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Make me Real 06
By ReddAlice
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Author's Note: If the first paragraph doesn't make sense to you, please go back to the last chapter and read the last paragraph. ^-^ A few hours after I originally posted chapter 05 I decided to add on to it. To appease the neglected reader, this chapter is much longer than any I've written for MMR before. I hope you appreciate it because I nearly ran out of music writing it.
Warning: ummm….
Song: Sayonara - Gackt, Knife Party - Deftones, (The entire first sailor moon CD, you know our favorite one! The pink one! **head bands to theme song**), Adema (God... Jon Davis's little brother... HOT HOT HOT! big Korn fan), Korn-Life Is Peachy-Issues-Untouchables - all by KORN,
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Chapter 06:
"From out of The Ashes…"
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Hitomi finally managed to spit it out, her heart pounding in her lungs. The words that followed stunned the room in silence; even Dr. Takatori was staggered that she had confessed his crime in her desperation to rescue herself.
Mr. and Mrs. Kanzaki gawked temporarily in horror at their daughter's utterance, and then dismissed her announcement with disgrace in their faces. "Hitomi, maybe it's best you go with them." Her mother said firmly, adverting her damp eyes.
Her father nodded reflecting his acquiescence, but his voice lacked his wife's conviction. "You can't stay here anymore, not in your condition."
Hitomi's mouth fell agape, she just told them the doctor they paid for raped her, and abused her in ways no normal man could have. Yet, they still looked at her like she had betrayed them...as if she had dishonored them...
"Taki...Sen...please escort Miss Hitomi to the car. Miss Kanzaki, you are lucky I did not request assistance from the police. Be grateful."
Hands closed in around her…
"No…" Van!
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The icy fall breeze warmed around him, the garden's potent floral scent floating in the mixture. "Hitomi?" It was an odd sensation, but Van shrugged it off. He could have sworn someone had just reached for him, but why now after all this time? She hadn't needed him before.
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Mrs. Kanzaki watched the men try to get a hold of Hitomi's struggling form, her baby...her baby girl...Where did this come from? A small cleft in her chin became evident as her lip trembled.
It was her mother's entire fault, the old woman had been stark raving mad...and she passed those awful genes through her daughter's body to her granddaughter; then fed her mind full of fanciful stories of another world.
Hitomi was her only child...her world...and she would see that necessary actions were taken to ensure her daughter's safety, to protect her from the taunting world, and to guard her from herself.
Blearily she looked to her husband, who extended his gentle arm and pulled her close. "Let's go to the sitting room, the Doctor wants to have a word with us about her...state."
An unmerciful scream filled the hallway, the resistance prolonged, and Mrs. Kanzaki pushed away from her husband and fell desperately to her knees at Takatori's feet. "Doctor...their hurting her."
"She has to be restrained." Hitomi's father said finding his confidence.
"Come with me." Dr. Takatori said turning away from her.
"Do something." Mrs. Kanzaki lashed out and grabbed a fistful of the physician's coat. "Make her stop crying." How often has she heard her mother crying when she was a child? Crying for a man...crying for freedom...In reality she was crying for sanity, but in her shambled home there was nothing for the four children, nothing but contempt for their deranged parent who prattled about the wonders of other worlds. She couldn't fix her mother, but she could fix her daughter.
"Mrs. Kanzaki I know you are upset-"
"Mom!!" Hitomi was yelling, her voice torn and harsh.
"I know you are upset but they will have her restrained in just a moment."
"Make her stop crying!"
"Alright, Mrs. Kanzaki." Dr. Takatori hushed flagging in the nurse from the sofa. "Please sedate Miss Hitomi."
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Hitomi recognized the nurse as she approached; she was frail and her pallor unmatched by even the whitest of snow. She had worked quietly along side of the doctor, and Hitomi had long suspected the woman new more about the inner workings of the institution than her silence led on.
The men's hands clamped onto her arms like cold iron vices, and froze all movement with bruising force. Hitomi was out numbered, and terrified.
"Miss Hitomi?" The petite nurse asked.
Hitomi looked over the woman to her parent's bodies, their backs were turned to her and heading into the living room.
The nurse attached a small clear vial to a sterile siring and uncapped the needle. "Miss Hitomi, we're going to give you a small injection. I would like to ask that you cooperate, please."
As hard as it was to maintain, Hitomi refused to relinquish her life into the hands Dr. Takatori's naïve henchmen. She would fight...and she would prevail. "No!"
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"Sir Chezar...will you be staying with us long?" The young maid asked bouncing from one wall to the other, her admiration for the handsome knight all but contained. Oh how she would love to be his wife!
"Long enough for me to speak with the king." Allen said examining the guest room. "What do you think Cellena?" He added with a smile.
Silence.
"Cellena?" Allen turned to look at his younger sister, but the girl was nowhere to be seen. "Where did the young lady go that was in my company?" He demanded.
The maid tilted her head in confusion, had she been so distracted with Allen's physique that she failed to notice a second member of his party? "Young lady? My lord, I am dreadfully sorry, but when I came to get you...you were alone in the hall."
Was he? Why hadn't he been paying more attention! Allen rushed past the maid, spinning her around, and knocking her off her feet.
The maid blew a lock of hair off her face and leaned back against the wall. "Oh how my mother would love to see me in such an unladylike position. She'd roll over in her grave, she would." She grumbled. "Maybe that's why he never got married, such a fine looking man, yes, yes he is." She said agreeing with herself, and then throwing her hands up above her head she shouted, "He's a loon!"
Hanging back in the shadows, the light like a whip keeping the beast at bay stood Cellena seething in her unmitigated rage. "How dare you-…" She said trembling, tears trickling down her cheek. "How dare you call my brother such a thing!"
It would be the ditzy maid's greatest error... not taking notice of the girl in the darkness.
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It was just like him to rush in and try and be heroic...then find out that his plan was half-baked. Amano Susumu stood on the white pavement amongst a throng of western style buildings, a crinkled paper with the addresses he was going to write to (while he was abroad) out in his hands. Of course he didn't write to more than three of the twenty-something numbers, but he kept it just the same.
Each one of his high school friends had scribbled down their information in the most impossible chicken-scratch he had yet to see matched. Amongst these were two female names: Yukari, and Hitomi, both written in Yukari's pink pen.
"You're not just gonna write me! You're gonna call me everyday." Yukari laughed playfully swatting at Amano's arms.
Amano nodded and then looked passed his "almost" girlfriend to the girl his affections had long since been set on. During her disappearance he had in fact gotten closer to Yukari, but really, they had just become better friends. He had always loved, and always would, the dusty blonde daydreamer, not the confident auburn haired women who was so sure she had ensnared him. "Kanzaki-san, would you sign too? I'd like to write you as well."
Hitomi snapped her head up, her mind had been somewhere else...a place she seemed to linger in. "M-me?"
Amano nodded, "Yes, please…"
"Oh…" Hitomi rubbed the back of her neck and laughed sheepishly. "Of course! I'd love to!"
Yukari glanced between the two, and ebbed forward to separate them. "Here Tomi! You can use my pen!"
"Oh! Thank you!" Smiling brightly, Hitomi took the paper and sunk down onto her knees to use the sidewalk to write on. "7..1….2" She said biting her tongue between her lips as she finished. "Yes! Here you go!" Sitting back on her heels, Hitomi offered the piece of paper back up to Amano with both hands. "Amano-kun!"
The image of her on the ground, smiling while she handed back to him the paper was burned into his mind. It was the first time she felt comfortable enough to use such an informal suffix on his name; it was a step in the right direction. He had been so excited to hear his name fall from her lips in such a way, the two had stood there starring at each other until a very awkward Yukari elbowed him in the rib. That very night though, he boarded an airplane and ventured off to the states. He didn't even have time to hear the full length of her magnificent tale.
"Ah! 712-" He had found the address and was only blocks away.
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The sedative crashed into Hitomi's veins like thunder, immediately dulling her senses, she felt as though she were watching the last moments of her life from some distant astral plain. "Van...." She murmured reaching for a tall dull figure in her vision, he was looking at her, wanting her, but before she could grab him her head lulled back into a solid chest.
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Involuntarily Van's body stood erect off the stone bench residing in the freshly budding garden. She needed him... he could feel her... he could feel her reaching for him, her soft soiled hands caressing his cheeks with love and desperation, and then falling away into the darkness without a trace. She was closer this time, each time he sensed her she was closer to coming to him.
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Yukari starred at her hands, her eyes terribly dry, she felt as though she had cried all the tears of the world into a river of misery at her feet. Yes, yes... she love her friend, at times... she even protected her, but now there were doubts, and questions left unanswered.
Why did she become so vindictive? So angry? When did she become such an envious monster? And why did it take destroying her soul mate to console the angry woman she had become? Was she satisisfied? The answer to all these questions could be summed up into one answer: She had finally achieved what she had set out to keep from happening; she chased Amano right into the arms of Hitomi.
At first Yukari had buried her feelings under a thousand of excuses, a number of them starting out with: "Well, Amano likes Tomi better." It was true, but when Hitomi had confided that she knew Yukari was in love with Amano, she threw open every locked door and began to seek her senior's affections. Hitomi backed off, and everything was well.... until one day she noticed the unwavering glow about him after he had spoken to her friend, or the way he paid his undying attention to her every word about Gaea. Falling in Hitomi's golden shadow of perfect imperfection killed her; she had never played second to her, and couldn't start now that she had been given 'permission' to pursue her love interest.
Whose fault was it really? She had finally gotten Amano to consent to a date the night before he left, and she saw him off at the airport with a passionate kiss and after that followed a thousand phone calls and letters. Yet she still felt inadequate... As though he had only said yes to keep the waters tranquil; peaceful until he had yelled at her over her underhanded ways.
"I hate him..." She cried bitterly standing up and stomping down the bleachers to the track field.
Yukari Uchida screamed as fiery tears of anger and revenge fell unrestrained down her cheeks. "I hate you Hitomi!" Her words echoed across the field, and faded into darkness.
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Hitomi was floating in nothing, the ink like blackness running over her limp arms. She had fought it.... she had lost... and now she was in her unconsciousness... a deep state of being she hadn't touched since the doppelganger at Prince Sheid's prison.
The darkness settled around her, leaving Hitomi suspended over what could have been the floor, but for all her sense knew, could also be the ceiling, the walls, or a thick bottomless pit.
Unable to refrain, Hitomi looked around. "Where am I?" She whispered, her voice echoing out and returning to shake her body. "Is any one out there?"
Hitomi knew well, though she had not practiced her art since she came back from Gaea, that the space she existed in could not be held by just one person. It took two to reach such a black dead stillness in a human soul that was washed with so many vibrant colors. It was reserved for the future, the moments before and just after death had been achieved to reflect upon the past and recall the details required to tell an accurate fortune. It was the power she tapped to use her tarot.
For a moment she toyed with the idea that maybe the overwhelming shadows was just the color her soul had become, but quickly she dismissed that as a momentary lapse of sanity, or just her becoming a cliché manic depressant. She knew were she was... she was stuck... and not alone.
The pendant!
It wasn't necessary to close her eyes to retrieve the image of the pendant, the very moment she focused on the ornament she could hear it breaking the air as it swayed in time with her heart beat. A feeling so natural it transcended her being to the generations of woman before her, specifically her grandmother standing gracefully in her sakura blossom festival kimono. The one she wore when she was spirited away.
"Grandma..." She smiled, but it was only a vague memory impressed upon Gaea and Earth's timeline, something unique to both worlds at the same moment. But what did that have to do with where she was being held? It didn't, but it was something she found comforting, the old woman's words of wisdom had carried her when she felt nearly broken, and sustained her until the first confrontation with the doctor.
Thrusting her hand forward took all of her physical energy left on reserve, and with the gesture the projection of the necklace flew wildly about in a glittering circle.
Who was out there? Hitomi was going to find out.
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Allen came to a halt just outside the corridor, his eyes darting from one side to the other. "Cellena? Cellena!?" No one was there.
He couldn't wait in one spot hoping his hapless sister would find him, or possibly find the blunt end of a certain mal-tempered King's sword. He would have to locate her and do it now, now while he was still in control.
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Another breeze blew through the trees; the intoxicating smell of blossoms was sickly sweet. Van rubbed his eyes, his chest tight. Maybe he should take a vacation, a much needed rest...Perhaps, Van was better off leaving his kingdom in the hands of a more capable lord, or joining leadership under the King Shied. The prepubescent ruler was wise beyond his years already, leaps and bounds ahead of Van everyday, Van a dirty boy who was now climbed from out of the ashes of his kingdom, tattered and hardened.
"Cellena!" It was a voice in the distance.
Could he not escape this? "Allen." Van gave a woeful glance to Escaflowne, a silent guardian over his brother's shrine.
Allen stopped short of Van, his eyes tapering into a glare. "Have you seen my sister?"
"Are you implying that you...lost her?" Van snarled; his teeth bore like a wild animal.
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Not even the maid's futile screams could drone out Cellena's mad gales of laughter.
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The knight looked down his nose at the challenging boy king; he was nothing more than a child in his father's clothing, a detestable dress up. "I implied nothing."
Carried on a string of wind, was the faint sound of distress, a woman screaming the last pleas of her life. "Not since I was inside." Together, they ran back to the heart of Fanelia.
"You take that side, I'll take this way!" Van directed. "We'll reconvene after a thorough sweep has been done!"
Allen sneered and without missing a step, sped towards where he believed to find his sister. He felt it in his heart; he could taste it in the saliva, the thickening mucus of dread.
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The room was empty, the air thick and moist with the smell of fresh death. It was disgustingly ripe, and the tang assaulted Allen the moment he touched the delicately carved doorknob.
A corpse was nothing new to a man who had seen a hundred battles, to a knight who had lost his family. Allen Chezar inhaled the tainted oxygen, and pressed forward...knowing very well what he would find.
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The sound of an ambulance whizzed by, leaving Mrs. Kanzaki sitting on the stairs to her home in tears.
"Mrs. Kanzaki? Hitomi!?" Amano leapt up the steps four at a time, and through the door. The place was empty, the hall was in disarray. Amano turned to Mrs. Kanzaki, her body shivering in the cool night air.
"My baby…" She wailed.
"What happened?" He prodded the anxiety in his body overwhelming.
"The hospital...they took her...Oh God."
Amano's face paled, and bile rose in his throat. The Emergency Room? Hitomi!
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Taking the remainder of the soiled clothes in his arms, Allen wrapped the garments in his night shirt and cast a forlorn look at his Cellena. His baby sister, she was laughing on the bed, blood still dried to her naked cream colored skin. His heart was breaking; he could feel the upset rolling in his chest like thunder.
Cellena tilted her head up, and locked her eyes with her brother's; she was still raving, but silently now. Her lips moving quickly, the only sound being the soft air passing between them.
Framing her body like a panoramic scene of gore, those exact words were written in childish scrawl on the wall. Hitomi come and play, Hitomi come and play, Hitomi come and play, Hitomi come and play.
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TBC...Next Chapter: "Hitomi, Come and Play"
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