負け戦い
Shiori jerked awake with a harsh gasp ripped from her throat.
Her legs hit the underside of the bed painfully as she snapped awake, shuddering. Her eyes flash open, and she immediately blinked at the twinge of pain brought on from the bright fluorescent light of the hospital room that burned her eyes like fire. She shut her eyes with a small, pained sound.
For one horrible second, she thought she was still trapped in that endless, cold black water – then she realized she couldn't be. She was sitting on the cold metal firmness of the chair she was in when she drank the jade water. Her forehead rested on her folded arms lying atop the hospital bed Pai was on. Her forehead was dotted with a thin line of sweat that made her cold from the room's air conditioning.
When she opened her eyes again, she stared down at her arms. They were clad in the baby-blue fabric of the blouse she was wearing, that she remembered so clearly taking off before diving into the pond. Same went with the beige slacks clothing her legs.
She wasn't wet. Her clothes were bone dry and soft against her skin.
Her hand went up to her neck, but she wasn't wearing her necklace. She felt bereft without it, as if she was a ship at sea in a storm with no anchor to hold her down or land in sight. She touched her hair and found it completely dry, falling down to her shoulders. She wriggled her toes in the shoes she'd had on when she drank the jade water.
It was like none of that even happened. There was no evidence of any of it on her body beside the memory of it, locked in her skull.
After she was done dazedly inspecting herself, her gaze fell on the stirring form of Kouta. The hospital room was otherwise empty with no one else there. He was sitting in an identical chair opposite her, on the other side of the hospital bed.
He was wearing the same clothes she last saw him in; jeans and a white and black striped shirt. His jacket was folded over the back of the chair, acting as a cushion over the hard metal. He was slouched in the chair, long legs disappearing under the bed as she watched him doze fitfully with his cheek resting on his hand. His Mask was tied loosely over his wrist, sliding down his forearm when he shifted.
As Shiori watched his eyes slowly blink open, she realized this might be the first time in almost a week that he had gotten any sleep. Every time she had seen him, he had been awake, speaking with the Daitengu, or being with her, giving her a companionable presence despite her attention wholly focused on every tiny movement Pai made. She knew Hengen didn't strictly need as much sleep as humans did, but they did still need it.
When was the last time Kouta got enough sleep?
When Kouta saw that Shiori was awake, he bolted up from his chair so fast it scraped on the floor as it was shoved back against the wall. He didn't notice, or care. He walked quickly around the bed and came to Shiori's side, kneeling by her and running his hands over her face, down the length of her loose hair, as if he was checking for signs of injury.
"Shiori," he breathed in a sigh that was almost reverent in its relief. "You're all right. You're okay." When he was appeased that she wasn't hurt, he drew her to him and hugged her so tight that she lost her breath.
She didn't push him away. Instead, after a moment's confused hesitation, she hugged him back just as fiercely. The relief that swept through her at realizing that she was still alive, still able to see Kouta every day, hear his voice, have his arms hold her close to him, was beyond anything she could describe. She was smiling against his shoulder as she buried her face against his clothes, breathing in the citrus scent of him. It felt so good to be held like this, to hold him like this.
The smile slowly faded away as she remembered why she was so glad to still be alive. Only then did she push back from Kouta, looking into his brilliant yellow eyes for a moment to make sure she wasn't dreaming, that this wasn't another illusionary vision she was bearing witness to.
But no, there was the little crack in the yellow of his eyes, a dark red zizagging line that stretched from the black-ringed outline of his iris to his pupil, something that had been there since she first met him.
This wasn't a dream, it couldn't be. Everything felt too real, was too real, without that definite but intangible quality of timelessness she had felt when she was in her own mind.
Her eyes flicked over to where Pai laid.
There wasn't any change in her condition. At least, none that Shiori could see. The doctors would know more from checking her over, but there was a sinking pit in her gut that they wouldn't find anything different. Pai lay completely still on the bed, deathly pale, breath slow and laboured, as if there was a large stone lodged in her lungs.
Shiori leaned toward her and touched her cold cheek with the tips of her fingers. She blinked as she drew back and finally noticed the whiteness of Pai's hair. She frowned slightly as she stared at it, limly lying on the pillow, with none of the soft, loose curls that Pai was forever striving to manage.
Slowly, the memories of what just happened trickled through Shiori's mind. She remembered standing in her old house and wondering how to find the gap. She remembered the man, the Kitsune, who somehow was there and bent her reality to take the two of them to Shiori's memory of Maruyama Park. She remembered the man commenting on how large the sunset was.
She remembered thinking he sounded sad, nostalgic, when he said that.
Shiori knew that the Kitsune had to have been a ninetails, or at least something close to it. Only exceptionally powerful kitune had the ability of wilful manifestation in the dreams of others – that was what Kouta and Kanou said.
This one had shown her the boulder at the bottom of one of the ponds in the park, for reasons his own, and she went with it because she didn't have much of a choice. She swam under it, and somehow, through that way, ended up in Pai's mind.
"What do you know."
"What do you know of pain."
"I don't want to hurt anymore."
"You can't be here!"
"Let me forget."
"Please."
Kouta was also looking at Pai, following Shiori's gaze to her. He looked just as disappointed as Shiori felt to see no visible change in Pai's condition.
"Shiori," he said quietly, turning back to her. "What happened? Do you remember? Can you tell me?"
She found it hard to answer, to force the words out of her, mind still reeling as it sped through everything she just saw. The strange woman who cried blood at a betrayal only she knew about, a woman the Kitsune warned her might try to kill her –
"She'll kill you. She wants me to stay here. You need to go – you need to go!"
"You don't understand! You can't be here!"
– the shock and horror of seeing Pai tortured and broken with puddles of her own blood at her feet as a man asked her why she killed someone. The utter disdain in Pai's eyes on her blank face as she asked Shiori what she knows of anything. The electrifying jolt of cold pain when Pai shoved Shiori back through a hole in the cloud-ground, her hands crackling with black electricity and that look of utter resignation and sorrow on her face.
"I don't want to remember."
"Please."
Kouta leaned in, gently turning Shiori around so that she was looking up at him rather than sightlessly staring at Pai's unmoving body. Her bottom lip trembled. He cradled the side of her face with his palm aligned to her cheek, and she lifted a hand to hold his against it, seeking warmth and reassurance from his touch.
"Shiori," Kouta said again, in a soft, gentle voice. "Are you all right?"
"Kanou-san was right," she managed thickly. She gulped as her hand tightened around Kouta's. "I found her – but I don't know if I got to her. She was – she's so scared, Kouta. I've never seen Pai-chan look like that before. And her memories..." she looked at Pai again, her mind turning over the last thing she heard.
"I don't want to remember."
'I don't want to remember', Shiori thought, Or 'I don't want to wake up'?
"If she doesn't wake up," she mumbled, shoulders sagging heavily, spine cracking as she curved inward. "I won't blame her."
×
Kouta looked at her for a second longer, his eyes searching her downcast ones. He had never known Shiori to be so dejected before. Kouta knew this to possibly be a fool's wish to hope their plan would work, but he certainly wanted it to work. There was no denying it – he, and no one else, wanted to let Pai die. She was family. If she died, it would leave a lasting mark on everyone.
He pulled Shiori in and pressed his lips to her temple as he enfolded her in his arms, resting his chin on the crown of her head as she wound her arms – fingers trembling, he noted worriedly – around his waist. He didn't push her to tell him what happened, what she saw, knowing that she would do so in her own time after she had calmed down some. Her eyes were skittish, and she was more rattled than he had ever seen her before.
Whatever she saw in Pai's mind, whatever dark memories it was that Pai was reliving, they were possibly worse than most of what he could think of, to get Shiori to react like this.
"I don't know," she mumbled tiredly. "I don't know if she'll wake up. She didn't want me there, she pushed me away. I don't know if she'll wake up. I don't know if she wants to."
Kouta frowned at that. Pai pushed Shiori away? That...something didn't sound quite right about that. Even in the beginning, when he was still hesitant about whether or not to let Pai stay at Ayashi House when it was clear she had nowhere else to go, he could see that Shiori meant a lot to Pai. The two were close enough to be blood sisters who had been through thick and thin together.
Pai pushed Shiori away?
He glanced at Pai, and went still.
"Shiori," he said lowly. He drew back from her, and she looked up at him in confusion. Her cheeks were pale, eyes lined in tired pink. He nodded at Pai. "I think you did get to her."
She blinked, staring blankly at him. Her eyes went wide. She turned, still in his arms, and her mouth fell open in silent surprise as she looked over Pai's body and finally spotted the flickering eyelids, the long and dark wavering lashes over Pai's cheeks.
The bleeping of the heart monitor ticked momentarily and missed a beat before continuing steadily. That was when Shiori moved. She stepped closer to the head of the bed, touching Pai's hand. She gasped when that same hand twitched in a tiny move that she would have missed if she wasn't touching Pai's hand. She looked at Kouta standing behind her, and this time there was a bright light in her eyes.
"She's waking up," she whispered, almost in disbelief. "Kouta, she's waking up!"
Kouta nodded with a small smile, his own relief overridden by the relief of seeing the shadows from Shiori's eyes chased away. But his relief was tempered by hesitation, unwilling to so readily accept that this was all over, that Pai was safely delivered from the clawed grips of death.
I don't know if she'll wake up, Shiori had said. I don't know if she wants to.
There was a quiet knock from the door, and Kanou poked his grey head in. His eyes lit up when he saw Shiori leaning over Pai's bed, awake and very much alive, not having had her spirit trapped in Pai's subconscious.
"Thank you the spirits," Kanou murmured to himself. Shiori turned at the sound of Kanou's voice.
"Kanou-san!" she exclaimed, taking a step toward him before stopping and turning back to Pai. It was as if she was afraid that if she moved too far, let go of Pai's hand, Pai would slip back into the terrible memories Shiori only hinted at. She stayed where she is as she continued excitedly, "I think she's waking up!"
Without saying anything, Kanou immediately crossed the length of the room. He moved quickly for a man his age – but then again, he wasn't human. He went to the side of the bed Kouta had been sitting at while he waited and watched over Shiori, and gently lifted Pai's other hand, fingers clamped over her wrist as his other hand came up to press against Pai's temple.
After a long, still moment, the room filled with silence, his eyes widened.
"She is," he whispered. He looked up at Shiori and Kouta, both of whom were watching him intently. He nodded. "She's waking up."
"How can you tell?" Kouta asked, watching as Kanou let go of Pai's wrist.
"I don't know how to explain it in better terms, but, as a healer, I've been trained to be able to feel different people's energies, and the way it flows in their bodies. I can feel it, here," Kanou tapped Pai's temple gently with this finger. "It's like a – sort of like when you jump-start a car. There is a slight jump in her, her spirit, you could call it. In the vital points of her spirit." He shook his head wondrously as his eyes drifted back to Pai's flickering eyelashes. "I apologize, but I have no words to adequately describe it."
"It's fine," Kouta answered.
Kanou nodded absently as a frown wrinkles between his bushy grey brows, his fingers tightening around Pai's wrist as he focused the glint of his dark eyes on Pai's face. He removed his hand from her wrist and put two fingers to her temple, the other hand's fingers still pressed on the other side of her. He had such an intense look on his face, so solely focused on Pai and whatever it was he could feel from her as a healer.
A thread of worry knotted in Kouta's stomach, growing to the size of a watermelon as he continued to watch. "Kanou-san? What's happening?"
Kanou shook his head, no other part of his body moving. He could have been a statue for how still he was. "I don't know. It's like...she's hesitating."
Shiori looked at him sharply at that before glancing down at Pai again. Kouta could tell she had an idea of what he was talking about.
"She's hesitating?" Shiori said quietly. "Like...like something's blocking her, maybe?"
Oddly specific, that.
Kanou paid it no mind the way Kouta did, monitoring Pai as he was. He hummed vaguely. "Yes, something of the like."
Shiori sniffed, rubbing the back of her hand over her nose. Kouta had seen her do the same thing countless times, after she had come from a bath or shower, after swimming. She had told him that it was because she always felt like there was still water in her nose. Kouta wondered why she did it now.
He frowned, watching her closely. He tilted to the side a bit, and looked down at her legs. Shiori's left knee was ticking, jumping up and down as if she was impatient to do something physical, like walk, or run, or even dance around as she sometimes liked to spontaneously do when she was extremely bored.
She was nervous. Understandably so – but Kouta felt like there was more to this than what Kanou's words implied.
Two things happen at the same time, without warning.
Suddenly, there was a high, tortured sound that filled the white and blue themed hospital room, a harsh gasp of pain as Pai's eyes whipped open. For a moment, her eyes were filled with blind panic, blanketed in something close to pure terror, entirely unlike the glazed, sleepy look of someone who had just woken from unconsciousness. Kouta thought he saw something unnameable but disconcertingly familiar behind the large, light brown eyes that darted around the room frantically as Pai took in rapid, sharp breaths.
Then, as quickly as the feeling came, it vanished as he turned to give a small, pleased smile at Shiori when she gasped, her hands flying to cover her gaping mouth as she stared down at Pai. Pai's breaths came slower, calmer, now, as she looked up at Kanou when leaned over her with a confused look in her eye.
Kanou called her name, saying it repeatedly as he tried to ascertain that she was really awake and that her eyes opening wasn't some sort of weird biological reflex. She stared up at him like she wasn't quite sure why he was there.
A second later, the smile on Kouta's face was wiped off as all the Daitengu simultaneously felt a shock of electric current run through their bodies, wherever they were, whatever they were doing. It was like his heart sputtered to an abrupt stop, all his organs failing concurrently before bursting back to life in a nauseating jolt of energy.
Cold fingers traipsed down his spine as a tight band of apprehension circled his gut, squeezing so hard that for a second, it was difficult to get any air in his lungs, his back stiffening. His eyes widened with inconceivable shock as he stared at the wall straight ahead of him.
Shiori glanced down at their clasped hands when his convulsed around hers in a spasm that shook him. She looked up at him and worry wiggled in when she saw him staring at seemingly nothing.
She moved to stand in front of him, clicking her fingers in his face. "Kouta? What's wrong?"
When Kouta slowly brought his eyes down to hers, Shiori had to suppress a gasp of surprise. His eyes were burning red.
"Shin," he croaked.
Kanou glanced over at him at the sound of his voice, so unlike the smooth tones he spoke in, though he remained by Pai's side as her lips parted to say something.
Whatever it was, Kouta didn't hear it, for it was lost, swept up in the rising tide of his own horror.
"He's lost it. Shin's lost control of his True Ayakashi."