Description: Heroes can take many forms. All that matters is that they're there.
The ringing bells can be heard for blocks around the quiet, unassuming church building nestled in the residential district of Southtown Village. They are large - too large really for a chapel of its size; it's clear that whoever saw to the plans when this structure was built decades ago had a grand vision of musical, caroling bells that would serenade all within range to hear them. Long gone is the congregation that once met here and now the property belongs to the Futaba estate. A gift from a husband to wife. Before darker times were to tear them forever apart.
The pig-tailed girl that is tending to the small cemetery in the far back corner of the walled in couple of acres thinks only of the brighter times as she kneels in well maintained grass while trimming bushes that form a green border around a grey-stone entrance to a sepulcher. On top of the monument is a bronze robed angle, her wings spread wide, her arms steepled in front of her chest as if in prayer for those who rest here eternally.
The ringing bells, carolling in the seven o'clock hour, drown out all other sounds for well over a minute. Including the snapping sounds of the clippers she is using to trim back the branches that have grown unsightly, sticking out at various angles from the bushes - evidence of the time she had spent in another country for so many weeks.
As the song ends and the seven long, patient gongs resound throughout the area, the sole maintainer of this property sighs, the sound drown out by the resonating bells in the oversized bellfry. A memory from a time long gone had come to mind. Only to be followed by that uneasiness that has plagued her frequently as of late. That uncertainty about whether what she remembers is real, or just another carefully crafted fabrication.
He has a good feeling about it, this time.
Though it's not apparent, Alma Towazu has returned to this place several times since its young keeper left. In the little amount of free time that he maintains between his work at the YFCC, Giorgio's new modelling campaign, and his perpetual scrambling to keep up with his university schoolwork, the beautiful young man has devoted several hours on a few occasions to simply sitting in the church yard, listening to the bells toll, waiting where he once sat beside the girl and made his promise. He would bring a basket of fresh-baked bread, the mild-mannered -- and frankly rather odd -- dreamy psychic smiling contentedly to himself as the minutes passed in silence, waiting for someone who he felt sure would not arrive. He didn't touch anything. He watched the shrubs grow quietly. Though it would have been nice to do some small thing for the girl, and though most likely she trusts him enough that she wouldn't feel uncomfortable with him cleaning things up for her-- all the same, this is her place. He didn't want to disturb anything.
But he felt like someone ought to be there.
To keep the bells company.
He would break up the bread, scatter it for the doves, and leave.
This time he hasn't brought anything. Having had time to return home and change after work, wearing his new favorite casual outfit of chocolate brown designer jeans and his snug tan and white long-sleeved ribbed cotton top, the tall bronze-skinned young man smiles to himself as he often does, black loafers crunching quietly through a gravel path. Blond hair an artful mess, one red-tinged bang hanging low over a hazel eye, the fighting model actually looks a little melancholy today-- but perhaps he's just tired. He may not have been fighting in a foreign land -- though he might wish he could have been, or at least often wonder how things would have been different if he had chosen that broader obligation instead -- but his commitments have been serious, and he has fulfilled them as best as he can.
Now he is here, fulfilling another, born of his love.
He may be short on time, but Alma has love to spare.
His 'good feeling' is retroactively justified as soon as he hears the snipping of the shears, and his smile broadens a little, his eyes revealing how he emerges from his nigh-perpetual reverie. He neither attempts to hide his presence nor makes a show of his appearance, and if necessary he will stand and wait until she finishes, approaching from behind, slipping his hands into the back pockets of his flatteringly tight jeans, and savoring the sight of Hotaru Futaba at work. A certain ethereal quality tinges everything Alma experiences, given the nature of his perception, but this place in particular...
He'll wait in silence, listening the tolling fade into the horizon.
*snip* Another twig is cut free before her careful hand brushes along the outside of the bush and secures hold on the next branch to go. Up come the clippers with another *snip*. As the seventh toll fades the property is bathed in quiet tranquility for a long while. Perhaps a moment of passing silence for all the souls that have come here to find peace in troubled times. And then... little by little the yard gradually fills with sound. *snip*
A coo in the bellfry announces the presence of the doves and one feathered resident takes flight, winging circles around the building. A rustle in a low brush heralds the arrival of a small, brown rabbit that hops out onto the well manicured grass and gets immediately to nibbling away, soft eyes gazing at the two humans present.*snip*
The trickle of the gentle man-made brook fills out the background ambience as it flows nearby toward the lilly-covered pond at the end of it. A frog leaps out of the water with a splash, landing on top of one of the green floating 'stages' and from there begins a serenade of his own quiet ribbits.*snip*
It's no wonder it takes Hotaru a while to realize she has a friend visiting. Within this small sanctuary from the normal daily bustle of life it is easy to get lost... if one is willing. But she finally does, her hands lowering to her lap as she glances over her shoulder, blue eyes coming to rest upon the young man behind her. "Alma," the girl states, her expression a mixture of happiness and no small amount of relief. It is as if his arrival fullfills an expectation she was already harboring in her heart. For all the random coincidences that can happen in a normal, busy day, it would seem that right now, Alma Towazu is here at just the right time.
Aren't heroes always?
Well, he has a way of doing that sometimes. Before, it only seemed to happen with Jiro, but-- Alma's world has grown since then. He's grown. Besides, he has an exceptional intuition in general... and perhaps even more importantly, his temperment inclines him to trust that intuition with unusual frequently.
"Good evening, Hotaru."
So here he is.
"Welcome home."
The tall young man's smile widens as he begins to approach, lowering his head to meet her eyes, mussed hair only further extending over his refined features, single ear-stud glimmering in the evening light. But one eye remains fully unshaded, and the softness present therein is reassuring, a focal point for the field of reassurance his calm and relaxed attitude seems to naturally project, the attitude that has been so helpful for his new profession. He walks up to the blue-haired girl, pauses for only a moment, his smile softening and fading a little-- and then reaches out to embrace her, pulling the smaller figure close to him with a graceful spontaneity. His grip is loose -- there is no particular intensity of emotion in the act -- but the softness of his touch makes his sentiments clear despite his silence. It's good to have her near. However much he believes in allowing others to become a genuine part of himself, in that those close to him are always with him-- it's good to have her near, really near.
"I'm glad you're okay."
He smells of lavender, and the freshness after rain.
When he releases her he moves to stand beside her, smiling down at her again before looking up at the statue of the angel contemplatively. He's silent for a little while again, patient as always, his passion out of combat inevitably taking this form of languidly revelling in the little moments. But it's only a moment before he glances back toward the girl, tilting his chin down and giving her a smiling sidelong look.
"I haven't been much help to you, have I?"
He says that, but his smile becomes more of a grin.
As the young man steps forward the much smaller girl is already on her feet, facing him directly now. And as he pulls her forward into an embrace of close friendship, she wraps her arms around him as well. Behind his back, one hand fumbles with the clippers she was still holding before she releases them, allowing the tool to fall to the grass behind Alma with a soft thud.
Her expression is quiet acknowledgement of the sentiment behind his gesture, enjoying the contact with a dear friend - a rare moment in her life as of late. "Thank you," the girl's soft voice is heard until he mentions not having been much help as of late. Turning to face the statue when he moves to her side, she matches his glance with a solemn regard for the angelic watchkeeper.
"I haven't been around either," she replies with a grin in turn as if to let him off the hook. After all, she didn't expect all of Southtown to follow her to Thailand. In given the effects the war ravaged country had on so many, it's actually a relief. At least some things have been spared the conflict's taint. A few things at home remain as they were before. And that stability provides a reassuring foundation with which to resume the life she had before she left.
"We're both busy in our own ways, I guess." Time between close friends is such a precious commodity it seems. There is just never quite enough of it to go around.
"I was looking for you this weekend. Did Mizuki-san send you this way?" The polite honorific normally missing from her speech since her journies abroad seems to find its way back into her diction whenever speaking of or to the red headed priestess. "There is something I wanted to talk to you about," Hotaru adds, looking away now, eyes fixed on a simple inscription cut into the stone wall of the underground sepulchar's entrance before them. It appears to be a name, though no other information is provided. Yumeji.
Alma blinks at that, hands slipping back into his pockets after the embrace as he turns fully to regard her. "No," he replies, "I actually haven't seen her in a little bit. I've been... rather preoccupied." He pauses, and for a moment, he actually averts his eyes for a bit, appearing slightly pensive. "It's too bad," he murmurs. "She has a lot of potential. I'd rather be paying more attention to her development. But--"
He looks back and smiles again, following her gaze to the inscription as he adds quietly, "I have no regrets about what I've committed myself to here. And she's the sort of girl that really can take care of herself."
~ Like someone else I know... ~
That's what he wants to say, but though he has a lot of faith in Hotaru's determination, especially given how she's changed over the course of her journeying-- it doesn't seem appropriate right now. It takes him a moment to figure out why, a moment he spends looking solemnly at a name he does not recognize, but...
~ I don't want her to feel alone at all right now. ~
Even if she can take care of herself, right now, Hotaru doesn't have to. And there's something about her-- he can't tell whether it's her mannerisms or her aura-- sometimes it all melds together for him. The latter may only be a kind of visual metaphor for the former in any case. But there's something about her right now--
He's never detected any unease in her in this place, not here.
But...
There's already a slightly troubled look in his eyes now as he looks at her, gazing at her profile as she continues to regard the inscription.
"I'm all ears..."
~ What is it? There's something strange. ~
"...Is there some way I can be of aid?"
~ I... can't put my finger on it... but then... I've never spent much time around someone who has returned from a war... could that be it? ~
As her dear friend speaks of Mizuki, Hotaru smiles, nodding her head once as if agreeing with his assessment of the miko. Having witnessed the girl's gift first hand. Incredible potential there - coupled with wisdom and compassion. Even having just had the chance to get to know her, young Futaba feels there's something special there.
Her eyes break away from the inscribed name as she looks back toward him, hands clasping behind her back now, fingers folded together. She almost wished Mizuki had caught up with him and told him something. It would spare her having to repeat so much of what was going through her mind now. She can see his concern, sensing it, perceptive as always. "It's..."
She starts off reluctant, talking about how she had gone to Thailand in hopes of finding Sakura Kasugano and bringing the missing girl back home. She sounds a little sheepish, as if she has since strongly questioned why she thought she would be able to help with something like that. "Over time I encountered many people I knew that had come." She continues, nodding to the side as if to ask him to walk with her a ways.
Hands still clasped behind her back as she begins to walk toward the front of the church building, she continues to speak, her words coming easier the further along her story she gets. "There was a boy I had met before. Kurow Kirishima. A student at Justice High. We had sparred before. Nothing more." She mentions how she saw him there in Thailand. How he helped her out of a prison she had found herself caught in.
Approaching the steps leading up to the heavy wooden doors, the girl pauses as she transitions into the less comfortable portion of what she had to tell him about. She explains a battle for a strategic location took place. A radio tower. Supposedly it was important. She didn't know the details. Heading up the steps Hotaru pauses, turning around to ask, "Would you like to come inside? It's starting to get dark." A cozy interior might be an easier place for her to recount the rest.
Alma Towazu, for the first time in quite a long while, feels emotionally out of his depth. He can only listen quietly as a sensation of awe, more disconcerting than his usual feelings of appreciation for whatever he happens to be experiencing at any given moment, sweeps over him. It's a strange feeling, an uncomfortable one. And though it feels deeply wrong to be thinking about himself for even a moment as the girl begins to describe the scars of warfare she has suffered, the young man cannot but take a second to feel ashamed of himself-- for though he has often thought on how Hotaru has grown, he never imagined that she would outgrow himself.
His own personal tragedies have taught him a great deal; the mindset he has cultivated has not merely salvaged his young and promising life but tempered it into a gleaming, radiant example of an attitude worthy of aspiring to. For all his generous advice, Alma rarely speaks on this past, though Hotaru herself has recently become one of the few aware of it even a little. For him, those memories are sacred; to be too free with them would be to desecrate them. Those struggles are his origin. Yet how can they compare to war, real war? Even the pain of losing both his parents and the manner in which he lost them-- how can he truly empathize with Hotaru, with her fighting bloodily in the jungle, with her being imprisoned, her very fate ever in the balance?
More than not possessing the words of response that would do justice to her story, Alma has the uneasy initial sense that he is useless here-- and though it is not overwhelming, he notices it all the more because it has been two years since he last felt it.
But though he is young he is not proud, and perhaps this is why he lets the emotion go quickly. If for once he has no talent to apply, if even his passion is not enough, then he will have his devotion to her as proof of his worthiness of her trust. Even if he must stay silent, he will stay all the same.
It's pleasantly humbling when seen in that light-- besides being a clear sign, to an observer in the know, that he can't be all that much of a psychic if he's so clueless as to how important his 'talents' are indeed soon going to be.
"Please," he murmurs to her offer, speaking for the first time in several minutes. The handsome youth walks up the steps, following close behind her. "Thank you." One stray bang still shades one eye, but the other is gentle, calm, attentive, complementing the mild set of his refined features.
He'll wait for her to let them in and get settled, but once they are done...
"Please, continue."
As Alma agrees that going inside would be fine, Hotaru pauses in her account to pull the heavy wooden door open before stepping inside. The layout of the building is simple enough. A small entry-foyer comes first, with coat racks, a bathroom, and some closets all closed. A blue, Chinese styled long coat hangs from one of the racks. Off to one side of the lobby a door sits open, leading into a small room that had served as a pastor's office years ago but it is unoccupied now.
Beyond the loby is the main chapel hall itself. Hotaru pauses at the entrance to the large chapel room to fumble for a light switch in the wall. When she flicks it on, a long row of hanging, decorated lights set the room gently aglow. A thin layer of dust coats the surfaces here. Not the sort that would indicate years of neglect but perhaps a month or so since the last dusting. The typical furnishings one would expect in a chapel are present. A raised pulpit from which no one has heard a sermon for some time. An electric organ in the front right corner. It hasn't been plugged in for ages and may not even work anymore.
Stained glass windows line the walls of the main chapel hall. As it is night, their colors are dark and no light from outside pours through them to bath the room in a myrid of colors. Events from holy writ fill the glass windows, suspended in heavy, sturdy iron frames. On a few of the wooden pews that fill the hall are blankets and pillows, suggesting that at least from time to time, people might drop by here to sleep, be they friends of this place's only caretaker or just random wanderers in need of shelter from a passing storm or frigid night.
In the back right corner are some school text books sitting on a table with a big, soft leather chair next to the desk. It was probably pulled out of the pastor's office at one point. In the back left corner is a mahogany shelf, mounted into the wall. At one time it served to hold racks of hymnals, but now it houses dozons of photographs in frames and a single bouquet of flowers that have died and dried up months ago - it's hard to tell that they were once a vibrant violet.
Hotaru leads the way into the chapel, turning to slip into one of the pews and seat herself atop the thick blankets that cover it, her hands resting in her lap. She waits for Alma to join her, asking that he pardon the dust - she has been a little negligent she admits sheepishly.
Only then does she pick up where she left off, talking about the war came to an end and the people there didn't need heroes anymore. It was a time to rebuild their homes and bury their dead, and the fighters who had come to help in the battle, while appreciated for all they had sacrificed, were just not of much use for the next trying phase that country was entering in.
And so she had come home, back to Southtown, thinking all was well. "But then a friend of mine... Eva Mans... Mansanetti I think it is?" Italian names. Troublesome to remember for her! "She visited me at the Kyokugen Dojo and we talked for a while. She was at that fight with me at the radio tower... only... her account of events there were far different from how I remembered it playing out..."
Now this is a shift in gears.
Inspired by his wholesome desire to be supportive even beyond his abilities to do so, Alma has listened attentively to every word, seated on the blanketed pew close beside the blue-haired girl. Even his natural urge to savor the unique ambience of this place has been set aside, though he now knows that he most certainly wants to see this place during the daytime; he is the kind of guy that could let hours pass watching the play of light through the stained glass.
But that feeling from before, as interesting to him as it was, is gone entirely now. This is a twist to the story he did not anticipate. He has clearly been invited in as more than just another trusted friend to lend an ear to a terrible tale.
Alma's gaze flickers, brow furrowing slightly. Straightening in his seat he shifts to regard her more closely, the tall youth lowering his head a bit more to get closer to meeting the girl's eyes directly.
"Tell me everything," he says, his tone now less quiet and more matter-of-fact. "You sound as though this is more than a case of naturally differing perspectives." Something about the name Kurow is nagging at him. It might be just his intuition, or-- did Jiro ever mention this fellow? Back when Daigo was having his troubles...
"How did your accounts differ?"
Now that she is getting to the crux of the matter, Hotaru has become more pensive, her hands resting in her lap. Her eyes are on his face, the visage of a trusted friend providing the support she needs to get through this difficult time. She pauses at his questions, nodding slightly as he correctly tunes in to this being the focal point of the matter that she sought him out for in the first place.
"The biggest difference was that she told me that when we fought alongside each other, Kurow Kirishima was among those battling on the side of the Shadaloo mercenaries. But I don't remember him being there at all. I- I thought maybe she was just a little confused. I would have certainly noticed if Kurow was there. But she insisted that not only was he there but I fought him."
The girl frowns a little, kneading the fingers of her hands together. "I decided to find Arika Fade. She was at that battle too. They're teammates, you see. Eva and Arika and Dra-... well, Domino as he ca-" She pauses, smiling sheepishly. She was getting side tracked, perhaps finding it easier to ramble on about details not exactly core as to what she is trying to get at.
"Anyway, Arika's account matched Eva's. It's... it's pretty clear to me that I'm the one that can't remember how that all happened correctly. The problem is with me. I-... Well, it seems so specific. Maybe it's just some kind of... what do they call them, like a reaction to something traumatic. But I don't know why I would forget something so specific as Kurow's involvement on Shadaloo's side."
She sighs a little, adding one more detail, "Besides, if Kurow really was on Shadaloo's side, like I now know from everything I've seen from the footage of when he appeared with Sakura Kasugano on TV, then... there's no reason he would have stopped by this very place a few days ago and acted so nice and friendly with me."
"That is unusual."
Alma too seems pensive, but for reasons quite different than Hotaru. He is trying to remember whether or not he knows anything at all about this Kurow fellow. He knows that Jiro had a rather disastrous confrontation with him back when Daigo was suffering from whatever form of mind-control he was--
Alma's visage hardens quite suddenly.
~ I really have no idea, but... ~
"Hotaru," he begins, slowly but firmly, once contemplatively distant gaze now refocusing to make direct eye contact with the girl. "Do you feel as though someone may be... manipulating you somehow?"
~ ...could this fellow be a psychic of some kind as well? ~
Being more of an empath than a manipulator by nature, only able to affect people's judgment by the raw and unrefined force of his considerable presence, Alma has no personal experience in such matters, and his current line of thought is a shot in the dark. But he has a feeling that Hotaru, even if she either doesn't want to say it yet or hasn't even consciously realized, has called him in particular for a reason relating to this.
~ I felt it before. Her aura is... ~
...disrupted. So much of her is as it always is, if not even stronger, more mature than ever before. But something is held back, like a small pond held by a fragile dam. A pool of memories tucked gently away by clever, experienced deception and the manipulative power of an unfortuantely talented young man.
As he asks his question, her eyes focus on his, sapphire blue irises wide in the fairly dim lighting of the chapel, shimmering with trepidation that begs to not be spoken of allowed. But she got this far while speaking with Mizuki in the slightly less private lobby of the YFCC, surely she can tell Alma anything on her mind in the comfort of her own sequestered sanctuary.
"I think so. I think it's Kurow's doing. I think back to when he helped me get out of prison. That's about when everything started seeming a little fuzzy. Like, I couldn't quite sort events out chronologically so well anymore. At the time... well, things were pretty chaotic over there. I saw a lot of things I wasn't ready for. I figured it was just me trying to cope with it all. It wasn't until I got back and my versions of events didn't match up that I started to realize it was something more than that..."
And then she's quiet. She's told him all that she has been able to figure out on her own as well as all of the theories she's come up with since learning more happened there than she realized. She breaks eye contact then, still kneading her hands in her lap, "Anyway, I guess, well, that's it. I-... well, maybe it sounds kind of silly, but, you know how you... I mean, you have a special connection with... like... when I've felt the attacks you use in fights before, they're not like the energy other people use..." It sounds like she might just keep beating around the bush for a while here unless otherwise prompted or interrupted.
He's not sure whether this is better or worse.
Normally, Alma is the kind of person who would automatically consider having an opportunity to help someone as being vastly superior to lacking the faculties to do so. But the kind of unease he is beginning to feel right now is entirely different to what he was feeling before, when he felt as though he could be of little use at all. That was simple; like a hound, even if he has nothing else to offer, he has loyalty. This is complicated. He can help, in a way that doubtlessly few others can-- furthermore, in a way that probably only he of Hotaru's friends can.
"Hotaru..."
Only, well...
Alma's voice is softer now, and though the mild manner in which he often reveals his emotions in non-combat settings would make it difficult for a less sensitive person to notice, his eyes reveal that he, in his own way, seems troubled.
...he has no idea how.
"I..."
~ I trust her; she trusts me. But, doing something like this... ~
"I am not sure what I can do, but..."
~ ...do I trust myself? With her psyche? ~
"...I would like to try to help you."
The model takes a deep, silent breath, closing his eyes for a long moment; when they open again, they are clear. This emotion too he releases. If she trusts him, then he must trust himself. To do otherwise would be disrespectful to her, and the value of her belief in him-- is how Alma feels, at least, but the dutiful sentiment is enough to steel him. He does not know the risks; he does not know quite where to begin. He does not know what will happen when he attempts something so technical, or how their auras will mesh in this unusual situation.
But he does know that he must try.
"Please relax," he murmurs, "and allow me to relieve you of your troubles."
Lifting his hands, he gently places them on the diminutive girl's shoulders and gazes at her with heavy-lidded eyes, leaning in slightly. After a moment, he shifts his body on the pew so he can look straight at her, slipping off his shoes and kneeling on the soft cushion so that he can comfortably stare into her eyes without twisting his torso, freeing the flow of his energies. He slips one hand underneath her chin and tilts it up slowly, for he feels intuitively that he should keep his spine straight; he cradles her jaw with smooth fingers for a long moment, then slips his hand back to her shoulder.
He seems mesmerized by her sapphire eyes...
In reality, he is looking somewhere else entirely.
For as vibrant as the color of her eyes is, it, as everything in Alma's world, is only enhanced by the glittering traces of scintillating light, twinkling as the stars do, that permeates everything around and about her.
He opens his mind to her and reaches out with his heart, and finally closes his eyes, ready to move his vision entirely to a different plane. His soul flows over her damaged memory like a liquid balm, moving like a growing puddle over cobbles, tracing its way through the wrinkles of emotion, the grit of memories, the cracks of regret. He searches to unlock for the both of them a piece of this puzzle...
In Hotaru's mind's eye, there is a flicker of a sunlit day, of butterflies and a misty Autumn rain, of smiling faces, of a wistful gracious melancholy-- and then it is gone, and with any luck, it is replaced by a bit of that which she has lost...
"...And I was just wondering, I mean, I don't know if you would want to, I don't even know much about it only that when I started to think of who to talk to I thought of you and then I realized why and I-"
The gentle call of her name quiets the girl and she shifts her attention back to him, eyes on his. There's trust there. A deep, confiding, pure trust that if anyone can help it would be him, and that he would never... never take advantage of her conviction in their friendship. When he says he would like to try the relief is so plainly written on her face that it wouldn't take an empath to feel the powerful emotion emanating from the girl.
She shifts to a position not unlike his in the end, her own blue, soft shoes discarded to the floor as she kneels on the pew, facing him, her hands in her lap. There is no resistence, no tension as he places his hands on her shoulder, then subsequently props her chin up a little. In another scenario the nature of the contact might seem almost too close, bordering upon romantic, but for Hotaru it is closer felt as the intimate touch between close family members as she gives Alma the same unreseved, unfiltered, pure trust a child might give an older sibling. While their ages are no so far apart - for this brief moment Alma Towazu fills in as the brother that she never really had.
Her eyes gaze into his but focus on something much further. Images fill her vision, and months of time are re-experienced in the space of time it takes to blink her eyelids once. While her spirit is willing something in her subconscious fights a losing battle. There are brief flashes of pain as a block in her mind, a tampered space in her psyche, tries to taint the healing touch of the young man's presence. But the pain subsides quickly, soothed by a power greater than that which Kurow had used to alter her memories; the power of genuine friendship coupled with Alma's special gift.
There is a soft gasp as a flood of thoughts, fears, traumas, pains from injuries she had forgotten were ever inflicted, all return at once. But there is also release, the gasp followed by a slow exhale and her single blink finishes, her vision clearing, refocusing on the young man in front of her.
"Thank you," Hotaru whispers, one hand coming from her lap to brush a single tear that streaks down her right cheek. "You helped." The two words are coupled with an expression that radiates gratitude. There's nothing else she can say to express the emotion better than that. After all, when it comes to Alma, words aren't always the most refined means of communicating anyway, now are they.
Glorious.
Alma can feel her aura shifting, the damage restored. It is not nearly as bad as he feared-- precisely because, he has quickly come to realize, this is not the work of a wielder of Psycho Power. Her memories have not been removed, have not been hacked crudely and mercilessly from her mind; they have been blocked off by the power of a taint. An act of true restoration would have been extremely difficult, possibly excruciating for the both of them, and in all likelihood impossible for one such as himself. An act of purging, though, of purifying her mind of a corruption that has been visited upon it, of restoring it to what should be its natural state-- now that is Alma's milleu. The flames of his passion are unquenchable. At heart, this act is no different from a strike against Iori or Yamazaki, an attack against a grasping darkness that threatens to engulf a soul, a darkness that Alma refuses to believe is integral to anyone's character. This is gentle warfare.
Naturally, he possesses a ready talent.
And his own heart swells to feel now what Hotaru is feeling. He does not see the images that she sees now, but he feels a sense that-- he has found family again, and realizes this is not only he, not only he with his desire to create a new family through unbreakable bonds of trust with his friends. He realizes now that he too has met someone who needs a sibling, who needs the unconditional love that more than anyone else a family member can provide-- who will understand his own equivalent need, a need that no matter how often he has called others 'brother' or 'sister' he has never openly expressed. Alma speaks his own language, and he is careful with how he shares it, letting it loose fully only in the heat of battle where how he articulates himself matters the least, backed up as he often is so visibly and overtly by the force of his undeniable fighting spirit. Here, he need say nothing. The words that he has had to choose himself to describe his feelings, that he is all too aware in most circumstances would make little sense even to his friends for no fault of their own-- they are unnecessary.
"Hotaru..."
Alma's hazel eyes, now open, glitter with an ethereal pale light.
"...I'm so glad."
He closes his eyes again, dampening his long eyelashes with the faintly growing moistness there; he savors the connection that remains between them. His work is done; his efforts have reached a culmination. He broke down the barrier between self and other without a brutal strike, with a willing subject; he understands far better how much he truly has progressed. It occurs to him that this experience itself suggests all manner of ways in which he could improve his method of attack... but such thoughts are of little consequence at the moment. Their souls have embraced in the way he has always attempted, in his strange way, in combat. Conflict for Alma has at heart always merely an alternative form of cooperation in that sense, but-- this is true cooperation, he realizes now. This is what he was really aiming for all along.
Hearts united through love and grief, trust and common need.
Glorious.
Alma revels in this gloriousness-- revels for too long. For it takes some long moments after Hotaru's healing for him to realize with a strange start that though he has entered the sanctuary of the girl's soul he is, in fact, not quite sure how to leave.
Not without knocking some walls down.
He tries to open his eyes, to say something and warn the girl; she may see the closed-eyed youth's handsome face shift oddly, struggling to show some mixture of emotions, tinged overall by a strange and disconcerting desperation. But everything in the physical world seems so far away; the tall young man begins to slowly slump forward until his forehead is resting gently in Hotaru's hair.
And as he tries to gather himself again, the images flow unchecked...
A broken bowl upon the floor, spilling cereal into the cracks, the grain of the wood in sharp relief, an unusually stark memory. A claw-like hand, dessicated by age and grief and spite. A blur of a woman's face, enraged, a final dismissal. "You will never be--" She is sending him away. "--the man--" She is sending him away forever. "You will never be the man your--"
A child's view of a laughing couple, bright sun, a butterfly lazily drifting, ignorant that it is being innocently pursued. The smell of grass and the warmth of belonging and the sight of people who will never be seen that way again--
"--father was!"
A darkened night and the pouring Autumn rain and the long hours finally leading to what might, what might, what might be redemption and--
"You."
--and then Alma, as he is now, looking straight at Hotaru in her mind's eye, eyes filled with pain and grief and the bewildered resentment of an injured innocent.
"He is all I have now, and you want to take him away."
There is no anger. At the height of grief, anger cheapens. But the depth of the sadness there is breathtaking, and anger would be a comfort...
"If you weren't around, Jiro might--"
And then it is all gone in a rush, a sucking emptiness that brings profound relief as the vagaries of a foreign mind leave her entirely, and awakened again Alma Towazu lurches back and jerks his hands away as though her shoulders burned him.
He stares at her with eyes widened by shock, his full lips parted, jaw slack, stunned into utter speechlessness-- and then the flush begins, bright around his cheekbones and growing until his neck too begins to turn red, and his mouth begins to work but still no words emerge.
"That-- I--"
He swallows, still flushing.
"That wasn't-- I, I don't--"
He trails off, unable to manage any more.
A fog parted, a mist dispersed, events that made little sense before becoming sharp beneath the clarity of memories restored. Her eyes are open, the single tear providing the distraction that raised one hand from her lap. Kneeling, facing Alma, chin lifted a little to gaze into his face. His eyes open as well and she believes the experience to be over - the mending that needed to take place has happened and now there is only the need to thank the dear friend that could be there for her in a time of desperate need. He had promised her that he would be there for her when they last met in the tranquil church yard garden. And now that promise has been fullfilled in a way she never could have imagined. A bond stronger than she has ever known with her brother exists between her and Alma Towazu now.
His eyes close and she gets ready to explain, to make sense of the things she remembers now. But she can see it - or even more accurately, feel it. Something is wrong. He's distressed about something.
"Al..." And then he slumps forward and she freezes, no longer seeing with the same eyes as before, now through truer eyes, the eyes of imagination and reminiscence, the eyes of reflection and rumination.
Images flash before her, glimpses into a vault of secrets long kept. She sees the flashes of different scenes. They seem out of order, out of context, faces unknown, emotions most certainly understood. And then he is there before her, the two sharing the space between each other's mind, her own hands clasped in front of her almost as if praying, fear coupled with poignant sorrow in her own expression.
She looks at him, now standing on the porch of a large estate at her back, a darkened, empty husk of what was once a home to her. Her gaze pierces through the hazel eyed young man, fixating on the back of a yellow coat wearing boy, a long black braid hanging down his back as he walks away from the girl without so much as a glance behind him.
Between Alma and her appears a thick, stone monument, the entrance to a sepulcher, forever guarded by a bronzed angel, praying in the Autumn rain. The girl Alma knows looks about four years younger, standing alone, eyes fixated on him as the rain dampens her hair.
"...ma." speaks the girl into the large, dusty chapel, followed by a gasp for air as he recoils from her, his complexion taking on a red flush as her mouth hangs open. All she can see is the images of the boy, an angry woman, a youth betrayed by those who should never wished ill will upon him.
Her hand lifts, coming to rest against her cheek, a wide-eyed, overwhelmed expression on her face. "What... what was that? Did those events... were those things what really happened? The images... the ones that weren't my own... those were yours, weren't they..." Her voice seems so small in the high-ceilinged chamber, but kneeling there right in front of him, it's all the volume she needs.
Alma swallows once, silently but visibly.
In the swirl of images he felt himself releasing, /saw/ himself releasing, it was difficult, impossible even, to tell the difference between his own memories and Hotaru's. That was the point, after all-- he permeated the boundary between his self and hers. His Psycho Power worked; it did what it always does, or attempts to do. Once he breaks free, the images he remembers seeing begin to sort themselves out. That happened to him, and so did that-- but though the rain is all too familiar, that boy in the yellow coat--
"Your brother," is all the dazed young man can say, flush still evident upon his cheeks. "That was your brother, in the yellow-- oh--"
An embarrassment of a very different kind, of one far more usual to Alma, seizes him then; the sense that he has violated a boundary accidentally, as he so often does, his philosophy toward personal boundaries being so inherently different given his abilities. "I'm sorry, Hotaru," he manages hastily, eyes wide. "I didn't mean to-- that's none of my business unless you choose to make it so. I... I'm very sorry."
He averts his gaze, looking down with an anguished expression.
"I'm... so sorry..."
Alma seems unable to look her in the eyes.
"I'm so sorry, Hotaru..."
It's quite unclear what he's apologizing for, though maybe once things settle down for her too she'll realize just what moment of their connection is truly causing him such torment-- and Alma seems quite comfortable to not elaborate any more.
He is silent for a long while.
Then:
"The same rain..."
His murmur is low, soft, sonorous.
"...it rains upon us all."
That Autumn rain; the rain that heralds endings.
The beautiful youth is silent once again-- until the stillness of the evening is broken, by the sound of droplets slowly beginning to patter on the old rooftop of the church; a soothing, meditative, melancholy sound.
His expression softens until it becomes purely contemplative, yet the flush remains, and still, he cannot seem to bring himself to look up from the ground.
The hand resting at her cheek lowers eventually as only silence hangs between them, filled by the gentle sound of water gently splashing to the ground outside the large, glass windows as it pours from off the sloped roof above.
Her small hand extends slowly to come to rest on the young man's knee after a long moment, fingers touching lightly. "That was my brother, yes... I never really told anyone what it was like then, the day he left. I don't think I ever knew how." The hand at his knee lifts eventually, seeking his nearest hand, the girl leaning forward just slightly to extend her reach.
"But... having you know... it helps a little. It's... it can be hard being the only one who knows." She never would have willingly shared the moment in time where the grey Fall rain was shared by two youths that would come to know each other years later. But now that it has happened... there's a certain strength to be found in her heart, a burden eased, if just a little. "He left days after my mother did. My father was gone soon after. Now there is only me."
She falls quiet for another moment, feeling saddened by his inability to meet her gaze. "Don't be sorry. Please, don't be ashamed." she begins. She could be referring to anything at first, but her next words clarify, "If... if ever you think it would help to talk about it more - the glimpses I saw; if ever I could help by just being there to listen, nothing would be more important to me than to be there when you need." The pressure from her hand releases as her arm slips away slowly. For now, all she can offer is the same courtesy he gave her. The power to choose what to explain and when.
"Oh, Hotaru..."
His words come in a sigh, mingled relief and exhaustion, as Alma looks up with pained eyes and reaches toward her, wrapping his broad arms around her slender frame and pulling her close to him again. The much taller young man leans into her without truly putting his weight on her, gently his cheek brushes the side of her head; he holds her close, allowing himself to slump against her for just a bit-- to lean on her for the first time.
Given how he towers over her, the sight of them amongst the pews is even somewhat comical... yet the sweetest things often are.
"I'm okay," he says softly.
He does not seem to be shedding tears.
"My mother, she... she was very ill. With a disease she created for herself. After my father died when I was very young... well... he never told either of us about his condition, so..."
His breath is soft, feathery against her ear, the brush of an angel's wing.
"Jin Towazu," he murmurs. "And Josephina Amavela..."
He is silent, still, for a long moment-- but when he pulls away, his expression has changed entirely. All anguish and dismay has vanished without a trace, or else it has been transmuted, an internal alchemy turning lead into gold. For his face and eyes radiate his determination and passion with a clarity remarkable even for Alma, beyond that even which he seems to achieve at the heights of his performance in battle. For each conflict for him is merely a microcosm of this /true/ struggle, symbolic of it: the striving for self-creation, for building a person out of parts, scraps of nature and memory and beliefs and purpose, with all the tools available and all the allies willing to help.
He shines now, like a god.
"Jiro is my brother," he says, like a noble king issuing a decree, as certain as the laws of nature, "and you... Hotaru..."
Not everything is created. The act of creation issues from somewhere; from the human condition, from the options and opportunities available. But in the end-- in a moment like this-- once the pieces are set and the stars are aligned--
"You are my sister."
One must simply make the choice.
"And I will never leave you."
And then it is made so.
"I promise."
His hands cradle her smaller ones, with a gentle strength.
Because, you know, it could have been otherwise. Alma's emotions -- that which show him what 'tools' he has at his disposal -- are confused. He /could/ love Jiro. Hotaru could be his rival, his enemy in an impossible battle that fate and biological circumstance have destined him to lose. But that is not the choice he has made. At the crucial moment, the structure, the guidelines, they leave him behind, and there is only what he has chosen.
And yet somehow, despite of how free, how arbitrary that could be seen as...
"I want you to know... that is how I feel."
The choice is the right one, and not merely because he has chosen it.
He knows that now, more than anything. To call her his sister -- to add another to the family that he hopes to create -- to take that overwhelming risk -- it echoes out into the universe, and strange rules he will never know, a structure he is ever blind to, reflect his choice and send it resounding, echoing throughout his world, and he can feel it return to him, and he knows, he knows, he knows without a shadow of a doubt...
"I am no replacement for what you have lost," Alma says simply, still looking into her eyes with the light of the sun in his own. And, of course, she is no replacement for what he has lost. And yet; and yet. "But all the same--"
~ This is Right. ~
"I am here."
She doesn't resist his touch as he wraps his arms around her, pulling them close, enjoying this priceless moment of peace in a world that repeatedly promises abandonment, loneliness, and fear. But where painful, gaping holes are torn in the fabric of life, sometimes... sometimes there are those with the heart willing to patch the tapestry, not just concealing the damage but repairing it nearly in whole. Those who are there to mend the wounded heart are called many things: hero, champion, teacher, mentor, friend, sister... brother...
While his eyes manage to remain dry, Hotaru's accomplish nothing of the sort. Tears of joy, happiness not felt in a long time, roll down her cheeks, daring to drop from her face to land upon his strong arms or mar his shirt with tiny splashes. It is a strange thing - when joy spills over and manifests itself as the holy cousin of grief, wracking cries belonging to one in pained bereavement or the choking sobs of one overwhelmed with exultation beyond words - the difference is subtle but significant. Perhaps it is appropriate that only in knowing sadness can true happiness be understood.
If she could capture a moment of perfect peace to save for all the trying times that will inevitably come along, this instant would be it; the soul-defining feeling of finding another not so different from herself, the feeling of being needed as well as having her own emptiness nearly filled in by another.
When at last they have the chance to look into each others' face, Hotaru is still silent, tear stained cheeks glistening in what little light is cast upon them by the lamps high above. Her eyes are on him yet her focus is so distant, memories amounting to years of feeling alone becoming a blur before her very eyes. In Jiro she found one who needed her patient, caring presence and the sense of being longed for. In Alma she finds the sense of family, and the knowledge of the similar paths they have survived thus far. A dear friend and a brother, the two vastly different young men completing her life in immeasurably different ways.
"O-oh," Hotaru finally finds her voice, a wandering mind snapping back into the immediate present, her hand slipping from his in order to come up to her cheeks and begin wiping away at the tears there, already a shy sheepishness setting in. After all, a sister shouldn't let her brother see her cry so!
Outside the rain continues to fall, shrouding the night in a blanket of tears. "You probably didn't expect to get such a mopey sister," comes the teasing, self-effacing statement at last, her lips curled into a clear, unmistakeable smile, her eyes shimmering with a happiness, a completeness; her aura repaired, the taint long since purged. "Thank you, brother."
Smiling with the serene awe of one who has just witnessed the birth of a child, Alma reaches up to brush the last tear from Hotaru's cheek, drawing it away with utmost care upon the tip of his finger, letting it remain poised there for a sweet moment before pressing it with his thumb and letting it soak into his skin, his gaze never leaving her own.
"I never," he whispers, "expected to get a sister at all."
Log created on 20:42:01 07/17/2007 by Hotaru, and last modified on 21:42:06 08/16/2007.