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With a sickening squelch, the parasite falls to the floor. A pool of blood steadily spreads from underneath the corpse.
The exertion of punching his hand through the man’s chest, the adrenaline rush of frantically trying to make it here in time, afraid of being too late, of losing yet another person, has his shoulders heaving. His hand is coated to his wrist in the viscous fluid.
The heart is still warm in his hand. Disgusted, he lets it fall to the ground.
Kana stares at him from her place on the ground, eyes wide with a mixture of awe and relief.
He’ll be forever thankful that he doesn’t have to add her to the body count that started with his mother.
“Shinichi!” she gasps and her voice is shrill with emotion. “I knew you would come and save me!”
“Are you okay?” He rushes to her side.
She’s alive. He can’t believe it. There’s blood staining the sleeve of her jacket and her face is pale with leftover fear, but she’s alive.
She climbs shakily to her feet and clutches at him.
“I told you, Shinichi! I can sense you! I knew you were coming. I knew it and...”
It’s that that sets him off.
“What were you thinking?” He grips her wrists and pries them from him. (If part of it is just to see that she’s alive, still tangible and living and breathing, who’s to say? She scared him.) He can see the shock in her eyes, but he can’t stop himself.
She could have died, it could have been her lying in a bloody puddle on the floor, and for what ? For this feeling? This idea that she could sense him and him alone?
It’s ludicrous.
Can’t she see that?
“But Shinichi…” she protests weakly, batting his arm away. “I love you.”
He ignores that last part.
“Do you believe me now?” he demands. “You’re not sensing me. You’re sensing them. You’re going to get yourself killed, Kana. You almost just did!”
“Yeah, but,” she smiles, breathless, up at him, “you’ll come and save me again, won’t you, Shinichi?”
He lets go of her arms and steps back. “Unbelievable.”
“Is it?” she snaps and now she’s angry too. “I can sense you when not even that girl, Murano, can.” Shinichi’s hackles rise at the mention of Murano, but he smooths them back down. “Why is it so hard for you to believe that I’ve got something special?”
“You don’t have something special. You have something dangerous and if you don’t treat it responsibly, it’s going to get you killed. You might want to believe I can, Kana, but I can’t come and save you everytime. I won’t be able to.”
Kana takes a step back, searching his face. Her eyes are wide and pained.
Shinichi doesn’t like hurting her, but it feels like the only possible way to get her to back off.
Kana is tenacious and stubborn and delusional.
Again and again, she’s rebuffed his warnings, convinced that this feeling she has is somehow a sign of their destined love.
His eyes land on the marks carved into the wall behind her, spelling out both of their names. His brows crease into a frown. He’s known she felt something for him, but he hadn’t quite known the depth of this obsession. “Kana, this…”
She follows his eyes and swallows hard. “I can sense you, Shinichi. I know I can.” But she sounds less like she’s trying to convince him and more like she’s trying to reinforce her own delusions.
“Kana…” He doesn’t have the energy to be angry anymore. He doesn’t have the heart to remind her of his girlfriend. He came to save her from the parasite, but she’s the only one who can save her from herself.