Travel The Distance

Chapter 48

By the time I left the castle, the moon's silvery light had bathed the world, casting ominous shadows which didn't incur any sort of fear in me. Despite nobody being around to witness the death of Shigaraki, it felt the world was at ease as if everyone could just feel the evil presence leaving the land of the living. I let the night wind wash over me, cooling my skin and the blood which coated it. I was accustomed to being bathed in blood, yet I still despised the feeling of it drying on my skin, cracking every time I moved.

"Katuki?" I'd like to say that I wasn't startled by the sudden feminine voice that spoke from the shadows, but I would be lying. I knew that my mother was waiting for me, and yet I was so hyped up on adrenaline and on edge that the sudden noise caused my body to drop into a defensive position and a dagger to be in my hands without me consciously deciding to reach for it.

After a second, the familiar voice registered in my mind and I slowly straightened up whilst returning my dagger to its original position at my waist. A shadow shifted in the darkness of the forest before my mother stepped out, her youthful face appearing more angelic due to the moon's light. Her pale skin seemed to sparkle, as if embedded with millions of diamonds, as she moved towards me. Ruby eyes scanned my entire body, horror and pride sparkling within their depths.

"I assume that you've killed Shigaraki," my mum hummed, coming to a stop in front of me. I nodded silently. It was sort of surreal having my mother standing in front of me, looking as though she hadn't aged a day. She looked so similar to how she had when our tribe was slaughtered. The same harsh eyes. The same pale skin. The same shade of hair, though it was now longer than it had been. Seeing her again, I now understood why people said that we could have been twins if we weren't mother and son.

"Of course. Who do you take me for, huh?" I scoffed.

Even after being imprisoned for so long, my mother's proud smirk was still the same. It didn't lack any of its self-assuredness and heat. The familiarity of the expression, even after 14 years sent a bolt of nostalgia through me and incurred the wrath of long-forgotten memories.

It was vaguely awkward just standing there with my mother after we hadn't seen each other for years on end. I tried my hardest to maintain a steady line of conversation, filling my mum in on the state of what remained of the tribe and recounting stories from the fourteen years in which she had been imprisoned. She didn't have many thrilling stories to tell in response to my memories. Being imprisoned in a cave and having humans poke at you periodically wasn't something that a person really wanted to recount, especially to their son. I, obviously, didn't need to be shielded from the atrocities of the world, having partaken in a plethora of them within my relatively short life, but the maternal instinct to care for me hadn't dimmed one bit in my mother. I was, oddly, thankful for that fact. Even if I was 21 and well past the age of needing to be guided by my mother, it still eased my heart.

We maintained our awkward conversations for an hour or two, possibly bordering on three before Shoto emerged from the castle with his siblings in tow. By the time Shoto came out, the moon had reached its peak in the sky and its line shone directly down onto us. Shoto and his siblings looked ethereal and ghostly when they stepped out of the castle. The silver light of the moon set their pale skin aglow and glinted off of their white hair.

Fuyumi and Natsuo appeared slightly nervous and apprehensive upon seeing my mother and me. Maybe it was due to our half-dressed state and dirt (and blood) streaked bodies. I wouldn't blame them if the source of their trepidations was our appearance, they were raised in a regal and aristocratic environment, after all, and they'd hardly had the chance to experience other ways of living.