K: Midnight
Extra Scene: Wait for Me
October 1, 2010
He could hear his breath whoosh fiercely in and out. It was a lot louder than he remembered – faster, too. He couldn't seem to stop it growing more and more intense. He needed air, but couldn't seem to get enough, no matter what he did.
He stumbled down an alley, gripped the wall in one hand and his chest inside the other. He could always feel the heat of his own fire, but today he felt a sweat as cold as ice begin to rise up from the depths of God knows where inside his furnace of a soul. The burning in his chest was not a fiery one but froze him to the core.
Huh, that's weird, Mikoto thought, tensing as the pain coursed like a hammer, sending shock waves through his bones. Is this that thing that Tatara always talked about?
He heaved another precious breath, swallowed it, then let it out again, feeling none the better for it.
Mikoto had been trailing passing Shadows since the night atop Shizume, the night he fought the Blues and their insufferable King. Mikoto ducked out early, though. A call to Munakata had informed them both of something that Mikoto simply couldn't lay to rest:
The Shadows had escaped.
Mikoto's jaw invariably tightened, the memory just as vivid as the moment that it happened. The Shadows, he recalled, clenching his fist deeper to the wall. The stone beneath it cracked. I have to...
The freezing burn shot through him once again. Unwittingly, he caved against it, falling to his knees.
Yeah, he realized, blinking through the haze of it. I'm pretty sure that this is what he meant. A mopy sigh escaped him. What a pain.
But then the thought of her came flooding back to him, and all those freezing burns became at once a warmth that entered him like nothing his own red had done to satisfy before. It filled him with a softness that belayed his thoughts of bitterness. It lifted him, empowered him. It made him leave behind that brooding air he loved so much.
Again he clutched his fingers in a fist, though not against the wall this time, and not with pain, nor emptiness, with grumbling or despair. No, this time, it was held before him, partnered with a second fist, the pair of them ignited into flames.
"Anna," he said down to them.
The labored breathing stopped, replaced with something shaky like a gasp. His heart beat ever faster and he closed his eyes against it, feeling, listening, as though he sought to hear her voice inside of him the way he always had.
Wait for me, he called to her. I promise I'll come back to you.
The air, by way of answering, came swirling up to him, entering his lungs as though to offer him new life, the life he fully recognized in her. He knew it hadn't come from her; but then, perhaps it had.
Slowly, he regained his feet. Anna, he called out again, frowning his eyes open to reveal a heavy stare. The flames he bore spread rapidly to cover him, something of a fierceness in his stature and a longing in his eyes. I can't let this end, he said. I won't...
...not without you knowing...
His chest began to throb again, a fiery red encompassing the pain he felt before, piercing him the more, but with a fervid savagery that spoke of all the things he ever wanted but was too afraid to hope that he could have; yet somewhere in the course of time, those things he was afraid to have had somehow found their way to him. She had found her way to him; and now his only fear was that she'd somehow disappear before he had the chance to tell her.
A hollow breath escaped him, swirling into fumes. I promise, he repeated resolutely to the air. I promise you'll know everything.
So for right now...
...for just a little while...
...wait for me.