Amu looked at me meaningfully as she grabbed a cookie during the Guardian meeting on Monday. For once, there wasn't a lot for us to do, and so we were just enjoying our cookies and tea. However, I didn't want to be the one to tell the Guardians about Nikaido - I was already starting to get paranoid that he'd find out I was giving him away, in which case he might do something in retaliation. I tried to gesture to her in response, to get her to at least start the explanation. Amu got the message, but shook her head almost imperceptibly, clearly saying that she wanted me to be the one to tell them.
It was about then that I noticed that Nadeshiko was smiling laughingly at us from where she sat next to Amu. And that made me notice that the rest of the Guardians had gone quiet, staring at us and trying to figure out what was going on. I blushed, picked up a cookie, and started eating as if nothing had happened. Amu then caught on, and blushed and looked down.
"Hinamori-san? Yamada-san? Are you both alright?" asked Tadase.
Nadeshiko explained when both of us still refused to start the topic of Nikaido. "I think they just have something they'd like to tell us. Why don't you start, Amu-chan?"
Amu couldn't really avoid it now that she was being addressed directly, so she gave in. "Well..." she worked up her resolve. "We think that Nikaido - our teacher - might be responsible for the X-eggs. Miyuki suspected him first, and then when she told me a couple weeks ago, I started noticing that Nikaido was around a lot whenever we sensed an X-egg here."
She looked to me so I could confirm what she said. "Yeah. He acts really nice all the time, but..." I trailed off, not wanting to say any more in the event that I would give too much away. Everyone was serious now. Except perhaps Kukai, but he was at the very least attentively silent.
"Are you sure?" Yaya asked with a thoughtful pout on her face. "Yaya always thought your teacher was silly when he trips in the hallways."
"Your teacher does seem like such a goof!" Kukai said, laughing. "What made you think he was the one causing the X-eggs, Miyuki?"
"Well, uh... I guess it was... Well, when my friend Mai had an X-egg, Nikaido should have been there. I guess that must have been when I first started suspecting him." I said. I hoped my hesitancy wouldn't let the fact that I was lying show through.
"What do you think, Fujisaki-san?" Tadase asked.
"They told me about it this weekend, and so I've been thinking about it." Nadeshiko said. "I decided that it made sense, even if it was unlikely. We've seen so many X-eggs recently, and it does seem like they started appearing right around when he was hired as a new teacher."
"I'm not sure if I quite believe it..." Tadase said. "But if you three are convinced, then we should look into it. We can all keep an eye on Nikaido for any suspicious activity, as well as look for him whenever there are X-eggs around." Everyone agreed, so we decided to finish the Guardian meeting and head home for the night. I went out for my nightly X-egg harvest, making certain to stay clear of anywhere the Guardians could be. They would probably be more on alert now, since they knew the suspicion about Nikaido. I was starting to wonder if telling them had been the greatest idea. But what was done was done, and there was little I could do about it now except wait and see.
* * *
"All right, class, since there is only one more full week after this week before winter break, this will be your last poem." Nikaido announced the next day as he began passing out the sheets of poetry. The class cheered. Nikaido, acting completely ignorant as always, replied, "Yes, I know – I'm sure we'll all miss this wonderful poetry unit."
"Good riddance." I muttered under my breath.
"Did you say something, Mizuki-san?" Nikaido asked, walking over to my desk first.
I didn't know he had such good hearing. I'll need to keep that in mind. I thought. "Yes, I was just saying how much I would miss all this wonderful poetry as well, Nikaido-sensei." I said, my voice layered with sarcasm. A couple students nearby heard, and giggled. Despite this lightheartedness, my heart rate was increasing. I still had very little tolerance for Nikaido, even though I'd been putting up with him for... I thought back, trying to figure out how long it had been since the revelation of him being evil. Had it really only been two months? It seemed like an eternity.
"Ah, yes, it is quite sad that we won't be enjoying such fine poetry in class anymore." Nikaido answered, ignoring my sarcasm as always. "Of course, you could always enjoy poetry on your own, Mizuki-san."
He handed me my new poem and went on. I flipped it over and read, murmuring the words under my breath.
Caged Bird
BY MAYA ANGELOU
A free bird leaps
on the back of the wind
and floats downstream
till the current ends
and dips his wing
in the orange sun rays
and dares to claim the sky.
But a bird that stalks
down his narrow cage
can seldom see through
his bars of rage
his wings are clipped and
his feet are tied
so he opens his throat to sing.
The caged bird sings
with a fearful trill
of things unknown
but longed for still
and his tune is heard
on the distant hill
for the caged bird
sings of freedom.
The free bird thinks of another breeze
and the trade winds soft through the sighing trees
and the fat worms waiting on a dawn bright lawn
and he names the sky his own
But a caged bird stands on the grave of dreams
his shadow shouts on a nightmare scream
his wings are clipped and his feet are tied
so he opens his throat to sing.
The caged bird sings
with a fearful trill
of things unknown
but longed for still
and his tune is heard
on the distant hill
for the caged bird
sings of freedom.
I desperately hoped Nikaido wasn't implying something here. I was still holding out on the chance that Ikuto had been mistaken, and Easter had no way to trap me or trick me or control me in any way. But I had a feeling that with this poem, Nikaido was either trying to psych me out into thinking something that wasn't true, or else he was just stating the facts.
And if the latter was the case, then the caged bird was smarter than me in one respect - it hadn't been stupid enough to walk right into its own cage.
* * *
I was feeling down that evening, and was somewhat surprised when I found my feet leading me to a park. But not just any park – the park I had been at the last time I had received a new poem to memorize. And thanks to Azami's reminder the following day, I remembered everything about the experience. This had been the last place I had seen Ikuto, as well. I wondered if he came here often. Or, here's a thought – what if he had only been there that night to warn me about what he had heard? Was he going out of his way to help me? But that seemed silly; he didn't seem to really care about anyone except himself and Yoru.
As I got closer to the park, I heard the familiar pulse of loud music. It wasn't any song I recognized, and it sounded fairly unprofessional, but it was still good. When I walked into the park itself, it seemed to me like there was an entire music festival going on. Scattered all around the central area of the park were different local music groups, each rocking out to its own music. Some groups had large groups of people screaming support, while others just had one or two listening in. Some spectators were just milling about, switching from group to group so as to hear a little of everything.
I had been planning on doing some X-egg harvesting here again. I even had my X-egg bag with me, ready to go. But somehow… I didn't want to. Either that, or I simply couldn't bring myself to ruin the great mood that was in the air right now. I mean, this atmosphere was even cheering me up, which I really needed right now. I was realizing that the poems Nikaido chose for me always managed to make me feel gloomy. For once, I decided to simply enjoy myself. Azami seemed slightly disappointed by not taking such an obvious opportunity to get X-eggs, but she still seemed to like the music.
I started by just making my way through the entire event. Sometimes I would stop and listen to a single group for a couple of songs, and other bands I just skipped over all together. Eventually, I found myself drawn back a couple of the louder, more punk-rock music groups. Some of the songs they played I recognized, and other ones sounded original. I normally wasn't a huge fan of this genre, but now that I thought about it, punk just sort of seemed to fit my personality in some respects.
I think I had probably been there for about an hour when I heard it. Something different than the loud, happy tunes I'd been listening to. I followed it, slowly drifting from the main body of people out into a different part of the park. Whatever it was, it was a wordless melody of sorrow. It sounded like it might be a violin, but I'd never been an expert on instruments and wasn't entirely sure. As I began to turn a corner to see where the sound was coming from, it suddenly cut off. Thinking I'd been found out by perhaps someone who wanted to keep his (or her) playing a secret, I quickly ducked into some bushes. When I heard no one coming after me, I snuck ahead as quietly as I could, keeping beneath the shadows of the trees and other foliage.
Once I thought I was near where the song had been coming from, I took a cautious peek out of the bushes and nearly gasped. At the top of a set of stairs was Ikuto, violin in one hand. And while that was shocking enough (I hadn't expected Ikuto to be much of an instrumental kind of guy), what surprised me even more was whom he was talking to: Amu. I was about twenty feet away, and they were talking too softly for me to hear. And there was no way I could move closer without them seeing me.
As quietly as I could, I asked, "Azami, can you hear what they're saying?"
Azami shook her head. She whispered into my ear, "I would, if not for all the background music from the festival."
Suddenly, Amu spoke up enough so that I could hear. "Please, Ikuto! Just play a bit more. It was such a beautiful song."
Ikuto answered something that I couldn't hear, but that made Amu turn red.
"Fine! I don't need to listen to your music, anyway." Amu responded as she crossed her arms and turned away from Ikuto.
It seemed like Ikuto chuckled or something like that, but then he lifted his violin to his chin and began to play. Amu turned around as the first notes filled the air. My mouth practically hung open in awe. There Ikuto was, framed by the full moon in the sky behind him, playing his beautiful yet sad song. The music also affected the Darkness (as I was now calling the dark energy, now with a capital 'D') within me. Unlike Utau's song, this tune just made the Darkness feel like it was weighing me down with sorrow and guilt, until I felt almost certain I would just fall onto the ground in sadness.
I saw Amu, and she had a look of wonder on her face. Perhaps it was simply the lack of proper light, but I would have almost sworn that she also had a look of admiration on her face. And perhaps, even, something more. The Darkness in me swelled, with what had previously been a relatively rare feeling for me: jealousy. I wasn't even sure what I was jealous of. Perhaps it was seeing one of my closest friends paying so much attention to someone other than me, though that sounds silly. More likely, I was jealous that Ikuto was actually playing his violin for Amu. He had never done that for me. Or maybe it was both possibilities making me jealous.
Then the jealousy turned to anger. I still didn't know what I was jealous or angry at. I wanted to shut up the people at the music festival behind me, make Ikuto stop playing his violin, and I mainly just wanted everyone to be completely gone. Ikuto stopped playing, but the feeling remained. Then Ikuto muttered something to Amu under his breath, smirking.
"Of course I don't!" Amu said, turning red again.
Ikuto said something else, and Amu seemed to get even angrier. Or perhaps embarrassed. "I'll just leave then!" She shouted. She turned around and started stomping away. I watched her for a few seconds, then looked back to see how Ikuto was reacting. But he had disappeared. Amu turned around as well, and seemed initially sad that he was gone. But then she said something to herself (or maybe to her charas) and walked off, back towards all the other music.
"Azami, follow Amu and tell me if she leaves the park or not. I don't want her to see me." I said.
Azami grinned. "So we're now spying on Amu? You sure you want to do that?"
"Just do it." I said. I was still in a horrible mood. Azami flew off in pursuit, and I sat down on the ground, my thoughts rapidly going downhill.
Is Ikuto giving Amu special treatment? Why? He probably hates me. He probably never cared about me at all. I bet Easter ordered him to try and get me to trust him. Maybe that was their plan to get control of me. I bet the whole crystal thing was just a lie! He was probably just saying it to hurt and confuse me. He definitely hates me. And I hate him! Stupid black cat!
My thoughts continued on this course, and I was silently raging by the time Azami made it back. "So? Did she leave?" I asked.
"Yes." Azami said. "It looked like she was heading back to her house. So could you remind me why you're having me do your spying for you?"
"Because you're a lot smaller, obviously." I said impatiently. "Anyway, let's go. I don't want to hang around here any more."
I got up and began walking away without another word. I started cutting through the trees and bushes in the direction of my house, but as I did, I neared the music festival, which was still going full tilt.
What is there to be so happy about? I thought rebelliously, forgetting that I had joined them just a little bit ago. Why can't they all just shut up? It's just a bunch of racket, having so many groups playing and singing at once. I just stood there in the shadows of the trees for probably a good ten minutes, my anger absolutely boiling. I didn't know if Azami was sharing my feelings or not since she was remaining silent, but I could tell by the increasingly frequent flicking of her tail and shuffling of her wings that she was definitely agitated about something.
I broke the silence first. "Azami, let's chara-nari. We're going to get some X-eggs tonight, after all." I didn't care if Amu probably close enough to feel the character transformation or not – I just wanted to shut up all these stupid, happy people. I needed to take my anger out on something.
Azami smiled excitedly. "Now you're talking!" Power rose inside of me, and it started.
"My own heart – unlock!" The dark fog enveloped me, and I felt the changes. The black dress replaced my regular clothes, and my wings, tail, and horns all appeared as they should.
"Chara-nari: Dark Dragon!" I noticed for the first time that my transformation did seem quite a bit more powerful since my last X-energy power boost. I ran through the trees, found a spot that was open to the sky, then jumped up and flapped my wings. I circled above the crowd, sneering with distaste.
"Let 'em have it!" Azami encouraged.
I stopped in the air and hovered. "Hopeless Haze!" I said, perhaps louder than was really necessary. Flames appeared in both of my hands, each giving off a lot of smoke. I didn't blow the smoke away this time. I simply directed where I wanted it to go with my mind. The smoke gathered and sunk down, until a fairly thick haze covered the crowd. The music died down, then stopped all together. The excited listeners seemed to droop. Not everyone gave up an X-egg, but everyone did seem to lose any awareness of the world around them. I grinned evilly, then swopped down and began to gather the disoriented eggs from the smoke. I managed to cram about twenty-five or so eggs into my bag before it was packed tight, and there were still about ten floating around. I breathed deeply in the refreshing smell of the smoke, highly satisfied with the night's work.
The haze was beginning to fade, and I got the feeling that someone was watching me. I was still in the air, so I scanned the ground below me. On one side of the haze, Ikuto was standing, watching with cool indifference. I flew down and landed next to him, my tail swishing back in forth due to my want to get back in the sky.
I was still angry with him for my unknown reasons, so I decided to mess with him a bit. "You know, those X-eggs will probably come to their senses in a couple minutes. Think about all the havoc they could wreak." It helped that my dragon character could be fairly evil, and hence the somewhat maniacal enjoyment I was getting out of this whole situation.
Ikuto didn't respond. Though his eyes looked uncaring, it seemed like he didn't approve. I continued, "I don't know what you were doing at the Utau concert, but you seemed pretty interested in X-eggs then. I've collected as many as I can for tonight and I'm not in the mood for target practice, so you're welcome to do what you want with the ones that are left. Or you could just stay to see what happens if they are left as-is. I think I'll be watching, either way." I jumped up and began circling again, not waiting for a reply. Ikuto stayed where he was for probably about half a minute. Then he glowed with the light of character transformation, and I heard him call out –
"Chara-nari: Black Lynx!" As I flew above, I watched as he began to destroy the remaining eggs one by one. The remnants of my haze were still lingering, making the eggs slower and easier to catch. Both Azami and I watched with a sort of distorted sense of amusement.
Then, I saw movement on the ground as someone rapidly approached the scene. I was certainly glad that I'd decided to watch from above – the visitor was Amu. I guessed she had either sensed my chara-nari, or the massive amount of X-eggs. Ikuto had just grabbed the last egg and had it in his hand when Amu made her presence known.
"Ikuto! What are you doing? What happened to all these people?" Amu asked, her eyes hurt. I felt a bit of guilt at this, but brushed it away. That kind of feelings had no place in my character transformation.
"Just cleaning up someone else's mess." Ikuto said indifferently. I noticed that his hand started clenching tighter on the X-egg, and it let out little cries of protest. It reminded me almost exactly of when I first character transformed and did the same thing.
"Stop it! That's someone's dreams!" Even as Amu spoke, the egg shattered.
Amu looked stunned for a moment, and Ikuto remained looking as uncaring as always. Then Amu shouted out, "How could you do that?!?" Ikuto stayed silent. Amu looked even more hurt by his indifference than when he had actually broken the egg. "I hate you!" She shouted, a couple of tears streaming down her face. Ikuto didn't reply. I grinned – the monster of jealousy inside me had been satisfied.
Whether I wanted to help Ikuto out of his little confrontation with Amu or just add a bit more confusion into the mix, I'm not sure. Either way, I whispered my customary 'Hopeless Haze' attack, and sent pillars of smoke billowing down, engulfing both Amu and Ikuto. I was expecting Ikuto to just run and save himself, but as the smoke cleared, I realized something was wrong.
Ikuto hadn't run away. He was standing off to one side of the festival area, with Amu in his arms. I was offended. Would he have done that for me? I wondered. Ikuto was glaring up at me. My rage built to the point where I wanted to attack both of them, but I knew that now wasn't the time. Instead, I flew off to my house, leaving before the stunned Amu could follow Ikuto's gaze.
I got in bed almost as soon as I got home. But as I sat in the darkness, waiting for sleep to come, I realized what I had just done. The evening seemed like a dream, with vivid images being recalled and anything in between them being too blurry to remember well.
The Darkness must have made me go insane for a while. I thought as two silent tears of shock ran down my face. How could I be jealous of either Amu or Ikuto? How could I get so angry at them? How could I attack either of them? That was definitely the X-energy deciding for me. I had absolutely no real reason for that extreme of a reaction. But…
Do I really get that much enjoyment out of creating all those X-eggs? And what about when I was talking to Ikuto and getting him to destroy the rest of the X-eggs? Do I even feel guilty about ruining the lives of so many people at that festival? And if all these things are true, is it really that bad? I do want to be a dragon, and dragons don't care about others, as long as they get what they want. And I attacked Amu and Ikuto so willingly – I thought I was her friend, but if I can do that so easily, can that really be true? Have I just been joking myself all this time? If it was that easy, do I even need friends?
But tonight, how much was the X-energy influencing the actions and how much was actually me?
So I felt like I rushed my explanation in this chapter, but from now on I will often be referring to the dark feeling inside Me/Miyuki as 'the Darkness' (with the capital D). This is just because it really needed a definite name, since I refer to it so much.
Also, thanks to the whopping eight people who took my poll about the general quality of my story! I still encourage anyone who hasn't yet to take it to help me improve on my story. However, I have a new poll on my profile now~! This is about how everyone thinks I should continue my story after the mini-climax. I've got several options, mainly focusing around (1) - just continuing it all as one massive fanfic, or (2) splitting it up into different parts, though several possibilities with my labeling of these possible parts are different choices. The main thing with one huge fanfic would be... well, if I continue at this pace, it would be next to impossible for anyone to ever beat my fic in length. As I've said, I'm highly competitive. On the other hand, splitting it into different parts would make it much more manageable. So please just let me know through the poll. Though, in truth, the REAL best way to let me know how you feel is to review~! Thanks to everyone!