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The sky is on fire as she runs.
A mere two hours ago, it had been painted the golden-orange glow of sunset, reassuring and familiar, after the world had almost ended. Now, it's become the harsh red of searing flames and ash against the pitch black of the night, as the world is ending again.
Aya does not know why she's running, nor where she's running to, or even how she can. Her body, too, is burning, burning within a storm of everything, running being practically all she's known throughout this entire hellishly long nightmare of a day — yet even so, she still can't stop. Guilt eats away at her, for fleeing the chaos despite the agency’s best efforts to protect her, but she simply can't just stay there (not there, anywhere but there), joining them in their helplessness, or she'll go insane.
(As if she isn't insane already. As if anyone wouldn't go completely mad, after that.)
Her mind knows nothing more than the primal need to escape, years of mastery in physical exercise pushing her forward. It's much easier, too, without the extra burden on her back: no heavy metal awkwardly slapping against her as she runs, nor any long silver curls occasionally flying in her face, tickling her cheeks as she breathlessly speaks t— (no, no, no, my God what’s the last thing she even said—)
“What's happening?! What is that thing…?!?”
A man's screams reach her ears as she passes, the streets filled with a panicked frenzy of people reacting to the apocalyptic hellscape in the distance. The disaster has yet to spread much further out past the airport where it originated, but there's no telling if or when it will, police cars and others already flying in, scrambling for what meager damage control they can provide amidst the confusion. Aya can't help but feel that it's all somewhat laughable, for this is practically just another Tuesday for Yokohama at this point; the fourth or fifth catastrophe of such proportions the city has known within just the last month, two alone occurring today.
Still, as terrifying as it had been, desperately pushing the table (and herself) off the tower, feeling as though the saving of the world rested solely on her shoulders, it all seems to pale in comparison to what's happening now. Aya knows the Armed Detective Agency has handled countless dire situations before, but this, that… being in the sky and how it had come about, and the person responsible for it, is undeniably, terribly, something else entirely.
(she knows this, even not having been present for most of the incidents before, because she had seen the agency president’s still-tearstained face, awash in abject horror and sheer despair, as he had stared up at the forming calamity. She had seen the wordless story written in the silent hopelessness in his eyes, and vaguely, the incomprehensible fate that had befallen that other soldier, all while B—they—that man—had crooned at her, all the while her eyes half-fixated beyond him on the spot on the ground where he had been, staring at the thick piles of hair, so numerous yet so fragile that the wind was already carrying them away, the voice jeering in her ears and her mind shutting down as her stomach threatened to upend—)
Her legs had acted on their own, Aya having no actual memory of the exact moment she had bolted. She can only recall the fading, panicked cries of someone’s voice, one that had sounded suspiciously like Kunikida, and the thought of it stings her chest even more, but she'll only get in their way if she stays. At least, that is, as she is now.
Aya has never stood helplessly by during a crisis. Never will she be that weak again, existing for nothing more than to be protected.
(Not when despite everything she'd done, she still couldn't protect him.)
And so she marches on, heart turned ice cold, something within her soul irreversibly broken.
“Where the FUCK have you been?!“
Her feet lead her home, where she’s greeted with exactly what she expected.
(A home that will never be home. Not when “home” already ceased to exist, in the cruel blink of an eye.)
Aya ignores him, barely hearing the shouting. She’s used to ignoring, after all, in the same way that he ignores her, outside of whenever he wants her to be useful. Taking off her shoes, she strides down the hall without sparing the living room a single glance, his lectures, undoubtedly for staying out amidst the danger, echoing behind her, though he clearly isn't worried enough to get up from his usual spot — never mind the fact that he of all people is who should be out there, fighting.
(He has no idea what she's been through, what she's lived, for the past twelve hours, and wouldn’t believe her even if he cared to ask. Hadn't he originally told her to go to the airport to find something for him? Aya can't even remember what it was anymore — that feels like a lifetime ago now. Everything feels like a lifetime ago, the lifetime before stepping into that coffin in a desperate bid for safety—)
But it doesn't matter. Aya is used to fighting, too; after all, fighting is what she does best. She will be a Warrior of Justice till the end, if no one else can, or will. Even if it's futile, even if she dies trying, it's all she can do, for the sake of all the innocent lives in need of someone to save them.
(All she can do, to keep from breaking.)
The old man's room is at the very back of the house, unpleasant smells accosting her the moment she walks inside, even stronger than the ones where he eternally resides. Most of her time is only ever spent holed away in her own bedroom, as she ordinarily never dares to set foot here and risk incurring even more of his wrath, but such thoughts never even enter her mind now, Aya focused solely on her goal. Maneuvering through piles of clothes and empty bottles, she heads to the closet in the corner, where he keeps his most sensitive possessions. He'll kill her if he finds her here, she knows, yet she still can't bring herself to care, nor consider what she'll say if he confronts her about it. None of it is important, none of it matters; nothing matters outside of what she's come here to do, let alone any fear he could ever bring her (nothing could ever make her fear again; nothing greater than the fear she had felt collapsed there in all her powerlessness, her heart being toyed with after being shred to pieces just like he had; witnessing her entire world be viscerally torn apart before her very eyes—).
Various cardboard boxes lie inside the closet, barely secured closed despite their contents. With no particular idea of where her target is, Aya decides on one at random, prepared to check them all if she has to. Sitting down in front of her chosen box, she opens the flaps with ease, with a vague expectation of what she'll find.
It's still no less of a shock to face the photos.
“Mom... Sis......”
Aya slowly pulls the picture on the top of the pile out, voice shaking as she whispers the names of people she barely remembers. Her fingers trace over the smiling faces, the entire scene of four alien in its blissful serenity. It's unsurprising that two of them feel like strangers, but since when has she seen him appear that happy? That man, too, the one she had idolized so much it hurt, is as unrecognizable as the women. Even herself, her own smile, appears foreign to see on her face. Aya can't recall the last time she thinks she's truly felt it. Not until she had started spending time with the Armed Detective Agency, and not until...
Unconsciously, she flings her backpack off her shoulders, throwing it to the side as she becomes lost in memories. It's only upon the quiet “thunk” of metal and jingling plastic hitting the floor that Aya starts, heart pounding in her chest as her gaze is torn away just as quickly, turning towards the source of the noise.
(“Whaddya wanna listen to? Does this sound good? It seems like something you'd probably enjoy.”)
Her iPhone had fallen out of her bag near where she'd thrown it, the earbuds still attached and lying in a curled pile nearby (curled lifelessly on the ground like endless spirals of silver—). The screen is lit up, awoken from the force of the impact, and Aya stares at the device for what feels like an eternity, as though laying her eyes upon an earth-shattering truth, shaken to her very core.
(“It is more than acceptable. More than I could have ever dreamt of.”)
Suddenly, the photograph hardly matters, dropped beside the box without a second thought, as Aya scrambles across the floor towards the phone. Flicking the lock screen open, she's greeted with the sight of the music app, paused partway through a song she can't pronounce the name of, within a random classical playlist she had chosen earlier. With trembling fingers, she then picks up the earbuds, holding them up to her face to examine them closely, running her nails along the speaker’s edges.
They are completely spotless, without a single bit of crust or wax.
(“I thought I might never hear such splendid music ever again. Thank you, lass.”)
And Aya bursts into tears.
(“You’re welcome! It's all yours, whenever you want to listen.”)
How silly it is, for this to be what finally does her in. How bizarre it would look to anyone else, to so much as cry over something as trivial and undesirable as earwax — or the lack of it — to the point that she's doubled over on the floor, sobbing so hard she can scarcely breathe. And yet, what else can she do? How else can she react, upon the cruel, heartless realization (as cruel and as heartless as that demon) that there is nothing left; nothing, nothing, nothing left of him in this world to remember him by, to prove that he'd once lived, and with her… Nothing, that is, aside from a knight’s purest vow of loyalty, callously stolen and flaunted and defiled by the very person who had killed him?
I just sat there, just letting that guy mock him like that, watching his hair blow away. Why didn't I try to grab any of it? Would it've just disappeared even if I did? Why didn't I do anything—?!
Oh how hard she had been trying to suppress it all — how laughable to think that such was possible, that she wouldn't break as soon as the adrenaline had worn off; as soon as she was away from the cacophony of the disaster outside, and alone with only the quiet, and her weak illusion of sanity. But as her sobs turn hoarse, and she at last sits up, leaning her back against the wall as silent tears continue to stream down her face, Aya wonders if this is what the man in the other room truly felt, when she had lost her mother followed by her sister: this acute, choking, all-encompassing agony that can only be called “grief”.
(Would he still feel it now, if she were gone? Or would he not, in the same way that she doesn’t know if even she would, with the father she had once loved having already died sometime long ago? The same grief she had seen on his face, the would-be grief, after he had reunited with her on the ground in front of the tower, when he had thought he almost lost her?)
The memory keeps playing over and over again in her head, like a horrible, cursed movie, frighteningly detailed, tearing her heart apart more and more with every loop of it all. They had been standing there together, in the warm sunset, watching the Agency's president mourn the enemy leader (and she had celebrated, cheered for his victory, and then he had still tried to protect her during the blast; how awful could she possibly be, in light of what she’s feeling now?), and the danger had long subsided. She had been holding his hand, uncaring of its sheer coldness, but merely grateful that he now had hands with which to hold at all. The peace had felt so earned, such a blessing, and Aya had scarcely been able to believe that everything had worked out as well as it had — that they had all come out of it alive.
And then it was over.
(Over too soon, so little time they had had, such cruelly little time. How is it fair, that fate, God — whatever it may be — could take him away from her so suddenly and so easily? After how hard they had fought to win and survive, after they had won, after she had met someone who seemed to care for her so deeply after so short a time, who felt in every way a fa—)
It had happened so fast. One moment nothing had been wrong, and the next moment he had been calmly speaking her name, before suddenly turning around and shoving her away before Aya had even had a chance to understand what was happening, ordering her to run. And then mere moments later, as she had floundered on the pavement from the sheer force of his push, she had watched him struggle, writhing, screaming, before his face had been pulled apart, his long hair exploding from his head and to the ground as he had transformed into that monster, the entire nightmare of events lasting eons yet seconds.
One moment, he had still been there. And then he was no more, replaced by his own murderer. And then the world was ending again, his assassin kneeling before her (as any knight would) and gently crushing any last remnants of remaining hope, reassuring with sickly sweet kindness that he would protect her, in order to carry out the last will of the life he had so coldly snuffed out, while Aya had merely sat there, screaming things she can now no longer remember, watching everything she had slip through her fingers, completely and utterly helpless.
“Br— Y-You fool... How couldja only care 'bout protecting me, in your l-last moments...?”
Aya pulls her knees up to her chest, another sob escaping her throat as she puts on her earbuds, resuming the song that had been paused hours ago, losing herself in the soothing, elegant melody. The two of them had talked occasionally, in hiding spots within the airport and inside the truck, about various mundane topics (some of which Aya had little understanding of), but outside of that, he had spent most of the time listening to music. It seemed to have an almost tranquilizing effect on him, for he had fallen asleep almost instantly whenever she had handed off her phone in between travel. Aya had seen him try to sleep prior to when he had asked for a radio, in a willful attempt to ignore her, but it hadn't appeared restful, not until she had given him her music.
She had had much time to examine his features. His expression was stoic, yet at times surprisingly gentle. Piercing and composed, yet betraying a bone-deep, ancient exhaustion. He did not breathe, and perhaps hadn't even truly needed sleep, but watching his face while he slept with her music, the sword propped up so that his head rested against her shoulder, it felt as though he hadn't had such a peaceful sleep in centuries.
Perhaps he hadn't, and those were the last times he ever would.
(Do vampires dream? She doesn't know. She can only hope that if he did, his final dreams were happy ones.)
Had he been in too much pain, at the end? Had he suffered? The thought of it (the memory of his screams) tears Aya to pieces more than almost anything else, almost as much as the mourning that she hadn't done anything more for him — if not to save him, than at least to comfort and to thank him, much more than some silly, stupid songs from her phone could ever possibly convey.
(How had he become someone who means so much to her so quickly, someone she had only just met earlier that day by complete accident? Aya can’t possibly say why. She only knows how he made her feel, when he had acknowledged her skills without scorn, and treated her kindly despite his weary, aloof gruffness, and called her “princess” despite all that she is — despite how little she embodies such femineity that can never match that of a ghost’s — and whenever she had caught him gazing warmly at her with something vaguely akin to affection, to longing, briefly breaking through the cold, lonely sorrow that seemed to weigh down the creature who no longer even had a body to his name, let alone anyone to live for, or to love.)
It isn’t fair. Too, too unfair that they hadn’t had more time, when they were only just beginning to learn about one another, and when she still knows so heartbreakingly little about him… when he had asked for so little, and received only the cruelest death in return.
(His only wish had been for music, and the release of sleep. What had he done to deserve such suffering — what crime, to have everything stolen away from him, reducing him to a tired husk of a torso, with nothing else to live for? And then to be used as a pawn until mercilessly slaughtered, just when he’d at last gained his first taste of freedom?)
Instead, he hadn’t even been able to finish his last song.
I should have asked more about him, and why he always looked so sad. I should have said thanks, for saving my life so many times. For taking me seriously, and showing interest in me and the things I said, even if most of the time he didn’t really get what I was talking about. For agreeing to help me, even though he didn’t have any interest in the world. For giving me the courage to fight as much as I did, and being the reason I’m still alive now, right here.
...I can't stay here.
The song ends. Aya closes the app, before the playlist can continue. She takes the earbuds out, wiping her nose as she sniffles, rising weakly to her feet. For a long while she stands against the wall, phone held loosely in her hand, the silence only broken by the sound of her heartbeat, and the torrential storm within her mind.
And then the fog clears, and, as if finally remembering why she had come here in the first place, Aya whirls back around, turning her attention once again towards the boxes in the closet with a vengeance.
(She still has a job to do, in the end. She’s still a Warrior of Justice, even after — no, especially after — this.)
Squatting down and picking up the family photo, Aya gazes at it for a few wistful moments, before planting a gentle kiss on the glass. Then, it goes back in the box without a second glance, which she closes up and pushes off to the side. She reaches for another box, opening it briefly to check the contents, and then another, and then another. Boxes upon boxes of memories her father chooses to no longer acknowledge, locked away when the pain had become too great, that tell stories of a life in which Aya had been too young to ever truly assimilate as her own. Perhaps if the situation wasn’t what it is — and if her feelings towards her late relatives weren’t complicated, thanks to the man who only ever wants Aya to be anyone but herself — she would take the time to look through them all. But such is not the case, and she hasn’t the luxury of nostalgia now. She’s only here for one thing, and for one person, his spirit pushing her onwards even after death.
When she at last finds the right box, Aya only hesitates for a moment, staring down at what lies within in trepidation.
(“Thou art only ten years of age? Not even old enough to use a loom.”)
Reaching inside, she pulls out one of the pistols, aiming it straight in front of her towards an imaginary target.
(Not old enough to use a loom, yet old enough to use a gun, no doubt.)
The barrel is empty of bullets, but she checks to make sure of it anyway, and then checks again, and a third time, before flicking the safety and pressing the trigger, testing how it feels. Somehow, deep in the recesses of her mind, within memories of watching her father at his job, Aya has a crude, vague understanding of how a handgun works, which she now pries out from her subconscious for this very moment. Setting the pistol gently beside her, she rummages further through the box, fetching a smaller container of bullets, before shifting to sit cross-legged on the floor, slowly and steadily preparing all the components as she remembers that it’s done, as carefully as she can.
Her actions are precise and methodical, almost like a prayer. The emotional outburst from earlier has long since subsided, like a switch was flicked, and somehow, it feels a bit easier to breathe, her mind focused and clear. All she can endeavor towards now is what she originally set out to do, all that she can do — the drive to fight, and to save (other) lives, spurred on by a knight’s enduring loyalty that kneels before her will and hers alone.
(Yes, only to her, and it is her will that will take what has been stolen from him. He will have no choice but to submit, by his own admission, if such loyalties remain true.)
It may seem foolhardy and reckless; delusional, even, to think that she can possibly succeed. But anything is better than sitting around without taking any action, waiting for the grief to completely consume her, leaving her a lifeless, empty husk, with no longer any sense of purpose.
(No, that isn’t going to be her fate. Not as long as there are still things she can do, to try to make things right.)
If she were in an action movie, this is the part where the warrior heroine would cut her hair in a decisive moment, signifying her change and newfound resolve to triumph over whatever stands in her way. But Aya is merely a ten-year-old girl who has lost her sword, with no long hair to cut, nor the refined grace with which such heroines would do so. Her only weapon is a gun, and as much brute strength as someone her age can muster from karate practice. She doesn’t even have a special ability, like everyone in the detective agency.
All she has to her name is her determination.
“And just where do you think you’re going…?”
It will have to be enough.
(“That’s why I need the people of the world, and they need me! So please, help me…!”)
Her father is in the hallway, stopping her from leaving. The gun was safely stored in her backpack, and she had packed everything away in the closet as though it had never been touched, nearing the front door before being confronted by his sudden appearance. He now stands between Aya and freedom, looming over her in his usual disgruntled, apathetic way. Hardly is it the first time they’ve been at war with each other like this, nor will it likely be the last, but Aya is never truly afraid, least of all now — not when she has faced true fear head-on, the likes of which this pathetic man could never hope to match.
She knows he is concerned, despite what she so often wants to believe. At least, that small part of him deep down that still survives from a kinder past, unable to show itself through a shell that has been irrevocably hardened and corrupted, into someone she can no longer recognize.
I’m sorry.
Somehow, she wants to cry, and for once not from hatred. But staring up into his familiar, sunken, tired eyes, the newfound, suffocating agony in her chest throbs all the harder: the precise, overwhelming agony that can only come from losing someone more dear to you than anyone else in the world.
I know you’re hurting, and have been for a long time. I'm sorry we couldn’t all be happy together.
Aya bites back a sob, two faces merging together within her gaze, allowing her bleeding heart to dream of past and future memories of what had once been, what should have been, and what could have continued to be.
I wish you could have met him. He was a protector of justice, just like I want to be. Just like you used to be.
(A lovely dream, indeed. Perhaps in another universe, it might even be real.)
And then the dream ends, and Aya closes her eyes, where only one face remains.
“…To save the world.”
But I have to move on.
The words are spoken more assuredly than anything she’s ever said in her life. His brow twitches in response, furrowing deeper, matching her own stony countenance. Aya steels herself, steadying her stance as she would before a match, preparing for the inevitable explosion.
She’s only met with silence, the stalemate stretching out over a century.
And then, at last, he sighs. His entire body seems to wilt, as he stares at her incomprehensibly. As though she is an enigma he cannot possibly understand, as he’s looked at her for years now… and yet, at the same time, for the first time she can remember in so very long, as though he is struck by something he’s never before seen reflected in her eyes.
(In that other universe, she might even have called the emotion gazing back at her “respect”.)
Aya takes the opportunity and bolts. He doesn’t stop her as she runs past. Nor does he say anything else at all as she shoves open the front door, deserting the house for good.
I’m sorry. Thank you.
She races out into the fray, running down the street once again. The sky seems an even brighter orange now, and Aya can see explosions in the distance, and flashes of a great battle.
Somewhere out there, the one known as Dostoyevsky is causing destruction, with that twisted, maniacal grin on his face, wanting to bring harm to everyone she cares for. Waiting to protect her, until she is the last person on Earth.
If that is his wish, then so be it. He, too, shall serve her unto his death.
Wait for me, Bra-chan.
(She won’t let this be all that’s become of his love.)
Aya quickens her pace, running towards her fated enemy and the Armed Detective Agency, her earbuds clutched tightly in one hand. A warm, powerful sensation envelops her heart, becoming her wings and growing ever stronger, preparing to burst forth with a life of its very own.
Your Princess will avenge you.