Chasing Dreams (Dropped)

Chapter 154: The Birth of a Blood Moon (1)

"Renji." Mei's voice was like a whisper. "Do you hate me?"

Ren felt his face shrivel. It was a simple question with a complicated answer. "Ah..." Ren moved his mouth, but no words came.

"You do don't you?" Mei concluded. "Are you going to leave me just as Emilio did?"

"..." Ren didn't have an answer. Even though he swore to her, he didn't; Ren did fear Mei. Mei was the most terrifying person in the world to him. Scarier than Homura, and more intimidating than Michael. "If I tell you..." Ren struggled with his words. "You'll just kill me won't you?"

The sharpness of Ren's voice left a deep wound in Mei's heart. "No I won't." Mei finally stopped caressing Ren's hair and backed away from his face. "I already told you, through death you'll find salvation. I won't just kill you for fearing me, or even hating me."

Ren remained silent. He wasn't sure if Mei was telling him the truth or lying. Her tone hardly changed, and neither did her heartbeat. Mei was either telling the truth or was an excellent liar.

"If that's the case..." Ren let his words slip. "Then my answer is simple really..." Ren stared directly into Mei's blood-moon eyes. "I hate what you are, not who you are."

Mei raised a brow, slightly stunned by his answer. "I don't understand."

"I figured as much..." Ren continued, not blinking a single time as he locked eyes with Mei. "Even without you showing me I can sense your pain. Your desperation, and your desire for things to change. For the world to change, and atone for what they've done to our people."

Ren grabbed Mei's hand, squeezing it tightly as he tried with everything in his power to fill her with warmth. He sensed the loneliness within her. By her crude remarks and persistent advances, he could tell that they were desperate cries out for something more.

"But Mei, you know as well as I that this world will never atone for what they've done. They'll never apologize to our people for slaughtering them like cattle, and stomping our bones to dust." Ren's grip on her hand tightened as his voice slid out as a plea. "So stop this, end this path of violence and stop trying to recreate the event that turned you into the person you are today."

Mei's eyes seeped into Ren's like daggers. "You see Renji, you still know nothing." she hissed. "You speak these things, these strange things that make no sense to me." Mei's snake-like accent began to slip out in slurs. "Atoning? Apologizing? I don't understand, when did I ever ask for that?"

"I don't want them to apologize!" Mei fumed. "I don't want them to atone!" Mei spat. "They've had 300 years to do that, yet have done nothing but slam daggers in our backs! What I want them to do is suffer. I want them to experience what it is like to see the only world they know burn around them, and you will help me do that."

"No I won't." Ren gritted his teeth.

"Yes you will." Mei demanded, grabbing Ren by his throat. However, this time Ren did not flinch. He had nothing left to fear. Mei had killed him nearly a hundred times. What was one more going to change?

Ren felt the strength leave Mei's fingers as her grip on him loosened. "Why, I don't understand. After everything that's happened to our people. After everything that's happened to you, why do you defend them?"

"Because I..." Ren stopped himself. He took a moment to gaze at his surroundings, the false world created by him and Mei. The sanctuary Ren built for himself to protect his mind. The shelter was built off of the memories he had inherited from his Fujiwara predecessors. The beautiful and lush land of the Fujiwaran Isles. "Because we are better than them..."