A/N: That was quite wrecking for our brave heroes, but I think we can all agree it's the girl who suffered the most. At least she is now in good hands, but Patrick and Mashika have yet to fulfill Zovaal's final mission. They can only hope they'll find the answers to their soon-to-be-new friend.
Chapter 28: A Dying Wish Part III - Marina
There is nothing but darkness, and the fainted sound of a heartbeat. A ringing fills the air along with the beating.
Then comes a tired moaning.
Eyes open, the vision is very bright and blurry. Looking around ever so slightly, the vision clears and blurs. A big room, in a bed with the body under the covers, except for one arm that is attached to the tube.
A voice speaks but is too muffled to make out. Then it comes clear even sounding very faint.
"No need to worry miss." The vision rises, following the tube until it comes to an unidentified figure adjusting the IV Bag. "You're going to be just fine." The girl looks at Lumiére is a tiresome daze. She lays her head back on the pillow and closes her eyes. Suddenly, a vision hits her mind, surrounded by meat looking at her pervertedly like hungry dogs pouncing on meat.
Her eyes jolt wide open and then scream.
There are sounds of screams and loud crashing. the noise is faint but it reaches the boys' room, which awakens them. "What was that?" Peter asks. Earnest only shrugs his shoulders.
Patrick has a good idea of what it could be. "I certainly hope not..." Patrick gets out of bed. "You two stay here, I'll take a look." Patrick leaves the room.
"How come he gets all the fun?" Peter says. Earnest rolls his eyes while shaking his head.
The boy's room is the only place the noises have reached. The girls in Selena's room are awake and alert. "Did you guys hear that?" Marlene asks.
"I did. Could it be an intruder?" Rayla asks.
"It can't be, otherwise the house security system would have gone off." Selena says.
"We can't just stand here and do nothing. Let's go take a look." Akira says.
The girl collapses on the ground, crawling away in a panicked state. She notices he's dragging the IV Tube. She forces the tube out of her arm then grabs the pole, holding it like a bo-staff. Lumiére approaches her carefully.
"Miss, please, you need to calm down," Lumiére says.
The girl is just breathing heavily in a panic. When Lumiére gets too close, even if it's only 5 feet away, the girl leaps in and strikes him in the arm with the pole, knocking Lumiére down. With him out of the way, the girl rushes for the girl and struggles to get it open. She stumbles down the hallway, nearly tripping most of the time, even using the wall as support. Her vision blurs and clears constantly and rapidly.
"He did something to me." She whispers in between her breaths. "Injecting me...Need to get out..."
Patrick approaches her from turning the corner into the hallway. The girl looks at him astonished while Patrick is confused, then she takes immediate action but with her body collapsing. Patrick can see the condition she's in. Once she's in range to strike at him, Patrick grabs on the pole. He quickly reacts to sweeping the girl's feet and pinning her down to the ground.
"Look, you're clearly not in your right mind, and I don't want to hurt you..."
"Patrick?" Patrick looks up shocked to hear the voice. He finds Selena, Akira, and Marlene standing before them.
Patrick looks at them with a nervous look, he didn't want them to see what was going on yet he felt like he should have known something was gonna happen given his room can hear the noise. During his distraction, the girl strikes Patrick at the side of his face then pushes him off of her.
In all her haste, the girl stumbles to get back on her feet and run. Selena, Marlene, and Akira just stand by and watch the girl go by them. What confuses them more is that she shouts at them: "Run! Before they enslave you!"
They look at Patrick waiting for answers. "Who is she and what is she talking about?"
"Just stop her." Patrick says as he quickly gets up and chases after the girl. "And try not to hurt her."
The girl runs all over the mansion, losing balance, and ends up crashing against the wall, trying to escape with Team PASM on her tail. She reaches the foyer, heading towards the door, until she collapses right in the middle of the room, and is quickly surrounded by Team PASM, Plumette, and Mashika as well. The girl looks at all of them in fear.
In the end, the exhaustion overwhelms her and she passes out, breathing very heavily.
After everything that's happened, Plumette and Mashika carry the girl back into her room. As the girl is now resting in bed, Plumette checks on Lumiére. She examines his shoulder where the girl hit him, but Lumiére claims that he is fine, that it is only a minor bruise.
While the two of them are looking out for the girl, Patrick and Mashika stand outside of the room, explaining everything to the girls of Team PASM.
Mashika explains that she was on a Huntsman mission and she wanted to invite Patrick to the mission for more combat experience. Akira finds it a bit disappointing it's not her but figured it's this way given Patrick's the leader of the team. Mashika makes up that the mission is the authorities received an anonymous message asking them to a certain location. When they did, they found this girl locked inside a warehouse in an abandoned port.
Mashika claims that they have no idea what the girl is talking about with the being enslaved comment, probably assumed she was in a past situation before she was found. Just as Patrick would hope, they believed in their story.
Selena is a bit nervous the whole time, hoping that Mashika doesn't recognize her. "There's one thing I've been wondering. What are you doing here, Instructor?" Akira asks.
"Yeah, and how did you even know Patrick was here?" Marlene asks.
"It's a long story to explain, but long story short: I'm an old comrade of Elizabeth. And since I'm explaining everything, there's something I must say." Mashika turns to Selena, who becomes even more nervous. "I know your secret...Sherry Farron."
"S-S-Secret? What are you talking about?" Selena asks. "I-I-I mean, I'm Selena Akimura, not Sherry Farron. W-Who is Sherry?"
"Way to be settle," Patrick says, disappointingly.
"Relax, Love. I've always known." Mashika says. "I had my suspicions at first until that incident with that Karaode Creep. Then Patrick told me the truth, as well as demanded I kept it a secret. Before the holidays, I convinced Patrick to go along at your little vacation to this household."
Selena looks at Patrick, upset at him. Patrick shrugged his shoulders. "What else was I supposed to do? She was suspicious. Plus she's a teacher."
Selena takes a deep breath before answering. "I suppose you have a point. Just as long as nobody else knows."
"Don't worry, love. I haven't told anyone. Even my niece is left in the dark." Mashika says.
With all explained, Selena, Akira, and Marlene turn to their dorm. Mashika and Patrick walk in to check on the girl. She's much more calmly asleep in bed as Plumette checks on her. Plumette states that her pulse is now calm but she is still very feverish. It's very possible that the way she behaved was a mixture of shock and delusion. Patrick believes this behavior indicates she has a broken fear of men. Meaning that if she were to awaken...
An hour goes by, the girl starts to regain consciousness once again. Starts off tired and dazed, slowly her senses enhanced and she returns to her frail panicked state. The girl tries to get up but she is tied down to the bed.
Plumette gets the girl's attention, speaking to her ina. calm and quiet voice. "Miss, please, calm down." The girl doesn't listen but lets out struggling moans as she looks at Plumette in heavy breathing. Plumette shushes her. "It's okay, You're okay. We're not going to hurt you, but you need to stay calm. Calm." The girl just stares at Plumette, she begins to calm down, looking at her with confusion and fear with her breathing still a little bit unsteady. "You're in a safe place now. Nothing bad is going to happen to you. Do you understand?"
The girl hesitates before she nods and says, "Y-yeah."
Her body relaxes as she lays flat on the bed. Plumette begins undoing the ropes that tie the girl down to the bed. "I apologize for the bindings. We had to ensure you stay in place until you were calm."
The girl moans weakly. "What...What happened?" She puts a hand on the side of her head. "Oh, my head."
"Take it easy. You need to conserve your strength." After undoing the ties, Plumette removes the dry cloth from the girl's head, then wets it in a bowl and rests it once more on the girl's forehead. Plumette adjusts the girl to lay in a recline position. Plumette offers her a cup full of tea. "Drink." and helps her drink it down in small sips. After drinking, Plumette feeds her a cookie.
Plumette sends a text to Elizabeth and two others. While they wait, Plumette explains to the girl what happened. That a Huntress and her comrade arrived at this household with her and the boy and Lumiére were working on nursing her back to health. Plumette left out the part about her having a near-death experience.
Finally, Elizabeth, Patrick, and Mashika arrived. Patrick and Mashika stand back while Elizabeth approaches. "Hey, you okay hon?"
The girl is astonished at what she is seeing. "You...You're Elizabeth Akimura."
Elizabeth smiles. "I'm glad you recognize me. I trust Plumette explained everything?" The girl nods. "Good. There are two people who wish to speak with you."
Elizabeth stands aside, signaling Patrick and Mashika to make their approach. "Hello, Miss. My name is Mashika Kirei. Huntress and Instructor of Beacon Academy. This is Patrick Aki, one of my students."
Patrick doesn't say anything. The girl speaks instead. "You are the ones who saved me...from those men?"
"Indeed, but it was more accidental," Mashika says. "You see, we received a mission from a retired Huntsman. We were supposed to rescue someone. He didn't give any specific details about who, but we assumed she was his wife. But instead, we found you."
"I insisted we needed to get you out of there, given you're...condition. But the situation grew worse when we were discovered. You're lucky we manage to make it out of that mess." Patrick says.
"Anyways, because of everything that's happened, we were hoping you might be able to help us with finding Marina." Mashika says.
"M...Marina?" The girl asks.
"Yes. Do you know her?" Mashika asks, hopefully.
"I do...actually, more than you know." Hearing this leaves Patrick and Mashika confused. "That is my name. I'm Marina Rishima."
Patrick and Mashika are speechless learning this. Mashika pulls Patrick to turn and they whisper their discussion.
'This is the Marina we're looking for?'
'I don't know, she looks nothing like the women in the pictures.'
'This could be coincidental.'
'Maybe, but we must make sure.'
Marina just watches them in confusion. When they're done they return speaking to the girl. "If we may ask, Miss Marina. Does the name Zovaal mean anything to you?" Mashika asks.
"Zovaal? As in Zovaal Sapphire?" Marina says, astonished. "Why, he is..." She suddenly turns silent. Then her expression hardens into a bitter state and turns her head away. "No. Forget it."
Everyone is concerned about her sudden change in behavior. Patrick can tell there's something going on here. "What's wrong?" Marina doesn't say anything. "Listen, I know that look. There's clearly something bugging you, but we need to know what is your connection with this man."
Marina exhales before answering in a disapproving tone. "Zovaal is my father." Mashika gasps hearing that. "No...WAS my father. But I want nothing to do with him. I'm willing to bet he hired you just to take me home to him." Everyone is silent. Marina finally looks at everyone around him and softens seeing the expressions on their faces. "What? Why are you looking like that?"
Everyone exchanges looks until Mashika steps forward. "You see..."
Mashika explains everything about what happened to Zovaal, about how her niece and Patrick found his dead body, and that at his dying breath he left a message for whoever found him. Mashika included the message she had found where he wants her to carry on his mission.
"He's dead?" Marina asks.
"I'm afraid so. I believe the cause of his death was a feeble attempt to rescue you." Mashika says. Marina doesn't say anything. She doesn't look sad, nor that she doesn't care. She just feels conflicted with mixed feelings. "But I will say this, I idolize the man, I know everything about him, but I never knew he had a daughter."
Marina scoffs. "I'm not surprised he never said anything about me. It's not like he even cares." Marina says.
Patrick crosses his arms. "What happened between you and your father?"
"You all know the injury he had? I was only 5 years old when it happened. Zovaal spent a lot of time being a Huntsman, he was broken and devastated when he was forced into retirement. It got so bad that he forced me into being a Huntress, not only while I was still weak and little but I was incapable of fighting." Lumiére finds it hard to believe given what she put up when she was trying to escape.
"Wait...He forced you into becoming a Huntress? That's just like that rumor about him everyone hears." Mashika says. "You were that poor student?"
"Yes. I didn't even want to become a Huntress. Doctors said that my body was so frail even with an Aura so I can never be in a fighting fit, Plus I always afraid of hurting other people or getting eaten by a Grimm. My dream was to become a teacher. My mother died when I was born, so I never got to know her. But I was told she was once a teacher. I thought that becoming one would make me feel closer to her." A tear slides down Marina's eye. She sniffles as she wipes it off. "But Zovaal disapproves it. Says that 'Dreams are for weaklings' Day after day he forced me to the training grounds and live combat. My body ached. My bones cracked. I could never amount to anything. And no matter what happened, whether I bagged or cried or what the doctors or law enforcement said, he just won't stop."
"He could no longer be a Huntsman so he tries to force you to become like him to fill some empty hole in his devoided soul." Patrick says. His hand tights into a fist, knuckles cracking in the process. Mashika takes notice of his hidden anger.
Marina nods. "I've put up for it until I turned 13. I finally had it and decided to run away. But I didn't leave unnoticed. He didn't try to stop me, he only said: 'You leave this house, you are no longer my daughter.' I was hurt at first, but I didn't stay. I just left, heartbroken and lost."
"Oh, you poor soul." Plumette says.
"I must say, Mister Sapphire is really much more heartless treating his own daughter this way." Lumiére says. "I'd give him such an ear full if I were his employee."
Nobody else says anything. The room is quiet. Until Mashika sits on the side of the bed. "For what it's worth, I think Zovaal might have second thoughts about how he treated you." Marina doesn't say anything. "Here, let me show you something."
Mashika takes out her scroll. She opens a file that says: 'My Shining Star' and shows it to Marina. Marina is astonished to see it. "My...'My Shining Star' That was his nickname for me. He hasn't called me that since before his retirement."
"We understand Zovaal may have made bad choices, but when you were taken, he risked his own life trying to save you. And if I'm being honest, he must have predicted his own death. Even in death, he still wants to save you. You might think he only wants to rescue you just to take you back, but why would he still do it for such a reason if he's going to be gone afterward?" Marina doesn't say anything. "He left you behind this message, and however you feel about it, I think it's something you should see."
Marina is going through mixed feelings, most of it feeling nervous. They haven't spoken to each other in years. This is his final message. And she is more afraid of what the outcome will be. Probably more of his cruelty. But Mashika is right. Whatever it could be, it's something she must-see.
Marina opens the file and plays the video.
Zovaal sits in front of the camera. "Is this thing working?" He's adjusting the camera. "Hello? Hello? ...Oh, that means it's recording. Okay good." Zovaal clears his throat, then ends up coughing afterward then clearing his throat again. "Marina." Zovaal speaks with a stern expression and serious tone. "If you are watching this, then you must know that I am dead by now. I at least hope you are watching this. After what happened and no speaking each other. Ever since you were little, I have trained you to become a Huntress. I have known you to be nothing more than a broken disappointment, a disgraceful legacy, and a failure as a daughter."
Marina's body shakes as she looks down in a mixture of anger and sadness. "No more. Please." Marina is about to stop the video until Patrick grabs her wrist. She looks at him with a bagging look but Patrick shook his head.
"And the whole time that I did, I now see that...I was wrong." Marina is surprised to hear that. She returns her attention back to the video. "You already know how much it meant for me to be the Legendary Huntsman 'Zovaal the Dragon Beast.' I thought it meant everything to be until I've met your mother. Losing her was one of the saddest moments of my life. My own despair broke my spirit and I never realized it. The whole time I just distracted myself with my work. Until the injury came that ended my career. And it broke my spirit, enough to force my own career onto you, my own daughter." Zovaal coughs before continuing to speak. "Marina, My Shining Star, I know I don't deserve your forgiveness, and I know this is 20 years late, but I am sorry. You were not a failure. The real failure was me. I watched you over the years when you left, seeing how well your studies to become a teacher." Zovaal looks down and does a small chuckle. "Seeing you growing up and studying, reminds me much of your mother. And reminded me of how I fell in love with her. Strong. Determined. Serious. Loving. If she were here today, she would be proud of you. I...am proud of you. This is the last wish I want you to make: Follow your dream. Become a great teacher, just like your mother once was. This is goodbye. I love you, my daughter."
The video ends. The room is silent. Nobody says anything, especially when Marina is just sitting there all quiet. "Zovaal...Father..." Marina's voice is cracking in sadness. Tears are forming in her eyes as her arms shake. "I...I love you too."
Tears fall out of her eyes like a river of sadness. Marina then wraps her arms around her as she bends down with her face to her knees and breaks down crying, wails of screaming escaping her mouth. All the anger and sadness she had bottled up from her father for many years has finally broken.
Everyone just stands and watches Marina, mourning for her loss. Plumette sits beside her and offers her a comforting embrace.
Patrick starts walking away, towards the balcony. Mashika takes notice of his movement and follows him. Patrick just stands there by the edge, looking down at the courtyard as the sun starts to rise. Not even bothered by the cold kiss of winter's chill.
"You all right, Love?" Mashika asks as she approaches him from behind.
"I'm fine." Patrick says, in an upsetting tone.
"Come on, you know you're not fooling me. I can tell something's bothering you." Mashika says. Patrick doesn't say anything, but Mashika realizes what it could be. "It's...about your father, isn't it?"
Patrick slams his fist on the railing, then lets out a sharp exhale. "My 'father' never cared for me. He always hated me, saw me as nothing more than the source of his wife's suffering...the cause of her death." Mashika moves in close to put her hands on his shoulders, but Patrick shoves it off. "Don't! Touch! Me!" Mashika looks surprised as she backs away. "Just...Leave me."
Mashika doesn't say anything. She can tell this is something she cannot mend. She only does what he asked and leaves him alone.