CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

“Ah, Tetsu,” she sighed, looking suddenly very sad. “I want to kiss you first; it’s like medicine for me,” she said, and touched his lips with hers.

He was, of course, amenable to this. “But don’t think I’ll forget,” he warned her before they plunged into a deliciously tender though diabolically frustrating make-out session. It was frustrating because the doctor had put a prohibition on sex until his leg fully healed, and Thalia was so far determined to honor that. However, tonight the frustration served to remind him of his question.

“All right, enough, unless you want me to explode,” he said as he gently disengaged her. “Tell me why you need so much ‘medicine’,” he asked, leaning back on his pillows and looking into her eyes.

“I’m stuck,” she said simply, and for a moment could not go on. Anguish surprised her, fresh and vivid. He waited as patiently as he could, holding her hand, his good arm around her. “The new arm looks wonderful, of course, and I’m grateful; but the artificial components won’t let me turn my skin. I can't shift all the way. I tried to gallop to the meadow and – and it felt like my left foreleg was on fire inside. I kept stumbling.” Her voice broke and she began to cry. “My owl was even worse,” she said, trying to control her voice as tears streamed down her face. “I couldn’t lift my left wing off the ground even a millimeter. If I’d jumped out of a tree, I might have died.”

Tetsuya was genuinely appalled; it had never occurred to him that this would be a possible consequence of the innovative surgery she had undergone. He had no words, so he held her closer and let her cry. He didn’t need her to tell him what this meant to her; the wild part of her, the Fae side, would slowly suffocate inside her unless they found a way to mitigate this damage.

“I know how selfish this is,” she said after a while, angry with herself. “Humans go their whole lives in one form, and there’s nothing wrong with that. I enjoyed a gift all my life up until now that really belongs to the Fae alone; it was considered a miracle of sorts that I could shift at all with my human blood. I should be thankful for what I had.”

“Thalia,” he said gently, “aren’t you being a little harsh with yourself? You don’t look like you’ve lost a limb, and some would argue you’ve gained a more perfect one; but you’ve actually lost far more than just a limb. I don’t remember it clearly, but something in me knows that in the past I’ve felt the wind on my face, and I too used to dive deep to plumb the sea; I can’t imagine having all that freedom, only to suddenly lose it and be trapped in one form. It wouldn’t be normal for you not to grieve that. I grieve it too, because I love that side of you as much as any other part.”

Thalia had nothing left to say; she only pressed closer to him, making herself smaller; she laid her head daintily on his chest and put her arm around him, still careful of his healing ribs.

It wasn’t very long before he knew she had fallen asleep by the rhythm of her breath and the quality of her presence. How well he knew her, he thought, and yet how little he understood what this life must be like for her.

He lay awake, brainstorming what questions he could ask of whom in order to find out if there was some possible remedy for what had happened to her.

When not occupied with this, his mind returned to its old pastime, guilt. If only she had not come after him on that ship, she would never have been shot and needed surgery. If only he had called for backup before going into the warehouse, he would not have been captured to begin with. Why did he have to think he should do everything himself? This was the consequence of his proud stubbornness, and instead of paying it himself he had to watch her pay it, which was far worse.

The gods seemed to know that using her was far more effective in teaching or punishing him than going directly to him, and that, he thought, was a definitive reason to think he was not good for her. This grieved him; he buried his face in her hair, breathing in the light jasmine scent of it and wondering what to do.

She lifted her head suddenly and looked into his eyes. “Stop it,” she said vehemently. “I can feel you letting that guilt complex back in and feeding it. You’ll make me wish I’d never confided in you if you keep that up.”

“It’s not a complex if it’s simply true that a thing is my fault,” he argued.

“Perhaps, but nothing that has happened to me is remotely your fault.”

He smiled bitterly. “No matter how sternly you look at me when you say that, you can’t make it true,” he said, “though I can see why that would work with Seizo or Saya.”

She smiled up at him. “It was worth a try,” she said, making him laugh. “Fine, then, tell me how the hell you’ve managed to make this your fault.”

“It’s fairly obvious, Thalia, that if I had called backup before going into the warehouse, you would not have had a reason to be on the ship and get shot,” he said.

“Why do you assume I wouldn’t have been shot on the warehouse roof? If you had called for backup, I would have been there with the squad – it’s my job too, Vice-Commander.”

He thought about this. “That’s a good point,” he admitted.

“We can speculate endlessly about whether or not I would still have been shot, but it’s a pointless exercise. Much like feeling guilty over something that in reality you could not possibly have had any control over. Grant me the dignity of being responsible for my own choices, Tetsuya,” she said, touching his face.

He looked down at her hand where it lay in his; it was small, pale, and seemed so fragile, even though he had seen it deliver swift, sure punishment to grown men, with or without a weapon in it. “It’s very hard to remember sometimes that you’re not a delicate teacup, but I’ll try to stop treating you like one,” he said.

She nestled against him. “You have such a reputation for being dangerous, and you are, but for me, you’re my safe place, Harada Tetsuya; whether I feel like a teacup or not, I need that refuge. I’m a thousand times stronger, braver, and happier when I’m with you. I can’t bear it when you tell yourself you’re not good for me; nothing could be further from the truth.”

He tipped her face up toward his. “I still find that hard to fathom,” he told her, his eyes vulnerable and full of love.

It was a moment that certainly demanded a kiss, and it got one; it also got them in the news again. A photographer had been loitering nearby, waiting for the nurses’ station to be empty so he could duck into their room. They were deeply involved in their kiss when the door opened and the camera flash started going off.

That pissed off Harada enough that he forgot his injuries and tried to get out of bed, which scared Thalia and in turn pissed her off. She got out of bed and stalked toward the door with her hair streaming around her like a fall of molten lava, her eyes flashing blue and white fire, not saying a word; it terrified the photographer out of the room, stumbling in his hurry – though he did get a shot of her in all her angry glory. It was fortunate she hadn’t actually been Furious, she thought. That would have made for a front-page photo.

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She looked out the door, wondering where the hell their appointed guardian was; then she saw Okada, fast asleep in a chair near the door. Not even the commotion woke him up, which struck her as odd.

“Seizo?” she said, and shook him. He woke, but slowly; it was a visible struggle, and he seemed to be fighting very hard to make any response at all. This frightened Thalia, who screamed for a nurse and knelt beside him.

His pulse was strong, but very slow; same for his breathing, except when he fought to try to wake up. He tried to say something, but could only mumble unintelligibly. Thalia checked his pupils; sure enough, they were dilated, indicating the presence of a narcotic or sedative.

Harada was behind her, having limped over to the door, bad leg and IV or not. She looked up at him grimly.

“I’m sure someone drugged him, and somehow I don’t think it was the photographer,” she said.

“You should check on Yamamoto,” he said, adapting back into his customary role of cool, calculating Vice-Commander instantaneously. “And where the hell is my damn sword?” he demanded.

The nurse had arrived in time to hear this. “No, no swords,” she said firmly.

“Want to take it away from me?” Tetsuya asked her, eyes gleaming. He held it in hand, having found it where he had left it, behind the head of his bed.

The nurse gasped, then looked to Thalia for support. “I really wouldn’t try it, if I were you,” was the only advice Thalia had for her. “Tetsu, I’ll call Kato on my way,” she said, only pausing to get her phone and the knife Kyoko had brought her.

He put his hand on her shoulder, stopping her. “Be very careful,” he warned.

“I will. You too,” she replied, then rose on tiptoe for a quick kiss. Thalia turned to the nurses gathered around Okada, one of whom asked her to explain why she thought he’d been drugged. “Pupils dilated, slow galloping pulse, nonresponsive,” she said.

“You shouldn’t be doing that,” another nurse told her, watching her strap her knife to her thigh as she spoke. Thalia gave her a look of pity, then stalked toward Yamamoto’s room.

Sure enough, Kirito was sprawled slumbering in a chair, just as Captain Okada had been, although his vital signs were more within normal limits than Seizo’s. Thalia waved a nurse toward Kirito and instructed her not to come in until she was given the all-clear. Then she opened the door and entered Yamamoto’s room.

“Don’t turn on the lights,” said a familiar voice from one corner.

“I need to make sure Yamamoto’s all right,” Thalia replied coldly, though she did not flip the light switch. Instead, she entered the room and closed the door, slipping her knife from its sheath in the same smooth motion. Her eyes adjusted more quickly than human eyes, so it wasn’t much of a risk.

“I assure you, he’s merely asleep,” Sekiguchi said. Thalia believed him, but went to check anyway. “Must you approach me with a naked blade every time we meet?” he asked sardonically.

“So long as your greetings consist of threats, kidnappings, and drugging people, yes,” she replied. “Why are you in here? Isn’t it me you’re after?”

“Indeed. I looked in on you and your demon lover earlier, intending to come in. Somehow I didn’t have the heart, once I saw how pleasantly preoccupied you were, so I thought I would come await you here. As expected, you don’t disappoint,” he said languidly, with an undercurrent of menace.

“No, what it comes to is you prefer to take one of us on at a time rather than both,” Thalia said. “You counted on me being the one to come in here. Simple as that.”

Sekiguchi ignored this. “Thalia-sama, I came in part to express how much I regret swinging my sword at you; I’m grateful your Vice-Commander was there, for I would not have wanted to harm you in my right mind,” he said; she could hear in his voice how difficult he found it to come even this close to a real apology, and her heart softened against her will.

“Is that why you drugged our friends? To tell me you regret trying to kill me?” she asked, reproof clear in her voice, but gentler than it might have been.

Sekiguchi gave a bitter chuckle. “It’s as you said, Thalia-sama. I operate from a place of fear. I don’t know how else to be any more,” he said. She felt a twinge of pity for him.

“Try to remember,” she said. “You were a good man once; that made you far stronger than you are now.” She stayed near Yamamoto, one hand on his head protectively, her knife still ready in her other hand.

“Ah, but I’m afraid to test that,” he said bitterly. “A person hanging onto sanity by straggling threads cannot afford to perform such tests.”

“You were listening closely to what I said last time, I see,” Thalia said.

“Your words have replayed in my mind over and over since that day. I know them by heart,” he said, anger and sorrow competing in his voice.

“Then apply them,” she said.

“I need you to show me how,” he replied, coming up very close beside her.

“You only think you need me,” she said gently, “but in fact, you already have the strength you need. You and I are never good for each other.”

“Why do I feel this is a running theme with you, somehow?” he wondered with another bitter laugh, moving a little away again. “How easy for the Vice-Commander to change, when he has you at his side. Why should he have you to himself?”

“It is a running theme, you’re right about that. And I think you know why I belong with the Vice-Commander; we've always been a match. As for change – he finds it no easier than you do, but he has begun to conquer his fear. You can do the same.”

He paced restlessly around the room. “You’re in the wrong place, I know it,” he insisted. “Vengeance, justice, destruction; these are the only things I dream of. You embody them.”

“If that’s what you think, you only see half of me,” she replied. “What the myths may not have told you is that the Furies and the Graces are the same entities. Justice is not the same as vengeance, and it’s far from the same as destruction.” Her voice was firm but gentle; she did not relax her guard, but her heart was full of compassion for his tortured soul.

“There is so much you could teach me,” he said, coming close to her again, breathing in the smell of her skin, then gently bringing his katana up to point at her heart. “If you will not come, I’ll take you,” he said. But she was quick; she turned in the circle of his arms and in less than a blink had the point of her blade resting against his throat where the carotid artery pulsed, the edge of his katana now sharp against her back.

“Again, attempted kidnapping,” she said reproachfully. “Why are you here, Sekiguchi? You had to know this would never work. Do you want to be caught?”

“I needed to see you. Can’t you understand that?” he hissed.

It was at this point the door opened. The Chief and Vice-Chief stood in the doorway, katana drawn.

They had thought they were prepared for anything, but it still shocked them to see Sekiguchi himself locked in a deadly embrace with Thalia. Her knife was at his throat, his sword was poised across her back, the point under her shoulder blade; they were clearly at an impasse.

Suddenly Sekiguchi’s eye widened, and his grip on the blade slackened. He looked at Thalia. “I’m – sorry,” he said, then coughed blood onto her robe. She caught him as he collapsed against her, though his weight pushed her back against Yamamoto’s bed.

Her eyes were wide and shocked; she could not understand what had happened.

Chief Kato came and relieved Thalia of her burden. He dragged Sekiguchi into a corner of the room, checked his wound, and confirmed he would need a doctor’s attention. “Seems a waste of medical care, but call the nurse anyway, Yama,” he said.

Thalia turned to Yamamoto, her eyes still wide. “You weren’t asleep,” she breathed.

“No,” he confirmed. “I knew it wasn’t a nurse who came in to give me the pills this time, so I faked it. I figured something would happen, so I hid kunai under my pillow and pretended to sleep.” It made sense, Thalia realized; Yamamoto had been waiting for the best moment, which came when Sekiguchi was thoroughly distracted; then he had drawn the blade and stabbed him in the side.

“But why didn’t you say anything when you first suspected?” Thalia demanded, horrified. “What if he had known you were awake and killed you?”

Yamamoto blushed and shrugged in apology. “All I really had was a suspicion, Lieutenant. I could easily have been wrong. Spies get paranoid sometimes,” he explained. “Besides, you learn more by taking risks.”

“Didn’t you take a risk with the Lieutenant?” Harada said, scowling now that he saw the wound in Sekiguchi’s side. “He could still have stabbed her after you got him; it’s a miracle he didn’t.”

“No, Vice-Commander, I knew he wouldn’t stab her,” Yamamoto said, looking apologetically at Thalia.

“What? How?” Harada demanded.