Once in a Lifetime

see disclaimer in Part 1

It seemed several hours, but was only several minutes, before Lisa's sobbing finally ceased.

Only then could she begin to consider the strangeness of the situation--she'd seen Makenshi die with her own eyes; how could he have possibly survived something like the ordeal he'd been through? And even if he had, how had he gotten through to her personal outside world? And why had he told her that Colin Byrne wouldn't be able to find her if she was with him?

"How--?" she began to ask, loosening her death grip on his waist. But the sudden sticky feeling on the palm of her hand cut her short. Instantly falling silent, she stared--her right palm, and the undersides of every finger, were coated in the congealed, gooey, maroon-red mess of old, not-quite-clotted blood. With that realization, she turned her stunned gaze upon Makenshi, who had stopped looking concerned for her sake and now just seemed resigned and sad.

"Yes," he said in answer to her unspoken query. "That is my blood."

Sitting back a little, Lisa noticed for the first time that Makenshi's chest and hips were still soaked crimson, as they'd been the last time they'd seen each other. The awful wound that went straight through his body was still there as well... right about the area where she'd flung her arms around him, too.

"Don't look at me like that," Makenshi told her softly, once again correctly interpreting her expression. With a pained smile, he shook his head. "Can't you tell that I can't feel it anymore...?"

"But how are you here?" Lisa asked, her voice trembling. "And why did you come? I don't understand any of this...!"

For the third time, he looked at her and answered the questions she'd meant, not the ones she'd spoken. "No, Lisa... I didn't survive. You're only seeing me here because she sent me to deliver a message... and to show you what could have been. I'm a spirit, an astral presence. You're the only one who can see me, and while we're together, no one can see or hear you, either."

"Who is she?" Lisa asked plaintively. "And what do you mean, what could have been?"

"At any given time during events that determine the fate of important things, all players in such an event are free to make choices," Makenshi explained. Lisa could see in his tired jadeine eyes the importance of his words. "Because of the choices those players make, the outcome of the event will change to any one of many thousands of possible futures. Because of the choices we players made in the struggle with Chaos, this future has come to be.

"The children with you chose to seek out their parents. Kaze chose to take a stand. I chose to bide my time and see what I could learn. And you... chose to love a man many would have said was impossible to love.

"It was the combination of fate and your own choices that brought you here. But, Lisa... this future was not meant to be. She sent me here to show you how things could have been, if only everyone made the choices they should have."

As Lisa watched, Makenshi stood, drawing himself to his full height, and held out a hand to her. "Don't be afraid. Come with me. There is little that can cause you pain now."

With only a brief hesitation, Lisa reached out and clasped his hand.

---

When she opened her eyes, Lisa Byrne could've believed that she'd stepped into a dream.

The only reason she had to believe that she hadn't fallen asleep was Makenshi, who still stood beside her, holding her hand carefully in his own. It was still such an unbelievable situation, but there she was, and there he was, too--still soaked in his own blood. For some reason, he no longer wore the white cloak; he was clothed in the white, bloodstained swordsman's uniform and cape that she recognized.

"What is this place?" Lisa asked slowly. She didn't think she had ever seen the sky quite so blue.

"A future that, at one time, could have been," was Makenshi's sad reply.

He fell silent then, as Lisa's attention was drawn to a small group of students from the local Sadogashima middle school came down the walk opposite them.

There were three boys and two girls in the happy, laughing cluster. All three boys were wearing the typical navy blue jumpsuit and carrying schoolbags--the one in the lead was of medium height, the tallest of the three. He had short, thick purple hair that lay over his forehead in untidy hanks and a bright laugh. The boy beside him, a little shorter, had dark brown hair swept back at the side in a cowlick and equally dark umber eyes. The third was pale-skinned and somewhat delicate-looking, between the height of the other two; he had wavy teal-blue hair and large, liquid eyes of the same color.

The two girls were also in uniform, wearing tan blazers, white shirts, red neckties, and brown skirts. One had pink hair pinned up at the side of her head and behind it; her brown eyes glittered as she told off the brown-haired boy, even more so as the others laughed at whatever she'd said. The other had short silver hair, bright eyes an amazing shade of clear yellow, and strange, salmon-pink marks on her cheeks. She seemed to be a little younger than the others, but laughed just as gamely as the others at their childish comments.

Lisa gasped and took a shaky step towards them, feeling her world swaying beneath her. "It can't be... it just can't be...!"

As the little group continued to approach, Lisa could hear them speaking: the purple-haired boy turned to the pink-haired girl and cheerfully asked her if she would like to go see some apparently new film the next night.

"No way, Touya. You just don't get it," the girl replied, rolling her eyes sympathetically to her friends, who either laughed or giggled, depending on gender. "Like I'd ever go anywhere with an annoying boy like you by myself!"

The purple-haired boy pouted. "But Ai-san..."

"What's wrong, Touya-kun? Can't deal with rejection?" the silver-haired girl asked teasingly.

"It's only the fifty-millionth time," the brown-haired boy added, looking truly sad.

"She can't go," the blue-eyed young man said calmly but seriously. "She's already going with me..."

The boy named Touya head-slumped; everyone but the blue-eyed boy laughed.

Lisa stared after them as they left, still chattering to each other.

"They can't see us," Makenshi said softly to her, his voice bringing her back to reality.

"But..." she protested, shaking her head. "Lou... and that boy Clear... how...?"

Makenshi's sad jadeine eyes grew even sadder as he looked at the small group of students. "There was once a time when they could've been saved," he said simply.

Lisa, staring at him, saw on his face a sorrow still more terrible than the one burning in her chest, consuming her heart. Briefly, she wondered what he would have to lament. He wasn't the one who'd been told that if not for his choices, this would all have come about.

The two of them instinctively followed the group of children, watching as the purple-haired youth named Touya said goodbye and walked down a different street, as the remaining four headed back to a building that Lisa found very familiar.

They continued to watch as Joe and Mary Hayakawa, answering the door, invited all four in, bringing them all inside with happy welcomes.

Clear Omega and Lou Lupus, one an outcast and the other an orphan, had found a home with their dearest friends.

"Let's go," Makenshi whispered and pulled her away.

Walking down Sadogashima's crowded streets, the two of them turned corners and around boulevards until the scenery once again became hauntingly familiar.

"Look," came the soft command beside her. Makenshi was pointing to the figures of two people walking the opposite way down the street.

One was a tall man in a suit, with a pleasant face, dark-rimmed glasses, and dark hair cropped short except for one long tuft that fell into his face in an appealing way. He walked side by side with a young mother holding the hand of her daughter, her long black hair unbound, her pleasant face open and content. Lisa could see, from the full curve of her belly, that she was pregnant a second time. For a moment, she thought that the pair were husband and wife, but a second, closer look made it suddenly click in her mind.

It started with her recognition of the man. "That's..." Her eyes going round, she turned to Makenshi urgently. "That's Dolwa! He works at the same agency I do... he's the one who assigned me to the Hayakawa case!"

Makenshi simply nodded and gestured back to Dolwa and the unknown woman.

Turning back, Lisa couldn't help but cry out.

The mystery woman was her.

But it wasn't herself that Lisa couldn't keep her eyes off. It was the girl tagging along beside her.

The child only looked to be about three years old or so. She had shoulder-length brown hair that, when touched by the sunlight, rippled with rich auburn tones that had been subtly blended into the chestnut and mahogany that were normally visible. Her eyes were the same deep brown as Lisa's, wide and cheerful, and her face was liberally sprinkled with freckles, covering both cheeks and the bridge of her nose. She wore a hooded yellow T-shirt with a red star on each shoulder, red shorts, and cute little white high-tops, and skipped along at her mother's side, obviously without a care in the world.

But even through the girlish silliness, Lisa could see the beginnings of something deeper in the child when she paused in her games to look up at the sky in open wonder and reverence.

Without a doubt, she knew--the girl was her daughter, and Kaze's.

Unable to stop herself, Lisa let out a dry sob, stifling her cry with her balled-up fists. She knew she shouldn't, but she just couldn't help it. The little girl was such a beautiful, perfect child, obviously being raised not only by her own parents but by several extended families--Dolwa included, of course, by the way he and the other Lisa both smiled at her.

Lisa Byrne's heart hurt so badly, it felt as though her chest would explode into flame. If this was the way things were supposed to happen, how would her real daughter come into the world, with only a burnt-out husk of a mother to guide her?

Where had she gone wrong?

With only her fists to cut back the sound, Lisa truly cried for only the second time since the birth of Lisa Heartbreaker.

Feeling gentle arms around her, she knew that Makenshi had embraced her, just killing her again by turns of cruelty and kindness. "Why are you doing this?" she asked thickly.

"You have to see," he insisted, though not unkindly. "I would spare you, but you have to see. So did I... believe me, I know how much it hurts to see the way it could've been, if only you hadn't been so stupid--" For a moment, there was true agony in his voice, enough to stop Lisa's broken sobbing.

Releasing her, Makenshi extended his hand to her yet again. "Will you come with me, to finish this journey?"

Reluctantly, Lisa nodded, and took it.

---

The other Lisa, now carrying her sleeping child, pushed open the door to a small house, where Kaze stood waiting for her.

"She's tired out," the happy mother said softly. "Poor thing... she was so sleepy on the walk home. It's good to be back."

As was his wont, Kaze said nothing, but slipped his arm around her waist, kissing his daughter's forehead in passing before moving on to the lips of his love.

The real Lisa, standing several yards away, sighed and shook her head, all too aware of Makenshi's arm around her shoulders. "Where did I go wrong?" she asked numbly. "What did I do that kept so much good from happening in this world?"

"It's not all your fault," Makenshi told her, turning to face her directly. "We all made choices that caused your situation to arise. There are things that I myself..." Breaking off, he fell into a brief silence, his lips a tight, pained line. "Perhaps you need to see with your own eyes."

He began to walk back towards the apartment complexes; it was almost all Lisa could do to keep up with him.

"But where did I go wrong?" Lisa asked, breathing rapidly, as she trotted alongside him, trying to match his long strides with as many of her own as it took.

"That, only you can know. You're the only one who was inside your mind. It might have been something as small as a thought, or as large as an attack. But there was something you did that helped cause your nightmare to come to be." He hesitated, then shook his head. "It may take you a while to find out what it was. I still don't know what I could've done to change things, myself." They were inside a complex now, chasing up flights of stairs; Makenshi made a sudden turn into a corridor, with Lisa almost running to catch up.

They came to a door, which as spirits, they simply passed through. Once they had, Lisa picked up the distinct sounds of a male voice, cracked and moaning.

In her experience, there was only one thing that could mean.

Following the sound with a slight frown, Lisa came to another door, this one slightly open. She only caught the briefest glimpse of two nude bodies writhing together within the disheveled sheets of a bed before Makenshi put his hand on her shoulder and coaxed her back.

"You... might want to wait a moment," he said quietly, hesitantly. "I'm not sure that's something you want to see."

With the experience of Lisa Heartbreaker, she doubted that any strange sexual inclination of the pair in the room could faze her, but because it would put Makenshi at ease, she stayed outside, waiting and listening.

Over the space of a few minutes, Lisa became aware of two things--that of the two voices she could hear from the room, both were definitely male, and that one of them, though she hadn't recognized it at first because it was hard to imagine him in throes of ecstasy, belonged to Makenshi.

Of course. He had brought her to his own private nightmare, the source of his torment--what would have been if not for his own choices.

Turning from the door to her now-silent companion, Lisa was struck by the look of suffering on Makenshi's face--almost any other man would be drinking in the sounds from the bedroom, ready to jump on whoever crossed his path just to relieve the sexual tension. But Makenshi seemed as though he would rather have been anywhere else... he obviously didn't want to be hearing this, knowing what was behind that door. And through the layers and layers of deep, scarring pain, there was just the slightest hint of wistfulness, as though he wished he could take the place of his other self.

Finally, from behind the door came a muffled scream and a low, hoarse moan; there was silence, then murmuring too quiet for Lisa to hear properly, and then more silence.

Makenshi nodded; Lisa realized that the second voice, that of the other Makenshi's mystery lover, had been familiar as well...

A bit wary but intensely curious, Lisa walked through the door into the bedroom.

Beside the wall, the bed itself was a royal mess, with crumpled sheets everywhere and even a pillow dumped on the floor. Lisa had expected that much; it was the identity of the man in the other Makenshi's bed that surprised her.

Built along the same lines as the white-haired swordsman, though a little taller and slightly sturdier, he rested his head on his crossed arms, his eyes closed and his hair in his face... his waist-length, messy crimson hair, stray tufts drawing lines across his back that intersected with the marks that his lover's nails had apparently made, flanking dark gray spikes.

Lisa knew this man.

Madoushi, the younger swordsman had called him once.

Makenshi's own brother.

To see him alive was one thing, after the disaster that had taken place in the city of clouds... to see him alive like this was quite another. Lisa had never exactly associated Makenshi with any specific sexual inclinations, having no idea what even his sexual orientation was; she'd been prepared for anything, she'd thought. But incest... that had taken her off guard.

Still, it wasn't as though she could say anything. Working at the nightclub, she had seen and done too many things to allow her to criticize someone else's choices.

Turning back to the Makenshi who had brought her to this place, she was shocked to see that he had covered his face with both hands, his shoulders shaking.

"There isn't a single day that goes by that I don't ask myself what I could've done differently," the young swordsman managed through choking sobs. "There isn't a single day when I don't think of him and wonder why I was so abysmally stupid that I fell right into Oscha's trap..." Lisa laid a hand on his shoulder as he shook his head violently. "Oh, Niisama..."

"I'm sorry," she murmured, stroking along his back. "I'm sorry."

"Do you have any idea at all how lucky you are?" he asked miserably. "To have the chance you do... the chance that the rest of us will never receive...?"

"What chance?" Lisa asked, confused.

Tears still in his eyes, Makenshi laid his hands on Lisa's shoulders, fixing her with his intense stare. "She will tell you soon. But for now... as you've already begun to ask yourself where you've gone wrong, you need to consider something equally as important: If you had the chance to go back and try to change what you did during the Chaos wars, once you knew what it was you did wrong, would you?"

Lisa stared at him, shocked. "Of course I would! If there was anything I could do to bring this future to happen--"

"Even if the thing that you did was something you want to have happened?" Makenshi asked, and she fell silent. "What if the thing you need to sacrifice is your choice to travel with the Comodeen? Or your relationship with Ai and Yu? Or the nights you shared with Kaze?" Lisa flinched. "It's crucial--will you be willing to go back and change your past? Even knowing what you could obtain, would you be willing to lose something so important to you?"

Lisa was silent, torn. Makenshi was right. If it meant losing something so important, could she bear to change the past?

"You need to think about it. Because... you just might get that chance."

They were both silent, caught in dreams of the past.

"She will come for you, and you will have to choose. Where and when, I'm not sure. But... until that day... take care." He embraced her tightly, clutching her like life to his chest. Lisa became aware that he had no heartbeat. In its place was the lonely silence of meaningless existence... an echo of her own.

Impulsively, her heart whirling with rediscovered sympathies, Lisa stood on tiptoe and gave him the brief kiss of a friend, resting her head on his slightly sloped, bare shoulder. "Oyasumi," she whispered.

Sparing only the briefest glance at the oblivious, happy couple in the bed, Makenshi held her close, letting his eyes close as darkness swirled around them. "Kansha suru."

---

When Lisa came to, she was lying on a stretcher, being fussed over by two paramedics; Colin Byrne hovered anxiously in the background.

Seeing that she was awake, he tried to get closer to her, babbling. "Oh, God, I'm so sorry, I don't know what came over me, I don't know why I did that to you, please forgive me, I'm so sorry..."

Looking at his cruel but shock-paled face, Lisa was reminded forcibly of something she had heard her father once say. A man who hits a dog is likely to kick it in a week.

She would have to be very careful in the future. It wasn't that she didn't believe Colin Byrne was sorry; it was just the fact that she knew how likely abuse was to repeat itself. He would attack her again--he might not be able to help it.

She'd just try not to give him a reason to.

It was all she could do until the woman Makenshi had mentioned arrived.

(TBC)