Fading – chapter 3

-Confused-

Just for everyone's info, chapter 1 for this fic occurs during Episode 4 of the anime. I just figured the timeline out after watching the anime over again. O.O; The story will progress from that point on. That is, if you tune in on the anime COMPLETELY.

Heheh, I'm feeling really good, but I guess I ought to cut the words down. The previous chapter IS a bit too long, unless you readers out there had no objection to the overdose of words. XD

Please read and review. XD

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"I can't do this!" a little girl cried, sitting on the ground, all tired and sweaty. Tears were forming in her eyes. The brown-haired boy standing in front of her sighed and sat in front of her,

"Aconite, the more you say you can't, the more you'll never be able to make it. Everyone saw you using your Alter. I have one too, but I'm purposely using it so I can keep it under control. I'm trying to teach you how to keep yours under control," the boy said caringly, looking straight into his friend's eyes.

Aconite sobbed, rubbing her eyes in a frail attempt to stop her tears from flowing. Her companion reached over for his backpack, as if expecting this event to happen and fished a clean handkerchief out of it. He held it out to her, only to have her snatch it out of his grip and have her crying even louder. She didn't like being helpless, he knew that. He looked around, noting that the sky was growing darker by the minute as the sun started setting in the horizon.

"Aconite, it's getting late. Let's go back before your father gets worried again."

She sniffled, peeking from between her fingers to look at him, "Cougar, how can you stand being with a monster like me...?"

"You're no monster. I've seen people with worse tempers," Cougar said, smiling.

That made her feel a bit better, "Thanks, Cougar... ...Are we going home now?" she asked, looking up at the boy in front of her with large, purple eyes.

He nodded, "Yeah, we're going home now," he picked himself off the ground and dusted his trousers of dust when Aconite grabbed the sleeve of his jacket, which usually means she wants something out of him, "What?" he asked, looking down at the little girl, whose head was bowed.

"...I can't stand up..."

Well, it was to be expected. She's been trying to summon her Alter more than 20 times in a row, without success and she must've been totally exhausted. Cougar turned around and knelt down, offering her a piggyback. Aconite smiled and wrapped her arms around his neck, careful not to choke him and not long after that, they were on their way back.

Somewhere along the way, as Aconite was resting her head against Cougar's, she asked him, "Cougar, are you tired?"

"Why do you ask?" he countered, kicking a pebble out of his way.

Aconite shrugged, "I can hear you breathing. You're sweating, too," she said, lifting a hand to wipe the sweat off of his eyebrows.

The brown-haired boy smiled, "Ill be fine. Home's not that far from here anyway."

"Not that far? You make me walk to the outskirts of town everyday! If you're tired, you can put me down now!" she cried, feeling even more worried by the minute.

"Hey, hey, stop wriggling! You're gonna tire me out faster the more you move!" he said jokingly, but she knew he meant it. He just didn't want to make her feel bad. She stopped moving at that point but reached into her pocket for the handkerchief he gave her earlier on then reached around to wipe the sweat off his face.

Cougar smiled, "Thanks."

"It's the least I can do. I can't feel my legs," she said flatly, wrapping her arms around him, or rather, hugging him, "Hey, Cougar?" she started, whispering into his ear.

Cougar stopped briefly to catch his breath, "Yeah?"

Aconite smiled at the thought she had, "Nah... I won't tell you now... Someday, when we're all grown up, I'll tell you how much I... I..." she trailed off, the last few words she mentioned totally inaudible to him though her mouth was just inches away from his ear,

"...Aconite?" Cougar tried looking over his shoulder at her without knocking her literally off him and saw her sleeping soundly on him. He smiled at the sight and kept on going, walking back to that poor excuse of a town they call 'home'.

'...Someday, when we're all grown up, I'll tell you how much I love you...'

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Aconite woke up to the sound of tapping on her window. She opened one eye, closing it almost instantly at the sudden glare of the afternoon sun. She winced at the sudden pain, covering her already closed eyes with one hand. She opened them again, slowly this time and saw blurry images of some doves sitting at the windowsill, tapping at the glass with their beaks.

'It was a dream...' the doves spread their regal wings and flew away as she thought to herself. Realization struck her a few moments later that the surrounding was not at all familiar,

'...Where am I...?' she wondered, looking around the room. It looked like a ward to her, judging from the size of the room and the color scheming.

'How did I end up here...?" she tried to recall what had happened to her before she woke up in the ward and could only remember the little assignment she went for, the little moment she had with Cougar and the trip in his car. After that, everything went blank.

She glanced sideways at the side table, hoping there was a clock for her to tell the time. Instead of seeing the digital machine she was hoping to see, she saw a small note instead and attached to the note was a single pink rose. The note read,

'Get well soon. You wouldn't want to miss out on all the fun, would you?

Straight Cougar '

She smiled when she finished reading it. Speaking of 'fun', she recalled the splitting headache that forced her to succumb to darkness in Cougar's car. Her happiness seemed to falter at the thought. This has happened to her numerous times while she was still a Native Alter to the point that it became a hindrance to her. Though her Alter was considered what they call 'under-developed', the strength it possessed was enough to match a highly-trained Alter user in HOLY. However, that strength came with a price. Every time she used it, more and more of her consciousness was taken along with it.

This just couldn't go on. Her Alter, her wings that she called 'Oblivion', seemed to have a life of its own, acting as if it was a living entity that occupied her being every time she summoned it.

If this kept up, she probably wouldn't be the same anymore. She probably won't have her memories anymore. Her grip tightened around the note Cougar left her, the little thorns on the stem of the rose cutting into her palm as she did so.

'I don't want that...' she thought to herself firmly, feeling once again powerless to be born with a cursed Alter, "I don't want to forget..." she whispered to herself, feeling upset with herself to the point that she shed tears.

The door to her ward opened suddenly, making her look up to see who the newcomer was. It was Cougar, who just dropped in to check on her with a small basket of fruits.

"Ah, you're up! We were getting worried there, you know? You just suddenly blacked out like that and mind you, it wasn't funny! Your forehead was burning, but your body was like an ice cube. And that reminds me, Commander Zigmarl was impressed by your... WHAT have you been doing to yourself?" he suddenly cried, earning a confused look from her. She looked down at her hand, where the piercing pain she's been experiencing came from and released the note that she'd practically squished in her grip, drops of her blood staining her white sheets crimson.

Cougar sighed, "I just can't leave you for a minute, can I?" he said flippantly, pulling a chair for him to sit in and grabbing a tissue from the side table. Carefully and gently, he wiped her wounds and wrapped them with some bandages he found on the same table, probably forgotten by a nurse during one of her trips into the room. When he finally tied the ends of the bandage together, he looked up at her, "Hey now, you've been crying too! Really, is there something I need to know out of you?"

Aconite quickly wiped the tears off her face and mumbled, "It's nothing. I just... suddenly felt upset."

"Oh, usually that's a bad omen to some people. But, knowing you, I don't think you believe in superstition, do you?"

"Of course, I never do," she said with a forced smile. The thought she had earlier on still haunted her, and she didn't like it one bit.

At that point, Cougar seemed to have run out of things to talk about and asked, "You want an apple? I didn't come by with a basket of fruits for nothing, you know?"

Aconite, who had been daydreaming, snapped out of her trance and said, "Oh, uh... yeah, sure."

Cougar fished a small knife out of his pocket and took and apple out of the basket, "I'm not very good with the knife, so please, don't say anything about my handiwork."

His companion giggled at his sentence. It's been a long time since he heard her laugh like that. He started skinning the apple, careful not to cut his own fingers in the process as she looked at the birds that flew in the distance outside her window.

"Birds have always fascinated you, haven't they?" he suddenly asked, his gaze shifting over from Aconite to the apple in his hands, "Don't you feel lucky to have wings as your Alter?"

These words hit Aconite pretty hard. To tell the truth, she never liked her Alter. It caused a lot of pain and sadness to people around her. The voice that kept on speaking in the back of her mind was right; she just had the face of an angel, but she had the heart of a devil. Even those people whom she was hired to assassinate said the same thing to her with their dying breath.

If she was simply alone, she could take all the blame, she could carry the burden. Maybe it wasn't such a good thing after all, being re-united with Cougar. She felt weaker than she was before. She felt more powerless, almost as if she knew she could lower her guard when she was around him, engulfed in the kindness he had in the air about him. The thought alone reduced her to tears as she started sobbing, covering her face with her hands.

"H-hey! Are you alright?" Cougar asked, putting the apple and the knife down.

She didn't reply, she just sobbed something to him.

'I wish I didn't have an Alter!'

Unfortunately, he couldn't hear her. Before she knew it, a pair of strong arms were around her, and she had a shoulder to cry on. It made her feel a lot better, almost as if the weight on her chest was being heaved off of her.

"Shh... It's okay. Sorry if I said something to offend you," he said in an attempt to hush her. Cougar tensed up considerably when Aconite wrapped her arms around him, almost as if she was never going to let him go,

"C-Cougar... I... I...!" she started in between sobs, but their contact was cut short when two more visitors came in. It was Scheris and Mimori.

"Ah, you beat us to it again!" Scheris cried, referring to the fact that Cougar was the first to come and visit Aconite. Mimori followed close behind the blue-haired Alter user and the first thing they saw was Cougar skinning the neglected apple almost feverishly to the point that any wrong moves he made was prone to make him cut himself. Aconite on the other hand was lying down on the bed, giving her back to her three visitors.

"I guess I did," Cougar said, laughing nervously as he barely missed cutting his finger for the umpteenth time. Scheris sighed,

"Mou... you don't even know how to properly skin an apple. Give it here, I'll do it," she said sweetly, wrenching the little red fruit out of Cougar's grip and having a bit of a wrestle before she got the knife out of his other hand.

"You're Aconite, right? It's nice to meet you," Mimori said pleasantly, pulling another chair so she could see the patient (she sat across of Cougar so Aconite was facing her).

Aconite's eyes burned with hatred towards the woman for a second. She was lucky the mainlander didn't notice the flicker of anger, but even if she did, she can't do a thing about it because she doesn't have an Alter. Oh well, she doesn't mean any harm.

"Who are you?" she asked, almost unable to contain the hatred in her tone.

"Oh, I'm sorry, I haven't gotten around to introducing myself, have I? I'm Kiryu Mimori. I'm an Alter scientist."

"So do you go around testing people like us as if we're guinea pigs?" her tone was completely void of emotion. It seemed to just slip past her lips. Mimori was taken aback by this. She searched the young woman's eyes for an answer, but those lavender orbs just looked at her emptily, almost lifelessly, "Well? Do you?"

Cougar had just about enough of this, "Aconite, that's enough!" he said, rising up from his seat. The copper-haired Alter user simply lay motionless in her bed, her back still facing the taller man. He couldn't see it, but her eyes widened with sadness when he raised his voice at her. What he did see was the surprised look on Mimori's face. His gaze dropped down to his boots before he said, "...I'm going out for a walk," nobody said anything when he turned on his heel and walked out of the room.

The only action done by anyone at that moment was Aconite burying her face in her pillow. Scheris and Mimori couldn't tell what was wrong with her, but her whole body was trembling, almost as if she just saw the most terrifying thing in her life.

'Don't leave me, Cougar...!'

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Cougar had a book opened on his face (The Kestrel), one of which he wasn't reading. It was just resting on his face, as he leaned back in his seat, his head thrown back as if he was sleeping in the middle of reading and his pink shades were on the brink of falling off the top of his head at the moment, "Urizane, how would you cope with a stubborn little firecracker for a friend whose mood swings are so frequent you never know where you stand around them?"

The flabby-bellied man shot his red-headed companion a confused look and swallowed his food before replying, "I don't understand."

"Well, to put things simply; it's Aconite. She's been causing nothing but trouble ever since she came in and, well, for once I have no idea how to deal with her. Got any ideas on how to tame her?" Cougar asked again, removing the book from his head.

Urizane shrugged as he took another bite off the many slices of watermelon on the table, "Those kinda women usually have a lot of things on their minds. If they're open enough to you, they'll talk it out. But if they don't, you may have to persuade her to talk to you."

"What if she doesn't want to talk?"

"I dunno! Since when was I the lady expert, anyway? You're her long-term pal! Logically, I'd just give her some time to herself. Unless of course, you're the cause of her mood swings! She seems to like you a lot, why don't you just ask her? Who knows, she may spill everything and that'll be the end of your problems. End of story," Urizane finished and helped himself to another round of watermelons.

Cougar sighed and rested his head in his palm, placing his book down on the table, "You're right... Why'd I even bother asking you in the first place?"

The red-head took it as his cue to bolt out of the room when Urizane glared at him and the tanned man's body glowed with a spectral aura.

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Yeah! 3rd chapter done!

So far, I definitely think everything's going way too fast. (Heh!) So I may have to resort to dragging the story along. Don't worry, I'll include more characters in the coming chapters. I don't plan on making this a short story, anywho so I better start thinking of more stuff to write about!

You all can make contributions by giving me some ideas via your reviews. If you're lucky, I may pick one of them and put them up in one of the chapters. I may even add up one or more ideas into one chapter!

So if you all got something up in your minds, just give me a few points/ideas, and I'll be typing up a storm again.

Please review and...

Ciao!