January 3, 2011: At last, the chapter you've all been waiting for! Well, this is the end of my present for Ren's birthday. Oh well. Time to start thinking of something for next year.
Chapter Three
Part one
~Twelve Years Ago~
The two sisters giggled as they slid down the slide of the playground. Their dark hair glinted in the sun, and their violet eyes reflected the light. Laughter escaped from the throats of other children as well, but the sisters were only aware of themselves.
"Lian!" the elder sister called, beginning to scale the small ladder that led to the upper structure of the playground equipment. "Come on!"
"Wait up!" Lian pleaded, hurrying to climb up after her sister.
"Hurry, or I'll leave you behind!"
"Ming Yue," Lian complained, only half-teasing; she was having fun, but she was becoming tired and didn't want to run so much anymore. "Slow down!"
Ming Yue didn't slow down that much, and went down the slide first; by the time Lian even started down it, Ming Yue was at the bottom and Lian couldn't see her. Lian quickly descended back down to the earth and looked around for her sister, calling out her name once or twice.
"Lian, over here!" Ming Yue called, and Lian turned to see that her sister had entered the small copse of trees that helped to complete the setting of the park. Lian quickly ran after her sister—as quickly as her seven-year-old legs would allow—and she entered the copse as well.
"Ming Yue," Lian complained. "Don't run away from me!"
Ming Yue looked back at her sister. "You silly," she scolded. "It's not like I'm going to really leave you behind."
"Don't leave me, though," Lian said, catching up and taking hold of Ming Yue's hand. "Don't ever leave me."
Ming Yue smiled. "Why would I leave you? And you wouldn't leave me, would you?"
Lian shook her head, her dark hair bouncing around her shoulders. "Never! You're my sister!"
Ming Yue held out her pinky. "Twin promise?"
Lian eagerly linked her pinky with her twin's. "Twin promise."
I want to be with you forever. I never want to be alone.
~Present Day~
"I'm Tao Ren," Ren replied, speaking Mandarin now—and taking the special precaution to clearly pronounce "Lian," on the off-chance it might influence the girl that he was on her side. "I'm here because I'm looking for your sister."
Ming Yue—Ren actually had trouble thinking of this young woman having that name even though she looked incredibly like the ghost he knew—still looked suspicious of him. She had seemed momentarily surprised at the fact that his name was the same as her sister's, but she seemed to get over it very quickly. She replied back in perfect Mandarin. "Why? Lian's been in a coma for three years."
Ren shook his head. "No—not Lian. Your other sister—the one that died. I'm able to see spirits, you see," he said, cutting right to the chase. "Your sister told me that her name was Xian Ming Yue, which can't be right, and I'm trying to find out more about her in order to help her pass on."
Ming Yue stared at him like he was insane, but he couldn't help but notice the look that came into her eyes, the sad but hopeful look. "I only have one sister." She pointed to the comatose girl on the bed. "She's all I have, and she's not dead. ...Not like that." She shook her head. "You...need to get out of here. I'll call security if you don't."
She's not dead? Not at all? Just comatose...? I suppose that's possible... Weirder things have happened...
Ren was utterly confused and was trying to sort everything out in his head. "Wait," he said, running a hand through his bangs as he thought. "I know you don't believe me, but it's true. I don't know how I can prove it to you..."
He tried to come up with a way to prove himself, but he couldn't stop wondering why Ming—Lian had lied to him. Well, of course there was the reasoning that she had lied to him because he had been the one who had killed her...but he hadn't really killed her, if what Ming Yue said was true and the ghost he knew was actually the comatose, one-armed girl on the bed.
She probably said her name was Ming Yue after she found out my name, he realized. She heard it and had to think fast, which would explain keeping her last name and using her sister's... She probably didn't want to identify with her killer in any way.
Ming Yue was silent for a moment. She took a small but determined step toward him. "You can prove it to me if you can find me the bastard that did this to her. They say it was a freak accident. There was no way it was."
Ren's thought process was broken by this statement, and he couldn't help but stare at the older girl for a heartbeat. Then he looked away for a second before deciding that he really needed to look her in the eyes. "I'm responsible. That's why I need to fix things."
Ming Yue's violet eyes widened before they narrowed and blurred with tears that were both angry and depressed. "You...! You're ly..." She trailed off and looked straight at him before bowing her head and putting her hands to her face. "...You're not lying," she said, sounding on the verge of sobs.
"I'm not," Ren agreed, taking the opportunity to look away from the crying girl. He looked toward the bed; he still couldn't see Lian's face quite clearly, but her hair was shoulder-length—definitely shorter than the hair of the girl he knew. Her skin was pale. Her lack of arm seemed to silently scream at him, and he knew that he was responsible for that, too.
"...I'm going to do everything I can to change this," he said quietly.
He didn't have any idea if he was going to say more, but he didn't get the chance to; Ming Yue gained enough composure to smack him across the face. Ren didn't protest or say anything. He let his cheek sting in the silence.
"...Why did you do it?" Ming Yue whispered hoarsely.
Ren felt shameful. "I was a different person then. I became responsible for a lot of things. I have to make up for them while I can."
Ming Yue looked to Lian; her wet eyes became longing. "I'd been losing touch with her... We promised to be together forever. We're...twins."
To be honest, this new information didn't really surprise Ren, as the girls looked so much alike. He looked to Lian, whose face he still couldn't see from the angle he stood at. "My sister is able to revive people," he informed Ming Yue. "We're shamans. I'm not sure how exactly she'd do it with a comatose person... I should probably find Lian's spirit before we do anything, just in case... Do—"
A ringing sound interrupted him. Ming Yue dug her hand into her purse. "Thought I muted it," she muttered, pulling out her phone. She wiped at her eyes while looking at the screen. She answered the call and switched languages to Japanese. "Yuichi? What—"
Ren could hear the voice of the man on the other end of the line. "Are you all right, Ming Yue?"
Ming Yue pulled the phone a few inches away from her ear. "Yes I am. What do you mean? What happened?" She listened for a moment; Ren couldn't make out the words from Yuichi, but Ming Yue suddenly ducked past him and hurried to turn on the small TV in the corner. Startled by her actions, Ren turned and followed her for a couple of steps before he stopped to watch as she clicked through the channels. She stopped on the news. Ren had seen worse things, but even he could see that this was terrible.
A bus had crashed into several cars and had overturned onto its side. There was broken glass and smoke everywhere, and the scene was roped off by police officers. There were several ambulances around the place. The headline at the bottom of the screen stated that the accident had occurred not too far from the hospital.
"...and for apparently no reason," the newscaster was saying, "two of the tires of the bus completely fell off the bus while it was turning, which authorities say seems to be one of the causes of the accident. Witnesses say that first the front tire completely shot off, as if being pushed by an explosion, and then the same happened to the rear tire..."
Utter horror settled upon Ren. "It's her," he said.
Ming Yue stiffened and looked back at him, her violet eyes wide. It wasn't until the voice coming from her phone turned louder and insistent that she turned her attention back to her conversation.
"Yuichi, I'm here at the hospital. I'm fine. I'll talk to you later, okay? ...Yes, love you too. Bye," she finished before hanging up. She stared at her phone as if it were alien. Without looking at Ren, she asked, "...How is it her?"
Adrenaline was starting to flow through Ren's veins. He had to do something soon, and quickly, but he knew Ming Yue needed an explanation. "She was really angry when I last saw her. She might be fixated now—unable to stop dwelling on her anger. If a spirit has enough emotion, it has enough power to interact with the real world, though only in small bursts."
"Lian wouldn't hurt anybody!" Ming Yue argued heatedly, turning around fully to glower at Ren. "You're the one that's hurt people! You've brought this whole thing down on us!" She shook her head wildly, her hair flying. "Why am I believing you when you say you'll help...?"
"Because I will," Ren snapped, silencing Ming Yue. Angered and annoyed, he turned away from her. Almost unconsciously, he took a couple of steps toward Lian's comatose form. And then he could finally see her fully.
Her face was as pale as the rest of her skin, a result from the lack of sunlight; her dark lashes were stark against her skin. There were several pale, thin scars along her cheeks, chin, and forehead, scars that had faded with time. However, her face showed neither happiness nor anger. Her face was completely and utterly blank. She showed no emotion whatsoever.
"I came here because she accidentally shared a few memories with me," he told Ming Yue, glancing back at the young woman. He nodded toward the door. "One was of the nameplate, the other of you crying, and the last is of someone walking away. Do you know who that was? It might help."
Ming Yue's mouth was hanging open in a distraught expression. She shook her head after a few moments. "...I have no clue. What did he look like?"
Ren shook his head as well. "I'm not sure," he said before turning back to Lian for a moment and taking in her pale form, her lack of arm.
I'll stop this.
"I'll be back as soon as I can," he said, hurrying out the door. Ming Yue didn't make any move to stop him.
()()()()()
"Where do you think she would be, Bocchama?" Bason asked as Ren rushed down the sidewalk.
"If she's fixated, she's probably in the general area," Ren said as he dodged a strolling couple. His golden eyes constantly flickered back and forth, looking for abnormal movement.
Then again, he thought to himself, she's not a true spirit if her body's still alive... She could be fixated, or she could be something rather different...
The traffic clogging the street was so bad that it wasn't until he made it to the corner where the print shop was that he finally saw the whole of the accident. The intersection was roped off; firefighters and policemen were still attempting to rescue people out of several cars. Reporters and cameramen flocked at the outskirts of the scene while several people on stretches were carried into ambulances.
Ren searched with his eyes, looking both up to the sky and down to the ground, for signs of Lian. He could feel a spiritual presence nearby, but he couldn't see her...
Without warning, a spirit materialized in front of him. It wasn't Lian, but actually a man who appeared to be around forty, with brown hair and eyes.
"She went that way," the spirit said, pointing down the street that led to the bridge and the crowded suburbs. To the place where Lian had revealed how she had died.
Ren nodded to the spirit—there was no time for any words—and ducked around the corner and ran down the sidewalk for about a block before a sudden, loud pop stopped him in his tracks: the sound of breaking glass. A couple of people near him screamed in surprise, and several people looked up to inspect the streetlamp that was about half a block away from where Ren stood. However hard other people might have looked at the streetlamp, only Ren could see what—who—had caused the light bulb to explode.
Lian was perched on top of the streetlamp. Her anger and hate had morphed her form into a silvery-blue blue of what looked like flames, similar in a way to when Bason was in his spirit ball form, except more visually ominous. Her long, black hair flapped every which way as if caught in a wind. Her violet eyes glowed with a fierce violence as her taloned hands gripped the streetlamp.
She looked like a tiger or some other sort of animal that had been set on fire.
Ren wasn't sure why, but Lian didn't seem to notice him. She leapt like a cat to the next streetlamp, causing its light bulb to break as well. She continued this action again and again, with the same results, travelling down the street while the people below began to become panicked.
Ren rushed through the small throngs of people. He had to catch up to her, he had to stop her. She's my responsibility.
When he lost sight of her, a burst of panic coursed through his veins, and he increased his speed even further. The buildings around him began to become smaller, and the street became just about devoid of people as it narrowed its width. He kept running, and stopped when he came to the bridge.
He had had little doubt that Lian would be here, and he was right: she was there on the middle of the bridge, crouched like a cat waiting to pounce. She was utterly still, apart from the slow, ominous rippling of her hair and of her soul itself.
Ren, through his slightly heavy breaths, managed to yell out toward her. "Stop, Lian."
She stiffened, her flame-like bits of soul flaring out like an animal's fur. She stalked forward a couple of paces. "Don't...call me that...," she said, her voice sounding faraway and almost muffled, although that didn't hide the anger in her voice. "...That's your name," she spat.
Ren didn't need any other confirmation to know that his hunch about why Lian had lied about her name had been right. He tried to make his posture as relaxed as he could. "Lian," he said insistently, "we can change this. You're not really dead. My sister is able to revive people. All we have to do is bring you and her to your body and she'll take care of the rest."
The faraway tone disappeared from her voice, and although she still sounded muffled, her words became faster. "Why the fuck would I want to go back to that?"
Without any other warning, she leapt all the way from the middle of the bridge to him. Ren only had just enough time to pull out his sword and to unite it with Bason in order to protect himself before she swiped at him with her taloned fingers. Ren kept his oversoul extremely basic, just a thin layer of furyoku around his blade, so as not to somehow harm Lian or make her even more furious.
She jumped and swiped at him several times, but each time he was able to easily block the attack—her power was hardly a fraction of his, plus she was untrained and angry. Ren recalled how easy it had been for Yoh to nearly defeat him in their preliminary match; much like what had happened then, Lian's anger was making her lose what little battle skill she had.
"Let me help you fix this," Ren said after he blocked yet another blow.
Lian's whole body seemed to flare up. "You killed me! You kept me from...from..." Instead of completing her sentence, she lashed out at him again, only to be blocked and deflected once more.
"From what, Lian?" he asked in frustration. "Tell me! I'm trying to help you! You can still live!" He shook his head in irritation. "Why won't you fucking tell me?"
"Die!" she screeched, rushing headlong toward him. He managed to duck out of the way, out of her reach.
Ren finally had had enough of this—he was learning nothing and going nowhere with the conversation. He let go of his furyoku and angrily shortened his sword to put it away beneath his coat while Bason levitated nervously behind his shoulder.
Ren lowered his arms so that his palms were beside his hips, facing outward. "I'm not going to defend myself. I'm not going to attack you. If you want, take your revenge on me right here and now. I'm not leaving you alone until we come up with a solution. It doesn't have to be you coming back to your body, if that's what you really want. But I need to fix this."
Lian stared at him, her form frozen. For a moment, despite her ominous appearance, Ren saw that she looked as vulnerable as a scared child...and if he wasn't wrong, a flash of hope went through her glowing violet eyes.
But then she rushed at him.
Like Ren had promised, he didn't try to defend himself—he didn't even try that trick that Yoh had used against the Icemen to negate their furyoku so that he wouldn't have to take the hit. Ren staggered back a few steps from the impact of Lian's form passing through his body. He felt icy cold from the rush of her feelings, and his soul felt pinched and small.
And, at least he was pretty sure, the final piece of the puzzle clicked into place.
He would have turned around to face her, but she had already doubled back around him and was now a few feet in front of him, looking smaller and less frightening than before—she looked more human, more scared. And he met her timid violet eyes with his astute golden ones.
"Daisuke was the one who was walking away from you in that memory," he said.
He knew he was right when Lian shrunk back a few inches.
"He kept visiting you while you were comatose, but you couldn't talk to him. And eventually he left and never came back, right?" Ren said, quieter now but still speaking in such a way that his voice was like a piercing arrow.
Lian's form lost all of its animalistic, ominous attributes, and she appeared in her normal spirit form, only she looked far more timid than he had ever seen her. But then she shook her head furiously. "Don't talk about him," she snapped, though weakly.
"Because you hate him now, right?" Ren asked. Lian opened her mouth, but before she could say anything, and it didn't seem like she was, Ren continued. "He made you feel alone. And you're mad at your sister, too, because she left you alone all the time before you died."
Lian looked to be on the verge of tears. "S-shut up...!"
Ren shook his head. "You're not angry at me for killing you. You're angry because you couldn't keep yourself from feeling lonely. You were going to Daisuke that day because you thought you wouldn't feel lonely anymore. You're—"
"I don't hate my sister!" she yelled. Ghostly tears were streaming down her face. "I hate him. But I don't hate my sister. I don't hate Ming Yue. ...I'm still mad at her, but I couldn't ever..."
Ren's unwavering gaze never left Lian. "You're like I was. You hate yourself. Because you can't stop feeling lonely, and you can't stop yourself from hating yourself."
Lian shook her head furiously. "I-I'm not like you!" she yelled before shrinking into her spirit ball form and dashing over the edge of the bridge in order to get away from him.
Ren was not going to let her get away again. Without a second thought, he jumped up onto the railing and used that to push off and grab Lian before she could get away. And as he fell toward the river below, he integrated with her.
The fall wasn't that far, and the river was deeper than he had originally thought, so his body only just bumped slightly painfully against the bottom of the riverbed before he managed to break the surface of the water and get air back into his lungs. He easily swam to the shore, the water getting shallower by the second. He knelt down on the grass directly underneath the bridge.
"We are a bit alike, Lian," he muttered as he got his breath back.
He pretended that the wetness on his face was from the river and not from Lian's tears.
Part Two
~Three Years Ago~
Why was I so lonely?
That was Lian's first thought after she died.
She regained consciousness in a far different way than normal. She remembered the accident. She had a good idea that she was dead. But she didn't feel panicked or nervous. Instead, she felt rather...fresh, and she wasn't tired like she normally was when she would wake up in the morning.
The question weighed heavily on her mind, however. She had had no real friends in her life—the last true friends she had had were back in China before she and Ming Yue had moved to Japan to study. Her parents had also still been in China—they were in Japan now, to look after her body there because they were too afraid to move her to a hospital back home. Ming Yue had been spending more and more time with Yuichi over the past year. And the only person to make an effort to hang out with her was Daisuke...but even with him she still felt alone, as if he just wanted her and not her...personality she guessed was the right word.
But that's why I was going to him, she thought. Because he was going to be mine and I was going to be his. I wouldn't be alone anymore.
Not that she had ever gotten the chance.
Lian remembered the stories about ghosts that stayed around on earth—that the reason they didn't move on was because they had something left to finish. When she had first..."woken up," she had assumed that it was because of her loneliness. But since she had found that her body was merely comatose and not dead, she had begun to doubt.
Not really knowing what else to do, she hung around her body and watched doctors and nurses and visitors go by. She watched Ming Yue cry, and an almost guilty sense of satisfaction swept through her. This is what you get when you don't pay attention to me, she thought, finding herself mad at the fact that Ming Yue had just about left her alone for a year.
Lian felt a little odd, though, whenever she looked at her body or at the name-tag on the wall outside. It was just...weird that she was in this situation. She was a spirit, but she wasn't really dead. It was all very surreal, but at the same time undeniably real. Did this happen to all comatose people? Was she far more dead than alive, or vice versa? She had no answer.
For about two or three months, she stayed in the hospital. And every few days, her attitude brightened when Daisuke visited. His outward visage was more shocked than distraught, but she supposed that was just how he dealt with the stress.
But every time he visited, more and more days passed in-between his visits. Lian had nearly decided that he would never return...when he walked in through the door.
Ecstatic, she made to go over and hug him, but the reason she stopped wasn't just because he realized that it was impossible for her to do so. It was his face: his passive expression as he looked at her body before turning away and leaving the room.
She knew it. He wasn't going to come back. He wasn't going to ever come back.
It was her fault. It was all her fault that she was alone. She deserved this. She hated herself. She screwed up in her life and that's why she felt so lonely and terrible and why she was being left.
This was what she told herself, anyway.
She didn't want to admit to it, though. She didn't want to push hate upon herself, although she hadn't known that that had become an impossible for her. There had to be someone else responsible.
And so she set out.
~Present Day~
At least she hadn't killed anyone, was all Ren could think when he woke up a couple of days later.
He went to take a shower and otherwise get ready for the day before he went to the suite kitchen to have breakfast. It wasn't that long before Jun and Pailong came into the kitchen as well.
"When are we heading over?" Jun asked her brother as she went over to the fridge.
Ren paused from eating his breakfast. "They told me to come around one," he said brusquely, putting a stress on the word "me" in such a way that he knew Jun would understand.
She looked troubled, but then she nodded. "Call me if you need me."
()()()()()
Ren felt restless, so he decided to go for a walk until he had to be anywhere. Almost unbidden, his feet took him to the printing shop on the corner where Lian had been in the accident...not that it was really an accident. A mistake, he corrected mentally.
It hadn't really sunk into him until then how he had inadvertently caused something he hadn't before cared about to change. A shop on a corner and a girl's life had been insignificant things to him three years ago, but at the moment they took up a lot of his thoughts. It wasn't a huge life-changing experience, not like meeting Yoh had been, but he felt that it wasn't unimportant.
"I heard about the girl."
Ren wasn't surprised at the voice—he'd felt the spiritual presence a moment before. He turned his head to look at the spirit of the man beside him, the one that had directed him yesterday on where to find Lian. To be honest, this was the first time that Ren had thought about this spirit since he had first seen him yesterday.
The man gave him a nod and continued, "It was a good thing you did for her."
Ren blinked his golden eyes. "Who are you?"
The man shook his head. "Names aren't important. I only owned this shop before the accident," he said, leaning his weightless form on the wall of the building.
"I killed you." There was no doubt in Ren's voice, but also no sound of anything else. It was a simple statement of fact.
The man nodded. "I'll tell you this, though: I'm not in a coma. No turning back for me."
Ren couldn't really understand the man's almost jovial attitude, but he didn't question it. "...What do you want?" he asked finally.
The man shook his head again. "Nothing. I don't need your help to move on. Not anymore, at least."
Ren scrunched his eyebrows together in confusion, and the man continued. "I only want two things," he said. "I want to see my daughter get married, and that's actually going to happen in the spring. And second, I died trying to protect that girl, so I at least wanted to see her be helped further, and especially to live."
For some reason, Ren just had to smirk—he found this darkly amusing. "At least your daughter's getting married."
The man suddenly became rather stern. "Young man, you are a nuisance. Shut up." This stunned Ren into silence. "Of course you helped that girl. No matter what you may think, you did help her."
Ren scowled a little. "I don't understand what happened. Jun tried to help her and everything. But she..."
The man shrugged. "Perhaps it's because her soul wasn't in her body for so long, but that's not a question I have the answer to. I guess you'll have to find that answer yourself."
()()()()()
Ren hadn't stayed to talk to the spirit-man any longer. There was still time before he had to be anywhere, so he took a detour through a city park. Each day it was getting a little colder, and it was the middle of a workday and a school day, so there was hardly anyone in the park at all. For some reason he didn't understand, he saw a lot of cats slinking around in the bushes.
That is, Ren thought he was alone until a presence that was absolutely unable to be ignored pervaded the area.
The wind blew, and it brought a voice to Ren's ears. "I'd ask you what you were doing in Tokyo, Ren, but such questions like that would only waste the short time you'll have in that flesh. Especially when I know everything."
Ren stopped short and spun around to see none other than Hao leaning against a short tree. God's arms were casually crossed, his hair—which was longer than ever—streaming down all around him. He seemed to have traded his trademark poncho and pants for a red kimono.
The Shaman King was the last person that Ren had expected to see, and to say that he was surprised was an understatement. Though Ren still didn't like Hao, there was nothing he could do about him, since he was God. So, Ren only scowled. "What are you doing here?"
Hao shrugged. "I was just going to check up on my brother, and I thought I'd come visit you for a moment or two, since I know what's been going on with you."
Ren scowled. "Leave me alone," he said before turning and walking away.
"Oh, Ren," he heard before there was another gust of wind and Hao was in front of him again. Ren noticed that a lot of cats had gathered nearby, too, especially around Hao's ankles. And given the proximity of the two boys standing near each other (certainly not because Ren wanted to), Ren would probably trip over all the cats if he tried to walk away again. On an even worse note, the cats meowed nonstop.
Ren thought then that Hao was truly an evil God.
Hao tsked. "Such thoughts could be bad for you, Ren," he warned almost playfully.
"I can think whatever the fuck I want," Ren snapped.
Hao rolled his eyes. "Anyway, I thought you might like to have someone to talk to. Helping comatose spirits can be a...trying experience. I've helped a couple of them before in my day. You think they'll live, and oftentimes nowadays they do because of modern technology, but it isn't always the case and in the past there were a high percentage of them truly dying. Even if a shaman could help get a spirit back into their comatose body... It's pretty hard thing to succeed in doing this, you know."
Ren scowled again. "I've never heard of comatose spirits."
"Well, normally they don't go asking around for help," Hao said. "Most understand that their bodies need to recuperate. No matter where the spirit is, once its body is close to waking, the spirit is sucked back to its body. Therefore—"
"Lian's going to wake up soon," Ren finished. "Since we put her back in her body."
"Relatively, if at all," Hao replied. Ren didn't say anything, and Hao continued. "However, comatose spirits don't remember their time as spirits once they go back to their bodies."
Ren paused, not really knowing what he felt about that.
"Every once in a while she might feel some sort of déjà vu," Hao offered. "Other than that, she won't recognize you at all if she wakes up, not until she dies."
So only I'll remember what happened, Ren thought to himself—and to Hao, but he honestly didn't feel like giving a shit about God just then.
"So," Hao went on, "you never had Jun give her back her arm. Or wake her up, for that matter."
Ren bristled. "Jun tried. Something wasn't—" Understanding dawned upon Ren. "You're such a fucking bastard," he snapped, reaching out to punch Hao, but the Shaman King teleported back a few feet, and the cats hurried after him, giving Ren room to move.
"Why did you do that?" Ren growled. "She doesn't deserve to not have her arm. And she has to wake up."
"She doesn't deserve to be in the hospital in the first place," Hao replied calmly.
"She needs her arm," Ren said, refusing to let Hao bait him. "She needs to wake up."
"The thing is, Ren," God said, picking up a cat and scratching it behind the ears. "If you and Jun give her back her arm, too much commotion is going to be made at that hospital. It could negatively affect shamans—too much attention and fear, you see. But if I give her back her arm, I can modify the memories of those who've seen her, so that it'll be as if she never lost it in the first place. Your choice, Ren."
"What about her waking up?"
Hao absent-mindedly played with the paws of the cat. "She'll wake up eventually. I may be a miracle worker, being God and all, but I don't go performing miracles left and right. I'll give her her arm back, but she'll wake up on her own—or not—in due time. But I'll leave it up to you whether she should have her arm back."
It was a question of pride, Ren knew. Ren wanted to take responsibility for his own actions and to heal Lian by his own means. Ren, being Ren, did not want to ask for help or let anyone help him, especially Hao. However...
"Yes," Hao agreed. "I do have a point."
Ren glowered at him. "...Fine. Do it."
Hao smirked and made a show of snapping his fingers. A soft glow surrounded his hand before the light flew off with yet another gust of wind. Hao disappeared as quickly as if he had never been there in the first place, and the cats meowed plaintively before scattering.
Ren scowled. He wished that he hadn't had to resort to that. It was a smart deal, he knew, for him to take on Lian's behalf. His own pride was rather bruised, though, and he had no idea what Hao would want in return—for Hao would undoubtedly ask for something in return. He hoped it wouldn't be something terrible.
Ren, ready to just leave this place and go anywhere else, turned around and came face-to-face with Hao again—it was a big surprise, because Hao had masked his own aura and Ren hadn't sensed him anymore.
Hao smirked in such a way that Ren had to hold back a shiver, because it was rather disturbing for him. "Don't forget what you all promised me, Ren. And for the record, I'll get something in return. You'll find out what it is soon enough. Don't worry...too much."
And then, Hao left in the blink of an eye.
But of course, as all shamans knew, God was always everywhere.
"Bastard," Ren muttered.
()()()()()
Ming Yue opened the door to Lian's hospital room when he knocked. She ushered him inside with a small smile of welcome.
"Mom and Dad are out at lunch," she said quietly. Despite the fact that Lian was comatose and not really asleep, she acted as if she was afraid of waking up her sister. "They should be back within a half-hour, though."
Ren nodded and looked to Lian, making note that her arm was whole and unscathed. And Ming Yue wasn't making any sort of big deal about it, which meant that she didn't remember at all that it had been amputated after the explosion. Hao had kept his promise.
"I'm not quite sure if this will work very well," he said. He would actually have rather had Jun be here with him, but he knew it was futile for her to try to heal Lian again if Hao was interfering.
"That's fine," Ming Yue replied, although he knew that she was lying, at least just a bit. "Anything could help her."
Ren nodded again and walked over to Lian's still form. He thought that there might be more color in her cheeks, but it might have been a trick of the light.
He held his hand a few inches over where her heart should be and focused on pushing a portion of furyoku into her. He made sure not to give her too much—she was a normal human, not a shaman capable of truly manipulating furyoku, and he had no idea what would happen if she had too much of it to handle. He gave her enough to hopefully strengthen her body so that she might wake up faster...or at all.
When he was finished, Ren took a step back. He looked at Lian's face for a moment, as if he expected her to open her eyes at any second, but she didn't.
He turned to Ming Yue and pulled a small card out of his pocket. "If there's anything at all, call this number... Especially if she wakes up."
Ming Yue accepted the card and nodded. She looked away awkwardly for a moment before looking back to him. "Are you really...?"
"Yes," Ren replied. He stalled for time by looking at the time on his phone. "...If you need help immediately, look for the En Inn—for Asakura Yoh and Kyoyama Anna. They should help you."
Ming Yue nodded once more. She finally seemed to let out a breath that she had been holding for a while. "Thank you," she said quietly, sincerely.
Ren didn't verbally or physically acknowledge the thanks. "I have to get going now." He bowed his head slightly in a polite goodbye before—
"You can't just go now...!" Ming Yue said suddenly, and Ren turned back to her in surprise. "If you were right, then Lian was—is—lonely. And you helped her, so...so when she wakes up, if she sees you...she won't feel lonely."
A part of Ren wished that there was something more he could do, but he shook his head. "She was a comatose spirit. They don't remember their times as spirits, not until they die."
Ming Yue's face fell. "...So she wouldn't recognize you?"
Ren suddenly bristled. "Why would you want her to? I'm the reason she's here in the first place!"
"But you're obviously not the same person," Ming Yue said. "You don't look at her like someone who would have caused that to happen."
Ren cast a final glance at Lian before he looked away toward the door. "You're her family. You can keep her from feeling lonely."
Without another word, he left.
()()()()()
Ren went back home with Jun—though not after Yoh threw him a surprise going-away party (which Ren's pride hated with a burning passion). Not that he would ever admit it, but the party was rather fun. That was, until a blushing Yoh and a glowering, silent Anna announced that the itako was pregnant.
Ren's competitiveness kicked in then. Yoh and Anna were just about sixteen and were already going to have a baby. Yoh was already at a greater stage in life than Ren was. And Ren couldn't allow that, not for long. Not to mention that the En Inn was soon going to be truly set up to receive visitors and guests soon.
Ren, once again being Ren, just had to find a way to bypass Yoh and jumpstart his own career. Upon some hard thought on the return trip to China, he decided upon going into the electronics corporation—that was sure to make sure that the Tao family grow successfully.
He was planning his applications for schools when his phone rang. Over the two years since he'd given Ming Yue his number, he'd at first both secretly dreaded and hoped for a call, though he'd always been disappointed by his caller ID. After a while, he'd just gone back to not really feeling much of anything when he checked his phone.
But this time, the number of the person calling was one that he didn't recognize.
"Hello?" he said, answering the phone.
"...Lian?"
Ren was not one to forget a voice, but it had been two years. "Is this Ming Yue?" he asked, unable to subdue the fact that his heart was starting to beat faster.
"No. It's...Lian."
Ren was speechless for a moment. "So...you woke up then." Obviously.
"About a month ago," she elaborated. She paused. "My sister told me that you helped me wake up. And, um, we moved back into China. I was wondering...if I could meet you."
()()()()()
A week later, Ren had traveled into Beijing. He waited for her at the entrance to the Forbidden City. She was coming with Ming Yue, but Lian had told him that Ming Yue would leave them be for awhile.
Ren was struggling to subdue his nerves. He had no idea if Lian had changed from the spirit that he'd known. Obviously, she didn't remember him. But he had no idea of how she acted before he had met her, before she had been consumed by her loneliness and hatred toward herself.
"Hello, Ren."
Startled, Ren turned his head to see that Hao was sitting beside him on the bench. Once again, God was wearing a red kimono—although, there were no cats around this time. Still, though, Ren's mood was instantly soured.
"You haven't forgotten what I said," Hao stated calmly, looking out at all the passing people.
Ren didn't need to answer him.
"Here's the deal, Ren: if you go down the path you're going today, you're going to end that girl, permanently," Hao said, turning his gaze to Ren's. "I'll tell you, it won't be for years. But it'll happen."
Ren just stared at him. He had no idea whether Hao was telling the truth or not...but something told him that there was something about Hao's words that rang with truth.
"The thing I get from our deal could come out two ways," Hao continued. "One, I get her spirit if you go down this path—meaning she dies. Two, you go down the other path and never understand the complete happiness that she would have given you. Call it a bit of revenge if you want." He shrugged.
There was just something about the conversation that made Ren know that Hao couldn't be lying. "...What will she die of?" he asked.
"Childbirth."
Ren's mouth hung open for a moment before he regained control of himself. "What, you won't let us revive her?"
Hao smirked. "I haven't really decided that, yet."
And then he was gone.
Ren sat there, staring at the spot where Hao had been while thoughts rushed through his mind.
I can't do that to her again.
He stood up and began to walk away.
"Lian!"
He stopped short and turned around to see a pair of twins walking quickly toward him. The one with hair that went past her waist was easily identifiable as Ming Yue, while the girl with shorter hair—and brighter-colored clothes—was Lian. Ming Yue was waving excitedly, while Lian's wave was more reserved, though her eyes were excited.
Though he was apprehensive, he waited for them. At one point, Ming Yue stopped her sister and whispered to her, and then Lian shyly came forward by herself. Ren would have felt more awkward about this situation if his stomach wasn't churning at what Hao had told him.
Then, Lian blurted, "I remember you, from my dreams."
Ren, usually so strong, suddenly couldn't hold it in anymore. He leaned in closer to her so as not to be overheard. "Lian, I was responsible for you being in that coma. I could have killed you."
She looked a little taken aback, but she shook her head. "You're a shaman, and you helped me. You aren't who you were, I know that well enough."
He paused. "I could kill you. Trust me. Someone's told me what will happen to you if you stay around me. You'll die."
And Lian just looked at him. "All I know is that when I'm sleeping and I see you, I'm not lonely. And right now I'm not lonely, either. And we all die eventually... I sort of have before, already, and you helped me then." She paused. "Whoever told you that must be—"
"Don't!" Ren said, cutting her off. "Don't…don't say anything about that person," he said more quietly. "He's not someone you should mess around with. He…he's God. If you say something bad about him you really will die."
She shook her head once more. "I don't care. I…don't really care about anything right now," she said with a smile. "I told you, I'm not lonely right now. I don't care if I die by not being lonely. That's what I want."
The End
A/N: Damn me and my ambiguous endings. Be happy, originally it was going to be so sad it would have made me cry. Damn it, I can't write sad endings for shit.
Hope you all had a wonderful time reading, don't forget to review on your way out~!