Lunar Lucidity

Lunar Lucidity
Started By Silk


August in Japan is known for 'Tsukimi parties', social gatherings where people watch the moon, write poetry of varying quality, and partake of entirely to much alcohol. It's a time honored tradition of merriment and socializing.

Well, Silk was starting her own tradition. Moon Watching solo from the top of the bridge in the park. There were relatively few Street lights in the area, and the water rushed beneath the bridge in quiet accompaniment to the rhythm of the night. One could almost forget you were in the city at all.

One could almost imagine being in the Chinese mountains... and Silk did imagine herself there. But she didn't imagine the beautiful vista and the breathtaking views. All she saw was the rushing water... roaring in her ears. Water tinged with red... tinged with blood... her parents' bodies... torn apart... Intermingled with Monster blood... lots of blood... Screaming...

"AACH!" Silk yelped as she came back to herself. She sat on the edge of the bridge, arms crossed over the lower slat of the rail, breathing hard. "I hate that dream. Always in August, when the moon is full..."

At this time Kodachi was also thinking of her parents (or specifically her mother) as she walked along in the pale moon light. Her thoughts were just as bitter, at the moment she was hating her mother.

Ever since the day that her mother took her own life, the Kunou family was never the same again. At one time they were a normal rich family. After the tragedy her father abandoned her and Tachi for years, and both of them had gone slightly mad.

If she could just talk to the shade of her mother she would Rave and scream at her for destroying the family that the Kunou's once were. She would let her have it with every problem in her life.

Before she knew it, she was standing on a quiet moon light bridge. The same bridge that Kodachi had contemplated her fate and future many times. More than once she was tempted to leap from the bridge and end it all. She would never take her mother's cowardly way out.

She leaned against one of the rails and gazed out towards the moon. She was so wrapped in thought that she didn't even notice Silk at all.

Silk watched Kodachi approach the bridge with a feeling of detachment. She looked like a ghostly presence in the red tinged light of the harvest moon. As shady as a dream, and with as much substance. Yet... When Kodachi stopped and leaned against the rail not a foot from her, she felt the need to say something, to confirm that she and the other girl were in fact alive. "Evening, Kodachi. What brings you to the bridge of dreams alone?" she asked softly, her voice muffled by the oppressive silence of the night.

Kodachi spun towards Silk at the sound of her voice. She was certain for a moment, that her mother's shade had risen from beyond the grave. In that one second, Silk could see all the torment and anger in Kodachi's eyes. It was only visible for a moment, once she recognized the amazon, she hid her emotions once again.

"Greetings Silk-sensei." Kodachi answered with very little emotion in her voice. "I didn't mean to disturb you. I had merely come here to think about my future and past once again. "

Silk nodded. She had seen the pain in Kodachi's eyes, recognized it. She knew it very well, having seen it in the mirror a few times. And she knew what it was to deny its existence, as well. She flicked a piece of gravel into the water below. "Sensei. The one who comes before. How am I that? You're as old as I am."

Kodachi smiled briefly before answering. " Your one of my teachers at school, Silk, It's just a habit to call you sensei." She stepped closer realizing that Silk was on this lonely bridge for a reason.

"What brings you up here my dear? Only those with troubled minds ever stay around this bridge."

"I wish you wouldn't, when we're not in school. I don't feel like I could teach you much of anything. And as for the troubled minds of this bridge, I wonder if that's the bridges fault, or the people's? You leave only once your mind is clear, so the bridge gets a bad reputation." Silk pulled her feet back from where they had been hanging over the edge of the bridge and stood up. She didn't look directly at Kodachi even now, still staring at the water and the blurred reflection of the moon. "I was just remembering. My parents died by a river during this time of year."

Silk's blurred reflection in the water was joined by a second, as Kodachi gazed into the slow moving river water. " you lost both of your parent's at once? Some sort of battle in China?" Kodachi looked over at her amazon companion. "I know what it's like to lose someone you love to violence. The world is never the same again."

The pain that was evident in Kodachi's eyes was now heard in her voice. She quickly wiped away a tear before her companion could notice. "How do you deal with the loss?"

"They both died fighting a demon. I found their remains. Ripped apart, blood in the river." Silk sighed, "How do you deal with it? I don't know. I tried to get eaten by a predator, but it didn't work. a scrawny five year old isn't worth the trouble to most bears." The healer tossed a larger rock into the water a ways upstream. The circle of ripples moved along the river for a ways, but was gone by the time it reached the bridge, eaten up by the current. "You can be angry at them, but that doesn't help. They didn't mean to leave you alone. You can be enraged, ready and able to rip apart the world, but it won't bring them back. Nothing you do can bring them back. Nothing you can do. And that's what hurts the worst."

Kodachi gripped the railing of the bridge. Her knuckles turning white with pressure. Silk was right no amount of anger could bring them back, but anger is all she knew how to feel for her mother.

"Sometimes they do mean to leave you Silk. And they leave because of you." Silk could hear a myriad of different emotions conflicting in Kodachi's voice. "My mother took her own life, because of me!" Kodachi was crying now, letting out emotions that she had not let escape in a while. "Then father abandoned us for years, he couldn't deal with the loss of mother." She clenched her fists in anger. "And it's all because of me!"

Kodachi broke down crying putting her head against the cool stone railing. All silk could hear was Kodachi's muffled voice repeating, "It's all my fault."

Silk might have tried to comfort her, but that wasn't going to help her. "You're lying." She said flatly, almost coldly. "How arrogant. you think that your mother would give up life just because you were bad? you think somehow that your behavior would drive her to insanity and beyond? how completely arrogant. To think that you were so much different then every other child, to be so superlatively bad to drive a grown woman to madness. To suicide. You were that bad, that different? Do you really believe that?"

Only part of what Silk was saying was getting past Kodachi's muffled sobs. She was completely lost in emotions for a second. The other voice screaming in her head to take control, but Kodachi completely ignored it for once.

"How is the truth arrogance." Kodachi mumbled out loud. "She had to beat me and discipline me constantly, I never lived up to her expectations. She never beat Tachi like that, only me. " Kodachi was trying to regain control of her emotions. " When I found her bleeding body in the bathroom, she was still alive.. The last thing she ever said to me was 'This is because of you.'"

"And she was lying." Silk's hand touched Kodachi on the shoulder. "Because, sane people don't kill themselves. Sane people don't beat their children constantly for being children. Sane parents don't expect perfection. Your Mother's deluded mind may have chosen you to fixate on, but only the deranged try to kill themselves. Only when rationality is a far away dream does contemplation of the necessity of one's own death become reasonable, attractive. When you're in that state you'll blame anyone for your state, anyone, even if they're innocent. I know, I tried it a few times myself." She paused as Kodachi regained control of her breathing. "Will you listen to may tale? then see for yourself."

Kodachi was stunned, she could hardly believe what Silk was telling her. She never thought of her mother as insane, she was the stabilizing factor in her family. Then the rest of what Silk said began to click together in her brain. She had an ever harder time believing that Silk could have ever tried that.

Kodachi always considered Silk the most sensible of all the people in Nerima, and also one of the most sane. This was an intriguing mystery, perhaps the two had something in common.

"Very well Silk, Please indulge me, I am very interested in knowing more about you. " Kodachi took a small lacey hanky out of her purse and wiped her eyes.

Silk sighed, pulling herself up onto the rail, "Simple enough story. Several years ago while I was living in Hong Kong, I was involved in a group that was combating organized crime. we were a bit to effective I guess, so they sent a large and high powered group against three of us, a hit and capture run. We fought well, but Myself and the other girl in the group were kidnapped, the young man who was with us was left in the street, bleeding. He fought hard and long to try to keep them from taking us, but he failed. My friend Case was not harmed during her capture, but I was. I was tortured, beaten, raped and otherwise abused. Many other things happened that are irrelevant at this point, except that I was eventually rescued by the same young man and my other friends."

Silk stopped for a moment, "Shortly thereafter I tried to kill myself. I felt, worthless, unclean, vile... I felt that death was surely better then living that way. Surely the havens must be clean. No people that could hurt me that way again. So I tried to kill myself. I know where to make the cuts. My friend stopped me. The same one who had tried to save me. Kazu is his name. He made me put down the knife, made me live. and I hated him for that. I yelled at him, said it was his fault that it happened. I said that I'd never forgive him, that he was the cause of all of this." Silk stopped again. "But I was wrong. And I knew I was wrong even as I said it. But I couldn't take it back. I wanted to, but I couldn't. The damage was done. I'd hurt one of the people who loved me most in the world, and it would never be the same. I apologized later, and he said he understood. I wasn't sane when I said it... but I still remember the look on his face. And I still cry for that pain." Silk's eyes were leaking silent tears that slid down her face and into the river.

Kodachi's expression varied from concern to outrage to down right horror. She could sense the emotions in Silk's words and felt them with her. Her tears fell again, this time not for Kodachi but for he amazon standing in front of her. This was a part of Silk that she never knew or expected, she knew it took great pain for her to tell the story.

She stepped closer to Silk and held out on tentative hand. She was about to place it on her shoulder when something inside her head told her that showing concern was weakness. She fought the voice once again and put her arm around Silk in a gesture of sympathy.

Kodachi gazed into the river, her tears joining Silk's to be washed away by the slow lowing water. She had no idea what to say, nothing she could say would erase the pain and tears. They both had memories that would never wash away.

Finally, Kodachi broke the silence and spoke in a voice that was barely more than a whisper. " A woman's lot in life is seldom easy, Sometimes we have heavy crosses to bear, crosses that only another woman can understand. " Kodachi tightened her grip on Silk's shoulders slightly. "We have shared our darkest secrets and heaviest crosses right here. If you ever need me for anything, Silk, just call and I'll be there for you."

Silk smiled softly into the reflecting waves, "A bridge is a natural place to cross. From one side to another, from one level to another. A place of changes and of understandings." She wiped her eyes on her sleeve. "I know my story is upsetting, but I don't want you to forget why I told it. it wasn't for the beginning, but for the end. For Kazu, for the pain I caused him with my words. remember that. Understand what it really is to be insane. That's all I ask of you."

"I will remember, Silk" Kodachi promised softly. " I will remember."

The two women stood side by side and watched the face of the moon. The comfortable silence carried on for a little longer before Kodachi broke the silence once again.

"The manor is not too far from here, would you like to join me for tea?"

"Jasmine tea?" Silk asked, smiling at a joke only she understood. "I would be honored." Silk looked up at the moon one last time, then at the water. "Time to get off the bridge."

Kodachi smiled warmly at her companion. "your right, time to leave our troubles at the bridge of dreams."

Together they made their way to the Kunou Manor. Kodachi led the way in, and was happy to discover that Tachi and Sasuke were gone. She and Silk would be alone. They both went into the kitchen and Kodachi began digging through the cabinets.

"Jasmine tea is what you wanted right?"

Silk laughed, "It doesn't really matter one way or the other, 'Dachi. But jasmine tea is one of my favorites. Make what you want." Silk looked around the huge house. She'd been in it before, but it had been filled with people, their personalities shrinking the space into manageability. Empty and darkened, it felt cold and hard. Antiseptic. "How can you three live in this huge place alone? it's so... empty."

Kodachi started the stove and began making some tea. She sat down across from Silk. "It's not so bad, I don't deal with my brother or Sasuke too much. I'm just accustomed to being alone."

She sighed as she wiped a dishcloth across the table. Absorbing some stray water that Tatewaki had spilled on the table earlier. "Besides cooking for my small family and keeping this house clean takes most of my time. "

Silk looked around the place again. It was spotless. "it does look nice, but don't you have any hobbies? something you do purely for yourself?"

Kodachi frowned slightly. " I guess you could say that my gymnastics is my hobby, between that, School, and this house I have no other time for myself. Lucky for me I usually only require four hours of sleep."

Silk shook her head, not even she was that bad. not even in May when she'd had her little breakdown and made some changes in her priorities. She suddenly lost most of her tact as she blurted out, "What do you do, scrub at non-existent stains all night?"

"No not all night" Kodachi responded dryly. "The manor is pretty big, it just takes a while. There's one stain up on the second floor, no matter what I do I can't get it up. I've tried every cleanser I could get my hands on, and the stain stays."

Silk's mind was moving very quickly, and something she had suspected but never confirmed was making more and more sense. But there was not time to carefully consider it, so she acted on impulse "Show me the stain, Kodachi. I'm very good at cleaning. I may be able to get rid of it for you."

Kodachi seemed to get defensive for a second, but relented. She stood up and motioned for Silk to follow her. The duo went up the big staircase wordlessly. Finally, they came to a stop in front of a bathroom.

Kodachi opened the door and pointed to the spot on the floor. One large area on the floor had all the color bleached off of it. The spot appeared to have been sterilized it was so very clean.

"No matter what I do I can't get the blood stain up. "

Silk stared at the spot for a moment, then looked at Kodachi. Everything clicked into place. Kodachi's delusions, her obsessions, her seeming insanity, it wasn't just eccentricity, not a deliberate oddness, it was real Insanity. Genuine article. Obsessive-compulsive, manic-depressive, and multiple personality. Silk's mind boggled for a moment that she was able to survive in normal society, and at the strength of will it must have cost her to seem so almost normal for the whole evening. She knew that you weren't supposed to contradict the mad, but she couldn't help herself, "Kodachi, what would you do if I could get rid of the stain?"

Kodachi's eyes were still focused on the phantom stain on the floor. She had fought for 11 years to cleanse the stain and still hadn't succeeded.

"I don't know what I would do Silk. I do know if I can cleanse this last memory of my mother away, I might be able to bring some semblance of normalcy in my life."

Silk considered for a moment. She had one idea, a sort of catharsis, but she wasn't sure if it would work. She knew she had to get Kodachi to a doctor. to some sort of help. but that would take time. Kodachi needed to see that the floor was in fact spotless. "Kodachi, are you willing to try something completely different then anything you've done?"

Kodachi looked up at Silk. For once her eyes were focused and there was no Chaotic gleam in them. Her eyes were those of a frightened teenage girl, begging for help.

It was taking everything she had to keep the other in check, but Silk's voice was something she could focus on. "I'll try anything to get that stain up, Silk."

Silk hesitated for a moment, then stepped forward and put her hand on Kodachi's forehead. "Kodachi, I want you to think about the stain. Think about how it's still there, how it remains no matter how hard you scrub. Think about this, then close your eyes." Kodachi complied, and Silk tentatively reached out with her mind's senses. part of her wanted to flee from the madness in the other girl's mind, but she couldn't not try. She saw the picture in Kodachi's mind of the stain. it wasn't old dry blood, but freshly spilled. And the Kodachi that was scrubbing was perhaps 5 years old. Silk considered for a moment, then formed her own image and played it out in Kodachi's mind. It showed the little girl Kodachi turning into the teenager she now was, and the stain fading away until it was gone. Then for a long moment, just the image of the clean floor. She squashed the impulse she felt starting; to scrub, to cleanse what was already clean. --No, it is clean. I am clean. I am free-- Silk kept her in rapport until the urge to scrub subsided on its own. --Free--

Kodachi slowly opened her eyes as her mind finally began to realize that the floor was clean. Her lavender eyes focused on the ultra-clean area on the bathroom floor.

For the first time since the day her mother died, Kodachi Kunou saw a completely clean and spotless floor. Tears formed in her eyes, and began falling on the bleached floor.

The other was screaming at her trying to tell her that the floor was covered in blood. Her eyes had finally seen that the floor was clean, the other had no foothold here.

Kodachi sniffled and made the sign of the cross. "Dear God in heaven, Silk you've worked a miracle"

Silk smiled a bit wanly. "No Miracle. Not I. I just showed you the truth, you're the one who recognized it when you saw it." the healer watched her new friend carefully. She had no idea how much of her own mind the girl might have seen, and a rapport at the level she had needed to get to the bottom of the delusion was hard to completely break. "Are there any other stains?" she asked. Ridding her of one compulsion was a good start, but if she could find some way to help more, she'd run the risk of taking some of Kodachi's insanity into her own mind. Kodachi deserved to be helped, and Silk would do whatever she could do to that end.

Kodachi whispered a soft Latin prayer. She looked at Silk with tear stained eyes. She would forever be in Silk's debt for what had happened here today.

"There are no other stains, Silk, just the regular ones that are easy enough to clean."

Silk smiled with relief for that. Kodachi was still far from sane, but at least this one thing could no longer rule her. "Good. I'm glad I was able to help you." She gave Kodachi a hug (learned from Perfume). "I wish I could do more." Silk's eyes were starting to fill with tears, a mix of joy for Kodachi's new freedom, and sadness for the blight still in her mind despite it.

Kodachi returned the hug, a little stunned by it all. She had never received a hug since she was 5 years old. She wasn't all to sure how to react to it. She tried her best.

"Why did you help me, Silk?" Kodachi inquired. "No one else ever has."

Silk released Kodachi from the hug and got a grip on her shoulders, holding her at arm's length, looking directly into her eyes for a moment before speaking, "Because I see in you something of myself. Because you're a friend and you deserve my help. Because I can, Kodachi."

Silk's hands dropped, "I have a gift. The ability to do things most people, through no fault of their own, can't. My parents taught me that we must help those who can't help themselves. They died fighting a demon so that it wouldn't attack those who couldn't fight it. If I only used my abilities for my own ends, I'd be betraying my parents." Silk sighed and ran her hand through her hair. "I just hope I haven't disappointed them to much."

Kodachi broke eye contact with Silk for a moment. She was absorbing her words and trying to think of what she should say.

"I think that I understand. I know how you feel, sometimes I wonder if my mother is disappointed with me." She paused for a moment and then looked right back into Silk's eyes. "But I know your parents would be so very proud of you. your honest, honorable, quick to help others, and a true friend. They would both be very proud of you."

Silk smiled slowly, "I try." She pulled her long black braid over her shoulder and pulled out the band holding it in place, unweaving it in her own 'relaxation ritual'. "I'm sure your mother would be proud of you, Kodachi. You're stronger then you know."

Before either could say anything more, the teakettle started whistling from the kitchen. Silk blinked. --So little time.-- she thought --to do so much.--

"I had forgotten about the tea!" Kodachi exclaimed, a little surprised that all this had happened in such a short time. In the time it took a kettle of water to boil, Silk changed her life forever.

The two girls walked back to the kitchen. Kodachi finished making the tea and both sat back down. Kodachi started a Rolling Stones CD at a low volume.

Mick Jager's voice began filtering into the Kitchen. "I was born in a cross fire hurricane.."

Kodachi smiled at Silk. "What can I say, I've always been the misfit of the family." She frowned slightly "I do the things that a Japanese noble should do, to satisfy my mother's requirements, otherwise I have always done my own thing. I chose different music, and a different religion than the rest of the Kunou's."

She glanced across he table at her new friend. "Is it so wrong to be different?"

Silk laughed as she sipped her tea. "I would hope not. Kodachi, you're talking to 'the outcast amazon'. The original one, that used to answer to outcast as well as to her own name." Silk put down her cup, "And look at where I am now. Honors student at a competitive Tokyo university, shop owner, outstanding pillar of the community. I can do things the Amazons have never dreamed of. There is nothing wrong with being different."

Kodachi smiled at her friend's answer, hey eyes twinkling softly. "Good, being different is something I'm very good at." Kodachi smirked a little. "And Apparently it's something that you are very good at also."

Kodachi dropped her smiled and looked Silk right in the eye. "you've helped me out greatly, today. If ever you need me for anything, anything at all, just say the word and I'll be there to help."

"If I could have any reward for today, Kodachi, it would be this:" Silk said slowly, "A friend. Not someone in my debt, not a great credit for me and debit for you on some cosmic ledger. Just a friend. An equal who will treat me as such. Can you do that? Can you help me sometimes just because we are friends, not because you owe me something?" Silk's eyes seemed to be boring into Kodachi's soul, "Because I need a friend more then I need another debtor. Everyone seems to like me, but I have few true friends."

The other began screaming at Kodachi that she needed no friends, but She mentally beat the tar out of the other, shutting her up for a bit. "I have no friends at all, Silk, I would be honored to be your friend."

"we'll see if you still consider it an honor in a few months." Silk quipped. Silk checked the time on the microwave clock. It was almost midnight. Silk sighed. "I really should be going. My roommates have this tendency to freak out when I stay out late at night." Silk gave Kodachi another hug. "thank you for the tea."

Kodachi returned the hug, she was still not sure of the proper way to give one, but she went along with it. Secretly she was also proud of herself, she had resisted the other's pull all night long.

"Your welcome Silk, and thank you for helping me, I think it was something that I needed for a very long time."

Silk smiled, "Just needed a little Lunar Lucidity, Kodachi-Chan." Silk winked, then turned and walked out the door, calling over her shoulder. "Everything is clearer in its light."

-End