Thoth couldn't put his finger on it. There was something about that girl that he didn't know, and he knew everything!
He huffed in frustration as he thought back on the song that she sang and on the poem that she recited in class. Her words filled the room as though she were reciting some sort of spell. She didn't see their faces during her little 'performances', but if she did she would see that they were all drawn in by her presence. He had met many humans through the centuries, but none had that kind of power over the gods.
She was soft-spoken, but whenever she spoke they all paid attention as though she were authoritative. Everyone knew the moment that she walked into a room even if she made no noise, they would know if it was her. All of them were drawn to her for one reason or another. This academy was full of conflicting personalities by all the gods that were there and she had the same effect on all of them. He knew that she was human, he looked into her family lineage and saw nothing out of the ordinary. He had gone into her dorm room while she was out and gathered DNA from her pillow (much to Melissa's dismay).
That stupid doll was overprotective of her. He had to get Zeus to make sure the doll wouldn't say anything to Yui. He had to satisfy his curiosity about the strange girl. She was nothing that he had ever seen before. No other god held such a presence among-st them before. It wasn't commanding, it was welcoming and trusting. It was something that he would never expect a human to hold. They were all greedy, selfish animals who had turned their backs on the gods long ago.
The girl whose voice seemed to resonate within anybody who hears it. The gods listened to her, a mere human! She was able to accomplish more in a few weeks than Zeus had tried to do for an entire century. He could see why the sword would choose someone like her. It's just he didn't understand how it was possible that a human like her could exist. It's as though, every heart that she touched healed underneath her caring words. A god's broken heart isn't something that could easily be mended, but she managed to mend the broken hearts of the gods that were there. Some hearts, she was in the process of mending, but he could see that she was making progress with them.
He couldn't put his finger on what that girl held, but he was going to keep pressing and studying her until he found out.
-x-
Late in the evening, Yui couldn't sleep. She decided that she would take a walk to a small lake that was nearby the dorms. It would only take her about twenty minutes to walk there and she needed some fresh air.
She had been teaching the gods more about human emotions since they seemed to have a different way of expressing them. Trying to explain that to them was something that she was having trouble with since she didn't fully understand how their emotions were different than hers.
She sighed and rolled out of bed. She opened the window and took a gauge on the temperature outside. It was humid so she decided that her long sleeve shirt and pajama pants weren't going to do her any good.
She went over to her closet, ensuring that she didn't wake up Melissa, and pulled out a thin dress. It was a simple light grey, spaghetti strap, a thin, high-low dress that she found in the bookstore. Since she had arrived at the academy, she didn't have a reason to wear it before. 'What the hell? Might as well. It's not like I won't be able to wear this once I get home.' The thought saddened her, but she pushed it back and slipped on the dress.
She wrote a not for Melissa just in case he woke up and she wasn't there and slipped outside into the night.
Walking across the grass, she felt a light breeze lift up the back of her dress as though it were a cape. She decided that she wouldn't bother with shoes so she could feel the silky grass below her feet. She felt truly feminine for the first time since she arrived. She missed this feeling. At home, she loved dressing up and would just put on dresses while she read books just because she felt like it. Sure, here the gods were nice to her, but she didn't feel like a woman.
Lost in her thoughts as she made her way into the nearby woods, she thought back to the night where she almost took her own life.
She couldn't remember what event drove her into the woods in the first place. Something had happened that she blocked out of her mind to drive her into the immense feeling of pain. She didn't know if it was an event or just a single thought, all she remembered was that she was sitting in the middle of the woods on her kneed. She remembers the feeling of the knife trembling in her hands as it lightly pricked her throat. A single stream of blood ran down her neck as tears fell down her face.
The air was cold that night, as though death itself had decided to walk the earth and spread his icy grip through the air. She felt trapped by her own conscious, wanting to take the final plunge but couldn't complete it. She did think of her family and how they would react if she did take her life. That thought alone didn't pull her out of it though. There was one thing that she saw in her mind that she never told anyone. Something that she still remembers vividly.
That one image, along with an onslaught of hope and light allowed her to drop the knife onto the forest floor. That image was burned into her mind and she held onto it. Every-time she felt her mind receding into the darkness, that one thought brought her back towards the light.
She pulled herself out of her thoughts when she saw the blue hue of the lake shimmer through the trees. Walking up to the edge, she sat down on her knees and skimmed the water with her finger. She took a deep breath and leaned over to take a look at herself.
Dark circles were prominent underneath her eyes and the moon shining on her purple hair bore a striking contrast to her cinnamon eyes. She wasn't a vain person, so she didn't look at herself in the mirror very often. Every-time she did, her eyes would find the small scar on her neck where the knife had cut into her slightly. She would forever bare that scar, and now, looking at it in the middle of the night through a lake next to a school for the gods, she smiled at herself as she brought her hand up to touch it.
The image that she found and has held onto was finally right in front of her. The image was of her, smiling down at her reflection as she lightly touching the scar. That one image, spoke volumes to her that night. To her, that image showed her that even though she had tried to do something so horrific to herself, one day there was a chance that she would smile at the memory etched in her skin.
An image like that was strange, she understood that, but at the time she hadn't smiled at anything about herself in a very long time. The smile that she saw within that image, however, was a genuine, comforting smile that she felt she would one day be able to see for herself. Here it was staring back at her showing that she was okay. That night strengthened her and that scar was a testament to that strength.
Ever since that night, her life to others has been nothing but a mask. In front of others, she pretends that nothing is wrong. She puts on a front of happiness that eclipses all of the hurt and pain. She always hated being a burden to others. She had always been the kind of person that did everything she could to help others but hated it when she needed the help of others in her personal life. Getting help with different everyday tasks never bothered her. She wasn't that self-reliant.
However, she hated the mere thought of someone helping her with her emotions. That would defeat all of her hard work in developing her mask in the first place. That particular creation in her life was something that she had always been proud of accomplishing. It was something that she could use so others would not worry about her.
She hates being sad in front of everyone else, but it's nice to pretend and forget that she was for a little while. She knew that the scars of her life would never fade away. They would always be reminders of what she went through and she valued those lessons; even though they were difficult ones to learn. To her, it was better to worry about others than worry about yourself. She had always believed that ever since she was a mere child.
She can remember the day that her mask became necessary. That day, her entire life changed.
Flash-back
(Fun fact: This is a true personal story. If anything, I based Yui's personality and luckily, I never got to the point of committing suicide.)
She walked out of the classroom behind the rest of her class like every other day. That particular day, they had to go to art class. It was always a class that she enjoyed. At the time, she figured it was because she just enjoyed the action itself. When she got older, she discovered that it was because it gave her something to focus on instead of focusing on her lack of friends that made her lonely.
That particular day, she was not excited to go to the art class. The day before, as happened every previous since she started school, her friend that she made at the beginning of the year had moved away. This was her seventh friend that she had lost in less than a year of their friendship. At this point, she began giving up on the fact that she would never have a best friend. Someone who she could talk to who would just be there for her.
Even at that age, she didn't like to make others worry. What she had always wanted, even up to the day where she found herself amongst the gods, was to have someone to listen to her. She didn't need someone to help fix her. She just wanted someone to listen and understand. Little did she know, that a moment was awaiting her within that threshold that she walked in and out of every day that would change her life forever. That one moment was a moment that would require a best friend to get through her next challenge in life.
Her teacher turned off the lights as she crossed the threshold, only to be blocked by the school counselor. The look on her face was something that scared her. Her teacher had nodded and stepped aside to allow the councilor into the dark classroom to speak to little Yui.
"Ms. Kusanagi, your mother had a stroke and is currently being taken in an ambulance to a larger hospital."
She was silent as she digested the information. As with everything else, she pushed aside her emotions for the moment determined to do what would be required for her. "Okay, who is going to come and pick me up? Do you want me to go sit in the office or are they already here?"
The councilor gave the teacher a flustered surprised look at the child's bluntness in face of the situation. "Yui, nobody is coming to pick you up. All of your family except for your siblings are following the ambulance that is carrying your mother. You need to go back to class."
Yui looked back and forth between the two women, hoping that there was an alternative than continuing as though nothing happened. Realizing that she indeed had to continue, she nodded and slumped her shoulders as she walked down the hall and lined up with the rest of her class against the wall.
A girl that sat next to her had noticed her staring at the floor in deep thought. "What's wrong?"
Without looking up at the girl, she shook her head and stared at the patterns in the dark carpet. "My mother just had a stroke and is being taken to a hospital."
"What's a stroke?"
She furrowed her little eyebrows. "I don't know."
-x-
That day was the start of her mask. She doesn't remember what happened for the rest of the day or how she even got home in the first place. All she remembered was meeting her father at a hospital two hours away from their home giving her and her siblings a speech. "Understand that your mother will never be the same. She won't be able to do everything that she did before. She will become more tired and forgetful than before. We are going to need your help from now on to take care of the house as well as helping your mother. Everything will be fine."
Her father was right, her mother was never the same after that. She became more emotional and forgetful. Even as she got older, her parents never sat them down to explain what a stroke was. They had to figure it out through health classes in later years. She and her siblings accepted the situation. Yui was the one that had always been the most concerned about her mother outwardly. She never complained when asked to do something and did everything she could to avoid making her mother upset.
Over time, she developed a mask that allowed her mother to stay calm and think that her youngest was happy. In reality, she was a lonely child who had no one to talk to. She never allowed anyone to get so close to her that she would share her secrets with. She never had a best friend that stuck around for more than two years.
When the night came when she found herself holding a tip of a knife to her throat, that mask extended to those around her. What happened to her mother and her was something that was deeply etched in her heart. She knew that it would be near impossible to open up to someone enough to share everything with since she never had before.
Her life was her own and her pain was her own. Even though she dreamed of the day meeting someone that she could share everything with, she always held that dream at bay from the forefront of her mind so she wouldn't get hurt.
Now that she was walking late at night while multiple Gods were sleeping in a distant building, she prepared herself for losing more friends. Friends that she would leave the same year that she befriended them.