Saki felt a freezing chill grip her spine and grow out through her body. It nearly felt like she could see her breath, it was so cold. She knew, like the others under Takako’s control, that many faced these moral crises. They all saw it that day. Yet there was something deeper about this. She couldn’t explain it, but it was as if a paradox existed in front of her. Everything that she could see made her look sane and normal, albeit extremely depressed and suicidal. Yet she was all completely there. And at the same time there was this tightrope balance of chaos and insanity. It wasn’t there and yet it was. She couldn’t make heads or tails of Katsumi like the others.
Something very different was wrong with her.
“Kaede…” called Hiroshi keeping his distance and voice low. Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough as he hoped. Katsumi noticed him and jumped up fully alert. Behind her the knife remained with a completely dulled and warped edge. She ran as far as she could before the water barrier stopped her completely in her tracks.
Hands pressed against the barrier, Katsumi pleaded with tears in her eyes. “Have you finally decided?” she asked with hope filling her. “Please, I want you to do it! Kill me, please!”
Unable to look at her friend, though her body visibly shook having to hear the words, Kaede walked over to Hiroshi leaving Katsumi alone.
Katsumi pounded on the barrier. “Hiroshi! Please! I beg you, put an end to all of this for me! You’re inhuman keeping me alive like this! Please!”
With the guiding hand of Hiroshi, he escorted Saki out, not completely aware that she was pushed out of the room until the door closed. The voice of Katsumi completely disappeared from her head. It was apparently very well sound proof if she couldn’t hear it. “What the hell’s going on? She doesn’t look like the others.”
Looking down and then over at Kaede, Hiroshi seemed to be having some trouble saying what he needed. It took him a while before he could look over at Saki. Even Kaede refused to say anything. “Katsumi’s unique and complicated.”
“How so?”
“Because of the powers that she has.”
“What power does she have?”
Hiroshi looked over to Kaede to pick things up. There was a silent conversation between them as they fought with gazes over who had the explaining to do. In the end, Kaede lost and she recoiled. She still resisted it. “It’s because Katsumi’s powers protected her from Takako that she is suffering worse than the others.”
Chapter 374 – Broken Heart
Now Saki was confused, because she knew that Katsumi was under Takako’s control the same as everyone else. “What do you mean protected her? Takako controlled her the same as the others.”
“Not the same…”
“Stop being so damn vague with me! Explain it!”
Hiroshi tried to get Saki to understand their point of view. “This isn’t easy for us, Saki.” But he could tell that wasn’t going to be working out very well. Sake wanted to understand and they were beating around the bush about things.
“I understand that, but I can’t help if you don’t explain things to me clearly. What is her power?”
“In a word, resistance.”
“That’s doesn’t explain much.”
Jumping in on Hiroshi’s behalf, Kaede started to explain more clearly, “It’s like an enhancing effect that she uses for defense. Anything that she touches or is in contact with her has its natural hardness and resistance to damage multiplied several times. However, it also extends to her body. Her skin now has the toughness as if it was steel. And in what can only be the worst gift to have, it granted her a resistance to mental corruption. Enough not to be broken, but still be controlled.”
It all suddenly made sense to Saki now. She looked back at the door, which Katsumi sat behind, unable to kill herself. Her mind went through it all and understood on some small level. They all did understand partly what it was that Katsumi went through. Yet they knew that they could never truly understand. With it all sinking in, Saki staggered back against the wall.
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“So you understand what we’re in now.”
“What are you going to do?”
“We aren’t killing her, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“But can we just leave her like that? She’s going to go insane like that.”
Hiroshi sighed and turned away from Saki. It was the same dilemma that they faced once they learned what was wrong with Katsumi. He just had no answer. “Sadly for her, I don’t think that’s possible. Being insane would almost be a blessing for her, but her powers would probably prevent it from happening.”
“Dammit!” Saki snapped, pounding her fist back against the wall leaving a dent in the smoothly polished metal. “What are we supposed to do?” Takako’s sins still followed them even after her death. ‘I thought I had resolved myself to be able to make the hard choices that Yuki and others couldn’t. So why am I hesitating so much? The choice is clear, yet my body doesn’t want it…’ Looking at Hiroshi, she was just as surprised that Hiroshi seemed set on not killing her even with what’s on his hands. ‘It must be the same for him. But we’re going to have to do it… It’s worse keeping her in that state…’
After a long silence, Kaede broke first with the question that had been forgotten in all of the emotions. “What are you doing down here, Hiroshi? You didn’t come down here to just show her this. You could have explained things to her upstairs and avoided all of this.”
They had both completely ignored that fact. Hiroshi had a purpose for it. It served to explain things to Saki, but he also needed something else. “Right, we needed to talk to you. The situation with Yumi’s become complicated.”
“Is she still unconscious?”
“No, that’s the problem. Let’s move back to somewhere we can sit down and discuss this.” Kaede immediately became curious about what was going on with her friend. She agreed in silence with a nod to follow them.
On the third floor once more, they sat down at the table with more of the group gathered around minus Yori, still asleep in Yumi’s bed. Hiroshi started laying out the situation and explaining how there were multiple personalities in Yumi and the conversation they had with one of them.
Kaede found herself leaning back a lot in the chair having trouble taking it all in. Small whispers came out of her mouth infrequently as the explanation went on. When it was all done Kaede stepped away from the table needing a moment to take it all in.
Out the small window, the view did little to give her ease. Losing two friends weighed on her. But she shook her head, preventing her from thinking like that. Yumi wasn’t lost to them, not yet. That is what she had to believe. She turned around to face everyone after a minute in thought. “I think I might know where this is coming from,” she finally said.
“What are your thoughts?” asked Saki, “You know her better than the rest of us.”
“I think it may have to do in part with her brother.”
“Yori?”
“This isn’t really something you know about, but in junior high Yumi was bullied because of her brother. Yori was the model student, talented, smart and attractive, everyone liked him. But Yumi’s not her brother and when people realized that she wasn’t going to meet the same expectations they took it out on her. Because she’s always being compared and talked in the same breath as her brother, she’s developed an inferiority complex.”
Kaede walked back to the table and sat down. She rested her head in her hand thinking about everything. It was still only a theory. So she could only make guesses about any of this. There was no way to be certain until they actually confronted either Yumi or the personalities and Yumi may not even know.
A long sigh came out of her lips with her mind spinning through it all. “We did what we could to help her, but I thought after she started spending time with you and Yuki that she had finally left that in her past. She was being her own person and independent of everyone’s expectations. We thought Yuki was exactly what she needed to finally start looking forward. But maybe we were wrong. Maybe she’s still looking backwards…”
“Miss Ayabito, I think you may be on the right track,” Nerine jumped in, suddenly looking like she had figured something out. She leaned forward at the table. “People are complex and complicated. They aren’t so simple to define. Miss Mizuno had probably left behind her past as you believe. But something that deep and impacting isn’t going to completely disappear. There’s still going to be little pieces of it remaining behind.”
Picking up that Nerine seemed to be on to something, Seiji was tired of the complicated talk. “What are you trying to get at?”
“It’s like I explained before, His Majesty’s Law is interpreted differently with each person. If Miss Mizuno subconsciously still had doubts about herself and insecurities, then these other personalities could be created from that.”
“I already figured out that much. I’m asking how does that help us get Yumi back? Knowing why isn’t a solution.”
And they were all back in silence. It was as Seiji said. Knowing didn’t give them the answer that they sought. It wasn’t going to bring back Yumi. They were no better off than they started even if they felt that they understood the situation.
There was no answer that day. Or even the next day. A week passed in relative silence. Only Yori caused them trouble, because he felt strongly about going to his sister. As the person inside her said, he seemed to know exactly where she was. They didn’t understand that. But they had no answer to give. One that would allow them to meet the person once more. Since Yori didn’t accept that they tied him up as he proved single minded and otherwise useless.
Then while Saki and Seiji hovered in the room alone with Yuki it finally happened. Nearly ten days after he went unconscious Yuki woke up, finally recovered from the ordeal. He rose out of the bed looking lost and confused with his surroundings.
Seiji immediately jumped off the crate he sat down to grab up his friend with more enthusiasm than he was prepared to take. “Yuki! You’re awake finally!”
Caught by surprise, Yuki gasped slapping Seiji’s shoulder to be released. “Y-yes! But not for long…”
“Seiji, you’re choking him,” Saki reprimanded before she grabbed his arm to loosen him up.
Coughing a bit as he recovered, Yuki sat up properly in his bed looking at his friends. “You look like I might have died.”
“You’ve been out for a week and half.”
“Damn…that long…”
“Welcome home,” Saki said, seeing a bit of the melancholy already attempting to take hold of him. She smiled trying to fill a role that she was meant to fill.
Yuki blinked a little and snapped back for them. “I’m home!”