The Memoirs of Autumn
Mendori-chan p®oduKshuns
© project for absolute boredom
Standard disclaimers apply.
The reminiscences of her past have been unfolded. The grief and the wounds have been unraveled. And everything has become as vivid as crystal. (Anna fic. Includes death, depression and other elements that some may find disturbing.
Autumn…
The season that takes life in order to give in anew for spring.
The season that took the life of her family.
And the season that she would always find hersef waiting in the cold.
She stood there, clad in a brown cloak with her raven eyes staring blankly at the empty path. The crunching of the fallen leaves echoed throughout the forest as she walked, and the smell of the warm ground that emanated from the decaying leaves filled her nostrils.
She was waiting once again.
It was always in this season that she found herself yearning for a sign; something that may give her hope to find her family once more. Although, it seems that all of this was senseless now that she has accepted the fact that they have been dead for so long.
Kyouyama Anna watched an auburn leaf fall in front of her from one of the branches above. Her eyes followed it until it reached the comfort of the ground along with the other dead leaves, lying useless. They were in a bunch, and the leaf which she had watched fall could not be recognized in the crowd anymore…
It was kind of like her; an outcast left unseen in the midst of the presence of the other leaves.
Someone who went through so much in life that she could barely stand out from so many better people; from so many better and much more beautiful leaves. But then again, they would rot in the ground anyway, in order to give way for winter.
Perhaps it is senseless to explain it in this way, but as everything changes for the beginning of Autumn, her story will be retold and the memories she tried so hard to forget will be unfolded once more…
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A/N: Here I have an Anna fic chronicling her experiences before she was taken under the wing of Kino Asakura, Yoh's grandmother. Enjoy and please don't forget to review! Hehe
Before I have recognized a certain part of my conscience and after arguing with myself (I know, I'm weird), I decided to write a fictional past for Anna-san. Obviously, I am in a state of a writer's block so I won't be able to update Torn partIII and Tanabata Day as well as some other one-shots in line. (Notice: I will write a KyoYuya before or after I update Torn partIII, the YuyaxBenitora. Also, I'm making a HoroTamao again.)
'nuff said.
On with the story!
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Crying.
She was crying.
The quiet sobs she tried to get rid of persisted to continue.
How ironic does it seem to be?
She forced herself not to spill the tears, but as she tried harder, they just continued to fall…
But now that she realized that there were no more reasons to contain her emotions, she just let them flow out endlessly as she cried in silence.
Her hands were embracing her folded legs as she sat in one corner of the empty room. It was dark and the darkness never allowed a streak of light to enter, with the help of the cold metal bars that were fastened on the windows and the planks of wood that were nailed against them.
Cold.
She felt herself fade when the piercing cold penetrated from the snow outside, embracing her into a tight death-grasp.
Suffocating.
The scent of metallic crimson overpowered her nostrils as she just stared at a pool of blood that came out from her arm's wound. It hurt her so much that the nerves gave up on stimulating her pain for they have been frozen by the bitter cold and that her whole body has now become numb.
Across her hurting figure lay a doll.
A blonde-haired doll who had one of its arms cut, releasing the cotton that filled every corner of it. Its dark dots stared at her blankly as if pain had won against it.
But she wasn't about to give up just yet. She was human. She suffered.
And she was too young to die.
Sometimes, one cannot help but wonder how amazing her will to live was. Despite all these, she believed that she had every single right to live as much as anyone on earth did. She was a child; a lonely, cold and hurting little girl who had been abandoned.
She trembled.
No, not a tremble of fear.
Not a tremble from the cold.
Not a tremble of pity.
But a tremble of the thought that she could no longer live a normal life.
She had attempted to commit suicide again. Judging from the broken mirrors and from a fragment of it at hand, she had faced death once more…and survived it.
The door suddenly flung open as a bringht light from the lantern appeared, nearly blinding her. From there on rushed in three women who aided her.
Yet again, she thought.
"Oh you stupid girl!" they would exclaim. "If you want to die so badly, please do not do it when you have not yet seen life in its true colors!"
No, no one could understand…
She could no longer see life's true colors. They brought her pain. And all she could see was black and nothing more.
These nuns have never seen her past and her suffering.
She was cursed, condemned, damned for just living as a little child.
Parents murdered, who were her only family.
No friends; they would run away from her.
"He came in me," she would sob. But no one would believe her anyway. "He was angry and he came into my soul! I swear, he came in me! He broke the glass! He wounded me-"
"We've had enough of your ghost stories, Anna," one nun replied, though her fear for the child was obvious in her trembling voice. "Fool! No wonder why people hate you…"
No one wanted to understand.
They never believed her at all, or rather, they were afraid to.
That a mourning spirit had taken control of her body and he wanted to die in pain.
But she was used to living this way.
Because of her, her parents were murdered. And she lived the early years of her life flooded with guilt. Too much guilt, in fact, it could drive a person insane.
But she was different from them. She learned how to face it.
And she had a curse embedded in her fate to blame.
"An itako," the head priest murmured, eyeing on the blond-haired child. "I fear her; I can sense numerous evil spirits beside her. They might taint this church if we take her under our care."
But by the law, she needed a place to stay as an orphan, leaving the priest and his subordinates with no choice but to take care of her. Though they knew so well that she was capable of connecting with the 'other world,' they just locked her away in the depths of the church where no one would hear her screams.
At some point, she would even become insane since a spirit would take over her puny body yet again. Her cries would be endless and much more persisting each night as her howls would echo everywhere.
And because of that, pain was her only friend.
"Kill me…" a fading cold voice whispered. And as she looked up, she saw a cloud of mist in the shape of a weak old man. He had been weeping, she thought, since his eyes contained a red blemish.
"You're already dead," her voice replied. Then, seemingly helpless, she covered her eyes with her tainted palms in hopes to make the spirit leave.
"I want to die… please lend me your body," he pleaded.
Finally, she looked up at him slowly. "Huh?"
"I can see that you've been suffering… Let's end it together so we can rest in peace."
Anna abruptly clamed her ears shut. "Iie! Go away!"
"Lend me your body, and I will put an end to it all."
Silence filled the room. It was as eerie yet as tranquil as it normally was. The little girl couldn't take it anymore. Spirits like this particular one who had died soon before with their souls unable to rest and lingering in the church would talk to her. They wanted to leave this earth but were not quite sure how.
So they thought that dying again would resolve their problems… and lending a body happened to be the solution.
"LEND IT TO ME!"
In a flash, after the girl had screamed in protest, the spirit of the old man came into her and controled her soul. She couldn't do anything anymore…
He punched the nearby mirror and it burst into millions of pieces. Slowly, he took a sharp fragment and absentmindedly lashed a wound on Anna's bare flesh.
God, please help me…
The poor girl was screaming yet again in pain and agony.
Why do I have to suffer?
No matter how loud she shouted, no one heard her.
Maybe I'm never supposed to live…
Her body became numb as the spirit set her free.
I don't want to die… but if destiny calls it, I have to.
"You cannot die, little one," he said before he left her in anguish. "My soul will not be at peace."
Life had been so cruel. It showed no mercy nor unguarded moments for her.
And her only wish at the moment was to wake up with a smile…
"She is evil," a nun whispered upon passing by Anna's cell.
"A little girl, huh?" replied her companion, who happened to be an old woman. "There is nothing evil about an innocent young girl."
"Oh, no, ma'am. You don't know how many times she screams at night, shouting to us that a spirit had taken over her body and that it tried to kill her."
The woman cupped her chin. "Then what fools you are."
The nun froze, unable to comprehend what she just said.
"Why do you deny it? She is hurting for Christ's sake! I have been told that three nights in a row, she tried to kill herself. And still, she tells you that a spirit took over her body."
"Asakura-sama, I do not intend to-"
"Then shut up," the old woman snapped. Her gaze met the cell which separated Anna from the outside world. "Do you not pity her? She is a child and her parents have been murdered because the people believed that she was a witch."
"But…"
"She is a medium; an itako." The old woman corrected, then looked back up at her nun companion. "Give her to me and I will raise her the way she should be raised. Her talents as a medium is yet to be realized."
And the nun agreed, much to her relief. At least someone wanted to adopt the little witch, she thought as she opened the cold metal door of the little girl's room…
…only to find out that she was no longer there.
"She's disappeared!" the nun exclaimed, quickly running to the head priest's office. "The witch escaped! The witch escaped!" she announced.
Meanwhile, the old woman merely took a peak in Anna's unruly room and smirked. "Hang in there, little one."
Anna was roaming around the forest aimlessly, tears never failing to occupy her little face. She had escaped from the church after breaking through the nailed planks and decided to search for one thing…
Her parents' graves.
She had no idea where to look, and more so where to start. She wasn't even supposed to be roaming around the dark forest at this hour, now that the night had consumed day completely. But she continued to walk, allowing no attention to the splinters that hurt her bare feet. She never took heed on the muddy ground below either, and she dared not to turn back.
"You're looking for them, aren't you?" a voice spoke from behind.
Slowly, Anna turned and found the old woman standing there with a clear smile despite the lack of light, even from the moon that shone brightly above them.
"Who are you?"
"Do you trust me?"
Anna shrugged. "I trust no one."
"Perfectly understandable." The short woman walked closer to the blonde-haired girl. Surprisingly, she wasn't afraid that she would hurt her. in fact, for the first time ever, she actually trusted her words as if she could understand her situation as much as she herself did.
It was as if everything that mattered was enclosed in those two words. They ebbed away her pain...
The old woman stretched out her hand. "Let me walk with you."
"Where?"
"Your family's graves. I know you must see them."
Now, as if her little heart had been split in two, a ray of hope filled her system. "I must!"
She smiled. "Come with me." And the old woman took her there.
After a while of walking, they stood in front of two graves by a cliff. There were no flowers that adorned them, no names chiseled on their tombstones, which happened to be rocks. The muddy ground that covered their corpses remained untouched and she was sure that they were not buried properly.
Slowly, tears began to trickle down her face once more.
"People. They are the evil ones…" she muttered. Such a little girl understood.
"I want you to come with me," whispered the old woman, who had only been watching the girl since they arrived. "I will take care of you."
The girl allowed the cold wind to pass by before she replied, "Where?"
Just then, she saw the old woman's hand in front of her. Looking up, she saw her smile. "Do you trust me?"
There was a long silence before Anna's lips arched into a smile- for the first time. "Yes."
She was sure.
As the day broke, Kyouyama Anna held Asakura Kino's hand. The night had given in and they left the lofty, cold Osorezan mountains for a smiling village called Izumo.
Then there, Anna met her dear Yoh, the only person in the world whom she would cherish. He was her sunshine and she learned how to live with a smile. And finally, her dark and emotionless eyes softened into something lighter and mellow.
What is living, then?
To exist is to be born, but to start living (and this is what she learned) is to begin existing for somone you cherish with all your heart.
Although everything happened in Autumn, and the harsh Winter would embrace her once again, she knew that sometime after all those hardships, there would be something to look forward to- the smile of Spring.
end
So it was rushed, I admit! Gomen… But please review. This is (I hope not) a b-day present for myself. BTW, my bday is on December 5th. Hehe… just telling… :) Expect a Naruto fic from me hopefully this week, a SasuSaku. It will be entitled, "The Prizes Inside a Cereal Box." Till then!
MEndoRi-cHan