"Taki...where are you...?" Haruka's voice wafted into the room. Aki put his hand on my back. He eyed me, and I knew we both were worried. Haruka was not a good thing. Daisuke was a worse thing. Together, well together was a nuclear explosion. We knew she had come looking for him.

She opened the door and smiled coldly, like a snake. "There you are, Taki." She ran over and pulled me to my feet by my hair. "Why were you hiding Daisuke here? I looked everywhere for him. Everywhere!" She growled between clenched teeth.

"Let go, Haruka!" Aki yelled. "Daisuke came on his own account, probably to get away from you!" Haruka and Aki got along worse than vinegar and water. She released my head in a big show, blinking sweetly at Aki.

"I'm sure you'd know a lot about running away from those who depend on you, Aki. After all, you ran away from Taki-" She broke it for him with that one.

"Shut up!" He screamed. "Shut up you whore!"

"And I'm sure Taki would know a lot about that-" He completely lost it there. It was funny, Aki was always so strong, but when it came to me, he could completely break down. He ran at her, throwing punch after punch. She evaded his fury with ease, trying to get her own hits in.

"Shut it you damn cat! Shut your trap! You don't deserve to say things about him! You're damned even among the damned!"

"Cat!" A hollowed out voice called, sending a chill down our backs. Haruka and Aki froze in mid attack. "Why'd you run off? First you hug me, and say how much you missed me, and then you took off." Daisuke somehow managed to get down the set of stairs with his single crutch and single leg. His face was smeared with another fit of coughed up blood.

"Daisuke. I-I just wanted to know why they stole you away..." Her lip trembled. She was acting like a completely different person. But her eyes still were focused in a tight glare.

"They didn't. I ran away." He adverted his eyes. "I dragged away."

"No! It wasn't your fault! Bishamon drove you away!" She spoke forcefully, but she didn't look as forceful.

"Our god did nothing wrong." He said it so monotone, one would doubt the sincerity in his words.

"How can you stand up for that filth?! I've been training! I wanted to find you, to tell you! I've been training to avenge you and your leg! I'll stop him!" She couldn't be planning to attack our king? That would be traitorous! That would be blasphemy!

"You will do no such thing."

"Daisuke, you can't still look up to him! He's a monster! Do you know what he did with your leg?" She pleaded. He grimaced, but just looked away. "Do you? Tell me! Tell me!" It felt like Aki and I had just got caught in the crossfire of this nuclear war.

Aki gave a pained looked, and covered my ears with his hands. I couldn't hear. Part of it was because I didn't want to hear. I saw Haruka's mouth move, but I didn't make out what she said. I didn't know why we were still here. We'd been forgotten by the two, it seemed. But then Haruka turned to face us.

She said something. I could hear it perfectly, as though the world stopped just so she could say this to Aki. "You want him dead too, don't you?" I pulled myself out of Aki's hands, and was about to yell, but then his sleeve slipped up a bit.

I could see the red scars starting at his wrist.

One was newly cut. He didn't need my lecturing. He deserved to want Bishamon dead. I shut my eyes tight. I couldn't bare the sight of his arm. It brought me back to when I laid awake at night, listening to him sobbing quietly and hurting himself like that.

I couldn't bare the thought it was my fault.

He'd never say it. He'd say it was father's fault. Bishamon's fault. Mother's fault. His own fault. He'd never say it, but it was true.

"Let's go," I whispered into Aki's ear and we ran up the stairs side by side. He looked troubled. Who wouldn't be? "Don't worry, they didn't follow us," I joked solemnly. He smiled his best, bravest smile at me, which I had seen too many times before.

"Let's get to sleep. It's late," He said finally. We didn't even bother getting out of our school clothes. We climbed into bed together and laid there. "Night."

"Night." I almost drifted off at one point, but then I realized something. Something that kept me up all night, and would keep me up for nights to come.

I realized what Haruka said.

"I'll say it then! If you won't, I will! He put it in a box! He put your severed leg in a box that he sleeps next to!"