NOCTURNE
© Nov. 21, 2002 By Rory V. Pascual
CHAPTER ONE:
For Aogiri Yuhi, the nightmare began the minute he stepped through the front door of the modest home of his dearest friends, Touya and Mikage Aya. He was jolted to immobility by a series of thuds at the stairway. As he craned his neck in the direction of the stairs, his eyes flew wide at the sight of blood creeping across the floor. It was the blood that made him take those few hesitant steps towards its source, who was hidden by the wall panel.
"Yu...hi...." He heard his name whispered by the pain-wracked figure lying on the floor.
"AYA!" Yuhi gasped out in shock at the sight of the brave pregnant young girl he loved bleeding to death on the floor.
The next few minutes were nerve-wracking for Yuhi. His mind in a flurry of fear and anxiety, he didn't know how he managed to rush Aya to the hospital. There, the doctor told him that Aya and her unborn child were in critical condition, but he was only being kind. Deep down inside, Yuhi knew the truth...that Aya was dying. Dazed and in despair, he immediately contacted Touya at Dr. Kurozuka's office, begging him to come to the hospital at once.
Aya's dying. Touya himself doesn't have long to live, he thought in deep sorrow. Why is this happening? God, haven't they been through enough? Am I cursed? Am I condemned to lose everyone I love? Please! I'm begging you! Don't take Aya from me!
There was a gentle hand on his shoulder. It was the nurse.
"Aogiri-san..." she said kindly. "The patient is awake and wishes to see you."
"Hai, arigato," Yuhi nodded gratefully. He then went inside the room, wiping away the wetness from his eyes.
But his tears threatened to fall once more, seeing that pale figure lying on the bed. Touching Aya's hand, he was shocked by how cold it was.
"Yuhi...." Aya called out his name, a weak smile on her lips.
"Don't speak, Aya," Yuhi chided her. "You must rest. I'm here. I promise I won't leave you until Touya arrives."
"I...I don't think I could wait any longer."
"Aya, please don't say that! I beg you to hang on!" Yuhi sank down on the bed beside her and kissed her fingertips. "Please, Aya! Please don't leave me!"
"I wish so much I could do that," she answered sadly. "I'll be leaving behind the two people I cherish most in the world. This is most unfair, especially to you, Yuhi -- now that we've become a family. But...but...something's wrong."
"Aya, tell me! There must be something I can do. What about Ceres? Can't she do anything?"
To his dismay, Aya shook her head. "This body is too frail, and I deeply regret that because of it, I have failed my child as well."
"You mustn't lose hope. Wait! There is someone who might be able to help us. Alex Howell! I'll bring you to him right away and..." Yuhi's words were halted by a hand pressed to his lips.
"Yuhi, I don't have much time. I beg you to listen to me." Aya took a deep breath. "My life is at an end, and I accept it. But it does not mean that all hope should die with me as well."
"Aya, please don't say anymore!"
"But I must, because I know the devastating effect it would have upon you and Touya. I know that Touya doesn't have long to live. Compared to my life, Touya has known only loneliness, sorrow and suffering. With my death, I'm sure to break his fragile heart." A tear trickled from Aya's eye. "The same way I'm hurting you right now."
"Aya...."
A cold hand lovingly caressed Yuhi's cheek. "What I'm going to ask you is a very difficult and painful thing. Even Ceres is against it. But if a part of me were to survive, it has to be through you. You're strong, Yuhi. I need your strength to accomplish this."
"Aya, you're not making any sense."
"I'm not expecting you to understand what I'm about to do. Not now. Perhaps in the future, but... Yuhi, please! All I wish to hear is a simple yes. If you do, I swear you will never be alone. And Touya...my beloved Touya will live."
"But at what cost?" Yuhi asked bitterly. He stubbornly shook his head. "No, whatever it is you're planning to do, if it will hasten your death, I won't agree to it. Gomen nasai, Aya, but my answer is no."
Aya suddenly gripped his face tightly in her hands. So strong was her hold that Yuhi could not break free. He was shocked to see that she was weeping tears of blood.
As a bluish white light enveloped them, Aya murmured tenderly, "Yuhi...please forgive me. But I cannot take no for an answer."
When their lips met, Yuhi almost gagged as raw energy was poured down his throat, scorching lips and oral passages. Then, agony ripped through his chest, his body suffused with searing heat. Even when he was burned protecting Aya from another Celestial Maiden, the pain did not compare with this. He stole a tear-filled glance down to see that both of Aya's hands were slipping through his chest...as if putting something inside.
It was Yuhi who ended this terrible embrace, wrenching away violently, as a scream was torn from his throat.
As Touya rushed inside the hospital, a sharp pain seized his heart. Before he could find support against the door frame, the pain just as quickly vanished. Still, he pressed a trembling hand over his chest. That pain was different from the aches he had been suffering. It felt as if something...or someone...had been torn from him, to be replaced by devastating nothingness.
Dread filling his heart, Touya allowed instinct to move his feet to the place where Aya was at. He knew he arrived at the right floor as the sight of a bright white light greeted him. Before he could reach the room, however, the door was blasted open by a small explosion, sending smoke billowing into the corridor. Panic ensued all around him, doctors and nurses scrambling to see to the welfare of the other patients on the floor. But there was only one thing on his mind.
"AYA!" Touya cried out, running inside the decimated room. His jaw dropped, eyes wide in horror at the sight he beheld through the wisps of smoke.
The entire room was splattered with blood and ragged pieces of tissue. The bed in particular was soaked with blood. Touya shuddered all over, realizing that those stains were all that's left of his beloved Aya.
"No!" Touya shook his head in disbelief, tears streaming down his cheeks. But the terrible scene did not change -- it was all the sickening crimson of blood, no Aya.
"AYA, NOOOO!" he screamed out, his heart shattering into a million pieces. His mind would've followed the path to oblivion, if it were not for the soft whimpering noise in the corner that drew him back to the horrid reality of the here and now.
Whirling, Touya found Yuhi huddled in the corner of the room. The boy was pulling his torn shirt close over his chest, his whole body shaking. Tears leaked continuously from dazed brown eyes that stared blankly at the blood-drenched bed.
"Aya...Aya...Aya...." Yuhi muttered the name like a mantra, as if he could raise the girl he loved from the dead by simply calling out to her.
Rage filled Touya's entire being. Before he realized he was doing so, he willed his cross-shaped dagger to materialize from his wrist and slide into his palm, and crossed the distance between them. Jerking Yuhi's head back, he laid the sharp point of the blade over his throat.
"What happened here?" Touya demanded in fury, nicking Yuhi's skin with his knife, drawing blood. "Damn it, Yuhi! What the hell happened to Aya?"
As if waking from a trance, Yuhi glanced up at the furious man holding him. "Touya...what...Aya..." He gasped in pain as Touya yanked his head back, strands of brown hair pulled out in the process.
"Tell me, Yuhi!" he raged at his bewildered friend. "What happened to Aya? If you're responsible for this, I swear I'll..."
At that last, Yuhi slowly looked at the bed once more. The sight of that pool of blood where Aya had earlier lain caused his eyes to grow as round as saucers, strangled noises elicited from his lips. Neither he nor Touya noticed that blood had begun to trickle between Yuhi's legs.
Touya found himself dropping his dagger as Yuhi started to scream, a keening wail that pierced the soul. Touya thought that that horrible scream would never end. But then, Yuhi suddenly collapsed in his arms. Touya gritted his teeth as he gazed down at the boy. Seeing his fallen knife, he was seized by an uncontrollable urge to drive its sharp point into the unconscious boy's breast.
Just as he was about to make good on his desire for revenge, it was then that Touya realized what was wrong.
That sense of nothingness he had felt earlier. Letting his eyes roam around the blood-soaked room, Touya knew the reason for that disturbing sensation.
It wasn't just Aya's death that he felt.
Mana, the Celestial Robe. The mysterious golden orb that gave a Celestial Maiden life and power was missing.
TO BE CONTINUED
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