Mist 19

/-/ Spots filled his vision again.

Soubi knew what was happening, he always did. He hated himself for being so weak and he could only whisper out Ritsuka's name before he fell to the ground lifelessly. "Ritsuka.." /-/

x

/-/ Misaki turned her back to the boy and gripped the counter, turning her knuckles white. 'How could my own son be so disagreeable..?' Slowly her thoughts were changing. 'That boy, my son- No! No! He isn't! That isn't my Ritsuka! My Ritsuka would never act like this! Not my son!'

"Mom.." Ritsuka placed his hand on her shoulder lightly, trying to comfort the woman who looked upset over what he had done.

She spun around. Her eyes revealed her only expression. Hatred. Anger. "Don't touch me! You aren't my Ritsuka! Don't touch me!"

Misaki slapped his hand away harshly. /-/

x

"M-mom!" Ritsuka stepped back some to give his mother the space she wanted. Her words were stinging into his skin. He let his red, buzzing, hand fall to his side. Ritsuka pretended not to be in pain. His mind instinctively whined for Soubi and he didn't correct himself.

Misaki glared at him. "You..."

He had never seen such an intense hatred staring back at him.

Ritsuka's mother reached a hand behind her. He couldn't see what she did with it behind her back. "Mom." He said, trying to act through his fear and anguish. "Please. I w-wa want to.." He cringed at his stutter. His chest rose with air and he spoke again after a very short pause to collect himself. "I want to eat with you Mother." Ritsuka looked into her eyes for acceptance but they didn't alter from the glare they previously held.

She smiled lifelessly. He face was completely blank but the edges of her mouth were turned upward. Eerily. Misaki stared right past her son, she was looking into her mind instead of what stood in front of her.

When her hand whipped out from behind her and Ritsuka would clearly see what she held. It glinted in the light like the spell-knives, the knives he could still clearly remember being thrust at him from the sky. His heart filled with the same feeling it had when Shin's scythe rocketed toward him. Misaki's hand was plunging toward her son.

Ritsuka opened his mouth, wanting to say something to stop her, anything. He couldn't find the words. Soubi's name was the lone word floating through his blank mind and he shouted it as he dove away.

Misaki's kitchen knife was large and may have been recently sharpened. But, as she lunged, the knife shot through the air and met with nothing. Ritsuka had dodged it. Her balance was momentarily thrown off. Ritsuka was on the floor in the direction opposite her so she walked over to him. He grasped around on the floor looking for anything to steady him. His fingers found a table leg and he pulled himself up slowly. "M-mom! Mother please! I love you, Mother!"

"I don't love you! You aren't my son! I love Ritsuka! You aren't him! Don't say you love me! Don't!"

Ritsuka was in sitting position now. His body was numb. Fear buzzed around his mind. He didn't want to do this. He wanted his mother to be happy. He wanted her to love him like he did her. Ritsuka bit his lip, a little too hard, he tasted the irony liquid that came out as a result.

"M-mother.." He whimpered. "Please calm down."

She thrust her knife at him, her aim wildly astray.

Ritsuka flinched his body away but it mattered naught. The knife caught on the side of his hand, deeply grazing into skin. The blade was sliced into him and held upright by the floor. Tears stung at Ritsuka's eyes but he held them back and carefully eased his hand away.

Misaki stared down at him cruelly. "Ritsukaaa!" She screamed as she walked away a few feet.

Ritsuka scrambled to his feet breathing heavily. "Mo-mother please.. I am Ritsuka. Please forgive me. I love you!"

Wails escaped the woman's mouth and Ritsuka to start backwards from fright. He bumped into the table and held himself up. "R-R-Ritsuka!" She yelled brokenly between banshee screams.

Ritsuka bobbed his head hoping she was realizing that he wasn't a fake after all. She stood with her back to him.

"My Ritsuka wouldn't lie! I don't love you! You aren't him!" She spun her body around with a hand out. Slapping him on his tender cheek. "Imposter! Imposter! Get out! I hate you!"

'I hate you. I hate you. I hate you. I hate you.' Ritsuka was numb with bumblebee stinging words feasting on his body. He whimpered but had nothing he could say. Ritsuka started to wholly doubt himself.

Misaki threw angry punches at her son. She lacked the unsureness she usually possessed when she beat her son. She was still not herself. She didn't think her son was himself. She could remember the throbbing baby she held the day she bore him. She remembered the happy family she brought her second child home to. She remembered the joy she felt to have that second son. Just as she had felt with the first. He grew up calmly, devoted to his parents and older brother. A lovely child. He was obedient but none too bright. A curious child that shone in the sun. The boy that stood in front of her now had not a single grain of resemblance to her beloved infant, child, son. He was not hers, he pretended he was. Just to cause her pain. She hated him.

A feral growl burst from her lips as she shoved the boy she now regarded as an evil stranger away. Ritsuka's body limply crashed from the kitchen into the front hall. He tried pleading for his mother to stop.

She wanted him out. This boy didn't belong in her house, he wasn't hers. He needed to go. The boy was struggling against her, not fighting though. She grabbed a clump of his hair and dragged him by it.

Ritsuka screamed out in pain, his skin felt like it was being ripped from his skull.

Misaki contemplated throwing him through the window but it looked too bothersome. So, she approached the door. Kicking it in anger several times before clicking open the lock and swinging it open.

"Get out!" She screamed at the boy one last time. He threw her a pleading look with tears pouring down his cheeks. She didn't care.

Ritsuka was pushed out the door and heard multiple locks on the door being bolted. He whimpered, cat ears lying flat and tail wrapping around his leg smoothly. The curtains to the house were closed swiftly and Ritsuka was left alone. Completely alone.

He ran.

x

"You fool!" Seimei's voice echoed through the phone connection and Nisei made a face at it that his master couldn't see. "I told you to stay! Did I not? Tell me I didn't Nisei! Is my memory going bad?"

Nisei could picture the anomalously calm look on Seimei's furious face.

"So now? You're running? How weak! How's my brother Nisei? How is he? Your spell probably failed on him! You pathetic weakling!"

Nisei grimaced at the insults. 'His brother, his brother. It's always the brat! How about poor me who's running from a lunatic out here!' Bravely he contradicted his Sacrifice without a single thought as to apologizing. "Seimei, I couldn't do much but run. Agatsuma is chasing me!"

He heard Seimei sigh. A sigh that meant, 'how troublesome.' Nisei found small consolation in his master's discontent toward Soubi.

"Get back here. Get that thing off your trail first." Seimei ordered. "If I find out my brother is harmed by this, both you and him," He said 'him' with lingering discontent, clearly signifying Soubi, who's name Seimei currently was unwilling to pronounce. "will be punished. Severely."

Nisei complied and turned back in a careful search to find just how closely Soubi was tracking him.

x

Ritsuka ran. He ran. He was not a very athletic boy but that didn't matter. He didn't have a choice. His body couldn't function any other way. It was run or curl up into a ball at his door step. So he took the urge and ran. He didn't know where he was going and he didn't care. The wind rushed past Ritsuka's face and his heart beat in his ear. His injured hand hung down limply, unwilling to do its part. Ritsuka ran straight ahead, with no clue as to where he was or would end up, he met some familiar spots but barely acknowledged them. He ran over a bridge that he normally liked going to but didn't stop to look at the water, or the sunset. It made Ritsuka think of the time, once, when he and Soubi had come to see the sun set over the water. Soubi. He thought how betrayed he was. His mother had changed, but she hadn't changed back to normal. She got worse, she was still under some weird result of Soubi's spell. He still hated Soubi.

Words rang in his ear. 'The opposite of liking is indifference. Hate is very close to love.'

He scoffed at the thought and didn't stop running.

Ritsuka's legs shot out from behind him in a very ungraceful way. He ran at varying paces and never slowed down enough to realize how tired he was. Ritsuka didn't want to look at anything, the darkness of closed eyes would be fine with him, but he thought it would be bad to run around with his eyes closed. So, he looked to the sky, further offsetting his balance. The vast gray-blue overhead mesmerized him as he mechanically ran forward. He didn't look to the ground or in front of him.

He didn't look at the ground until his face hit it, that is. His foot caught on something large and he plummeted downwards unable to even attempt at catching his balance. He yelled out a bit as he fell "Waa~" But, he thought, there was no one to hear him.

Ritsuka was startled by the fall and still majorly upset. He wanted to collapse into tears over the small tumble.

Then he realized the oddity of what he fell over. It was soft. His legs still rested over the object which he tumbled over. What could be laying at the side of the road? He would've labeled it as a blanket but it was solid. Not a filled garbage bag because it was slightly warm. He registered the slight rise and drop in the thing. Like shallow breathing. An animal? Too big to be just any animal.

Ritsuka forced his body to stumble away once his thoughts worked it out. A body! A human! He tripped over a person. He peeked out of closed eyes to see what kind of person he had tripped over. He was effectively bewildered. Astonished.