Chapter 4: Completion

She worked well into the night and unto the next morning. The passing of day into night and into the sunrise had gone unnoticed completely. No matter that she had an outer studio, therefore having a line of windows go through the three compartments, set in a linear format against one of the two ends of the floor, she was unaware. Carving every crease, noting every strand, caught in the action after he killed, allowing the fight inside him to rage after the fight he had won. Painting the waters and the sheet, his hair and his skin, she felt every cold shiver as she drew closer and closer to his completion. Coloring the glow of his claws and finding a way to create the heavenly light of the moon so that he shined in any light, two more details, there were only two more details left. He needed blood and he needed the fire.

Without thinking on it, Rin snatched a light duty knife, pushing up the recently sharpened blade. Hastily, she rested her hand on a close by stool. She raised the blade. Firm in her hand, but right as she was about to bring it down, the trance was broken. An irate ring sounded through the room. Instead of feeling angered, Rin fell to her knees, disappointed and frustrated that she couldn't finish. Inches away, a mere step or two away, he was ordering his completion, holding her lithe frame in his powerful arms, a hand grasping her throat as he suffocated her, demanding she finish him. He was enraged. His trance may have been broken, but he was there. As she had captured his heart, he engulfed her mind, possessed her through and through. Every fiber of her being belonged to him. Every pump of her heart and inhale to her lungs was meant for him now, ensnaring her in his irresistibly defiant clutches.

But she promised to return, to finish what she had started. Her hand tightened on the knife as she strutted out of the room, a dangerous serenity surrounding the sway of her hips and confidence in her steps. The phone continued to ring off the hook. Picking up the cordless phone, she answered smoothly, "Yes?"

"Rin," cried a familiar man. Instantly, she recognized them to be the coordinator. With a smile on her lips, she answered, "Hello coordinator, may ask what has you so frantic?"

"Rin," the coordinator called again, "Do you have any new pieces yet?"

Hearing his question, something in Rin sparked. The stranger's hold on her tightened, and his hot breath warmed her chilling skin. Cold sweat began to bead her brow. His call was powerful. She needed to complete him. She needed to make him eternal. And what better way was there than for the world to know him? Fallen under his trance yet again, she answered monotonously, "Yes…It is almost finished."

"What is it," the man babbled.

"A sculpture…"

The stranger's call wasn't strong, neither was his presence, but she needed him. Reality was home in Japan, out of her reach. If she wanted him, she had to create him. Even though it wasn't enough, even though the love was forgotten and torn away into a box locked deep in her chest, it was enough. To make the stranger eternal, to create his likeness and know that in its creation she had acquired victory. She had captured his heart. That alone was enough and he would be known. He would be seen. It was this call that was so strong. It was this dream, this wish, this longing that pulled her and shook her to her core.

So as the presence surrounding her drew her back, the longing, the desire brimming inside her gave him power and she yearned to release herself. In the course of a night, she had turned him into a burden. That was the last thing she wanted. He wasn't meant to tie her down. His image wasn't full of this pressure or this entrapment of her soul. She wanted to love him freely and free him of the confines she had so placed on his memory. Through his completion, through his image of eternity, he would no longer be forgotten or trapped. He'd be free as she was meant to be, as she is.

"A sculpture," the coordinator repeated. His voice snapped her out of her obsessive thoughts. Grateful and then suspicious, she retorted, "Yes. Why?"

His answer had her falling to her knees in shock. "Mr. Inutaisho of the Taisho corporations, benefactor and owner of this center, has come with his sons to personally look over the center's progress! And I want to show them one of your works!"

In the midst of her shock, Rin managed to digest his words and found them precarious. "Why do you want a new piece," she asked, "Show them my work in the galleries."

"I will," said the coordinator, "but I want to show them a work no one has seen before."

"But-."

"Sango informed me that you had stayed here all day and night, working on your newest project."

"Yes," she confirmed.

"You haven't even eaten," the coordinator stated.

Suddenly aware, Rin felt the grumble of her stomach and couldn't deny it. "Yes," she confirmed.

"Whatever the work," the coordinator concluded, "it must be one of your finest." And the line was cut. He had hung up on her. Feeling the weight of his words sink in, Rin fell backwards. The phone clanked on the ground, the light duty knife with it, and her legs were bending at an angle that should've been painful. However, Rin was too stressed to realize. She sighed. "Pull it together, Rin," she murmured, "just work."

Her stomach protested. In her head, Rin debated going to shower and eat or finish the work now. As much as her body argued against her, Rin stood, picking up the knife, and dashed back to the sculpture. The trance had dissipated. Now she stood, staring at the stranger in his unfinished glory. She knew what to do and there was no hesitance. In instants, she had the blade pierced through her right hand, the hand she came to depend on less in her work. The left is for creation, imagination and the right is for conformity, practicality.

She gave no cry or shout or sobs, but only tears.

She pulled out the blade and punched her bleeding hand through the air. Droplets of blood splattered across the stranger, mainly his face, and the red trails formed. Three more times, she squeezed her hand and flung it through the air, droplets flying off to land and trail on the stranger's body. Then dropping the knife, she searched for a brush with small fine bristles. As soon as she had it, she squeezed her hand for the fifth and sixth time, feeling the searing pain, watching her hand become pale as the red substance dripped over the waters rising to ensnare and the sheets that fell away. With precision, she painted the trails of blood as if streams of blood fell and the sheet, the waters waded through, colored as they drifted by.

Rin hurriedly tossed away the brush, aiming at a table as she dashed to acquire another and paints. She took a color palette in her injured right hand, continuously ignoring that pain flaring through her hand, and grabbed a brush with thinner and finer bristles than the previous. At once, she began to color his eyes with their fire, their pain, bearing the weight of lives and millenniums. The fire of gold, amber, of orange and yellow in a tumultuous snare of his heart's existence, everything was in his eyes. His completion was dependent on his eyes. She put all of her heart into the complex working of those molting golden irises.

And all of a sudden, he was complete. The stranger was alive before her. She dropped the brush, dropped the palette, and marveled at him. In pure shock, she realized, "I just finished my greatest work."

"Ow!" Remembering the throbbing pain in her hand, she glanced over it and realized something else, "I need stitches." Figuring she could handle the pain for a while, Rin positioned her masterpiece to the side to be safe and walked off, acting as if she wasn't losing too much blood and her hand wasn't bleeding like pinches on Saint Patrick's Day when someone didn't wear green.

In the shower, she bit a towel to hold in her sobs, so she could clench her teeth as she cried over the pain. She searched for bandages, cotton, and alcohol. Again, she bit a towel as she dressed her hand for the period that would occur between dressing herself and entering the emergency room at the hospital. Out of her locker, she was grateful to find she hadn't used the shirt with the sleeves that extend past her fingertips. She donned the gray shirt, a black vest over it, a gray and black plaid skirt over black leggings lined with lace, and thin socks to fit in her short black boots. As an extra measure, she put on some black gloves to hide. Grabbing her purse from the studio and deciding to tie a few strands into a ponytail on the side of her head, she was ready to go.

That is until she remembered she was hungry. Reluctantly, exiting the elevator, she turned left and not right towards the entrance. Her stomach wouldn't stop growling. If she didn't eat now, who knew when she could eat again. However, as she was approaching the entrance to the restaurant, a certain figure suddenly caught her attention and she hurriedly turned around. "Oh no," she screamed inside.

"Rin!" It was one of the coordinators. She was screwed. Forcing a smile, Rin faced the coordinator and greeted him, "Hello Coordinator Harrison."

"It's good to see you," he said, coming up beside her, pushing her towards the restaurant, "Come. I'd like you to meet someone." Right then, by a stroke of luck, Rin's cell began to ring. Hastily, she answered. The caller was her mother. Hinting that she had done something stupid again, Rin hurried through the conversation and said goodbye. As the coordinator was about to resume trying to get her to meet with the Taisho trio, Rin stopped him. "I'm sorry, Mr. Harrison."

The coordinator immediately tried to compromise. "Whatever it is, I'm-."

"Sir," Rin cut in, "I have to go to the hospital. My mother said it was urgent."

The coordinator seemed concerned, but also distressed. "Can't it wait-?"

"No, sir," Rin pleaded, "please. I'll meet them when I come back."

"They're only here a day," the coordinator stressed.

"Okay," Rin replied hastily, "I'll try to get back as soon as possible, but I really have to go." She rushed off, waving goodbye and hurrying out of the building. As the morning chill struck her in the face, her stomach grumbled in desperation and she slapped her forehead. "I forgot to get some food."

While running all the way to the hospital, Rin cried quietly about her neglected stomach.

"This could count as a diet," she whined for the world to hear.