WARNING: There's explicit language used in this chapter, I'm sorry in advance but I knew this was coming.

Chapter 30 - Bury My Love for You

The next morning, it felt like Naru could somehow sense my unease. He lingered in the bedroom as I quietly started to get ready for an early shift at work.

I stared at myself in the mirror, clutching my handbag close to me as I caught a glimpse of Naru's reflection in the mirror. I hoped he didn't notice that I took the key, especially since I was snooping in his wallet.

"Will you be home today?" I asked in a tight voice, mostly just to make conversation as I flattened down the waist hem on my skirt. Then I turned to Naru and those assessing eyes seemed to linger on me.

"Most of the day," he said. "Will you be back tonight?"

It felt like an odd question. This was my apartment, why wouldn't I come back? A fear struck me in the way he asked: will you be back tonight. Did he know I took the key?

I masked the panic from my face and instead smiled at him. "Of course, I do live here."

"Alright, see you later." He nodded, tightly - a dismissal for himself before he continued out the bedroom door.

I closed my eyes, waiting until I heard him leave the front door and then I let out a breath of relief. Get through work, then find out if this key is real.

I repeated this like a mantra, as if the list of things to do was simple. That was the plan, only two little things...and I didn't even want to think about anything beyond finding out if this key was the real one or not. If it were...

No. I firmly shut down all those thoughts. I have to wait. Naru wouldn't do that to me. He wouldn't, and I believed that one hundred percent.

It didn't stop those doubts from creeping in.

Naru had left nearly ten minutes ago and hadn't returned, but I was on high alert and hyper-aware of every noise that crept into the apartment. I almost half expected to spin around and see Naru standing there.

He wouldn't be though because that was exactly the kind of person he was. He would never hover. He would ever follow me, especially when I told him not to.

I walked to my dresser where I kept a small jewelry box, and inside were some scattered earrings, necklaces and rings I hadn't bothered to wear. There was a compartment under the main shelving unit that I wiggled until it popped off. Underneath, a small silver key, identical to the one Naru had, glistened in the dark.

I picked it up and held it in my hand. It did not seem to wink at me as the first one had. It just lay there, and the unsettling feeling lingered in my gut.

^.^

Work went by slower than I could have ever imagined, and the whole time the key seemed to burn a hole in my pocket. As if it were also anxious to find out if it were home again or not. Since both keys were practically identical, I put tape on the one in the jewelry box, that way I could tell which was which.

My shift finally came to an end and the dreaded walk through my old neighborhood was not what I had been looking forward to. The houses were all old, the block was surrounded by large trees you wouldn't find anywhere in the newer parts of Japan. It had taken approximately half an hour to travel by bus here - to my old home.

The neighborhood wasn't a ghost town by any means. It was lively, with a passing car every now and then, but it certainly was quiet. I remember being a child and playing games of tag with the other neighborhood children. We would hide in each other's lawns, and I was always so proud of my house because it had big, bushy hedges that you could hide in the corners and no one would find us. Or, we could go into the backyard, the garden was lush with tall spindly trees and rose bushes. It sometimes felt like I was in an entirely different world.

The thoughts of it swelled in my chest and the tears stung at my eyes. All those memories were so vivid, as if they were fresh in my mind and I was a young girl again playing in the yard or having my parents stand on the porch, watching me do some kind of impressive trick I had just learned.

I took a deep breath and the vivid memories disappeared into the air.

This entire thing felt stupid. It felt so idiotic. What were the chances the new homeowners kept the same lock? Why couldn't I have just left well-enough alone? Naru was with me, wasn't he? That's what I wanted.

Truthfully, I desperately hoped neither of the keys worked and I could just go home and see him. I hoped that I could put all this horribleness behind me and maybe he would forgive me.

A strange feeling continued to restlessly nag at me as I eyed the old home, now sitting three houses away when I turned the corner of the block. I hadn't come back here since my parents passed away, but the location was imprinted on my soul. It was something you never forget, no matter how many years went by - like an instinct that never faded. I probably could have closed my eyes and have been drawn to that house, the energy seemed gravitational and pulled at my soul gently -as if welcoming me home.

Oh...and how much I have missed the feeling of home. I missed it so much, I didn't realize I stared crying from the swelling on my chest. It felt so dumb to be here, ruining what could be the happiest few months of my life. I took a few steadying breathes... I can do this. Get it together, Mai.

It was the only house on the entire block that had the hedges, which were now in dire need of pruning. The small porch had a variety of junk collected on it and the flower garden in front of the large front window, which used to hold lilacs, tulips and roses, was now a dead tangled mess of weeds and vines. The pale blue bricks seemed paler as the old home aged, and the large bay window in the living room, that used to bring in so much beautiful natural light, was now covered by a thick and impenetrable black curtain.

Without realizing it, I was soon standing on the porch.

A black and white cat pawed its way to me, stopping at my feet - a sign that the home was occupied and I didn't have much time to waste standing here with fear that I would come across as a burglar.

I breathed steadily and deeply as I pulled out the first key, the one with the tape on it, and slipped it into the keyhole.

It did not fit.

My blood felt like ice in my veins. They could have changed the locks, I told myself. Yes, the locks could have been changed.

As I pulled out the second key, the one that felt different, there was a flare of familiarity, an essence I could not explain. It was impossible for an inanimate object to have such a familiar feeling to a place, but for some reason it was as if I got the feeling of being safe. And protected, like this was home.

I was shaking so terribly I had to use both of my hands to steady myself as I pushed the key into the keyhole.

My heart sank as I heard the inner mechanics of the lock, of everything fitting snugly in place, before a light 'click' sound.

The door opened.

I pulled the key out and stumbled backwards, lifting my hand to my mouth to quiet myself, an unrecognizable sound that wretched out of my from deep within my core.

The only thing I knew how to do next...was run.

I ran hard and fast, letting my legs fly as I felt the betrayal hit my system.

There was only one reason why Naru would have this key. It felt like being hit by a tsunami wave, the truth that I didn't want to admit to myself because it meant my world would shatter completely.

Naru had used psychometry on this key.

All this time I thought that Naru had forgotten about me. That he didn't care, or didn't know how much he had hurt me.

I was wrong, so, so wrong.

He had been watching me through this, had known about everything. Suddenly, countless signs had became painfully clear. Sickness roiled through my stomach and I couldn't stop the bile from raising into my throat. I made it two more steps before I fell onto the grass, hard, on my knees, then let the contents of my stomach out onto the ground.

I was sobbing hard, breathing heavily as I wiped my mouth.

The only thing that I could think of was why. Why would Naru do that?

Why?

^.^

I don't remember the commute to my apartments. I don't remember much of anything after I pushed myself off the ground and began walking. I felt numb and exhausted - not sure exactly how I was going to deal with this but I knew I had to.

I had to confront Naru.

Once inside my apartment, I didn't take off my shoes and instead I walked into the living room.

Naru was there, sitting on the couch working on his laptop. He watched me walk in.

He noticed my mood, the boots, my overall lack of... anything. He said, "Is something wrong?"

I didn't know how to answer that and I knew there was only one way to address it. I pulled out the key, holding it in the palm of my hand. My voice sounded as empty as I felt. "Why did you have this?"

Naru had never expected me to go through his things and his face in that moment was a mixture of surprise and guilt. A revelation that he had trusted me and I had taken advantage of that trust. It was rare to catch Naru off guard for anything and I watched as he took a couple steadying breaths.

It bothered me that he could feel as if I had broken the trust between us. How dare he throw walls up when he could see behind all of my own?

"Well?" I hissed, letting those annoyed feelings bubble to the surface.

"You know why I had it." Naru said like it was the stupidest question for me to ask.

This angered me even more.

Naru gave me a dark-eyed look, not commenting on anything and stayed quiet. So I pushed forward, letting the anger and the darkness that had been dying to burst out of me start to boil to the rim. Just as it had once, what felt like, a long time ago now.

"This whole time while you were gone, you didn't bother to call, or to check in even when you knew!" I accused him. "About the the depression, the cutting -"

"I didn't know about the cutting," Naru interjected. "I didn't check all the time, and I didn't realize it was that bad."

A moment in history suddenly became startlingly clear and I remember the first time I saw his face when he saw my cuts. It was in prison, I had just fallen off a ladder and my shirt rose for maybe half a second. The worst of my scars would have been striking against my pale skin.

"You spied on me," I growled.

Naru disagreed. "I wasn't always on the other side."

"Don't give me that bullshit." I snarled. "God-forbid you actually take responsibility for your actions. You don't get to feel sorry for yourself because you got caught."

Naru seemed taken aback at this and his eyes turned dark. "Am I not taking responsibility?"

"You don't get to come back here and try to make everything better. Why the hell did you even bother to come back, huh? If you could watch me, why even come to Japan in the first damned place?"

It was another moment of clarity, but this time from Izanagi and his sly comments, about the coincidence of timing after I had a dream so vivid…

It clicked in place. "You thought I was really being abducted."

Naru's cold gaze did not flicker. "Your medication had done a good job at keeping the nightmares at bay. That night though, the key was only near me and I was suddenly pulled into it that nightmare. I didn't know if the threat was real or not because somehow you were able to shove me out of your head. I wasn't able to go back."

I looked at Naru with a new distaste. "So you flew to Tokyo when there was an imminent threat to me. Not when I was losing my fucking mind!"

This time, Naru flinched at the crude word. He set his jaw tightly. "The only way the SPR would allow me to come back to Japan is if I looked into a specific case for them."

I hadn't believed it the first time I heard it, about the link to an 'Enchanted Forest'. The reason was too convenient, and then when the case went wrong, that particular theory was never brought up again.

In spite of myself, and the situation, I started laughing.

"After everything… even after everything, you still couldn't put your pride behind you. You had to give yourself a reason to come back."

Naru remained silent, for once not bothering to argue back. I raised my eyebrows at him. "What? Couldn't stand the thought of me dying because of what you did? Didn't want that on your conscious? God, you're selfish."

"I'm not the only selfish one," he said darkly.

"Why?" I pushed up my sleeves, revealing my tattoo. "Because I know what this means? Did you know you ruined my fucking life bringing me to that place?"

"You need to calm down, Mai." Naru said in a sickeningly calm voice. "If you allow that power to be used, you could attract unwanted attention."

"Oh?" I said, feeling the dark rebellious side dying to burst free. I spoke in a voice that wasn't entirely my own. "Why not? Especially when it feels so good."

I tipped my head back, closing my eyes and letting the realness of this situation pass over my in a horrible wave of blackness. My lapse of focus had allowed the darkness to shutter through me. However, unlike the other times I let the darkness control me, this time I molded it. As I had when I blocked Gene from entering the room to the Lasser Glass.

Darkness exploded out of me, my vision swung between this world and the afterlife.

Gene happen to be there, standing on the Dark Lands horrified.

A phantom wind whipped around me, the room tilting slight before everything became set in the living realm. I felt the inward pull of static when the two worlds aligned, as if my soul and my physical body had stepped onto disconnected planes and then pulled on each side, yanking them together.

Then I was breathing heavily, the exertion not lost upon me, nor was the realization of what power I had just delved into.

I truly was the anchor of both realms.

Naru had stood up too, he was looking around the room before his eyes snapped back to mine and he understood what was happening.

"Mai, you can't use this power," Gene said from somewhere far away, repeating what Naru had said. The utter blackness swirled around me, enveloping me in a blanket that fit my body like a second skin. Gene and Naru stood almost three feet from one another, and in a moment of extraordinary control, I merged the two realms together.

Gene's appearance sparkled and melted onto the physical plane, and Naru stepped back several paces when he saw his brother materialize before him.

"What have you done?" Violet-blue eyes swung to me.

Gene's voice echoed in the room, "it's the Lasser Glass. She had access to it, so it must have amplified the ability to control the realms."

Naru stepped towards me, hands out, "Mai -"

"DON'T TOUCH ME!" I screamed and dark hands, a remnant of memory that I suddenly conjured up from my time in the spirit world with Sara, burst from the ground. They gripped Naru's legs and held him in place.

"Don't you dare touch me," I warned him, breathing heavily from the exertion of using so much power at once.

I could see the slight struggle, then the look of sudden defeat in Naru's eyes. His PK was no match against the raw darkness of the anchor.

I finally understood what Sara had meant when she told me I had no real control in that realm. This power felt simply exhilarating. Each realm was at my control, and I was connected to both.

It was Gene who said, "Please we can talk about this. Put the veil back."

When he stepped towards me, those same dark hands seized him. The connection linked me suddenly to the twins, my power latching onto both of them at the same time, visions plagued my mind.

Visions of the twins, talking to one another. I couldn't hear the words. I only saw them communicating, there was a mirror that held the link between them.

So, the twins had been able to communicate to one another. I looked directly at Naru, then Gene.

Another horrible truth was revealed.

"You knew too, didn't you?" I asked Gene in a dark, cold voice that didn't belong to me.

His face, unlike Naru's, betrayed him. "I am so sorry. I couldn't seem to leave him, the distance was too much. If I could come to you, you know I would have."

I knew the words were true, but there was so much darkness encased within me, amplifying the feelings of hurt, rage and betrayal. Tears strayed from my eyes and my chest was heaving.

"I would have at least expected you to tell me the truth." I said, bitterly. I pushed as much venom into my tone as possible, all I wanted to do was hurt the twins like how they hurt me.

"I don't want to see either of you again. Go back to England or wherever it was you came from! I didn't need you here then, and I certainly don't need you here now."

Even though it had been the happiest months of my life with them in my life, there was nothing that could fix this darkness and the lies.

I turned and ran out of the apartment. I felt the power linger as I made my way out of the complex before I yanked back on the veil. I didn't care.

Since coming into contact with the Lasser Glass, I had never used the darkness like that before. I didn't even know I could use it like that. It has allowed me to delve deeper into the bond with the anchor.

It allowed me to control both realms, to use the darkness as an aide.

The pain I felt putting the twins through that hit me and I felt my chest tighten. They knew.

It hurt so much that I had to stop walking, my body swaying and the anger that had boiled in my blood, like I had never experienced before, now ran ice cold.

Now, I only felt that dark glimmer from under my skin. I found my way to a bench, my surroundings were unfamiliar and dark but in spite of that I sat down and tipped my head to the sky.

That was it: my bridges were burnt. I didn't care that maybe Naru had begun to develop some kind of feelings for me. He fucked this up himself and now all I wanted to do was bury my love for him.

Interrupting my thoughts, someone in a familiar voice said, "Fancy meeting you here."

I jerked myself up from the bench, stumbling back. "Lucien?"

He was barely a shadow, perhaps a couple feet in front of me. He took another step forward.

"Mai? What are you doing here so late, and why are you crying?"

The dim lightning from the lights lit up his features and I muffled my mouth with my hands to contain my scream.

It was Lucien, his hair was messy around his head and his eyes were dim. There was a wide, long gash from either side of his neck, the inner part of the wound was dark and gaping.

I gasped, "Oh no w-what happened?"

Slowly, he tipped his head to the side, revealing the depth of that fatal wound. "I don't remember. I was at home one moment... and then the next, I needed to find you. It was odd really. I just suddenly had this urge to know where you were, then I was here. Are you alright?"

He reached out to touch me, and before I could jerk away this world reverted, twisting and turning before we were transferred to the Iron Gates.

I stumbled backwards, "No!"

Lucien stared up at the gates, "I..don't understand. Where are we?"

"Y-you're dead." My breathing felt ragged as I stared at him. How could this happen? And, why Lucien of all people?

"What?" His head snapped to me. "I-I can't be dead."

Tears streamed down my face and I sniffled. "You are."

He put his hands out in front of him, examining them from back to front before he touched his neck. His eyes went pupil wide. "You're not safe. There's a man. I remember he..he was.."

Lucien never got the change to finish his warning because in the real world someone grabbed me from behind. The world snapped between crystal clarity of the Iron Gates and the dark world of the living. I struggled in the hold using my elbows, my knees, everything I could to try and get away from those hands.

I was able to squirm away, shouting "Help!" before a sickening sound snapped through my body and I felt more than saw, a fist connect with my jaw.

Never had I been punched before. The physical pain of it wasn't what rattled through my soul, it was the sheer brutality of my attacker. After he punched me, I stumbled backwards, the world swaying when he grabbed my hair in his hands then yanked hard.

I yelped as I went down, gasping when my head hit the ground hard. The first blow did not knock me out as he had intended and I felt the full weight of his body on mine.

In my groggy state, I tried to summon those dark hands to my aid but I felt nothing from the bond I held on the other side. This seemed to make Izanagi laugh.

"It's admirable you would try at all. You really are a strong one."

"Get... of... me," I hissed, blood spraying from my mouth as I struggled more. Every move was agonizing, my face burned from where he hit me and my head was screaming in pain. Stars sparkled around my vision, turning it hazy. My ears rang loudly throughout my head and I only heard the pounding of my heart and chest as I tried to keep my eyes open.

"Time to sleep," his wasm, musky breathe crawled down my skin. The world tilted once again as he gripped my hair and yanked my head back, pulling it upwards so hard I thought my neck would snap or break in two. I cried out in pain, as he held it firmly before a cloth was pressed to my mouth.

I breathed in a chemical scent and then was clouded in deep, permanent darkness.

^.^