The disclaimer states that Tsukihime belongs to Type-Moon. Type-Moon deserves something better than my fanfiction, but oh well...
Huh?
Where am I?
A dream?
What the, dream?
Its not possible, I certainly still feel the hangover in my head.
Deciding that the pain my head wouldn't stop me from making clear of my situation, I walk around the lake slowly.
A look around revealed no signs of anyone else, just me standing in the middle of a lake.
Its amazing that this place could exist, a solidary lake in the middle of the mountain.
It was as if this place is totally deserted, with only trees and grasses.
I thought of finding a route out of the mountains but I found it too much troublesome to move as my body has been suffering from fatigue.
It was then I saw the moon floating above the lake.
Ahh, the moon shining as beautifully as always.
Light gusts of wind caressed my face and rustled the leaves of the trees.
Fireflies came out of their hiding place and dance merrily around the lake.
I don't know why, but my heart felt calm.
Ever since I met Sion, I don't think there's been a time I felt this restful in my heart.
It had been just one crazy event after another.
Amidst this tranquility, those hectic days seem so very distant.
"What are you doing here?"
A familiar voice reached my ears.
I opened my eyes and looked towards at the edge of the clearing
There stood a person that look like me.
He is standing on the piece of rock near the water, wearing the same t-shirt as what I'm wearing.
His face exposed nothing, yet beyond his guise, one would easily know he is pondering about something.
I looked back up again at the moon.
"Oh, yeah, tonight is pretty. I haven't got the chance to find myself relaxed for a long time."
Okay that was rude, but I wasn't bothered to speak to anybody in the first place.
"I do agree. What a nice moon. It'd be terrible to waste a night like this. Really..."
He looked up at the sky while he spoke, then narrowed his eyes to me.
"You don't smell of some bad guy."
I said as a matter of fact, looking at him.
"You have absolutely no idea."
Hairs fluttering, he slowly walked over.
Usually this will be someone I should have been wary of, but for some unknown reasons, I just didn't feel the need to.
"Its been a while."
He stopped before me.
And there's something about him, I finally realized.
"Ah, I'm so sorry. I'm just not too fond of conversing."
"Me, too. But I'm really glad that you are looking good."
He stared at the moon again for sometime before resuming his gaze back to me.
"Damn, I think you are getting too depressed for your own good."
He said with a sigh, gazing into my face.
"You want some too?"
This time, he held out a bottle, probably sake. His expression gradually changed into a smile.
"Yeah, I'll have some. A drink to the moon might be just the thing."
Drinking isn't really my thing, but for some reason, today I felt like joining in.
"Okay, you said it!"
"Well then, shall we celebrate this occassion with this bottle of sake?"
Rolling his eyes like some pirates on television, he asked
"Sounds good. What will we toast to?"
"To you and me."
As he spoke, his eyes narrowed in amusement again. A genuine smile. Do I used to smile like that too, I wonder?
"To you..."
"To me..."
"Cheers!"
He handed the bottle to me, I began drinking heartily.
I wouldn't have stop until he tried to snatch the bottle away.
"Ahhh stop, you are wasting such a good thing, don't spill any!"
I reluctantly righted bottle and pass it over to him.
Deciding I couldn't really stand all day long, I began to find a small place to sit.
It was then I realised I already drank more than what I could handle.
"Hey, don't fall asleep!"
I noticed a smirk on his face before I completely fell unconcious.
I saw a reflection on the water.
This is nothing but my reflection.
The amount of perspiration on my head made me register that it was not a dream.
A little reunion between me and my reflection inside this desolated lake.
"The other me..."
I laughed at myself.
A little while later, after looking back up at the moon, I found myself in Tohno's mansion.
"This reminds me..."
He spoke up softly.
"I. I mean we, you used to play around this garden..."
Nostalgically, I looked around.
Here and there, this place was full of memories.
The cherry blossoms of spring.
The heat of summer.
The falling leaves of autumn.
The snows of winter.
Together with Akiha, Kohaku and Hisui, I have so many memories in this place.
Opening half closed eyes, he turned towards me.
"Hey..."
"What?"
"Do you think its peaceful now?"
"I don't know."
"You think everybody is happy right now?"
"I'm not sure... but I think they do."
'Akiha?'
"Hisui?"
"Kohaku?"
"Akiha has... become more cheerful."
I answered with a smile.
"Heh..."
"Recently, she's made some friends around her own age. Its always without a day when they don't argue with each other. I think that makes her more happy, right?"
"Its been a while since I last seen her, I take it that she had become very pretty, right?"
"Er.. well...Hisui, Hisui, too... has become more cheerful."
"I think this is for the best, we always want her to smile."
This time, he gave a satisfied smile, before he empty the rest of the bottle.
"Her blushing is really cute."
"Pretty?"
He glanced at me with eyes so deep and innocent, that I actually drown inside each of the orbs
Feeling annoyed I guess, his elbow poked me a couple of times, just to knock me out of my dreams.
"And... Kohaku-san."
I stopped talking as if it was involuntary.
"Kohaku?"
His eyes were utterly serious.
"...She's started to smile."
When he heard that, his expression changed. He covered his face and sigh a little.
"I see. This is really good."
His voice was deeper and hint of happiness as he look at me.
"Are you attracted to Kohaku-san?"
Reacting to me question, he opened just one eye and looked my way. A cunning smile forms around his lips.
"Me?... Kohaku?"
"Yeah. That's what I saw in your eyes."
"... that may be true. She had given Akiha and me a piece of her life, both of us has caused her all sorts of trouble in the past. Of course, I, and Akiha would be attached to her."
"By the way, what about your new friend?... or girlfriend?"
He finished his words with a chuckle deep in his throat.
"Arcueid-san and Ciel-sempai, you mean?"
"Yes."
I expected that question a few seconds ago.
It was then I found out that I didn't have the answer to his question.
I chided myself for being naive, for I had no idea what I'm gonna answer in the first place.
I therefore wondered what he is truely asking?
Is he asking about our relationship?
Is he asking about their relationship?
This is a formidable question, pervasive that I had no way to escape.
"They are important friends of mine."
As if satisfied by something, he gave me a nod.
"So, what do you think they are, friends, rivals or enemies?"
"I don't understand..."
"...You can't bluff me, for I am you as you are me."
He laughs for a while before putting back on his trademark grin.
"Anyways, are you guys happy right now?"
"...I'm now sure we are happy, I am confident."
He didn't beat around the bush.
I was remind to think about my situation.
A large photo with all my friends, everyone sporting genuine smiles.
"I'm glad. I'm really glad that I can see you again."
"You are always inside me."
We both nodded.
"Hey..."
"Hmm?"
"Sorry."
"What for?"
He magically takes out another bottle of sake from under his jacket.
"Before... we have talked. Right?"
"Oh, that..."
The image of the real Shiki Tohno drinking coffee and talking about old times overlaid his current image.
That's right. I remembered talking about that once.
"That guy, how to say it... He never had anything of his own. So, he looked like he never wanted anything. That was kinda aloof. I guess being lonely makes you aloof. That's why I couldn't help but worry about him. Although he could have said something about that to me."
"That. I was wrong. Sorry."
He gave out an embarrassed laugh.
However, now I am thinking? Was he ever wrong?
"Why?"
"Idiot. Think about that yourself."
Again, he chuckled.
Now I remember, he's always been like this.
He was never the type to give you everything.
That's why I always liked him.
I realized he was trying to hand me the other bottle of sake.
"Give me a hint, at least."
Yes, somehow he was trying to clue me about something.
Seeing no leads, I gave up.
"Hmmm. Okay then. I am what you believe."
"Huh?"
"You are him."
"What?"
"Think about that yourself."
Laughing, he laid out flat on the ground.
I, too, drank the contents of this bottle, then put it beside him and lay down.
Ah, the soft ground felt pleasant to my skin.
Suddenly came the rustling of fallen leaves.
"Hhhaaaaaaaaaaa..."
I could easily hear my own sigh echoing.
Looking up, I felt that the whole wide starry sky is trying to engulf me.
"What is the problem with you? This is depressing."
He laughed.
I too started laughing.
Ah, how much time passed, I wonder.
Eventually, our laughter paused.
A pleasant tiredness, and a kind of lazy truce.
"Hey."
A serious voice unlike any before.
"What?"
Naturally, my voice sharpened, too.
"...You don't have to worry anymore."
Those were the words I least wanted to hear.
"Please stop."
I shouted out without hesitation.
"Why? This was..."
He sighed as he put down the bottle of sake.
"Don't say anything more."
"Why not?"
"You known me, I thought nobody except you would understand, but you don't exist in my world."
"...Shiki-"
He immediately vanished before my eyes.
He was a dream.
My fantasy.
My fear.
And yet, my past.
My consolation.
A product of my mind, a phantom that happened to be convenient.
I guess its part of my past that my present couldn't wipe away.
He doesn't have a future, I had blocked it off with my own hands before.
"Why do you think that?"
He was still chuckling.
"Why? huh..."
"That's because..."
"Because you're trying to cheer me up."
That's right. That's what he's doing.
"Because you are not behaving like the one I know."
He was supposed to come and take my life, like in the past.
But the present him is not someone who speak of kind words.
Because he was a mass murderer without remorse.
Like me.
"So, you can't accept that the current me isn't a butcher?"
"To tell the truth, no. I don't know, Circumstances had made me a butcher too."
"Can't you even think of us, who had redeemed by going through real death?"
He gave a twisted smile.
Holding one hand to his eyes, the other out in front of him, he laughed.
"I'm impressed, for someone I know since past to now, you still struggle to do the right thing."
"That is something I used to wonder, until..."
So what is his deal?
"Okay then, How about this?"
He sat up, and looked down at me.
"What do you think of your world?"
"My world?"
"Yes. Do you think reality is wonderful?"
There was a slight hint of unbelief.
"I believe you are asking whether there is any proof my world actually exist?"
"You do pick up things faster than you think."
Reality, huh.
The everyday world I live in.
Can I really prove that it actually exists?
And if everything were an illusion?
That what I think is reality would in truth be a hallucination, and quite distant from true reality.
Is what I see with my eyes reality?
Is what I hear with my ears reality?
Or maybe...?
"You used to exist in my world as my source of fear. My source of fear is actually an illusion all this while. Hence it could be said that my world is an illusion as well as reality, its not possible to prove that reality is reality."
"Well said. In other words, the world exists inside people. You do understand?"
I nodded.
My gaze still pointed to the sky.
Yet I was still bewildered.
"By the way, do you dislike religon?"
"Its not a matter of dislike or not."
"Don't dislike it, but don't particularly like it, either."
"The Buddhists have a saying. All things are the first in the mind, and as the foundations of the mind, then created from the mind'... In other words, all worlds exist soley in your mind."
The world only exists in my mind?
"The world, people and everything else, are in your mind."
"If that is what I'm seeing and hearing, it's all just the fabrication of my imagination."
"That's right. It's a good thing you're smart. Added to 'Sight', 'Hearing', 'Smell', 'Taste', 'Touch', the five awarenesses that rule the physical human five senses, and the surface human 'Consciousness' are the deeper mentalities of manas or self awareness, and alaya, the root of consciousness. These eight mental functions form everything in the world, they say."
I was overwhelmed by his words.
"Manas? Alaya?"
"Yeah, those two are the so-called deeper mentalities. Manas is the subconscious that influences the surface consciousness. That stream of consciousness thing. alaya is... yeah, it's the source."
"Source?"
"Yeah. Everything that's every happened to that human. Things seen and heard. A gathering, collection of all of those. It's the thing that provides impetus, motive to the other seven mental functions. To sum it up in one word, it's the act."
"Act..."
"Of course, those eight functions doesn't have a fixed shape. They interfere with each other, and each situation shapes the ones after it."
Right then, something seemed to flicker in my heart.
If one's heart is formed like that, then...
Inversion Impulse.
The one who inverted him was him own...
"That's right, Shiki. What was inverted in his heart was, most likely, Alaya."
The remaining seven unchanged, only their impetus inverted.
And those seven were dragged along.
All of those mental functions form the next act.
And that act was...
For him, there was no going back.
"I see."
"You understand?"
"Yes. I understand this world and him. But I still don't know you, I don't know myself."
I understood that this meeting is my fantasy.
I understood that he is my fantasy.
But I still don't understand why my past reappears to myself.
"Given that you are truely my past, why am I glad to see you?"
"Damn, you are slow."
He ran his hands through his hair, then gave a single sigh.
"Did you forget about your own eyes?"
Those eyes.
The mystic eyes of death.
Those eyes that can see fate, especially a death that is fated.
Along with the power to enhance or manipulate the final result.
"Eyes that see death won't see anything, right?"
"If your eyes were truly the mystic eyes of death, then that will be the truth."
He closed one eye, then looked at me.
"...Have you ever thought that? Makes sense, doesn't it?"
Opening his closed eye, he waved his hands and stood.
"Because you are your eyes, and because they have been though death for so long, you've gained the ability to grasp the very concept of Death."
"Because of that exposure to death, my eyes can understand death?"
"In other words, my eyes aren't strictly the mystic eyes of death?"
"So I did unconciously assume you are alive.."
I finally muttered.
"...You're talking a lot today."
He gave a twisted smile.
With a great exaggerated waving of arms and body, he dropped into a begging pose.
Unconsciously, my own face relaxed.
What do I think I'm doing, getting directly involved in a dream?
"You are part me. At least that portion used to be me."
I make sure the idea get though my head.
"Right. That is exactly the idea. And that is the person you fear from becoming..."
I already knew that answer.
"I am Shiki. Without doubt, I am both Shiki Tohno and Shiki Nanaya. I am the Shiki that was created from you."
"I am you. You are me."
That was what he is.
"That's why, Shiki."
He closed his eyes and put a hand on his hip
Turning his face to the sky, he took a deep breath and smile.
His face would become of that person I can never forget.
"So, after all, you couldn't come with us, Tohno-kun."
It was...
"Yumizuka... san?"
She couldn't hear me.
"That is the end I think, I am happy to meet you!"
Her crimson tears dripped along her face, to her neck, staining her frilly yellow blouse.
"No! Stop! Don't come here."
I knew instantly the promise had been broken.
"You should always stay back there. Don't ever be depressed and come back here. Please promise me!"
She struggled to smile. She was suffering from pain, both happy and sad.
"You should stay here, so always protect everyone. In place of I, whom you can't.
I could only silently pray.
The crying face of Yumizuka gradually becomes that of Sion.
"That was inevitable, you have done your best."
Sion sighed abit as her eyes gaze at the moon.
"No, I tried hard, but... still I couldn't save both of you..."
Her hair flew along the cold night air, her image stood like a lonely girl.
"You have that thought, it was enough..."
There was another sigh before she turned around to face me.
"I have been missing you..."
She stood still, blushing like the old Sion I used to know.
"Me too..."
She took my hand and kissed, whispering something inaudible to the back of my palm.
"But we are always in your memories..."
With that, Sion walked back into the shadow. Leaving nothing in her wake.
Those words and emotions, so extreme as that my soul was shaken by it.It was as if my heart has a guide now, its like a compass being illuminated by pure light..
I would use all my existence for everyone, for him and my own life.
"Then, okay..."
He stared at me as I spoke.
"What am I doing up to now!"
"You are simply wielding your world, owner of your destiny. Beholder to the peception of death!"
"I have always thought I was just redeeming myself."
"Sensei, I was naive."
"You should just let go of your burdens."
There was a certain realisation that fate had something even greater in store for me.
"Don't worry too much. No matter what you do in the future, I would guide you along."
"For I am you, just your past."
"And I am myself, the present me."
"I have a future, I am still alive."
His face was calm.