A/N: Howdy y'all! Thanx to the people who reviewed the prologue…I know it was sorta confusing. Did y'all think I really killed off Van? Well, I can't tell you what I did to him, but I do have a reputation of torturing my favorite characters in some fashion or another. Just to let y'all know. Disclaimer is in the first chapter for reference, I only like to admit defeat once, read it there again if you wish.
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Key to Atlantis
Chapter One: Graduation Ceremony:
Hitomi Kanzaki sat up wide awake in her four poster bed, shaking from head to toe from the horrifying nightmare she had been startled up from moments earlier.
' It was a nightmare…not a vision," she thought to herself as she pushed damp, tangled locks out of her face as she took a steadying breath to calm her nerves. She laid back down, attempting to once again fall asleep before the daylight came, but after a restless ten minutes gave up with an exasperated sigh and rose out of bed.
She padded softly towards the bathroom in her room, not wanting to squeak a floorboard and wake anyone else in the house with her insomnia, and softly shut the door with a quiet click so she could flip on the light. The brightness blinded her dilated pupils at first, causing her to blink her emerald eyes in rapid succession before she could see well enough to turn on the faucet and splash her face with warm water. She dried her face with a fluffy white towel hanging on a hook attached to the door and looked up at her reflection before leaving the bathroom.
She more or less had not changed all too much over the two years since she had left Gaea, her face still retaining the youthful beauty she always had, and her eyes still a vibrant green as ever. No, it was her body that had changed the most she and her best friend Yukari decided, filling out into a slender but curvy body as opposed to the boyish frame that had accompanied her through most of her life. That and her light brown hair, which was now down to her shoulders because she had desired a change after two years of the same short haircut. At seventeen, Hitomi had transformed from a pretty girl into a beautiful young woman, and others her age were taking notice.
Not that it mattered to her though, for her thoughts dwelled on only one person, and that person was far away from her at the moment. Hitomi turned off the light to the bathroom and walked back out into her room, but instead of going back to bed, she opened her window and clambered out to sit on her roof and star gaze, a habit she had grown accustomed to ever since she had been sent back home from Gaea. She curled up her long, honed legs up to her chest and started up at the sparkling lights in the sky, not minding the slight breeze that blew around her brown tresses in a teasing manner.
Her thoughts drifted to the people she had left behind on Gaea two years ago as she searched the stars for the wondrous world she had been whisked too once upon a time, a land where she had fought evil beings, met princesses and knights, and stumbled across her own prince charming in the process. Hitomi gave a small laugh as she thought of a raven-haired swordsman, a young man who was anything but charming, but had still won her heart by the end of her journey. He was so cold to her when they first met, but after they traversed his world for a time, she came to understand the shy but tortured soul he truly was. It was him, more than Allen, Millerna, Chid, or even Merle that she missed the most.
"Van," she whispered to the wind as a small tear of regret spilled down her cheek. "I miss you so much. I have to grow up today, it's my graduation ceremony tonight and I'll have to leave you behind forever. I don't want to, but I can't get back to your world…maybe we just weren't meant to be after all. If that's the case, I'm sorry I treated you so awfully while I was there, I'm sorry I hurt you. I never meant to."
She brushed a hand at her face to wipe away her tears, determined to be strong like he would be. Her thoughts drifted to the dream…vision…the reason she had awoken so early in the first place as she continued to gaze at the stars in a mournful fashion. She could not recall everything she saw, but she definitely remembered dark-robed figures that were destroying Fanelia. She remembered Van was in trouble, she could see him fighting gallantly to save his country and people, and she could see Merle screaming as a large man she recognized as Ruhm pulled her away, but she could not hear them. She focused her brain on what happened next, her eyes screwed shut as she wracked her mind for images, and then her eyes flew open as she saw Van being engulfed in a white light, her name the last thing echoing from his lips.
"You were in pain Van," Hitomi said to herself, a fear gripping her heart in a cold grasp. "You screamed my name in pain and then were gone…what happened to you? Are you all right, is Merle all right? Please, please Van be okay…I couldn't bear it if anything happened to you."
She tried to focus on her dream once more, but her mind relinquished no more information concerning what the robed-beings were, or where Van had disappeared to, and she chided herself for her silliness as she climbed back into her room.
"You just miss him is all," Hitomi told herself fiercely as she shut the window and got back into bed. "I'm sure that all of them are just fine, why wouldn't they be? He's probably forgotten you already Hitomi; it has been two years after all, I'm sure he's moved on with his life, like you will be tonight."
With a sad smile, she covered herself with a light blanket and rested her head on the pillow, her eyes closing to the image of the handsome face of a boy that had stolen her heart without even trying. She had to move on with her life now, stop playing make believe and grow up; she had to give him up. A sad smile crossed her lips as she felt sleep once more take hold of her, her dream pushed aside as a fanciful image conjured by her desire to see the Fanelian king one more time, and nothing but Van holding her in his arms filling her mind.
"Please don't forget me Hitomi, no matter what happens, don't forget me."
"I won't," she murmured as sleep took her, unaware that she was started down the path that would compel her to do just that.
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"Hitomi, what's up with you today? Are you nervous about tonight?"
" Um-What?" Hitomi asked her red-headed friend as they walked down the mall, on a mission to find Yukari the perfect heels to go with her outfit for the graduation. Hitomi personally was going to wear flip-flops with the skirt and camisole underneath her robes tonight, but she understood how girls like Yukari worked enough to not press the issue. She looked up from her daydream, another one of Van of course, to find her friend smirking at her, a twinkle dancing in her eyes.
"Are you okay 'Tomi?" Yukari asked playfully, cocking her head to the side to give her brown-haired friend a quizzical expression. "You are awfully distracted today! That was the THIRD time I asked about those pink shoes, and you just kept staring out the window! I mean, I understand if you're nervous about tonight, but don't go paranoid on me about it!"
"I wasn't thinking about the ceremony Yukari," Hitomi said with a laugh at her friend's mock anger. "And I think the pink heels are very nice, they are definitely the winners I think. But, I guess I am a little distracted today, it's just a lot to deal with all at once you know?"
"You were thinking about that boy again weren't you?" Yukari said with a knowing look as the girls exited the shop after the red-head purchased her perfect shoes. "I can tell, you always get that faraway look on your face when you do, the one with sword?"
Hitomi gave a small nod accompanied with a barely audible, " Yes," as the two girls walked back out to Yukari's car in the parking structure outside. Of all the people she knew, Yukari was the only one who Hitomi told about her adventures in Gaea, mainly because only her and Amano had seen her taken by the pillar of blue light two years prior. It helped that she had someone to talk about Van with, and it also helped to have someone fend off boys without asking why she didn't go out with one of them.
Yukari studied the forlorn look on her friend's face for a moment before look ahead again. She knew all too well that Hitomi truly cared about that messy haired boy who she saw fighting the dragon all that time ago. At first, she had a hard time believing the brunette's story of another world, evil armies, huge fighting robots, and a winged boy who had saved her life and stolen her heart in the process, but Hitomi believed it so fiercely that Yukari had come to realize that it probably had really happened. She knew what Hitomi was feeling, but she had no idea of how to help when the boy she loved happened to live in a different world.
" Hey," she said quietly, giving Hitomi a slight nudge and a smile. " It'll be all right you know. Just because we're graduating doesn't mean that you have to forget about him. Maybe you'll even see him again!"
" I guess," Hitomi said half-heartedly, knowing in her heart that her friend was just saying those comforting words for just that, comfort. " Yukari, do you think I'm being silly in waiting so long for a boy that I probably won't ever see again? Please tell me honestly."
" Honestly," Yukari said with a sad frown as she opened the door to her car and unlocked Hitomi's as well. " I think it's strange, and maybe a bit unlikely, but I think you truly love this guy Hitomi. Not just that puppy love you think you feel when you're younger, but actual love. And if you love him as much as I think you do, I think you should hold onto that love until YOU feel you shouldn't. I really did mean it, maybe he'll come back soon."
Hitomi didn't say anything for the remainder of the drive back to her house, and Yukari didn't press her too, knowing her friend needed to mull over some things in her heart and head. When the girls arrived at Hitomi's familiar dwelling, Yukari gave her a cheery wave and a promise to pick her up later for the ceremony, seeing as the students had to arrive a full hour and a half earlier than the parents and guests. Hitomi waved goodbye, and remained on her curb until she could no longer see her friend's car before she headed back into her house, her eyes downcast with a burden she did not want to bear.
" I'm home," she shouted as she shut the front door and slipped off her shoes as she walked into her kitchen for a quick snack and a glass of water.
" Hello dear," she heard her mother say, and she was greeted with her trademark friendly smile as Hitomi entered. " How was shopping?"
" Same old shopping," Hitomi said with a smile as she rummaged through the fridge before she found the carrots, accepted a glass of water from her mother, and sat down at the table to enjoy her meal. " You know Yukari, it takes her three hours to find one pair of shoes we past by at least four times. But the mall wasn't busy, so it was all right."
" That's nice dear," her mother said in a kind tone as she set down her remaining dishes and sat beside her daughter at the table. Sasuki Kanzaki knew when something was bothering her daughter, no matter how much Hitomi thought she concealed from her family and friends, a kind of mother's intuition. So, she sat next to the young woman who was about to enter the adult world and calmly asked, " What is wrong child? Do not lie to me by saying nothing is wrong, I know both you and Mamoru to well for that to work on me. Is it about the ceremony tonight?"
Hitomi was silent towards all of her mother's questions, not trusting herself to speak in case the whole truth came spilling out, and after all, she was a terrible liar. Not to mention, how did you tell your mother that the reason you are so depressed is because you are in love with a boy, a king to boot, who lives in another world full of magic and strange beings without coming across as crazy? So, after a few minutes of silent patience, she simply said, " Yeah, I'm upset about the ceremony tonight. It's just nerve-wracking, you know, I mean, I'm leaving soon! It's a lot to handle at once."
" Hitomi," her mother said in a kind voice, her eyes sparkling with pride. " You have been accepted to a wonderful university for your track and academic skills. You have no reason to fear what will become of you when the future grabs hold of you, you will do great things with your life, your father and I have never doubted that. I know that is not the reason, is it because of what I told you last year concerning your father?"
" No!" Hitomi exclaimed, surprised her mother thought she was upset over that. " Of course not! I told you and my father that it doesn't matter to me, he'll always be my real dad. No it's just…I feel like I suddenly have to let go of things and I don't think I can…not really."
Sasuki looked at her daughter tormented face, seeing all too clearly what caused the conflict within her. Her oldest child was in love, and she was worried she would now have to leave this love behind. A memory of her own mother, Hitomi's grandmother, echoed in her mind, one that reminded her of a hidden world filled with danger and fantasy. A world that she believed spirited her daughter away from her two years ago, a world that apparently housed someone who had stolen her daughter's love in the process. She reached over and cupped Hitomi's shaking hands within her own warm ones, and gazed at her daughter with an understanding gaze that revealed everything between the two women.
" Hitomi, I can't pretend that I won't worry about you if you leave again like you did when you were fifteen, but I understand why you feel you may need too. Just know that your family will always love and care for you, no matter how far away from us you are."
" Mother," Hitomi said in a husky voice that sounded horrid even to her. She leaned over and wrapped her arms around the caring woman, drawing strength from her strong presence. They cradled each other for a moment, mother and daughter, before Hitomi broke away, hastily wiping her eyes with a rueful smile on her face. " This is ridiculous, I'm crying over something silly again! It's not like I'll ever go back to Gaea anyhow."
" Gaea, that place is called Gaea?" Sasuki asked, curious about the place that chosen her mother and daughter to save it, for that could be the only explanation why it would take people she justified. " It is a beautiful name. What is his name?"
" Van," Hitomi said, caught off guard by her mother's understanding and acceptance of what happened two years ago. " Van Slanzar de Fanel. King of Fanelia."
" A king eh?" Sasuki asked her daughter playfully as she rose to return to her dishes. " I see I taught you well in aiming for the best. When do I get to meet him, at a grand ball?"
" I don't know," Hitomi said with a giggle, the thought of introducing her mother to Van hilarious in too many ways to fully comprehend. She sobered up and said a bit quietly, " I don't know if I'll ever see him again. I gave him my pendant when I left, but I haven't seen him since then, he'd be my age and the ruler of a country, he may have forgotten me."
" Impossible my dear," he mother said absentmindedly as she dried of a plate and put is back in its cupboard. " Whenever a woman gives a man some sort of souvenir of their affection, we have them for life. Lord knows it's what I used on your father! I gave him a ring I had since I was a child on a chain…he still wears it from time to time."
Hitomi remained silent, her mother's words filling her with hope, but her doubts still poking at her mind and heart to be heard. She finished her snack and helped her mother clean up the remaining dishes before stating she needed to start getting ready for the ceremony if she wanted to be on time.
" Remember dear," her mother said as Hitomi walked out the door and towards her own room. " We stand beside you, no matter what path you decide to tread."
Hitomi gave a soft, beautiful smile at her mother before heading up the stairs, something that made her brother entering the kitchen for a snack of his own to ask, " What was that about mother? Something up with Hitomi?"
" You're sister is just growing up Mamuro," Sasuki said with a sad smile as a lone tear streaked down her cheek. " That's all."
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" Hurry up Hitomi!" Yukari yelled out through the gymnasium of her high school as the graduates all lined up in their respective lines, mutterings good lucks and exchanging excited high fives every so often. " Your line is over there…where were you anyway?"
" I was going to the bathroom all right!" Hitomi hissed under her breath as she took her spot in the honor rows opposite Yukari who was in the second line and directly across from her for the moment. " I was nervous, I know I'm going to trip and fall on my face."
" You are wearing flip flops Hitomi," Yukari said in an amused voice as she looked down at her friends blue sandals that matched the bohemian blue skirt and tight white halter the brunette was wearing underneath her black robes perfectly. " I mean, I'm more likely to trip, my heels aren't exactly comfort shoes or help with balance."
Hitomi glanced at the pink heels her friend had picked out earlier that day, a light pink color that matched the short summer dress beneath the robes very well. Both her parents and Yukari's made quite a fuss with ' how grown up you both look' and ' you both look so pretty!" That was the reason for why they were late, that and the million and a half pictures taken before both girls sternly yelled they had to leave or they would graduate next year.
" I suppose so," Hitomi answered her friend after her thoughts focused back onto the present. " Is Amano here tonight for you? I thought he said he would be."
" He is," Yukari said with an infectious grin as the line leaders took their places and the lines began to march. " Hey Hitomi, I just want to let you know how much I love you. You're my best friend, and I'll always remember you, no matter where we go from here."
Hitomi flashed her friend a radiant smile, one that was mingled with excitement and misgivings of the future, and followed her line down the field of her high school, hearing people cheering as she and her fellow students walked down the aisles. She took her seat when the every student had arrived at their assigned chair, and watched the beginnings of the ceremony with a feeling she identified as happiness that she had finished an important phase of her life. The school song was beautiful, and she found herself singing along with the lines unconsciously, and she clapped along with her friends when both the valedictorian and salutatorian finished their speeches.
She marched up to the podium to receive her diploma when her name was called, hearing the cheers that accompanied her name, and was pleased when she didn't trip at all. She took her seat and watched the other graduates receive their certificates with a serene look on her face. She reached down and played a song off her I-Pod that she had brought along to help calm her nerves. It always reminded her of Van…maybe that was why she loved it so much.
"Well I guess you left me with some feathers in my hand," Hitomi sang under her breath, letting the comfort she always felt when thinking about Van flow over her.
"Did it make it any easier to leave me where I stand?
" I guess there may not be too many who would stand beside you now…"
A peculiar feeling rushed over her, but she kept on singing, trying to ignore a familiar light-headed feeling she knew all too well.
" Every night these silhouettes appear above my head,
"And little angels of the silences that climb into my bed and whisper,
"Every time I fall asleep, every time I dream,
" Did you come? Would you lie?
It flooded over her mind in a rush, that awareness that accompanied her visions on Gaea, and she was reminded of that feeling that one gets before a sneeze, the anticipation of something they know is coming but has not yet. And yet, she kept on singing, even as she rose to throw her cap up into the air with her fellow classmates.
"I dream of Michelangelo when I'm lying in my bed,
"Little angels hang above my head, and read me like an open book,
"Suck my blood, break my nerve, offer me their arms,
" Well I will not be a little of me of anything, I've always stood here!"
" Waiting, for you, all my senses said that I would pay for them
" If I could, come back, to you,
" All my innocence is wasted on a little dreaming,
"I'm gone, I'm gone, I'm gone, I'm-"
She let out a gasp as she was overwhelmed with a vision that was not her own. It wasn't a dream this time, it was a vision, a prediction, a rede of the future. She lost touch with everything around her, everything she knew, and only was aware of what she was shown. She saw destruction of Gaea, its landmarks easy to identify, at the hands of the cloaked beings from her dream the other night. She saw a ghost wander as if it was part of the living, and she saw a lost dragon not sure if it should exist.
The blood and smoke nearly choked her, and she felt tears flow freely from her emerald orbs as she looked upon a destruction that would make even murderers weep. But then, her vision suddenly switched to other images, ones of peace and life, even though it was faint and almost out of reach, and figures flashed in front of her eyes, signifying who was needed to stop the pain and death.
She saw a cat girl with a severed tail, both in spirit and physical. She saw a young warrior trapped in a corrupt king's cage, one whose past was hidden in a cloud of secrets. She saw a purple-eyed princess, afraid of the world she would one day inherit, and longing to fly free. She saw a man dressed in blood with an eye-patch, one whose heart was filled with bitterness and anger. And finally, she saw an entrapped angel, no Draconian, whose piercing red eyes she knew all too well.
When she opened her eyes to look back on the field she was graduating on, she found to her horror that great beams of pink light were beaming down everywhere, showing glimpses of monsters and strange beings alike before being swept away back to Gaea. The students were in panic but Hitomi stood there, calm as a tree, gazing at the glowing pink pendant she now held in her hand.
" How did I get this? Van!"
A beam of pink light engulfed her, warming and chilling at the same time, and she knew no more as she was carried away from her home on the Mystic Moon once again. Her parents and friends watched her disappear, disappear back to the land where she would find danger and love all at once, her mother thought silently to herself.
" Please then king Van Fanel, protect my daughter, and bring her back once more to say goodbye," she whispered as her husband wrapped her into his warm embrace.
Too bad Sasuki Kanzaki didn't know it was not her daughter that needed to be saved, but one who needed to do the saving.
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Her head was pounding, that more than anything else awoke Hitomi from the fainting episode that accompanied her vision. She pushed herself off the soft, brown ground and lifted a hand to shield her eyes from the bright glare of the sun.
' The sun? It was night only moments ago…and the ground was green, not brown…'
Hitomi looked up sharply and took in her surroundings, ignoring the stabbing annoyance assailing her brain, and let out a soft gasp as she recognized where she was. The trees were tall and thick, their dark brown branches covered in leaves coloring from deep green to silver in the light. The air was clearer and sweeter, not tainted with the smells of pollution, and it was quiet, as if no one was around for miles. She pushed herself to her feet and turned around quickly, looking like a do trying to locate its tail, and then looked up into the sky, knowing that she would still be able to see the moons in the daylight.
And she did. There, clear as anything, was her own familiar moon, and another right beside it blinking with lights that she knew to be buildings and homes and covered by huge expanses of blue. It was Earth…Mystic Moon here.
" Oh my…" she whispered to no one in particular as she looked back down to the pendant clutched tightly in her palm. " I'm back, I'm on Gaea."
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A/N: Well, there you go. I hoped you likey, tell me what you thought!
Oh, and just to say, I don't own "Angels of the Silences," Counting Crows do. But, I didn't use it in a songfic manner, Hitomi was merely singing the song, so ha to you Doesn't that song just remind you of Van? Well, it did to me, so I used it.
Remember, the review button is right there…let me know what you think, I love feedback. Until next time, Adios!
Osco