═══ TRUTH BEHIND THE TRUTH ═══
Guilt was a nasty companion. It had been eating away at Mayu for fifteen years. Not because of something she had done, rather because of something she had failed to do - which was to share the truth with her daughter, the truth about Junto.
All her life, Akiko had grown up believing that the murderous brother was her father, only to then find out her biological father had been dead all along.
To uncover yet another lie, to be confronted with a very much alive yet comatose Junto was inevitably going to rip open a wound that had just begun to heal.
Naturally, when Akiko came to, she wanted some time to herself to think things through. The only person she let in the room with her was Chifuyu, whereas Mikey and Baji were outside calming down Mayu who had come to Yokohama shortly after Seina had contacted her. There was no denying the fresh tension between the three females.
Chifuyu was sitting silently beside Akiko as the girl sipped on a water bottle - doctor's orders, she had to rest and hydrate before she was allowed to leave. The tumble to the floor had done no damage to her skull, aside from leaving her feeling slightly dizzy.
"I just can't believe that no one knew about Junto for fifteen years... ," Akiko whispered into the silent room.
She stared through the window, watching as the clouds slowly passed by the hospital up above, and she wondered how she was supposed to meet her mother's eyes under these circumstances.
"Seina and your mother must've had a pretty good reason for keeping his survival a secret," Chifuyu attempted to sooth her, painting a soft expression onto his face.
"And I don't doubt that," Akiko assured him, "but it still hurts."
"I know."
"Thinking that you're never going to meet your father is one thing, but it's much worse if he's right there and there's a chance that he might never wake up, yet there's this hope that one day he might look at you and smile."
She turned her head, revealing teary eyes and quivering lips. In a shaky voice, the brunette pushed herself to communicate the jumble of thoughts crowding her head.
"Had Ken known about Junto, he would have ordered his assassination. My mother had every reason to keep a secret like that. It makes me wonder if she endured Ken's torture because she always held onto hope that Junto would wake up one day."
Chifuyu heaved a sigh, "The only way you're going to get answers is by talking to your mother. She's the only one who can fill in the gaps."
He wrapped his arms around Akiko, pulled her into a tight embrace and whispered sweet nothings into her ear until she was able to blink the tears away and her shoulders stopped shaking. It seemed the emotional baggage was finally taking a toll on her physically. The bags under her eyes were hard to miss.
Nodding to herself as though she needed the confirmation, Akiko stood up from the bed and marched toward the door.
There was a moment of hesitation as her fingers curled around the cold doorknob. Frankly, she was not ready to know the full truth, despite having her suspicions and filling in some of the gaps by adding up the information she already had, and her heart was racing anxiously.
Then, she pulled open the door and stepped into the hallway, closely followed by Chifuyu.
"Mum?"
A head of chestnut brown hair turned in Akiko's direction. Mayu hurriedly slipped out of her seat, stiffly standing up to face her daughter.
"It's time we finally put all cards on the table," demanded the girl.
ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ
──── ˚✩ ༘*ೄ˚ ────
ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ
"NO! JUNTO!"
Mayu was struggling against the grip of Yin and Yang as the twins held her back from rushing toward the love of her life.
Against the rules, Kurayami had interfered with the fight between the two brothers, granting Ken an unfair advantage as he dealt a blow to the back of Junto's head. Previously hovering over Ken after he had beaten him to the ground, Junto went limp on impact, his grip on Ken slipped.
"Finally," growled Ken, venom dripping from his tongue. He pulled himself off the ground, not bothered to wipe the blood off his face. "Took you long enough."
Mayu's mouth fell open as the realization sank in, "Y-you planned this?! This was a trap all along?!"
Ken chuckled darkly, "Nothing will stand in my way of successful, darling."
He stretched a hand toward Kurayami. The Demon wordlessly passed him a gun.
Again, Mayu tore at the hands keeping her in place, screaming at the top of her lungs, praying to the gods that a miracle may save Junto as it was neither his time to leave yet nor did he deserve to die at the hands of his own flesh and blood.
"Please, Ken, have mercy!" she begged.
"I'm sorry, but I'm only taking what's rightfully mine," retorted the man, the barrel of the gun already pointed at Junto.
"You would kill your own brother over some stupid trading company?!" Mayu was in utter disbelief.
"Oh, it's so much more than that, but you women understand little about business, money and power."
It sounded condescending, to say the least.
His finger curled around the trigger.
"He stole my future from me," Ken spat angrily, "and now I'm stealing his."
When the first gunshot rang through the air, Mayu sank to her knees, clawing at her chest as she desperately breathed through the tears and sobs shaking her body.
"I don't care if my success is set in blood. I don't care if I have to kill every single person who dares to stand in my way. I will build an empire that others will be envious of," Ken proclaimed.
His black eyes flickered toward Mayu, who sat on the ground with a vacant look on her face as she stared at her finace lying in a pool of his own blood.
"And you'll be by my side."
ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ
──── ˚✩ ༘*ೄ˚ ────
ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ
They hung onto every word she said.
Mayu inhaled deeply before she continued, "For years, I believed Junto to be dead. I thought that Akiko was all that I had left of him. It was a pure coincidence that Seina started to work here and called me on a day when she knew that Ken was out of town. Since then, I have used every chance I got to visit Junto. The police thought it best to leave him here as a John Doe for his own safety, although they couldn't arrest Ken because they had no hard evidence against him. Pandemonium was just too good at covering up their tracks."
Teary-eyed, the woman looked toward her daughter, but Akiko was glaring at the clean white floor, her fingers curled around the hem of her sweater, lips pressed into a firm line. It was hard to decipher whether she was angry or upset.
Yet she took everyone by surprise when she jumped up and stood in front of Mayu. Her eyes were hard in expression, toughened up by the determination burning behind them.
"I'll make sure that you'll never have to carry such a burden ever again," she swore. "Starting today, there will be no more secrets, got it?"
Before Mayu had the chance to respond, Akiko leaned down to kiss her forhead, then walked down the hallway toward Junto's room — she had yet to take a proper look at him.
There was a window looking into his room through which she spied for a solid minute. Even from a distance she recognized the similarities between his features and that of Ken, although his were softer and his cheeks were less hollow. Over Ken's face there had always seemed to loom a shadow, whereas Junto simply looked peaceful.
Akiko wondered what it would be like to stare into his eyes for the first time, wanted to hear what his voice sounded like, and was most curious about his reaction to meeting his daughter for the first time.
All these hopes and questions had been suppressed and buried deep down before the revelation of his survival. She never would have dreamed of meeting him because it only would have caused her pain if she desired something that was impossible.
Now, that possibility was lying right in front of her, so close to the touch, and she couldn't help praying that his eyes would flutter open and the recent spike in brain activity proved to be a good sign.
"How disgustingly sentimental," mumbled a deep voice next to her ear.
Her stomach turned upside down. Akiko spun around instantly to be met with the sight of golden eyes and a devilish smirk partly covered by a tattoed hand reading 'sin'.
"Hanma," growled Akiko while she glanced around at the suspiciously vacant hallway. "What are you doing here?"
The lanky delinquent feigned hurt, "You still haven't figured out who left that note at your house? What a shame. Weren't you supposed to be the smart one?"
Amber eyes widened. She accusingly pointed a finger at Hanma. "So it was you! But ... how did you know about this? Am I the only one who was left in the dark?"
"Don't worry, there's no reason to pick apart what little self-worth you have left," chuckled Hanma, patronizingly patting her head. "I found out by coincidence. But it's fun to play these little mind games with you."
Suddenly, Akiko was seized by a blazing rage. Without a warning, without minding the consequences, she pushed Hanma with all her might. He collided with the wall, not even blinking.
"I swear to the gods, if you so much as hint a threat toward my family or anyone I care about, I will deliver your soul straight to the gates of hell because I am sick and tired of other people sticking their nose into my business and viewing my personal life as their new pastime activity! Stay the hell away from us!"
Her nails dug into the fabric of his shirt, sure to leave crescent-shaped marks on the skin beneath. Her chest was heaving up and down as she breathed heavily from anger. And her amber eyes were blazing with a fire that had seldom made it to the surface. The usual glowing embers had been freshly fueled and the flames were awakened with a newfound hunger.
The more she had to lose, the more she grew eager to protect it at all cost and anyone who threatened it was a thorn in her side — which, in this current moment, was Shuji Hanma.
He stifled a laugh, "You're cute when you try to look intimidating."
In the blink of an eye, their positions were reversed. Akiko found herself stuck between the wall and Hanma's solid chest.
"Where did that courage go to now?" He made a mockery of a girl's emotions.
But Akiko merely smirked. "You're forgetting that Mikey is only a shout away. You're already on his bad side as is, you wouldn't want to give him and the rest of Toman a reason to want to see your ass dead, would you?"
Hanma, too, was smirking. "Still hiding behind someone else's strength, I see. And here I thought you had evolved. Too bad. Guess I might have to look for another doll to play with."
"By the way," he whispered, leaning closer to the point his breath fanned over her neck, "you're shaking. Are you cold or are you that scared of me, dollface?"
A glare hardened her stare. "Karma will come back to bite you."
"I'm looking forward to it," he chuckled.
Then, winking at the brunette, Hanma stepped back and casually strode down the hallway toward the elevator.
There was no denying the speed at which her heart was pounding and adrenaline was pumping through her veins. For a moment, she only heard the blood rushing in her ears.
She looked back at Junto.
And there was a single thought on her mind.
'Please, come back to us.'