The storm was getting worse.
Didn't have to be a genius to figure that out. No, all anyone had to do was listen to what was going on in the world around them.
Listen, and they'd hear the thunder crack like a war drums.
Look and they'd see the lightning lash out at the world like whips.
The storm was getting worse, and there was nothing that could be done about it.
Hawke didn't care.
He didn't care about the storm raging over, he didn't care about the fog that had consumed most of the city.
He didn't care about the suffocating stench of blood and offal invading his senses.
He didn't even care about whatever the hell was peeling back the clouds that rested overhead.
He just… didn't care.
Or rather, he couldn't bring himself to care. After all, his thoughts and feelings were trapped behind a wall forged from four repeating words.
Four words that seemed to repeat themselves over, and over again as though they were being written on a sheet of paper and forming a single cursed thought.
And what was that accursed thought telling him?
"We're going to die."
As much as he hated to admit it, that was the truth of the matter.
He was going to die.
He was going to die out here in these streets, caked in mud and grime and pelted by rainfall
"There's worse ways we could go out."
"Wanna bet?" The youth muttered, speaking in a tone so low that it may very well have been muted. Still, that muted thought seemed to be enough to break through the makeshift barricade his lonely, accursed thought had put up with its very existence.
He was going to die here; he was going to die before seeing his family one last time.
He was going to die without telling them how much he loved them; how much he appreciated everything that they had done for him.
He was going to die without finally being honest to them.
'It can't be helped…'
That voice again…
"We knew it was going to turn out like this from the fucking start."
"Yeah…" After all, this was no-win situation if he'd ever seen one. A suicide mission at best and a last stand at worst.
They knew that from the start; they knew they weren't coming back from this.
And yet…
"We still took part in this mess."
Why though? This was the dumbest decision either of them could have ever made.
"So why did we take part in this mess?"
He knew why; they both did.
They didn't take part in this fuck up because they wanted to play hero.
They weren't here with the intention of saving the world.
Hell, they weren't even here hoping to earn a few hefty bags of cash.
They were out here, in the middle of some hazy reflection of Tokyo, because they didn't have a choice.
They were already in Tokyo when… 'this' happened.
Whatever the hell 'this' counted as.
Regardless, neither of them wanted to be here, the problem was that they couldn't leave.
It's been weeks since the airport closed for reasons he didn't want to remember.
It's been weeks since Tokyo had become a labyrinth, he couldn't begin to navigate…
He wanted to go home… for the love of God he wanted to go home.
Go back to LA, go back to his only real concern being that he tripped over his words when he saw a cute girl.
He wanted to go back to before… this happened.
Whatever the hell 'this' really was….
"This fucking sucks…"
Hawke released a faint chuckle as he heard the words, though it quickly dissolved into a brief coughing fit. He took few necessary breaths afterwards, each one sounding like they were coming from a rabid dog instead of a teenager.
"It hurts to breath."
It hurt to fucking breathe.
"Fuck…" Hawke muttered. "Since when did just breathing start to become so hard?"
His question went unanswered. Slumping over and dropping to his knees, Hawke looked down, his attention focused on the cracked and soaked cement streets that made up a hazy Tokyo.
He could barely hear the rain coming down around him, but that didn't mean he couldn't feel it.
He could barely feel the thunder bouncing off his skin.
He barely registered the lightning racing across the sky.
The storm was getting worse by the minute… but he didn't really pay attention to it. Only thing he seemed to register was that 'sound' – that 'music' breaking through the fog.
He couldn't recognize it.
No, that's the dumbest lie he's ever told.
He recognized that tune, he just wished he didn't.
"To think we used to like that sound."
That voice again…
"We really are fucked in the head."
"Just figuring that out, huh?" Hawke mutters, a hint of humor leaving his tone as he breaks into a light smile and chuckle. His chuckle starts to grow into laughter, but it's not a happy relieved tune. It's a depressing, almost manic sound.
Those 'with' him don't mind.
Those men and women before him, those folks dressed in blacked robes and masks made of animal bone; they didn't care that he laughing. They were more focused on their song-like prayers, and they beautiful -if somehow disturbing – dances that made the fog sway around them like the ebb and flow of the tide.
These lunatics, these madmen, these worshippers of something old and instinctively felt wrong…
God, he didn't want to continue that line of thought.
He didn't want to think about whatever that was, cause it caused an uneasy sense of familiarity to run through him.
He didn't want to think about the words being sung in some ancient forgotten tongue, that was stirring some kind of memory he didn't know he know he had – let alone want to recall.
He didn't want to think about…
Hawke's laughter died down, and he took another pained breath, attention turned to one Professor Tsuki, his senior and figurative mentor in this, who had the unfortunate luck of being here when all 'this' started.
Hell, the professor was here before all this Bullshit started.
Her still form was on the ground; she was alive, thankfully, but her expression showed she was at the crossroads of mind-numbing fear, excruciating pain, quiet numbness and even blissful acceptance and resignation.
He didn't even know so many expressions could be on a person's face at one time.
He looked from her tearstained face to her right hand; as her fingers were still wrapped around that artifact that looked like a cracked and broken rod. It had a dusty pink shaft and what looked like two broken stars, half rusted bow and a broken heart… She'd said it was a relic from her past, she said it might have been able to help them.
She said if she used it, it would probably be her last time being able to use it.
Hell, he'd even heard her mutter about how she hoped she was still able to use it.
He didn't quite understand what she was talking about, and he'd never get the chance.
Professor Tsukino, whatever this artifact was supposed to do, it didn't do it.
"I guess I really can't use it anymore…"
That was what he'd heard her mutter under her breath before she dropped to her knees and the tears started to fall.
She'd looked so broken then, like she'd just found out 'rock bottom' had a basement.
Then 'that' crossed her face. The multitude of expressions that he felt shouldn't exist on her face.
"I'm sorry…" The words left him before he even realized it.
Thing was he wasn't even sure why he was apologizing to her.
Hell, he didn't even know when his hands wrapped around the older, broken women as he pulled her into a hug; her head buried in his chest, while his chin rested on her forehead. He felt her move a bit, head tilting as she tried and failed to look at the boy who was holding her close.
"I'm sorry…" He repeated, still not fully understanding why he was comforting this woman, maybe twice his age.
Not even Professor Tsukino understood why.
Still, with a weak and exhausted, but thankful smile on her face, Professor used her free hand to grip his wrist and held it as a faint humming starting to reach her ears.
'Must be those people singing.' Professor Tsukino didn't really care though… instead she focused on this simple act she was getting in her final moments.
"Thank you…" She whispered. "I'm sorry you got involved in all this."
"It's not your fault." Hawke responded, using a tone he honestly wasn't that used to. "You didn't drag me into this mess."
He wasn't wrong.
"Thank you for being here with me in the end." Professor Tsukino whispered.
Hawke didn't respond, wasn't really sure what to say anyway. Mean it wasn't like he wanted to be here in the first place.
"Still, if there's one benefit to all this, it's holding a beautiful on our arms."
Hawke couldn't help but release a weak chuckle.
"Still… if we're going out…"
"It might as well be on our own terms." Hawke finished the thought as he lifted his chin off the woman's forehead and started to look up, his eyes turned to the eye of the storm as he started to glimpse the skies above.
Professor Tsukino joined him, finally laying eyes on the thing that was responsible for all of this.
And as she did, she failed to notice the relic in her lowered hand starting to glow, what little life it once held starting to finally come to the surface as the hum it created started to grow louder.