Chapter 12: "Badmoon Rising"
After finishing my soak, I dress in my nightgown, and walk, slightly tired, into my room, stretching hard when I get there. It is a little early for me to go to bed, but my mind is exhausted after that nightmare, and if I do not get some good sleep, I will be unable to function well in school tomorrow. I will not be able to confront Seo.
That nightmare, it was vicious. Even now, I still feel a little bit at ill-ease. My body has returned to a more or less normal state, but my mind is still seeing brief glimpses, flashbacks. Of my folly. Of his victory. Of all of the grim implications that both my death and "him" having my body would imply.
It would be a catastrophe, and something I no longer wish to think about. I have thought about it enough over the last hour and a half, until the bath water grew cold, and then the hot water tank ran out of hot water itself.
I pull away the blankets of my bed, and crawl inside carefully, covering myself up, moaning slightly from deep in the back of my throat as I feel my body heat begin to warm the trapped air. I take a look at my new wall-scroll painting that I had purchased yesterday, of autumn leaves falling from a tree, and it relaxes my mind somewhat.
With that, I clear my thoughts, close my eyes, sigh softly, and focus on drifting off into sleep.
My eyes flutter open. As they begin to focus and my consciousness resumes, I impulsively check the clock.
...1:18 AM.
I sigh. I had went to bed about a hour earlier than usual, but even then I should have slept for about another three hours.
My body was not very tired, though. That is the problem.
The body's tiredness determines sleep, rarely the brain's. Even though I had woken up at my usual time, my body had not been through enough yesterday to warrant sleeping for seven or eight hours; it only needed a little over five. My mind was what took most of the toll, and the mind never truly stops working, even when the body is in a state of unconsciousness.
Discontentedly, I throw my covers off of me. Almost immediately, the slight but pleasant chill in the air meets my legs, and begins to work its way up my otherwise nearly undressed body. I shiver, but it is a good shiver, that I enjoy.
I walk back over to the window. Another lovely night. The moon is a little more than half full.
Paradoxically, sometimes, nights like this are so bright, it will blind you.
When seeing things like this, or any similar scene such as a forest, every so often I just stop and take it all in, looking around, marveling at the natural gift before my eyes. And I begin to think.
I think about myself. I think about who I am. I think about how I act the way I do, about how I think the way I do, about why I want the things I do.
I think about what made me... me.
For really, consciousness is but a person — a single, moldable, shapeable lifeform — adjusted through experiences. Even if there is someone out there that looks exactly identical to me, and even somehow has a similar cursed bloodline and abilities as mine, they can never truly be Tohno Akiha. It is impossible.
This is because we are all shaped by our experiences. The experiences I had in life... there is no way that anyone could ever have the exact same experience. Even if the very same events happen, the forces of chaos would result in a different reaction, however subtle.
This, then, is the genesis of what we consider humanity. Consciousness. The self. An animal, given sentience and the ability to reason, develops individuality, the ability to recognize itself as "me."
From there, things grow by leaps and bounds.
The ability to associate others into roles. Family. Friends. Romantic interests. People whom you would love to meet. People whom you never want to meet.
The ability to decide what one wants or does not want. I enjoy western food, but I am not fond of intensely sour dishes. I enjoy sweets, but too much sweetness hurts my teeth. I... desire Nii-san, and can see no other person fulfilling that void in my life as well as I know he would.
The ability to barter, to come to agreement. I could tell how caustic this place was to Kohaku, so I granted her request to leave. Although I dislike cats, Len is on the whole not a bad one, and she is rather pretty in her human form. Even though I dislike how he leaves the house at night, I allow Nii-san to do so...
...Hmm.
...Now that I think about that, I think I am beginning to see why Nii-san snuck out so many times when he arrived here a year ago. There is an odd calm and peace to the night. A sense of tranquility, a place where, like I so desire, that one can simply sit, and take it all in... and think.
Perhaps a walk on such a night like this would be good for my mental state. Besides, if I do not do it now, it might be snowing soon, and then it will be considerably more difficult and less enjoyable. I am very intolerant of cold.
...Yes. That is what I will do. My mind needs time to straighten things out. I throw off my nightgown from my body, and begin to get dressed.
I walk out of my room, fully dressed and in my long red button-up dresscoat for nights such as this. Unlike Nii-san, I will tell Hisui that I am going, at least, so I walk to her room to check on her.
I open her door quietly, and I notice that she is on her side, on her bed. It seems she has just fallen asleep from her latest round. I also cannot help but smile slightly at the tranquil, almost serene expression on her face, and how pretty it looks on her. It makes me feel a little better to know that at least she is free of worries, for the most part.
I glance at the small clock she has hanging on the nearby wall; it is approximately 1:30 AM now, so she will no doubt be sleeping until 2:30 AM. I do not wish to wake her, so I just inform her on a note that I will be taking a moonlight walk, that I have the keys to unlock the doors, and that I will return around 5:30 AM at the latest.
I walk out of the mansion as quietly as I can, locking the door behind myself, and then out of the gate, which I also re-lock. It is now about 1:40 in the morning, according to the watch on my right wrist. The cool air flows over my face and glides through my hair with the rest of my body being covered by my dress, and so it feels pleasant to me.
I put the keys into one of my pockets, and I begin to walk.
Normally, of course, most women would not be out at this time of night. Especially not women my age. They would be prime targets for any murderers, or rapists, or other criminals who would prowl the streets, looking for a vulnerable young woman.
Anyone who would choose me as their target, however, would regret it immediately. With "him" dead, there are no terrors prowling the town that I know of. Arcueid-san or Ciel-san might know more, of course, but they would likely be prowling the night as I am now. Coming upon them would be pure chance.
...But perhaps I will?
It is, after all, not unheard of to meet someone at this time of night. While it would be incredibly unlikely, there are, of course, still people who enjoy the night life, as I do, but with wholly different ideas about enjoying it. These people are able to enjoy the fact that they can relax and have a night on the town because of people like me.
One whom they would probably never meet. They would certainly never meet Arcueid-san or Ciel-san... well, if they met Ciel-san, she could make them forget about it, anyway. But I would be the most "visible" of us all because of my heritage. The Tohno are a well-known family even among the Misaki commons, and it is not unheard of for people whom I have never met to occasionally make small talk with me.
After all, humans are social creatures... and Tohno Akiha is half human.
I will smile and chat amicably with them, but of course... nearly all of them never get closer to me than an occasional conversation. Most of the time, it is simply the occasional stranger asking me for the time, or if I can spare 100 yen or something small like that. As it were.
I walk towards downtown. The night is crisp, but not unbearably so, and my dresscoat keeps me quite warm. I take in the sights, of the yellowish glow of sodium streetlights, of the bright neon signs that glow all kinds of colors in shops open 24 hours a day, of the occasional deep, red lights of cars passing me by on the adjacent road.
I think about the past few days. It... has been interesting so far, I must admit. Kohaku helped me get over a large amount of paperwork I was really not looking forward to doing. Seo seems to have a romantic attraction to me.
...Of course, I could do without the anniversary that is coming up.
Thursday. Halloween, in most western cultures, they call it. But to me, it will be the anniversary of when the demon who took over Tohno Akiha and Nii-san fought. It was technically after midnight and so the next day, but that was the day that the demon nearly killed Nii-san. It was the day she was planning to do it.
I will be sure to have my work done early. I know myself. I know I will not want to do anything unless I absolutely must do it, on that day. That day will be best spent if I can shove it aside as much as possible. That day, will be a day I will just want to sit in the courtyard, drink some tea, and think about anything, anything at all, but "One year ago, I nearly killed Nii-san today."
Kohaku will be back the next night, though. That might help some.
...Strange.
It is strange how I turn to her, really, in my time of need. But then again, I always have. When the pains wracked my body, Kohaku was there. When I needed something, Kohaku was there. When the inversion impulse had nearly taken me over... Kohaku was there.
It was all a part of her plan, back then. Her plan to get back at the Tohno family, and I was just an unwitting participant in the grand play. I was half-aware that she was up to something, and so I allowed it, because I felt sympathy for her and what she had went through... but I did not know it reached quite that far. I did not know that, to her, I was just as much of a monster, simply by virtue of my heritage.
But Nii-san was an unfactored character. She did not count on me loving him so much that I would immediately have him return to my life as soon as Otou-sama had died. She had to quickly place him in. That, however, was too quick for even her warped mind to factor properly, and her gamble and play came to a crashing halt when he returned the ribbon she had given him when he left, nine years ago.
That ribbon... that is what really saved our lives. All of our lives. Kohaku might have saved mine and Nii-san's, but that ribbon is what saved hers...
Perhaps it is penance, or guilt, or simply a catharsis for her that is making her return week after week. I do not know. I do know she regrets her actions now, and the very real pain and guilt she showed when I asked her if she regretted it was all too real. All I know is that she continues to come, week in and week out, ensuring that I do not overwhelm Hisui, that everything is fine, that I am doing reasonably well. And even though I have tried to recompense her, she insists that merely my company and seeing Hisui is payment enough.
Complimentary. Kohaku has essentially been my mother figure for years, even though she is not much older than I am. Oka-sama* died not very long after I was born. I have no memories of her. Otou-sama would speak kindly of her, before his inversion. Afterward... I believe she ceased to exist for him.
...I wonder what Oka-sama would have been like, really? All I have of her are a few pictures, some keepsakes, and some stories Otou-sama had told me. I do not know much more of her other than those. I resemble her slightly, but she was perhaps slightly more full-figured than I was.
It is a shame she died so young. If only she had managed to survive... perhaps all of this, none of this, would have happened. I would certainly be asking her for advice on all of my problems, and more.
I chuckle slightly, morbidly. Attachment to a dead parent, to a parent whom I scarcely even know... now you are being silly, Tohno Akiha.
...But then again, If I was able to get advice from her on these things, I would not be who I am. I would still be Tohno Akiha, but not the Tohno Akiha that I am. I would be a very different one.
Whether that is for better, or for worse... I cannot say.
I impulsively stick my hands in my pockets. My fingers find the keys in my left pocket and play with them slightly. A song fills the air around me.
...I might have had a slightly more normal upbringing if Oka-sama had not passed away so early, I suppose. The sad thing is, she was not much older than I am now when she did — she was only about 24 years of age.
I, myself, will be 24 in only seven years.
But according to extended family, her death... is really what began to send Otou-sama down the path of Inversion Impulse. Once Oka-sama died... he knew he had to raise "him" alone to be head of the family. In order to ensure this, he obtained two Synchronizers from a branch of the Fujyou family — twin girls, Hisui and Kohaku. Jade and Amber.
And he put them to immediate use. Nominally, Hisui and Kohaku both helped out with household chores. Hisui took to her tasks with an incredible zeal. She never seemed to mind doing that sort of work at all... in fact, she sometimes acted as if it were almost some kind of game, some kind of competition, with "Nee-tan." A competition to see whom could clean the house faster, to earn Otou-sama's praise.
Hisui won this competition every single time.
The reason why? Simple. Kohaku took as long as possible as she could to clean because it was one of the few times she was away from Otou-sama. When she knew that he would not suddenly turn to her with a hungry look in his eyes and be pulling her dress up, pulling her underwear off, and inserting a penis far larger than an eight year-old child's vagina could ever accommodate.
And it only increased after "he" inverted, nearly killed the one who would take his identity, and thrust me into an unusual paradox — normally, the head of succession in the Tohno cannot be female, and female Tohno are rare, and yet necessity required it to be so. Otou-sama had no other heirs.
...And Kohaku was too young to become pregnant.
Still... when one pushes so many burdens on one so young... it is no wonder Kohaku became what she did. In addition to cooking, and cleaning, and tending to me on occasion, there was what Otou-sama did to her...
For somewhere around six years, Otou-sama's days were spent teaching me all manners of things by day, and raping a child by night, against even his own will. The child's screams and cries of terror, after several days would turn into begging him to stop, slowly turning into yelps and grunts of pain, then into simply tearful sobs, then sniffles, and then simply nothing at all, no emotions or even noises whatsoever, as she was ravished at an age where a girl should be more concerned with how pretty she looks in a dress.
I sigh. I feel bitterness in my heart for not having known that, but... as a child myself only a year younger than Kohaku... how could I have known, really? I had no concept of gender differences — not from a sexual point of view, anyway; I knew that boys and girls had different anatomy between their legs, but well... I did not know that the purpose of them, besides using the bathroom, was for the female to receive the male in that way.
Nor did I ever realize that when I talked about what Otou-sama had taught me today, that Kohaku gave... a rather sad smile and a slightly vacant look in her eyes as she nodded and said things like "I hope that you learn a lot from him, Akiha-sama."
I shudder violently.
These images, those words... they are burned into my memories for reasons I cannot explain, and my blood grows horribly cold when I remember them, like every drop in my arteries, veins, and capillaries just suddenly turned into ice water.
Simply put, I had no way of knowing that was exactly what Otou-sama was doing every single day to Kohaku, and when I did, I put an immediate stop to it, in a highly selfish manner. But... by then, really, it was merely a formality; the damage had been done, and Kohaku as she might have been had, for all intents and purposes, died.
If I had known earlier though, perhaps I could have stopped Otou-sama far earlier, and Kohaku would have been able to heal, and the events of last year would have never—
I feel the hair on the back of my neck surprisingly stand up. I stop walking instinctively.
I am... being watched, by someone.
I look around calmly to see if I can pinpoint anyone. Of course, I cannot. But I know that someone is observing me. I... can feel it. An aura. An unpleasant aura.
Whoever this person is... it would seem that they do not have the best intentions in mind.
...Yet, I cannot exactly tell whether it is a normal human, or a supernatural foe. But if I look like a threat, then it may draw a more aggressive response, such as being shot before I can see the gun and plunder the bullet. And even though I would heal from even a bullet wound fairly quickly, I would still be losing blood for a notable period of time.
Not to mention the fact that it would hurt quite badly. I am not invincible to pain, after all. Highly tolerant of it, yes, but I can still feel it.
Therefore, the best thing to do... is to feign indifference, to pretend that I suspect nothing... while secretly preparing myself for anything.
With a shrug, I continue walking on. Of course, I am pretending to be fully ignorant of my situation. In reality, I am keeping my mind sharp. A normal, human assailant will threaten me with a gun or a knife, and be easily subdued because he will think I am a normal, helpless girl. A smile — a smirk — the use of my abilities on the arm holding the weapon, and they will quickly leave me alone, or risk me destroying their arm permanently.
A supernatural adversary, on the other hand... would be a problem. That might require me to go completely all-out, immediately. And today is really not the best day for that; it has only been a week since my period, and I am still feeling a little uncomfortable and not terribly in the mood for a fight as a result.
I keep on walking. I sing to myself softly. "Donna ni kimi wo shibaritsuketemo, tamashii wa nukeochita, doushite ano sora miageta no ka, tatezu no tou..."**
...Hmm. A back alley. I wandered right into it as I focused on looking unsuspecting. Well, that is perfect actually. Surely this will draw out my adversary, no matter what.
Sure enough, I hear footsteps behind me. Calm footsteps. I turn around, attempting to size up whoever would come across me at this time of night. Whomever it is, at this time of night, it is likely not very good.
Which is what surprises me quite a bit when I see a girl roughly my age step out of the darkness into the dim light.
That is... unusual dress for this time of year and night.
Then she comes closer, and I can see it is dirty, worn, and spatteringly covered with dried blood.
That is... certainly not optimal condition.
She stops, a few feet away from me. This is when I see the red eyes.
My foe is not human. But... she does not attack?
I glare at her, narrowing my eyes slightly. "You have been following me for awhile now."
"...Him..." It comes out haltingly, like she is unused to speaking.
"...Eh? 'Him'? Are you insane, too?" I remove my hands from my pockets, to be ready for her attack.
"...You... smell like him..." is her only reply.
...Well, I did neglect to shower when I got up. I had not really realized it until well after I had left the house. But even then, I should not smell like a male. No male sleeps in my bed, and surely my body odor is not THAT offensive...
"...I believe you are mistaken, whoever you are." Obviously. What male do I know that I could possibly smell like...?
"...You smell like Tohno-kun."
"...!" A shiver runs down my spine. This... monster knows Nii-san? Then, this is DEFINITELY dangerous. I clench my teeth slightly.
"...Whoever you are... you will leave Nii-san alone, or else I will hunt you down and end your eternal life personally..." That should get her to state her true purposes...
...But instead, she weakly clutches her chest and sinks to the ground, and begins coughing hard. As I stare at it, momentarily stupefied, I see her chest heave, followed by the sound of vomiting, and the girl begins throwing up blood.
And my heart stops for a moment.
Nii-san... he... mentioned something like this...
I remember him mentioning a classmate of his whom had vanished... and those fang marks on his neck...
Could... this be her? I wrack my brain, trying to remember his description of her, as the vampire throws up most of her meal.
Hair... Black? No. Not black. Brown, I think it was. I look. Sure enough, the dim alley lighting reveals that the girl has brown hair.
Eyes... he said they used to be brown, but obviously now they were red. Well, I already saw the eyes.
The uniform... it is definitely the uniform of Nii-san's school. Ciel-san wore a similar uniform when she attended there as a cover.
This is likely her, then. But what was her name? Yu... Yusaka? No...
"...Tell me. If you know Nii-san... what did he look like?" I might as well test her.
She speaks, between bouts of vomiting thick crimson. "Lean, but chiseled... black hair... gray eyes... glasses... knife... faints..."
...This... is a piteous sight. The vampire has failed to keep her meal down, for the most part. She stands up, weakly clutching her stomach, looking like she is in pain. A little bit of coagulated blood and saliva flow from her mouth, and slightly reddish snot drools from her nose due to the force of her vomiting. She wipes her face with her other hand.
"Then, you would be the classmate of his that he mentioned," I say with a hint of surprise in my voice.
"...I guess. And you would be Tohno-kun's sister..." she replies with a similar hint of surprise in hers.
I nod. "I am. I am Tohno Akiha. And you... your name starts with Yu-, but I cannot remember it..."
"Uh, well... I used to be called Yumizuka Satsuki..."
* Oka-sama: A very polite way of saying "Mother."
** These are the beginning lyrics to "Satetsu no Tou" by Swinging Popsicle. This is considered to be Akiha's "Character song" by her creator, Kinoko Nasu. A rough translation: "Though you are bound to Earth by heavy burdens / by chains that pass through your soul / Still, you look up into the autumn sky / towards that ever-distant utopia..." Thanks to a friend for this translation - he knows who he is, and he is awesome.
...This girl, from Nii-san's past. A pathetic example of a vampire.
And yet... she does not seem to act as one.
...I must decide what to do about this... so I will ask her some things...
Next Week (8/29/10) – Chapter 13: "Interview with a Badluck Vampire"