Chapter 5: The eternal darkess
written on Sunday, April 16, 2000
"Yume-san....." Akashi's fingers knocked against the door to her room. He hoped, very much, that she would finally open herself up to him. For in the past few days she wouldn't come out of her room, and she refused to eat anything unless she was left alone. Sometimes, he couldn't help but feel irritated.....every night he tried to talk to her, eventhough their conversations only had one person talking----and that was him. Her lips never budged to say or whisper a word eversince she woke up. It was as if there was another wall, an invisible one, that held off his voice from her ears. Akashi didn't know the idea behind care or love....for he never showed these emotions to anybody else but his mother---who had already left him. So he didn't know how to care. But now that he had found her-----the person who could seal , who might, seal his other self away....it was going to be a learning experience for him to find a way to reach out to her.
He couldn't say that it was wrong for her to react that way...for when she had awaken...she couldn't see anything. She became blind. Her eyes were like dusted window panes that needed wiping, because of the dust her emotions were all unseen. The fear of seeing nothing made her dumbfounded. She just didn't have the strength to accept it----yet.
His fingers were aching already.
He slowly pushed the door open and peeked in to where her futon was. Now she was gone. "....how could she have possibly gotten out of here?"
"....I have to find her..." He turned around leaving the door halfway open.
The sanctuary where he was had been built with nurmerous rooms, each having its own facilites. It was a very vast structure with so many compartments----which at most were all empty. He was now only in the first wing of this place, the other side was untouched.
He wasn't alone, though. An old man named Shijou Yagime was living with him. He was a very close friend of his mother, he was a mentor figure at times and he proved it by giving him sensible advices that he could never come up with.
Their first meeting wasn't the best. When his mother was killed....by his other self..he ran away, still carrying the blood-filthe sword, and he went on a life of rage. This man, still a few years younger had searched for him. He persuaded him to come back to his old self. To come home and give up the swordsman living.
He called the man an old "fool" for attempting to convince him an idea such as leaving the life that he had grown into. But Shijou was not a fool. And he was not afraid of him or his killing skills either. Later, Akashi found out why. His mother had given Shijou her precious necklace, telling him that when she will die someday, her son will go rampant----with the sword. She had the power to see things from the future, but she believed that she couldn't prevent it.
She entrusted the task of bringing his son back to Shijou. And with that necklace, Akashi will always be reminded of his mother---who died in the hands of his sword. That jewel helped Shijou accomplish the task of returning him to his real self. But it was not a solution to sealing "him" away forever--it never was. This was one fight he had to deal with himself.
Here, the "search" for someone who could kill "him" had begun. Shijou told him right away that it wasn't over yet. Nothing was over yet until they find her.
A sound had suddenly pulled him back to reality. He walked towards the hallway right at his front and realized that it lead to another room, which he barely recalled. The sound was getting louder. "Yume---is that you?"
He struggled to push the wooden slides apart. The storage room. He lifted his bangs, cooling himself up after feeling the sudden heat entrapped inside. There were no windows or any openings, but the morning light from the hallway outside provided him his pathway through the contraptions scattered around the floor.
At the side behind the boxes and wooden carriers, his eyes relaxed as they found what they were looking for. Her face was sweating with the enclosed heat, and the bandages around her neck had already fallen off.
"Yume.....you're not helping yourself." He murmured as bent down on his knees to her level.
"..A--akashi..?" She was breathing in an uncertain way.
Akashi pulled her up by the shoulders, but she wouldn't get up.
Blood? When he looked at his hand it was there. He searched her clothing to see where it came from.
"...you..you're..bleeding..!" She must have knocked into something when she was walking away from her room, and the impact resulting from it had shifted her the wound to break open. He looked around for something to wrap her neck and then he remembered his own ribbon. He pulled it down along his ponytail, removing the loosened knot.
He gently started to cover up the wound.
He wasn't even halfway when Yume had pushed him away.
"......don't you know it hurts when you put something on it!?"
Akashi got up, trying one more time to calm her down to make it easier for him to tend to her wound.
"Just leave me alone!" She pressed her fingers against her wound ,trying to put pressure on it to ease the twitching pain. "....it is so hard to breathe.." She murmured as her empty eyes winced.
Blood slowly slid across her arms.
"Yume, you have to stop all this and let me help you!" He suddenly pushed her down onto the floor and forced her to stop moving.
She closed her eyes. Then in an angry tone she said,"....you...you did this to me...you gave me this wound..this wound that's killing the hell out of me!!"
"....no...I. didn't." His grip on her arms tightened.
"....yes, you did!"
"....I didn't do it!!"
"And now you don't want to let me go......what is it do you want from me?!" She suddenly yelled.
"Yume, you can't see anything, do you expect me to let you walk out onto the streets like this?!"
Her tears gently fell across her cheeks. "I..I want to go home..the children...the doctor....I want..." She let out a fustrated scream before finally calming down.
"You can't even take care of those children anymore."
"....they'll think that I abandoned them....and I don't want them to think that I never loved them!"
"But it's better that they don't see you..blind...."
".....but..I---"
"How can you take care of them if you cannot take care of yourself?!"
"...why...why..are you saying this..?"
"....it is the truth. Do you want the children to see you like this? so..helpless and..incapabled..."
"You shut up!"
"But you know what I'm saying is right."
"...I curse the day I saw you...."
"..you know you cannot go back anymore...and you know exactly why. But I've offered you a place to stay..I can help you, if you'd let me." She cried to keep his voice from her hearing.
"....my..my eyesight....why..?..why have I lost my eyesight..?..There isn't even a good explanation..on why..this has happened..."
"You're going to be a burden to them."
"What?"
"Listen." Slowly, he let her go. When he realized that he had finally gotten her attention, he helped her sit up.
"I can help you. You don't have to go back to them. You can stay here..and live a peaceful life. They don't have to know where you are...or what has happened to you."
Akashi gently placed the ribbon around her neck. He wiped the blood that slid down to the edge of her mouth when she had fallen over.
".....you're..going to let me stay...here..?"
"..you've helped me get well. I can care for you. I can get helpers who will look after you, help you dress, eat---"
"It is difficult to trust someone who I cannot even see....who I cannot understand."
"...I know..that..it is. But if you would allow me..to find that trust in you...everything will be alright."
"..how..how can you say that everything will be alright ..when all I see is...nothing? I've lost my eyesight.......to lose this...is to lose so much....."
"..what is..it that you want? To be a burden to your love ones?"
"..I don't want to be a burden to them. But I am sure I will recover in health through rest......"
"..but without your eyes..you would still need someone who.....would.."
"......help..me go through...with this...and...and you think..you think you're up to it?"
"...I'll..try." A soft smile crept up to his lips. It was too bad Yume couldn't see it.
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