Chapter 52: "Conversation with a Partitioned Mind"
I quietly open the doors to my patio, and jump off of my balcony to the ground. It is a two-story jump, but I land very carefully, having jumped from similar heights countless times, and being used to jumping from higher ones still. My body kneels from the impact into the ground for only a moment, and I stand up and dust myself off.
I catch the sight of my breath hanging in the air momentarily as I do so. It is a fairly cold night. I will have a short amount of time left to do these walks until next spring. Already the weather reports in the paper said that by next week we can expect snow.
Normally I would have just left out the front door, but that would likely alert Yumizuka-san. As she is one of the people whom I have to decide between, I... I would really rather not have her here. I like Yumizuka-san, but she would make a difficult decision even more difficult.
...And this is something I need an absolutely clear mind to decide. If I do not have that, I may let guilt, or some other such emotion, cloud my judgment. Love is the one judgment where you cannot allow yourself to be blinded by such feelings, for to do so is to ensure that you do not make the proper choice.
I walk to the gates. By now, I know the positions of Kohaku's traps, and since the guard dogs know my scent, I am able to leave silently without so much as a whisper. I sidestep, hop, and move carefully, and when I reach the gates, I jump over them, hurdling them carefully so that my dress does not catch and tear on it.
After a moment to straighten it out once more, I begin walking aimlessly towards downtown, with nothing but the stars in the sky. There is no moon. Arcueid-san is no doubt laying low, with Ciel-san picking up the slack during this time.
Even then... it is a quiet, still night. The sorts of nights I actually enjoy the most.
I always have enjoyed quiet moments. Even though they are, to some, maddening, to me, it has always been a time to be introspective. To investigate myself. To think over important decisions.
...Like this one.
This is an important decision. I know I can only have one of them... and I likely only have one chance at that one. It must be perfect. I must ensure that it is carefully planned out, and thought through.
If I do not... then I may fail at this, and have nobody.
I walk down the road, mulling over my dreams. My thoughts. Whether influenced by what happened in the bathroom or not, I do not know, but I do know I want one of them.
"...But which one...?"
That is the problem.
It is easy to say that one wants someone. A human inherently knows the condition of their own heart. That is because the heart works on general principles. It knows the sort of feeling it wants to feel.
The problem is... that one cannot simply "find" happiness. Not only must it be sought out, they must try to find who or what, exactly, will bring out that feeling.
For while the heart seeks vague emotions, the mind seeks concrete realities.
Life is never an easy thing to deal with. None of us ask to be put on this planet. Not myself, not Nii-san, not Yumizuka-san, not Hisui or Kohaku, not Souka, Hanei, Seo, not even Otou-sama or "him."
And yet, I want to be able to have some small measure of happiness while I spend my years here. Because I, like anyone else, am fated to be here for only so long, and we do not know when that end will come. It may be in sixty or seventy years...
...or it may end tonight, if I am truly unfortunate.
I may be less likely to die young because I can control my blood, but it does not make me invincible from death. Far from it. Death will claim me one day; it has to claim us all, eventually. Even Arcueid-san, although her death is not like our concept of death, will enter an equivalent state, a state where she will simply sleep forever and never awaken, or her bloodlust will overpower her and turn her into what she hates.
...At least, this is what Nii-san told me when I asked about her.
The fear of one as powerful as her and me... are, ironically, the same thing. Becoming the thing we hate. Becoming the monster.
I am, in some way, saved from this fate.
But unlike Arcueid-san, I cannot simply force my body to sleep. The human body has both a need for activity and rest. After eight hours of rest, it is usually ready for at least twelve to sixteen hours of activity, but it can be stretched considerably further than that if necessary, perhaps around a hundred hours or so, in extreme cases.
Further deprivation will eventually lead to psychosis, then death.
That is, ultimately, my "savior." The fact that even if I am turned into a monster... eventually, I will be killed, or simply roll over and die, even if nobody exists who would kill me... although in reality, it would fall onto the next most powerful branch family of ours to terminate me, if for some reason Nii-san failed to.
Arcueid-san... would not. Her nightmare would continue, for only one being could, in theory, kill her.
A person with the Mystic Eyes of Death Perception.
Such people are rare in this world, I have learned. Even being adopted into a family of freaks... Nii-san was a freak among freaks. A human who could have parity with a demon because his lineage and his abilities allowed him to kill them with far more ease than would be normally possible.
…...It also saved one.
Me.
For I had inverted, after being maddened by "him" without even realizing it. I wound up fighting Nii-san. Were it not for his eyes, I would have crushed Nii-san utterly. My power is an absolute, complete offensive assault against any who cannot see my origami. They will never see it coming until they are a shriveled, desiccated, flash-frozen husk.
...But he could. And were it not for him, Tohno Akiha would be prowling the streets for entirely different reasons tonight.
But, even though I will die someday... it is because I have to. Not because I want to.
Because, while I am here, I want to explore that happiness.
I wish I could explore it forever, but I cannot... and as a half-demon by birth, I do not know if there will be a place for me in the afterlife, regardless of how "good" I am. Torture and suffering shall be my life, as well as my afterlife. There is no denying that side of me, that savage side who could kill without remorse or regret if it had control over me. Therefore, if a deity exists, no sane deity would exist that would allow me to experience happiness.
I will settle for simply limbo. Devoid of happiness, but also devoid of suffering. I could just close my eyes, and allow myself to float forever, and eventually I will forget I exist and that will be that.
A pure blackness.
...Like the other half of my soul.
The soul of a demon is a pure existence. Its existence may be evil, but it is undeniably pure.
…...It is that pure darkness that I still fear. That darkness that is still making me somewhat wonder if I am doing the right thing... or if I will put them in danger.
Kohaku and Hisui would know of my problem... and hopefully would think fast to solve it. Yumizuka-san is powerful in her own right, and she could probably match me blow for blow.
...Seo, Souka, and Hanei, however... would be powerless against my abilities. And that is what I ultimately fear.
The first ones to be harmed by a demon are those closest to themselves. It is for these reasons that Otou-sama did what he had done to Kohaku. It is for these reasons that Kouma Kishima lives a life of a hermit, willingly secluding himself... although his reasons are not quite as noble as not being willing to harm anyone, but I suppose that only attacking those who seek him out and challenge him will be the best one can hope from, from a true monster, and someone "worthy" of gaining the title of "Crimson Red Vermilion."
...Red. The complimentary color to a demon's soul. Their heart is the darkest black, and the things they all seem to love are red in color.
A color of action. A color of anger. The color of blood as it effortlessly melts through their fingers.
...Perhaps it is the demon side of me that makes me like the color red, rather than the human side that simply appreciates its purity.
Purity.
Purity…...
…...A silly concept, ultimately. Nothing in this world is pure. Even the "purest" things have impurity. It is not a matter of purity or impurity, but rather, a degree of impurity.
…...Are any of us pure, though, when we get down to it...?
When one is a child, the world is a bright, happy place. The sky is the limit. There is nothing you can do.
For Tohno Akiha, the daughter of a well-to-do family, nothing but the best sufficed. The best food. The best clothing. The best things. In return, she was expected to be elegant and educated.
Times to play were scarce. She had a brother she played with. Eventually, she gained new members of her family. Two twin girls, and a boy who shared the sound of her brother's name.
And then... her innocence ended.
The boy nearly died. She gave up half her life for him, suffering crippling bouts of pain, random inversions, and had to have the future headship of the household forced on her. The joyous days were gone.
...Then, years later, she finds out a disturbing truth. With it, the love of her father came to an end. When he died, she failed to shed a tear.
...And now here she is, walking down the road, aimlessly, as if she had no true purpose in life, simply living out the motions, wondering where she will end up in this all...
I shake these thoughts from my head. I went for a walk to clear it, not to wind it up, and that is exactly what I am doing...
I need to get a hold of myself. I need to stop thinking about the past. The past is the past, and nothing shall change that, but the future...
…...The future is something I can still control.
Before long, I find myself in the park. Nobody is here, but the place still smells faintly of death. A lot of fates were decided in this park, away from human eyes. People who may never even know their fate was decided here.
People who may never know I was the one who decided them, among others.
I sit down on the bench, sighing and looking up at the lamp posts. Somehow, I can tell Ciel-san was there, not too long ago.
...But I also get the feeling I am not alone. Of another presence being here.
I close my eyes, and try to focus on who else it could be.
Not Arcueid-san. She would be weakest. Still inhumanly strong, but risking things if she came across one as powerful as her.
Ciel-san would be too busy to loiter in the park for long. She and Arcueid-san may not have normal, if somewhat cool, tensions, but they can at least agree to disagree enough to know to pick up the slack of the other if one is unable to.
Hisui would not be foolish enough to follow me. She is not a fighter, anyway. She would have no sort of reason to come out here, either...
…...If anything, it would likely be Kohaku who would follow me. But if Kohaku were to follow me, she would have no reason to hide from me... and I would only bring her along when I was planning an assault on someone who was a strong and potent foe, that I could not be sure of handling myself.
A nightly walk like this... is not something I would need to bring Kohaku along for.
Besides, this presence feels like... a vampire.
...Yumizuka-san would be the natural choice. But... while she could have followed me, she would not be able to evade me forever. Furthermore... she knows that she, too, would not have to hide her presence from me... although it would tell me that I would need to work on my sneaking-out skills.
But I still know this scent. This, too, is someone I am familiar with...
"...Sion."
As if knowing I would find her, she comes out from behind a tree. Her eyes are purple now, but she looks slightly disheveled. It looks like she has managed to temporarily suppress that side of her, but that suppression occurred not too long ago.
She had stumbled upon Nii-san while searching for Arcueid-san and they had struck up a sort of working relationship similar to what he has with Arcueid-san and Ciel-san. Mutual assistance for the other.
...Either that, or Nii-san has a fetish for vampire females. Or some sort of gland that attracts them...
Sion, not Yumizuka-san, is the reason why I had the science and medically-oriented extensions of our family investigate the potential for a cure. It has not been long, but the current reports are encouraging. They say they may have something within about six to twelve months hence.
Yumizuka-san can hold out indefinitely as I am giving her blood. I had offered the same to Sion, but she refused, saying she would deal with it in her own way, and I respect her for that.
"You're walking out here pretty late, you know. There's a lot worse things than me you could bump into." Carefully, she leans against a tree. Her breathing and her manner are calm for now, the manner of that who is constantly calculating probabilities, estimations.
The usual manner of Sion Eltnam Atlasia, before her change.
"The same could be said to you, Sion," I rebut her. "Ciel-san was here not too long ago. If you had arrived perhaps twenty minutes earlier, she may have attacked. The Holy Church and Atlas do not get along very well, after all."
"I'm not really worried about the daikousha,"* she says as she crosses her arms. "I have bigger things to worry about, like getting rid of this disease. Do you have an update on that for me, Akiha?"
"I have had several branches working on it. There is some promising results, but re-aligning your body's genetic structure is not an easy thing to do, you know," I explain. "You have given them cellular samples from before your conversion, I take it?"
"Yes, I gave them a cup I had drank out of before I went on that mission." She closes her eyes. "It should still have had some dried saliva on it, and it would have been viable enough to extract the genetic structures from." They reopen and she pushes herself away from the tree, walking towards the bench on which I am sitting.
"That will do," I say. "Unfortunately, it may not help another vampire I have come to know who has been stricken."
"Satsuki?" She says without blinking an eye as she sits down on the bench with me.
"...How did you know that, Sion?" She surely could not have known that I have taken her in...
"Naturally, I would know all of the other vampires I have come across. Isn't it obvious? I kept an eye on her since I came to Misaki. She's a sweet girl. So you are going to help her too, Akiha?"
"...Well, it would be the least I could do. I have gotten to know her pretty well, it was mostly my fault that she is a vampire, and... I do not like seeing friends so helpless."
"...Friend, you say?" Sion smiles slightly. "You usually do not go to such lengths, so I have a feeling she is more than that to you, Akiha. You're not someone who is usually so easy to get to know."
I look away slightly, a bit embarrassed.
Well... I suppose she is a little more than just a regular friend. Yumizuka-san is someone pretty special to me. And I do not like seeing people who are helpless like that wronged in such a vicious, unforgivable way. I refuse to just sit there, and watch as their wrongs remain unrighted.
"...But it's not her you're thinking about, based on that expression. Deciding your life already?" Sion muses on it, rubbing her chin a little.
"...How did you know that, Sion?" I blink as I look at her.
...Only to notice a nearly invisible glimmer of reflected light from the Ethelite "whip" attached to my body.
…...And with that, she gained access to my mind. My memories. My secrets. Everything...
I pull away almost immediately, but for a mind as rigorously trained and capable of parallel thought as Sion's is, all it takes is that instant to read perhaps the last six to twelve months of my life.
...And certainly more than enough time to have watched all of the events of the last week and a half.
"...I never would have suspected you to be that way, but considering what happened to make you begin thinking that way, I suppose I cannot blame you for it." Sion's eyes narrow slightly as she processes all of my memories, the faintest hint of a smile crossing her lips.
"You could have at least asked first!" I cross my arms.
"You would've said yes anyway, eventually," she announces immediately.
"Th... That is true, but... that is not the point!" I say as I sigh.
"But you have a lot on your mind, I see. Trying to find someone to be happy with, huh? And what was formerly one choice is now six..."
"Well, of course. Do you not want that too, Sion?"
"...I have bigger things to worry about than being happy. Such as being cured." She says it matter-of-factly, as if it were the obvious answer to a question.
…...Well, she does have a point.
"Well then... you know my problem." I sit and sigh. "I... do want someone. And I do not know which one is the right one..."
"Besides Shiki, that is, of course."
I sigh. Well, of course Sion would find THAT out. "...It is not what you think it is, Si–"
"Don't worry. I understand it. I probably would want that too if I had someone do that for me." She lets go of the strand and it snaps slightly back into her bracelet. "You're a very noble person, Akiha. Saving a life is what makes one heroic."
"...I am no hero, Sion," I dismiss her praise. "Heroes are people who are able to sacrifice themselves because it is the right thing to do. I... was blinded by love."
"Are you sure about that? Does a child really know what love is in the way you're saying it? It was love that saved him, but it was the love a girl would have for a brother, not a sexual one." She closes her eyes. "It is still heroic. For while you could have killed your real brother... you instead chose to save the injured one. Given a choice between light and dark, Tohno Akiha's mind and heart chose light."
I look down. I... do not know what to make of her assessment. I... suppose it can be true if one thinks about it, but saving someone is a natural reaction, is it not? The fact that I saved his life does not mean anything special...
"So it is only natural, that when a moment in your life was defined by love, that inevitably you would seek it again." Sion summarizes the main point. "The only problem is, you are not sure whom it should be."
"…...I guess that is what I want," I reply.
"It is what you want, you just don't know who you want it to be with." Sion readjusts her clothing.
"...It is more complicated than that," I say with a sigh. "I like being prepared, but I cannot possibly prepare for them all... and I cannot take on multiple partners... especially in that way. That would be not only scandalous, but ridiculous."
"It would," Sion says with a laugh. "But the surprising thing is, your heart has already made up the decision. You just have to realize it. When you do, your mind will realize all along that it has chosen someone."
"...It has?" I say, blinking with surprise. How... can it decide something without me knowing? Is that not... impossible?
"It's not impossible," she says, almost as if reading my mind still thanks to the Ethelite, forcing me to look at my body again. Fortunately, this time, there are no thin wires connecting us.
"...Then who is it?" I look at her. "Tell me, Sion... I do not know, and it is making me anxious..."
She smiles slightly. "Ah, but that's not as fun as you discovering it. If I told you, it wouldn't seem so nice. In fact, you might not react very well otherwise, so I refuse."
"...R... Refuse?ǃ You just want me to torture myself mentally, is that it?ǃ" I feel my anger beginning to rise.
"Of course not," Sion says, her slight smile not fading. "I won't tell you outright, but I'll give you a little bit of a hint... think very carefully about some of the things you've said all along..." She stands up, dusting off her skirt. "...And then it might come to you. But for now, I must take leave of this place, before the daikousha notices I am here and decides to make my night more difficult than it already is. Please say hello to Satsuki for me. I shall come over sometime soon to check on her, and you while I'm at it."
With that, and a simple wish of "Oyasumi nasai,"** Sion Eltnam Atlasia walks into the night. Before long, her footsteps fade into silence, and then slowly, the purple uniform merges into the black of the night, leaving me with no company other than the wind blowing, somewhat coldly, across my face.
...That skirt of hers barely covers her rear. Would she not be cold in it?
...Then again... a vampire cannot feel heat or cold. It would make sense.
…...Stop finding excuses to be looking at Sion's rear, Akiha. I force myself to pull my eyes away, shake my head of such polluted thoughts, and begin to replay our conversation in my head.
"Right... Think about what I have been saying all along, and it might come to me."
Saying... and doing. Only that will bring me my answer.
And once I have the answer... I can finally decide what I am going to do.
And who it is, ultimately, that I love...
* Daikousha: Literally "Agent." This is what Sion calls Ciel, as Ciel is an agent of the Holy Church.
** Oyasumi nasai: Literally "Good night."
...Think about what I have been saying.
There must be some obvious pattern that Sion has seen that I have not.
The question is... what sort of pattern would that be...?
Next Week (6/5/11) – Chapter 53: "An Epiphany of Passionate Ardency"