One month later
She had been afraid.
As resolute as she had been by the end of that night, she could not bring herself to knock upon Kouta's door. She reasoned to herself that it was because Nana could likely still sense her and always would. Nyuu was gone, but she still lived day to day frightened that she would return because she knew what she would do if Nyuu came back. She would run straight back to Kouta like nothing had happened, and she couldn't come back that way, which was the other reason she had stayed away for so long. She didn't quite know what triggered Nyuu and didn't want to find out that it had something to do with the inn, or Kouta. So she walked the streets of Kamakura, bow in her hair to hide the horns that had grown back over the month, and was careful to avoid places that she would be recognized by Kouta, Nana, Yuka, Or Mayu. Though occasionally, when she could bear it no longer, she would hide in shadows, or on rooftops and wait to see Kouta. He still went to school, at least the days when he could be roused from sleep enough to go, but she would only be able to see him from a distance as he walked up to the front doors and disappeared inside. She would wait the entire day until school had let out, just for the chance to see him. At one point she had even come into possession of some school clothes and had resolved to meet him after school to truly and finally say what she couldn't on those stone steps. But fear gripped her heart when she got near him, and she turned to lose herself in the crowd of departing students. She thought she heard someone calling "wait!", the faraway voice sounding like that of desperation; of recognition. She pretended not to hear, and walked faster until she was back in the shadows again. She'd cried angry tears, whispering his name over and over to herself while recalling the memory of his kiss, his embrace. Her body and her heart ached for him, but she was afraid. Afraid of his final judgment, and afraid to know if he had taken Yuka for himself. She fought down the dark pit of jealousy, she had no right to be jealous. If Kouta had not stopped her all those years ago, she would have killed Yuka. And unlike herself, Yuka had always been honest with Kouta. Yuka deserved him, but Lucy was just a monstrous killer.
That's not me anymore.
But she could not be sure of that. She lived her life for so long being told that killing was in her nature. She resisted the call of the voice by not killing the soldier. And since then in the days following, she learned to stop using her vectors to kill.
"I want to put a stop to the bloodshed!"
"I'm doing this for you Kouta," she would say to herself when she'd hold back as she defended herself from the occasional attacks on the street from petty thieves or would be rapists. Though the latter often ended up with shattered bones in his legs and arms. Wandering the city streets, she was that little girl again; lonely and heartsick. She slept in a thicket of trees near the graveyard where she had fought Nana for the first time. And every night before she fell asleep, she would replay that last night with Kouta over and over in her mind. Remembering the sound of his voice, and how it hummed in her chest as he held her close. The feel of his lips pressing against hers, wanting her. She wanted to take his acceptance then at face value, and living destitute was the price she was paying to believe what she knew in her heart was a lie: that he loved and accepted her, and not just a memory of her or a figment of her imagination. But she knew she could not go on this way. She was becoming more reckless in her wanderings, sometimes deliberately passing by the places she knew that she would run into them all, or creating a public scene, making a show of arguing with vendors over the price of snacks. She wanted to be found, and sure enough she was, though it was not who she would have expected to run into.
She had been wandering aimlessly, enjoying the breeze coming off the ocean. It was one of the few instances that she slipped into a reverie, and simply enjoyed normal life. She had visited a bath house earlier in the day and was largely using the walk by the water as a means of drying her hair. Dimly, she remembered feeling periods of well being like this. They came when she was Nyuu, and everything was so blissfully simple. It was difficult to remember things she had done when she was Nyuu but she remembered more when she was with Kouta. He had found her exuberance cute, as in childishly cute. She didn't want him thinking of her as a child, but as a woman. Those desires were strong enough to cause Nyuu to act out sexually towards Kouta. Unfortunately, Nyuu had remembered those instincts and would act out upon others as well. She was embarrassed that she had acted that way as her simple alter ego, but it was the best she could do as a dormant personality. It was when he'd touch her that her mind would start to clear, and for brief periods, she could allow herself to slip into a fantasy where they belonged to each other. That he knew her as Lucy, and was in love with her. If only it just kept going, and he didn't stop…she never wanted him to stop. Always, just at the moment when enough of her had risen to the surface to take control of her body, they would be interrupted, and she'd go plummeting back into the darkness of her mind. And she'd agonize because always, there would be a look in his eyes just before the interruptions; like he knew her…like he…
"Lucy?"
Panic rushed through her, she had been lost in her daydream and not seen where she was going. She had walked back to the scene of her last battle with S.A.T. The road was littered with caution signs where roadwork was being done to repair the damage she had done to the street and sidewalk. Scaffoldings on the nearby buildings to repair the damage they sustained from gunfire. It was mid afternoon and she noticed a handful of people in hardhats meandering about the site, preparing for the evening roadwork.
"It's you isn't it?"
Stupid, stupid. Why didn't she turn around the first time? She smoothed her new dark dress, which looked more like a long coat, and turned around. Standing before her was a group of three, a woman, a child, and…
"You," Lucy whispered in disbelief.
Standing before her was the soldier who's life she had spared, then saved, a month ago. Lucy recognized the people next to him as the people in the bloodstained photograph. There was a surprised, yet friendly smile of greeting upon his face.
"This a friend of yours Takashi?" the woman asked. Lucy noticed the woman quickly sizing her up and almost giggled. Someone jealous of her? Unthinkable. "Well she's not an enemy," he said with a laugh that was supposed to mean he was joking, while effectively evading the question. His eyes flicked pointedly towards her, Lucy smiled, "so this is your family…Takashi?" Lucy asked, not knowing exactly what else to say. "Yes. This is my wife Ayame and my daughter Minako," he turned to them and motioned towards Lucy, "this is Lucy, the girl I told you about." Lucy kept silent, hoping for some cue as to what she should say. Ayame's face brightened immediately and she rushed forward to take Lucy's hand in both of hers. "You. You were the one who saved my husband's life, who stayed with him and called for help?"
"I…," Lucy cleared her throat, "I did."
"My husband was in the military, a special forces branch but I guess you knew that. I was so afraid for him when he was called to respond to the terrorist attacks a month ago. They had detonated some kind of weapon, right here at this place. Takashi was the only one who survived, but even he would be gone right now if it weren't for you."
Takashi stepped forward, gently placing a hand on his wife's shoulder, "we thought all the civilians had been evacuated. But apparently we missed one. I was so banged up after the explosion that all I could do was hold onto this picture." He removed the photo and held it up. Lucy wondered if Ayame could see the delicate hint of red where blood had once stained it. Blood Lucy had shed herself. "Lucy happened by and helped keep me alive. She talked to me, and I told her about you and Minako. She helped clear my mind to make my report," he paused for a moment, "it's frightening when you see what people are capable of when they're so full of anger and hate," he continued, his eyes locked onto Lucy's. She wasn't seeing him, or the street. She could only see walls washed in blood and dead children littering the floor around her.
"Maybe they're just lost," Lucy said in a quiet voice. Takashi nodded solemnly, "then I hope they find their way."
The child, Minako rushed up to tug on his father's sleeve and he smiled, patting her head. "It was wonderful meeting you Lucy," Ayame said, "I wish we had more time to talk, but we need to get home to start dinner. Takashi often visits this place to pay respects to the dead and to never forget how precious life is. He's lucky to be alive."
"Luck didn't save me. Compassion did. Her being there may have been chance, but compassion is a choice." He turned to his family, "you guys get going, I just need a minute to say a few words to Lucy in private." Ayame's left eye twitched, and in spite of herself, she sized Lucy up again. Lucy lowered her head to hide the smile in her hair, and casually stepped behind a road barricade, putting it between herself and Takashi. If she only knew how her heart burned for only one man, she would have had no issues even with leaving them alone in candlelit rooms. "Don't be long," Ayame said, not quite unkindly, then kissed Takashi on the cheek and walked away with Minako. They merely watched one another in silence until the sounds of footsteps dimmed to nothing.
"They told me that killing was your species' natural instinct. That we shouldn't hesitate because you would eventually kill every living thing on earth."
He paused, considered her. Lucy tuned out the distant clamor of work vehicles starting up and occasional shouting. "I tried my hardest to kill you," he continued, "I even fired at you a few times with my pistol after you had done the sniper team in, but you couldn't hear it over the explosions, and I was so hurt that I couldn't hit you. In the end I just gave up and got my picture out. Do you know why I wanted to kill you Lucy?"
She bit down on her lower lip, "because you didn't want to die," she said in a voice that was almost a whisper. Takashi took his photograph out and looked at it, "and I didn't want them to die," he finished. He looked up, "and those men you killed, they didn't want to die, and they didn't want their families to die. They didn't want their friends to die." Guilt crawled though her, would she never escape the horror of what she was?
"I am what I am."
Takashi slowly shook his head. "I don't think you know who you are."
"You want him to see the real you? You don't even know yourself!"
No! She had banished the voice hadn't she? She felt a moment's fear before she realized it was just memory that she was recalling. The voice was gone, she had rendered it irrelevant.
"You're carrying the full weight of responsibility for that night," he continued, "I can see that in your eyes. I know what that pain looks like, I've been fighting long enough to know it when I see it."
"And you're looking for closure. I've been looking for it so long that I know the quest when I see it."
Takashi smiled sadly, "you're right. I said I have something to say to you and I do. That night, was not your fault."
"But Kouta, I killed your family!"
"It was my hands that were stained with blood. If the fault is not mine, then who could it possibly be?"
"You confuse fault with responsibility. Foolish, evil old men created you, and S.A.T, then set us upon one another. They set the stage, wrote the plot, and created the characters. All we did was play our parts. You and I, we have to live with what we've done in our lives. I've committed my share of sins during my time in S.A.T. Things I will never tell my wife or child. Responsibility lies with us, but fault lies with them."
Kouta…is this how you feel? Is this why you wouldn't let me go? Even after all I had done?
She was not aware of grabbing fistfuls of her dress and clenching them until she began to feel the beginnings of pain from fingernails digging into her palms through the fabric.
"I'm not human. I'm a monster."
"Biologically you're not human, but in every other way you're as human as anyone else in the world. You make decisions, you have regrets, you feel sadness, and you know laughter. I know you can feel afraid, I even know that you can love."
Her heart flared up at that last word, flashing memories of every moment spent with Kouta. Did he miss her? She wanted so badly to see him again, it had been building up in her from the first time she turned away from his door a month ago, and now it had grown into a need so great she felt like she was dying without him. Takashi must have heard her calling Kouta's name that night in a scream of desperate fury. It had been as though she needed to hear his name aloud, to remind her what she was fighting for…so she wouldn't give up.
"So I have said my piece, now I want to ask you something." Lucy waited.
"Who are you?"
Am I Kaede? Am I Nyuu? Am I Lucy?
The child wanted love but she was broken by cruelty and hampered by innocence. She did not know empathy for humans, but could feel Kouta's empathy and warmth for her. I am not her, Kaede murdered the people closest to him and thought that was fair for the heartache she suffered; I feel the weight of my decisions, and no longer think about no one but myself. I want Kouta to be happy, not just myself. Even if that means dying to ease his heart.
Nyuu wanted to give her love, every drop of it she had to give, but she did not know why. She did not even know herself. Without a past, there is no future. And without a reason to love, then love is meaningless, ornamental. I know why I love Kouta; he is the person I admire more than anyone in the world. Nyuu cannot tell him why. But I, Lucy, can tell him everything.
I am what I am: violent and destructive, shy and unsure, protective and jealous, foolish and impulsive.
I…
"I'm the girl that saved your life. More than the one who tried to end it."
Takashi nodded his head approvingly, "more in light than in darkness, without denying either one. That's all anyone can ask from another human being in this world. Now that I've talked to you, I can move on. I can go on knowing that the pointless bloodshed ended that night, and that I did not lie to my commander."
"But you told him I was dead."
"Don't we all die in a way when we grow as people? The former selves fading into memory as the new ones take control of our lives? I think the "Lucy" they were looking for died a month ago. I saw it…with my own eyes."
Takashi turned to walk away. "I'll see you around Lucy. I hope you find what you're looking for, but I think you know where to find it. Why else would you still be here?"
She watched him leave, going back to his life. It was time, she knew. She had wasted enough time haunting the streets of Kamakura. She gathered up her courage, put one foot in front of the other, and started her walk to Maple House.
To face Kouta.
