Brightest of Shadows Chapter 3: The Real Me
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Hey everybody! So I got a pm from someone asking when all of these events are taking place and I just want to clarify that while it is currently following the canon of the first game it will eventually branch off into its own canon. Hope this clears up any confusion, so without further ado, onto the chapter!
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It was only a few minutes before Sachiko returned to the classroom where she had left Yami, and she had received an interesting surprise when she did finally enter the room, after silently standing outside of the door for at least a good 5 minutes with her thoughts.
In the time that she had been gone, which was 20 minutes at the most, even if the time that she was gone was extended in the slightest by her standing outside of the door, Yami had somehow not only found himself a piece of chalk, but was now slowly and methodically drawing an extremely detailed picture of none other than he and Sachiko flying over a large fissure in the ground. Obviously just a reference to the gap in the floorboards from earlier, but that did little to quell the surprise that shot through the young ghost girl.
"Um... That's-... That's actually very good..." Sachiko muttered without even realizing it, alerting Yami to the presence of his new friend behind him, prompting him to turn around with a huge smile on his face, which had been dusted white from the left over chalk.
"You like it Sachiko-chan? I made it just for you!" Yami explained with a sort of innocent pride in his voice that Sachiko hadn't heard for years; the pride of a child trying to impress a crush or a new friend. Unfortunately, before Sachiko was able to think of a suitable response to her new friend's question, he decided to throw another one at her, one that caught her completely off guard; something that was becoming quite commonplace around him. "Hey... Sachiko-san? Why did you make all of those people ghosts? Did they do something bad?..."
"H-... How do you know about that?!" Sachiko shrieked, her eyes flaring up in a purple tint as she moved on the defensive, while her powers slammed all of the doors in the room shut, at first frightening the boy standing at the chalkboard, although his demeanor quickly shifted back to one of calm happiness.
"I told him..." A voice from the other side of the room uttered, shifting Sachiko's attention to the southern wall, where a ghost girl with a missing eye stood, nervously clutching her hands in front of her flat chest, all while Sachiko sent a glare her way that would have killed her, had she not already been dead. "Hello Sachiko-san... Miss me?"
"Yuki-san! Why the hell would you tell him that?!" Sachiko screeched, teleporting over to Yuki, trying to get in her face in an effort to have Yuki call herself a liar.
"I figured he should know... After all, you are the reason we're all here in the first place..." Yuki explained, completely unfazed by Sachiko's threatening approach; after all Yuki was already dead, how much more could Sachiko possibly do to cause her any forms of pain, especially considering that Yuki was no longer afraid.
"And that doesn't mean that I'm allowed to do what I want?! I don't recall my mother giving you power over my actions! Now let me spend time with my new friend!..." Sachiko's rant stopped nearly as fast as it had started when she realized what she had said, to which she could only supplement her mistake with, "Oops..."
"Friend? I thought you said you never wanted to have any friends who are still alive?" Yuki hissed, letting spiritual fire erupt in her remaining eye while she moved even closer to Sachiko, making the ghost girl back away from another spirit for the very first time. "Why don't you just kill him Sachiko-san... Like you killed all of us like the monster you are..."
"Um... I'm still here you know!..." Yami chimed in nervously, clanking up almost immediately afterwards when not only one but two glares were sent his way by both Sachiko and Yuki, although Yami's gaze was inadvertently drawn to Sachiko in particular, and that was when he noticed it; the deep sadness, regret, and even loneliness resting in her eyes like a virus.
"No..." Sachiko muttered, turning back to Yuki as she clenched her fists in a way that told Yuki that if she continued her current path, she would get nowhere in damaging Sachiko's emotions. "I'm not going to hurt him, and that's final!"
"Fine... If you won't kill him then I'll send him back to his world so that you can't talk to him! You don't deserve friends!" Yuki shrieked, visually preparing to lunge at Yami, only to be blocked by Sachiko, who was now radiating with a mysterious dark power that enveloped her body like a shroud of malevolence.
"You so much as touch a hair on his head and I'll cut your tongue out all over again you-..." Sachiko froze when she finally put the pieces together. Yuki hadn't been able to speak since Sachiko had killed her; how on earth did was she speaking now? Sachiko knew the answer to this question, although she sorely wished she hadn't; Yuki's tongue was back in her mouth, appearing as if it had never been removed from her mouth by Sachiko scissors in the first place. "Wait just a minute! How did you get your tongue back?!"
"A nice girl that shares your last name, along with her friend, returned it to me... But that still doesn't excuse what you've done; and I'm not going to let you do it to anybody else!..." Yuki said before walking over to Yami and placing a solitary ethereal hand on his shoulder, causing him to shiver slightly at the lack of warmth coming from Yuki's hand. "Go on Sachiko-san, tell Yami-san why you kill so many innocents... Does he know why, or who, you do it for?"
"I-... I just need to make her happy! No one else ever gave a damn about me! I'm not going to let her down!..." Sachiko finally admitted as the power she had been calling on dissipated, while small tears slowly began to form in her eyes, the first tears that she had experienced in so many years. Sachiko hated the feeling, tears were for weak little girls, not powerful spirits such as herself. Why did she have to be a little girl as well?
"You let her down a long time ago Sachiko-san..." Yuki muttered quietly, watching with a sad frown on her face as Sachiko silently mumbled to herself, wandering around the room, before glancing back over towards Yami and Yuki just in time for Yuki to say, "You're nothing but a monster..."
Yami couldn't even believe his eyes as he observed Sachiko, his first friend in this strange school, mentally breaking down directly in front of him. He wanted to do something, anything, to help Sachiko in her time of need. He wanted to run over and just hug her and tell her that everything was okay, but something prevented him from moving a muscle. Whether it was Yuki's power or his own nerves he would never know however.
Meanwhile Sachiko, who had retreated to the door, stumbled as she used her powers to release the spell on the door that trapped the three occupants before she finally gave up on holding back the tears that had been threatening to spill over, sobbing loudly as she felt the salty liquid drip down her cheeks. Before either Yami or Yuki could say anything to console Sachiko, she was already gone, rushing down the hallway at incredible speed, not even bothering to close the rickety door behind her, leaving Yami and Yuki back in the classroom.
"Wait! Sachiko-chan, come back!..." Yami cried as he found the strength to break out of the hold that had previously overcome him, before running full tilt over to the doorway that lead out into the hall, unfortunately by the time that he arrived Sachiko had vanished completely, along with any signs that she had ever been there in the first place. Growling harshly in what was most likely the first time in his life, Yami whipped his vision in the direction of Yuki, who was staring fixedly at the chalk picture of Yami and Sachiko. "That was just plain mean... If she says she won't hurt me then I trust her, and I understand you must be angry for what happened to you, but what if Sachiko-chan is actually a nice person under the anger that she has to keep up because people like you always insult her!"
"I know what I said was mean, but someone had to tell her that what she was doing was wrong, and this is the first time I've been able to speak in so long!" Yuki stated, more out of spite than anything else, but she still couldn't risk anyone else falling into the hands of Sachiko.
"I still think you could have told her in a nicer way... She doesn't seem like she's all that evil..." Yami mumbled as he crossed his arms over his chest, before walking out of the classroom and out into the hall with the intent to find Sachiko, where-ever she had run off to.
"She is; she will wait until your guard is down... And she'll brutally murder you..." Yuki said, not moving any father than the doorframe, fearing that Sachiko could possibly be waiting in the shadows.
However, Yami was unfazed by Yuki's warning. "Then I'll take my chances... She's my friend, and I won't let my friend be sad..."
"I wish you luck then Yami-san... God knows you'll need it around Sachiko-san, you poor innocent minded child..." Yuki whispered as she observed Yami walking off into the halls in search of Sachiko...
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Yami was sure he had been walking for hours on end by the time he finally found himself back at the classroom he had left in search of Sachiko. Throughout his entire trek he had passed corpse upon corpse that were both old and new. Eventually he found himself at the school infirmary, and consequently, Sachiko, who was sitting on one of the infirmary beds, not facing Yami.
"...Hey... Sachiko-chan?..." He tried nervously, cautiously drawing over to the ghost girl with a little more apprehension than he would have desired, but who could blame him after Yuki's grim warning to him, especially considering he was only a boy up against a ghost; friend or not.
"What are you doing here?... Didn't you hear what Yuki-san said?..." Sachiko responded without even bothering to turn around to acknowledge Yami. "I'm just a murderous monster..."
"I don't think you are..." Yami mumbled under his breath, although despite this, Sachiko was still able to hear Yami's statement.
"You don't?..." Sachiko responded meekly, finally turning to Yami for the first time since he had first entered the infirmary; and it was then that Yami saw that Sachiko's face was stained with tears. "Why wouldn't you Yami-chan?... I'm the cause of all of these peoples suffering..."
"Isn't there some way you could reverse it?... Any way at all?..." Yami finally asked, before sitting down on the school infirmary bed next to Sachiko, and surprisingly instead of moving away Yami noticed that Sachiko had in fact shuffled closer to him to the point that their shoulders were touching ever so slightly, although Yami registered this as no more than Sachiko accidentally moving towards him while she was thinking.
"Well yes it would be pretty simple to do but-..." Sachiko trailed off as new tears formed in her eyes, supplementing the already miserable looking girl even further. It was then that Yami noticed it; Sachiko's eyes. They were no longer filled with hatred, cynicism, or even the slightest hint of malicious intent; rather they seemed like they had been injected with the first dose of life they had experienced in a very long time.
"But what?..." Yami asked after a few awkward moments when he realized he had been staring into Sachiko's eyes for quite some time.
"My mother... If I don't keep bringing her new people to play with then she might lose herself and... And I just can't disappoint my mom!..." Sachiko wailed, never even registering that Yami had been staring into her eyes for the last few seconds, since by the time that she glanced over at him once again his eyes had already reverted to their previous position, staring at the wall beside them.
"That's the thing about mothers though Sachiko-chan..." Yami mused, smiling softly as he and Sachiko finally looked each other in the eye for the first time since Yami had entered the room. All the while, tears were beginning to well up in Sachiko's eyes once again. "No matter what you do, you can never disappoint them... I bet your mother would be proud of you whether or not you bring her new people to play with... She loves you no matter what..."
Sachiko could only fling her arms around Yami's neck and cry loudly into his chest, letting her true emotions take over... Just this once...
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So I hope that you all enjoyed this chapter! Don't worry, the story will include some actual romance in it soon enough, but for now I must continue to write! Until next time my minions!