by C. J. Anaya
“No,” Tie said. “It’s just a lot for her to reconcile herself with. Her brother and friends were murdered soon after she was killed. I didn’t realize she was able to see everything within the statue.”
“You mean my prison?” My head shot up. My eyes burned with rage, with a need to punch something. “Do you have any idea how difficult it was to remain in a tomb of stone day in and day out? Not even your visits kept me sane enough to stay awake.”
Tie looked astonished. “You heard me? When I went to visit you?”
I stroked his face and gazed into those piercing blue eyes of his. “You were the only one who ever came, and I cherished every word you said to me.”
“I can’t believe it,” he expelled a shaky breath. “I can’’t believe you don’t hate me after what I did to you. Though I’m sure that stupid blossom has something to do with it. You couldn’t hate me even if you wanted to.”
“What are you talking about?” I snuggled my nose under his chin. He inhaled sharply.
“Dammit, Hope, you’re making this even more difficult for me than I thought possible.”
I lifted my head and gave Angie a questioning look. “Translation, please.”
Angie sighed in disgust. “Lover boy here seems to think that blossom he gave you forced you into adoring him. Some nonsense about severing soul mates. The whole thing’s an idiotic, imbecilic assumption. Any moron can see you two are meant for each other.””
“That’s completely incorrect, Angie,” a voice from the doorway said. Everyone in the room turned their attention to Katsu and Chinatsu as they entered the room. Or was it Victor? Now I was totally confused. How was I supposed to address these kami? They couldn’t have just stuck to their Japanese names? Like I wasn’t discombobulated enough either way?
“Tie severed Hope’s soul from mine when he gave her that blossom,” Victor continued, “but we were hoping the effects of that magic died out when she did.”
“Tactful, Victor,” Angie exclaimed. “You almost make it sound as if you’re grateful she died.”
His face flushed. “Of course I’m not. The entire thing has haunted me since the day it happened.”
A small blur of movement sprang into the room, and suddenly Kirby was at my side, throwing his arms around me.
“You’re alive,” he shouted. “I thought you’’d never wake up, Hope.”
I pulled away from him for a moment to look him over and connect with his ki.
“No cancer,” I stated.
He gave me a happy smile.
“You shouldn’t be doing that,” Chinatsu admonished. “Your powers must be conserved for your ascension—”
“Stop talking,” I interrupted. She looked angry at my impertinence, but I had to remind myself that she wasn’t my mother anymore. Her disapproval was no longer a matter of concern for me.
“I do what I want, when I want. Is that understood?”
She looked at the floor, barely containing her anger.
“I understand you’re upset with me. We didn’t have the closest of relationships.”
“Try no relationship,” I spat out. “Oh no, it was much easier for you to remain oblivious and ignorant to every single beating the emperor ever gave me.””
“Beatings? What beatings?” my father asked in alarm. “Chinatsu, what in the world is she talking about?”
“The emperor was quick to punish Hope if she displeased him. It was not my place—”
“It was your place,” I said. “It was always your place, but you were too scared of him to defend your daughter. Years of violent physical and emotional abuse and the only thing that kept that psychopath from killing me was the fact that he didn’t have a weapon from the underworld to do it with. Do you have any idea how many times he broke my wrists? Broke my arms? My legs? Stabbed me, cut me, tortured me? My injuries may have healed immediately, but I’ll never forget the process or the excruciating pain.”
I saw movement from the corner of my eye and watched as Angie flew with lightening speed right in front of my former mother. She arched her arm back, ready to strike out, but Victor wrapped an arm around her waist and pulled her back against his chest before she had a chance to deliver what promised to be one nasty punch to the face.
“Holy crap,” Kirby whispered.
“What the hell is the matter with you?” Angie shouted. She fought against Victor’s hold and dove for Chinatsu again, but Victor lifted her off her feet and clamped his arms tightly about her small frame. He gave Chinatsu a wary look.
I felt Tie grip my shoulders as pure rage effused his body.
“Why didn’t you ever tell me it was that bad?” he asked.
“Because I would have had to tell you who I truly was, and I’d already promised Akane I would keep my identity a secret from you.”
He shook his head and opened his mouth to argue.
I lifted a finger to his lips and left it there. He gently kissed it, bringing a smile to my own lips.
“We’ll discuss it later,” I said.
“Chinatsu, I really think you need to leave,” my father said. He couldn’t even look her in the eye due to the anger he felt on my behalf. ““I get that this abuse happened a thousand years ago, but it still happened, and it’s fresh for Hope. You need to take off for a while. My daughter’s been through enough.”
Her eyes flashed outrage. She shook her head and stepped toward me.
“Hope—”
Victor moved in front of her, his anger barely under control as he deftly moved Angie behind him.
“Get. Out. Now.”
Chinatsu lifted her eyes to glare at me, but her cold manner no longer hurt me as it once had. She turned on her heels and left the room.
Angie moved out of Victor’s grasp, straightened her clothes, and then pointed a finger in his face.
“The next time I’m in the middle of maiming someone, I’d appreciate zero interference from you.”
Victor’s lips twitched.
“It wasn’t a fair fight.”
“Why are you protecting her?” she demanded in outrage.
Victor leaned forward and tilted her chin up.
“I wasn’t protecting Chinatsu, Angie. I was protecting you.”
Their gazes locked for a few moments, and then Angie sucked in a breath, turned quickly, and headed to the chair next to my bed. Her face turned a bright shade of crimson. Was she blushing? I’d never seen Angie blush before.
This was new.
Victor appeared a little out of sorts himself and shook his head as if to clear away his confusion.
“Can I say something?” I asked, addressing the group as a whole.
I stood with my chin held high, attempting as much dignity as I could muster considering the hospital gown I wore. I checked my clothing and realized I was actually wearing pink, princess pajamas with little sparkles bejeweling the front of my shirt.
I examined the outfit in horror and then glared at Angie.
“Seriously?”
“Don’t you dare start arguing with me over clothing,” she said. “That hospital gown was an eyesore. You owe me big.”
I rubbed a hand over my tired eyes and then faced off with my collective audience.
“Everyone here is convinced that Katsu is my soul mate, right?”
There was a chorus of rights and one distinct wrong from Angie. I hid a smile at her obnoxious “wrong” and moved on.
“Angie is correct. You are all wrong.”
“You only feel that way because of the blossom, Hope. Your choices were taken from you the moment Tie placed that piece of magic in your hands,” Victor said.
Tie lowered his head, looking at the ground. “I’m making amends for that, Vicky. That’s why I’m here. I promised to see this through, find out if she was still bonded to me, and if so figure out a way to break that bond.”
“It still doesn’t change the fact that her soul no longer recognizes mine,” he shouted.
“It never did
,” I screamed in frustration.
“What did you say, Hope?” Victor asked. The hurt on his face made my heart ache for him, but this misunderstanding had gone on for centuries, and I was tired of everyone talking over me.
“The prophecy is flawed, Victor. Do you remember when my eyes were red? My father forced me to heal Chinatsu even though she was meant to die, and as a result my ki was damaged.”
“You willingly saved that hag’s life?” Angie muttered under her breath.
“What?” Tie exclaimed. “That’s what caused the damage to your eyes?””
His fury on my behalf was touching even if it was a little late for it.
“I remember,” Victor stated. “But I healed you—”
“No,” I said. “The day you found me at the temple…it was all a front. I’d been working with the rebels and training with Tie to learn how to fight. He was the one who healed my eyes. He was the one who healed my ki when I irreparably damaged it after saving my brother, Saigo. Tie has always been my soul mate. I knew it long before my death, long before he gave me The Black Blossom. The prophecy got it all wrong.””
My shocking announcement left everyone speechless. I turned to Tie, watching his features as a fear to hope waged war against his love for me.
“Do you remember when I died?”
He nodded. “Not a day goes by that I don’t remember, Hope. It’s like a nightmare replaying itself inside my head.”
“I told you my heart was already yours. You didn’t need the blossom. It already belonged to you. Kenji knew it, Akane knew it, and I knew it. I didn’t tell you right away because I wanted you to push past whatever vendetta you were holding onto and choose me. It had to be your choice. I had to be your choice.”
Tie’s eyes filled with wonder and then tears slowly descended down his face. He fisted a hand to his mouth and hunched himself over in his seat, but it failed to muffle the sobs that soon followed.
I knelt beside Tie and embraced him, pulling him close and giving him the love he thought he didn’t deserve. The love he assumed didn’t belong to him.
Not satisfied with this, Tie lifted my lips to his and kissed me like I’d been longing for ever since my soul became trapped in that stone prison.
“I…I don’t understand,” I heard Victor say. ““This doesn’t make any sense.” Tie broke away from me and stood, placing me behind him. He must have sensed Victor’s anger from his tone of voice. I could sense it like wispy black smoke permeating the room.
“Do I have to spell it out for you, Victor?” Angie asked, her impatience evident in her tone. “True love prevails.” She let out a happy sigh. “Am I the only one who saw this coming?”
“But it doesn’t make sense, Angie,” he said, coming to stand next to her. “Why do I love her?”
She smacked him across the head in exasperation. “It’s Hope, you moron. What’s not to love? But if we’re going to get down to it, you’ve been told since your creation that Hope was your future. That’s a hefty amount of brainwashing, with you assuming you never had a choice in the matter. Once you met Hope it wasn’t difficult to love her either way.”
“But what about the prophecy?” he said, taking another step toward her. “How can Hope and Tie heal the veil when that’s only ever been my job? It’s why I exist.”
She rolled her eyes in true Angie fashion.
“Sounds like an identity crisis to me.”
Victor’s eyes flashed with anger. She’d definitely managed to get under his skin.
As far as guys went, that was nothing new for my best friend.
“This isn’t a game, Angie. How will Hope heal the veil without me?”
Tie and I looked at each other in wonder. I think we could both see the space between Angie and Victor diminishing. It was like an invisible chord pulling them closer together.
“I don’t for one second believe that the future of our world depends on forcing a young woman to unite with a man she doesn’t love, especially a man who isn’’t her soul mate. True love is the most powerful force on Earth, surely powerful enough to heal a weakening veil.”
My eyes nearly bugged out of their sockets at the familiarity of her words. Akane had said the exact same thing to me when we discussed my future.
Was it possible?
“Angie,” I said sharply.
She raised her hands in defeat.
“All right. I’ll back off. I’m just trying to give our feckless warrior over here a dose of reality.”
Feckless?
I might have commented on her strange increase in vocabulary, but my mind had locked onto an idea, and my attention would not be diverted.
“No, Angie, I’m not getting after you, I’m trying to figure something out. Can I connect with you for a moment and check your memories?””
“Since when are you capable of doing that?” my father asked.
Angie raised her eyebrow at me and gave me a grin.
“Only if you promise to instruct my life force to erase these freckles and enhance my cup size. I’m tired of being a thirty-four B.”
I chuckled for a moment, and then wondered if that might actually be possible. I shook my head, shocked that I’d wasted a moment entertaining such a harebrained idea from Angie. I reached her and placed my hands on either side of her head, doing my best to avoid the frowning look Victor gave me. Apologies were in order on that end. No doubt about it.
The moment I connected with her I began sifting through her memories as I had with Akane, flipping through her past to see if there was more to Angie than, well, Angie. The moment I arrived at her birth, I found more memories predating her life in this time period. I soon came to her last memories fighting off a nekomata. I skimmed backward a little further and watched from her perspective as Tie forced a black flower into my hand.
Akane. Angie was Akane. My suspicions confirmed, I nearly stopped what I was doing until I remembered the previous memories I’d discovered when Angie had first been Akane. Just how many lives had my best friend experienced? I flipped backward again and reached the part where she was pushed off a cliff by a nekomata, and then flipped back a little further, wishing to verify another suspicion taking root in my mind. I stopped at the moment she met with Victor and one word uttered from him was all it took to move the pieces of this puzzle back into place.
I released my hands from her head and took a step back.
Edana. My best friend was Edana.
“What is it?” Victor asked impatiently.
I struggled to breathe, considering the implications if I revealed this information to the group. It had the power to affect my relationship with Tie, but I’d learned from my past the consequences of lies and half truths. I needed to come clean with this information.
“I’m not the only one in this room who has lived more than one life.”
“What?” Tie exclaimed.
“Cool,” Kirby cried out.
“What are you talking about, Hope?” Angie’s eyes were as wide as saucers.
“Before this life, Angie was my best friend and commander of the rebel army.”
“Akane?” Tie asked, shooting from his seat. He rounded the bed and came to my side, looking ready to embrace Angie, but I held a hand to his chest to stop him.
“That’s not the only life she’s had. There was one before that.”
“I don’t think I want to hear any more of this,” Angie whispered. Her face was white as a sheet.
“They need to know, Ang,” I said, embracing her and then pulling back. “You need to know.””
She studied me for a moment, and then that saucy grin of hers returned.
“All right, then, Hope. Lay it on me.”
I smiled. “Before Angie lived her life as Akane she also lived her life as a Gaelic villager.” I turned to Victor and Tie and let that information sink in. “Angie is Edana.””
“That’s not…that’s impossible,”” Victor stated.
The look he gave Angie
belied a host of emotions. Oppressive guilt, shame, wonder, and even love. All these years he’d assumed responsibility for her death and now stood face to face with her reincarnated form. It was a lot to process.
“There’s more,” I stated. “Are you ready for this?””
“No,” Victor and Tie said in unison.
I continued anyway.
“Edana didn’t throw herself off of that cliff like you both assumed.” I turned to Angie and grasped both of her hands. ““A nekomata chased you to the edge of those cliffs and then pushed you off.” I directed my next words to my former betrothed, knowing he needed to understand this more than anyone. “You were not responsible for Edana’’s death, Victor. She didn’t commit suicide due to a broken heart. Edana was murdered.”
Tie and Victor stared at Angie with new eyes, attempting to take what they remembered of Edana and meld it with the young girl standing before them.
“She’s the woman you both fell in love with. The woman you’ve been fighting over for centuries now,” I said in a small voice.
Victor and Tie were a collective ball of swirling emotions. Affection for Angie crowded to the forefront, but guilt and shame fought for supremacy. Neither one of them knew how to respond to these latest revelations, and I wasn’t sure how to behave now that Tie faced the woman he had once loved and then lost.
Does he still have feelings for Edana? I mean Angie? Gah. This is super confusing.
I took in all of the people in the room—my father, Victor and Tie, Kirby and Angie—and worried for them and for our future. The issue of whether Tie and I were meant for one another had been resolved, but Angie’s previous lives and the effect that knowledge might have on Tie and Victor would no doubt complicate everything, including my relationship with my soul mate.
There were also inconsistencies in the prophecy to contend with. How much of it could be relied upon and how much of it had been interpreted incorrectly? Where were we in the struggle against Fukurokuju? Was he in prison? Did Hachiman kill him? When would the demon god send more of his assassins, and where were all of the reformed nekomata?
One question, however, overshadowed all of the others. How would we fight against Amatsu’s forces and find a way to permanently heal the veil before he broke through it?