Miyuki was stunned to her core. She had never heard that her mother was supposed to be the one at Taipei before this day. She certainly didn't know she was the Kunlunfang Institute's intended kidnapping target.
"Switching us was a last second decision, there was no time to change the paperwork. Even the name-tag she wore still had my name on it. The kidnappers had a picture of the target and they found a girl with the right face, my face."
"Momma…but, but that doesn't…"
"Yes it does Miyuki. Admittedly your aunt was quite the consolation. She has Yotsuba genetics and since they took her ovaries they clearly thought that still had value. But even though your aunt is one of the most feared magicians in the world, there's nothing particularly unique about her powers except their intensity. There are similar magicians in this world with similar talents that would be much less riskier targets than a Yotsuba, even back then."
Miyuki wanted to refute her mother's words, but the logic was sound. Maya had been a girl then too, so no one really knew how strong her magic would eventually become. What was known then was she was a Yotsuba, who even before the collapse of Dahan, was a family with a fearsome reputation.
"They wanted a magic that was unique, rare, powerful, and very hard to come by. A power that I was only rumored to have then, but the rumor was tempting enough. A power worth angering their only real ally for. A power worth risking their entire nation's future on. A power that we share, and that we hide as much as we can with an unending vigilance."
Her mother's word struck home with the terrified girl across the room from her.
"...Mental Interference magic."
"Yes Miyuki, our unique gift and fearsome burden. The power to control and alter the human mind."
Miya shook her head lightly.
"Now do you understand why I admonish you constantly to hide your true power? Anonymity is our greatest asset. An enemy doesn't hunt for a target they know nothing of."
A shudder ran up Miyuki's back as fear trickled into her consciousness.
"Like Dahan and the Kunlunfang Institute, there are other's out there looking to exploit magicians as weapons. Tools for their desires and conquests. You and I would be the ultimate prizes. The rumor of my ability alone was enough to destroy your aunt's life. That's why I've worked so hard to hide us. To be 'dead' to this world. Shiba Miya is a no one; a frail, and cuckold housewife with 'limited' magic. The Mistress of Lethe is dead, or hidden away somewhere. She's not a target anymore…."
Miya took a deep breath then.
"…until today. Until her son showed a significant portion of the government and military exactly what he could do. Then Yotsuba Miya had to be resurrected to protect her son from the vultures that would use him."
Then she turned sad eyes to Miyuki.
"If they knew what YOU could do….they would stop at nothing to acquire you. That's why someone with Tatsuya's extreme abilities is YOUR guardian. You are the real prize Miyuki. You are what must be protected."
Miyuki started trembling at these words.
"I hope your Onii-sama is 'shinny and bright' enough to distract them from us. I hope the family reputation still means something in this nation. I hope the Self Defense Forces have enough competence to not out us to others."
Miya looked disappointed as she continued.
"There was surety in anonymity, but because of today we now must rely on 'hope'."
She looked down in frustration.
"We have something much better than hope mother."
Miya's eyes fluttered up to her daughter then.
"We have Onii-sama."
All her fears melted away. All her concerns were gone instantly. Her faith in Tatsuya, that he would always be there to protect them, was all encompassing. The ultimate in security to Miyuki's youthful mind.
"Tatsuya is not a God Miyuki, no matter how all-powerful his magic seems. He is very much a flawed creation. He is mortal, and he is fallible. You do him no good by worshiping him. In fact you can do him great harm."
Miyuki stumbled for words to match her mother's intensity. She failed to find them.
"I….I…I don't think…..Onii-sama is….a God."
It sounded hollow to her ears. Her mother must have had the same impression.
"I want you to listen to me well Miyuki and never forget these words that I am about to say to you. Whenever you experience the euphoria that accompanies witnessing Tatsuya deploying his abilities, I want you to repeat this phrase."
Her mother's emphatic statement was applying real pressure on Miyuki's consciousness.
"The worst thing you call tell a God, is that he is a God."
Silence hung then in the air between them, then Miya said it again.
"The worst thing you call tell a God, is that he is a God. Repeat it back to me Miyuki."
Miyuki recoiled slightly, but meekly obeyed.
"The worst thing you call tell a God, is that he is a God."
"Yes, again."
"The worst thing you call tell a God, is that he is a God."
"I don't expect you to comprehend the meaning of this statement yet, but you must never forget these words Miyuki. I have lived my life by these words for thirteen years. These words protect your Onii-sama. These words keep him from desolation and destruction."
Miya was on the verge of raising her voice. Miyuki was stunned by how much feeling Miya put into these words.
"If you truly love your Onii-sama, you will never forget these words."
"Yes mother, I promise."
Silence reigned again, then mustering some courage Miyuki spoke up.
"When you say you killed aunt twice, the second time was…..when you used your magic on her?"
Miya nodded solemnly before speaking.
"Yes, I wasn't skilled enough with my powers at that age. I didn't know enough about them either. And because father and I both felt guilty, for the second time I demurred to his wishes and for the second time I killed my sister."
She looked off to the far horizon she couldn't possibly see again.
"If I had stood up for myself that first time it would have been me at Taipei and not her. Then no matter what happened to me there, at least Maya would have lived the life of a normal woman. Well, as normal as a Yotsuba can be anyway."
"But momma, had it been you….."
Miya stopped her with an unexpected smile.
"We don't know what would have happened. They would have obviously tried to kidnap me; but I was a much more serious girl than Maya, and it's highly likely my serious nature would have made me less prone to the attempt in the first place. Bottom line is we simply don't know, we never will."
She looked downward at the floor as she continued.
"Father and I bear the full responsibility for what happened to Maya at Taipei."
"Momma, you can't…..it's not fair too…"
"Father for sending her when she wasn't prepared, and me for giving up my rightful place with no resistance."
Then she closed her eyes again.
"And we both felt the intensity of our guilt."
She clinched her jaw.
"And our guilt led us to an even greater mistake."
She sighed heavily as she opened her eyes again.
"Father and I were desperate to 'fix' her, to atone for our mistakes. So he asked me to take her pain away, and I did. We weren't willing to put in the hard work that would have been Maya's long term recovery. And it is true that she may never have recovered from her trauma, but we didn't even give her that chance. We wanted to sate our mutual guilt, and so even though I wasn't skilled enough, I took all your aunt's emotions for the first twelve years of her life and reset her emotionally back to year one."
Sad eyes bore into Miyuki then.
"The THING I created woke up and the first thing she told me was I had killed her, and she was right. Everything happy and wondrous about my imouto was gone, replaced by an emotionless automaton in her defiled body."
Miya sighed heavily in between her words.
"And then even worse, she began to redevelop her lost emotions. Rage, anger, resentment, all the worst emotions possible. Just as a baby shouldn't remember its birth on purpose, so your aunt shouldn't have been allowed to keep her memories without the attached emotions. The results are the Maya we know today. Someone who can completely detach herself from any emotion save vengeance."
Again sad eyes bore into Miyuki's heart.
"My mistake, my fault, my creation, my sin; because I couldn't stand up for myself, and because I couldn't stand up for my imouto."
Another heavy sigh followed.
"Father couldn't live with the guilt and the shame. He wrapped it in words like vengeance and justice, but at his core he was ashamed of himself. He had failed to protect his little girl, and he couldn't live with it. So he gave Maya the only thing he felt he had left to give her, revenge. Half your cousins lost one or both of their parents for Maya's revenge. Kunlunfang and Dahan paid for their crimes, but the cost was so very high. Thirty aunts, uncles, and cousins; people I knew, respected, and loved, all dead, all gone forever. They'd just walk out the door one day and never come back. Not a single one ever refused."
A few more tears suddenly escape her eyes. She didn't bother to wipe these away.
"And then, it was finally his turn. The night before, he came to my room while he thought I was asleep. He stood in my doorway and just stared at me for hours. I had my back to the door, so all I could see was the shadow the hallway light made of his silhouette. I said nothing, I pretended to be asleep. I couldn't burden him with my fears. I couldn't make what he had to do that much harder. I couldn't stand up for myself and tell him that at least I still needed him."
A few more tears fell, but her expression hadn't changed from its usual calm solemnness. Miyuki thought she must look like one of the statues that sometimes are claimed to miraculously weep. Miyuki felt as she looked on that what she was witnessing was something miraculous. It was as if an angle before her very eyes had emerged from that "statue" known as Miya to impart knowledge to her alone.
"The next day a servant rushed to me to tell me it was my last chance to say goodbye. I ran with a fury to the main door. I saw him walking out the front to a waiting car. I reached my hand for the latch. I was going to rush out and stop him. I was going to scream to my father that I still needed him. I was going to beg him to not go, to not walk out of our lives forever."
Miya's eyes looked like she could still see that very day. Her right hand lifted slightly as if she was about to extend it for that same door latch even now.
"Then, for some reason I still don't comprehend, I pulled my hand back; and I let my father get in that car and drive away. He never returned. We didn't even have a body to cremate. I had one last chance to save my family, and I failed. My failure, my inability to act when required, cost me my father, my sister, and it would eventually cost me my son as well. At age twelve I had failed my family completely, and I have paid for my failures every day since."
Miyuki could feel her mother's intense pain as if it were sheets of driving rain smashing into her and beating her down. Still, she couldn't understand how mother had failed Tatsuya, and she certainly didn't feel that her mother had lost her son yet. In Miyuki's mind there was still time to fix things between them.
"He's only thirteen…."
Miyuki was stunned that her mother had been thinking of Tatsuya in the same moment as her.
"…but he reminds me of father so much. He also looks somewhat like Tatsurou, but when he grows up Tatsuya will look just like his grandfather. He already sounds like him, and that will only increase as his voice deepens. And the mannerisms, it seems like he is a direct reincarnation at times."
Miyuki had also seen and heard videos of Yotsuba Genzou. She could see the resemblance her mother spoke of. Genzou radiated, even in those old videos, a dignity and strength that was very much like Tatsuya; and they did look very much alike. Miyuki absentmindedly pondered the irony of her and Onii-sama favoring two people who married each other. Then her mother's words returned to her ears.
"And yet my worst failure, my worst mistake was yet to come."
Miyuki turned desperately towards her mother's words. She feared what she thought she'd hear next. It was what she fearfully had expected.
"Tatsuya."
Miyuki bounded out of her seat in fury.
"ONII-SAMA IS NOT A FAILURE! ONII-SAMA IS THE GREATEST MAGICIAN IN THE WORLD! NO ONE CAN EVER COMPARE TO ONII-SAMA! NEVER!"
Her mother wasn't shocked by her actions or angered by her. There was no typical rebuking expression. She looked at Miyuki with those cold, dead eyes; but she didn't seem to actually focus on Miyuki. It was as if she saw something beyond her daughter.
This look made Miyuki start to shake uncontrollably. It was terrifying. The look in Miya's eyes seemed to see something devastating approaching them rapidly from far away.
"With my inactions I have cursed my son with a power no human or even nation should ever have. In his hands is the power to destroy everything and everyone that has ever existed. Tatsuya could, in one moment of rage, wipe out any evidence that there ever was anything called the human race."
Finally her eyes seemed to see her daughter once again.
"A God-like power, in the hands of a child, because I didn't protect him. Because I didn't watch him. Because she slipped past me when I didn't even know I should have been looking. Because I failed as his mother."
"She? She who?"
Miyuki's confusion and curiosity never manifested into an actual verbal question.
"And now my child carries the burden of my failures on his slender shoulders, and the only thing I can do to help him is to hurt him, to make him resilient enough to bear his God-like burden. What a terrible mother I am."
"THAT'S NOT TRUE, YOU ARE A GREAT MOTHER! IF YOU WOULD ONLY SHARE THE LOVE YOU HAVE FOR ME WITH ONII-SAMA….!"
"But I cannot"
"…..WHY?"
Miyuki was crying profusely now, she was at the edge of her breaking point. Miya smiled at her tenderly but the pain in her eyes was unbearable for Miyuki to behold. In her rage and confusion Miyuki had inadvertently began to slow the particles of air in the room down. The room grew colder and frost began to form on every surface. Within moments everything in the room was coated in a fine white layer, save for her and Miya. Now only the condensing breaths of the two moved inside the room.
Without even acknowledging her daughter's lack of magical control, Miya broke the dreadful silence.
"Because I love him."
"...WHAT?"
Miyuki was losing her tolerance by this point.
"For Tatsuya, love is death."
Miyuki could only stare back at her mother's incomprehensible words. Then her mother, frozen tear tracks streaking her face too, reached her hands up to Miyuki. On instinct alone Miyuki reached back. Her mother gently pulled her onto the couch beside her and wrapped her arms around her.
"You are a very smart girl Miyuki, but even you are too young to understand some things, perhaps."
She laid her head sideways on top of Miyuki's head, as they held each other.
"You saw Material Burst yourself Miyuki, then you heard me explain it to the General. You know your Onii-sama only used a tiny fraction of the power at his command."
She then gently turned Miyuki's chin so they were face to face.
"He can probably convert the moon to energy Miyuki. He could even possibly convert the Sun. He could make an entire section of this galaxy go dark forever. Everything and everyone that has ever existed on this planet, gone. The Earth itself gone, as if it never existed."
Miyuki knew her mother could feel her trembling in her arms.
"But…but Onii-sama….he would never….."
Miya stroked her head.
"The Tatsuya we know now, the chances are very low he would; but even something much smaller from him could risk all life on this planet."
Miyuki didn't want to hear this. Perhaps her mother was right about her being too young to understand, but Miyuki didn't think her mother really wanted to understand it all either.
"But what if Tatsuya was a 'normal' boy, with 'normal' boy emotions?"
Miyuki looked with trepidation at her mother then.
"He has had the power of Material Burst since he was a baby, but magic ability only first manifests at late toddler age. What would happen if he got mad that someone took his favorite toy? One wrong thought and the whole world perishes?"
Miyuki didn't think to cover her open mouth in her shock.
"What if a 'normal' Tatsuya fell in love; but the girl rejected him, or later betrayed him with a close friend of his? What if a myriad of emotions bombarded him all the time, like they do you and me; but one angry thought would make him destroy the world? Imagine the burden he'd face, living in terror of his own emotions."
Miyuki turned away in desperation. Every day she was bombarded by new feeling and new experiences. Today had been the most emotionally trying day of her young life. She couldn't imagine what it would be like to have to worry about one false step resulting in everything being destroyed.
"….poor Onii-sama."
"Indeed, poor Onii-sama."
Miya laid her head on top of Miyuki's head again. It felt like both of them were supporting the other upright due to their physical and emotional exhaustion.
"There was never any chance that the Artificial Magic Calculation procedure I performed on him would ever make him a better systematic magician. It's a lie we told the family."
Miyuki was so exhausted now she couldn't muster the strength to be stunned. Everything she knew this morning to be the fundamental truths of her life were all exposed as lies.
"…..it was so you could take away his emotions?"
Miya looked somewhat surprised at her huddled up daughter.
"….you are indeed a very intelligent young girl Miyuki."
After another long silence Miya continued.
"When you get angry, the room you're in turns cold and white."
Miya looked around at the frost covered room, and Miyuki followed her gaze with some embarrassment.
"…..I'm sorry."
As she said these words she reversed her magic, within moments the frost was gone.
Miya smiled sadly at her then.
"But if your Onii-sama could get mad like Miyuki just did…."
Miyuki looked away sadly as her imagination filled in where her mother's words ended.
Then Miyuki furrowed her brows with a thought. When she could contain it no more she finally gave her thoughts a voice.
"But if loving Onii-sama is like poison to him, why did you allow Onii-sama to love me?"
Miya sighed sadly at this.
"Because I didn't want him to be like your aunt. I couldn't repeat my previous mistakes with her, not with his powers. Can you imagine if your aunt had Tatsuya's powers? Can you imagine how scary the world would be? His love and devotion to you are what keep him human. In that way you protect him from becoming arrogant and God-like. That is why I left his love for you intact in his heart, so that you can protect him and keep him safe with that love when I'm gone."
Miya started to tear up again, but her alabaster like appearance still did not change.
"And while he protects your body, you will protect his mind and together you will keep the world and each other safe from his terrible burden."
After another long silence Miya stroked Miyuki's hair and spoke again.
"I know it is a lot to ask of you Miyuki…"
"It is not mother!"
Miyuki popped up from the couch to stand before Miya.
"I will protect Onii-sama every day of my life!"
Miya smiled at her earnestly then.
"Yes…..I should have known you would."
And then her face turned somber again.
"Please repeat the words I asked you to remember Miyuki."
Miyuki reluctantly recalled the words and repeated them.
"The worst thing you can tell a God, is that he is a God."
Miya used her right hand then to stroke Miyuki's left cheek and wipe away her tears.
"These words protect him Miyuki. These words protect him from your own, and other's intense admiration and adulation. The world will see him and his powers as a savior, but if he ever loses his humbleness he will become the greatest danger in human history."
She leaned back onto the couch then and breathed heavily.
"I will not oppose you loving him Miyuki. I suppose it was inevitable. Though we could have used some more time."
Miyuki's heart soared with these words, but the next statement devastated her.
"But now that you understand why I must deprive my son of my own love, you must abandon your attempts to change that."
All joy she had felt was gone.
"…..poor Onii-sama!"
"Not being able to show my son my love for him is the price I must pay for my sins."
"…..poor momma!"
"The price I must pay for my inaction, cowardice, and negligence."
"I will have to love you both even more now. For each other's sake."
"The price I have to pay to save him, from becoming something far worse than death itself."
The faraway look returned to Miya's eyes.
"The demon that devours the world."
Coldness and emptiness once again shown in those sad eyes.
"…..The Destroyer of Worlds."
Miya looked towards her daughter through her own exhaustion. All life seemed to drain from her now.
"What a horrible burden your terrible mother has placed on her children's shoulders."
The alabaster statue seemed to crumble before Miyuki's sad eyes.
"The power to destroy the world, and the responsibility to prevent it."
Miya seemed to shrink into nothingness before Miyuki's eyes.
"I hope one day you both will understand, and will somehow find it within you to forgive me."
Exhaustion finally won its battle against this frail but powerful woman's willpower.
"…..such a terrible….terrible mother….deserved…so much…..better."
And with these words Miya finally passed out in her exhaustion.
Miyuki found a blanket in the closet and covered her mother with it gently, wiping away the tear stains on her cheeks.
"The real you momma is a beautiful and loving mother. Your burdens cover the real you. I love you so much momma. To suffer this much for Onii-sama's sake."
Miyuki sat back down and watched with tear stained eyes as her mother's chest gently rose and fell with each labored breath.
"One day momma, I will make sure Onii-sama knows what it cost you not to be able to love him. This I swear momma."
On the other side of the base from the guardhouse Miyuki and their mother now shared alone, Tatsuya looked on as several large fires burned in organized rows.
"I'm sorry about this Tatsuya-san, there's no excuse."
The foul odor of burning bodies assaulted his olfactory senses.
The base was not equipped with a dedicated crematoria. Even if it had been, this number of bodies would have overwhelmed its capacity.
The dead, mostly from the enemy invasion forces, were being cremated on open pyres in a clearing in the woods north of the base.
"It is fine Captain."
Despite Tatsuya's assurances, Yanagi was still somewhat despondent.
"Damn it all….someone like her deserves better….than this."
He angrily waved his hand across the gruesome scene before them. Four rows and twelve columns of pyres were doing their jobs, rendering the bodies of the dead into ashes and charred bones.
Somewhere deep inside him he agreed with Yanagi, but it was such a distant place inside himself that it didn't even seem real.
Tatsuya knew the procedure. A picture of the dead was taken, identifying features noted. Fingerprints and DNA samples were then collected and the immediate cause of death noted. Then the enemy combatants' bodies were burned, and the charred bones smashed with hammers. Once the fires had cooled in a few days the whole scene would be bulldozed over and this combat training area would go back to its previous job.
No marker or sign to indicate that the remains of the dead were even here.
In Tatsuya's mind the enemy didn't deserve even this much concern or care.
Identified enemy magicians would get the same preliminary treatment somewhere else, but their remains would be put on ice in a morgue or even in industrial meat freezers depending on the volume of bodies, so that their DNA might have the chance to reveal useful materials for further magic study.
The dead comrades of the Self Defense Forces would obviously receive the best treatment for their remains. Most were on ice now and would be flown back to the home islands for their families, friends, and comrades to properly mourn and honor their sacrifices.
This was why Yanagi was so incensed. Honami had played a pivotal part in the victory today. Even though he never met her, even he wanted more for her.
"A Hero of Okinawa. Shouldn't I want more for her too?"
At that moment a few soldiers walked up and addressed Yanagi.
"Sir, we've done as you commanded. It's ready."
Yanagi, when they first came on this scene, had called over some of the soldiers and ordered them to make a separate pyre off to the side and away from the burning ashes of the enemy. A Lieutenant overseeing everything, and not realizing Yanagi was now a Captain, tried to argue the point and a furious verbal conflict ensured until Yanagi made it clear that if the Lieutenant didn't comply he would have trouble breathing out of his nose for a few days.
After that the soldiers moved quickly to comply with Yanagi's orders.
"About damn time!"
The day had been stressful for everyone. Yanagi was now showing his fatigue with anger.
"Respectfully take her to the pyre….."
"No!"
Tatsuya was surprised himself at his angry sounding words. Something inside of him, for a split second only, came up within; then disappeared.
"A memory of…something? A…feeling?"
Even Tatsuya couldn't answer that question. He knew somewhere inside he should be furious. He knew he should be devastated.
Because somewhere inside he knew he should love her, and he felt shame that he couldn't.
"You deserve so much more than I can give you."
He turned to the stunned soldiers.
"I have her."
Yanagi spoke to him as he turned around.
"Are you sure Tatsuya-san? If you want I can help you…"
"Thank you sir, but it is not necessary. I can carry her alone."
He gently slid his hands under the cloth and Honami's body, with one arm under her knees and the other under her back. He lifted her effortlessly off the back of the vehicle. Despite his small and youthful stature, he seemed to have no issues carrying her remains.
Yanagi bit off his previous words with a sad and concerned look.
"Of course Tatsuya-san."
Tatsuya skillfully made sure her still covered head laid securely in the crook of his neck. How many times had he thought of holder her like this when she was alive? Even for someone with his limited emotions; having such a beautiful, graceful, attentive, and caring woman like her around stirred his young hormones.
"You were so gentle with me, and kind. I am unworthy of it all."
The image of a boy carrying a woman's dead body to a funeral pyre must have been a powerful one. Everyone stopped what they were doing and followed Tatsuya as he took Honami forward with a strength that belied his age and size.
He very carefully laid her down on top of the wooden platform above the stack. The cloth never moved, he made sure to carefully lay her head down with extra care.
To his surprise he began to hear some sniffling going on behind him. Hardened soldiers, after today all veterans of real combat, somehow where moved to emotions by what he was doing. One man even started to cry.
"You deserve copious tears Honami. You deserve my tears. I'm so defective I can't even hate myself for not being able to give those tears for you. You deserve better mourners than these strangers and a 'defective'."
Inside him somewhere, just beyond the reach of his mind; tears, or the memory of tears, lingered just out of his reach. Tears for her, for the woman who saved his life.
"You deserve so much more, more than me."
Tatsuya lifted the blanket from her body. She looked like she was only asleep. A beautiful smile graced her face. He began to straighten out her limbs and used his hand to brush her hair the way Honami preferred it to look.
Behind him Tatsuya heard a few whispered words.
"She's so beautiful."
"To die so young."
"Why did she have to be so damn pretty?"
"But she doesn't even seem injured."
"What could have killed her?"
Tatsuya heard a light hiss from Yanagi to silence the soldiers.
"What killed her?...me."
He looked down at her and felt the memory of some distant pain.
"….because I was weak, she had to spend her own life to save mine."
He knew the pain he should feel and hated himself for his inability to feel it.
"...to waste her life for someone as broken and worthless as me."
He began to fold the blanket then.
"She deserved someone better to save. Someone that could give her the tears she deserves."
Seeing him folding the blanket, Yanagi spoke up.
"Tatsuya-san, we don't need the blanket. You can burn it too."
He turned to Yanagi then and blinked, before speaking as he laid the blanket to the side.
"That would be wasteful Captain."
Yanagi only scratched the back of his head at this with a perplexed and mournful expression. Tatsuya's next actions truly stunned everybody watching.
He moved back to Honami's body and began to undo the combat suit she was wearing.
"Tatsuya, what are you doing?"
Again Tatsuya looked at him with slight confusion, but never stopped removing the combat suit.
"This suit is undamaged sir."
Yanagi shook his head in bewilderment.
"Who cares? There's no need to disrobe her. We aren't that hard up for combat suits."
Tatsuya stopped and looked down at the suit on Honami for a few seconds as if he were pondering Yanagi's words. Then he shook his head lightly and continued to remove it from Honami's body.
"If seeing her in her underclothes bothers you sir you can turn away. It will not offend me."
"Tatsuya, that's not the…."
"But Honami would be the first to say that burning a perfectly good combat suit was a waste of valuable national resources. I have seen Honami in a bathing suit many times. Her underwear covers the same areas."
He paused then in thought, then continued a moment later.
"She was not someone that got flustered over modesty issues."
He was looking at her smiling visage as he said this, and finally removed the suit from around her legs. Before him lay a beautiful woman in the prime of her life, dressed only in her undergarments.
He heard a reluctant sigh behind him.
"Of course, Tatsuya-san knows best what her wishes would have been."
Yanagi and the other soldiers wanted to treat this beautiful young woman like she was a normal girl. Not some tool or weapon. Of course they didn't understand her origins in a laboratory of the Fourth Magic Research Institute, or her intended use as a human shield for Yotsuba family members.
"But if they did….would they care?"
Tatsuya didn't think that they would, and that for some reason caused him to experience satisfaction.
"Won't you let me go?"
Her words as she lay dying before him hours ago echoed in his mind.
"I had no choice in the matter. If I had I would have never let you go."
"I didn't get to choose how I lived, but I have chosen how I died."
"But you could have been so much more…with more time…you saved me...but I failed you."
These words echoed in his mind as he looked down upon her pristine and perfect body one last time. He knew she wasn't a delicate, porcelain beauty like his mother, or a sultry vixen like his aunt; and she certainly didn't have the all-encompassing radiance that he knew Miyuki would bear once puberty set in.
But there was something uniquely beautiful about Honami.
Before he realized what he was doing he had ran the fingers of his left hand down her right cheek and across her lips. Surprised by his own actions, he withdrew his hand and stood upright again. No one watching seemed to think anything was odd about it.
A Sergeant in charge of the detail that built her pyre whispered to Yanagi from behind Tatsuya.
"Who was this beautiful young woman?"
Tatsuya could sense Yanagi's long pause before replying, as he searched within himself for the right words to say.
"Sergeant, tell all your men. I can't go into further details, but this woman before us saved all our lives today. We are alive thanks to her sacrifice, and we all owe that young man there our lives as well. These two are heroes and should be honored that way."
Tatsuya knew the others nearby heard Yanagi's words, as he had intended them to. He could sense amazement from the eyes looking on him now where before there had only been curiosity, sympathy, and sadness.
"Understood sir!"
Before he realized it the entire two platoons' worth of soldiers present, conducting the cremations, had lined up around Tatsuya and Honami's body.
He was stunned by his own lack of awareness. He chalked it up to extreme fatigue.
"Tatsuya….."
Yanagi lightly called to him then. It was a mild reminder that they should proceed with this unpleasant task. When Tatsuya nodded, the Sergeant called out to everyone present.
"ATTENTION!"
The unified sound of one hundred and sixty four combat boots shuffling into order echoed in Tatsuya's ears. He joined the rest at attention a second later.
"Before us is our honored dead, who's selfless sacrifice not only resulted in our victory today, but also in the preservation of our own lives. Remember her family and love ones when you return to your own. Honor her life and the lives of our other fallen comrades as you live your own lives."
The pause then was only for a second, but for Tatsuya it felt like an eternity, as he stared down one last time into his friend's tranquil and beautiful face.
"You were the only one that cared for me before today. You deserve so much more than I ever gave you in return."
"RENDER…ARMS!"
Eighty three right arms brought eighty three right hands simultaneously to eighty three right temples.
"At least you had this appropriate sendoff on your final journey."
He couldn't understand why it was so stressful for him to not feel emotional pain in this moment. It was as if his body demanded something that his brain refused to produce for it. A vital element within him being withheld as if for no reason.
He took a deep breath, and then a second later a minuscule magic sequence created from flash cast in his mind made a tiny spark on the petrol soaked logs that formed Honami's pyre. It was all he could manage, but since the logs were doused beforehand it was all that was needed.
"A flawed creation."
He took only one step back then, as Honami's body was surrounded by flame on four sides within seconds.
"Dismissed!"
And with that the majority of those present beat a hasty retreat from the scene and returned to burning the corpses of the enemy combatants.
Outdoor cremation wasn't a pleasant task, but at least from an emotional standpoint it was easier for most to watch the bodies of the enemy burn than to see a comrade charred into ashes and burnt bones. The fact that it was a young and beautiful woman as well was undoubtedly a multiplying factor to everyone's discomfort.
Within minutes the original funeral pyre construction detail went back to their previous duties as well, and Tatsuya was left with only Yanagi as support. The two stood there and watched vigilantly as exquisite beauty was rendered into carbon ashes.
Tatsuya, standing so close that he could feel the heat radiating on his face, never took his eyes off her. Maybe it was because for the last half hour his nose had adjusted to the stench of the burning enemy bodies already. Surely Honami's flesh wasn't particularly fragrant as it burned.
He looked on as the delicate flesh of her face burned away into the flames and the last vestiges of visual identification were erased from the corpse.
"Tatsuya, you don't….don't have to be…"
He could hear the discomfort in Yanagi's voice. Honami had been a beautiful woman near the Captain's own age. Perhaps the Captain could picture in his mind this woman as a love interest, or maybe a sister? Either way, normal people would be disturbed by what they saw before them now.
"…so close."
"….normal people?"
The concept of "normal" was abnormal to Tatsuya.
"I am fine Sir."
Yanagi reluctantly accepted Tatsuya's statement. The two watched on in silence, Yanagi several steps behind Tatsuya, as everything that physically was Sakurai Honami fell to the Earth or disappeared into the twilight sky above.
Time seemed to mean nothing to Tatsuya. Sometime during his sojourn over Honami's remains Major Kazama and Captain Sanada had joined Yanagi behind him. They had both changed out of their combat suits and into their dress white uniforms. Tatsuya appreciated the gesture, but thought that risking marring their best uniforms would have vexed Honami somewhat. She had always admonished Miyuki and himself to be mindful of their clothing.
If they marred their uniforms, Tatsuya considered asking Miyuki to fix it with magic. She had become quite good at removing dirt from clothing.
Night now dominated the sky above. The last vestiges of sunlight had disappeared in the west. Only the fire and smoke of the funeral pyres obstructed the brightness of the stars above. He knew on instinct that even the Milky Way could be seen on such a clear and moonless evening. Yet Tatsuya never took his eyes off the blackened skull below him. The eyes long gone now, he stared into the empty sockets. The sound of the marrow steaming out of the bones had finally ended just minutes before.
For some odd reason Tatsuya was pleased her skull hadn't cracked and collapsed during that process. Even her blackened skull seemed to possess some kind of "beauty" to it. He vaguely wondered to himself if all his mental and physical fatigue had caused him to enter a trance-like state, but dismissed the notion immediately because he still had the faculty about him to even ask such a question.
"What normal person thinks of something like that at a time like this?"
He could feel that he should feel more, but somehow he couldn't make his mind register the emotions.
"Why couldn't mother have left me with the ability to at least hate myself?"
He really did desperately wish he could apply self-loathing for his failure to save her life, and his lack of emotion for her death.
"Honami deserves my tears in abundance. Why can't I at least give her one simple tear?"
He could only look on and feel his own disappointment in himself now. Somehow he had forgotten that he had been close to tears earlier that day for Miyuki's sake. His memories of earlier now contained no recollections of extreme emotions.
"Even in this, I have failed you."
Even he couldn't understand the creature his mother had made him into. A living machine with the memories of emotions but the inability to apply them.
"Am I even human anymore….was I ever human?"
The only time he ever truly felt close to being human again was with…..
"…..Miyuki."
The only time the memories of emotions reached his mind was for….
"…..Miyuki."
The only time he could relax or decompress was with…
"…..Miyuki."
The reason he lived on at all was for…
"…..Miyuki."
He smiled down at Honami's skull then.
"Had Miyuki been with me, I would have felt better, because she could give Honami the tears she truly deserved; and then I could have given Miyuki the care that Honami would have been proud of. Then together we could have sent Honami on her way with the sendoff she had truly earned."
He was glad she didn't see this. This was no way for a loving and sensitive person like Miyuki to see off someone who had loved them. Yet he vowed to defy their mother if she didn't wish for Miyuki to accompany him when they set her ashes free.
"Because when we are together we are whole."
Behind him he heard Kazama, Sanada, and Yanagi shout at him to stop.
He had reached his arms into the still raging flames. His flesh, like Honami's before, now crisped and charred.
He could feel them rushing up behind him, and he could feel...the pain.
"TATSUYA! PULL BACK NOW!"
The Major shouted to him, but Tatsuya didn't listen to his words.
The pain was….exquisite.
"For you Honami. I give you the only pain I can feel."
"The pain…finally I can release my pain."
Hands reached around him and pulled him back.
"NO! LET ME GO!"
They didn't understand.
"Stop Tatsuya! Please!"
He struggled to free himself from them as they pulled him back and he reached desperately again for the fire, before….
"Damage detected."
"NOOOOO!"
"Reading core Eidos from Memory."
"LET ME GO PLEASE!"
"Activating Self Restoration Sequence."
"IT'S ALL I CAN GIVE HER!"
"Restoration complete."
"NOOOOO!"
All three of them had witnessed it at close range now. In their astonishment they had forgot themselves and finally he freed himself from them. Once upright he turned around and pulled his completely restored combat uniform sleeves down to show them.
"But…..the burns?"
"….How?"
Tatsuya frantically replied to the bewildered Yanagi and Kazama.
"Self Restoration! My subconscious forces me to use Regrowth on myself if I take enough damage! I will never be able to permanently damage myself!"
Then he turned back and plunged his arms again into the raging fires.
"DAMNIT TATSUYA! STOP!"
Sanada's desperate plea meant nothing to Tatsuya.
"It's the only thing I can give her. This is the only pain I can feel. I have to give her my pain. She deserves more than I can give."
Slowly a groan began to escape from his mouth.
"AhhhhhhhhhhhhhhHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"
The mortified officers could only look on as Tatsuya…felt….the only pain he was allowed to feel….for her.
And despite the howl of intense pain….he was smiling.
But the officers couldn't let this macabre scene go on any longer.
Around him Tatsuya felt a sudden surge of magic, and then the flames of the funeral pyre disappear.
He spun around in disappointment, and as he did so Self Restoration returned the charred flesh of his hands, fingers, and forearm to pristine condition a second time.
"Please!"
For the first time since they had met him Tatsuya finally sounded like a regular thirteen year old boy.
"….it's the only pain I can give her."
They looked on equal parts sadness and mortification.
"….it's all I can…feel…she…..I…."
And then Major Kazama put his hands on both his shoulders.
"I didn't know her well son, but she seemed to love you and your sister very much. I can't imagine she'd want you to feel any pain….ever."
He looked down very seriously into Tatsuya's eyes.
"She certainly wouldn't want THIS."
He grabbed Tatsuya's hands and brought them upward so Tatsuya would look at them.
"And what about your sister?"
Tatsuya returned stunned eyes to Kazama.
"…Miyuki?"
"Imagine the additional pain she would have to feel to know you did this to yourself."
"….but, it's all I….."
"Find something less self-destructive and painful to honor Sakurai-san. She would undoubtedly be feeling pain now if she had seen the damage you inflicted on yourself, no matter if you can heal it instantly or not."
He was right, neither Miyuki nor Honami would have appreciated or understood what he was trying to do. He realized now that it was a selfish act on his part, to relieve his own sense of guilt; but to cause Miyuki potential pain was unacceptable under any circumstances..
"I will not do that again Sir, you have my word."
"Good."
And with that Kazama calmly stepped back in line with Sanada and Yanagi, and Tatsuya returned his gaze to the charred bones of Honami.
He reached down and lightly touched the now chilled off right cheek bone of the charred skull.
As if he had used magic on it, jaw, teeth and all, Honami's skull crumbled like sand before his eyes.
"Noooooo!"
The heating and then rapid cooling of the bones had broken the molecular bonds that held the individual molecules together. Fine powder replaced solid bones with a touch.
From somewhere deep inside him a pain welled up into his heart, stomach, throat and mind.
He clutched at his chest as if his heart would burst forth from it.
"This…..pain!"
And then from each of his eyes, as he squeezed them tightly against this surprising sensation, one solitary tear escaped and rolled gently down his dusty cheeks.
And he opened those eyes slowly as he looked up into the glorious night sky. Every star in the firmament seemed that much brighter than he had ever remembered it before.
Miyuki would have said something like it was Honami's spirit making the stars shine brighter for him, but her now charred and fragile bones had given him a much better gift than that.
In that moment he had been allowed, by something that could only be called "miraculous", to…..feel….for her.
"I will protect mother for your sake Honami."
A sense of determination welled up inside of him.
"I will protect Miyuki and care for her even better than before in memory of your love for her Honami."
His sense of duty and obligation pushed his thoughts forward.
"I will make myself truly worthy of the love and life you sacrificed for me Honami!"
He owed her nothing less.
"And I will one day free the Guardians from their enslavement, so that they can live their lives as you should have been allowed to live yours."
And in her honor and memory he made a solemn promise.
"They will get to choose their lives for themselves! They will live for themselves! And they will die for themselves! I swear it to you Honami, I swear it on my life."