Recalling the Spirit #14
AUTHOR'S NOTES
Hey, sorry I haven't updated for ages. I have been really busy. I'd like to apologize for the poor quality of former chapters. I have been rather ripping them off really quickly, and I'm sorry. It might take me longer to update, but I will make sure my chapters aren't confusing.
Dedication: To every reviewer out there. I am so happy to have all of your support, and I love most of the reviews I've been getting. There were a few I have gotten that I really liked because they showed that they were connected to my characters (like one I got demanding that I got Akira back to Tamiko right away.) 283 reviews! You all make me so happy!
Disclaimer: I do not own anything Miyazaki owns.
I am SO sorry this took me forever. I have been over the roof busy and stressed, and I have had next to no time for anything. But things are slowly finishing, so...TA DA! My next chapter!
Porifra: laughs You like Tami's mutterings? Thank you! You'll see why it's cold around the bathhouse! But I'm not telling! You like Karma? I think she's pretty neat, myself. I love the pictures you sent me of her! Do you think you could draw me pictures of Akira and Tamiko? That would be sooo cool! Have fun with that website of yours! Karma is such a funny little oddball! Thanks for your super long reviews! You know, it just occurred to me you've been reading my stories from the beginning! Thank you sooooooooo much for your continued support. And also, thanks to mysticwolfguardian.
Betrayal Or Beloved?
"How long do you think it will take us to get there? I do hope it doesn't take us too long: you're a lot older then me and I get tired easily. Where are you from? Why are you here? Do you have magic? What kind? I have a dragon form and a dragon companion. His name is Mathus, and he's with us but he's hiding because he never shows himself to anybody but me 'cause I'm his spirit friend. Do you have a spirit friend? No, I suppose you wouldn't because you're not a dragon spirit. Do you have any friends at all? I don't have any because of the way I am. People my age are afraid of me. My foster parents are pretty nice though. I'm their only child. I'm an orphan: my parents died when I was little. I've always wished I had an older sibling. My favourite colour is blue. Are you sure you're going the right way?"
Akira ran his fingers through his hair. "COULD YOU...I mean, could you just be quiet a minute?"
Though he didn't like to admit it, Akira was scared. Scared that something would happen to Tamiko. Scared that she was injured somewhere...scared that she was dying...
And this nine year olds chatter wasn't helping much.
There was a full two minutes quiet before Karma spoke again.
"So...what is she like?"
Akira looked over at her confused. "Who? Who's she?" Karma rolled her sightless eyes as though it was obvious, and sighed. "Your girlfriend. I only saw her for a minute, so I don't know what she's like."
They were walking through the forest, Karma leading the way. Once in a while, she had to brush her fingers along a tree or a bush, almost as if to direct herself in the right way. Akira, who was walking beside her, stopped and flushed. "My...she's...she's not my girlfriend!" he stuttered, extremely flustered.
What the...don't let her do this to you, idiot! She's NINE. Cool it! He began walking again, far to quickly and not really paying attention to where he was going. Although he was trying to stop the conversation before it started, all he succeeded in doing was cracking his head on a branch. He swore, rubbing the ill-conceived lump on his head. "Oww!"
Karma persisted stubbornly. "Very well. What's your...friend...like." She put heavy emphasis on the word 'friend'. "Is she nice?" Akira shrugged, his features suddenly showing the pain and sadness that he felt. "She has a temper, but deep, deep down she's nice...I guess. She never really cries much. She cried one tear when she found a friend of hers had died. To think of it, I've never see her cry more then a tear: she's tough like that. She's stubborn, determined, independent, wilful, imaginative, temperamental..." he drifted off, smiling sadly as memories hit him like a blast of heat. When it was evident he was off in his own little world, and wasn't going to continue unless he had some prompting, Karma coughed. Blinking, Akira turned back to her. "Oh. Yeah. Sorry. Well, she's Japanese and her godmother is an Egyptian river spirit named Nile-" Karma cut in, shock showing in her features. "Nile? As in the Nile River? I KNOW her! I was talking to her when we were both still trapped. She's the Dragon of Egypt."
"That's her! Was she wearing her Egyptian costume? Did you see the weapon she carries around?"
Karma kept silent, and Akira realized how stupid his last comment was. "Oh. I'm sorry, I forgot for a moment that you were...that you wouldn't be able to see..." Karma interrupted. "Don't worry about it." The two walked in silence for a while. Then, once again, Karma piped up. "I've never had a real family before. I've always wanted an older brother or sister." Her voice went soft, and she gazed in Akira's general direction pleadingly. "Do you...do you think that you could possibly...be my older brother? Please? I'm just so lonely..." Tears gathered in the bright sightless blue eyes. Akira looked down at his companion, and his face softened. "I'm an only child too." He said. Thank god. he added mentally.
He reached down to hold the little girl's hand, pitying her. "Yeah. I'll be your big brother." A trace of a smile lit the girl's features.
"Thank you, Akira."
The pair walked in silence for a time.
A very little time.
"What's you're girlfriend's favourite kind of ice cream?"
"Tamiko is not Akira's girlfriend. Tamiko is not Akira's girlfriend. Tamiko is not..."
Akira nodded, pleased. "Okay, I think that's enough. You can stop now."
The pair were still walking though the forest, and although Akira wouldn't admit it, he had no idea where he was going, and didn't but much comfort that a blind nine-year-old was leading the way. For the last five minutes, Karma had been forced to repeat the line that Akira had given her. Defiantly, with mischief flickering over her expression, Karma whispered audibly, her face so serious: "Tamiko IS Akira's girlfriend..." Akira, his face beet red turned on her. "You are so lucky I am going to let that one slide." He muttered fiercely, desperately trying to hide the fact he was blushing.
Karma grinned, but the smile faded from her face, and she looked around with her fingers, letting them brush against trees and other foliage. She sniffed the air, suddenly seeming more and more animal-like in instincts. "This is the place." She whispered in a hushed voice to Akira. "But they're not here. It's like they've disappeared. Like they had never been."
Akira stepped forward to gaze at the empty clearing in front of them. It looked like a normal clearing, untouched by mankind, long green grass moving in a soft wind. And yet...
"There's something wrong here." He muttered to his companion, who nodded. Karma was trying her best to hide her convulsive shivers from Akira. She was scared, but she wasn't going to let her new brother think of her as a weakling. She inhaled again, taking in scents through her nose, seeing the world though smell. There was defiantly a brisk smell in the air, disturbing the natural scents of the forest. It was almost imperceptible, however.
"Mathus?" Karma whispered to her dragon friend, knowing that his senses were ten times better then her own. "He doesn't know either." She whispered to her nineteen-year-old companion. Akira stared at the girl strangely. One minute she had been an average child, ten years his junior, a bit more serious then most children that age. But now, she seemed far older then the tallest trees in the forest, seeming as though she had the knowledge of a hundred lifetimes. Her eyes glowed with a strange power, shining a strange, unearthly, reptilian blue. She seemed focused, and yet distant, as though her mind was a thousand miles away. She stood like this, frozen, for a full five minutes, and it seemed to Akira as if time was standing still. There was no sound, no movement in the silent, moonlit forest.
Karma suddenly gasped a horrified, sharp intake of breath, quivering from head to toe. A large, aqua dragon shot out from the trees, and firmly sunk it's fangs into Karma's arm. The girl winced, and she appeared to be shocked out of her reverie. "No matter what I do, that's going to happen anyway. I don't know how, but I know it will. Destiny is destiny, right? Mathus?" she whispered
The dragon tuned its clear blue gaze on Akira, his eyes boring into him for a short moment before flying for the cover of the forest foliage. Once hidden in the trees, Karma turned to Akira. "I saw us going in a bright light over...by the large oak. Can you see it?" She asked him. Once satisfied that he knew where he was going, she grabbed the back of his shirt and let him lead, Mathus settling on her shoulders.
Akira stopped abruptly, causing the British girl to crash headfirst into him. "Akira!" she whined, "Why did you...?" Akira was staring at the air. It seemed...distorted, almost like seeing things through a pane of glass. He reached out to touch it, and was suddenly hurled into a prism of colour. "What the..." he muttered to himself. Karma clung on to his shirt as though her life depended on it. She sensed something was going on, even though she couldn't see anything.
The two were shot out of the many-coloured vortex as quickly as they had been shoved in. Karma fell to her knees, as her legs were too weak to hold her up. "Akira, what did you DO?" she demanded weakly, Mathus curling into her lap and glaring reproachfully at Akira.
Akira, however, was gaping at the scene before him. The once pungent smell of destruction and death had faded now to his knowledge, but Karma was covering her nose with one hand, and Mathus was looking disgusted.
"The...bathhouse? But how did we end up here? What the..."
They were in the field, right by the bridge on the bathhouse side. The grass was damp, as though the sun had melted off morning frost, and was blowing softly in the summer wind.
"I've been waiting for you...Akira." The voice was cold, hard, distant, and sounded to Akira extremely familiar, like a corrupted version of something he had heard before... "Who are you?" he demanded, stepping in front of Karma.
A familiar laugh echoed. "Don't you recognise me?" A figure stepped out of the shadows, and walked towards Akira. When it was a few steps away from him, the cloud covering the moon moved, and light showed who the character was.
Emotions tore across Akira's face, emotions which he would, if in normal circumstances, have fought to keep hidden.
"Oh god! Tamiko! Thank the gods you're all right. I was so worried about you..."
She was garbed in a strange, pure white kimono, with a snow-white sash, but Akira was so joyful and thankful that she was unharmed. He stepped towards her, embracing her in his arms.
"AKIRA, WATCH OUT!!!"
It was Karma. The young girl was clutching on to Mathus, and screaming a warning to her 'brother'. Akira turned from Tamiko; meaning to demand what Karma was worried about, when he felt a sharp pain from his shoulder to his elbow. He turned in shock, to find Tamiko standing, her eyes glittering with malice, and a naked dagger stained with his blood in her hand. She smiled, a creepy smile, so unlike Tamiko's own.
"I missed."
Shock registered in Akira's eyes, along with a deep emotional pain. "Tamiko...what did I do?"
The woman drew another dagger from a sheath around her waist and threw it to him. Akira caught it, not registering the pain that the jarring of his arm gave him, or noticing blood that was streaming down it.
Tamiko smiled the odd smile again. "Well, Akira. Shall we?"
She lunged at him, slashing at his throat. He blocked her cut, but didn't venture to slice at her in return. She tried again, attempting to stab him in the stomach, but Akira hit the dagger away from its target with his own weapon. Again and again Tamiko would try to cut at him, and he would block, but would not use the offensive. "Tamiko, do you hate me now?" he questioned her sadly, his voice devoid of any emotion, but the hurt that she was causing him showing in his eyes.
She stepped away from him, grinning cruelly. She now began to attack him emotionally as well as physically. After she attempted a slice to his face, she said: "You never liked me. You always made fun of me, were cruel to me, called me names. You never helped me up when I fell, or helped me fix my mistakes. You only helped me find Mother because you though there was something in it for you. I trusted you, but you never really cared." Her voice was cutting, unfamiliar, harsh.
Akira lowered his dagger. "How could you say that?" he begged, as though what he was saying came from the depths of his being. His face showed the pain and heartbreak he was going through. "Ever since we met, I've always..."
What he was about to say was cut short as Tamiko sliced across his chest. Akira faltered back, so the cut missed, but it had proved a point. "Gods, Tamiko, stop it!" he cried, feeling as though a part of him was gone forever.
She lunged at him, and he turned to the side so she missed. Tamiko pulled back again, and stood there for a moment, staring at her opponent.
"Mo stor..." Akira whispered sadly, devastated, and then stared at his old friend in shock at the reaction this simple pet name had created. A glistening tear shone down her cheek, and as she raised her eyes to meet his, it seemed to Akira that she was fighting for control. "Akira..." her voice was soft, and hoarse, but it was her own. "We both won't get away. He's controlling me...please..." she was panting with every word, battling against an unknown force to speak, sweat poring down her face. "...Kill me. There's nothing else to do."
Akira was shocked. This was a far worse predicament then he was in before. And to think that Tamiko would suggest such a thing...
"I can't. You know I can't." He fought to keep his voice from trembling.
"Akira, please...I don't want you to die..."
Akira threw down his dagger. "No! Tamiko, I won't let you die!!! I won't do it!"
The next feeling he had was an exploding pain in his chest. He looked down to find the dagger...Tamiko's dagger, had stabbed him. He stared at the girl, and saw her eyes cold with malice again.
"It's too bad. You really should have listened to her, Akira."
Akira crumpled to the bloodstained earth. Karma screamed, hearing the noise of his fall. When the young girl spoke again, her voice was upset, devastated and angry. "HOW-DARE-YOU!!! Murderess!!!" she growled, her eyes filling with tears.
Tamiko's eyes cleared, and changed back to their soft, nut-brown colour. The mask of hatred and triumph faded from her face, and she was herself again. Whoever was controlling her was gone.
"Akira?" she whispered, horrified, almost as if she didn't dare to speak louder.
She ran over to him, falling hopelessly on her knees beside him. Terrified and scared by his abnormal paleness, she put a hand over his mouth to check his breathing. When there was none, she froze. "Oh god. Akira...no, you can't be...this is a nightmare...this isn't happening..." she stared in horror at the blood all over him...where she had stabbed him. His blood was all over her hands. Her shoulders began to shake. "Akira...no...please god, no..." Tears brimmed in her eyes, and began to stream down her cheeks. Grabbing fistfuls of his shirt, she buried her face in the material, and wept like she had never wept before in her life. Akira was her closest friend...and she had killed him. He would never know how much she cared...
"Mo bheith..." she wept, tears flowing freely. My love. The one person her own age with whom she had kept nothing...except for one secret. "I'm sorry...I'm so sorry..."
"Tami, you're crying."
Tamiko brought up her head in shock, believing it to be her imagination, but when she felt a warm hand on hers, she knew it was true.
"A...Akira?" The Irish man nodded slowly in return. He was still pale, in comparison to his normal, deeply tanned skin, but he was alive. "AKIRA!!!" she cried, throwing herself at him, being careful of his wound.
"Tamiko..." he said, rather forcefully. "Do you think you could get off me...IT HURTS!!!"
She knelt back, flushing. "Oh, I'm so sorry...it's all my fault." Fresh tears began to stream down her cheeks.
Akira sat up, with a grimace of pain and stared bewilderedly at her. "You're crying...I've never seen you cry like this before..."
Tamiko gazed back at him, so relieved to see that he wasn't gone forever that she blurted out "Because I thought you were dead. Because I care about you, you stubborn idiot." Realizing what she had just said, she turned a bright red. Opening her mouth to apologize for her momentary weakness, she found she couldn't speak. There was an uncomfortable moment of silence, and then Tamiko finally found her voice. "Akira, I didn't mean to..." Akira hushed her, putting one finger over her lips and brushing away stray hair from her face.
Karma sat on the ground, Mathus mind-speaking every detail to her. Maybe she isn't bad, after all. she thought. She was still angry with her for causing harm to her brother, but she realized that maybe it wasn't Tamiko's fault.
Shocking Tamiko, and most likely himself as well, Akira suddenly pulled her to him and kissed her softly, his lips gently caressing hers. When he drew back, he whispered, "I was worried about you, Tami." Tamiko blushed. "A...kira..." He smiled at her, wavered back and forth for a moment, and then fainted from the seriousness of his wounds.
"Akira...? Akira! Oh god, please be all right!!!"
After the initial shock, Tamiko summoned Karma, clad in a long sleeved white dress, over to her. The girl came, following her voice.
"Rip the sleeves off your dress, please." When Karma looked confused, Tamiko explained, a little breathlessly, not quite over the shock of what Akira had just done. "For bandages."
Karma felt her way to the seams on the shoulders of her cotton dress, and ripped. When she was done, she handed Tamiko two large white pieces of cloth, her dress transformed into a sleeveless. Tamiko would have tried to rip her own sleeves, but by the feel of the silk against her skin she knew it would be useless to try. The pure white kimono was made of the highest quality silk, and wouldn't tear. She had the faintest of memories changing into it, while she was being controlled.
She rolled up his shirt up past the wound, and winced when she saw how deep the cut was. He shouldn't have moved...shouldn't have talked to me after he was stabbed...he just made it worse...
She bit her lip, as though feeling his pain. It hurt MORE because she knew that she should be the one bleeding, she was the one who was supposed to be hurt right now. And she knew she couldn't share his pain.
"At least I can help him with it." She muttered. Karma raised an eyebrow at this sentence, confused by the spontaneous-ness of this phrase, but held back any comments.
"Akira..." she murmured quietly. "I want you to know...I wasn't lying when I said I cared. Not that you can hear me."
Tamiko wrapped the wound, but it wouldn't stop bleeding. It was dawn now, and she had worked endlessly for four hours, trying to stanch the flow, but nothing worked. Karma had fallen asleep after half an hour, leaning against a tree, for all she had fought to keep her bright blue eyes open.
Tamiko shivered. Her hands were covered in his blood, and there was only one way she could think of that would do any good. She bit her lip, gave way to one last shiver down her spine, and closed her eyes. Letting her hand hover over his wound, she whispered, her eyes glowing a soft green, "Heal him."
There was a bright blinding flash, and then Tamiko, suddenly feeling devoid of energy, collapsed, falling beside Akira.
"Tamiko...Tamiko, wake up." Someone was shaking her gently. She opened her eyes, to see Akira bending over her. He knelt back, his face unreadable in the dark. Everything that had happened last night came back to her in a flash, and she averted her eyes from Akira's, blushing.
According to Akira, everyone had slept for the day, Karma awakening at sunset, clearing an area of grass, and starting a bonfire. Mathus helped by bringing more wood for fuel.
Tamiko sat up, looking over Akira with a critical eye, as well as she could in the moonlight and the light of the fire. The homemade bandages that were on him now were useless, blood-soaked, but other then that he seemed much better. "Rip up your shirt, and burn those." She said, pointing at the bandages around his torso.
Akira flushed. "Rip up my..." Tamiko coloured, but glared at him. "For bandages, dolt. What did you think I meant!?!?"
Akira rolled his eyes in reply, and started tearing his shirt into strips. When he was done, he peeled off the old bandages, and began to wrap around the new ones. Tamiko averted her eyes, but realized that Akira was having definite problems putting them on his self. She sighed, rolled her eyes, and said roughly, "Here. Let me."
She grabbed the homemade bandages from him, and wrapped them around the wound, and his tanned skin. She could feel him wincing in pain every time the cloth went around his injury, trying to hide it from her. He relaxed when she was done, and muttered, "Thank you." Tamiko moved to the other side of the fire, blushing, and sitting beside an awakening Karma.
The young girl yawned, and her eyes focused a little to the left of Akira. "Are you feeling better?" she questioned him.
"Yeah, but no thanks to Tamiko." Akira had meant it as a joke, but Tamiko flushed angrily. "If you had just left me alone when I told you to, when that Shadowhound came after me, then this wouldn't have happened!!!"
Akira glared equally as angrily over the fire at Tamiko. "Oh, yeah, I was just supposed to LEAVE YOU THERE?!?!?! Why didn't you try to escape?!?"
"I COULDN'T!!" Tamiko bellowed. "YOU should have tried to do more to help me!!!"
Akira's gaze turned frosty. She had hit a sore spot. "You shouldn't have walked away from me in the first place. You strode away from me in anger, remember?"
Tamiko clenched her fists. "YEAH, WELL IF YOU WEREN'T SUCH A JERK I WOULDN'T HAVE!!!!!!"
"FIRST I'M AN IDIOT, THEN I'M A DOLT!!!!! GOT ANYTHING ELSE YOU WANT TO CALL ME?!?!?!?" Akira yelled.
"YEAH! STUPID!!!"
"TAMIKO, GROW UP!!! WHY DO YOU HAVE TO ACT SO CHILDISH ALL THE TIME!!!!!!!!"
Tamiko stared at him, hurt. The next time she spoke, her voice was soft and low. "Do you really think of me as a child, Akira?"
"Tamiko, no I don't. I didn't mean..."
"THEN THINK ABOUT WHAT YOU'RE SAYING!!! YOU END UP HURTING PEOPLE'S FEELINGS LIKE THAT!!! YOU FIGHT WITH ME SO MUCH, ONE WOULD THINK YOU DON'T LIKE ME IN THE SLIGHTIST!!!"
"TAMIKO, HOW CAN YOU SAY THAT, AFTER..."
"After?" she asked quietly, gazing at him with her gold-flecked eyes over the fire, she sounded dead serious, but there was a hint of teasing in her solemn face.
Akira threw up his hands in the air as a sign of mock defeat, and then ran his fingers through his hair. "Okay, enough. Besides, I wanted to thank you...for everything."
Tamiko was momentarily taken aback. "Wha...?" One minute they were fighting like there was no tomorrow, and the next he was thanking her?
Akira began to laugh. "That was PERFECT! You should have seen your face! You looked so bewildered!!!"
Tamiko frowned. How could he? How could he affect her this way?
Stupid Akira, always stupid making fun of me, stupid fighting with me stupid me always resorting to stupid stupids... her thoughts trailed off as she looked at Karma, finally getting a chance to really see her for the first time.
"Um...who are you?"
Karma, realizing that she was being spoken to, said grandly "Karma, dragon of Britain. And you are...?"
Tamiko smiled a grim smile, and Akira noticed for the first time, as if she had found something out...and didn't like it in the slightest. "I'm Tamiko, daughter to Kohaku, dragon of Japan."
Akira stared at Tamiko, realizing at last how powerful she was. Karma nodded, understanding. "So you were kidnapped to lure your father?"
Tamiko nodded. "I don't understand why he's capturing the Great Dragons, though."
Akira looked extremely lost and forlorn. The two shared something he didn't, and, not for the first time in his life, he felt out of place.
Karma shrugged. "I don't either. All I know is it has something to do with the disappearance of the bath house woman. What's her name? Rei? Lay?"
"Mei? She's been missing since the last time I was here." Tamiko said, a little confused, looking over her shoulder at the bath house looming behind them.
"Oh, really? Well anyway, all I know is there is some person trying to collect all of the dragons...and no good's going to come from it. I can see the future." She added, replying to Tamiko's questioning look. The older girl looked a little relieved. "Okay, good. So I'm not weird. I can sometimes see the past." She explained, by way of explanation.
Tamiko looked across the fire. Since things between her and Akira were comfortable again, she beckoned to him. "You look lonely. Come sit with us." When Akira stared at her, she added huffily "If you don't want to, that's perfectly all right with me."
Akira grinned, and walked over. After a moment's hesitation, he sat beside Tamiko, merely because Karma was on the very edge of one end of the log, and as much as he might feel uncomfortable sitting beside her, he was pretty sure it was much more uncomfortable on the rocky, lumpy ground.
Karma stared at nothing as she spoke. "My visions...he...I mean the cloaked man...he would make me see the future for him...he kept asking about both of you, actually."
"Us?" questioned Tamiko, in a horrified whisper. "But how did he know about..."
"I don't know. Maybe he wanted to know about your magic?"
Tamiko shuddered, and Akira finally felt like he understood, but he kept it to himself. Let her tell him in her own time.
Everything was quiet. Tamiko was thinking, picking at her white kimono, Karma was absently petting a solemn Mathus, and Akira was looking at Tamiko out of the corner of his eye trying to see some reaction.
There was a crunching in the underbrush. Tamiko stood up fists raised to fight whoever was coming, but Akira stepped in front of her. "Akira...what do you think you're..."
Akira seemed to focus for a moment, and then in his hands burst two identical burning flames. Is he trying to...protect me? Tamiko questioned herself, unbelievingly. What has gotten into him lately?
Karma quelled a shiver. Whatever's coming, it's not going to be good. I can sense it!
Nope! No cliffies! That was a really weird chappie, but hey.
Jo-chan-ANIME
