Hey guys, I'm back! And I have GREAT news! :) It pleases me to announce that I have finished writing what I am currently referring to as 'Part One' of this lovely little story of mine. Initially, after I decided to re-do the chapters I had lost and continue the story, I thought I would do it in the usual sequential way, writing a chapter, posting a chapter, writing a chapter, posting a chapter...you know, like you do. But then my ideas for this story sort of...expanded, and I found myself wanting to experiment with some plot points without setting them in stone by posting them immediately. So what I ended up doing was writing several chapters at the same time, going back and forth and making changes as the plot developed. And now I'm done, and the story has come together again. All I have to do is finish editing rest of the chapters, and then I will post them asap. And then...good grief. Is it bad that I'm already planning part two when I know I'm leaving for grad school in a little more than a month? PRIORITIES!
So that's what I've been up to, in case anyone was losing sleep at night wondering. (Although I sure hope not, that would make me feel bad!) Since I neglected to reply to some of your wonderful reviews in the last chapter, I shall do so now and then we can get back to finding out what Natsuno and Tohru are doing. :)
Salt-the-Catgirl: I find your name fascinating. It seems like it should be some kind of code/slang for something. Also, thank you for your insightful reviews! I'm glad you find Tohru endearing. Perhaps he will get a hug at some point.
Amar1N: Thank YOU for your kind words! They make my author's heart smile. :)
Yangwolf Anime Network: Believe me, I'm thinking about it. Don't lose hope. Since it's been established that Ozaki survived, the time may come when I find it appropriate to bring him into my story. He's such a fascinating and contradictory character, so I have to wait for the right time.
Nessie: That's exactly the reason I wrote this story. When I finished watching the anime, I was like "WTF? You can't end it like that without resolving anything between Natsuno and Tohru! I do not accept this!" It felt like they started something so intriguing with the characters' initial friendship and their divergent situations as the story progressed, and then just dropped it. So I picked it up again. I hope it satisfies you!
Tohru Mutou had to suppress the familiar feeling that he was doing something terribly wrong as he wandered through the aisles of a fire-gutted grocery store, removing any unspoiled cans he could find from the shelves. This felt a lot like shoplifting, but he supposed that compared to everything else he had done lately, stealing was the least of his sins. On the other side of the store, Natsuno was currently breaking the glass to get into the sealed-off home supply section. This had been the biggest retailer in Sotoba, so Tohru knew the jinrou was hoping to check off most of the items on his list here. As for himself, Tohru just wanted to get whatever they needed and hurry back to the cabin. Being here again was just too much- seeing the ruined shells of all the places he had spent his life when he was human. Walking into the village center, he had not been able to resist the urge to look at them. There was the library, without a roof, and there, the playground he had never wanted to leave as a child, its metal structures charred and warped by flames. There was the farm supply store where he had worked during the summers in high school, and up the hill a little ways, the half-standing remains of the high school itself. Just down the road was his family's preferred restaurant, the only place where they could all find something on the menu they liked. The ceiling had caved in over their favorite table beside the sun windows.
Tohru continued ransacking the shelves, keeping his gaze determinedly away from the far left corner of the store. There was a dead body over there, lying spread-eagled on its face beside the cash register. It was too badly burned to be recognizable, but he had a feeling it was probably the proprietor. They had passed several bodies coming in, some of them apparently okiagari killed by humans or burned to death in the sun, others which he recognized as humans who had run businesses around here. He wasn't sure why they had stayed behind as the fire roared toward Sotoba. Perhaps they had believed the rural fire response brigade would arrive in time, and they wanted to save their shops from being looted while they were away. Perhaps, after all the terror they had lived through to save their village, the only home they had ever known, they couldn't bear to abandon it to the flames in the end. Tohru thought it was awful that they had lived through so much, only to perish as the last battle played out. He shivered.
The crunching of glass behind him caused him to turn around to see Natsuno wading through the rubble from the other side of the store. The jinrou held a highly stacked armful of items, including several outfits, towels, washcloths, a few pots and pans, a can opener, several backpacks, and a shovel. The okiagari met him as he made it back to the grocery side, taking some of the burden into his own arms. "Most of the clothing is burned. This is pretty much all that's left," Natsuno reported, beginning to stuff the clothes into one of the backpacks. "I couldn't find any shoes or un-scorched blankets. No suitcases either. But we still have the houses to go through, and the clinic." He huffed a bit, coughing on the ash circulating around them. "What'd you find?"
"Mostly cans," Tohru murmured, following behind the other as he began to stride toward the exit. "The ones that haven't been melted by the heat or crushed by collapsing ceiling beams should be all right to eat, I think. The fresh food left around here is either burned or spoiled or both. It's been exposed to the elements for too long."
Natsuno grunted and stepped past the body of the grocery owner without looking at it. Tohru ducked away and hurried after the jinrou. "Natsuno, what's the shovel for?"
The other boy glanced at the tool in his hands as if just remembering he had it. "We're going to need it later," he said bluntly, offering nothing further.
On their way out of the village center, they tried raiding the pantries and walk-in freezers of several restaurants, all without success. Even if the rooms hadn't been destroyed by fire, the power in the village had been off for more than a week, leaving the food to curdle in the heat and then soak in the rain. They had better luck at Masao's home, the rice shop, where they found plenty of bags of rice and three 12-packs of bottled water. Unfortunately, they also found the okiagari himself when they lifted up a blanket lying in the oddly intact hallway to find the corpse of the scrawny boy underneath, a stake pounded through his heart. Tohru whimpered and clutched at Natsuno, squeezing his eyes shut while the jinrou let the makeshift shroud fall back over the body. "We don't need a blanket that badly," the dark-haired boy declared as he turned to leave the way they had come.
They didn't stop anywhere else on their way out of the village center, and for this Tohru was unspeakably relieved. He didn't want to see anyone else he had known in life lying desecrated and finished upon the dirty ground, just like his humanity. He hadn't had much contact with Masao since the other boy had also risen up, but he remembered feeling a flash of fury, followed by immense, weighing grief, when he'd heard about his gleeful reaction to Natsuno's supposed cremation. Tohru glanced timidly over at the striding figure of the other. He could not help but feel grateful Natsuno had revived, even though it was blatantly obvious that the jinrou was not pleased by his continued existence. That Natsuno should have risen as a jinrou was perhaps not as surprising as it had first seemed. Natsuno had always been….different. Strong. Unlimited by the world around him. As a human he had not been one to easily resign himself to the loss of his old life in the city, nor to the monsters that stalked the darkness outside his window. Now, as a Risen, he would not be one to cower before the sunlight or forget his morals at the scent of blood. Natsuno would always be Natsuno. But Natsuno would not always be here. Even now, as they walked along the wooded rim of Sotoba, the dark-haired boy was staring off in the direction of the city, the faintest glimmer on the horizon, his face deep in thought. Tohru shivered once again as the night's cold settled into his bones.
They stopped at several houses along the road, where they found shoes, sooty but still usable, a bit more food and water, and a large, trunk-like suitcase inside which they packed all of their vital supplies. As the two boys sifted through large heaps of soot and debris, they also found things that hinted at the lives of the dwellings' owners- fishing rods and kabuki dolls, engraved penknives and gemstone jewelry. Natsuno instructed him not to take anything that looked like a family heirloom or a possession of sentimental value. At each ruin, Tohru left these dirty, broken pieces of a once-stable home gathered into a cleared-out circle and covered with whatever material he could find, just in case their owners were alive and might come back for them. Natsuno dug stoically, his arms and chest blackening, occasionally turning to hand Tohru a recovered trinket or photograph to add to the gathering.
The okiagari had known what was coming the moment they had started down this road. He had not spoken of it, fear swelling inside his silent heart until he felt as though he were made of nothing else. All too soon, Tohru found himself gazing up at the hollowed cavern of his own home, its windows staring down at him like accusing eyes. His body was caught in a constant shiver. Natsuno set down the suitcase and touched his arm, making him jump. "Come on," the jinrou said softly, squaring his shoulders toward the house. "We won't take anything you don't want."
Tohru clung to the other boy's arm as they approached the house together. He was scared. He was really scared…. His family…. He thought of Masao's corpse underneath the blanket, and Megumi's body rotting in the field. He thought of how he had given away everything good about himself for the promise that his family would not be targeted, would not be turned….and all that time, he had had no way of ensuring that the Kirishikis would actually keep their promise….
The front door had fallen off its hinges. It lay flat on its face like the corpse of the grocery store owner. The front hallway was blackened, smeared with soot. The roof had fallen in over the kitchen, blocking off that side of the building. Tohru could hardly bear to turn his head and keep his eyes open. He saw nothing that resembled a human form. Trembling, he crept behind Natsuno into the living room, which was also caved in. Nothing stirred. No flesh gleamed in the sudden moonlight. The okiagari sniffed and sniffed, but he could not smell blood, only ash.
From the living room, he could look straight up into his second-story bedroom, its floor in pieces all around his feet. His bed, his television, his game station, and everything he'd had on his carpet had fallen through and lay mangled all over the living room. However, the fire did not seem to have scorched the second-story walls as much as it had the first. His posters were still there, tattered but visible. He could see the score sheet he had used to keep track of individual scores when playing video games with Natsuno. The points were skewed almost exclusively to his side. On the wall opposite his door hung his photo board, still crammed with pictures and scribbled memos. He saw himself swimming in the lake with Aoi and Tamotsu. He saw his parents standing on either side of him on his eighteenth birthday. He saw himself and Natsuno sprawled out on the couch in this very living room. He was grinning at the camera with an arm draped casually over Natsuno's shoulders. The dark-haired boy was staring to the side, refusing to pose properly, with that pretending-to-be-exasperated-but-secretly-pleased look upon his relaxed face. The sunlight from the window in front of them lit both pairs of eyes.
Tohru stared up at the board, the burned edges of his bedroom towering high above his head. He felt like he was staring at his old life from the bottom of a grave, too dark and deep for him to reach up and grasp it. Looking was the only luxury he was allowed, and the more he looked, the more acutely aware he became of the emptiness of his house, the absence of his family. At least he had not found them dead, but…. He suddenly remembered the story Sunako had told him when she called him to Kanemasa, how she had searched and searched for her family through the years, how she had kept on searching even after so much time had passed that it would have been impossible to find them alive. He might never know what had happened to his mother and father, his sister and brother. These pictures, hanging high above his head like salvation denied, might be the last time he ever saw them.
Natsuno was no longer at his side. The jinrou was staring out the front door, narrowing his eyes suspiciously at the horizon. "We need to keep moving, Tohru. There's no one here. The sun will rise in less than three hours, and we're still not done."
Tohru felt something inside him shudder with grief and pain. He could not take his eyes off the pictures. He gave a little moan when Natsuno placed a hand on his shoulder and tried to steer him out of the room. The jinrou's sharp eyes joined his for a moment, and then Natsuno let go of him and picked something up off the floor. The next moment, Tohru cried out in shock as a small rock sailed upward toward the photo board. It bounced off the pin holding it to the wall, and the next moment pin, rock, and board all tumbled down into the living room. Natsuno caught the board with reflexive ease and handed it to the surprised okiagari. Tohru stared at him, hugging the board to his chest and feeling the pictures rustle against his shirt. Wordlessly, he followed the jinrou out into the frigid night air.
Natsuno loped along at a hurried pace, the suitcase bouncing off his thigh as they walked further down the road. Tohru thought he ought to say thank you for the pictures, but he knew which house they were going to stop at next, and it was obvious the jinrou did not want to talk at the moment. When they reached the dwelling Tohru remembered so well, he could not stifle a groan at the sight before him. Natsuno's house looked like a fireplace that had been allowed to burn down until only cinders were left. There was nothing to suggest there had once been a house there- only a spreading of rippled ashes, like a filthy pond. The scene was deserted. In front of him, the jinrou squeezed his eyes shut and rubbed his forehead, grating soot into his weary temples. Tohru tried to think of something comforting to say, anything- but before he could settle on something that wouldn't annoy his former friend, Natsuno had dropped the suitcase, swung the shovel over his shoulder, and begun to wade across the sea of incinerated debris. Tohru followed him in trepidation, glancing worriedly at the other's back. "Natsuno….?"
The dark-haired boy stopped walking at the base of a fire-ravaged tree at the edge of the ash spread. He kicked aside a few chunks of mangled wood and plunged the shovel's head into the ground, tossing up a layer of dust and soot that obscured the air around him. Tohru bit his lip and watched as the jinrou continued to dig, his bold, strong strokes eventually finding earth and burrowing into it. Natsuno breathed as he worked, the rhythmic sound echoing soothingly across the glen. Eventually a harsh metallic clang broke open the rhythm, causing Tohru to cry out and duck his head. When he looked up again, he saw Natsuno wrestling a square metal box out of the narrow hole he'd carved, shaking off the earth as he dragged it free. Curiously, the okiagari approached as the jinrou knelt down and gazed at the lock embedded into the box's side. Instead of inserting a key into it, he pressed it like a button- and the lid sprang open. Tohru's eyes widened as he stared down upon stacks and stacks of money. The paper currency filled the box from one end to the other, bundled together with bands and clips. Natsuno gave a curt nod of satisfaction and flipped the lid shut again, picking up the box and stuffing it into the backpack slung over his shoulder. Tohru blinked in amazement. "How did- where-?"
The jinrou tossed his head and stood up. "My parents have always been rather….unorthodox in their approaches to life and society. They distrust established organizations such as governments, banks, the public school system, and the marriage system. They like to go against the grain. My childhood was….uncommon, in a number of ways." He frowned, staring across the burned swath of ash. "However, after all that's happened, I can't say they were completely wrong. Society can fail you. So can life."
Tohru nodded, clutching his photo board more tightly. "I'm sorry about your house," he murmured sadly.
Natsuno shrugged. "It never really felt like a home anyway. Not with that girl always sneaking around in the bushes and old ladies stopping by to "check on us" for no reason. But my dad's furniture, though….and all of his tools….that's a loss. He would have hated to see that destroyed. He made a new chair for me to study in, right before I died. It took him forever to carve it. I wish that hadn't burned."
Tohru bit his lip again and allowed Natsuno a moment of silence to gather himself. He wished he could pull the chair out of the rubble, magically intact, as easily as the dark-haired boy had recovered his precious photos for him. It would never replace Natsuno's father or mother, but just in case neither of them ever saw their parents again, Tohru felt like they should both have something to remember them by. The jinrou's shoulders heaved as he sighed, and there seemed to be the slightest tremor in his step as he sloughed his way through the ashy lake and picked up the suitcase again. "We'll stop at the next few houses and do a quick search for blankets. That's all we have left to get, besides the medical blood at the Ozaki clinic. After that, we'll head back into the woods. I'd prefer to be back at the cabin before sunrise."
Tohru nodded fervently and hurried down the road after Natsuno. The jinrou did not look back at his decimated home. The next few houses yielded no salvaged blankets, and Natsuno seemed to decide it was not worth it to continue looking. They approached the Ozaki clinic as the stars nearest to the eastern horizon began to fade into subtle pricks of light. The clinic had not been spared by the fire, but since it was located on a slope in the middle of a clearing, it seemed to have been rescued from the most damaging ravages. Fire scars were everywhere, but the ceilings of both stories looked to be intact. Natsuno didn't waste time laying down his luggage and barging into the building. Tohru followed behind, feeling the dreaded crushing sensation return to his chest. He half-expected a certain long-haired, green-eyed nurse to come rushing out and scold them for being so noisy when there were patients sleeping upstairs. Ritsuko…. He would never see her here, or anywhere else, ever again. His grief and shame felt carved into his gut.
Whatever Natsuno was thinking or remembering, he did not let it slow him down as he made a beeline for the stairs and rushed to the second floor. He seemed to know where he was going, and Tohru jogged blindly behind until the jinrou reached a room that looked like it had been used for storage. The door was kicked open, and as the air inside rushed out, the okiagari found himself assaulted by the cloying scent within. For a moment, his eyes blazed and he could feel his fangs unsheathing from the ridge of his upper palate. Blood. Blood. Blood. The whole room- it was-
Tohru shuddered to a halt as he nearly bumped into Natsuno's back. The jinrou had stopped in the doorway, eyes narrowed as if confronting a foe, but all Tohru could see were empty plastic pouches of medical blood littering every surface of the room. The bags had been slashed open and the blood sucked out sloppily, as if by a great beast gorging itself. Dried blood spatters dotted the carpet and desks. The door of the refrigerator where the blood had been stored was torn off its hinges and embedded in the far wall. Tohru gaped at the scene before him, while Natsuno continued to glare, inhaling the room's air and tracing his fingers along the walls. Eventually he turned and looked directly into Tohru's eyes.
"Tatsumi has been here before us."
The okiagari could not tell which was more unwelcome- the awful sound of that name in his ears, or the torturous scent of blood as it swirled around him, promising sustenance and life and yet offering none. His fingers trembled as he clutched the wooden board in his arms, desperately trying to focus his mind on something else, anything else. It didn't work. It never did. This was why he had never been able to resist the urge to drink, even when every sensible voice in his mind was screaming at him to stop. The living blood of humans was something he needed, not just wanted but needed to feel warm, to feel safe, to feel alive again. It pulled him in. It hurt and healed him. It made him ugly and frightening and pathetic, but still he couldn't unbind himself from the desire to fill that unbearable emptiness created in him when he had left the natural order and become a Risen. He couldn't do this….he couldn't…. He knew he had to leave, but his feet wouldn't move- he couldn't move and he was trapped, helplessly wedged between life and death.
He was dimly aware of Natsuno's voice, his hands, and all of a sudden the okiagari's feet weren't on the ground anymore. He found himself outside in the fresh air, his head still splitting with the painful need for blood. The first thing he did upon touching the earth was to lunge, senseless, at the nearest source of satisfaction for his need.
A tremendous smack to the head jarred him out of his bloodlust. The okiagari hit the ground, blood streaming from his mouth. It took him a moment of stunned reeling to realize it wasn't his. He twisted his body to see Natsuno sitting upright a few feet away, clutching a bloody wound on the side of his neck and looking extremely temperamental. Tohru felt fear of a completely different kind well up inside him as his chest began to heave in horror at what he'd just done. "I'm so sorry! Oh god, I didn't mean to, I'm so sorry, Natsuno, please, I didn't want to do that! I'm so sorry, I-"
The jinrou stood up and Tohru cowered, holding out his hands as if to ward off the stronger vampire's anger. He almost wished Natsuno would just punch him across the clearing and call it even. Infinitely more than any physical violence, Tohru feared that his former friend would simply turn away, start walking, and refuse to let him follow. For a moment which seemed to swell into an eternity, Natsuno's eyes went black and it seemed like he would do just that. Tohru felt dizzy. His mind wouldn't work right. All he knew was that he couldn't bear it if Natsuno abandoned him. He couldn't be left all alone with the monster he had become.
The sudden rage in the jinrou's face rose to a boiling point, froze, and then slowly fell away like evaporating mist. Natsuno took deep breaths as his wound closed, pacing back and forth in a small arc until he finally glanced up at the looming hills and coughed deeply. He strode over to his pile of supplies, picking up the suitcase and the backpack.
Tohru's voice was small and pleading. "N-Natsuno…."
The jinrou glanced back at him, his dark eyes unreadable. "Dammit, Tohru. You are a real piece of work, you know that?"
The light-haired boy blinked, unsure of how to respond to this rather honest statement. He flinched as the other opened his mouth again, terrified his next words would be 'Get lost.'
Natsuno only scowled at the landscape behind them and jerked his head. "Come on. Grab the stuff. We're finished here. We need to get back to the cabin before sunrise."
Tohru swallowed hard as he scrambled to his feet, tasting the traitorous weight of his former friend's blood on his tongue. He couldn't speak. He hurried to heave the supplies and photo board into his arms as Natsuno started off for the trees, aiming for the base of the hill that would connect them to the way they had come. The stars were all faded now, flaring out along the rising rim of morning. Tohru barely noticed as he fell into step beside the jinrou, listening to the anxious beating of his heart. Natsuno scanned the lifting darkness and breathed deeply, like a wolf on alert for danger. His voice, when he spoke, was coiled and tense. "We need to go as fast as we can. This is what I was afraid of." He turned his blazing eyes on the okiagari again, but this time their anger was not meant for him. "We're not alone."