-Hello once again everyone! Well I know it's kinda sooner than usual for me to update but,
Well I received some wonderful reviews for the last chapter, and I couldn't just have my friends wait...
And so I'm updating again!
Special thanx to YohandAnna4ever and Kari Usui for their kind reviews!
Disclaimer: Why do I have to keep doing this? Seriously...(sighs) I do not own Shaman King there I said it. Happy now? XD
Yoh breathed in heavily as he saw the most important person in his life, standing only feet away from him, on the very edge of a building, and on the very edge of her life.
"Anna! I..." Yoh panted. He had both arms on his legs as he lowered his head and breathed in heavily.
"...Why are you doing this, Yoh?" Anna whispered suddenly.
Anna's back was still facing Yoh and so he was not able to see her face as she spoke.
"Why am I...Anna...what are you doing up here?" Yoh asked.
"So you still haven't figured it out?
God you're such an idiot." Anna sighed.
"Look Anna...I have a pretty good idea of what you're planning on doing..." Yoh began
"And let me guess. You're planning on stopping me before I try to hurt myself?" Anna interrupted.
"No. I was going to say that, I have a pretty good idea of what you're planning on doing, but I just don't understand why you'd want to do something like this." Yoh answered gently.
"Yoh. Listen. I don't know why you decided to come up here. You're just wasting your time because I don't need you here. I know what I'm doing and I don't need anyone interfering." Anna insisted.
"No Anna. I don't think you know what you're doing. If you knew, then I wouldn't have had to come up here." Yoh argued.
"Yoh! Just!...Ugh..."Anna had no idea how to respond.
She stayed quiet and turned up at the radiant afternoon sky as she tightened both of her fists down at her waist.
"Just leave me alone." She murmured distantly.
Yoh paid close attention to Anna.
He usually followed through and obeyed with Anna wishes, but he just wasn't sure he could do so at this moment.
"Anna...How am I supposed to just walk away and leave you alone at a time like this?" He asked sincerely.
"I said I don't need you, Yoh. I'm fine on my own. Just leave." Anna irritably fixed her gaze down at the dark red bricks just beneath her feet.
She scraped the heel of her shoes back and forth against the rough texture of the bricks, in attempts of focusing her attention on anything other than Yoh.
Yoh sighed and watched Anna slowly rock herself back and forth along the edge of the roof.
She was honestly acting as if this whole ordeal was just a game.
Yoh knew that at any moment, Anna would completely throw herself off and the game would be over.
But even under these circumstances, Yoh focused himself on remaining calm.
His fiancée was about to commit suicide and even though an event like this would surely cause anyone to panic, he had to stay serene.
He would repeatedly counsel himself in his mind to stay calm and not try anything drastic.
To stop Anna from ending her life, he would have to stay put and clearly explain to her why this was not the best solution to her problem.
This would take some time, but every second counted drastically.
Yoh finally sighed and spoke in a soft whisper.
"I...can't leave." He whispered suddenly. "I'm not leaving without you by my side."
Yoh shut the door firmly behind him that led back down the spiral stairs and into the building.
He was not going to leave under any circumstances.
Anna took in a deep breath and sighed.
Slowly, Yoh proceeded to take a few steps forward, walking towards Anna.
He stopped once he was standing right behind her, less than a foot away.
He gradually placed both of his hands into his pockets and stared at the back of Anna's head.
He watched as Anna's scruffy blonde hair whipped in the violent wind that had just begun to blow.
Her skirt gently swayed from side to side along her tiny waist.
Her frail, trembling arms turned light blue as the cold breeze whipped past her form.
Anna was in no shape to be out, ending her life, in the cold like this.
Anna felt Yoh's presence behind her and placed her head down relaxing her small hands down at her side.
"What do you want from me, Yoh?" Anna asked keeping her voice muffled.
She remained quiet and was prepared to listen to what Yoh had to say.
"I just want to know...why you're doing this? Why are you...avoiding what's going on in your life? Why don't you want to face whatever's troubling you?" Yoh questioned.
"Nothing's troubling me!" Anna snapped frowning sharply and tightly clenching both of her fists.
Yoh remained quiet for a short moment.
"Anna. It's wrong to lie."
Yoh proceeded to close the gap between the two and slowly reached for Anna's right hand dangling by her side.
Her tiny hand had turned blue from the cold wind.
He gently placed his hand under hers and slipped his warm fingers through hers.
Anna's eyes shot open as she felt Yoh's warming touch.
She immediately jerked her hand away and swiveled around so that he would not look at her face.
"Don't touch me!" She snapped.
Yoh furrowed his brow and remained silent for a while.
"Anna?
Can I ask you something?" Yoh asked for permission.
Anna scoffed suddenly, but then nodded.
"Why is it that you are so unhappy?
That's all I want to know. That's the only question I'll ask. You know that I'll listen to what you have to say. Please just tell me what's going on." Yoh asked softly.
Anna took in a deep breath and tried to calm herself down.
"Yoh?
Can I ask you something?
Why is it that you care so much about me, now that I've decided to kill myself?
You've never wanted to listen to what I've had to say, or even cared about what was going on in my life until now." Anna whispered.
Yoh looked up at Anna still awaiting to see her face.
"Anna...
Agh look, I know that in the past I may have acted in a selfish way that may have seemed like I didn't care or didn't want to listen to you, but that was because you never gave me the chance.
Anna, I've always cared about you. More than you know.
You're the most important thing in my life. And I don't want to see you get hurt, so please, just tell me what's going on.
You know that you can trust me." Yoh replied earnestly.
As Anna heard Yoh pour out his feelings, it only made her feel more guilty for not pouring out hers.
A part of her simply wanted to collapse into Yoh's embrace and cry out all of her problems, fears, and regrets.
But then again, she wasn't sure that he'd understand.
She wasn't sure that anyone would be able to understand how she felt.
A part of herself even, did not understand what had driven her to such an idea in the first place.
It was this insecurity that prevented Anna from answering Yoh's question.
And it was this insecurity that had brought significant tears to her eyes, for the first time.
"I just can't." Anna's voice cracked. "I can't tell you."
"Why? Why is it that you can't tell me what's wrong?" Yoh asked sincerely.
"I JUST CAN'T! DON'T YOU GET IT! I CAN'T!" Anna shouted while spinning herself around for the first time.
It was then that Yoh was finally able to see her face.
Her face was pale and dry from the freezing cold.
Redness had begun to form around her cheeks, a sign that she had been crying.
And an even more convincing sign, were her eyes. Red rimmed, and tear tracks running down her broken face.
"Anna...
Are you crying?"
Anna dashed her cold knuckles at her dry, bitter eyes, attempting to erase all evidence that she had been crying.
"No! Just...shut up!" Anna dashed back around and quickly stepped back onto the ledge.
She proceeded to walk heel-to-toe further across the red bricks, trying to distance herself even further from Yoh.
As the growing crowds saw Anna one the ledge once more, the eager students began to shout and chant once again.
The encouraging chants grew louder and louder with every step that she took.
Yoh as well as Anna, clearly heard the students as they encouraged Anna to end her life, just to grant them a few seconds of meaningless entertainment.
"OMG! THIS IS IT! SHE'S GONNA DO IT!" Cried an eager male student.
"YES FINALLY! HERE WE GO! COME ON JUMP!" Cried another.
By now, three police cars had arrived at the scene, and officers were trying desperately to push through the crowds attempting to get to the front entrance.
"Look Yoh. They want me to jump..." Anna chanted.
"Anna don't!" Yoh pleaded as he walked towards her holding out his arms.
"But why shouldn't I?" She asked coldly.
"I already told you. I've made up my mind and this is what I want to do." She insisted.
"But why? Tell me why is it that you think that killing yourself is the only way to solve the problems that you don't want to face?" Yoh tried to understand.
Anna remained silent and thought for a long moment.
She tried hard to gather all her thoughts, bringing herself to answer the very question, she had been asking.
And once she began to speak, her voice sounded oddly cold and detached.
"I don't know." She whispered.
"I guess it's because...I've tried every other possible solution only to have it spit back in my face."
Anna took a moment to take in a deep breath before continuing.
"Yoh...No matter what I do or say, everything in my life goes wrong.
People around me treat me like...garbage that they can tease and harass every single day.
That's all I am...a piece of trash. A wasted human life that cannot feel the pain that they cause me.
And being all alone, there isn't any way for me to cope with all of the agony.
And so if I'm not around at all, then I won't have to suffer anymore.
I won't have to hear the same voices in my head. The voices of those around me that only live to bring misery to my life.
I'll finally be free and I won't have to live this life anymore, the very life I have grown to hate.
Killing myself, is the only solution I have left." Anna turned and told Yoh solemnly.
"Anna..I ..." Yoh looked down at the ground and thought hard for a moment.
Anna had been going through so many hardships that Yoh never knew about.
It crushed his heart to hear that when Anna needed someone the most, he wasn't there.
All this time he desperately wanted her by his side, but how could he expect her to be if he had never been by hers?
He was the cause of all of these problems.
Not just everyone else.
Everyone needs someone by their side to help them through problems in life. To keep them going.
If no one is there, the person has no where to turn and begins to believe that life is meaningless.
They believe that they're invisible. That no one cares about them, that they're not even alive.
They're corpses walking in a world of the living.
They're alone and their only comfort is that someday everything will end and they will disappear completely.
And then the pain and suffering will finally end.
Yoh now knew, what had driven Anna to this.
He had answered his own question.
And it turned out to be his fault.
He slowly turned back up at Anna, who was now sitting down on the ledge, her knees drawn up to her chest, miserably staring at the crowd of people below her.
"JUMP! JUMP! JUMP!" The crowds shouted, encouraging the strangers around them to chant the very same words..
"COME ON! HURRY UP! DO IT ALREADY!" A teacher shouted.
"See...even they agree with me." Anna whispered dazedly as she drew her legs closer to her chest.
"The very same people that drove me to this...agree with me." She ventured.
"Anna. Don't listen to them! They're wrong!" Yoh shouted.
Anna turned her head slightly and stared at Yoh dazedly.
"No they're not, Yoh." She answered, her voice still detached.
"I was the one that was wrong." She began, returning her focus to the chanting crowd below her.
I was wrong to believe that I was actually meant to live in this world.
I was wrong to believe that by ignoring the pain, it would eventually go away.
I was wrong to believe that even when I felt like finally giving up, someone would be there, to help me through, to stop the pain."
Cloudy tears began to gently roll down Anna's cold cheeks once more.
They became more noticeable as the sun light shown brightly on her face, illuminating each tear, as it fell from her eyes and landed gently onto the cement below her.
"I...was...wrong." Anna said in a depressing tone of voice.
Listening to Anna speak, Yoh had realized why Anna was covered in bandages.
"Anna..." He called sternly.
Anna turned her head slightly.
"You stopped ignoring the pain didn't you? That's why you have all those bandages on your arms and face. Someone hurt you before you came to school didn't they?" He asked seriously.
Anna turned back around and thought for a long time.
"Yes." She answered her voice cracking.
"Who? Who did this to you?" Yoh lifted his leg and placed it onto the ledge.
"I don't re--." Anna tried to lie.
"Anna tell me!" Yoh demanded.
Anna sighed and continued to stare up at the bright orange sky for comfort.
"I did..." She answered truthfully.
"What?" Yoh didn't understand. "What do you mean?"
"I did, Yoh. Before I left the house, I saw myself in the mirror.
I saw it.
The monster that I had become.
A human who wasn't meant to live the life that she had been given.
I became angry and destroyed the reflection the only way I knew how." She said as she clutched her right hand in the other.
Yoh saw the several bandages covering Anna's frail knuckles almost completely concealing her hand.
"You broke the mirror..." Yoh whispered.
"It was the only thing I could do." She replied . "The only way I could stop seeing the monster that was inside of me. To stop seeing the darkness that had consumed my soul and mind."
"Anna...you're not a monster." Yoh began to explain.
"Shut up Yoh! Stop acting like you know everything because you don't! You have no idea what I'm going through!" She snapped once more.
Anna took in a deep breath, and decided to release a few more of the emotions that had been tormenting her inside.
"Yoh? Do you have any idea...what it feels like to have the entire world...hate you?" She asked sincerely.
"To hear people say that their lives would be a lot better, if you were never around.
And to see...the person you love, look right through you, disregarding your existence because you are of no meaning to them.
I know how that feels because I go through these situations every single day.
And it's these situations, and these people that have taken over soul, and ruined my life."
Anna placed her face on her knees and began to sob silently.
Yoh heard his fiancée cry softly, all of the emotions that she had bottled up, were finally breaking through.
This was the first time Yoh had ever seen Anna cry.
The first time he had ever heard Anna speak about the problems she had in her life.
This was the first time he had ever been close to her.
"Anna...I...I do know how you feel." Yoh confessed suddenly.
"No you don't." Anna argued, trying her best to hold back the tears she had kept hidden for so long.
"Everyone's different Yoh. We all have different feelings, different fears, different thoughts. You don't know how I feel. No one does." She persisted angrily.
Yoh walked over to Anna and slowly kneeled down next to her.
"We all have different feelings, Anna. But we all have different ways of understanding each other as well." He responded.
Anna proceeded to wipe her tears away and looked up suddenly.
She stared at Yoh. Stared at his caring brown eyes, that were looking back at her.
"Anna, I may not know exactly what you're going through, but trust me.
I've gone through times where I thought that I was all alone.
When no matter how much I tried, everything in my life went wrong.
When I thought that everyone's life would be a lot better, if I had never been born.
I thought of giving up, Anna. I did.
But I didn't."
"...Why?" She asked softly.
"Because. It was those hard times that showed me what life really was.
Life isn't just about living happily, having no problems, and everything going the way you want it to.
There are times in our lives when we are tested, and our patience taken to it's very limits.
But it's passing this test that makes us stronger. It's making it through those hard times, that brings meaning back into our lives.
If you let the pain get to you, then you're making yourself vulnerable for even more suffering.
You have to keep going. No matter what." Yoh said.
Anna stayed quiet, and turned back towards the impatient crowds.
She was trying her best to agree with Yoh, and allow him to help her cope with her problems.
But as she looked down and into the faces of the stranger's below her, she knew that these people would never allow her to make it through her life in peace.
She knew that no matter where she went, no matter how hard she tried, these people, these shadows, would always be there to bring her down.
"I...I can't." She replied.
"Don't say that you can't Anna. You have to try." Yoh insisted.
"I don't want to try. I can't, I just can't do it." Anna disagreed.
"Why?"
"I just can't Yoh! I can't! Look at them!" Anna cried as she pointed to the crowds below her.
"Even if I try, they're always going to be there!
These people. They're never going to leave me alone! How am I supposed to make through my life with all of these people tormenting me?
I'm not strong enough! Yes. The Ice Queen finally admits it. She's not strong enough!
So I've learned that it's best to just give up before things get any worse." Anna stood herself up once more and dangled herself over the edge.
"Anna stop!" Yoh shouted.
"I'm not listening to you anymore, Yoh.
You're wrong. There is no test.
This is just the world's little way of punishing me, for being stupid enough to trust other people." She presumed.
"Anna that's not true! Trusting other people isn't what's causing you all this pain! It's you that you haven't trusted! You haven't trusted yourself and that's why your suffering! You have to trust yourself Anna!" Yoh shouted.
"I have! I've trusted myself all my life! And all I did was make my life worse!"
"No you didn't!" Yoh argued.
Anna stayed quiet for a moment.
"Yoh. It's wrong to lie." She whispered.
"Yoh...I listened to what you had to say, and tried to understand. So why can't you listen to me like you promised you would?"
"Because what you're saying is wrong."
"Everything I do is wrong! I don't know what's right or wrong anymore.
That's why I'm doing this.
Even if the decision I make right now is wrong, my life will be over, and I will no longer carry the burden of having to make anymore decisions."
Anna took in her final breath and dangled her right foot forward.
If she slightly shifted her weight from the leg that was on the ledge towards the one that was dangling, her whole life would be over in a matter of seconds.
"Anna stop! Please! Just hear me out!"
Tears burned behind Yoh's eyes. He was beginning to doubt that he would be able to reach Anna anymore. She had made up her mind.
Anna sighed deeply.
"I already did, Yoh." She murmured.
"And I answered your question. Please, Yoh. Just let me end this."
"DON'T DO THIS! YOU HAVE TO LISTEN TO ME! JUST ONE LAST TIME! THAT'S ALL I ASK FOR!" Yoh cried.
Anna stopped suddenly, as if she was willing to bargain with Yoh.
She stood herself straight up again, and looked over at him.
"...I'm sorry..." She whispered.
She then spread her arms out, took in a deep breath, leaned over one last time, and shifted her weight forward.
"AAAAAANNNNNNNAAAAAAAA!" Yoh cried as he ran over and stopped suddenly, watching Anna, fall..
Author's Note:
Whoa...that has got to be the most intense chapter I've written XD
I think I went a little over board with this chapter and I probably screwed the whole thing up.Sorry about that.
Just to inform those that I know are going to say
"HOW COULD YOU KILL ANNA! I HATE YOU!"
Please don't make judgments until I finish this story.
I've had people since the beginning if this story tell me that they'd kill me if I killed Anna.
And I don't wanna die XD
So please don't say that you hate me or that you're going to kill me, cause then you won't be able to find out how the story's going to end. (evil grin)
Ha ha I am so evil! XD Nah just kidding!
I hope you all liked this chapter and I hope you'll keep reading!
I love you all so much!
Bye!
((Martha))