Description: Shurui's done well so far in her fight against the psychic parasite, but she's reached a point where she can go no further without help. For better or worse, Alma is there to help her, and in accepting his aid, Shurui comes to learn and appreciate the power within herself, her memories, and in the people around her.
Well, now.
He didn't expect his journey would take him here.
How long has it been? A week? Two? How long has it been since Alma silently slipped into psychic pursuit of a foe only to be found in dreams?
In retrospect, he probably should have left a note.
For that, he would have had to come here eventually-- to apologize, for leaving his beloved friend Hotaru to pick up his slack and meet with the renowned and formidable Geese Howard. He read about that in the paper. Maybe if he were a better psychic, he'd've seen that monumental donation coming, and not expended so much time and energy fund-raising to renovate and restore the YFCC.
Maybe if he were a better psychic, he'd've found Ryan already.
That mysterious woman only gave him the excuse: now it's personal. It had already been troubling him, this miasma that seems to be spreading. Alma is fully prepared to plunge into darkness; having further understood his own and, so to speak, learned to embrace the shadow his own luminous presence casts, only renders him more eager to seek out such an insidious entity. Yet on this dream-like quest of his, the winds of his intuition carrying him in and out and through the city, Alma Towazu has felt his mind drift back to unresolved business, to Jiro still recovering in the infirmary, to K' unaware of his current revelations. Alma rarely wishes, as rarely as he regrets. But he cannot deny that he wishes for more time, that he might have had more time to come up to speed with his own evolving understanding. To sit in silence and share, glowingly, the trust and respect he has cultivated with himself and with others. To share the peak he feels, even if only briefly, he has surmounted.
Perhaps that's exactly it.
He just knows...
It's going to be all downhill from here.
But then, when has that ever daunted Alma?
Casting aside his own simple urge towards tranquility, Alma has strode into motion, churning the gears that he believes will issue forth meaning--
And, blinking, shielding his eyes from the sunlight that pierces through the budding leaves, he has arrived here, in the courtyard of Hotaru's family estate.
He has been here once before: to aleviate psychic damage that his oath-sister had suffered. The memory stirs great fondness within him, and the tall youth smiles, his beauty glittering alongside the cascade of the fountain's water. He seats himself on its stone rim and examines the exquisite worksmanship on the innumerable stone-carved birds, his gaze habitually gentle and thoughtful.
Alma does not question that he has a reason for being here.
He has a great deal of faith in himself.
"..... Who's there? Alma?" Shurui's voice calls out with the crisp air, suspucious and hoarse, from the front porch. Frowning as she grabs the shawl from around her shoulders, she steps closer, eyes narrowing as if to look more closely at Alma's figure through sight alone, rather than mind. If he hadn't been a psychic, she might have been lost, yet her ability to identify is limited to that small parcel of information.
"... You came." Her shoulders slump. "Don't say I didn't warn you," she adds, looking down with a deepened frown. "However, if you want to try a hand at this, I don't think I really want to stop you." Not out of the spiteful notion that Alma might fail and be effected himself, of course, but more because she's gone to the point of desperation. There's hope, yes, but that hope's made her impatient.
Everyone else just saw a sleep-deprived girl, albiet with skin scratched raw at the beginning from phantom burns and weak will from lack of sleep. She still feels that lack of sleep, despite having transquilized herself into a nasty sort of oblivion to gain some semblance of sanity where others have failed. What Alma sees is a far more brutal picture- of an aura that is not Shurui's, a black mass weighing down on the girl's shoulders like oil on a bird's wings. A flicker of the girl's own aura struggles out before disappearing under the weight of the oppressive cloud- resisting the urge to burn out completely.
Shurui's face cracks in a wry smile. "I'm slowly fighting it. But, slowly isn't gonna cut it for me. People are... waiting for me, out there." K' will only know she's better when she enters a tournament. Kenji and her friends are waiting for her at Gedo. Hotaru's sacrificing her time off to take care of her. "I'm impatient. I wanna be free of this..." She sighs one last breath of restrant. "I hate to say this. But." She winces her eyes shut. "... Help me. I'm tired of this."
So this is why he was summoned here.
He shivers.
So this is where Shurui ended up.
He swallows.
So this is how far things have come.
He tries to draw a breath.
But his lips have hardened with his heart.
Why.
How.
Why did this happen?
How dare he?
Only Alma's rising indignation thaws this frigid hold. He inhales sharply.
"Shurui..."
But his eyes become no less softer, and his fury swiftly melts into compassion as he continues to regard the aberration that is what the girl's aura has become. It is exactly the same as it was with that haggard, beautiful Chinese woman. She would not let him touch her. She did not want to be helped. But Shurui -- proud Shurui -- speaks in a way that cannot but cause Alma to momentarily forget the righteousness beginning to surge within his breast. It will return. He will not forget this moment. It will return, and when it does the priest will become a crusader, and he will be ruthless.
Ryan will be destroyed.
But not now.
That's not important now.
"Yes."
Alma rises. Smoothly he shifts to his feet from the edge of the fountain, slipping one hand in his pocket to sweep his gentle gaze about Shurui's periphery, analyzing the nuances of her psychic state. With the cool strategic mind of a born administrator he tabulates the challenges that will arise in tackling this phenomenon; still, there is nothing cool about his gaze, which reveals only the heartfelt desire to be of service that is the root motivation of every strategy he undertakes, a brotherly love that is eerily unforced.
But perhaps not so eerie when one is in need.
'Yes', he said. He understands. He understands what he takes for her to ask for help, how difficult that is for her and how difficult it will always be no matter how much Alma does, that it is not a matter of how much or how little she trusts him, that it is not about him at all. He does not say any of this. He does not need to. He wouldn't even if he needed to. Dignity is paramount.
Particularly when invited to such an invasive act.
Such an intimate act.
"I think you know this, but I should say that this will require," he continues, voice mild, as though meeting her here and in such a condition is no surprise to him at all, "a psychic union of our selves, during which I will seek to release you from your pain. While we will be in no danger of melding into one another--" At least not in the conventional sense, Alma does not say. "--this transgression upon our identities may reveal things unshared, such as memories, or secrets. It may even awaken things dormant within our own minds." Which Alma thinks sounds vaguely exciting, but imagines she wouldn't feel quite the same. "Also, uh," he continues, sounding a little less professional and a little more his age, reaching up to rub the back of his head through his still somehow impeccable (hasn't he been traveling for weeks?) blond locks, "although I'm very confident, and I've done this before successfully, I'm really just playing it by ear, you know?"
Nice one, Alma.
"I just need you -- need to hear you -- answer one question."
He steps forward, the much taller youth gazing down at his friend, a knight respectfully but firmly regarding the princess in his charge.
"Do you trust me?"
The thought of Alma 'uniting' with her mind makes the request seem much less business-like than Shurui first imagined. A simple rooting around. Surgery. Take some aspirin in the morning and call me if any symptoms return. Something rigid and professional that'd hurt but was needed. Take it out. Make it go away. Let her heal. She forgot that it was a matter of minds, of powers scary and personal. Emotional. Roots of the core of the soul.
It makes her uncomfortable, but wasn't she expecting something impersonal on top of uncomfortable? To get something this deeply rooted out, you have to dig deep. She thinks on this. ".... There's not much to look at," she finally says, truthfully. "You'll just seem what I can remember. I only remember the past few years of my life. It might be that's all there is. Some of it's embarrassing." Her frown deepens. "Just be careful. I have... some stuff in there that's really bad. Really, really bad. Just.... stop if it gets too mad. I'll understand. I haven't been able to deal with it either." She rubs her shoulders, her skin growing pale. "But there's good things too. But maybe it'll just meld together and be nothing to yo-" She stops and gawks openly at him as he admits his lack of experience, shoulders beginning to slump.
..... Is she going to regret this?
And yet, he asks her if she trusts him. She thinks on this with a heaviness that does not suggest uncertainty, but honesty, looking closely at Alma's words and then her own knowledge, closing her eyes. She might regret it, yes. But Alma is someone she can trust when it came down to the crux of everything. It was always unnerving to see a man so honest and yet so giving; she was at first expecting him to rip the proverbial carpet right underneath her and reveal his true self. And yet, he's never done a thing to intentionally harm her. Even if this goes bad, she can't say they didn't try. She thinks of her friends at Gedo. K''s hand rubbing against her hair in an annoying gesture turned memorable by the finality. Whip's smile as she strung tinsel on a Christmas tree. Muda's kitchen. Rain. The promise of her future. "Yes," she says, finally, opening her eyes. "I trust you more than anyone else I know with this power. Even if we fail, we gotta try it before it gets worse."
Yeah, Alma, somehow, no matter how carefully you try to couch your own foreign sixth-sensed perspective in language others will not be confused or intimidated by, and no matter how much effort you put into being as deliberate with your words are you are sincere, you always manage to be a little too honest.
You probably could've kept that whole 'I don't know what I'm doing' bit to yourself.
Still, perhaps it /was/ for the best, after all. Alma is quite fond of Shurui, and she didn't need to do anything to deserve that; being able to perceive her aura is enough to see all he needs to grow fond of her. But they are not peers, and have always, unavoidably, been a little aloof from each other. Maybe, Alma reflects, he's grown a little too used to people being in awe of him, of being satisfied with spiritual intimacy with others, allowing himself his enigmatic but effective leadership style. Only with a small number of people does he seem as young as he is. He never intended this to be so, but-- this is probably the best he can do: dropping that formality, that careful distance that he creates until he senses the time has come in which he can meaningfully cross it, from time to time.
And if he hadn't, he never would have heard her say that.
Him? More than anyone else? With this power.
Well, that makes sense, his conscious mind avers.
Still, as his widened eyes reveal, he's flattered.
Alma smiles, then.
"You're right," he responds simply. "Let's do it."
~ I'll make myself worthy of your trust. ~
He will guide her to one of the benches by the fountain, underneath the shade of the trees there, and seat her by his side. He will take a deep breath to steady himself, looking into the haggard girl's eyes, and then look beyond them, into the lurking darkness looming there. And then he will plunge his hands forward, to what a casual observer would seem merely air, but what to them is a festering wound of the soul, and bring with him a light that purifies, that purges, that fuses and heals.
His vision will whiten, subsumed by the sight of the mind.
Hers will, too, when she is ready.
And she will hear him.
~ Can you hear me? ~
She will hear him.
~ I'm... going in now. Please relax... ~
The freshness of spring; the peace of winter; a child's laughter; a parent's resolve.
~ It may... hurt a little, at first... ~
Alma is close, now, overwhelmingly close, though his body has not moved.
~ But with release will come a certain euphoria. Do not fear either the pain or the pleasure. You must yield yourself to me entirely. Shurui... I will catch you if you fall. ~
There is the smell of rain...
~ Open your mind and heart. ~
Alma can feel her being pulse through his figurative fingertips, can begin to see the weave of the disease, where it may yet be dislodged from what was once her. It is not simple, as he knew it would not be. There is obvious point where Shurui begins and the parasite ends. Such is the nature of the self, as Alma perceives it. But as she flows through him, his spirit will lift her up-- and without any particular technique, the darkness should fall away quite naturally, for it is inhuman, and incapable of rapture.
He is unaware of the sensations Shurui may be experiencing, of the echoes that resound, strangely comforting rather than frightening, snatches of adult conversation, the pursuit of a butterfly through a field of towering grass.
They are ready to begin.
To be fair, there aren't a whole lot of candidates. Stasya is trustworthy, and knows more about her powers than Shurui, but Shurui couldn't bare to thurst such a task on her, even if Stasya could know where to begin. Rose is powerful, but distant; Alma? Approachable. She's desperate. And, when she sits by him and, when she feels that kind gaze and those hands, calm and soothing, upon the wound in her soul, she relaxes.
At first. Then it's a wince on Shurui's face, an instant resistance coming to the forefront. Ryan? No, it's Shurui herself, that automatic defense one puts against the world and self. Her mind is open, but her heart isn't. Slowly, bit by bit, she relaxes her body, allowing herself to fall into Alma at the same time he falls into her. Falling into white. There's no seeing, no physical world. Just here. Release. "....a...." Her mouth feels far away; her mind takes over. ~ .... Alma. Don't hurt yourself, I can't sto-~
She sees rain. Senses it. And that too, is inside Alma's mind. Rather, the sound, feel, and smell of rain. Cold. Blurry hands reaching towards a dusky light shielded by dark blocks- towards clouds between buildings. Laughing. A child's laughter. She's being rained upon, but instead of feeling cold and lonely, she feels wonder in the act of rain itself. This is rain. Why does she know it's rain? It is. It feels good. The vision spins. She's spinning, still laughing, hands outreached to hold the drops. "Rain. Rain." Shurui's voice. But it's younger. Unrehearsed, unknowing of convention. "..?" It stops, and the vision grows blurry. She's sobbing. Crying. Because it's no longer raining. The rain comes back, and she stops, continuing to spin. A distant voice. "What the hell you doin', retard?" The vision stops.
Then, the same voice, among others, now feeling more familiar. "You don't remember your name?" "God, she's got to be one of the crazies, man. Better leave her." "Eh, she'll be good for som- wait. You blind or somethin'?" Blurry visions. Teenagers. Runaways. No glowing visions. No, wait. Hints of something... Shurui's voice, young. "How do you see through your eyes?" "We see, duh." "She's a blind retard." "Eh, she's got a pretty fac-" "Dude, you some sort of pedo? She don't got tits yet!" Shurui's voice again, earnest. "... Can I follow you?" "Just don't get in the way, hoodie." "Let's just call her that."
Time passes. The blobs are now filled in with brilliant color. "Hey, see anybody, Hoodie?" Shurui's voice again. Clearer. Calmer. Hard. "Coast is clear. No cops." "Sweet, this car is ours!" A shrug. "Just don't fucking feel me up like you did earlier or you'll wish the cops had nabbed you, pencil dick. I'll kill you." "HEY S-" Laughter from the rest. "Hey, hey, guys. Let's get this job done, kay?" Snow falls...
"Why? Why are you joining up with those goons?! What about all of us?!" Shurui's voice. Tears. "Why don't you join them?" "... I-I don't know... I just..." "C'mon. You're not gonna remember anything here. Just fucking get on with your life. I don't need to take care of you. I'm gonna hit it big time. You can't accept it because you're still in that kid-zone, all afraid and tugging at your big bro's sleeves like some annoying kid. You're what... Thirteen? Fourteen? How the fuck old are you?" "I... I don't... No... Fuck you! I don't need you, I don't need anyone! I hate you! I hate everyone!" "Go die in a ditch, Hoodie." A blurry finger to a passing aura. "FUCK YOU! I'll do it all myself! I DON'T NEED ANYONE!"
Real. This is real.
Does he see out of her eyes because these are her memories, or because their minds have already begun to fuse? No, his consciousness is distinct; there is a certain distance that is more than just that of time passed. There are boundaries, crucial boundaries, that are not yet lowered.
He must go further, and trust that those boundaries remain.
For there is a sweetness to this, a release, of defenses melting away, of responsibility relieved, of secrets that can no longer be hidden, through no fault of one's own. Surely this is what they mean by grace, by rapture-- this necessary giving up of oneself to another. Beautiful, to be sure. To be so close to her-- it stirs his heart, almost more than he can bear. But it is as a flame to the moth. There is a darkness inherent in such proximity, a dire temptation, a most human yearning that he can no longer deny to himself the more that he does this.
The yearning to lose oneself completely.
The 'clash of souls'... This is just another method of achieving it.
That's why he can do this. And yet...
Why is it so tempting, that ultimate transgression, that final hazy boundary that marks the limit of one's being? Why the urge to go beyond intimacy, toward the utter dissolution of the self? Two need not become one for there to be meaning in two growing closer. Alma is certain of this; he tells himself this; his secret sense reminds him daily that there is no need, that in some important sense two are already one, and it is the reaching toward that already-present truth that is beautiful, not the complete reduction of the complex practical world to its simple psychic underpinnings. So why, why this melancholy draw, this bittersweet childish yearning?
Into the light, to the light, to the light--
"Alma?"
Blinding sunlight. He flinches, squinting as he turns his gaze toward the familiar, accented voice, vision milky from glare and youth, half-obscuring her beautiful smiling face.
"Jin, look, isn't he adorable?" "Mmn." "Go play, Alma, go play!"
Go play, go play. Everything is so warm, so vast. They tower above him, colossi; he trusts them without reserve and loves them without knowing love's meaning. He leaves them at their encouragement, safe; he plunges through the grass. Thick, thick green, billowing out before him-- so tall! So tall! Will he be this tall someday? The child reflects that he would rather not. Who would want to rise above this verdant, endless maze? Who would want to escape? What is there to lose in being lost here? A shifting movement; he is not afraid. He reaches out-- a flash of vibrant color, fluttering wings, a speck that briefly blots out the sun, a butterfly! He chases it, pursues, laughing; they are playing; they are friends. But it rises, rises out of the grass. Why? Why not stay? Who is to tell us we can't? But it rises, up into the light, out of his reach, higher, higher--
"Jin!?"
Higher, into the light--
"Jin!!"
No, don't go so high, I can't see you anymore--
"Oh my God! Jin!!!"
Not so far into the light--
You'll burn.
We'll burn if we go that far.
The fire of the sun, the life-giving sun.
It will consume me someday.
But, you're right, aren't you?
We have to go farther.
Into the light.
When there's so little sight to be had, there's no room for stepping outside a point of view. To see her world is to see through her weakness, which, in turn, becomes a strength. It's hard to convey that sense of blurry cities, now cast with a melting pot of multiple energies, auras that leak through walls and doors and present a strange sight for anyone used to seeing the physical plane.
That's why she lives in the city. That's why she depends on it. She's dependent on life around her in order to see. Slowly, the world for Alma becomes seperate- Shurui's aura a distinct separate from him as her mind matures at an accelerated rate. It's cold now. She's hungry. She wants food so bad- "Thought you could take advantage of an old man, did you?" She feels it in the back of her head, the coming strike, she turns to meet it- The smell of sweet incense. Comforting. Nostaglic. The same voice, but a distinct feeling that time has passed. "You can leave like a stray dog and live as a stray dog. Or, you can stay here a become a proper human being." She mumbles a reply. The old man with an aura like old jade. "Talk like a human being!" She shouts, even as pride becomes like a sharp stone in her throat. "I'll stay with you!"
A room, warm and full of comforting smells. Classical music playing on the record player. Russling of a newspaper. Food. Love. It prickles at the heart like an old wound, yet, it sings with such sweet joy. A father. "Why the hell do I need to cook?" "First of all, you say 'why do I need to cook?' <You sound like a yapping little dog.>" The Chinese might have been incomprehensible to Alma, but through the heart's lens the singsong words become something understandable. "You cook because that is what a proper human does!"
His words are harsh. But there's warmth. "Shurui Chiang." "Eh?" "You told me to think of a name." "But that's your surn-"
A name. Shurui Chiang.
Weeping. The sight of a blurry body but no aura like old jade. Cold. The body is an object; her sight sees it as it sees a rock. And yet she grasps at it, crying, trying to feel it with warm. With love. Daughterly love. She recieved it, and just as quickly, it went away.
"He loved you as his daughter. He never smiled like that for anyone." Comforting words. Two dark-haired twins in red carriers, a mysterious link. "Ah, these are the twins. You can tell the difference?"
And yet, as Alma sees this, Shurui sees something just as perplexing and miraculous- childhood. Thick grass before her draws her breath away; she moves in. Is drawn in. A hand attempts to clasp that butterfly like it tried to catch the rain, pressing against the light... "... Jin...?" Why is she pushing herself so far? He'll burn, won't he? Who will burn?
Will she?
A child, a child...
To be someone's child...
What is the value in closeness?
What is the allure of such self-sabotage?
"YOU'LL--"
I don't want to be alone.
"--N-- B--"
I'd rather be no one than alone.
"--THE M--"
Someone, please, kill me.
"--R WA--"
Because I can't do it alone.
I'm so afraid.
I'm so afraid.
I'm so afraid.
I'm so afraid.
CRASH
My hands are shaking; I'm cold with sweat. The bowl has shattered upon the floor. The cereal looks so pathetic strewn beneath me. It makes me hate myself. I would crush it into dust if I could move. Nothing seems to me more unjust than spilled milk.
It occurs to me that my mother has never thrown anything at me before.
"Go away!"
It makes me feel better, really.
"Get OUT!!!"
Well, no, not better. I don't have the words.
"You IDIOT!"
Because I couldn't really tell you what's better or what's worse than this. You might as well spin a man around blindfolded and ask him which way is north, throw him into space and ask him which way is down. For years. Spin him for years. Years and years.
"Do you HEAR me, you WORTHLESS BOY!?"
It just feels like there's some order to this.
"GET OUT! I don't... I don't ever want to see you again!!"
It's somehow comforting to a man like me.
"...you... YOU..."
That even everything doesn't extend forever.
"...YOU...!"
That even eternity ends.
"...you'll..."
I was worried, you know, that it wouldn't.
"YOU'LL NEVER BE THE MAN YOUR FATHER WAS!"
Because I don't really understand it, you know?
I don't know who I'm supposed to be, but I have to be him.
But I can't. I don't even know enough to hate him.
I just can't remember.
I don't remember walking away, but I guess I must've.
I just remember sitting somewhere far away, feeling nothing. Literally nothing. Have you ever felt nothing? Probably most people haven't. Because, you know, you have to be nobody to feel nothing at all. So-- but then, didn't I succeed, mom? Right, didn't I? I was trying to be nobody, after all. Ha! Ha ha! He wasn't buried within me. He was just buried. And I dug too far, and tore it all apart to find the core, and now it's impossible to feel, even when I gaze upon the wreckage.
My mistake.
I guess I couldn't save her after all.
I'd apologize, but I don't know to whom I'd be speaking.
Well.
Time to die.
Rain...
Even my own fear seems distant.
Rain...
You're the only thing left that's real.
Rain, rain, autumn rain...
Sweep us away.
Shurui feels rain on her. The sound of a bowl. Cereal. Shouting. Her heart pounds, pounds like a drum stretched far too taunt. Is this.... Alma? These hands, these thoughts... Are they one and the same as the man who came before her, saying calm words that soothed her hurt pride, made her want to go forward?
That self-confidence... that eerie calm... She was so scared of him.
Scared-
Hands clawing at a wall. She can't see. A guard? No, can't go through there. Can't let them find her. So weak. Have to get out. She wants to cry. She feels alone. No one will come after her. No, keep going, you'll get out. You have to get out. There's no future for you here-
'Don't you know-' An aura of screams and nightmares, somehow managing to speak so sweetly- 'that you aren't a real person?'
'Jinzoningen.' Man-made.
Her body hurts. Why does she have to be hanging like this? Is it a crime to be a doll? Let her be a doll, damn it. Throw her away so she can hide and rest her wounds. Take her eyes, her body, just leave her memories alone. She'll be a doll. She's halfway there already- stop it. Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop.
Just let the world go to pieces; she's already dead
A fellow voice. In her mind. Another psychic. Alive. That Russian girl from school?
Don't go. We'll get out of here together.
Hands carrying her. Those auras. Gedo. Why? Why are they here? You have to reason to be
The smell of smoke. Cigarettes. She can stand now. A fiery aura. '..... T'hell you do?'
Concern.
Maybe it started back there. That guy became something more than a curiosity. He was mad... because of her?
And it all came down to... what? The same scene, her pressing her head against that fiery man's chest, trying to force life back in. Warmth. Don't leave her. That fire's going out. What am I going to tell your sister? That sister, who laughed and hugged me and I want to be with you both again. Because it's
It's okay to love.
It's okay to love.
Don't ever forget that.
Shurui clasps her hands around the boy weeping in the rain, seeing through his eyes and, at the same time, looking down. "... We're not dolls. It's okay to love."
Hold me.
I'm raining.
Look, we're flying, we're looking down at ourselves. Look, we're growing, swelling beyond our bodies. We're huge, so huge, our whole world. Look up, there's the sun, waiting, waiting for us to go farther, farther. We could, you know, if we wanted. We could just go all the way.
What does it mean to be a person, anyway?
I'm the sky, raining on myself.
Can you hear it? The raindrops.
They're whispering.
They're telling me I'm not alone.
"Shurui!"
Oh-- I'm crying.
"Shurui!!"
The teenaged boy, he must be as old as she is now, buries his sobs in her chest, his slender body wracked with weeping, shattered by grief.
Oh-- it hurts.
"I-- I want my mom!!!"
In the end, I guess I was just a doll to her, wasn't I? A hollow person. To be posed into the man she needed me to be. But that never works, now does it? Because we're people, because we /become/ people, inevitably, if we survive, if we are to live at all. Because at some point we simply begin, begin by, in some way, believing in life.
I was born that day, in the darkness.
To tell the world what the rain whispered to me.
The truth that grief makes us see.
It was then my world flooded with color.
Live, Alma, live.
And I've never stopped seeing it since.
So come with me, and we'll whisper it to each other.
Rise now; take my hand.
The boy is older, as she knows him, smiling now, down at her, and the world is fading into brightness, blurring into white, as though it had always been thus. But his beautiful hair is wet with rain, and his joyful eyes are damp with tears.
Don't worry; we're not running away.
Everyone is hollow, unwhole in isolation.
We'll fill that void with something wonderful.
What an opportunity emptiness is.
It's lifting us up, toward the sun-- but we won't burn.
We're made of fire.
~ ...Shurui. ~
And Alma embraces her, and together they rise, and naturally, effortlessly, unrejected yet somehow now dormant, the darkness simply falls away, rendered powerless in his grasp.
~ We'll turn towards our shadows, and embrace them. ~
The darkness does not cease to be darkness, the pain does not cease to be pain. But as soon as it becomes meaningful, as soon as it is turned toward, it seems to melt away, to become something entirely other than what it was even as it stays the same.
~ Shurui... ~
And then it is gone, pierced by the sun.
~ I love you. ~
He is closer than ever, but has never felt more solid.
Because they won't just become each other.
That's not really what we want.
Even nothing is something; men don't just melt.
We're not dolls.
That's not love.
Though amidst a dream, he has never felt so real.
Nothing has been lost. Nothing can be.
/This/ is love.
The boy becomes a teenager, crying against her chest. Shurui holds him tight, even until the role of a big sister becomes that of a little sister, with her clasping the chest of someone older than her.
It'll be fine, right? I'm just doing this by ear.
The love she expresses is like a child's, warm and all-compassing.
She is not a doll. She was, at the beginning, but, coming through it all, she has found love.
~ I was afraid of you, but I was scared of what you represented. But really... you truly were that person, right? You weren't lying. ~
It'll be fine.
~ This feeling... I feel love for you. ~ Not the same emotion that make her finally blush when Kenji peered at her with a certain smile. No, something closer to the love she felt for Alma as a child. As a teenager. The love that drives her to comfort those her have comforted her in the past, to give when her instincts tell her no. The want to give everything to a man on the run from the Syndicate. The want for an old man to be well. The want for a classmate to have a full life, whether it's with or without her.
A brother. An ally. She'll be okay.
~ Even if I was created by NESTS... you still feel this way, don't you?~
Her breath falls silent.
~ NESTS hurt so many people. And yet, they created me. You see the paradox, don't you? To hate and love them? ~
That is love too.
If Igniz knew about this emotion...?
~ Is that what he is searching for? In me, in all the people I've met? Is this godhood, here? Not here, in our minds, but in our hearts? All of us? ~
She smiles, tears streaming down her face.
~ We force ourselfs to forget this love... we make monsters of ourselves to survive. Alma... if you find others like me... remember they came from the same pool as I did. ~
She presses her head to his chest. ~ They love too. ~
~ Of course. ~
Alma's smiling face is aglow with a halo of the light that has suffused their world, but now, now that they have reached this peak of simultaneous union and distinction, he too is fading into the light, a light that sweeps up everything.
Mission accomplished.
As his image begins to fade, it becomes clearer that, though his tears have ceased and his smile is warm, his shoulders are heaving and his head is somewhat limp. The exhaustion is purely emotional, yet all the more real in this world for that. This wasn't easy for him, either. His fatigue wouldn't be so obvious were they simply face-to-face; for all his passion, Alma is by nature a restrained man, and perhaps that more than anything is what can make him seem distant and his sincerity somehow angelic, supernatural. Perhaps again, it is this very nature that makes his particular take on sincerity so crucial for him.
Still, it is sad, maybe, that a man who never intends to keep secrets must be so enigmatic to others, that his vision must always be translated for the benefit of those lacking his unreal sight.
He doesn't seem to mind.
His smile seems all the fresher for his fatigue.
~ That's what you and K' have in common, and that's why I believed in you both right from the beginning. It was strange of me, wasn't it? But I've always... identified with that. Of what it means to be hollow, and to feel, urgently, that one must respond to one's own hollowness, or else never exist. ~
You see the paradox, don't you?
~ Yes. She was... my mother. Whatever the wrongs inflicted upon us, and however crucial it is that those wrongs are recognized, in the end... blame and hatred get us nowhere. Only courage-- only the courage to face whatever particular shadow pursues us, and make it our own. ~
Is this godhood?
Her last vision of Alma is of him blinking, startled.
~ ...ha... ha ha! ~
He laughs as he fades into white.
~ I wonder! ~
And then there is nothing, nothing but the sweet ethereal sea in which they were suspended. Nothing but the light. There is no way to mark the passage of time, no sense that anything will change. Here is the beginning and the end of the universe, sacred oblivion.
The void is pierced by birdsong.
Faint twittering, as the brightness fades.
And the world begins to return.
A bench, they are sitting on a bench; near them, the fountain still trickles. The sun is much lower in the sky now, almost done setting, poised to sink entirely below the horizon. Much more time has passed than they seemed to experience. But even as normal vision returns for both of them, even as Alma, whose fingertips continue to hover a hairsbreadth away from her temples, blinks hazily in a light wholly different from what they had just encountered, memories continue to flutter by, triggered by their resolution and separation. Faces Shurui may recognize, some that she may not: a shorter blond-haired boy with a wry grin and the steely warmth of true brotherhood, a far shorter dark-haired girl grinning mischeviously by his side; here are some of the other YFCC members, looking different, a little younger, through a younger man's eyes, Vanessa-san, Rose-sensei; here is Hotaru herself, blinking back joyful tears, sitting next to Alma in much the same way that Shurui sits next to him now.
A stern-faced Japanese man, his features shaded; a warmly smiling and bespectacled European woman, tanned and beautiful, standing by his side. They fall back, and away, and through him--
And into Alma's shadow, extending in the sunlight.
Running water, birdsong, and silence.
~ Haha. I suppose you'd have to be. To go through all this- who would care that I was a doll except her...? ~
A vision of screaming mass of heads. Death.
~ But she's dead now. There are still people out there that scare me, but she was one of the few people who figured out. Before even I did. ~
It's so peaceful here. Warm. Quiet. She thinks on Alma's mother.
~ You became stronger for it. I guess that's what I have to do. ~
She glances down at her fingers, glowing with psycho fire.
~ I guess I felt it too. Even back then. ~
A vision of a fiery aura, pressing close, intent on intimidation as the sound of children laugh in the background. K'.
~ I didn't want to see him leave. But... It can't be forever. But he found his sister. He doesn't have to search anymore. ~
There's a smile on her voice.
A small measure of panic is felt as Alma fades away, Shurui's face turning to face him on that mental plane. ~ Don't... ~ She stops herself, realizing the meaning in his fading body. ~ .... You're tired. ~ And she is too, she realizes.
Shurui's eyelids feel heavy, still, as she opens them. Her sight is blurry- she's... tired. Very tired. But even as she struggles to open her eyes, it's clear a change has taken place; a pinkness of life to her skin, just beginning to bloom. Her breath is relaxed, not halted. Shurui's dark eyes open and take in the light of the setting sun, quickly squinting back shut. ".... Bright..."
She's back in the physical plane. But how could such an amount of time passed while she was being healed?
Time. Her eyes widen, speaking even as her mouth has trouble forming words. "I meant to... Meant to tell you something. But I forgot it. ... K'." She straightens herself up against the mounting waves of natural, glorious exhaustion now let loose from their prison. She has to tell him. "K' went with Whip. Geese chased him out. He couldn't stay in Southtown anymore. Geese..." Her eyelids lower. "That guy isn't who he seems to be.... be careful..." She slumps agains the side of the bench. ".... Don't wanna... go to sleep. Too much to talk about... Hotaru..."
Her voice, in Alma's head. She doesn't seem to realize it. ~ Hotaru... She came to you too...? ~
"...What?"
Alma's mild expression does not reveal the fatigue that was so obvious when their minds were dancing; it is further eliminated by his sharpening eyes, the sudden straightening of his posture at Shurui's words.
Geese? Geese /Howard/?
K' and Whip were chased away?
What?
Why Geese Howard?
What on earth...?
"Shu--"
Alma begins to speak, then cuts himself off, his eyes on Shurui's weary but healed form, her body slumped, her eyes closing, her thoughts echoing in him. Perhaps, for all his shock, Alma is a reasonable and conscientious enough fellow to know that this is not any time to disturb her with his own unease, and that she further doubtless knows little more than she has already managed to say. But Alma's composure does not deserve all the credit, for he is quicker than he appears to abandon it in the name of love or passion. In fact, in this as in many situations where he quickly recovers from absurd twists, Alma feels simply as though his own dark intuitions have been confirmed. He had a feeling that something had happened, that he would not be seeing K' as soon as he would want to, that the words that he had wished to speak since their last meeting and his resolution with Igniz would have to go still unsaid. Knowing already that there is no way to find him, no trail that has not already gone cold--
~ Yes. Long ago. ~
Alma, weary-eyed again, smiles gently.
~ She has been as a sister to me since then. ~
He'll get to the bottom of this, somehow. The miasma is thickening. The storm is rising. Far from hollow, far from alone, today's Alma Towazu will be in the thick of it all.
But until then...
~ I'll tell you about it later. We've got time. ~
He places a warm, strong hand upon her shoulder.
~ We're all family, now. ~
The words seem like so much background noise, all the while as struggles to keep awake. No, she *has* tell Alma this. ".... He's safe. He's with Whip." At least, as far as she knows. Her lips turn upwards in a smile. "He led me here so I could be safe too. Geese... He might've donated to the YFCC because of K''s connection to it. Be careful..."
He probably knows this already. Or, at least, Hotaru would have been able to tell him, having seen and learned about the darker details Shurui's too tired to relay. But, in telling Alma herself, Shurui feels a release of energy. Yes. She feels the hand on her shoulder. She can rest now. Slumping onto Alma like a fallen tree, her mind receptive to Alma's broadcasted thoughts.
Did she speak to him on her own? With her mind? She supposes she did. Will she remember any of this when she wakes up?
Drowsy thoughts, slowly drifting away from Alma's mind as the sun sets and the grey-haired girl lies fast asleep where she falls, seeming finally at peace.
~ Family, huh...? Can't get rid of any of you, looks like... ~
A strange girl.
---
OMAKE THEATRE:
[OOC] Shurui says, "I LOVE YOU. AS A FRIEND."
[OOC] Shurui says, "-FRRIIIEENNND.-"
[OOC] Shurui puts Alma in the friend camp
[OOC] Shurui will later say she sees him as a brother
[OOC] Shurui says, "in that 'dude i am letting you down easy' way"
[OOC] Alma says, "Booooooring."
[OOC] Alma says, "Man Alma would be so confused."
[OOC] Alma says, "Like '...as opposed... to what?'"
[OOC] Alma says, "'you mean there's like... another kind of love?'"
[OOC] Shurui :|
[OOC] Shurui says, "okay, let the NESTS experiment tell you about relationships"
[OOC] Alma plunges forth into yet another comedy of errors.
-
[OOC] You say, "ANYWAY. This was a sweet RP."
[OOC] You say, "and i shall totally place it up with lots of horrible context so people will complain to staff"
[OOC] Alma says, "ahahahah yesss"
[OOC] Alma says, "'alma and shurui enter each other and discover their true feelings'"
[OOC] You say, "oh god"
Log created on 00:40:29 02/13/2009 by Shurui, and last modified on 01:29:39 02/16/2009.