Part 13: Let Me Go

Gonou

I'm still shaking when I make it back. Sanzo. The name brings a thousand muddled images to my brain that I can't make clear. It only makes sense when I close my eyes. The thoughts I have seem to mellow into a feeling of love and of security. Why? Why can't I remember? My hand idly rubs the sore spot on my arm where Kanan stuck me with the needle. That's it. That's why I can't remember.

"Gonou?" she calls from the door to her small home. The name isn't mine.

"Yes?"

"Where did you go?" she asks nervously. She tosses her white blonde locks over her shoulder and stares at me with eyes as silver as my own. My sister, my lover, but is she?

"For a walk."

"Nii's been looking for you. You need to take your medicine."

I hold back my snort. "Wouldn't want to miss that."

"He's only helping," she tells me like she believes it.

"Helping who, Kanan? You? Me? Or himself? I would protect you with my life and you know that, Kanan. I don't know how, but somehow I think this scar proved that already…yet I don't even know how I got it. What's real? I don't know anymore."

Rage flashes in her eyes. "How dare you say that? How dare you act this way! I was tortured because of you! You were the one who let them sell me into slavery with that monster."

"I cannot change the past, only the future, but I will not let that future be stained with blood." It's the first true thing that I have felt since I woke up that evening. She knows I'm done.

"I never wanted it to be this way, Gonou. I'm sorry that you've gone and ruined everything that could have been. I really thought that you'd be true to me this time, but Nii was right about you." She turns on her heal and leaves me.

For the first time that I can remember, I'm walking away from her. I need to find Sanzo. He will have the answers I want. I follow the path leading toward the forest. The stars above are shining—I wonder why I never noticed them before.

"Going somewhere, Gonou?" Nii asks as he blocks my path.

"Away from the insanity you've created!"

He lifts the stuffed bunny. "Hear that he says that I've created insanity. He gives me way too much credit. I only use the insanity that find to my best benefit. But I don't think you'll be going anywhere."

I hear them in the brush before I see them. Demons step from the shadows behind Nii, and more follow.