A.N. I want to thank all my reviewers so far and apologize for taking so long! I've been writing a novel! (I'll let you know the title when it's finished .)
I especially want to thank Jesscheaux Midou for being one of my most faithful reviewers!
IMPORTANT: I might leave it up to the readers to decide who Mitsuko might just fall in love with. Who do y'all think?
Welcoming the Light
Chapter 4
Mitsuko stared at the television with a placid expression on her face as she half turned into what the reporter was saying. She honestly didn't care anymore about current events, and she couldn't even believe there was a time when she had. The world was such a dark, desolate place full of suffering. It didn't matter if some sickos decided they wanted to gratify their needs and steal blood from a hospital, she wouldn't need it, so why should she care?
She shouldn't. That was the conclusion she came up with as Pyunma, 008, turned off the TV and plunged the room into silence. The phone rang, she didn't bother getting her hopes up. She used to think every hone call would be her friend, calling to say she was Ok, that she didn't die, that she was still here….not dead and gone.
Depression lurked in the dark confines of her mind as she drew her legs to her chest and buried her face there, closing her eyes in pain as she forced back the angry hot tears. If anyone said anything more to her, she didn't know, she just blocked them out. Like she usually did. Misery was too strong for her, it's intoxicating pain the only relief she could find; and it wasn't even a relief if she really took the time to actually think about it. It was only a punishment.
She thought of her friend, and how they used to be. How beautiful Cloud had looked after their agreed upon deal. Françoise had even gotten into the deal, and had helped her remake the boyish form of her friend. She had been a knockout for one night, because by the next morning she was back in her baggy clothes, back in that protective shell she had treasured since Mitsuko could remember. Her animalistic friend in the baggy clothes…
Mitsuko tried not to dwell on it, tried not to dwell on the fact that those memories were only memories and they would never be added onto or become real again. They were just phantoms of her past now, making her relieve a constant, hellish nightmare of her own doing; even if she hadn't been conscious enough to carry out her actions, it was still her fault. All her fault. She. was. a. murderer. And of her own friend, no less.
But the memories still came, new ones she'd lived in her rebirth. She remembered looking up her family and finding their graves. All of them, murdered. She hadn't found the time to cry back then, and she'd even looked up Touma. He was in a grave of his own. Yet Cloud wasn't. She was simply gone. Her body wasn't decomposing like the rest…. Maybe that is why she still had hope, a faint little glimmer in her otherwise dead eyes.
I can't help but wonder, yet again, where we are going. I look at Touma, but he doesn't look back or tell me. It is making me sad, mad, and so confused. Shiboo told me of our fate. Of what we must do to survive, but I didn't want to believe her at first, I had yelled.
I now know my mother is no liar, and that we have to do this heinous act to survive. But we don't kill anyone, so it isn't so bad. The lies are what's bad, the lies and deceit. That…and knowing my Touma, my dear, sweet, Touma who seems so real next to me, is not real at all. He is only a shadow of the real Touma, and yet I love me, just as I will love the real essence of my love that is growing in my stomach.
Shiboo has told me this much. Told me that my baby will be a baby born from Touma and I, when we were but souls, wandering the ocean while Shiboo made arrangements for our rebirth. We lived on soul time, living years upon years in seconds to real time. It was so happy… and then it had to end. I was reborn, and Touma was recreated into yet another cyborg body that Shiboo says will leave me once I get the hang of my survival technique…. Once I learn how to feed myself.
I feel almost puppyish, as if Shiboo is treating me like I was a puppy again, teaching me how to speak her tongue and how to forage. I close my eyes and savor those memories, and try to block out the pain of knowing that Shiboo is no longer on the living or soul plain, she has ascended.
I suppose I should be happy my mother had ascended, but I can't help but feel an incredible sense of lose and loneliness. Her spirit can no longer embrace me in the night, and comfort me by telling me that I am not loosing anything, but gaining something. Words she always told me when I was a pup, learning the rules of the wilderness.
I look at Touma, and he smiles at me. I love him, he is just like Touma, but this time I know he is fake. I know he will leave me, and I know I will be alone. I have dealt with that, and now, trying not to sound hoarse, I ask again;
"Where are we going?"
For a moment I think he will not answer. And then he smiled, his facial muscles moving with the aid of the mechanical parts under his skin, just like mine, and says;
"To a place where you can be happy, and I can leave you in peace." And then he veers off the road and we zoom down a dusty path I swear I know from somewhere, and head towards the sea, as a sensation I cannot quite describe, travels through me and makes me feel…light.
Is this what Shiboo meant when she told me Touma would leave me happy, ready to start a new life? I don't know, all I know is that it's coming back to me. The memories that Shiboo promised…. But they're fuzzy, and I can't quite place them.
Touma stops the car, and I stare into the sea that I had roamed in spirit. We get out and the sand seems to want to swallow me up. The sun begins to set and Touma gently urges me foreword.
"It is time to part, little one, my kitten." And we share a kiss, that I believe I shall never forget. He touched my growing stomach fondly, wraps me up in his coat, and then I am plunged into the water to let the tides take me where fate wishes me.
My adventure, it seems, begins again.
Yet, I can't help but wonder….
What are these memories trying to tell me?
Sleep takes me, and I find myself going with the tides, letting them carry me away from Touma and all I know now, towards what will surely be my destiny.
TBC!
A.N. please read and review!
