I wandered through an unknown forest, feeling my way around as if I was just a small child again. Birds flew about, looking down at me and emitting high, shrill sounds that came across as little more than mocking. Hiei had told me that I was going to be taken by something, and I wanted to at least know what this something was, so that I would see it coming.
Unfortunately, the forest seemed to be made only to confuse travelers and guide me in the wrong direction. Something inside told me to keep on going when I almost stopped, and I refused to listen to it. A stream a little way off of the beaten path beckoned to me just as the roof had. Was I caught in destiny's threads that tightly already? It didn't matter, because my parched throat said otherwise.
Though I sat down at the stream, drinking at it wasn't enough. I didn't want to strip down for fear of the dream I had had, but instead I plunged my head underneath the water. A chill wetness washed over my face, but it left me unsatisfied. Then I dipped my arms under along with my head. It felt better this time, but I still was left unsatiated. Rage swept over me, and I slammed a fist into the ground. If I stripped and jumped into the stream, I knew someone would be watching. If this dream was so realistic, the vision I had of the silver-haired man must have been just as real.
However, I couldn't get the thought of how that stream would feel out of my mind. I relented and pulled off the long, gauzy gown that I had been wearing. Once it fell off, I was stark naked for any wandering eyes to see. It didn't matter, though. As I lowered myself into the water, I felt my red hair float up and surround me, and the water washed away all my troubles. For hours I lay there, running my hands through my hair and then just relaxing.
Suddenly, I felt someone else running their fingers through my hair. I started and stood up. Shadows his the somewhat short, crimson-eyes figure. "Hiei?" I called weakly. "What are you doing here?" Maybe he was under someone else's control. Maybe I was really hallucinating. I forgot trying to cover myself up and stood, backing away slowly. A hand reached out to touch the spot at the base of my neck, and I gasped as the touch felt cold as ice.
"Get away!" I screamed, but whoever it was wrapped me in an embrace and I couldn't get loose. Was it the silver-haired man? No. His eyes were an unforgettable shade of amber. I would have known if it was him. "Who are you?" Unfamiliar hands stroked my hair, and soon, I was caught in a kiss that I didn't want, one that was never meant to be. Consciousness left me as I pushed him away, running as fast as I could.
I awakened to look at a pair of crimson eyes. "Ri?" a familiar voice called. Hiro. Right. Reaching for my clothes, I realized that I was still wearing them and I was still outside...on the roof. "Ri, are you okay?" He grabbed my shoulders and shook me, snapping me out of my stupor. At his touch though, I shrank back against the side of the building.
"Stay away," I quavered, remembering my all-too-vivid encounter in the dream. Crimson eyes, an unwelcome kiss, and an unwelcome child.
"What is it, Ri?" Hiro asked me, reaching forward to offer me some comfort. Unlatching the door, I fell backward into it and tumbled until I was on my back.
Hiro squatted above me, gazing down at my terrified face. "Ri," he said persuasively, grabbing my hand. "I'm not going to hurt you." His words only made me shriek louder, and I fell back against his closet. Physical contact was very unwelcome at that point. I tucked in my stomach, threw my shoulders back, spread out my legs, pressed my arms and neck flat against the wall.
"Go away!" I screamed. "Get out of my head!"
Now it was clearer. Hiro gazed at me intently and backed away a little. Relaxing my body, I dared to take a couple quick breaths. What if he tried to take me now? What if I was too weak to fight back when he tried? "Don't," I gasped, my eyes wide. "Don't. Do. It." Terror possessed my mind, a terror of what would happen if I let him take me over like this.
"Whatever it is, I won't do it," Hiro whispered in a gentle tone.
No matter what he said to convince me that he wasn't going to rape me like the man in the dream, I backed away even further, frightened of what would happen if I let him gain any ground. Finally, my tired body didn't want to move anymore. It didn't make any difference whether or not I protested. I had to give in. Hiro wrapped his arms around me and I felt as if I was back in the dream, and next he was going to kiss me.
It didn't happen, though. He held me in his arms, smoothing back my hair and whispering words of comfort in my ear. His small, wiry arms felt so good around my waist that I leaned into him. Tears flowed for no reason as we rocked back and forth. The dream had left me so terrified, as nothing like that had happened to me before. "I don't know what happened to me," I said quietly as he soothed my fears. "I just...I was so scared, and..." Hiro pressed a finger to my lips and then smiled once I actually shut up.
"I don't mind," he replied lightly. "I know you didn't mean to." With a smile, I accepted his explanation and then sat down on the bed. We ended up lying down next to each other. Slowly, Hiro wrapped one arm around my shoulders and we lay there as friends, there for each other through anything that could come our way.
From afar, I could hear footsteps, but I dismissed them as Kazuma tramping around the house, doing housework and such. However, in retrospect I always wished I hadn't dismissed them. The door swung open, and Mikari stepped through.
One glance at the two of us on the bed was all it took. At first, she was just shocked, but eventually her misconceptions settled in and she fled from the room. Further down the hall, I could hear enraged screams and Kazuma's attempts to calm her down. Both Hiro and I sat up and there we were, smiling at each other. In the last couple of days, it seemed as though we had grown up a lot, but in the end we were just petty children, wishing for things that we couldn't have. I couldn't be this close to Hiro and equally close to Mikari. Hiro couldn't be in love with me when we were this young. Mikari couldn't save her mother from that inevitable death. Nothing could ever be right in the world without a price.
"No," I whispered under my breath, wishing it had never happened. "I can't be doing this! Mikari...she's already broken enough. What if we push her off the edge?" Hiro nodded and backed away. Maybe, if we pushed her far enough, Mikari would end up committing suicide. I didn't want to see what would happen when she reached her limits and couldn't take it anymore. Hiro didn't know what he was doing to me...forcing to choose between best friends.
"What was it that happened?" Hiro asked. "What made you flip out like that?" For a moment, I just stared at the ground, unwilling to answer his question. The steadiness of his crimson eyes made me answer, though. I just couldn't defy that patient gaze.
"It was a bad dream," I said in a hushed whisper. "It...was nothing." Thinking of that man with the crimson eyes, I shivered abruptly.
Then I remembered Hiei and what he had told me. I didn't have long at all before he would come and take me. 'Like it or not,' he had said to me, and I had never been under the illusion that I had much choice in the matter anyway. "Hiro," I began. He looked up and quirked an eyebrow, waiting for me to continue at my own pace. "Hiro," I repeated, "I needed to tell you something. Honestly, if I hadn't been so preoccupied with that dream, I would have told you sooner but..." I was allowed some time to breathe and gather my thoughts before I decided to just come out with it already.
"I have to leave," I finished, and then I watched as Hiro's eyes widened.
"Why?" he asked, an obvious question. I would have asked the same thing had he told me he had to leave.
"Because something's after me, and I'm not ready to fight it yet."
"I'll protect you," Hiro volunteered. "I'll stop them from hurting you!"
"No," I said, placing a hand on his. "I have to go train with Hiei for a while...you're not ready yet to use your powers. You can protect me from this threat about as well as I can protect myself."
Hiro stood up and looked down at me. "When are you leaving?" he asked quietly, his head hanging forward so that his bangs shadowed his eyes. I couldn't have foreseen that the news of my departure would hurt him this much, and I didn't want to...I really didn't.
"In about five days now," I replied, and smiled up at him, trying to resurrect some light of hope. "Look, I have to come back to fight whatever it is, so it's not like I'm leaving for good."
Even though he nodded and let me pack up to go home, I knew that Hiro was having trouble dealing with this fact. "I'm sorry," I said softly, placing a hand on his shoulder. "I'll try and contact you soon enough, if Hiei will let me. Please, live on without me for a while, enjoy life. It's what your mother will want you to do."
"Alright," he sighed, "but promise me that you'll contact this world or wherever we are as soon as you possibly can."
"Got it," I said with a smile, giving him a thumbs up.
Kazuma drove me home, but Hiro didn't want to come. So, I was sitting in the front seat, staring into space. The silence almost drove me mad as I sat there and wished for something to do. Finally, I decided that talking was the only thing left, though Kazuma hadn't been much in the mood for it lately. "I'm sorry," I began quietly, "...about Yukina that is. My mother always tells me stories of how in love you were. It's sad to see her in this sort of condition."
"It was sudden," Kazuma recalled effortlessly. "We were sitting on the couch, and then...she said she felt faint and I told her to get in bed."
I closed my eyes for a minute as he told the story. How could he bear to recount the tale of a lost loved one so easily? Didn't it hurt him? I began to wonder if Yukina was strong enough to fight this disease that had overtaken her. Whenever I saw her, she seemed incredibly timid, and I doubted she ever hid anything from me or her family. "I just hope there's a cure," I said quietly, looking down at the floor. Honestly, I didn't know what else to say.
The car seemed to go painfully slow after we stopped talking. The scenery of the city was so droll that it made me want to sleep, but my mind was too full for that right now. Was there a cure out there, and if there was, where would it be? Nobody would just hand it over. Also, there was the matter of Yukina's comment to me. She had said my mother brought it here. Yet it wasn't my mother's fault, apparently. There was no one to take the blame, though I sorely wanted to lay it on someone.
After a while, Kazuma started to look absently out the window, forgetting that I was there. He drove ahead without running into anything, but even with his head turned, I could tell that his face was filled with sadness and confusion. Something in the air told me, and I could smell the salt of tears. I fought hard not to cry, and eventually got lost inside my own thoughts.
I could see those crimson eyes. The figure could have been Hiei or Hiro, but both were much shorter than this man had been. Horror filled me to the brim when I recalled this memory, and then I could remember the ferocious girl with the golden eyes, furious that a man had caught her bathing in the moonlight. When the man in my dream came upon me, I had been scared, but she was able to defy him without flinching.
Hiro's saddened face stuck out in my mind, and I could see him lying on the bed, waiting for me to come home. He was older, and had grown quite a bit. His hair went down past his shoulders, and his eyes were hardened after the years of loneliness. No matter how deep I dug, I couldn't find an image of Mikari. Was she lost to me now that she was mad at Hiro? Would my deep friendship with Hiro not allow myself and his sister to be friends?
The last thing I could remember was a soft song, sung in a silken voice that lilted carefully with the flow of the words. I couldn't identify the singer, but I could have sworn I knew her. Was she the one who would show me Yukina's cure?
The shadow of the moonlight,
Haunts me in the dark.
Crimson rain and eternal blight
Haunt my accursed heart.
My head's lonely memories
Haunt my heart and soul.
The Wolven and the Earthen
Bore me to this world.
He was the greatest king
This place has ever known.
She lived in the grove of flowers
Where seeds of hate are sown.
They met in the dead of night,
And he took her twice before
The word of his impurity
Could spread in local lore.
There is a plight
Comes swiftly now.
It runs on the winds of time
Lo, ye must halt it now.
His majesty is wroth
With the one he bore back then.
He comes to seek his vengeance,
Though I don't know when.
I gasped and lunged forward, short of breath. Who was she that her words held such power? Their timbre sent shivers down my spine, and the power with which she sang made it seem like so much more than a song. "What was that?" I whispered to myself, and Kazuma pulled into the driveway.
"I don't know," Kazuma said. "Did you hear something."
"No," I said, still short of breath. I got out of the car and he drove away, leaving me alone until I walked through that door.
As I walked up to the door, the song echoed continually through my head...
A/N: Oh yeah! After many nights, I took aside my precious time to finally finish this chapter! I had a half-day in school, and we all got to listen to Soapy getting picked on. Ah, the soothing hilarity of Latin class. Hope you like this chappie. I'm really using my self-restraint here to keep on track with my pacing. Thus, there are at least two mysteries where you're probably going, "WHY WON'T SHE TELL ME!" 'Fraid you'll have to wait and see. I don't quite know what I'm going to do for the next chappie just yet.
The song is copyright to First Commander Miari, and if you wish to use it, you must e-mail me prior to said song's use.
I make an awesome lawyer...
Miari