Their monotonous buzzing was constant in a world that had been ripped out from under her feet.
She heard footsteps and sensed someone sit down beside her. It was not anyone she had any desire to see. She kept her attention on the cicadas.
But Akio, of course, was insistent. He was about to touch her.
"Please don't bother me," she said in that quiet voice which shouldn't be coming from her. "I'm listening to the cicadas."
"You don't think it's an annoying sound?"
"I think you're annoying. Please go away." Apparently he was still able to bring out all her impudence.
"I can do better than annoying. I wonder if you're still as quick to anger from the abyss of despair?"
"Maybe if I ignore it, it'll leave, like a stray dog," she murmured as if thinking aloud.
"I've got plenty of things that would anger you..." He stretched out beside her languidly. "I'd be helping you out, you know. Anger gives you strength."
She hummed the old song about cherry blossoms, which didn't exactly go with the cicadas, but she couldn't think of any summer songs.
"It's almost impossible to get guns in Japan," he said conversationally. "But I've had one for a while. You never know when you might need a thing like that. I've been dangerously careless with it, though. Sometimes I leave it lying around, loaded, where people can find it..." He laughed when she whirled on him, eyes all furious and falcon-sharp. "Ah, you see? You're looking better already."
"You'll regret it."
"Will I? Poor thing, you've always needed something to fight. First you fought the facade that wouldn't let you in; then you fought the pink-haired prince; but now, instead of fighting your true rival, you've laid down your arms and given up..."
Even as the words stung, cutting through her detachment, more pieces fell together before her mind's eye. "Maybe that's because my true rival isn't my true enemy."
He laughed again. "That's right. Your enemy is a dead lie, and how do you fight something that's already dead?"
"Without anger," she replied calmly. "So once again, you've proved yourself to be totally useless."
"You haven't completely lost your sharp tongue, it seems..." Suddenly he seized her in a devilish parody of a romance-novel embrace. "Be careful you don't drive me to temper it."
She was terrified. She meant to scream, but only managed a mousy squeak. His face was far too close to hers; she tried to keep from breathing his rose-garden scent. She squeezed her eyes shut against his jade green gaze, willing him away like a nightmare. He didn't disappear. He stroked the back of her neck, and then somehow she found the strength to push him off and edge away. "Don't think that I can't fight you!"
He smiled. "Fight me? With what, an army of cicadas?"
Though she trembled, she glared defiantly.
"Well then, I'll leave you to assemble your battalions." He stood with a crisp move, gave her a slight mocking bow, and walked off.
She sat down again, ignoring her trembling and cold nausea and the impotent rage that pushed her almost to tears, and the other feelings she'd never admit. She filled her ears and her concetration with the steady comforting drone of cicadas, nothing but the cicadas...
Something caught her, nearly bowling her over, and held her tightly. She cried out just before she realized it was Touga. The relief she felt bordered on absurd, and she collapsed into him. His breath was a bit labored; he'd been running. He must have seen her at what looked like the dubious mercy of End Of The World.
"Be careful. Oh, Yumi, be careful."
So this was the truth. She had one last battle to fight.
It was the old samurai ethic, the Way of the Warrior, how the greatest heroes were the ones who fought against invincible odds, perhaps sacrificing themselves for the cause; and if they failed, all the more valiant for it.
She would fight for the cause that would kill her.
Until either victory or defeat, she would live. This was the only path forward. She must draw her sword under the banner of dead lies, wearing a crest of exploded stars.
She did not let the new pain of this realization stall her. She went to her blank book and wrote down all the facts, poring over them, trying to find something that would make a battle plan.
Again and again, her path went back to fighting End Of The World. It seemed like every day he came up with more reasons to be her enemy. He had been her only true enemy from the beginning.
But she didn't know how to fight him. No one did. With anger, or with peace? With a sword, or with one's heart? What was the way to defeat someone—something—who held all the cards?
If End Of The World possessed anything like a weakness, she had to find it. Oh, that she could speak to the unseen ones now, to ask watchers and imps! But the next best thing was a psychic friend.
As though she'd heard Yumi think of her, Miteki showed up. "Hey, Yumi-chan, you here?" She was holding a bunch of dandelions.
"Oh, pretty!" Yumi exclaimed, surprising herself. She hadn't marveled at anything pretty for...hell knew how long. "What are they called?"
Miteki was surprised as well. She hadn't expected Yumi to even notice the flowers. "They're called tanpopo," she replied, "but I think the English word sounds even prettier. It's 'dandelion.' They remind me of you. They're so sunny and happy-looking, and they grow pretty much anywhere. And no matter how many times you cut them down, they grow back, because their strength goes far beneath the ground."
Yumi threw herself at Miteki in a hug.
"Don't smoosh them!" Miteki giggled, embarrassed.
Yumi giggled too, and took the flowers to put them in water.
"Wow, you really did grow back."
"It's the last battle. I fight with the crest of exploded stars," said Yumi, putting the glass of dandelions on the table. She sounded oddly matter-of-factual for such strange words.
"Huh?"
"Oh, they even smell like sunlight!"
Miteki got worried again. She'd heard that sometimes people who decide to take their own lives appear briefly happy before they depart forever. "Hey, what's going on? What do you mean, 'the last battle'?"
Yumi looked at her somberly. "Teki-chan... I'm sorry."
"What?"
She sighed, looking sorrowful like before, and apologetic. "It seems to me that I shouldn't tell you. But you'd probably find out, being what you are. I walk a path...that leads only to death."
"What are you saying?" cried Miteki.
"I wouldn't expect this to make sense..." Yumi sat down and closed her eyes, unable to look at her friend any more as she spoke. Her soul panged with every word. "The one called End Of The World is keeping him from happiness. I must fight for his happiness, though I have no place in it. If I lose this fight, it will be because End Of The World destroys me. If I win, and return him to his true self, that too will destroy me. Because as I told you, the heart he keeps hidden from everyone belongs to another."
"Yumi-chan!" Tears shimmered in Miteki's eyes. "Why do you have to fight like that? Why can't he fight for himself?"
"Because he's already given up! But his feelings are still there, and this is the only way I can go forward! It's so far gone, they can't see it any more. Only an outsider, an intruder like me can see it!"
"I don't get it! How do you know all that? Was he mean enough to tell you?"
"He didn't have to. I've been after that secret the whole time, fool that I am!"
"If you're the only one who can see it, how do you know it's for real?"
"Ask him, if you dare!" Yumi's voice seemed torn from her, the sound of raw pain. "Ask him if he loves Saionji Kyouichi!"
Miteki gasped.
"No, no, no!" Yumi shrieked with remorse at having spilled his innermost secret, banging the table and making the glass of dandelions jump. "How could I! Oh, he'll hate me!"
"Hate you for what?" Miteki said softly. "I've heard absolutely nothing."
Yumi blinked at her. Of course no one had to know that Miteki knew. There was nothing Miteki could do with that secret anyway.
...Except maybe...
"I hope you've forgiven Saionji by now," said Yumi just as quietly, "because if you try to use that against him I'll be very upset."
"No, I'll just dump a punch bowl on him."
That got Yumi to laugh, albeit weakly.
"Well...do you wanna get some coffee?"
Yumi did not answer that. It was clear she was a little angry at Miteki. "Please don't question me. I know what I know."
"So, why do you have to walk a path that will destroy you!?"
"If there is another path that leads forward, I will find it." She looked genuinely regretful again. "Please forgive me."
Miteki stared not at her but at the bright yellow flowers. "I'll help you find it."
"I was going to ask your help."
"Okay." Miteki tried to smile.
"Well, I was thinking like this," said Yumi. "You thought of that story about the Morning Star when you saw that name. I wouldn't even believe that it's his real name, but then that would mean it's one he's chosen for himself. So I thought that since that story seems to be so relevant to him, maybe there's something in those books you have that might tell me what his weakness is. Because I know I have to fight him, but I don't know how."
"We don't have to look that up," Miteki replied glumly. "The Devil doesn't have any 'weakness.' He's the personification of evil. It's the Morning Star because you can only see it before the sun, the light of God, comes up. I mean, that's how the story is, only God can vanquish the Devil. Well, even God can't, really, because good and evil are both immortal. But do you really believe in things like absolute good and absolute evil?"
"I don't know. But when I think about it, it does seem like things are divided into those extremes."
Miteki sat down, now engaged in the philosophical battle strategy. "Hm. I'm not sure this is the right way to think... But if your enemy is, to you, absolute evil, what constitutes absolute good?"
Tenderness and sorrow came into Yumi's face as she looked away, whispering, "Touga's happiness..." Then she looked up again. "But that's the problem! That's what I'm trying to fight for!"
"Then you keep the idea of it in your heart. Didn't you say that to me before? 'Nothing can touch you when you think of the one you love.'"
"Yes...but...I don't know how to fight. I have to attack." She got the book she'd been writing in from the sofa and opened it on the table. "There has to be a weakness. Like...the sister! Have you seen Himemiya Anthy?"
"She left. Miki's all upset. She didn't even say goodbye to anyone."
"Really? That's weird." Yumi scribbled the news in the book. So that was why Miki hadn't tried to interrogate her—he had his own problems. Miteki ought to move in. But this was important for other reasons... "Oh, I wonder if he could be upset about it!"
"What would that do for you?"
"I don't know. If he's upset it would only be because it put a dent in his plans somehow. I wonder if his power came from her, or the other way around. You know, maybe..." Yumi tapped the book with the end of her Hello Kitty pen. Her voice lowered, as though the enemy could be listening; he probably was. "Maybe he's tied to this campus. I mean, it's such a strange place, it could be that his power comes from it. Has anyone ever seen him off campus? I wonder if it'd be better to fight off campus..."
"Why do you keep saying 'fight,' anyway? Are you actually going to try and kill him or something?"
"Well...not if I can help it. Fuck it, let's get coffee."
Yumi thought it a little strange that she never saw her "true rival" around. If fate was so cruel, it would be more typical for her to see Kyouichi at every turn. She was curious about how she might react if he tried to mock her again. Would she flee like a startled deer? Would she fly into a rage and cry tears of blood? Would she withdraw into herself with silent sorrow, or speak words designed to cut to the quick?
Would she tell Kyouichi what she knew? Would she taunt him with tales of how Touga protested it, or put forth vain effort to make him see that it was still true?
But apparently he was avoiding her like the plague. Touga could trust her not to hurt him no matter how much she knew; Kyouichi, however, had no reason whatsoever to trust her, and plenty of reasons not to.
Both of them were in a place so far gone that they could not believe the truth of the other's feelings, nor admit to their own, no matter how many tears of blood she cried for them.
And when she thought of this, she felt more than ever that her final days were near.
She wanted to ask Touga why he still cared for her, now that she was nothing but sorrow, the ghost who screamed atop the Tower. But she did not ask. She found her strength in his presence, and even if she was not the one, when he held her she was able to see the spark of light that could keep her going for just a little longer. He never left her alone for long, as though he felt he had to protect her from herself.
She gathered this strength, spinning it like silk from the cocoon of his regard. She wove all of her courage together, and then one day when the sun shone hot and strong as it had that first day of her last days, she went to the Student Council terrace and waited. A phantom karate tournament played out beside her, a figment of the Tower's shaky version of reality. She looked out at the forest, wondering what was happening to the Arena now that the duels had ended. Had they ever really taken place? Who had they been fighting?
She had not told anyone what she was up to. They would never let her try it. Especially not Touga...
The enemy revealed himself finally. "Is that Yumi? Admiring the view?" Apparently he thought himself too important to use only her false surname as she'd told him to. "It's rather hot out, isn't it. Why don't you come up for some tea?"
She turned slowly. It would be a lie to say that she wasn't afraid, headed into the lair of absolute evil, but she held the idea of her absolute goodness in her heart.
She had time in the elevator to realize what an incredibly stupid scheme this was. What the hell was she thinking? Had he gotten into her head like everyone else's? She hadn't even left herself an escape route. Suddenly she was terrified, feeling the calculating, uncanny jade green eyes on her.
It was more than likely that he sensed her terror, yet she was determined not to show it. She raised her eyebrows cynically. "Ojama shimasu?" she said as though she wasn't sure whether he deserved such polite social norms.
Akio smiled. She hated it when he smiled. It made her skin crawl and her insides shrivel up—while at the same time it sent tendrils of dark aphrodisiac sliding along her nerves. She lashed out against it. "So why would you invite someone as uncivilized as me up here?"
"You interest me," was his sinister reply. "I simply would like to get to know you a little better."
Like hell you will, she thought.
"...Perhaps at other schools they see the student body only as a collective group. But I like to look at the students here as individuals. And you, Yumi, are a very unique individual."
"Spare me the bullshit, Mr. Incubus Chairman." Her terror was multiplying with each smooth word out of his mouth. But she'd fight to the death. The exit wouldn't work for her, but she had to put more space between them. She moved into the vast expanse of the room, where reality felt eerily suspended and malleable, like the Arena. It was cool, almost chilly. Of course the Trustee Chairman's rooms would have air-conditioning when no one else's did. That was not why she had goosebumps, however.
"See?" he chuckled. "You are unique. You never fail to speak your mind, and that's very rare. Even more amazing is how you manage to get away with it."
"Yeah, sure. I'm so fucking amazing. What's your point?"
"It wouldn't be right to tell you just standing here. Won't you sit down and have some tea?"
"Can you make it the way I like mine?"
"How's that?"
"Without roofies."
He laughed. She didn't like making him laugh either. But sarcasm was her only shield, caustic remarks her only weapon. She was working with a fairly limited arsenal here.
"Yumi! I'm shocked that you would think such a thing of me." He paused before delivering the punchline. "I always take my lovers conscious."
"I think I'm going to throw up," she told him flatly. It was true. She hoped desperately that she would; no one would want to seduce someone who'd just puked.
"Oh, well then you really should sit down. Come now..." He took her by the hand and led her to the sofa, and instead of trying to resist she focused on the nauseous terror of the unwelcome touch and busied herself with sticking her finger down her throat, because she'd read that was how to make yourself sick. What better way to get her point across than losing her lunch all over his couch, or even better, himself?
But he caught her at it, of course. "What on earth are you doing? Did you have something bad for lunch?" He stopped her and made her choke, acid burning in her throat.
Oh shit, she thought, shit shit SHIT! Now she was helpless. What would he decide to do with her now that she was occupied trying not to breathe her own vomit?
He just stood there and took the chance to put a supporting hand on her back. She recovered quickly enough and realized that suddenly she was no longer nauseated.
He had taken the nausea from her.
He could control her body?
Her mind screamed in terror. She backed away.
He put on a facade of concern. "Yumi, are you alright? Why are you doing that to yourself?" He knew perfectly well, and he had to give her credit, it was a clever plan. He had just barely prevented it from working.
"Why, I was just trying to illustrate my candid opinion of you," she replied haughtily, her voice scratchy from gagging.
He flinched. "Harsh. But I can't blame you for lashing out." He put a hand to her face to touch her tenderly, which he had no right whatsoever to do. "You're hurting so much..."
What did he know!? The pain surged up inside her at being mentioned. She slapped his hand away, and it took a good deal of resolve to voluntarily touch him even for that.
His voice, deep and sonorous as thunder, spoke gently, soothing, but it seemed that underneath his bass tones she could hear the ominous hum of danger, of eternal darkness. Of sensuality... "Yumi, I know. It saddens me to see you suffer so deeply, unable to see any end to your pain. The one thing you wanted turned out to be the one thing you couldn't bear. Unrequited love. There is no greater sorrow."
It infuriated her, how he could bring out her feelings and rub them in her face and pass it off as compassion. The familiar agony ripped through her soul, sharpened its talons on the fabric of her existence, raking her thoughts into shreds... And this, this thing, had no right to know of it. "Don't you fucking pity me!" she spat.
"I don't pity you at all," he said in that calming, mellow voice. "I admire you. You're so brave to carry such a burden. You bear your sorrow in such beautiful nobility."
And didn't she want to believe that someone would give her credit for her suffering? Didn't she deserve some kind of acknowledgement for living like this? It was a nice thought, and she was flattered for a moment, until she remembered who was speaking.
"Oh really? You wouldn't know love or sorrow if it shoved a kendo stick up your ass."
"You're quite wrong." He was giving her this look, this intense jade stare, awestruck—and lustful. She was trapped in it, like they say a snake can hypnotize its prey with its eyes. She was scared—so scared—but weak under his spellweaving, the charisma of the fallen angel, the devil's enchantment. He was the very embodiment of the shadowy allure of evil, the seductive power of darkness, the danger and the temptation. It would be so easy to go over the edge. The dark power crept into her limbs, beneath her skirt, devouring her free will. She backed away again, conserving her willpower for a moment when she could run.
He moved closer. He wouldn't let her put even a meter between them. "Let me save you from your tragedy. This sadness is swallowing you whole. I don't want to see you disappear."
"I don't need to be 'saved.' Especially not by you!"
"I know. You love him so much, you can't see how that would ever change. But Yumi, look..." He moved in still closer. "I'm everything he is...and more."
Fear made her voice shrill. "Oh yeah, you're more alright. More of a manipulative asshole, more of a messed-up piece of shit, more of a slut and more of a sister-fucker!"
"Touché. But, if I can say this without being condescending, you have no idea what was going on."
"I've got enough of an idea." She backed away some more, and found herself up against the massive twin globes of the planetarium. "Well, look at this. It's the apocalypse dorkfest. Did you get this off eBay while smoking up? What the hell is it supposed to be, some disgusting Freudian imagery?"
"I assume you're referring to the planetarium? It's sort of a model of the cosmos. It projects all the stars and constellations. Would you like to see it?"
"That's the stupidest thing I ever heard. Why don't you just look at the real stars?"
"You can't always see the 'real' stars. And never all at once. With a planetarium you can see all the stars you want, whenever you want."
"But they're fake stars! That's so stupid!"
"What is a star but a point of light? It's exactly the same."
"Real stars live in the sky, where they can't be switched on and off by weirdos like you."
"Do you like the stars, Yumi?" He was doing that voice again, and that look, sending chills down her spine. "Stars burn themselves out, you know. The brighter they shine, the faster they die."
She got the most eerie sense of déjˆ vu. She must have read that somewhere. "Idiot. That's why they're beautiful, because they're burning. Planetarium, what bullshit. Have you ever actually looked at that thing? It's ugly as hell."
"Not to your taste? I admit it is rather avant-garde for a sitting room. Well, let me show you some rooms that I was more traditional in furnishing."
"Oh, I really liked the elevator. In fact, I really prefer looking at the place from the outside." She remembered that it was her own idea to attempt to infiltrate the enemy's lair; obviously this was the most idiotic thing she'd ever thought of.
"But I think you'll like this one." He didn't lead her, but rather herded her, almost as though he chose where her feet would land, down some stairs and through some corridors. How could she get away? She found herself inexplicably in the doorway of a room much like Touga's, except where his was pink, this one was ink black. And there were candles everywhere. A bedroom.
You gotta be kidding me, she thought, and would have slapped her forehead if she had been in a state of lesser anxiety. This can't possibly be happening.
He was blocking the doorway, propping an arm against one side. "How do you like it?" he said, voice heavy with suggestion, his lids half closed to display dark black lashes against dark skin, curving sensuous lips, hedonism carved as deeply into every line of him as it had ever been with the one she loved.
She shivered, her mind frozen with the effort of fighting off the threat of dark lust. The space he left as he leaned against the doorway registered finally, but she was careful not to move her eyes toward it. "Man, it sure does look gloomy," she said.
"Is there any pleasing you?" he mused.
Not by you! She seized the moment of his mocking sigh and darted through the little gap, then sprinted for her life. Where she could run, she had no idea. She suspected there wouldn't be a way out for her. Perhaps her best bet would be to crash right through a window and hope she could remember how to float. Or find something to use as a weapon—not against him, that would be ineffectual, but against herself, to threaten him with her own death. He had some kind of diabolical scheme set up for her. Her only defense would be suicide. Better that than....
He was right in front of her.
HOW!?!
She couldn't stop her own momentum, and would have tumbled over ass-in-the-air, but instead he caught her and she fell right into his scarlet-shirted arms.
"Careful there."
She broke away, spastic in her terror, unsure where to move. How? HOW?!
He heard the question shouting in her mind. "Don't you know? Time and space obey my laws here."
She made a strange shaky sound between a sob and a whine, a sound of pure horror, as she groped at the wall, almost fainting. He trapped her against it, not touching her, but surrounding her, looking down from his unusual height into the fear plain on her face. The lock of lavender hair that never obeyed danced between her eyes.
"What do you want!" she whined, near tears.
"I'll tell you what I want," he said, the breath of his words touching her and making her turn away. "I want you. Your mysteries. Your power. You don't realize it but you have enormous power. You saw the story of the Princess who became a Prince and set the Rose Bride free. But that simply means there must be a new Rose Bride. You are the chosen one—the next Rose Bride."
"NO!"
"You have no idea," he whispered. She shuddered, locked in fierce battle with the tendrils of inky desire winding around her. She was being overtaken, her knees weak, her mind fogging... But she hated him. She hated everything he was with the same fierceness as her love, because of her love. She said it aloud, reminding herself.
"Hate me? Why would you hate me? I made you what you are."
Confusion added to the terror and anger on her features.
"I know of the unseen watchers, Yumi. Indeed, all the supernatural beings that others can't see—I see them all. I knew you were in the room that day in Nemuro Memorial Hall. Each word I spoke there was for you. You didn't think you stumbled on your dear Touga's past by chance, did you? I gave you his secret. And then I sent the imps to explain it to your innocent fairy heart. I saw what you could become and I made you."
Anger, a wounded animal's ferocity, built inside her. "Shitface demon! I'm no creation of yours!" She fought to get away, kicking and scratching, but he pinned her against the wall by her wrists. And he gazed into her furious golden eyes, making them wide with terror at his intent, before he leaned in and kissed her.
As kisses go, it was rather chaste, but his dark power was wrapped up in it. Her body reacted against her will, electrical lust shocking into her, and she pulled her face away and screamed with the humiliation, the frustration, the terrible shame of her fickle body betraying her own heart, feeling desire for one who was not her beloved—who was her one true enemy.
"Silly girl. After all your time with him, haven't you learned that love and desire are not the same thing?"
She gritted her teeth. He would not see her tears!
"It's alright," he whispered in her ear. "I'm the one who understands you... Mayumiare."
She gasped at the sound of her old, forgotten name. Too confused to move, she couldn't fight when he lifted her easily off the floor and carried her against his chest, her lanky frame curling up in fear and becoming no more than a child's to him. It was easy to set her down on the soft black bed; the challenge would be to get her out of the armadillo shape. He knew just how to go about it, however.
Almost idly he removed his tie, undid a few shirt buttons and his ponytail, shaking out the lustrous pale hair. He could hear the panic in her head—Help me! Help me!—and nearly laughed. Who did she think would show?
"You're not the only one I made, you know," he said conversationally, curling himself around her and feeling her shudder as he ran fingertips along a pale exposed thigh. He spoke into her hair, beside her shoulder, against the nape of her neck. "I made this place and everyone in it. I spent extra time on the Student Council, of course. Take Miki, for example. The effects of a parents' divorce in late childhood are very far-reaching. I sent Anthy to divide his parents, and the relationship between the twin siblings became hopelessly warped. But of course, you want to hear about your prince. I already told you what happened to him, though. Well, before that I drove his and Nanami's parents to affairs that both ended in love suicides. A double double suicide, and those two young children left behind! It was the tragedy of the decade. The skewed, deadly love planted the seeds for Nanami's complex. Anyway, then they were adopted, of course, and he met your rival Saionji. And then...well, you know. A man took advantage of him. But here's another secret." He put his lips to her ear, murmuring lasciviously. "Do you know who it was who ravished a young red-haired boy one bright summer's day in a cabbage field? It wasn't his foster father. That's just how he remembers it." He paused, listening to her heart pound. "It was me."
The world stopped.
Truths shattered into horrific clarity. Her nerves, stretched taut and rebellious against their instincts, snapped like over-tuned harpstrings. She opened her eyes and it could have been the candlelight, but he was sure her eyes were glowing in her explosion of vengeful fury.
Adrenaline shot into her blood, and she screamed a grating warrior cry, attacking without planning. She couldn't have planned an attack even if she had anything to fight with. One thing filled her mind, a primal command—Kill! Maim! Destroy!! And she attacked like a wild dog, snarling, scratching, trying with all her wiry might to tear him limb from limb.
In doing so she had given up her defensive shape, and he soon—though not, he had to admit, without some effort—pinned her beneath him. He straddled her, holding her wrists down so she couldn't claw out his eyes as she itched to do, putting just enough weight on her to keep her down, taking in the heat of her rage. She kicked, probably giving him some decent bruises that might last a few seconds.
"I'll kill you! Do you hear me! I'LL FUCKING KILL YOU!!"
Actually it was hard to look at her, almost painful, the way her eyes were burning into him. She did have power. Even now, with no way to fight, she was fighting simply with the force of her feelings, so livid that she forgot what was happening to her. He would remind her. Once he took her, he would begin to bend her powers to his aims. She would be a valuable asset.
If he tried to kiss her now she'd bite his face off, he had no doubt. He would have to subdue her further first. "I felt I had to help you out a bit, seeing the way you suffer so bravely. I thought maybe if I did the same thing to you, it might give you some common ground to work with, so you might win him back..." It was working. Her fury was turning back into fear. "I believe you said once that you want to know everything he is. I can show you..." Deftly he moved her so that he could pin her arms with one hand and strip her with the other. Rather than bothering to undo the clasps of her Student Council jacket, he just ripped them off.
"Stop it..." she whined desperately.
"Well, he wasn't naked, but I think you should be. Pretty little uniform, though...with those shorts..."
The traitorous desire coursed through her veins again—now even more disgusting with this new secret! Someone should burn her at the stake for this. Her hatred turned inward from shame. She tried to struggle again, but he pressed his weight into her, maneuvering expertly to get her shirt off without releasing her.
He could feel the power brimming within her, and thrilled at the luscious sensation of it emanating into him. It would be very satisfying taking her energies.
It was not simply the weight of him that stopped her struggling, but the unwelcome flush of mad lust that invaded her at the contact of his warm, chiseled body, contrasted with the rage and revulsion in her mind, killing her spirit with terror and betrayal. Still she thrashed about as though in the throes of a nightmare. Wasn't this a nightmare? Wasn't it?
"You'll be the same now, you and him," he was crooning hotly in her ear. "I'll bind you to him forever. You want that..."
"NO!" She already was bound to him. Why...
Now, rather than pinning her down, he could stroke her skin with his fingertips, absorb the willpower from her so that she would find herself utterly unable to struggle. First the palms of her hands, and then her wrists and down the soft skin inside her arms, so slowly. It was a very erotic technique, and very paralyzing. He kissed her, light and teasing, until he found that she still had the presence of mind to bite down hard on his tongue. His impulse was to slap her just as hard, but he restrained it; that would make clear the line between rape and seduction which he blurred so well. She saw with small triumph that she had made him bleed, but he easily closed the wound. He simply continued his fingertip massage, talking soft provocative words that matched the ink black velvet. "It's hard to believe, isn't it, how easily you can lose control of your own body. You feel as though you're betraying yourself...but honestly, with a body formed specifically to be with one who devotes so much to the pleasures of the flesh, you could hardly have expected not to desire it wherever it's offered."
He had cut down her vocabulary to weak protests. "No. Please stop... Stop..."
"Maybe I should have made you some other way, someone with more control. But it doesn't really matter. I created you, so I'll do with you as I please."
He lifted her up a bit and slid off the rest of her clothes, tearing them in the process to make it easier, and admired her naked form. She was actually quite pretty, though not in a conventional sense; the fey qualities were a charming touch. And she was beautiful in her suffering and her vulnerability. Turned away, trembling, she had her eyes shut tightly.
He moved his cool fingertips over her breasts, making her pant and sob with shameful, vulgar need. The power he absorbed from her was abundant and pure, so vivid that it started his own arousal. He savored it, teasing her and draining her of resistance, touching her nipples, her ribs, the scant curve of her hips, and finally her thighs, where the skin was so soft just below her center...
"Stop it. I don't want to. Stop it."
"Good, I'm glad you're still saying that," he murmured. "I am supposed to be raping you, after all."
She made a whimpering sound, whether from terror or shame or desire, it was hard to say. He straddled her again and nipped her on the earlobe. How could he know... Her body's reaction immediate, hateful and undeniable, she exhaled sharply.
"But of course," he said against her neck, "you can't rape the willing."
No. I'm not. I'm not...
Her tenuous hold on sanity wavered and went into remission. The last vestiges of her willpower flew out of her in a cry from all of her being, a wretched keening wail broken like a sob, "STO-OOOOP!"
What a beautiful sound, he thought.
But he was not the only one who heard it.
The others did not exactly hear the sound. They heard the cry in their minds.
There were seven or eight strong psychics on campus, and many other weak psychics. The weak ones felt something amiss and looked up momentarily. The strong ones heard the anguished cry and wondered who was in such distress.
The strongest happened to be Miteki. She heard the cry so loudly that it gave her a dizzying headache, as though someone had struck a huge bronze bell with her standing inside it. Involuntarily she looked up at the Tower, then realized that she was looking at where it had come from.
And then she realized that it was Yumi's voice.
Candles in a black room!
What? That part made no sense.
But Yumi was in trouble! High up in that Tower! What could she do about it?
Get the Student Council President, said a command from her gut. How was she to find him?
There was only one way to do that—ask the groupies.
She had no resistance left. Her mind hurt with the force of her disgust with herself, so fierce she was sure she'd never be able to feel anything else again. She was claimed by darkness, poisoned, forever tainted. How could she ever show herself to him again? She would just remind him of his cruel past—she would become his past, a living shadow, an empty ghost.
The Rose Bride.
She had no power to stop it. Mocked by fortune, she would descend to the blackest of destinies, pulled by love out of that existence of light and innocence, ravaged by the truth of her longing, and finally resigned to an existence of dark and bitterness. She was the chosen one, prisoner of the roses. She could hear the imps laughing at her.
The dark one smelled of roses, the heady scent of the Student Council rose garden enfolding her, so that he even raped her memories of a living dream at midnight.
"What is the difference between rape and seduction?" he murmured next to her lips, intoning his wicked spell. "Can you draw a line between them? Is the difference in who you're with? You were his toy, and now you're mine. What does it matter, so long as you get played with?"
Weakly, barely able to move, she tried to push his face away from hers. Her helpless frailty was so enticing. He caught her hand and sucked on her finger a moment. She tasted of crystalline glimmering, of her homeland.
"Open your eyes, Mayumiare."
She could not disobey. All she saw was lavender hair and cold jade eyes shining in the candles' glow, and darkness, so much darkness. Darkness consuming her...darkness...fucking her.
The despair in her eyes was exquisite. It had been a while since he'd tasted such delicious torment. "The fairy girl, the tennyo, driven by love into mortal form, victim of her own flesh. Can you draw a line between good and bad?" He traced a line with his fingertip from her breastbone—achingly slow—to her navel—and beyond to her wet, swollen nub, just barely stroking her there. A moan escaped her, more like a cry of pain.
Unable to resist himself, he dipped two fingers into the moisture of her desire, and brought them to his mouth, tasting her self-betrayal. Salt, and tart, and pure sweet energy.
She bit her lip in humiliation. But then he kissed her again, licking her lips delicately. She squirmed.
"You want to come, don't you. How will it feel, being brought to climax by the one who violated your true love? Is it still rape if you come?" He stroked her center again, the lightest of touches, feathery torture. "But maybe he enjoyed it too. You'd have to ask him—I'm keeping that secret." He moved down, pressing his lips to her neck, her collarbone. "He comes for me all the time now, though. As will you."
Yes. Let her come. Let her get it over with so she could go somewhere and rip her skin off.
"I can make you wait, longer even than he could keep you from release. I can magick your nerves, hack into your system, so you feel endless pleasure beyond anything he could give you. Do you want that pleasure? Is it rape? Is it seduction?"
His mouth played with her breasts, and then he fastened onto a nipple and sucked her power from her like mother's milk. And still he teased her below, so that she bucked and tossed her head and bit into the back of her hand to keep herself from moaning.
Intoxicating himself on the liquid purity of her soul energy, he did not sense the disturbance.
Putting together sketchy directions, Miteki found the Student Council President as usual in a throng of giggly female students.
She froze. She hadn't the courage to approach him in front of the crowd. It had been enough speaking to scornful, suspicious groupies. But her head still rang with Yumi's cry.
She had to do something. Or she would lose her friend, she knew, to some unimaginable fate.
"Seitokaichou-sama! Please, Seitokaichou-sama!" she yelled over the groupies.
Touga recognized Yumi's bashful friend. Clearly something was wrong. He excused himself from the crowd, who gave her murderous stares.
"What is it?"
Polite as ever, Miteki bowed. "I'm so sorry to interrupt you. But...Yumi's in trouble."
"What sort of trouble?"
"I don't know. Something bad. I heard her scream. In my mind."
"...In your mind?"
"I'm a bit psychic. In my mind I heard her scream. From the Tower."
"The Tower?" Now he actually began to look worried. Shy, polite girls like Miteki didn't make up stories.
"Then I saw a black room full of candles." Suddenly that seemed relevant after all.
"I know where that is..." He got a look of shock. "Oh my god!"
"What is it? She sounded in such pain!"
He had gone pale, but turned to nod to the groupies. "You'll have to excuse me. It seems I have a damsel in distress to rescue." They sighed and swooned at his chivalry.
"Thank you," he said to Miteki and then, though his face was white as his uniform, instantly broke into a full run.
Everyone was startled. What was making the Student Council President run?
It barely crossed his mind that he would be rescuing her from his own past.
He threw the door open. Candlelight flooded from the goth carbon copy of his own room. What he saw made his stomach lurch but almost aroused him. Akio was good at that.
Until the door opened Akio was unaware of Touga's intrusion. But he knew without looking up who it was and why he was here. Damn! He should have suspected! But he hadn't noticed in time because the girl's energy was so perfectly delicious, addictive as an opiate. Nor had he imagined that anyone would find out before the project's completion. How miserably shortsighted of him. His impatience to claim a new Rose Bride had made him reckless. Well, he'd discover later how Touga had found out, if it mattered. But most likely things would still play out to his advantage. He looked slyly at the winded Student Council President. "Ah, here to join us, Seitokaichou? I heard you like using this one in threesomes." He used a rather impolite word for this one, a hair's breadth above calling her this thing.
The voice of chivalry rang out into the darkness. "Get away from her, Ohtori."
His voice reached her mind as though from a great distance, through a dense haze of nothingness. He had come to save her? She gave a thin wordless wail, of pain or relief, of desperate yearning that he was not a hallucination. And yet all she could think was Don't look at me. Don't look at me. She covered her face with her hands, one of them torn and bloody.
Her cry spiked into his soul, piercing all his armor just as she'd been trying to do the whole time. He stifled a gasp at the sight of her wounded hand.
"Why? She likes being used. Otherwise she wouldn't go after you." She was naked, defenseless, and Akio still fully clothed, making her as submissive as possible.
"Look at her! You think she's having fun!?" Touga exploded. He had never been able to defy End Of The World before. "How could you do such a thing to a person? I had hoped you weren't one to stoop this low."
"To seduction? Harsh words from the prefecture's most popular playboy."
"This is your idea of seduction!?"
"Of course. She's in need of distraction. After all, she's not the one you love." Without moving her hands Yumi slammed her elbow into his face. "Ah! Feisty one, isn't she."
"Did I not make myself clear? Leave her alone."
Akio sighed. "Fine, if you insist on being such a spoilsport." He moved her hands and kissed her a last time before getting up to stand beside Touga with a curious, complacent smile.
This seemed to Touga such a vulgar mockery of a gesture that his rare temper flared and he landed Akio a well-trained punch on the jaw. Akio let him do it; like Yumi's elbow, it wouldn't leave any damage. He fell backward and knocked over some candles, starting a fire, which he then put out with an idle wave of his hand as he got up again to watch Touga's reaction. "First you interrupt me in bed, now you hit me? That's rather poor conduct, Seitokaichou. I should have you expelled for disrespect."
"I should have you castrated."
"You've been hanging around this one too much. You seem to have picked up her sharp tongue."
Touga looked for her clothes. Only the jacket was relatively intact, so he stuffed it under his arm. He knelt beside her, taking her hand, the one that wasn't wounded, and his voice was soft and gentle. "Yumi...it's me. It's okay."
How could he say that? How could he touch her? She wanted him to hold her, wanted so badly it stung, but she yanked her hand away for fear of infecting him with the blackness that had claimed her. Apparently this was the most hilarious thing the imps had ever seen.
His heart cracked for her with an almost audible sound.
She was still on the edge of release, the dark lust still holding its dreadful command over her. Only darkness could complete darkness; the darkness inside her longed for its counterpart, its master, to finish what he'd started. The shattered fragments of her own being screamed for her one love to take her, to fill her and negate the darkness. But he would not negate it that way. He would be pulled into it. He must not touch it—he must never come near her again.
He was here to defend her from the black enchanter, but too late to break the spell. Darkness must keep to its own. It wasn't as though she had any dignity left. She turned away from him so he wouldn't see the depth of her depravity, and finished it herself.
Akio stared wantonly. He was not prone to anger, since things tended to go his way, but it didn't do much for his mood that she ended up taking her own pleasure instead of him drawing it out and savoring every euphoric drop of her power. It was the climax that would truly enslave her, the moment of release during which they were most helpless and the energy the richest, when he brought them completely under his control. It wasn't permanent, though. Energy renewed itself like blood, and he would repeat the process, savoring it all over again.
But Mayumiare had escaped, and he was quite distracted with lust for her. Her strange origin and her powerful love made an exceptional brew. To say he wanted more would be an understatement, and he was not happy at having to wait for it. Next time she would already be halfway under his power and it wouldn't be nearly as fun subduing her.
No matter. It seemed that now the new Rose Bride would be a potent weapon against Touga—almost as potent as he was against her. The interruption was annoying at best, but it actually was rather amusing that she had to finish herself off with her darling there to see her. Perhaps the imps had it right, seeing the comedy in the matter.
It was nearly undetectable, since she was so close to the edge that she hardly had to move and was there in a fraction of a minute. But Touga saw what she was doing and, though he wished he could have done something for her, knew better than to make any sign of noticing, she was so consumed by shame and so afraid of his touch. Then he sensed Akio's avaricious gaze on her, and seized by fierce protectiveness, he encircled her without touching just enough to shield her from the brute's staring.
Now that was amusing. "Shall I...leave you two alone?" said Akio, almost laughing.
Touga did not do him the courtesy of replying.
The pleasure was shallow, rushed as it was, and she wished Touga had not come to her rescue. It was useless. The darkness had already made her its own, and now he had to see her like this. Spent, she curled into a fetal position and waited for him to leave. He must leave. No more did she belong to him. She wanted to scream at him to run, to flee the darkness here before he too was swallowed up...
Too quickly for her to protest, Touga scooped her up and left the room. All he knew was he had to get her out of here. He didn't pause until the anteroom, when he realized he could hardly carry her outside stark naked like that. It was still broad daylight, and summer break at that. She was not heavy, but still he needed the weight off his arms for a moment. "Can you stand? Just for a second?" She was catatonic; if he told her to stand on her head and sing she would have done it. He set her down, gently enough to make sure she had her feet solidly on the floor. Then he wrapped her in her uniform jacket, but it wasn't enough coverage. He went to an ornamental table and yanked the tablecloth from it, not unlike Utena had once done for Anthy at a party, so swiftly that the vase of white roses on it was undisturbed. It wasn't much bigger than a towel but it would have to do. He tucked it into place around her waist and—
There was Akio standing before them.
She stood like a statue, thinking how nice it would be to scrape off all her skin. Scrape it off, rip it off, burn it off. Surely she'd get burned at the stake. The Rose Bride was a witch, and that was what happened to witches. But maybe they'd be nice enough to let her scrape off her skin first. That was all she asked for, to get rid of her poisoned skin.
"And what are you going to do with her now?" Akio inquired diffidently.
"Get her away from you, that's what."
"She'll come back."
"I don't think so." Why was he standing here arguing? This didn't do her any good!
"Come here, Touga."
It was a direct command, as though to a lapdog, yet try as he might he couldn't stop his feet from obeying. The scarlet shirt hung open, the pale hair flowed loose from its normal ponytail, the jade eyes beckoned, the ruthless magnetism pulled him in again despite what he'd just seen.
In the depths of her ravaged mind Yumi felt a little seed of anger planted. A tiny blip of feeling that was not shame, a spark in the vast infinite darkness. Something touched on the edge of her failing awareness, some huge truth that had been swallowed up by blackness. Something she should remember. If she remembered the seed would grow, the spark would burn... The terrible secret...
Akio was running his hand through a lock of silky red hair. "I don't think I'll let you off that easy. You interrupted me. I don't like being interrupted." He smiled wickedly, drawing Touga nearer. "I think you'll have to be disciplined."
He sighed, overcome by that chronic seduction that spread a soft blanket over his mind and made him forget he was supposed to be doing anything else than seeking pleasure. Yumi...I'm sorry...I can't... A haze over his consciousness, black as the room full of candles, black as shadows of eternal night. It was calm inside where there was no thought, no feeling but clear-cut, simple desires of the flesh.
The scene reached Yumi's perception as if through layers of fuzzy dreams, somewhere between real and unreal, something that was supposed to affect her though she couldn't think why.
Then the spark in her mind glowed. It became a force like a wind trapped in a box, pounding against the walls of her skull. Truth and secrets were one, stirring a hurricane inside her.
She saw this horrid creature put teasing hands upon her beloved in a deformed travesty of caresses, and his blind sensual acceptance. She saw this, and the world smashed back into reality, seething with hideous fury. It left no room for her helpless disgust with herself, room for nothing else but a rage, hot anger so vehement there was no word for it in any language, no color or sound to describe it. And no darkness that could contain it.
"DON'T YOU TOUCH HIM!"
It was not merely her voice which screamed, but the walls, the floor, the building, the entire campus, the very earth and sky somehow joined her. Her words resonated with an enormous sound as though ten thousand pianos were dropped on each syllable, almost an earthquake. Glass shattered, windows exploded outward, electromagnetic fields malfunctioned, every fuse on campus blew. The psychic sensitives who had felt her cry before now yelled in pain and fainted.
Akio was flung across the room as though by the force of a bomb. And it actually hurt. He looked at Yumi, who was floating in the air, one arm outstretched in the gesture of forbidding, glowing from within, eyes burning with golden fire, an avenging angel. He had underestimated her ability to access her power. It might even be a while before he could stand.
It was true—her fairy stories were all true. What was she? Touga shook his head in incredulous confusion.
She looked at him, her gaze blank. She drifted in slow motion back to the floor, the glow around her fading out, her torn hand falling again to her side. She blinked and her eyes rolled back in her head. He caught her as she collapsed, and, having no idea what had just happened, carried her out and away, the girl from another world, the damsel in distress.
"Look, it's that weird girl."
"She really was in trouble!"
"What happened to her hand?"
"I bet she's just trying to get attention again."
"No, didn't you hear that huge sound? Something exploded in the Tower."
"It was an earthquake."
"No way. We have earthquakes all the time in Yokohama, and this was not an earthquake."
"Hey Suzuko! Is your electricity working?"
Everywhere were fearful speculations and arguments about what had happened in the Tower and why it had knocked out the electricity. Apparently in most of the dorms it was working again, since the elevator in the Tower ran on electricity and it had taken a while for him to get Yumi down the stairs. He hoped that she was still unconscious and couldn't hear people talking about her. One girl's remark deserved a chastising glare and she looked another direction, mortified, upon receiving it.
Finally they were in her dorm. His arms were so tired. He put her down on a chair. Her eyes opened, devoid of any expression.
It was déjˆ vu in reverse. She gave no sign of self-awareness and would have preferred to be alone, in the dark, sleeping until everyone forgot her existence. She was doing the same thing that he had done, and had he ever even thanked her for taking care of him that time? No, he'd used her and hurt her instead. All he could do was try to repay her kindness now, even though it had been nothing short of hostile invasion at the time. It would be the same for her, but if he was conscious of the role reversal then so probably was she.
The sad thing was that he knew most of what she was going through. He knew it so well, he knew that she wouldn't believe him if he said he understood.
Suddenly he saw himself in that sun- washed field mirrored in her, vulnerable and ruined, full of shame and self-hatred, now that someone had his way with her waiting for death to do the same, praying no one would ever look on her again, especially not the one who had her heart...
But that was himself.
What was he doing to her like this?
His younger self had taken form before him. The impetus to turn and run was so strong...
And wouldn't that just prove her right in thinking she was poisoned?
Yet he was the one she would not want to see her, the one she'd be afraid of poisoning, and wouldn't every moment he was beside her be a torment of shame and fear?
He must not stay; he must not leave. He must not touch her; he must not avoid her. Yumi wasn't a shadow out of his own past, she was a real person.
A lot of people would probably say I'm strong. But I can barely manage to rescue a damsel in distress...
Wasn't he the master of shutting off his own feelings? But he couldn't do it, not any more. She was too...real.
He was frozen. He felt panic building in him.
He knew what he should do, and made himself go through the motions of doing so. He pulled her up and told her, "Here, get in the shower. You'll feel better, I promise." Unfortunately her dorm had a community bathroom. Maybe they should have gone back to his room. But it was the middle of the day; probably no one would be there. He found her bathrobe and shower things, and put the robe over her shoulders before he took off the broken jacket and makeshift skirt. He led her down the hall, since she obviously didn't feel like moving on her own, and flung the tablecloth in the other direction so she wouldn't have to look at the relic from Akio's rooms. He probably should put something on her hand. Perhaps it would be better to leave and get her friend to take care of her. Because the truth was even though he understood so well, he didn't know how to help her.
He opened the bathroom door, then found her a stall and adjusted the water for her. The sound of running water hitting the tiled floor felt too loud. Should he stay with her? He suspected she wouldn't want anyone to see her naked at the moment, especially not him. But did she want to be alone? "Just take a nice long shower and then soak in the bath. I'll be right outside. Bang on the wall if you want me."
She removed her bathrobe and hung it up slowly, obeying as bleakly as the Rose Bride. The thought chilled him. He couldn't sing to her as she might have done for him, but when she was finished he might put on some of that J-pop she liked. He turned and left, thinking to sit in the hallway. Maybe her floormates would see him there and wonder, but he couldn't care less.
Methodically she took the things out of the shower caddy one by one, putting them down in a neat row like someone with an OCD. Shampoo, body wash, scrubby, razor, face soap, shave gel.
Razor? Well, it would take some effort to scrape off her skin with an implement designed for removing leg and armpit hair, but it would have to do. Now where to start? The skin over her wrists was weak and easily accessible. That would allow for a good first incision. Besides, it would bleed a lot there and make it look like she was getting somewhere.
He happened to turn his head as he opened the door to leave, just so that his peripheral vision caught her lunging at herself with her razor. He screamed her name and ran to her, nearly falling as he slipped on the wet floor, grabbing her arm and hitting the back of her hand with a move designed to make one's opponent drop his kendo stick.
"Ow!" she yelled as the razor fell from her grip. That was the hand she'd been biting. She moved to pick it up again, but he locked her in his arms and kept her from moving, hating that he had to do such a thing after what she'd just lived through.
Everything that she felt, he knew so keenly, he hurt so badly for her he could barely stand it. "Please don't do that," he begged her. "Don't ever do that." But she'd wanted him to stop her, he realized. If she really wanted to die she would have waited until well after he'd left. More than she wanted to hurt herself, she was only screaming at him not to leave her alone.
"Fuck you! Get off me!" she cried, furious. She had every right to cut all her skin off! Why did he think he had to stop her?!
But she was torn in half, a split personality. Half of her that answered only to her creator and master known as End Of The World, that knew she was claimed by darkness, destined to be the new Rose Bride, that pleaded for the return to the deep oblivion where he would silence the pain of her riven dreams. He who understood her, who had the power to make the burning constellations of her existence into a quiet rose-scented planetarium. Half of her that was forever tainted and screamed at the one she loved to get away from her lest he too fall into blackness.
And half of her that answered only to those dreams, riven though they might be, the half that would stand and fight for the truth even as it destroyed her from within, that drove full speed for a future where her beloved would be happy regardless of her own selfish sorrow. Half of her that feared being alone more than anything, that screamed for him to hold her and save her from the darkness.
Mayumiare the Rose Bride, Maigo Yumi the weird girl, two halves of her being, a soul at war with itself. And all she asked for was to get rid of her skin! She struggled against his hold.
Why did it take this kind of disaster to make him realize that she was important to him? He wanted to say "I love you," but it would be even worse than saying "I hate you," simply because it wasn't the love she wanted from him. She needed to hear koi shiteru and all he could tell her without lying was ai shiteru. A difference in one syllable that tormented her beyond imagining.
"Get away from me!" Her words were the same, her voice was the same, as that broken boy nearly hidden by cabbage heads and little white butterflies when Kyouichi had found him after a confused day of searching. The sound had an existence of its own, a savage beast ripping his soul to pieces. His hold on her slackened; it took every ounce of his strength not to cry. Why did such a thing have to happen to her? No one deserved the kind of fate he'd suffered, especially not Yumi, already drowning in her sorrow of ill-starred love. Maybe he shouldn't interfere with her death wish—surely death would be kinder to her than he could be.
"I'm sorry," he said stupidly. Sorry he didn't know how to help her. Sorry he couldn't love her the way she wanted. Sorry that everything she did and everything that was done to her was because of her feelings for him. "Yumi, I'm so sorry."
The pain and sincerity in his voice reached some level of her awareness, reminding her that he did, in fact, understand. And he really, truly wanted her to stop hurting. If End Of The World wanted to quell her anguish it was so that he could take its power for himself. But fragile, beautiful Touga just wanted her to be able to live in her own identity without it rending her apart every moment. And didn't she want the same thing for him?
She was too weak to know what she wanted anymore. Even if she died there would be no peace for her. There was just one way that might possibly quiet the screaming in her soul, and that was to give up her soul entirely—and become the Rose Bride.
Was this how it had gone with Himemiya Anthy? Had she too been trapped in a destiny so unbearable that she had no recourse but to descend into Akio's blackness in search of numbing solace?
But somehow, in the end, that pink- haired prince had saved her from it.
If Touga truly wanted to save her from that, let him try, let him be noble and chivalrous. Let the last prince try to save this sullied princess. She would never have what she ached for, so how did the end of the story matter?
She had gone limp, as catatonic as he'd been after she, full of bright force and the nobility of her feelings, had stopped his own suicidal musings. The role reversal was so vivid, it felt like there was some cosmic purpose to it, but one that escaped him entirely. Heedless of his pristine uniform, he washed her just as she'd done for him, but more thoroughly since he remembered so well that aftermath sense of "dirty." Then he lifted the lid from the bath and helped her in, unable to do anything but hold her hand and stroke her head slowly, gazing at her from the depths of compassion, praying for the strength that had brought her this far.
Her mind felt as dark and strange as the bottom of the ocean. From somewhere in that drifting blackness she recalled the same scene inverted. She remembered thinking back then that she would be his Rose Bride.
Wasn't that what they called "irony"? That was pretty funny, really. It was the kind of thing that would make a person in a straitjacket laugh.
When she began to adapt, as humans are able to do, she grew restless with his gentle regard. "Stop treating me like I'm made of glass. Go back to how you used to be around me. Tease me about something! Make me melt into the floor!"
It was the most she'd said to him since calling him an idiot with tears of blood.
"It won't take you back in time," he said softly.
"Fuck time! Quit pussyfooting around me like I'm some invalid. Unless you think I should be in a mental home."
"Of course not!" In fact it was quite a relief to hear her ranting. It meant she was getting her strength back. "Not unless you want to be there."
She'd wanted the kind of useless banter with which she used to make him laugh, but he was right, it was no good to pretend that they were at any other place than now. She was out of self-deprecating sarcasm, out of laughter, as though the first vital organ to go was her sense of humor. Nothing came out but harsh truth. "I don't know where I want to be. I'm broken on my feet. Why don't you leave me?" And go back to the one you love, was what she meant.
"I don't want to leave you."
"You should," she mumbled.
"No." If she was going to go off on that tangent again, he really would have to quiet her the best way he knew and make her melt into the floor.
How is it that I keep standing? she wondered. But even more than she hated what fate had dealt her, she hated to see him deny it. And she was getting used to unbearable agony. "When? When will you stop this? If you still feel that way, you cannot truly believe that it's gone!"
She must be trying to provoke him, he thought; she must want him to seduce her the way he did when there were feelings to bury. She wanted her old illusions back. And who could blame her for wanting to return to her fool's paradise?
Or else she was just horny and he hadn't been giving her enough, treating her like she was made of glass, as it were.
Either way she knew now what kind of words would get to him, how to bend him to her will with the threat of their cruelty, even if she didn't consciously intend it. So he swept her up and gave her the smoldering gaze that made her weak-kneed and breathless. "Everything you think you know...you'd do best to forget," he told her in that low bedroom voice. "Forget it all. I'll empty your mind, and fill...your body..."
She sighed, waiting for his lips to meet hers.
But he made her wait. It was better that way.
She seemed to float in a state like a waking dream, feeling as though reality was losing hold of her rather than the other way around. She walked around the campus with a sense of utter detachment from everything, wondering if the effort of survival was consuming her very soul, turning her back into something unseen and unknown, or if perhaps the bindings between her body and spirit were fraying like rope stretched too tight, soon to break in death. The more she adapted to pain, the farther she got from the world.
Words lost their meaning, so she ceased to speak except for yes and no, and when others spoke to her it sounded like distant mumbling. Books could no longer hold her attention. The most complicated thing she could concentrate on was a blade of grass twitching in the breeze, or perhaps the droning of a cicada. She saved all her clarity for fencing practice, so that Juri and Miki would not think her a complete wreck. But Juri, of course, noticed anyway.
"What on earth is happening to you?" Juri demanded.
Yumi looked at her, blank-faced, sorrow-eyed.
"Have you gone deaf and dumb?"
"No."
"People's personalities don't do a one-eighty for no reason at all. Either Himemiya made you some curry, or something's ripped the world out from under your feet. Why is Kiryuu acting so sweet and apologetic around you?"
"You might try asking him yourself, sempai." She stalked away. That was more than anyone had gotten her to say for some time.
Miki had no opinions to offer on the matter. He was upset by Anthy's departure, which hadn't even included any farewells.
Yumi was hoping that Juri did not decide to confront Touga on the issue. She didn't want him to have to fend off such questions. But the Student Council was no longer meeting, and there were no more letters from End Of The World, so perhaps there would be no chance for Juri to interrogate him.
She felt like he was slipping farther away from her just like everything else. Even when he held her close there seemed to be impossible distance between them. But it was just the space inside her heart. Was this the meaning of "loneliness"?
Still, he was the only real part of this half-reality in which she existed. She clung to the idea of him, the truth of her feelings that even now refused to change, the one shining thread that could not break.
It was summer vacation. There was nothing to do, and if there was, Yumi probably wouldn't have done it. She sat by herself in a corner of the high bleachers. The sun had just set, and she was listening to the cicadas. Their monotonous buzzing was constant in a world that had been ripped out from under her feet.
She heard footsteps and sensed someone sit down beside her. It was not anyone she had any desire to see. She kept her attention on the cicadas.
But Akio, of course, was insistent. He was about to touch her.
"Please don't bother me," she said in that quiet voice which shouldn't be coming from her. "I'm listening to the cicadas."
"You don't think it's an annoying sound?"
"I think you're annoying. Please go away." Apparently he was still able to bring out all her impudence.
"I can do better than annoying. I wonder if you're still as quick to anger from the abyss of despair?"
"Maybe if I ignore it, it'll leave, like a stray dog," she murmured as if thinking aloud.
"I've got plenty of things that would anger you..." He stretched out beside her languidly. "I'd be helping you out, you know. Anger gives you strength."
She hummed the old song about cherry blossoms, which didn't exactly go with the cicadas, but she couldn't think of any summer songs.
"It's almost impossible to get guns in Japan," he said conversationally. "But I've had one for a while. You never know when you might need a thing like that. I've been dangerously careless with it, though. Sometimes I leave it lying around, loaded, where people can find it..." He laughed when she whirled on him, eyes all furious and falcon-sharp. "Ah, you see? You're looking better already."
"You'll regret it."
"Will I? Poor thing, you've always needed something to fight. First you fought the facade that wouldn't let you in; then you fought the pink-haired prince; but now, instead of fighting your true rival, you've laid down your arms and given up..."
Even as the words stung, cutting through her detachment, more pieces fell together before her mind's eye. "Maybe that's because my true rival isn't my true enemy."
He laughed again. "That's right. Your enemy is a dead lie, and how do you fight something that's already dead?"
"Without anger," she replied calmly. "So once again, you've proved yourself to be totally useless."
"You haven't completely lost your sharp tongue, it seems..." Suddenly he seized her in a devilish parody of a romance-novel embrace. "Be careful you don't drive me to temper it."
She was terrified. She meant to scream, but only managed a mousy squeak. His face was far too close to hers; she tried to keep from breathing his rose-garden scent. She squeezed her eyes shut against his jade green gaze, willing him away like a nightmare. He didn't disappear. He stroked the back of her neck, and then somehow she found the strength to push him off and edge away. "Don't think that I can't fight you!"
He smiled. "Fight me? With what, an army of cicadas?"
Though she trembled, she glared defiantly.
"Well then, I'll leave you to assemble your battalions." He stood with a crisp move, gave her a slight mocking bow, and walked off.
She sat down again, ignoring her trembling and cold nausea and the impotent rage that pushed her almost to tears, and the other feelings she'd never admit. She filled her ears and her concetration with the steady comforting drone of cicadas, nothing but the cicadas...
Something caught her, nearly bowling her over, and held her tightly. She cried out just before she realized it was Touga. The relief she felt bordered on absurd, and she collapsed into him. His breath was a bit labored; he'd been running. He must have seen her at what looked like the dubious mercy of End Of The World.
"Be careful. Oh, Yumi, be careful."
So this was the truth. She had one last battle to fight.
It was the old samurai ethic, the Way of the Warrior, how the greatest heroes were the ones who fought against invincible odds, perhaps sacrificing themselves for the cause; and if they failed, all the more valiant for it.
She would fight for the cause that would kill her.
Until either victory or defeat, she would live. This was the only path forward. She must draw her sword under the banner of dead lies, wearing a crest of exploded stars.
She did not let the new pain of this realization stall her. She went to her blank book and wrote down all the facts, poring over them, trying to find something that would make a battle plan.
Again and again, her path went back to fighting End Of The World. It seemed like every day he came up with more reasons to be her enemy. He had been her only true enemy from the beginning.
But she didn't know how to fight him. No one did. With anger, or with peace? With a sword, or with one's heart? What was the way to defeat someone—something—who held all the cards?
If End Of The World possessed anything like a weakness, she had to find it. Oh, that she could speak to the unseen ones now, to ask watchers and imps! But the next best thing was a psychic friend.
As though she'd heard Yumi think of her, Miteki showed up. "Hey, Yumi-chan, you here?" She was holding a bunch of dandelions.
"Oh, pretty!" Yumi exclaimed, surprising herself. She hadn't marveled at anything pretty for...hell knew how long. "What are they called?"
Miteki was surprised as well. She hadn't expected Yumi to even notice the flowers. "They're called tanpopo," she replied, "but I think the English word sounds even prettier. It's 'dandelion.' They remind me of you. They're so sunny and happy-looking, and they grow pretty much anywhere. And no matter how many times you cut them down, they grow back, because their strength goes far beneath the ground."
Yumi threw herself at Miteki in a hug.
"Don't smoosh them!" Miteki giggled, embarrassed.
Yumi giggled too, and took the flowers to put them in water.
"Wow, you really did grow back."
"It's the last battle. I fight with the crest of exploded stars," said Yumi, putting the glass of dandelions on the table. She sounded oddly matter-of-factual for such strange words.
"Huh?"
"Oh, they even smell like sunlight!"
Miteki got worried again. She'd heard that sometimes people who decide to take their own lives appear briefly happy before they depart forever. "Hey, what's going on? What do you mean, 'the last battle'?"
Yumi looked at her somberly. "Teki-chan... I'm sorry."
"What?"
She sighed, looking sorrowful like before, and apologetic. "It seems to me that I shouldn't tell you. But you'd probably find out, being what you are. I walk a path...that leads only to death."
"What are you saying?" cried Miteki.
"I wouldn't expect this to make sense..." Yumi sat down and closed her eyes, unable to look at her friend any more as she spoke. Her soul panged with every word. "The one called End Of The World is keeping him from happiness. I must fight for his happiness, though I have no place in it. If I lose this fight, it will be because End Of The World destroys me. If I win, and return him to his true self, that too will destroy me. Because as I told you, the heart he keeps hidden from everyone belongs to another."
"Yumi-chan!" Tears shimmered in Miteki's eyes. "Why do you have to fight like that? Why can't he fight for himself?"
"Because he's already given up! But his feelings are still there, and this is the only way I can go forward! It's so far gone, they can't see it any more. Only an outsider, an intruder like me can see it!"
"I don't get it! How do you know all that? Was he mean enough to tell you?"
"He didn't have to. I've been after that secret the whole time, fool that I am!"
"If you're the only one who can see it, how do you know it's for real?"
"Ask him, if you dare!" Yumi's voice seemed torn from her, the sound of raw pain. "Ask him if he loves Saionji Kyouichi!"
Miteki gasped.
"No, no, no!" Yumi shrieked with remorse at having spilled his innermost secret, banging the table and making the glass of dandelions jump. "How could I! Oh, he'll hate me!"
"Hate you for what?" Miteki said softly. "I've heard absolutely nothing."
Yumi blinked at her. Of course no one had to know that Miteki knew. There was nothing Miteki could do with that secret anyway.
...Except maybe...
"I hope you've forgiven Saionji by now," said Yumi just as quietly, "because if you try to use that against him I'll be very upset."
"No, I'll just dump a punch bowl on him."
That got Yumi to laugh, albeit weakly.
"Well...do you wanna get some coffee?"
Yumi did not answer that. It was clear she was a little angry at Miteki. "Please don't question me. I know what I know."
"So, why do you have to walk a path that will destroy you!?"
"If there is another path that leads forward, I will find it." She looked genuinely regretful again. "Please forgive me."
Miteki stared not at her but at the bright yellow flowers. "I'll help you find it."
"I was going to ask your help."
"Okay." Miteki tried to smile.
"Well, I was thinking like this," said Yumi. "You thought of that story about the Morning Star when you saw that name. I wouldn't even believe that it's his real name, but then that would mean it's one he's chosen for himself. So I thought that since that story seems to be so relevant to him, maybe there's something in those books you have that might tell me what his weakness is. Because I know I have to fight him, but I don't know how."
"We don't have to look that up," Miteki replied glumly. "The Devil doesn't have any 'weakness.' He's the personification of evil. It's the Morning Star because you can only see it before the sun, the light of God, comes up. I mean, that's how the story is, only God can vanquish the Devil. Well, even God can't, really, because good and evil are both immortal. But do you really believe in things like absolute good and absolute evil?"
"I don't know. But when I think about it, it does seem like things are divided into those extremes."
Miteki sat down, now engaged in the philosophical battle strategy. "Hm. I'm not sure this is the right way to think... But if your enemy is, to you, absolute evil, what constitutes absolute good?"
Tenderness and sorrow came into Yumi's face as she looked away, whispering, "Touga's happiness..." Then she looked up again. "But that's the problem! That's what I'm trying to fight for!"
"Then you keep the idea of it in your heart. Didn't you say that to me before? 'Nothing can touch you when you think of the one you love.'"
"Yes...but...I don't know how to fight. I have to attack." She got the book she'd been writing in from the sofa and opened it on the table. "There has to be a weakness. Like...the sister! Have you seen Himemiya Anthy?"
"She left. Miki's all upset. She didn't even say goodbye to anyone."
"Really? That's weird." Yumi scribbled the news in the book. So that was why Miki hadn't tried to interrogate her—he had his own problems. Miteki ought to move in. But this was important for other reasons... "Oh, I wonder if he could be upset about it!"
"What would that do for you?"
"I don't know. If he's upset it would only be because it put a dent in his plans somehow. I wonder if his power came from her, or the other way around. You know, maybe..." Yumi tapped the book with the end of her Hello Kitty pen. Her voice lowered, as though the enemy could be listening; he probably was. "Maybe he's tied to this campus. I mean, it's such a strange place, it could be that his power comes from it. Has anyone ever seen him off campus? I wonder if it'd be better to fight off campus..."
"Why do you keep saying 'fight,' anyway? Are you actually going to try and kill him or something?"
"Well...not if I can help it. Fuck it, let's get coffee."
Yumi thought it a little strange that she never saw her "true rival" around. If fate was so cruel, it would be more typical for her to see Kyouichi at every turn. She was curious about how she might react if he tried to mock her again. Would she flee like a startled deer? Would she fly into a rage and cry tears of blood? Would she withdraw into herself with silent sorrow, or speak words designed to cut to the quick?
Would she tell Kyouichi what she knew? Would she taunt him with tales of how Touga protested it, or put forth vain effort to make him see that it was still true?
But apparently he was avoiding her like the plague. Touga could trust her not to hurt him no matter how much she knew; Kyouichi, however, had no reason whatsoever to trust her, and plenty of reasons not to.
Both of them were in a place so far gone that they could not believe the truth of the other's feelings, nor admit to their own, no matter how many tears of blood she cried for them.
And when she thought of this, she felt more than ever that her final days were near.
She wanted to ask Touga why he still cared for her, now that she was nothing but sorrow, the ghost who screamed atop the Tower. But she did not ask. She found her strength in his presence, and even if she was not the one, when he held her she was able to see the spark of light that could keep her going for just a little longer. He never left her alone for long, as though he felt he had to protect her from herself.
She gathered this strength, spinning it like silk from the cocoon of his regard. She wove all of her courage together, and then one day when the sun shone hot and strong as it had that first day of her last days, she went to the Student Council terrace and waited. A phantom karate tournament played out beside her, a figment of the Tower's shaky version of reality. She looked out at the forest, wondering what was happening to the Arena now that the duels had ended. Had they ever really taken place? Who had they been fighting?
She had not told anyone what she was up to. They would never let her try it. Especially not Touga...
The enemy revealed himself finally. "Is that Yumi? Admiring the view?" Apparently he thought himself too important to use only her false surname as she'd told him to. "It's rather hot out, isn't it. Why don't you come up for some tea?"
She turned slowly. It would be a lie to say that she wasn't afraid, headed into the lair of absolute evil, but she held the idea of her absolute goodness in her heart.
She had time in the elevator to realize what an incredibly stupid scheme this was. What the hell was she thinking? Had he gotten into her head like everyone else's? She hadn't even left herself an escape route. Suddenly she was terrified, feeling the calculating, uncanny jade green eyes on her.
It was more than likely that he sensed her terror, yet she was determined not to show it. She raised her eyebrows cynically. "Ojama shimasu?" she said as though she wasn't sure whether he deserved such polite social norms.
Akio smiled. She hated it when he smiled. It made her skin crawl and her insides shrivel up—while at the same time it sent tendrils of dark aphrodisiac sliding along her nerves. She lashed out against it. "So why would you invite someone as uncivilized as me up here?"
"You interest me," was his sinister reply. "I simply would like to get to know you a little better."
Like hell you will, she thought.
"...Perhaps at other schools they see the student body only as a collective group. But I like to look at the students here as individuals. And you, Yumi, are a very unique individual."
"Spare me the bullshit, Mr. Incubus Chairman." Her terror was multiplying with each smooth word out of his mouth. But she'd fight to the death. The exit wouldn't work for her, but she had to put more space between them. She moved into the vast expanse of the room, where reality felt eerily suspended and malleable, like the Arena. It was cool, almost chilly. Of course the Trustee Chairman's rooms would have air-conditioning when no one else's did. That was not why she had goosebumps, however.
"See?" he chuckled. "You are unique. You never fail to speak your mind, and that's very rare. Even more amazing is how you manage to get away with it."
"Yeah, sure. I'm so fucking amazing. What's your point?"
"It wouldn't be right to tell you just standing here. Won't you sit down and have some tea?"
"Can you make it the way I like mine?"
"How's that?"
"Without roofies."
He laughed. She didn't like making him laugh either. But sarcasm was her only shield, caustic remarks her only weapon. She was working with a fairly limited arsenal here.
"Yumi! I'm shocked that you would think such a thing of me." He paused before delivering the punchline. "I always take my lovers conscious."
"I think I'm going to throw up," she told him flatly. It was true. She hoped desperately that she would; no one would want to seduce someone who'd just puked.
"Oh, well then you really should sit down. Come now..." He took her by the hand and led her to the sofa, and instead of trying to resist she focused on the nauseous terror of the unwelcome touch and busied herself with sticking her finger down her throat, because she'd read that was how to make yourself sick. What better way to get her point across than losing her lunch all over his couch, or even better, himself?
But he caught her at it, of course. "What on earth are you doing? Did you have something bad for lunch?" He stopped her and made her choke, acid burning in her throat.
Oh shit, she thought, shit shit SHIT! Now she was helpless. What would he decide to do with her now that she was occupied trying not to breathe her own vomit?
He just stood there and took the chance to put a supporting hand on her back. She recovered quickly enough and realized that suddenly she was no longer nauseated.
He had taken the nausea from her.
He could control her body?
Her mind screamed in terror. She backed away.
He put on a facade of concern. "Yumi, are you alright? Why are you doing that to yourself?" He knew perfectly well, and he had to give her credit, it was a clever plan. He had just barely prevented it from working.
"Why, I was just trying to illustrate my candid opinion of you," she replied haughtily, her voice scratchy from gagging.
He flinched. "Harsh. But I can't blame you for lashing out." He put a hand to her face to touch her tenderly, which he had no right whatsoever to do. "You're hurting so much..."
What did he know!? The pain surged up inside her at being mentioned. She slapped his hand away, and it took a good deal of resolve to voluntarily touch him even for that.
His voice, deep and sonorous as thunder, spoke gently, soothing, but it seemed that underneath his bass tones she could hear the ominous hum of danger, of eternal darkness. Of sensuality... "Yumi, I know. It saddens me to see you suffer so deeply, unable to see any end to your pain. The one thing you wanted turned out to be the one thing you couldn't bear. Unrequited love. There is no greater sorrow."
It infuriated her, how he could bring out her feelings and rub them in her face and pass it off as compassion. The familiar agony ripped through her soul, sharpened its talons on the fabric of her existence, raking her thoughts into shreds... And this, this thing, had no right to know of it. "Don't you fucking pity me!" she spat.
"I don't pity you at all," he said in that calming, mellow voice. "I admire you. You're so brave to carry such a burden. You bear your sorrow in such beautiful nobility."
And didn't she want to believe that someone would give her credit for her suffering? Didn't she deserve some kind of acknowledgement for living like this? It was a nice thought, and she was flattered for a moment, until she remembered who was speaking.
"Oh really? You wouldn't know love or sorrow if it shoved a kendo stick up your ass."
"You're quite wrong." He was giving her this look, this intense jade stare, awestruck—and lustful. She was trapped in it, like they say a snake can hypnotize its prey with its eyes. She was scared—so scared—but weak under his spellweaving, the charisma of the fallen angel, the devil's enchantment. He was the very embodiment of the shadowy allure of evil, the seductive power of darkness, the danger and the temptation. It would be so easy to go over the edge. The dark power crept into her limbs, beneath her skirt, devouring her free will. She backed away again, conserving her willpower for a moment when she could run.
He moved closer. He wouldn't let her put even a meter between them. "Let me save you from your tragedy. This sadness is swallowing you whole. I don't want to see you disappear."
"I don't need to be 'saved.' Especially not by you!"
"I know. You love him so much, you can't see how that would ever change. But Yumi, look..." He moved in still closer. "I'm everything he is...and more."
Fear made her voice shrill. "Oh yeah, you're more alright. More of a manipulative asshole, more of a messed-up piece of shit, more of a slut and more of a sister-fucker!"
"Touché. But, if I can say this without being condescending, you have no idea what was going on."
"I've got enough of an idea." She backed away some more, and found herself up against the massive twin globes of the planetarium. "Well, look at this. It's the apocalypse dorkfest. Did you get this off eBay while smoking up? What the hell is it supposed to be, some disgusting Freudian imagery?"
"I assume you're referring to the planetarium? It's sort of a model of the cosmos. It projects all the stars and constellations. Would you like to see it?"
"That's the stupidest thing I ever heard. Why don't you just look at the real stars?"
"You can't always see the 'real' stars. And never all at once. With a planetarium you can see all the stars you want, whenever you want."
"But they're fake stars! That's so stupid!"
"What is a star but a point of light? It's exactly the same."
"Real stars live in the sky, where they can't be switched on and off by weirdos like you."
"Do you like the stars, Yumi?" He was doing that voice again, and that look, sending chills down her spine. "Stars burn themselves out, you know. The brighter they shine, the faster they die."
She got the most eerie sense of déjˆ vu. She must have read that somewhere. "Idiot. That's why they're beautiful, because they're burning. Planetarium, what bullshit. Have you ever actually looked at that thing? It's ugly as hell."
"Not to your taste? I admit it is rather avant-garde for a sitting room. Well, let me show you some rooms that I was more traditional in furnishing."
"Oh, I really liked the elevator. In fact, I really prefer looking at the place from the outside." She remembered that it was her own idea to attempt to infiltrate the enemy's lair; obviously this was the most idiotic thing she'd ever thought of.
"But I think you'll like this one." He didn't lead her, but rather herded her, almost as though he chose where her feet would land, down some stairs and through some corridors. How could she get away? She found herself inexplicably in the doorway of a room much like Touga's, except where his was pink, this one was ink black. And there were candles everywhere. A bedroom.
You gotta be kidding me, she thought, and would have slapped her forehead if she had been in a state of lesser anxiety. This can't possibly be happening.
He was blocking the doorway, propping an arm against one side. "How do you like it?" he said, voice heavy with suggestion, his lids half closed to display dark black lashes against dark skin, curving sensuous lips, hedonism carved as deeply into every line of him as it had ever been with the one she loved.
She shivered, her mind frozen with the effort of fighting off the threat of dark lust. The space he left as he leaned against the doorway registered finally, but she was careful not to move her eyes toward it. "Man, it sure does look gloomy," she said.
"Is there any pleasing you?" he mused.
Not by you! She seized the moment of his mocking sigh and darted through the little gap, then sprinted for her life. Where she could run, she had no idea. She suspected there wouldn't be a way out for her. Perhaps her best bet would be to crash right through a window and hope she could remember how to float. Or find something to use as a weapon—not against him, that would be ineffectual, but against herself, to threaten him with her own death. He had some kind of diabolical scheme set up for her. Her only defense would be suicide. Better that than....
He was right in front of her.
HOW!?!
She couldn't stop her own momentum, and would have tumbled over ass-in-the-air, but instead he caught her and she fell right into his scarlet-shirted arms.
"Careful there."
She broke away, spastic in her terror, unsure where to move. How? HOW?!
He heard the question shouting in her mind. "Don't you know? Time and space obey my laws here."
She made a strange shaky sound between a sob and a whine, a sound of pure horror, as she groped at the wall, almost fainting. He trapped her against it, not touching her, but surrounding her, looking down from his unusual height into the fear plain on her face. The lock of lavender hair that never obeyed danced between her eyes.
"What do you want!" she whined, near tears.
"I'll tell you what I want," he said, the breath of his words touching her and making her turn away. "I want you. Your mysteries. Your power. You don't realize it but you have enormous power. You saw the story of the Princess who became a Prince and set the Rose Bride free. But that simply means there must be a new Rose Bride. You are the chosen one—the next Rose Bride."
"NO!"
"You have no idea," he whispered. She shuddered, locked in fierce battle with the tendrils of inky desire winding around her. She was being overtaken, her knees weak, her mind fogging... But she hated him. She hated everything he was with the same fierceness as her love, because of her love. She said it aloud, reminding herself.
"Hate me? Why would you hate me? I made you what you are."
Confusion added to the terror and anger on her features.
"I know of the unseen watchers, Yumi. Indeed, all the supernatural beings that others can't see—I see them all. I knew you were in the room that day in Nemuro Memorial Hall. Each word I spoke there was for you. You didn't think you stumbled on your dear Touga's past by chance, did you? I gave you his secret. And then I sent the imps to explain it to your innocent fairy heart. I saw what you could become and I made you."
Anger, a wounded animal's ferocity, built inside her. "Shitface demon! I'm no creation of yours!" She fought to get away, kicking and scratching, but he pinned her against the wall by her wrists. And he gazed into her furious golden eyes, making them wide with terror at his intent, before he leaned in and kissed her.
As kisses go, it was rather chaste, but his dark power was wrapped up in it. Her body reacted against her will, electrical lust shocking into her, and she pulled her face away and screamed with the humiliation, the frustration, the terrible shame of her fickle body betraying her own heart, feeling desire for one who was not her beloved—who was her one true enemy.
"Silly girl. After all your time with him, haven't you learned that love and desire are not the same thing?"
She gritted her teeth. He would not see her tears!
"It's alright," he whispered in her ear. "I'm the one who understands you... Mayumiare."
She gasped at the sound of her old, forgotten name. Too confused to move, she couldn't fight when he lifted her easily off the floor and carried her against his chest, her lanky frame curling up in fear and becoming no more than a child's to him. It was easy to set her down on the soft black bed; the challenge would be to get her out of the armadillo shape. He knew just how to go about it, however.
Almost idly he removed his tie, undid a few shirt buttons and his ponytail, shaking out the lustrous pale hair. He could hear the panic in her head—Help me! Help me!—and nearly laughed. Who did she think would show?
"You're not the only one I made, you know," he said conversationally, curling himself around her and feeling her shudder as he ran fingertips along a pale exposed thigh. He spoke into her hair, beside her shoulder, against the nape of her neck. "I made this place and everyone in it. I spent extra time on the Student Council, of course. Take Miki, for example. The effects of a parents' divorce in late childhood are very far-reaching. I sent Anthy to divide his parents, and the relationship between the twin siblings became hopelessly warped. But of course, you want to hear about your prince. I already told you what happened to him, though. Well, before that I drove his and Nanami's parents to affairs that both ended in love suicides. A double double suicide, and those two young children left behind! It was the tragedy of the decade. The skewed, deadly love planted the seeds for Nanami's complex. Anyway, then they were adopted, of course, and he met your rival Saionji. And then...well, you know. A man took advantage of him. But here's another secret." He put his lips to her ear, murmuring lasciviously. "Do you know who it was who ravished a young red-haired boy one bright summer's day in a cabbage field? It wasn't his foster father. That's just how he remembers it." He paused, listening to her heart pound. "It was me."
The world stopped.
Truths shattered into horrific clarity. Her nerves, stretched taut and rebellious against their instincts, snapped like over-tuned harpstrings. She opened her eyes and it could have been the candlelight, but he was sure her eyes were glowing in her explosion of vengeful fury.
Adrenaline shot into her blood, and she screamed a grating warrior cry, attacking without planning. She couldn't have planned an attack even if she had anything to fight with. One thing filled her mind, a primal command—Kill! Maim! Destroy!! And she attacked like a wild dog, snarling, scratching, trying with all her wiry might to tear him limb from limb.
In doing so she had given up her defensive shape, and he soon—though not, he had to admit, without some effort—pinned her beneath him. He straddled her, holding her wrists down so she couldn't claw out his eyes as she itched to do, putting just enough weight on her to keep her down, taking in the heat of her rage. She kicked, probably giving him some decent bruises that might last a few seconds.
"I'll kill you! Do you hear me! I'LL FUCKING KILL YOU!!"
Actually it was hard to look at her, almost painful, the way her eyes were burning into him. She did have power. Even now, with no way to fight, she was fighting simply with the force of her feelings, so livid that she forgot what was happening to her. He would remind her. Once he took her, he would begin to bend her powers to his aims. She would be a valuable asset.
If he tried to kiss her now she'd bite his face off, he had no doubt. He would have to subdue her further first. "I felt I had to help you out a bit, seeing the way you suffer so bravely. I thought maybe if I did the same thing to you, it might give you some common ground to work with, so you might win him back..." It was working. Her fury was turning back into fear. "I believe you said once that you want to know everything he is. I can show you..." Deftly he moved her so that he could pin her arms with one hand and strip her with the other. Rather than bothering to undo the clasps of her Student Council jacket, he just ripped them off.
"Stop it..." she whined desperately.
"Well, he wasn't naked, but I think you should be. Pretty little uniform, though...with those shorts..."
The traitorous desire coursed through her veins again—now even more disgusting with this new secret! Someone should burn her at the stake for this. Her hatred turned inward from shame. She tried to struggle again, but he pressed his weight into her, maneuvering expertly to get her shirt off without releasing her.
He could feel the power brimming within her, and thrilled at the luscious sensation of it emanating into him. It would be very satisfying taking her energies.
It was not simply the weight of him that stopped her struggling, but the unwelcome flush of mad lust that invaded her at the contact of his warm, chiseled body, contrasted with the rage and revulsion in her mind, killing her spirit with terror and betrayal. Still she thrashed about as though in the throes of a nightmare. Wasn't this a nightmare? Wasn't it?
"You'll be the same now, you and him," he was crooning hotly in her ear. "I'll bind you to him forever. You want that..."
"NO!" She already was bound to him. Why...
Now, rather than pinning her down, he could stroke her skin with his fingertips, absorb the willpower from her so that she would find herself utterly unable to struggle. First the palms of her hands, and then her wrists and down the soft skin inside her arms, so slowly. It was a very erotic technique, and very paralyzing. He kissed her, light and teasing, until he found that she still had the presence of mind to bite down hard on his tongue. His impulse was to slap her just as hard, but he restrained it; that would make clear the line between rape and seduction which he blurred so well. She saw with small triumph that she had made him bleed, but he easily closed the wound. He simply continued his fingertip massage, talking soft provocative words that matched the ink black velvet. "It's hard to believe, isn't it, how easily you can lose control of your own body. You feel as though you're betraying yourself...but honestly, with a body formed specifically to be with one who devotes so much to the pleasures of the flesh, you could hardly have expected not to desire it wherever it's offered."
He had cut down her vocabulary to weak protests. "No. Please stop... Stop..."
"Maybe I should have made you some other way, someone with more control. But it doesn't really matter. I created you, so I'll do with you as I please."
He lifted her up a bit and slid off the rest of her clothes, tearing them in the process to make it easier, and admired her naked form. She was actually quite pretty, though not in a conventional sense; the fey qualities were a charming touch. And she was beautiful in her suffering and her vulnerability. Turned away, trembling, she had her eyes shut tightly.
He moved his cool fingertips over her breasts, making her pant and sob with shameful, vulgar need. The power he absorbed from her was abundant and pure, so vivid that it started his own arousal. He savored it, teasing her and draining her of resistance, touching her nipples, her ribs, the scant curve of her hips, and finally her thighs, where the skin was so soft just below her center...
"Stop it. I don't want to. Stop it."
"Good, I'm glad you're still saying that," he murmured. "I am supposed to be raping you, after all."
She made a whimpering sound, whether from terror or shame or desire, it was hard to say. He straddled her again and nipped her on the earlobe. How could he know... Her body's reaction immediate, hateful and undeniable, she exhaled sharply.
"But of course," he said against her neck, "you can't rape the willing."
No. I'm not. I'm not...
Her tenuous hold on sanity wavered and went into remission. The last vestiges of her willpower flew out of her in a cry from all of her being, a wretched keening wail broken like a sob, "STO-OOOOP!"
What a beautiful sound, he thought.
But he was not the only one who heard it.
The others did not exactly hear the sound. They heard the cry in their minds.
There were seven or eight strong psychics on campus, and many other weak psychics. The weak ones felt something amiss and looked up momentarily. The strong ones heard the anguished cry and wondered who was in such distress.
The strongest happened to be Miteki. She heard the cry so loudly that it gave her a dizzying headache, as though someone had struck a huge bronze bell with her standing inside it. Involuntarily she looked up at the Tower, then realized that she was looking at where it had come from.
And then she realized that it was Yumi's voice.
Candles in a black room!
What? That part made no sense.
But Yumi was in trouble! High up in that Tower! What could she do about it?
Get the Student Council President, said a command from her gut. How was she to find him?
There was only one way to do that—ask the groupies.
She had no resistance left. Her mind hurt with the force of her disgust with herself, so fierce she was sure she'd never be able to feel anything else again. She was claimed by darkness, poisoned, forever tainted. How could she ever show herself to him again? She would just remind him of his cruel past—she would become his past, a living shadow, an empty ghost.
The Rose Bride.
She had no power to stop it. Mocked by fortune, she would descend to the blackest of destinies, pulled by love out of that existence of light and innocence, ravaged by the truth of her longing, and finally resigned to an existence of dark and bitterness. She was the chosen one, prisoner of the roses. She could hear the imps laughing at her.
The dark one smelled of roses, the heady scent of the Student Council rose garden enfolding her, so that he even raped her memories of a living dream at midnight.
"What is the difference between rape and seduction?" he murmured next to her lips, intoning his wicked spell. "Can you draw a line between them? Is the difference in who you're with? You were his toy, and now you're mine. What does it matter, so long as you get played with?"
Weakly, barely able to move, she tried to push his face away from hers. Her helpless frailty was so enticing. He caught her hand and sucked on her finger a moment. She tasted of crystalline glimmering, of her homeland.
"Open your eyes, Mayumiare."
She could not disobey. All she saw was lavender hair and cold jade eyes shining in the candles' glow, and darkness, so much darkness. Darkness consuming her...darkness...fucking her.
The despair in her eyes was exquisite. It had been a while since he'd tasted such delicious torment. "The fairy girl, the tennyo, driven by love into mortal form, victim of her own flesh. Can you draw a line between good and bad?" He traced a line with his fingertip from her breastbone—achingly slow—to her navel—and beyond to her wet, swollen nub, just barely stroking her there. A moan escaped her, more like a cry of pain.
Unable to resist himself, he dipped two fingers into the moisture of her desire, and brought them to his mouth, tasting her self-betrayal. Salt, and tart, and pure sweet energy.
She bit her lip in humiliation. But then he kissed her again, licking her lips delicately. She squirmed.
"You want to come, don't you. How will it feel, being brought to climax by the one who violated your true love? Is it still rape if you come?" He stroked her center again, the lightest of touches, feathery torture. "But maybe he enjoyed it too. You'd have to ask him—I'm keeping that secret." He moved down, pressing his lips to her neck, her collarbone. "He comes for me all the time now, though. As will you."
Yes. Let her come. Let her get it over with so she could go somewhere and rip her skin off.
"I can make you wait, longer even than he could keep you from release. I can magick your nerves, hack into your system, so you feel endless pleasure beyond anything he could give you. Do you want that pleasure? Is it rape? Is it seduction?"
His mouth played with her breasts, and then he fastened onto a nipple and sucked her power from her like mother's milk. And still he teased her below, so that she bucked and tossed her head and bit into the back of her hand to keep herself from moaning.
Intoxicating himself on the liquid purity of her soul energy, he did not sense the disturbance.
Putting together sketchy directions, Miteki found the Student Council President as usual in a throng of giggly female students.
She froze. She hadn't the courage to approach him in front of the crowd. It had been enough speaking to scornful, suspicious groupies. But her head still rang with Yumi's cry.
She had to do something. Or she would lose her friend, she knew, to some unimaginable fate.
"Seitokaichou-sama! Please, Seitokaichou-sama!" she yelled over the groupies.
Touga recognized Yumi's bashful friend. Clearly something was wrong. He excused himself from the crowd, who gave her murderous stares.
"What is it?"
Polite as ever, Miteki bowed. "I'm so sorry to interrupt you. But...Yumi's in trouble."
"What sort of trouble?"
"I don't know. Something bad. I heard her scream. In my mind."
"...In your mind?"
"I'm a bit psychic. In my mind I heard her scream. From the Tower."
"The Tower?" Now he actually began to look worried. Shy, polite girls like Miteki didn't make up stories.
"Then I saw a black room full of candles." Suddenly that seemed relevant after all.
"I know where that is..." He got a look of shock. "Oh my god!"
"What is it? She sounded in such pain!"
He had gone pale, but turned to nod to the groupies. "You'll have to excuse me. It seems I have a damsel in distress to rescue." They sighed and swooned at his chivalry.
"Thank you," he said to Miteki and then, though his face was white as his uniform, instantly broke into a full run.
Everyone was startled. What was making the Student Council President run?
It barely crossed his mind that he would be rescuing her from his own past.
He threw the door open. Candlelight flooded from the goth carbon copy of his own room. What he saw made his stomach lurch but almost aroused him. Akio was good at that.
Until the door opened Akio was unaware of Touga's intrusion. But he knew without looking up who it was and why he was here. Damn! He should have suspected! But he hadn't noticed in time because the girl's energy was so perfectly delicious, addictive as an opiate. Nor had he imagined that anyone would find out before the project's completion. How miserably shortsighted of him. His impatience to claim a new Rose Bride had made him reckless. Well, he'd discover later how Touga had found out, if it mattered. But most likely things would still play out to his advantage. He looked slyly at the winded Student Council President. "Ah, here to join us, Seitokaichou? I heard you like using this one in threesomes." He used a rather impolite word for this one, a hair's breadth above calling her this thing.
The voice of chivalry rang out into the darkness. "Get away from her, Ohtori."
His voice reached her mind as though from a great distance, through a dense haze of nothingness. He had come to save her? She gave a thin wordless wail, of pain or relief, of desperate yearning that he was not a hallucination. And yet all she could think was Don't look at me. Don't look at me. She covered her face with her hands, one of them torn and bloody.
Her cry spiked into his soul, piercing all his armor just as she'd been trying to do the whole time. He stifled a gasp at the sight of her wounded hand.
"Why? She likes being used. Otherwise she wouldn't go after you." She was naked, defenseless, and Akio still fully clothed, making her as submissive as possible.
"Look at her! You think she's having fun!?" Touga exploded. He had never been able to defy End Of The World before. "How could you do such a thing to a person? I had hoped you weren't one to stoop this low."
"To seduction? Harsh words from the prefecture's most popular playboy."
"This is your idea of seduction!?"
"Of course. She's in need of distraction. After all, she's not the one you love." Without moving her hands Yumi slammed her elbow into his face. "Ah! Feisty one, isn't she."
"Did I not make myself clear? Leave her alone."
Akio sighed. "Fine, if you insist on being such a spoilsport." He moved her hands and kissed her a last time before getting up to stand beside Touga with a curious, complacent smile.
This seemed to Touga such a vulgar mockery of a gesture that his rare temper flared and he landed Akio a well-trained punch on the jaw. Akio let him do it; like Yumi's elbow, it wouldn't leave any damage. He fell backward and knocked over some candles, starting a fire, which he then put out with an idle wave of his hand as he got up again to watch Touga's reaction. "First you interrupt me in bed, now you hit me? That's rather poor conduct, Seitokaichou. I should have you expelled for disrespect."
"I should have you castrated."
"You've been hanging around this one too much. You seem to have picked up her sharp tongue."
Touga looked for her clothes. Only the jacket was relatively intact, so he stuffed it under his arm. He knelt beside her, taking her hand, the one that wasn't wounded, and his voice was soft and gentle. "Yumi...it's me. It's okay."
How could he say that? How could he touch her? She wanted him to hold her, wanted so badly it stung, but she yanked her hand away for fear of infecting him with the blackness that had claimed her. Apparently this was the most hilarious thing the imps had ever seen.
His heart cracked for her with an almost audible sound.
She was still on the edge of release, the dark lust still holding its dreadful command over her. Only darkness could complete darkness; the darkness inside her longed for its counterpart, its master, to finish what he'd started. The shattered fragments of her own being screamed for her one love to take her, to fill her and negate the darkness. But he would not negate it that way. He would be pulled into it. He must not touch it—he must never come near her again.
He was here to defend her from the black enchanter, but too late to break the spell. Darkness must keep to its own. It wasn't as though she had any dignity left. She turned away from him so he wouldn't see the depth of her depravity, and finished it herself.
Akio stared wantonly. He was not prone to anger, since things tended to go his way, but it didn't do much for his mood that she ended up taking her own pleasure instead of him drawing it out and savoring every euphoric drop of her power. It was the climax that would truly enslave her, the moment of release during which they were most helpless and the energy the richest, when he brought them completely under his control. It wasn't permanent, though. Energy renewed itself like blood, and he would repeat the process, savoring it all over again.
But Mayumiare had escaped, and he was quite distracted with lust for her. Her strange origin and her powerful love made an exceptional brew. To say he wanted more would be an understatement, and he was not happy at having to wait for it. Next time she would already be halfway under his power and it wouldn't be nearly as fun subduing her.
No matter. It seemed that now the new Rose Bride would be a potent weapon against Touga—almost as potent as he was against her. The interruption was annoying at best, but it actually was rather amusing that she had to finish herself off with her darling there to see her. Perhaps the imps had it right, seeing the comedy in the matter.
It was nearly undetectable, since she was so close to the edge that she hardly had to move and was there in a fraction of a minute. But Touga saw what she was doing and, though he wished he could have done something for her, knew better than to make any sign of noticing, she was so consumed by shame and so afraid of his touch. Then he sensed Akio's avaricious gaze on her, and seized by fierce protectiveness, he encircled her without touching just enough to shield her from the brute's staring.
Now that was amusing. "Shall I...leave you two alone?" said Akio, almost laughing.
Touga did not do him the courtesy of replying.
The pleasure was shallow, rushed as it was, and she wished Touga had not come to her rescue. It was useless. The darkness had already made her its own, and now he had to see her like this. Spent, she curled into a fetal position and waited for him to leave. He must leave. No more did she belong to him. She wanted to scream at him to run, to flee the darkness here before he too was swallowed up...
Too quickly for her to protest, Touga scooped her up and left the room. All he knew was he had to get her out of here. He didn't pause until the anteroom, when he realized he could hardly carry her outside stark naked like that. It was still broad daylight, and summer break at that. She was not heavy, but still he needed the weight off his arms for a moment. "Can you stand? Just for a second?" She was catatonic; if he told her to stand on her head and sing she would have done it. He set her down, gently enough to make sure she had her feet solidly on the floor. Then he wrapped her in her uniform jacket, but it wasn't enough coverage. He went to an ornamental table and yanked the tablecloth from it, not unlike Utena had once done for Anthy at a party, so swiftly that the vase of white roses on it was undisturbed. It wasn't much bigger than a towel but it would have to do. He tucked it into place around her waist and—
There was Akio standing before them.
She stood like a statue, thinking how nice it would be to scrape off all her skin. Scrape it off, rip it off, burn it off. Surely she'd get burned at the stake. The Rose Bride was a witch, and that was what happened to witches. But maybe they'd be nice enough to let her scrape off her skin first. That was all she asked for, to get rid of her poisoned skin.
"And what are you going to do with her now?" Akio inquired diffidently.
"Get her away from you, that's what."
"She'll come back."
"I don't think so." Why was he standing here arguing? This didn't do her any good!
"Come here, Touga."
It was a direct command, as though to a lapdog, yet try as he might he couldn't stop his feet from obeying. The scarlet shirt hung open, the pale hair flowed loose from its normal ponytail, the jade eyes beckoned, the ruthless magnetism pulled him in again despite what he'd just seen.
In the depths of her ravaged mind Yumi felt a little seed of anger planted. A tiny blip of feeling that was not shame, a spark in the vast infinite darkness. Something touched on the edge of her failing awareness, some huge truth that had been swallowed up by blackness. Something she should remember. If she remembered the seed would grow, the spark would burn... The terrible secret...
Akio was running his hand through a lock of silky red hair. "I don't think I'll let you off that easy. You interrupted me. I don't like being interrupted." He smiled wickedly, drawing Touga nearer. "I think you'll have to be disciplined."
He sighed, overcome by that chronic seduction that spread a soft blanket over his mind and made him forget he was supposed to be doing anything else than seeking pleasure. Yumi...I'm sorry...I can't... A haze over his consciousness, black as the room full of candles, black as shadows of eternal night. It was calm inside where there was no thought, no feeling but clear-cut, simple desires of the flesh.
The scene reached Yumi's perception as if through layers of fuzzy dreams, somewhere between real and unreal, something that was supposed to affect her though she couldn't think why.
Then the spark in her mind glowed. It became a force like a wind trapped in a box, pounding against the walls of her skull. Truth and secrets were one, stirring a hurricane inside her.
She saw this horrid creature put teasing hands upon her beloved in a deformed travesty of caresses, and his blind sensual acceptance. She saw this, and the world smashed back into reality, seething with hideous fury. It left no room for her helpless disgust with herself, room for nothing else but a rage, hot anger so vehement there was no word for it in any language, no color or sound to describe it. And no darkness that could contain it.
"DON'T YOU TOUCH HIM!"
It was not merely her voice which screamed, but the walls, the floor, the building, the entire campus, the very earth and sky somehow joined her. Her words resonated with an enormous sound as though ten thousand pianos were dropped on each syllable, almost an earthquake. Glass shattered, windows exploded outward, electromagnetic fields malfunctioned, every fuse on campus blew. The psychic sensitives who had felt her cry before now yelled in pain and fainted.
Akio was flung across the room as though by the force of a bomb. And it actually hurt. He looked at Yumi, who was floating in the air, one arm outstretched in the gesture of forbidding, glowing from within, eyes burning with golden fire, an avenging angel. He had underestimated her ability to access her power. It might even be a while before he could stand.
It was true—her fairy stories were all true. What was she? Touga shook his head in incredulous confusion.
She looked at him, her gaze blank. She drifted in slow motion back to the floor, the glow around her fading out, her torn hand falling again to her side. She blinked and her eyes rolled back in her head. He caught her as she collapsed, and, having no idea what had just happened, carried her out and away, the girl from another world, the damsel in distress.
"Look, it's that weird girl."
"She really was in trouble!"
"What happened to her hand?"
"I bet she's just trying to get attention again."
"No, didn't you hear that huge sound? Something exploded in the Tower."
"It was an earthquake."
"No way. We have earthquakes all the time in Yokohama, and this was not an earthquake."
"Hey Suzuko! Is your electricity working?"
Everywhere were fearful speculations and arguments about what had happened in the Tower and why it had knocked out the electricity. Apparently in most of the dorms it was working again, since the elevator in the Tower ran on electricity and it had taken a while for him to get Yumi down the stairs. He hoped that she was still unconscious and couldn't hear people talking about her. One girl's remark deserved a chastising glare and she looked another direction, mortified, upon receiving it.
Finally they were in her dorm. His arms were so tired. He put her down on a chair. Her eyes opened, devoid of any expression.
It was déjˆ vu in reverse. She gave no sign of self-awareness and would have preferred to be alone, in the dark, sleeping until everyone forgot her existence. She was doing the same thing that he had done, and had he ever even thanked her for taking care of him that time? No, he'd used her and hurt her instead. All he could do was try to repay her kindness now, even though it had been nothing short of hostile invasion at the time. It would be the same for her, but if he was conscious of the role reversal then so probably was she.
The sad thing was that he knew most of what she was going through. He knew it so well, he knew that she wouldn't believe him if he said he understood.
Suddenly he saw himself in that sun- washed field mirrored in her, vulnerable and ruined, full of shame and self-hatred, now that someone had his way with her waiting for death to do the same, praying no one would ever look on her again, especially not the one who had her heart...
But that was himself.
What was he doing to her like this?
His younger self had taken form before him. The impetus to turn and run was so strong...
And wouldn't that just prove her right in thinking she was poisoned?
Yet he was the one she would not want to see her, the one she'd be afraid of poisoning, and wouldn't every moment he was beside her be a torment of shame and fear?
He must not stay; he must not leave. He must not touch her; he must not avoid her. Yumi wasn't a shadow out of his own past, she was a real person.
A lot of people would probably say I'm strong. But I can barely manage to rescue a damsel in distress...
Wasn't he the master of shutting off his own feelings? But he couldn't do it, not any more. She was too...real.
He was frozen. He felt panic building in him.
He knew what he should do, and made himself go through the motions of doing so. He pulled her up and told her, "Here, get in the shower. You'll feel better, I promise." Unfortunately her dorm had a community bathroom. Maybe they should have gone back to his room. But it was the middle of the day; probably no one would be there. He found her bathrobe and shower things, and put the robe over her shoulders before he took off the broken jacket and makeshift skirt. He led her down the hall, since she obviously didn't feel like moving on her own, and flung the tablecloth in the other direction so she wouldn't have to look at the relic from Akio's rooms. He probably should put something on her hand. Perhaps it would be better to leave and get her friend to take care of her. Because the truth was even though he understood so well, he didn't know how to help her.
He opened the bathroom door, then found her a stall and adjusted the water for her. The sound of running water hitting the tiled floor felt too loud. Should he stay with her? He suspected she wouldn't want anyone to see her naked at the moment, especially not him. But did she want to be alone? "Just take a nice long shower and then soak in the bath. I'll be right outside. Bang on the wall if you want me."
She removed her bathrobe and hung it up slowly, obeying as bleakly as the Rose Bride. The thought chilled him. He couldn't sing to her as she might have done for him, but when she was finished he might put on some of that J-pop she liked. He turned and left, thinking to sit in the hallway. Maybe her floormates would see him there and wonder, but he couldn't care less.
Methodically she took the things out of the shower caddy one by one, putting them down in a neat row like someone with an OCD. Shampoo, body wash, scrubby, razor, face soap, shave gel.
Razor? Well, it would take some effort to scrape off her skin with an implement designed for removing leg and armpit hair, but it would have to do. Now where to start? The skin over her wrists was weak and easily accessible. That would allow for a good first incision. Besides, it would bleed a lot there and make it look like she was getting somewhere.
He happened to turn his head as he opened the door to leave, just so that his peripheral vision caught her lunging at herself with her razor. He screamed her name and ran to her, nearly falling as he slipped on the wet floor, grabbing her arm and hitting the back of her hand with a move designed to make one's opponent drop his kendo stick.
"Ow!" she yelled as the razor fell from her grip. That was the hand she'd been biting. She moved to pick it up again, but he locked her in his arms and kept her from moving, hating that he had to do such a thing after what she'd just lived through.
Everything that she felt, he knew so keenly, he hurt so badly for her he could barely stand it. "Please don't do that," he begged her. "Don't ever do that." But she'd wanted him to stop her, he realized. If she really wanted to die she would have waited until well after he'd left. More than she wanted to hurt herself, she was only screaming at him not to leave her alone.
"Fuck you! Get off me!" she cried, furious. She had every right to cut all her skin off! Why did he think he had to stop her?!
But she was torn in half, a split personality. Half of her that answered only to her creator and master known as End Of The World, that knew she was claimed by darkness, destined to be the new Rose Bride, that pleaded for the return to the deep oblivion where he would silence the pain of her riven dreams. He who understood her, who had the power to make the burning constellations of her existence into a quiet rose-scented planetarium. Half of her that was forever tainted and screamed at the one she loved to get away from her lest he too fall into blackness.
And half of her that answered only to those dreams, riven though they might be, the half that would stand and fight for the truth even as it destroyed her from within, that drove full speed for a future where her beloved would be happy regardless of her own selfish sorrow. Half of her that feared being alone more than anything, that screamed for him to hold her and save her from the darkness.
Mayumiare the Rose Bride, Maigo Yumi the weird girl, two halves of her being, a soul at war with itself. And all she asked for was to get rid of her skin! She struggled against his hold.
Why did it take this kind of disaster to make him realize that she was important to him? He wanted to say "I love you," but it would be even worse than saying "I hate you," simply because it wasn't the love she wanted from him. She needed to hear koi shiteru and all he could tell her without lying was ai shiteru. A difference in one syllable that tormented her beyond imagining.
"Get away from me!" Her words were the same, her voice was the same, as that broken boy nearly hidden by cabbage heads and little white butterflies when Kyouichi had found him after a confused day of searching. The sound had an existence of its own, a savage beast ripping his soul to pieces. His hold on her slackened; it took every ounce of his strength not to cry. Why did such a thing have to happen to her? No one deserved the kind of fate he'd suffered, especially not Yumi, already drowning in her sorrow of ill-starred love. Maybe he shouldn't interfere with her death wish—surely death would be kinder to her than he could be.
"I'm sorry," he said stupidly. Sorry he didn't know how to help her. Sorry he couldn't love her the way she wanted. Sorry that everything she did and everything that was done to her was because of her feelings for him. "Yumi, I'm so sorry."
The pain and sincerity in his voice reached some level of her awareness, reminding her that he did, in fact, understand. And he really, truly wanted her to stop hurting. If End Of The World wanted to quell her anguish it was so that he could take its power for himself. But fragile, beautiful Touga just wanted her to be able to live in her own identity without it rending her apart every moment. And didn't she want the same thing for him?
She was too weak to know what she wanted anymore. Even if she died there would be no peace for her. There was just one way that might possibly quiet the screaming in her soul, and that was to give up her soul entirely—and become the Rose Bride.
Was this how it had gone with Himemiya Anthy? Had she too been trapped in a destiny so unbearable that she had no recourse but to descend into Akio's blackness in search of numbing solace?
But somehow, in the end, that pink- haired prince had saved her from it.
If Touga truly wanted to save her from that, let him try, let him be noble and chivalrous. Let the last prince try to save this sullied princess. She would never have what she ached for, so how did the end of the story matter?
She had gone limp, as catatonic as he'd been after she, full of bright force and the nobility of her feelings, had stopped his own suicidal musings. The role reversal was so vivid, it felt like there was some cosmic purpose to it, but one that escaped him entirely. Heedless of his pristine uniform, he washed her just as she'd done for him, but more thoroughly since he remembered so well that aftermath sense of "dirty." Then he lifted the lid from the bath and helped her in, unable to do anything but hold her hand and stroke her head slowly, gazing at her from the depths of compassion, praying for the strength that had brought her this far.
Her mind felt as dark and strange as the bottom of the ocean. From somewhere in that drifting blackness she recalled the same scene inverted. She remembered thinking back then that she would be his Rose Bride.
Wasn't that what they called "irony"? That was pretty funny, really. It was the kind of thing that would make a person in a straitjacket laugh.
