Teehee xD Shortass chapter though. (Those who have read and commented on this chapter's 'secret scene' might want to take it out of their comments if you intend to copy and paste your comment. )
Chapter 17: This Pain I Hate
I don’t want to be sad.
“That was a scare,” Miki sighed, sitting on a simple stool. Next to her was the bed Eri resided in.
They were back in their hotel room. Rika (who was now in her old body thanks to time) looked on with a worried gaze behind Miki. Miyabi was sitting on the bed with her back turned to Eri, though her face was looking at the other.
“So she is a maiden, huh?” Rika stood her ground, hands firmly tightened.
“Yeah, it’s just like what that narcissistic fox said,” Miki’s eyes were still drawn to the unconscious girl’s face, “If we find a maiden here, their element is water. And what Eri did was definitely a water technique. She made the freaking waterfall flow backwards,” the demon’s eyes widened slightly, still stunned at what the shy girl could do. It’s not everyday Miki would meet a girl who could change the flow of water, let alone a powerful waterfall like the Kegon falls…
“Now that she’s with us, no one can come in and kill her, right?” Miyabi’s questioning eyes darted up to the maiden.
“I hope so,” Rika replied. Miyabi’s gaze returned to the water maiden, sharing the same solemn expression as the flesh maiden.
Seventeen hours isn’t a lot… But is it possible to defy death? The way Maki said it, her death vision seems like its a hundred percent accurate… Is it impossible to change how much time you have left?
It’s the only way to save Kamei-chan…
We HAVE to be able to save her!
I can’t forgive myself if she dies!
Rika clasped her hands together and put them to her lips, praying that the water maiden would be alright.
Kamei-chan…
I’ll defy fate if I must!
The flesh maiden’s eyes opened, a resolve of iron determination reflected within her gaze.
Behind those eyes, the true maiden also watched. Maki looked on with a sympathetic and sullen face. Hearing Rika’s thoughts in her head almost made her want to hurl. What girl in her right mind would reject such a truth? Perhaps giving Rika a taste of clairvoyance was a bad idea after all. Firstly, she only gave her host that vision to prove that she could not defy fate. Second, her foolish host still has not realized the gravity of the situation. The Shibata family may be a handful, but handling another maiden is particularly troublesome.
Maki watched, and still governed, over the Twilit Sea. She knew about every creature that existed within the earth and the parallel realm. Whether those creatures are fox spirits like the girls from the Rainbow Food cart or those annoying, trouble-making lightning spirits, she has seen them all. Fighting against small fry like them, she would have absolutely no trouble because a maiden’s power is strong. However, it is because of that reason that handling other maidens is so problematic.
The original flesh maiden narrowed her eyes at the scene again. The people around her were being foolish by thinking that they could change fate. Oh well, let them bathe in their illusion. Eventually, they will realize that it is not so easy to have the winning hand. They will know that being a hero is easier said than done.
They were so pathetic, learning a life lesson the hard way.
Maki watched as they clung to a false hope. Watching such idiots trying to resist death in futile efforts was the only thing she could do, considering they would completely ignore her objections. Crossing her arms, she could not help but let out a sigh at these naïve people.
Justice is and will always be blind.
I want this pain to go away…
Miki brought her knees close to her chest, clinging to them tightly as she watched the sleeping water maiden in front of her. She had sent Miyabi out to the nearest takeout restaurant so everyone would have dinner to eat. Rika was already dozing away on the armchair she was sitting on. Earlier, Miki had placed a spare blanket on the other maiden so she wouldn’t catch a cold sleeping like that. In truth, she actually wanted to tuck Rika in the other bed, but feared that Rika would beat the shit out of her because she might mistake her for trying to take advantage of the maiden in her sleep.
Miki rested her head on the crevice provided by her knees, wrapping her arms around them tighter.
Kamei is looking peaceful…
Death.
Miki has seen it more than she wanted to. Her profession of being a snatcher had led her into many incidents where she thought she might have died. There was no doubt that Miyabi had probably felt the same way towards their job. Whenever something had disrupted their plans, they would always find themselves at a tight spot. It was usually at that time where it felt like their vision cleared. Everything would become brighter all of a sudden, as if a white light had shown down on them…
Was it just the illusion of adrenaline rush? Miki had thought. While it was true that an adrenaline rush would happen under dire circumstances and abilities become stronger… What was it that Yuko called it?
It’s when your fear takes over you. While having ‘too much’ fear will cause your body to be paralyzed, having a certain excess will make your nerves tighten and spread out further throughout your limbs, making you more efficient in fighting. That state is called “Oversoul” in the spirit realm.
Was that what Eri or Rika felt when they transformed? Or was it a different sensation? Judging from all the experience she had with maidens, Miki realized that transforming must have been a terrible pain to endure.
Well, they DO change physically… It must be extraordinarily painful to have your internal structure change too…
Miki heard a soft knock at the door. Deciding that it was Miyabi returning with the groceries, the demon stood up and sauntered over to the door, opening it. Of course, she expected to be greeted with the fine smell of take-out and someone taller than her, and she certainly got half of the deal.
There was no smell of take-out.
But the person in front of her was certainly taller than her.
Miki made an exasperated expression. Her right eye twitched as her lower jaw sort of moved along with the eye.
“Am I intruding?” Came that annoying low voice.
Slam.
Miki locked the door via her card key and walked back to her chair, refusing to acknowledge the presence of that infuriating bronze-red haired woman.
To her dismay, she heard a click behind her, and saw that Hitomi was leaning against the door frame with a matching card key in her hand.
“I work here, remember~?” the guard chided with a smile.
“Do you have no definition for privacy?” Miki gritted her teeth in a forced smile. She walked towards the taller and pushed her out the door.
“Come now, I’m not in my working shift! I’m a free woman at the moment.”
“Yeah yeah…” Miki sighed as she shut the door behind her so that they were both standing out in the hallway. “What the hell do you want, Ms. Androgynous?”
“I dunno, can’t I just say hi?” Hitomi smiled with a raised brow.
“Hey there,” Miki said sarcastically. “Now get out of my sight.”
“Don’t be such a prick,” the taller pouted, “What did I ever do to you?”
“What did you ever do to me…?” Miki grew dark as she forced another smile. The demon suddenly recalled her traumatizing memory of being thrown out of the window. Miki twitched at the flashback of seeing her life flash by her eyes as she plummeted towards her doom. If Maki wasn’t there, Miki would have been human jelly, and she would have tasted sour of her hatred for the idiot who threw her out in the first place.
Perhaps… that was a bad comeback? Hitomi smiled nervously as the shorter glared with animosity. The guard could have sworn she felt a blizzard blowing her way!
“What is the real reason you are here?”
“I heard that you two are watching over Miss Kamei over there, and since I don’t start another shift until the next two days, I thought I might help.”
Hmm… Maki’s time suggested that Eri would … pass away… tomorrow night… Perhaps her help would be nice… Then again, she DOES work for those bastards that are after Rika… Could she be lying?
“Screw off, we don’t need you.”
And on top of that, she even knows Kamei-chan’s name… She also happens to be one of the people who are gathering the seven descendants in this very hotel… I wonder if I can get any more information from her…
“How mean,” The enigma frowned.
“Alright, how about this, why don’t you grab me a list of the other maidens you and your posse gathered here, and I might consider your help…”
“There’s a problem,” Hitomi tilted her head in a smile.
Miki stared at the taller. However, when she looked at the new angle available now that the guard moved her head… She saw the corner of the intersection of the hallway, and she saw a broad shoulder near the edge of that intersection…
Fuck, we’re being watched? Well what do you know… Spies watching spies, huh? That’s the Shibata company for ya…
“I’ll trust you… For now…” Miki still kept her eyes on the other’s. “Why don’t you invite yourself into the room for now? Miyabi probably needs help with carrying the food, since she’s very late…”
“You do that…” Hitomi’s eyes hardened into a glare as she smiled. “I’ll watch over Rika and the other…”
“Yeah…” and with that, Miki turned around and walked away.
It’s clutching my heart tightly…
Hitomi walked into the room, finding that everything was tidy and clean. She wondered if Miyabi or Rika had been the one to keep the room clean as it was, excluding Miki since she struck her as the kind of person who wouldn’t clean her room at all. Noticing that both Eri and Rika seem to be sleeping, she quietly walked over to the bed next to Eri’s and sat at the edge of it, watching them both sleep.
But the second she sat on the bed, it made a slight creak.
A creak that was loud enough to wake up one of the sleeping people.
The maiden on the bed had opened her eyes.
“Are you alright?”
For some reason, those words came out without her ever thinking about it. Had she become soft? Oh well, she won’t let it bother her.
“It… just hurts…” Eri replied, sitting up in bed.
“What hurts?”
“My eye…” the water maiden said, placing her hand over her right eye. As if suddenly realizing something, Eri backed away slightly, “…Who are you?”
“I’m not going to hurt you,” Hitomi smiled, “…Or grope you like a certain person I know…”
“Do you know Fujimoto-san and Ishikawa-san?”
“Yes I do.”
“You must be that bishie they were talking about!” Eri pointed her finger at the older.
“…Yeah?” the guard raised a brow. “So they think of me as bishie, eh?”
“Well… It wasn’t them… They described you so… I…s-sorta concluded that y-you were…” Eri retreated back into the bed, now officially embarrassed that she admitted such a thing.
She’s so shy… How adorable… Hitomi smiled inwardly to herself.
Unbeknownst to the other two, Rika had actually woken up, but had decided to remain “sleeping” since she would have been embarrassed to wake up on the conversation as of now. Besides, she was interested to see how Hitomi and Eri would interact.
“Ah, introductions, my name is Hitomi,” the guard bowed her head to the other.
“Kamei Eri,” the maple-haired woman did the same. “Um…”
“If you have trouble speaking, shouldn’t you rest more?”
“Don’t be a meanie, Hitomi-san!” Eri let out an adorable pout. “I’m just… thinking…”
“What are you thinking about then?” Hitomi bent over, clasping her hands together and letting her elbows rest on her knees.
“I… Just don’t want to talk about it…”
“Why not?”
“It hurts.”
“Oh…” Was all Hitomi managed to say.
“I don’t know… It’s just… It hurts thinking about the past… All that happiness I had felt that time… In the blink of an eye, everything was taken away from me…” Eri looked down on the bed, letting her imagination trace images from the designs. “I can’t go where she is… But I wish… I just want to see her again, but I can’t… She’s gone…”
Hitomi finally formulated a response.
“I know you’re lonely. Everyone is lonely in their own different ways. There’s no one out there who isn’t feeling that pain.”
Eri turned to look at the older woman. “What about you? Do you have anyone, Hitomi-san?”
Rika tensed up slightly, wanting to hear Hitomi’s reply.
“I don’t.”
The maiden of flesh felt crestfallen, but continued listening in.
“What about your parents?” Eri asked.
“I never knew them,” Was all the other said.
“It must have not been easy growing up then…”
“I guess it wouldn’t…”
“Hitomi-san… Have you always been alone?”
The enigma’s eyes lowered, watching the ground.
“...Then… You must be really sad…”
Hitomi’s eyes looked at Eri, who in turn, squeaked at the intensity of the stare. Regardless, the younger continued on.
“Right now… Because I’m alone, I’m very sad… But I’m also very scared… I want to hold onto someone right now, but the only person who can comfort me is gone… And with that person gone, I just… can’t go back to the way I used to be when I’m with that person… And I don’t want to make another friend, because then that’s just me being selfish and wanting to find a replacement… And I’m not that kind of person…”
Hitomi remained silent.
“I’m just… really sad and really scared… I don’t know what to do…”
“I can’t really say anything, because I’ve never… ‘lost’ someone before… But I will answer your question earlier,” Hitomi said. “I am scared. But I’m not sad. You can’t be sad if you don’t miss anything, especially when you don’t have anything to miss. I never had anything to miss nor is there anything I want to miss.”
Rika felt her heart being stabbed repeatedly after hearing that. Even though it wasn’t her pain to bear… Hitomi… You’ve… You’ve been so lonely…
“But just recently… I might have to think otherwise. There is something—someone I want to miss. There is someone I have…”
Rika felt her heart beating throughout her body.
“Then you are happy, right?” Eri asked.
“No. I’m not.”
What…? Rika thought in her head.
“It’s only going to cause trouble for us. I don’t know who or what I am. As long as I have this sort of personality, I can’t trust anything I say or do. For our sake, I’m trying not to be too close. I don’t know what will happen if we both get into a situation that we would regret.”
“You can’t make it better by running away? That’s always helped me…”
“This… This feeling I have for that person… Other people have explained to me what it is, but I’m not really convinced if that’s the emotion I’m feeling… I want to be sure. For the both of us, I’m trying hard to figure out what I’m feeling… Therefore, I don’t want to run away.”
Rika remembered the same thing from before.
“I… Just don’t know anything yet. I’ve been trying to figure out this bond we have. I never realized it until someone pointed it out to me. If that’s the case, then how can I express what I hardly understand?”
She finally understood her.
The reason why Hitomi couldn’t give Rika a definite answer…
The reason why she couldn’t say the right words…
It's because...
...Those words don’t exist.
Why is it so painful?
Topic: Our Cursed Gift II [NON SEQUEL] Chapter 22: Another side: Another Story (10/6) (Read 84431 times)