“Yumi!” shouted Yori before anyone else got to it. He fumbled around with his hands to reach her in his blindness. “You’re back!”

She held a slight bit of hesitation until she answered, “I am…thank you.”

Relief spread through Yori's body so far it nearly made him faint. ‘I succeeded! I did it!’ It didn’t matter to him that he couldn’t see her. Just knowing the fact that she was awake and saved was all he needed. All the stress and tension disappeared from his body almost instantly at that point. He fell backwards completely losing all of his strength followed by consciousness.

“Yori?! Hey man!”

Yuki walked around and placed a hand on Seiji’s shoulder to stop him from trying to shake him too hard. “He’s just exhausted. Going through all of that had to be mentally draining. Let him rest.”

Seiji gave him a slow nod as it made sense to him. “Right…he’ll be all better once he wakes up.”

Watching Seiji carry Yori over to one of the beds, Yuki couldn’t help but feel a little sadness for Seiji’s hopefulness. He knew what he referred to and doubted it was going to be so simple. ‘It’s just like what happened with Athene, though I thought with Yori being enhanced such things could have been avoided. I guess even for him it was a painful experience… How am I going to explain this to Yumi? She’s going to blame herself for it.’

The scene back around Yumi held a positive and cheerful mood. Not the sort of atmosphere to step on with bad news. Though Yuki suspected the others were acutely aware of the situation. It was just easier to be swept up with the cheer, something they did finally succeeded. A hard win, but it finally felt like a win. Even though it came at a price.

One thing at a time, he told himself. Yuki returned with a smile. “You must be starved, Yumi. You haven’t eaten for more than a week!”

Yumi thought about it and found it surprising that she wasn’t nearly as hungry as she thought. Then remembered an odd memory that wasn’t her own. ‘I guess they took care of me…’ She still nodded in agreement though, food sounded good.

Chapter 383 – Awakened Mind

“What happened with Hiroshi and Takako?” Yumi asked from the seat at the table. They only had simple things for her prepared, but she could munch away while getting caught up to speed on events. “I feel like a lot of time has passed.”

It was the first sort of thing that everyone wondered. If she remembered the terrible events that she played party to, even while under Takako’s control. Saki and Yuki exchanged glances with each other to figure out what details to give and what to withhold. They both knew things weren’t going to be easy. “What’s the last thing you remember?” opened Yuki, staving off for a moment dark tales.

Drinking on her water, she tried to recall what happened. ‘There’s large blanks in my mind that I can’t seem to recall even though I get a strange feeling that I wasn’t knocked out then. What happened?’ Once she set down the cup, she looked over at Yuki. “I remember being forced to fight against Katsumi and Kaede. The woman with Hiroshi showed up, but things get blurry at that point.”

‘She doesn’t remember any of the time while she was under Takako’s control then,’ Saki thought, recalling some of the things that happened while under Yumi’s orders. ‘For now I’ll keep what I know a secret. It’s not really anything that will do her any good. No point ruining her first day as herself again.’ Leaving out details, Saki knew that she had to be a little creatively selective with the details that she gave. “Takako’s dead now.” Starting out simply made the most sense.

“She’s dead?! What happened?” She looked over at Yuki, almost pleading with him for it not to be true. “We wanted to save her, right?”

Yuki hung his head low, reminded of how he had failed Takako. “I’m sorry, Yumi. It’s the truth. I was unable to save her. She refused to accept my offer.”

“You didn’t…”

“Hiroshi did it,” interjected Saki to correct what Yumi was assuming from Yuki’s misleading self-pity. “Yuki refused to kill her like she wanted. He tried to save her to the very end, but she had already caused too many deaths and ruined too many lives to be allowed to live.”

Hearing such heartless words from Saki left Yumi in a momentary state of shock. Her hand pressed against the table trying to keep herself together. She couldn’t believe what she was hearing from her friend. “Takako was your friend, Saki. How can you be so cold?”

If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

“The Takako I knew was long gone by the time I met her. It was a mercy for her.”

“Saki!”

“Or would you have preferred to let Yuki find a cure for her and force her to remember all of the atrocities that she ordered while she was driven completely insane by her powers?” Saki became a little distant as her mind started to wander to dark thoughts. “She was never going to be the same. She’s at least has peace now.”

“That’s so sad…” Yumi stood up from the table and walked her empty plate over to the sink. Running the water over the leftover food, she tried to think of other things, but her mind kept imagining how things had played out. The last moments of Takako’s life hung in her mind. She wasn’t even there, but she couldn’t help but feel for her.

Internally, she tried to get rid of these dark dreams. It was the past now and she could do nothing about it. She turned around to look at the table and then the room. It wasn’t as filled as she expected. “What about everyone else?”

Yuki looked around the room to put together everyone that was missing from their group. “Fumiko disappeared not too long after she fully recovered, but she’s alive. Haruo is being himself and just hanging around downstairs. He’s helping out with those still recovering. Chiharu is still doing her own thing and we haven’t heard from her. Nerine has joined us and she’s sleeping off her fatigue right now. We lost a lot of people, but we at least saved more than we lost. It’s the only consolation right now…”

“Hey, look at the bright side,” Seiji shouted with full energy, “We got Yumi back! There might be a lot of bad things right now, but this can start our winning streak!”

“Always annoyingly positive…”

“Hey Saki, it’s not healthy to be so negative and serious all the time.”

“And it’s not realistic to think everything’s just going to work out because we try.”

“What the hell!? Yumi just woke up, she doesn’t need to be feeling your soreness! Be happy for a moment! Something good happened!”

Amongst the arguing, Yumi felt a little awkward. She wanted to step in and stop them, but it was difficult. Though in a way, it made her happy to see that they seemed more like themselves. ‘I don’t remember Saki being so cynical, but it’s still her. They never really saw eye to eye, but it at least doesn’t feel as oppressively heavy anymore… But I’m going to have to ruin that mood…’

Yumi sat back down at the table. “I’m sorry for my comments, Saki.”

She brushed off any more happy remarks from Seiji by sitting back down at the table. The look in Yumi’s eyes told her enough. “It’s fine. I know my opinion is the unpopular one in our group. You don’t have to feel as though you’re wrong for the way you’re thinking.”

“But…”

“You are who you are and I’m who I am. We can disagree and still get along because we’re friends, Yumi. So don’t worry about it.”

“Thank you, Saki…” It was a bit of relief off her shoulders. Despite being dark about the reality, she kept pragmatism about as well. ‘Saki’s really different… She’s changed so much since this all started…and yet here I am the same as before… Helpless and having to be rescued…’ After Atlantis things were supposed to be different for her. That was the plan, but it didn’t turn out like that. She just ended up back where she was before. It made her shoulders bend down under the weight of her expectations.

Saki leaned forward and sat Seiji back down at the table to keep him from flailing about endlessly on his happiness tirade. “So what’s wrong?”

“Huh?”

“You’ve got something on your mind. Something that’s not about Takako.”

Yumi pulled back a little in surprise. She didn’t think that she was being so transparent. “You knew?”

“I’m guessing it’s having to do with your missing time?”

She was right on target. Saki kept surprising her with the accuracy of her points. Nodding her head, Yumi began to fidget a little with her hands. It wasn’t an easy subject for her. However, they already risked much to rescue her. So she couldn’t keep it to herself anymore. “This isn’t the first time that I’ve lost control of myself.”

“You remember the other times?”

“Not fully. When they take over, it’s like I’m asleep and awake. I’m a passive viewer of what happens, but can’t do anything to stop it. But this time it didn’t feel the same as the others.”

Yuki nodded in agreement. They didn’t have Yumi’s perspective of matters, but it was clear that something had changed. He chalked much of it up to Takako, since they were protecting Yumi from Takako. But it wasn’t the same as before. “They only surfaced while you were in combat, right?”

“Yes, in desperate moments they protected me. I’m still alive because of them, but they’ve done terrible things while in control. The longer that I was in Atlantis the stronger and more frequently their connection to me seemed to become.”

“Connection?”

“One of them spoke to me without taking over. They’re growing stronger and now…how long did they have control?”

“A few days…”

“I fear what might happen the next time. Yori, my brother, had to nearly kill himself just to free me from their control. What if I’m lost completely next time and it’s just them…”

“We’ll save you again!” asserted Seiji on boundless optimism.

“Seiji…”

“She’s right,” Saki agreed, “What are you thinking? Do you have an idea for countering their control?”

Yumi sank back in her chair. “Sadly, no… That’s why I felt I should bring it up now. You’ve become involved in this already. So there’s no use in me hiding it from you anymore.” She stared at her hand knowing what it had to do to keep her alive. It wasn’t always her hand. This wasn’t the way that she wanted to live.

“You want to be able to control them, right?” Yuki noted, already seeing the patterns.

“Yes, they keep taking me over without any sort of regard for what I want. Do you have some ideas?”

“If anyone would, it's Yuki. All those books of yours got to mean something, right?”

Yuki gave Seiji a slightly annoyed expression for him, relying on his genre knowledge to be used to help Yumi. Unfortunately, Yuki couldn’t really be that upset with him. He wasn’t wrong. “As much as it doesn’t feel like a compliment, I do have an idea. But it’s not going to be easy.”

Seiji jumped up with excitement to hear a new plan. “Nothing worth doing is easy!”

A sigh came from Saki having to listen to Seiji eagerness once more. But she stood up ready for a plan. Yumi had a very real worry with her split personalities taking over. They needed to be under control. This most recent incident made that clear. “What’s the plan?”

“We’re going to need to borrow Phoibe’s business!”