Hitomi's head was throbbing in horrible pain. "Excuse me miss are you all right? It looks like you had a horrible fall..." A voice asked her. Hitomi opened her eyes, but quickly shielded them from the bright sun in her face. She looked at the little old man towering over her.
"I'm fine thanks," she said as she picked herself up of the hot concrete.
"That's good," the old man smiled showing off all the wrinkles in his face. He took Hitomi's arm and helped her steady herself. "I was worried because you fell backwards on cement....and it was so strange it was as if you came from the sky.....Like an angel."
Hitomi blushed as she brushed herself off "Oh I'm no angel...."she told him bashfully.
He set his hand on her shoulder. "Don't sell yourself short like that," He smiled at her again. "Well I'm glad you're all right."
"Oh... thank you..." her voice drifted off into the wind as she watched the man walk away. She looked around and observed her location. This was the way she walked to and from school. Her home wasn't too far from here!
She started walking past familiar homes and objects, feeling more excited and happy to be home. The home that she knew so well. She had forgotten how much she missed it until she was walking down the path that would lead her home.
She rounded the corner and ran down her street. She could have beaten the entire track team and ran laps around them she went so fast. Well it wouldn't have been running exactly because she didn't run she flew.
She skidded around the corner up the stairs and past the stone with the family name which clearly read "Kanzaki," jumped over the little rod iron gate and past her mother's shrubbery, under the trellis with the little pink flowers in bloom and turned sharply to face the front door.
Hitomi fought back the tears in his eyes. As happy as she was, there was something missing...She couldn't place it. Some feeling that she was expecting. It was like she was physically happy, but her heart just wasn't in it. She felt under the doormat for her key. She clutched the key so hard it made her fingers hurt as she brought it to the door.
The sheer smell of her home hitting her nose made her dizzy. It was like a drug addiction, she couldn't stop inhaling the smell of her house as she made her way through it. "Mom?" No answer, as much as she wanted to see her family it was all right because she needed to make up a cover story for where she had been all this time.
***
Van looked at the empty space where Hitomi previously stood. He wiped his eyes quickly and saw something sparkle in the grass. He bent down to pick it up, he laced the gold chain through his fingers. The latch on Hitomi's necklace broke... Van thought as he ran his fingers along the smooth pink stone.
"VAN-SAMA! VAN-SAMA!" Merle cried as she galloped to Van's side. She panted when she reached him, "I saw the light and I thought you had left!" She scanned her surroundings quickly. "Where's Hitomi?" The look on Van's face said it all. "Oh, Van-sama, I'm sorry....What's that?"
Van held out his hand letting Hitomi's necklace dance in the faint breeze. "The latch broke...."
Merle scooped up the pedant and observed it closely. "It's not the latch... It's still latched, one of rings in the chain came undone though, See if you can find it."
As if he were commanded, Van got down on his hands and knees and searched for the tiny gold ring. "So you didn't tell her did you?" Merle asked eyeing the necklace she sat in her lap.
"Tell her what?" Van asked bluntly.
"That you love her." Merle replied nonchalantly.
"WHAT?!?"
"Van-sama, I haven't that happy look in your eye since before your parents died. You love her."
Van faced her and sat on the grass. He stared at her for a moment, "No Merle I didn't... I told her to leave."
"You did WHAT?!? ...Why?"
"I'm not quite sure either..."
"She loves you back I know it-"
"-I wasn't worried about that....but...if she told me she loved me then left....Then what Merle? Or worse what if she died here? It'd be all my fault. It's better this way" Van sighed, not believing that he actually told Merle everything, he looked at his side and saw something twinkle in the moonlight. He picked it up gently and tossed it to Merle.
Merle smiled as best she could, "Hey you found it..." she bent the misshapen ring back into shape and laced it through the two broken ends of the necklace and clasped it shut. She crawled till her face was inches away from Van. She threw the necklace over his head and pulled it till it was around his neck. "Van-sama...you're afraid to loose anything else...Don't worry I'll help you get some of it back." She smiled.
"Merle, what do you mean?"
"I saw Folken on the fortress, he's not bad Van I saw it in his eyes...I'll get him back for you."
"Merle... Folken's never going to change."
"Van-sama, let me do this for you....Then we can wait for Hitomi to come back."
"What makes you so sure she'll be back?"
"Because I know these things..." She answered in a know-it-all tone.
****
I never told him how I felt... No Hitomi now isn't the tine for that! Cover story...cover story...think Hitomi. Think. Kidnapped? That might work. Escaped from being kidnapped. That'll work! But what if Yukari or Amano told them about the pillar of light thing? Why am I so tired lately...? I've been sleeping so much... I never told him how I felt....
The white space again. Hitomi dreaded this place now, she knew what was going to happen. Of course she wasn't aware that it was only her dream world. There she was, standing in the white space. That laugh, that cruel mocking laugh echoed in Hitomi's ears as the floor turned into a mirror, making Hitomi stare at her own face. "What a pathetic reflection," The source of the laugh mocked her, making the glass crack. Hitomi could tell now that it was the voice of a young woman.
Hitomi felt the ground beneath her start to rumble louder and louder till her ears screamed in pain. Then the glass broke, sending shards of glass to rip at her skin and clothing. Hitomi fell back into black nothingness, knowing that the end was near. That she'd soon reach the bottom of this black pit, only to land on knives and die. She closed her eyes and waited for the end.
"And you're just going to let it happen aren't you?" The woman's voice asked. "Just reach the bottom to die....That's why I'm ashamed of you...you never fight...You rarely say what you truly mean and now it's too late to tell him how you feel...Because now you're stuck on Earth, Quit pretending you're happy Hitomi....It's really sickening...."
Hitomi hated that voice...because it was right. No it's not too late...I'll show you...I'll prove you wrong... I refuse to die here! She screamed in her mind. Her eyes snapped open as she flipped her self over. There was an explosion of white feathers as she came face to face with the knives she feared so much. She screamed in terror knowing she would land face first on the knives she feared so much. The whole world stopped as she hovered above the knives. "Van?!?" She yelled happily looking behind her. He hadn't saved her....She had saved herself...with her own wings...
She shot up out of the black abyss, above the white space that had held her captive for too long and into the night sky. The diamond sky above the clouds with Earth and the moon hanging in the distance. The higher she went the more she saw. Then woven in with one of the far away clouds she saw a white pair of wings similar to her own. She flew towards them. It was Van, waiting for her. She sat next to him on the cloud.
"What took you so long...? I've been waiting..." He asked as he looked toward her.
"I couldn't fly...-"
Van cut her off as her put his finger to her lips and then kissed her.
"Hitomi...to me you soar...and you always will....when you let yourself."
"Van....I love you."
"I know....You don't honestly think I'm that dense do you?"
"No!...I just needed too tell you that's all."
***
She was me, that woman's voice was mine. Hitomi sat out on the cold cement steps behind her house. She inhaled the smell of the summer grass and clutched the picture of her family in her hand. One of the few where they were all smiling. She heard the front door slam shut and footsteps along the tiled entry hall floor. They'd find the note she left soon. Saying that she loved them and that she went to find her love. It would be better if she never saw them, seen how they'd changed without her. She got up and walked to the center of her backyard, took one last glance back at her house as the bright white light that surrounded her blinded her. To where I belong...She commanded her wings. And with her wings made of her will she rose up into the dusk sky and vanished.
Leaving behind a single white feather.
*****
Author's notes: Well boys and girls, it's over. Now I get to catch up on reading fics as opposed to writting. I will be working on another V+H fic(with more of the other charas! Yes Dilly-sama too, I swear Planeswalker Meliae are bound and determanded to make me a Dilly fan girl w/ their wonderful fics!) after I see the whole series. (In the US they canceled the show so I hafta wait for the DVD relese)
Thanks for reading and your support. I realize this isn't my best work plot wise but my writting style improved greatly while writting it. I'm amazed how much it changed from the idea in my head! Maybe someday I'll write what I originally intended.
Thanks again,
*~*Stargurl*~*Coments Welcome!
