by C. J. Anaya
“You almost helped her ascend,” Bishu muttered in astonishment. “That doesn’t happen very often.”
“I know what it takes to help someone ascend, Bishu,” Tie said in a hoarse voice. “But the connection I have with Hope is so powerful, I’d hoped that bypassing all of the red tape and making her fully mine now would erase the last piece of her link to Amatsu.”
“And?” Bishu prodded.
“It’s too deeply rooted within her. The Black Blossom embedded it within the very center of her heart. Exactly where our link should be. My ki can’t get rid of it. Not at the moment, anyway.”
I stared at him in shock, taking in deep gulps of air. Then I remembered the things I had just said to him under Amatsu’s influence.
“Tie,” I said as I moved toward him.
He took another step back. His face remained cold and aloof and his emotions were hidden behind that annoying wall of his.
“What I said before…I didn’t mean it,” I tried again. I reached for him, but he continued to create more distance between us.
“You didn’t have to,” he replied in a dispassionate voice. “What you said was absolutely true. I am weak and I am flawed. The fact that you are burdened with even the smallest connection to Amatsu proves that.”
I didn’t like this version of Tie. It reminded me too much of the way he had been with me at the very beginning of our relationship. Indifference and apathy shrouded his features.
“Tie, please don’t push me away. I need you,” I choked out.
A small glimmer of pain washed over his face before he schooled his features into a blank mask.
“I’ll keep you grounded when the bond with Amatsu becomes too much for you, but I think we both know that the last thing you need at the moment is me.”
It was a slap in the face, and I hesitated to let him see how much his words hurt me.
“How can you say that? You know you’re the only one who can save me from this.”
“Because I’m the one who brought it upon you.” He turned away from me. “It always goes wrong,” he muttered under his breath. “Always.”
He quickly walked away, heading toward Ms. Mori. I stared after him in shock, unsure as to what exactly he was trying to do here. Did he not believe we were meant for one another? Did he think my eventual bond with Amatsu was inevitable? And if he did, did that mean he had given up on me…on us?
I barely had time to let the pain of his rejection sink in before the commotion of the real world intruded upon the ending of my own world.
“We’ve dispatched with these filthy vermin,” Victor said as he approached. He looked at Bishu in embarrassment. “No offense, old friend.”
“None taken.”
Victor nodded at me. “What’s happened now?”
“The demon god nearly overpowered the bond between Tie and Hope just now. Tie attempted a full healing.”
Victor took my strained features and sickened look and rubbed his fingers against his temples. “I take it the outcome did not pan out like we wanted it to.”
“A partial healing. Nothing more,” Bishu offered as he came up behind me and placed his hands on my shoulders as a comforting gesture.
I was glad someone was capable of explaining what happened to me, to us in the last ten minutes. I certainly couldn’t process my emotional jump from Tie to Amatsu and then back to Tie again. Not to mention the fact that I’d had deranged thoughts of being the queen demon of the Underworld and ruling the Universe in the process. What scared me most was how right it had felt and how the illusion tempted me. Fully tethered to Amatsu, I lost all reason, all concept of right and wrong. The only obvious choice was Amatsu, our love, and the power we might share together.
If ever there was a time to start drinking, today would be the day. I was ready to drown my sorrows in a bottle of Jack Daniels and let oblivion take me. According to Angie, however, the same problems were still there once you snapped out of it.
I’d take her word for it.
“Let’s get on this plane before something else tries to stop us,” Ms. Mori shouted.
“I’m assuming you’d prefer to leave with this precious boy intact,” hissed a malevolent voice several yards away.
I stepped around Victor to see what was happening and sucked in a breath of alarm.
We’d forgotten about the pilot of the helicopter, and it was now holding Kirby hostage, a small black blade at his throat. Angie’s vision of Kirby’s death hadn’t been on the plane. It was this moment and this place that Angie saw Kirby die. Memories of the night Kirby had been shot in the back resurfaced and before I could think through the possible repercussions of this single choice, I reached down and grabbed the small dagger from Victor’s boot, drew my arm back, and launched it at the nekomata, hitting my target square in the throat. The thing jerked its knife arm backward in reflex and Kirby cried out in pain before the nekomata released him and fell to the ground.
I was already darting for him, recognizing that my rash decision had caused the nekomata to cut Kirby across his throat. Blood was already squeezing a thin line down his neck as I grabbed him and lowered him to the ground. The cut itself wasn’t too deep, easily fixed, but any wound inflicted by a weapon from the Underworld had horrific consequences, and anytime I’d tried to heal Kirby from certain death, the veil had not been willing to allow it. I had no way of knowing if I would be able to expel the darkness of the blade from his ki until I tried.
“Hope,” he wheezed. He didn’t seem frightened at all by this turn of events. I always had to wonder at his calm, the unusualness of it coming from a ten-year-old boy who should have been terrified of everything that had happened to him.
“Don’t talk yet, Kirby. Just let me heal this for you, okay?”
He nodded, his face taking on a sheen of sweat and growing paler by the second. I gently lowered him to a prone position and gave Tie a grateful look when he seated himself behind Kirby’s head and held his hand. He may have averted his gaze from mine, but at least he hadn’t completely abandoned me. The others approached as I connected to Kirby and quickly repaired the damage inflicted by the dagger.
The darkness from the wound made a direct line to his heart, squeezing the light of his ki out by slow degrees. I moved in to dispel its influence and hit that dreaded veil as I feared I might. I already knew the dangers of forcing my way through the veil, the damage it caused my own body and the damage it caused the veil. I argued with myself that just one more healing like this couldn’t possibly make the veil’s situation any worse than it had already become.
I needed Kirby now just as much as I needed him when he had cancer, or when he threw himself between me and a bullet. If I didn’t have any control over who lived and who died in my life then what good were these powers for anyway? What good would it do if I just sat here and watched him die?
I took in a deep breath, and without bothering to consult the others—I knew Victor at the very least might interfere—I made that choice, knowing full well the possible consequences, and broke through that barrier with one single vicious blast of power. The shock wave that reverberated back through my cranium was far worse than I had ever experienced, but my determination to succeed allowed me to remain conscious long enough to take the light from my own spirit and burn away the tendrils of ebony sweeping throughout his system.
His life opened up to me as the darkness began to fade away. There were memories he possessed that shouldn’t have been possible. A connection we had that transcended decades and centuries, and a destiny we shared that flashed through my mind, but left it again before I could fully grasp it.
I heard a muffled cry behind me and then Bishu’s voice rang out. “Stop her. Stop her from this course of action immediately. She cannot be allowed to heal him.”
But it was too late. Even as I felt hands upon me, jerking me away from this sweet boy I so desperately loved like I would my own brother, the inky blackness within him went up in flame, and nothing but
light took its place.
The steady thrum of the airplane’s engine was a welcome noise to wake up to, but I felt a distinct hangover. I hesitantly opened my eyes into slits to ward off too much light, but the lights in the cabin of our plane were dimmed. My eyes opened further and took in my group as a whole. Their collective worry, anger, and anxiety over what I’d done let me know I was in big trouble. I sighed and moved myself forward from my reclined position in my seat, but my father who was sitting next to me placed a restraining hand on my shoulder and eased me back. Angie’s warm hand grabbed my own. I turned to my left to look at her and gave her a weak smile. How long had she and my father been sitting on either side of me, worrying themselves to death for my sake?
“Where’s Kirby?” I asked.
A few people in the group let out some frustrated grunts, and Tie snorted, shaking his head in disbelief.
My father gave him a terse look and then turned to address me.
“Kirby is fine. He’s in a cabin in the back, sleeping off the stress of the morning.” I nodded, and tried to sit up again, but my dad wasn’t having it. “You may be half mortal, but Tie says the damage your brain sustained this time was pretty bad. I think it best you stay on that chair for a few more minutes,” he said. His anger and irritation were only surpassed by his immense relief that I had been healed.
“The side effects were worse this time?”
“Worse?” That one word shot from Tie’s mouth with the force of a torpedo on steroids. He stood a few feet away with his arms folded across his chest. His stormy eyes blazed with a fiery heat. “Do you have any idea what happens when someone experiences a brain aneurysm? What am I saying? Of course you do. You above all people know exactly how the brain is set up, how complications can arise, and how the brain is affected by every single one of them.” He strode forward, his anger building the closer he got to me. His hands clamped down on my shoulders and pulled me to a standing position.
“Tie,” Bishu warned as he stood from his seat next to Ms. Mori on the opposite side of the aisle. My father was already on his feet, ready to intervene.
“Think of the damage just one aneurysm is capable of and multiply that by ten, Hope. Worse?” His eyes clouded with tears. My heart hurt to think I had caused him so much worry and pain. “The only reason you are still alive is because I wasn’t the only kami present. With our bond compromised, I could barely take care of the first few ruptures in your brain. Bishu, Victor, and Ms. Mori had to give a part of themselves, a part of their power to you in order to heal the damage your reckless decision caused. They will need time to regenerate. They will need time to be at full strength again. And let’s not even discuss what you managed to do to the veil.”
“Take it easy, Tie,” Angie said.
An awful knot solidified in the pit of my stomach.
“What did I do?”
“You created another fissure in the veil,” Bishu said. “As you began to heal Kirby the veil around us trembled and shook, there was a deafening sound of thunder and the immense tension the veil is under broke within the realm of Kagami.”
“You can sense the veil,” I whispered.
“All gods of fortune can, Healer,” he said.
My legs gave out after that. Part of it had to do with what I’d just done. Another part had to do with the fact that I still had no idea how to feel the veil unless I was compromising it by saving people who weren’t meant to be saved. Tie caught me in his arms and lowered me to the chair. I caught a wave of guilt sweeping over him as he realized I shouldn’t have been standing in the first place, but I thought his anger, everyone’s anger, to be justified, considering the consequences of my actions.
And yet, I wasn’t sorry. I didn’t regret healing Kirby. I didn’t regret that it might have cost me my own life. I didn’t regret that the veil was now weaker than ever before. If anything, I was ready to tear it down completely and face Amatsu now. Get this all over with so we could fight him, defeat him, and move on with our lives.
I was wrong, of course. To feel no remorse for the terrible results of my own choices was a clear indicator that my morals, my values, everything I stood for had changed dramatically in just a few weeks. I had changed, and though I knew it to be a sign of my ever increasing bond with Amatsu, I was incapable of apologizing for it.
“I won’t lose Kirby. I don’t care if any of you agree with me or not. He’s my brother, and I will not lose him again.”
“What are you talking about, Hope?” Angie asked.
“Kirby is Saigo.” Shock ping-ponged back and forth amongst the members of my group, but it was interesting to note that no one registered the shock more violently than Ms. Mori. “I saw his memories when I healed him. His lifespan dates back long before he was born into this life. Both Akane and Saigo have been reborn and placed in my life again. Don’t you think they’re here for a reason? They were reborn in this time period, in this part of the world…in my town, for heaven’s sake. They are meant to be a part of all this. They’re meant to help me. How can they be a part of my life if they are dead?”
“I agree with you, Healer,” Bishu said. “It is obvious that the players from your previous life were all meant to fulfill a specific purpose in helping you achieve your destiny and heal the veil. When you died in your first life, the Grass Cutter Sword took Akane and Saigo’s spirits and placed them in holding, waiting for you to be reborn so they could achieve their purpose in this life by aiding you in achieving yours, but you are not allowing Saigo, or rather Kirby, to accomplish that.”
“Accomplish what? Dying? Death cannot be the entire point of his life. How is Kirby completing his mission in this life by dying?”
“Bishu is right, Hope. Kirby’s death is tied to your success.” Ms. Mori stated. I noticed how she avoided saying the name Saigo and that it cost her dearly to agree with Bishu on the inevitable death of a boy who was once her son. “Every single time you attempt to save him from death, no matter which life you’ve done it in, he has always been fated to die.”
“Why?” I shouted. “It doesn’t make sense. Why bring him back when he did, in fact die? I didn’t save him then. If he was meant to die then why was he reborn?”
“You couldn’t save him then, Hope. You didn’t have an actual choice,” Angie whispered.
I turned to her in surprise. Angie didn’t usually argue in favor of the opposing team.
“What do you mean I didn’t have a choice?”
“When you had the opportunity to allow Saigo to die after his altercation with the nekomata, you chose to save him instead, even though you knew what might happen to you if you did. You made a conscious choice to save him despite the fact that the veil forbade it.” Her eyes pleaded for me to understand. To not feel angry or betrayed by whatever it was she felt needed to be said. “When Saigo was killed in battle, you were already dead and your spirit was trapped within that statue. You weren’t able to make that important decision. You had no power to choose between his death or his life.”
I stared at Angie in amazement. My best friend, the one who was always on my side, the one who never let me down, never let me fall, never once thought I’d made the wrong decision when I saved Kirby from cancer, thought I was supposed to let Kirby die.
“I think Angie has uncovered Kirby’s higher purpose in this life, Healer. With power like yours, an incredible amount of responsibility is placed upon your shoulders to wield it with wisdom, judgment, and righteousness. To use it against the very laws of the Universe that govern your powers of healing undermines your ability to wield it in the first place and corrupts your power as a whole. You must learn to govern yourself and wield it within the bounds the Universe dictates. You must come to realize that the limitations placed upon your powers of healing are there for a reason, and perhaps young Kirby is the only one who can teach you how to accept those limitations, accept what can and can’t be done.”
“I refuse to believe that Kirby’s only mission in this life, in an
y life he’s led, is to help me accept the fact that I do not have complete and total control over who lives and who dies.”
“Are you listening to yourself?” Tie asked. “No one should have the power to decide who lives and who dies. If there are people you can save, and they still have something important to fulfill in this life, then yes, employ the gift our First Parents gave you and do as much good as you can, but when someone is meant to die, you give that power back to our First Parents. You recognize that your power is not absolute.”
I did not want to hear this. How could I not heal Kirby, or my mother, or anyone else for that matter when that kind of power was on the other side of the veil?
“And what if I disagree?” I said stubbornly. “What if I think that the power to decide who lives and who dies should remain solely in my corner?”
“Then you’re no better than the demon god Amatsu, and we all know what happened to him,” Angie said. “What the hell is the matter with you, Hope? You seriously need to snap out of this strange god complex you’re developing. It’s starting to freak me out.”
“I’m not the only one who has the power to save lives, Angie,” I pointed out in a deflective maneuver. “You can see how and when a person is going to die just by touching them. Don’t tell me you haven’t abused that power and ignored its limitations whenever its suited you.”
I regretted my words the minute they left my lips. Not everyone in our group was aware of what Angie could do. Not my father, Kirby, Bishu, Ms. Mori or even Victor, though I suspect he was the one flying the plane at the moment. I’d just shared a monumental piece of information about Angie that I’d had no right to, and then accused her of abusing it when I knew that there was absolutely no way for her to abuse it.