Once in a Lifetime

see disclaimer in Part 1

All she could do was wait.

And so she'd been waiting, for almost a month.

Lisa Byrne's belly had swollen still further; on a visit to the physician Colin Byrne had put her in touch with, she had discovered that despite her own condition, her baby was healthy and perfectly formed. And, as she'd already known, female.

Timidly, Colin Byrne asked his wife if she'd picked out a name yet; Lisa had ignored him. She had far more serious things to think about than baby names at this point.

Her mind was stuck on Aura's words--"Where did you go wrong?"--and Makenshi's--"If you could go back and change what you did, would you?". She still couldn't decide where exactly she'd crossed the line, but was now beset with worries--could she change her past? Would she? What would she have to sacrifice? It couldn't be something so easy as she'd first thought, with Makenshi's warning... if the woman who he'd claimed had sent him had truly orchestrated all of this purposely.

Nothing in life was ever that easy.

To make things still worse, she and Colin Byrne were walking on eggshells around each other. She was still wary of his crueler side; he didn't know what to do to convince her of his caring since his initial overtures had failed. Although she did want to avoid becoming another statistic, Lisa truly could've done without all the creeping and suspicion and proclamations of innocence.

Of course, the good side to all this was that Colin Byrne hadn't tried to get her in bed with him again. It meant a relief from the consistent Kaze flashbacks that still plagued her whenever she had sex, and a bit more sanity than she'd maintained for the past five months.

There was only one thing, aside from the constant seeking, that really bothered her now.

Her dreams had become vivid and strange since Makenshi's visit, amazingly lifelike but mystic, impossible for her to decipher.

One night, she had walked through the ruins of a city, her feet guiding her as she drifted aimlessly throughout the wreckage.

On one huge chunk of cement, apparently part of what had once been a building, sat Makenshi's brother, his crimson clothes tattered, his sword broken in two before him, slumped in despair with a hand covering his eyes.

She had walked towards him, touched his shoulder; but when she'd touched him, the horrors she had seen...

His body, pinned against some kind of circular device, hung in midair, his eyes focused past her, huge in terror. Everything else dissolved into a mad swirl of color and pain, but she had heard him screaming. No man should ever scream like that, Lisa had thought wildly--so loud and long, in such horror and agony that it cracked and shattered and twisted. And he had gone on screaming, crying, pleading... enough that she knew what had happened to him.

She had pulled away, afraid; he had desperately clasped her hand, and there had been reddish, swollen streaks beneath his eyes, with fresh tears on his cheeks. "Please tell him I'm sorry," he had begged her over and over... "I didn't mean it, I didn't want to, tell Kumo I'm sorry..."

Another night, she had sat side by side with Makenshi on a precipice suspended above the clouds, watching him as he slept with his head on her shoulder. It was strange, and perhaps it was just a trick of the sky's pure blueness and the softness of the clouds just below them, but he seemed so young, so frail. And so tired... there were shadows beneath his eyes, from lack of sleep. So close to him, she could see that his skin was still soft and translucent like a child's. Although he had endured so much, he seemed unbelievably weak and helpless as he sat beside her, his breath soft on her cheek. She wanted to hold and protect him forever.

One of the worse dreams, which still came off and on, was of Kaze.

Lisa simply watched, unable to do anything. That alone broke her heart. The tragedies she faced crushed its tender halves into dust.

The ground was shattering beneath her; the dark wind swirling around her made it hard for her to see anything but the pair right before her.

Kaze... and Aura.

Her small hand was clasped tightly in his; he was speaking softly. Lisa heard his every word perfectly, no matter how she tried not to.

"After this battle, everything will end... everything..." Somewhere within the hoarse despair, there was a hidden plea. "Everything..."

Aura cut him off, her voice sharp. It always shocked Lisa to see the tears on her face. "Use it."

"Aura..." The plea was more insistent, in Kaze's eyes as well as his voice.

"You have to use my Soil! It's the only way!"

"Aura, no..."

"Stop making excuses! Whether we're able to defeat Chaos or not, there's nothing left of Windaria! Is this what you want to leave me! Challenging Chaos now will only kill you--we're both out of bullets unless you let me do this!"

"Aura, please... you can't...!" Lisa felt like she'd fly to pieces just seeing it--Kaze openly anguished, the tears gathering in his eyes, though his voice told her he still fought to hold them back.

Yanking her hand out of Kaze's grasp, Aura slammed it to her chest, the vicious winds already forcing the two of them to drift slowly apart.

"AURA!" Kaze's cry was desperate as he reached for her.

"You must use my Soil," was all she said, closing her eyes as her body blazed gold. "My soul..."

There was a brilliant flash, and Kaze stood alone, his clenched fist held to his chest. Through his fingers, Lisa could see the bullet of ever-shifting colors that was his sister's life.

And the dream always ended there.

It felt as though Lisa had been assaulted with the stories of a million lives.

But there was one image that continued to haunt her.

Unlike the others it was confused, jumbled. The only clear, fixed point was the form of a woman, somewhere around Lisa's age, sprawled in an undignified heap before a glimmering blue crystal sphere. In other situations, she must have seemed elegant and graceful in the flower-blue dress and pale yellow cloak that she wore; not so here. Too spent to move, lacking the will even to sit up, she twisted into a curl on the ground and cried, her body shaking uncontrollably. If Lisa stared too long at the crystal, she could see vague, chaotic images swirling beneath its surface; looking for even a few moments made her queasy, so she tried to avoid it.

She knew that somehow, this disjointed fragment of a vision lay at the center of the others. This strange woman was the source of the turmoil in her mind. She had no idea how she knew something like that, but she did--and for once, she just decided to trust her instincts. Pondering and trying to second-guess her intuition gave her a headache.

Lisa Byrne had more of Lisa Pacifist in her than she knew.

---

Having been lost in thought for hours, when she heard a footstep behind her, without thinking, she spoke softly: "Kaze...?"

"No." It was Colin Byrne's voice. Lisa made a face, oblivious to his irritation, disappointed instead in herself. She should know better. Just because her head was in the clouds all the time didn't mean she had to bring her daydreaming into her daily life. That would only bring her pain...

As if the daydreams themselves weren't painful enough...

"Who is Kaze?" Colin Byrne asked sharply.

She looked over her shoulder at him. There was a scowl on his face; his thick brows were knitted angrily. Remembering that prudent silence could save lives, she said nothing, just angled a reproachful stare towards him.

"I asked you a question, damn you!"

Once again, she didn't answer.

"Who is Kaze? Some other damn man you're keeping on the side? The reason I don't suit your taste anymore!"

Where had he managed to get that idea? Lisa wondered, now looking at Colin Byrne as though he were disturbed. Still, she did not answer, although she turned to face him completely, watching warily.

"When a husband asks a question of his wife, he requires an answer!"

Here it comes. Bracing herself, Lisa was able to take the brunt of the heavy blow without falling. Even so, she tasted blood; her lip was cut again. Well, she didn't have to take it this time--after everything she'd seen and done, after standing against Chaos, she wasn't going to let this pitiful man order her around. She glared at him acidly.

"Kuroki Kaze was the father of my child," she said, her voice loud and strong, wiping the trace of blood from her cheek.

"Why should I believe you!" Colin Byrne swung again; Lisa, seeing the movement, ducked out of the way.

The sudden burst of self-confidence, the part of Kaze in her that had roared into unexpected life, would not allow her to hold her tongue. "One truly must wonder what kind of mind can't take into account that raping his spouse just might diminish her sexual ardor--"

Colin Byrne bellowed and ran at her; reacting out of simple instinct and training, Lisa flung her hands out before her and yelled. There was a soft ripple in the air, and Colin Byrne was thrown backwards against the ratty carpeting.

Staring at her palms, Lisa felt a tiny, hummingbird's-wing flutter in her chest... a tiny, almost unrecognizable flicker of joy, so long absent from her life. Her Kigenjutsu had returned to her.

Struggling back to his feet, Colin Byrne glared white-faced at her. "I always knew there was something not right about you, damn slut--"

Following the tiny wing-flutter in her chest was a much more powerful one, panic. Promptly forgetting her self-defense training, Lisa ran, fumbling with the doorknob, pattering down the rickety stairs to the street.

Catching herself on a sidewalk corner, she paused, her breathing rapid, one hand pressed to her belly. She couldn't run as fast or as far now, and in her condition, she wouldn't be able to stay out on the streets for long. She needed help; she certainly wasn't going back now.

Dolwa, she thought to herself wildly, remembering the future Makenshi had showed her. Surely he would be able to help her, if she could just get to the agency--

But she had no money--

Looking over her shoulder, still panting shallowly, Lisa froze as a vast blueness swept over everything, and the world froze.

Deep in her bones, she knew.

The one who had sent Aura and Makenshi had come.

(TBC)