Night had already fallen. Rukawa
sat up from his bed where he had lain unmoving for the past three hours.
Mechanically, he stood up and headed down for supper. It was a feast. A
celebration for a death.
Rukawa couldn't stomach the food.
He left the table abruptly, ignoring the calls of his older sister and the
hollow threats of his older brother. What did it matter anyway? He lost someone
he loved today. They wouldn't understand.
Not bothering to don any
protective coat against the cold night air, he shoved his feet onto a pair of
boots and fled the house.
People were hiding in their homes
now. Doors locked, windows barred. The sun has set. They were in danger again.
The streets were deserted and
silent. Rukawa walked on. Naturally, his older sister would be worried but his
older brother wouldn't be coming after him. That coward.
He blindly made his way to the
pub. And at the centre, he saw it. The remains of what was once a beautiful
creature. A testimony to a sacrifice.
Rukawa knelt down and ran a hand
through the ash as if fascinated. He had no tears to shed. The wind had picked
up.
Ash in the wind. A perfect ending
to a martyr.
A presence behind him. Rukawa had
grown to sense these things. Calmly, he stood up. This wasn't his lover. But an
equally powerful creature. What would he want with him? Rukawa smiled bitterly.
"Of course," he whispered.
There were no footsteps. Why
would there be? These creatures moved so gracefully, they could be the very
wind. A shadow fell upon the relics that wasn't swept away. The moon casting
it's silver glow, glinting off the ash in a sad luminescence.
"He said he didn't regret
anything," Rukawa whispered almost inaudibly. But he knew the stranger
heard it clearly.
A simple nod was his answer.
Rukawa stepped back, finally
looking at Kogure's master. His maker. He shone with such radiance under the
moonlight. Like Hanamichi. Pale, strong, deadly. A wonderful mane of silky black
hair fell to his shoulders. His eyes were closed in silent mourning. [1]
"Where were you?" he
needed to ask.
"Does it matter?" came
the immediate answer. The creature's voice was low and firm. Not a tinge of
sadness or any other kind of emotion in them.
"It does to me. I may meet
the same fate. I want to know what might keep Hanamichi away . . . if it
happened to me."
"Is that all?"
"No," Rukawa admitted,
taking another step back. "It might help me decide if I should hate you or
not."
"Of course," the other
whispered, followed by a low laugh. "Do you know who I am, Kaede
Rukawa?"
"That's a stupid question,
Hisashi Mitsui."
"Not at all." Mitsui
turned to him.
Rukawa looked away from Mitsui's
eyes. Golden eyes. Most probably brown or a dark black early in his life. Time
and power had turned it into something unnatural. As unnatural as himself.
"You know my name. You know
that I am Kogure's maker--"
"WAS," Rukawa
corrected.
Mitsui stopped. A flash of pain
and then it was gone. "You know nothing about me. The same way as you know
nothing of Hanamichi. The human he had once been, the creature he once was and
the creature he is now."
"I suppose," Rukawa
admitted. What was this Mitsui's game? "But I have forever to find
out."
"Ha!" Mitsui laughed
some more, approaching him, hair billowing in the wind as it caressed his silken
locks like a mother's fingers. How tempting it was. How Rukawa wanted to run his
own fingers through that hair. Steal it from the wind which had, just a moment
ago, stolen away the ruins of a lost love. Both his and Mitsui's.
Mitsui's eyes were blazing with
fire as he stood there. Inches away from Rukawa. "What makes you think
you'll get it?"
"Do you really want to
know?" Rukawa tilted his head to the side. "But you already do. What
would give me immortality would be the same force that made you give it to
Kogure."
"And what force is
that?"
"Love, perhaps," Rukawa
said with a careless shrug. "Or loneliness. Or both."
"You speak as if you've
already figured me out."
"Haven't I?" Rukawa had
grown tired. "What game are you playing, Mitsui? Your eyes breathe fire,
but of what kind?"
"But I thought you've
figured me out." Mitsui's voice had gone frighteningly flat. "Can't
you tell?"
"It could mean a lot of
things," Rukawa said. "Anger, perhaps. Agony? Frustration?"
"Frustration?"
Rukawa stepped away from Mitsui,
walking towards the last vestiges of Kogure that lay on the ground. "Yes.
Frustration--for an experiment gone wrong."
"He wasn't an
experiment!"
"Then what was he?"
Mitsui narrowed his eyes.
"Do not patronize me, Rukawa. I could kill you now. I could kill you before
you could get it."
"And yet you do not."
Rukawa closed his eyes.
Mitsui fell silent. The wind blew
stronger.
"What else did he say?"
The voice was very soft. So vulnerable. So pained.
Rukawa opened his eyes. Mitsui
had looked away but what little light the moon gave out, it was enough. Enough
to show the streak of red that flowed down this powerful creature's pale cheeks.
Like child, like maker.
"That was all he wanted me
to tell you."
"I see," Mitsui said,
nodding. "If I could have--"
"I'm sure you would have,
Hisashi," Rukawa said. Deja vu. "I'm sure you would have."
"You don't hate me?"
"How could I? You're just
like him. You and Kogure," he answered. "No wonder you loved him so
much."
"I thought," Mitsui
whispered. "I thought . . . that he, with all his loveliness, with all his
kindness, would be able to save me from damnation."
"Hasn't he?"
"Oh he has, Kaede,"
Mitsui said quickly. "He has. He's my saviour. He's treaded the path to
death like the brave soul that he always was. I could not face death. I wasn't
strong enough. I had fervently hoped I could have found the strength . . . even
for just a while, to have risen from my grave and join him."
Rukawa didn't know what to say.
He didn't have words that could compensate for the silence.
But Mitsui was speaking again.
"I wonder--I wonder . . . if in the end . . . I'd be able to look back and
ask . . . how well I did, and not be disappointed with the answer."
Rukawa narrowed his eyes. Was
this his farewell? He stepped forward, but a pale hand had landed on his
shoulder. He froze.
"Stay back," Hanamichi
whispered, head lowered as he whispered to his ear, breath tickling delicate
skin.
Rukawa didn't dare move. Didn't
dare let out his breath as Hanamichi flicked out his tongue once to nibble an
earlobe. And then he was gone from Rukawa's back.
Hanamichi was walking towards
Mitsui whose head was still bowed. Yet Rukawa knew that Mitsui knew Hanamichi
was there. Rukawa knew that Mitsui knew even when Hanamichi was still miles
away.
His beloved slowly opened his
arms, and in such a tender act, he took Mitsui in them, cradling Mitsui's head
at the crook of his neck.
"You wouldn't understand,
Hanamichi," Rukawa heard Mitsui whisper. "You wouldn't. Not until you
lose Kaede."
"Perhaps," was
Hanamichi's silent answer.
Rukawa remained rooted in his
place. Remained unmoving even when he saw Mitsui reach out slowly and lower down
Hanamichi's collar to reveal his long and slender neck. Didn't move when Mitsui
had descended his sharp and deadly fangs to break the skin . . . and drink.
Hanamichi let him. Then he slowly
turned them around, so that he was facing Rukawa, eyes full of love and
sympathy. For him? Or for Mitsui? And then Hanamichi gradually lowered his own
head. And from Mitsui, he drank his own fill.
Two lovers under the moonlight.
And Rukawa stood there. A voyeur. Just watching. Simply there.
The sight was so bittersweet, it
made him want to cry. Yet he didn't. He couldn't. He never cried.
He realized that these two
splendid beings in front of him could have been anything in the past. Lovers.
Enemies. Brothers. And a thousand of other things. What was Rukawa's
significance in light of the thousands of years of companionship that these two
had shared? What was Kogure's?
His heart breaking, Rukawa's eyes
lowered to the ground. To the ash. To Kogure's sacrifice. Only then did he
realize the immensity of it. Death. How could one be truly immortal when death
itself . . . is immortal? He looked back at his beloved and the one in his arms.
Immortal. Like THEIR love.
Rukawa took a step back. And
another. And another. And then he turned around, and walked away.
~~~ End Part 2 ~~~
[1] I think using a Mitsui with long hair here would add to the effect.
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