First, Azi thought he was fine. It was going to be alright. He thought as the monster struck him, he thought again. It’s light, yeah I could take it. But in all seriousness, he knew he was almost a goner and believed it true when he lost his balance with the ground. An immense pushing force made him heave back, his insides, his organs, felt like they were getting moved in a way that he could only describe as irregular.
The full force of the kengiri’s powered ram had passed through his body.
The inside of himself was churning, eyes going blind, and a stinging pain in his arms as they began to drip his red blood to the ground. A sudden soft impact on the backside of his head was all he could remember before the dark side of what he recognized as his eyelids closed tight.
Shunted into pitch black, he swore he heard a voice call to him from the void. He was dreaming again, that.. or dead.
But the pitch color made him remember. In this moment, memories of his hellish experience in the past before he found himself on that mountain days ago filled his mind. The darkness was surrounding him once again. He had been having dreams like this every time, and everytime he woke up when he was on the brink of fully recalling these dreams, he forgot, as if it were on after thought.
Why do I remember now? Only when I dream? I can’t seem to recall this when I’m awake, but now, it’s so clear and so.. horrifying. He was getting anxious, he knew what was coming and braced for the pain. Soon enough it came in waves, receding and swallowing him up in a repeating fashion, as if there was someone sticking needles in him and then taking them out only to do it again.
Another way he could put it in a more sunny kind of description, was that it was as if he was stuck lying on a beach and the tides came in. He would drown for a few moments and his skin would sting with some kind of abrasive particulates. It then left completely and then came back like a bad rash.
It was nightmarish agony. He screamed, cursed even.
No! Go away! No! No! Stop!
He tried to reenact how he had once dulled the pain, so he tried to control his senses. Ignore it, ignore it. He told himself, but he couldn’t. His attempt to focus his senses only caused him to experience even heavier pain that tore and pushed into him his solar plexus.
It gouged him, almost running him through. He endured and strained himself to focus, gripping and tensing his whole body as if he were keeping the last taught strings of his sanity from breaking.
His heart thumped rapidly as what he knew were likely all his veins flexed across his body.
No! No! Yes! Yes! No! No! Yes! Yes!
Get Out! Get Out! Get Out!
Never! Never! Never!
Two voices battled in his ears, they were both his own but Azi’s mind recognized that he was splitting in two. One was fighting for a goal, for something he hadn’t a clue about. The other was going out right insane. That one wanted something to stop.
He couldn’t let his mind break, if it did then he would not be able to return.
“Return? Return where? Shit, no, REMEMBER! REMEMBER DAMNIT.”
It was happening again. As with every breaking mind, cracks formed and allowed memories a chance to slip away, part of himself was again flaking off and crumbling to dust.
Shock came over him and with that, it triggered. In an instantaneous effect as if flipping a switch off, his senses shut off in an attempt to preserve himself.
Azi tried to purposefully control that sensation, when he did it felt like falling a long way down and he couldn’t reach to do anything, only float in place. Now a new problem, he was stuck, stuck to float wherever this was. No sound indicated time, no stimuli worked to keep him grounded.
It was unclear how much time had passed from his point of view. The darkness gave no indication. But the one constant he held to was that time itself eventually relieved the pain he suffered through and it subsided little by little. Another longer extent of time passed and the throbbing in his body became bearable enough for him to think clearly once again.
Finding balance was how he would describe it, albeit still with some light irritations. Azi began speaking to both the void and himself. The first thing, or people, to come to mind was them. He still couldn’t move much but talking kept him sane.
"Is Shizu ok? What about Kajima? Where are they?! What are they doing now? I’m not dead right? This is a dream, a make believe world, except, I’m in.. a nightmare?”
He shook his head. “No, not that. This isn’t a nightmare. Let’s not think about it, think about everyone else, Azi, come on! They are in danger, what can I do now? What did I do?”
Recalling the fight with Kengiri, he fretted. They were in danger and more importantly Shizu was about to be hurt. He jumped in, he wanted to help and then. He paused and looked around, his ability to turn his neck returning with a creak. Pitch black as far as the eye could see.
“Maybe.. Maybe I am dead.” Morbid images rushed him. Coffins, gravestones, a funeral that he knew wasn’t his own.
“Well, if I’m dead, then I should be in heaven, or is it true that it goes dark when we die. No, there has to be an afterlife, I’m talking right now, I’m conscious. Think Azi, will they be alright?”
He again recalled Shizu and Kajima, distracting himself from this helpless situation. What would they do in that situation with the kengiri and if he was injured. He had no doubt they could fight off the Kengiri together, but what about himself. What would they do with an injured comrade, did they even think of him as a comrade?
Not friends, but possible acquaintances. No.. Azi held himself, joints cracking as if having long gone unused. He felt himself tremble. I’m only a burden.
“Huh?” He gasped not knowing why he had thought that. “Why Am I? Why Am I thinking like that? Where is this coming from? Why do I feel like this?”
Because it’s true. Another voice in his head spoke and it came to a rash conclusion. The weight of loneliness could do that, you could start babbling whatever your subconscious made up. A sudden bout of stress gnawed at him as he wondered if this was real or if he had gone past insanity. He just didn’t know it yet.
His own delusions made him anxiously itch and an indiscernible amount of time passed again, compounding his sinking emotions that now felt farther away than before.
Did I die? Did they leave me to die? He thought. In his still scrambled mind he believed that his assumption was true, yet a small part kept telling him to stop thinking so crudely. It failed to stop him from spiraling down.
The kengiri had already injured Kajima and Shizu, they didn’t have the leeway to help. Azi fearfully concluded that they left him to save themselves. A familiar doubt crept into his heart and he began to truly believe Shizu and Kajima had run and foregone the danger in helping him.
They were like ‘them’, the people who turned away from me, my co-workers, my father, my mother.. He could remember those people here, in this hell of black and sticky darkness, but nothing else except their figures. Anytime he tried to recognize one of them their faces were blurred, as if on purpose, he didn’t want to remember.. maybe.
Words escaped his lips as long buried thoughts came out.
“Of course they would leave me for dead, turn away and not make it their problem. I failed them, I didn’t do enough. I’m not a soldier, I’m not like them. I wasn’t as good as they wanted me to be. I wish I was better but I.. I’m just a failure.. the outcast, the freak, the wash out."
Azi’s eyes went lifeless, the kengiri and its tall figure kept popping up in his head, how it looked down on him, demoralizing him with its insurmountable overbearing presence. It was a terrifying creature. Azi was weak, he was worthless, he was discarded, he admitted all of this.
Frustration and self loathing built inside of him. His outlook was growing dimmer. He hated this dark excuse of a dream, why dream of this place when he knew he hated it?
Was this his punishment? Some kind of fault on his part? Who or what left him here?
"Shizu would have left me here.” He said, not even sure if he was making sense. “She’s a noble, she’s important. Me, I’m a mistake, I’m a commoner to her, nothing else. I wasn’t showing her proper etiquette, why was I so rude, what else could I have expected? She’d gloat about my suffering, my mistakes. Why do I always keep making mistakes, why do I always have to be alone? And, and, and Kajima!" Azi continued and he cupped his face into his hands.
"I’m taking advantage of him. I live in his house, I eat his food, I pester him with questions. He hates me. It's because of my attitude, my weird fascinations. Was I.. I.. too self centered?"
More and more, ramblings went on as a second voice kept yelling for him to stop. He paused to ruminate and both voices in his head finally went quiet. He sighed in exhaustion as the weight of his emotional turmoil slowly crushed him.
There were probably better times in his life, but this was all he had now. All this black. If this was it then Azi wouldn’t be idle, he needed to busy himself even if his mind was gone from insanity. He plucked a moment from thought, a shard, and tried to put more of its pieces together.
What else could he do now but try to remember his past, his shattered past.
Sounds and images flitted about in his head, the picture not right in the least but taking coherent shape. That was some form of comfort, knowing that the lying image had some truth in it.
As he got a clear grasp on a thought, a square image appeared in front of him. The light glowing off it filled the black space. Noticing, Azi looked down at his apparently illuminated hands. He really had hands here.
His eyes then settled on the picture, the details coming into focus. It had a visage of a much younger version of himself. He wore a long black robe, a strange black square topped hat, and had a roll of paper in his hand.
I know this. With his younger self there were people standing around him as they all faced forward with smiling and upbeat expressions. Still no eyes, only the lower part of their faces were clear enough to see.
"This must be my.. graduation from school? When was this?"
Nostalgia played across a smile on his lips. The image brightened in white shimmers on its edges.
"I think that's my certification in my hand. What was it in? I think it was .. Engineering? No, it was .. ah come on I can't remember."
Azi sighed in frustration, nonetheless he accepted the little nostalgia rising up in his heart, it was better than those other ruinous emotions. He tried again, redirecting his mind on another memory and forming it into a clear representation. This time though was different.
The black around him changed and warped. He could feel that he was moving and sweating. He was reliving the memory, in physical being. Magical. He marveled.
A whooshing sensation of his arms swinging at his sides was the first stimulation he had in a long whole. He was panting heavily. Azi wondered what he was doing and discovered that he was running. It was apparent by his attire. The sweat drenched short pants and a light blue gym shirt that was damp and sticky on his skin.
His legs pumped against the ground, building up speed and sweltering sores on his feets’ soles. The feeling of the heat on his skin was nice. This, this was what he did before, running was how he got his usual exercise.
He enjoyed it no matter how hot or cold it was. He would run around the city or a beach to be able to see the notable sights. Sometimes he would challenge himself and run to the next city nearby and then come back.
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Stupid, They had said. In the past he was told by his family and friends that he would never be able to do it, but after his first, second, and third successful attempts, all doubt from them had gone out the window.
But they aren’t here, this is only a dream, a fake recreation. So what’s the point?
No friends, No family, no names, only weird figures that were blurred. These were supposed to be people, it felt hollow and sad to look at them now. To look at the false representations of people he called family and friends.
"Friends?.. Huh?” Azi found a strong discomfort in that word. “I don't think I truly had any friends."
Another sigh escaped him, the scene changed and he was back in that black void of space. He hugged his knees to his chest and began to cry and whimper. He rambled again, trying to say anything to get him to remember or out of this place. No hope, No reason, Only desperation.
The urge to leave was what grew next as he spilled out every inherent ramble he had inside of that weird head of his.
"I want to go on an adventure, I want to wake up. I wanted a friend. I want a pet. I want a dog. Nice and fluffy. I want to see the sun. See the world. See.” Azi paused, gritted his teeth and then opened wide. “Everything!"
He yearned, he wished, he hoped, he screamed for it.
“I want to live!”
A second of silence filled the space after his bellowing words. Drops of water rolled down Azi’s cheeks. Before they would fall to the void, the silence turned to a shrill echo. Then a sound of a crack broke through the dull walls of wherever he was. The echoing words grew louder around him, they resounded in the surrounding space as if bouncing and multiplying in intensity.
The black space began to collapse in reaction. The air started to be riddled with glowing blue cracks that marked the spherical-like ball of black he was trapped in. It continued to spread with every creak and crack. Soon, everything crashed. The sound of his scream billowing and glass being broken rang out like church bells.
Am I going back? Will I remember? No.. I don’t want to. That’s why.. I..
Then.. there was nothing. His thought was unfinished.
***
Azi's eyes shot open as his shoulders jolted. He was awake. A soreness spread from the top of his head to the tips of his toes. The last rings of a violent sound in his ears had startled him back to consciousness and his vision was filled with the sight of an unfamiliar ceiling.
To his knowledge the waking sound could have been anything. A bell, or voice, or just a random made up echo in his head. His mind wandered away from that topic, finding the act of trying to recall being too bothersome. He instead wondered where he was and at least remembered the moments before he jumped in between Shizu and the Kengiri.
Good, so I don’t have amnesia a second time. I’m Azi and I’m in Shisayama, on a hunt with Shizu and Kajima, and I have amnesia. Yeah, Good, great, nothing bad at all. He sighed helplessly in his head. So, I’m on my back. And.. was sleeping?
If he was laying down then the fight with the Kengiri must have been resolved in some way and he was resting, though where he slept was uncomfortable. The ground was hard and something was clinging to him as if it was trying to bury him in a hot and stuffy blanket. This blanket is heavy, did we even bring this kind of blanket with us? And is this the camp? A.. tent?
He turned his head in an attempt to find anything familiar to get his bearings. There was little light to illuminate wherever he was. Only a small white sliver of light shining in through the flap of the tent. He turned to his right and a soft sensation enveloped his face.
That caught him off guard. He took a breath and let his eyes do their job. Something was next to him, it was big and coming closer. He was about to panic and began to move away. But before he could, what felt like a pair of arms pulled his head in closer, causing the soft sensation to press on his cheeks.
“Hmmm! HMMM!”
Azi attempted to speak but only a soft muffled sound was produced.
Turning his head up he saw Shizu's sleeping face. She was fast asleep next to him, or well, was using him as a pillow. How did this happen? Azi had no clue. Maybe she decided to use him as a body pillow or like a pet to cuddle at night. She did seem to treat him like that at times, calling him a pup and all.
That though was the least of his worry, his dignity as her elder in age was a side note to the apparent grip she had on his head and back. Azi thought she was enjoying and getting a kick out of using him like this, her persistent grip was clear enough proof, though he wouldn’t flatter himself that he made a good body pillow. It was demeaning.
He attempted to speak up again to get Shizu to wake up but no audible words escaped from the sheer enormous depths of Shizu's soft chest. She fidgeted as a result and mumbled in her sleep.
“Hmmm, just a few more minutes brother, let me sleep.. zzz.”
Azi vision filled with the color red from the fabric of Shizu's clothes pressing closer to his eyes. Any man would have wished for this but not in Azi’s case. What was of bigger notice besides the softness of her breasts was that Shizu had hugged him so tightly that he couldn’t breathe.
This was becoming a recurring theme.
His mouth and nose were buried in fabric, unable to take a breath, while his lungs and neck compressed. It was unlikely that a single breath could even get into him.
In a desperate attempt, Azi started flailing his arms around. The frantic pace as he did so scaled with the discomfort of his suffocation. It finally got Shizu's attention since it shook her around. Her eyes opened and noticed whatever she was holding was going limp.
Finally recognizing it to be Azi on the verge of passing out from a lack of oxygen, she blinked in disbelief. The color in Azi’s point of view was going from red to white as his eyes rolled up into the back of his head.
Shizu’s mouth slowly opened in an audible gasp.
"Y-you, you're alive!"
"Can't..... Br.ea....th...e. Going.. To Urk."
Managing with the last of his breath, Azi spoke as loud as he could for a chance to survive.
A blue color formed on Azi's cheeks and the concerned action of his eyes rolling further into the back of his head alarmed Shizu. She quickly released her grip on him in a panic. Using the chance, Azi deeply inhales some much-needed air into his lungs. It brought his vision back from white and he could now see again.
“Oh God! Oh God! Ugh! That was close.”
Coughing as he caught his next few breaths, Azi flopped onto his side. His eyes went to the right. Shizu was sitting up over him and she was looking down at him like a mother bird.
“You.. you’re really alright. This is real? Right?” She pulled Azi up, he grunted as a sore pain in his body flared all over.
“Ugh.. B-be careful. I don’t think I can stand, let alone sit up on my own. My legs feel like jelly and everything hurts.” He groaned but Shizu paid no attention to his distress, she was in a daze, likely thinking this was a dream. She got close, examining him as if he were an oddity.
“Can you.. Can you feel this?” She slapped him and while it was only a soft tap in her opinion, for Azi it stung. His skin burned hot.
“Ahhh! God, that mhmm.!” He doubled over and glared at Shizu. Mustering what little strength he had, he lunged his hands and pulled at her cheeks, tugging hard.
“What the heck! Why did you hit me!”
“Hmmm? Yer alive, really alive.. I’m not dreaming and yer.. Moving.” Azi found her reaction off from what he was expecting and she was talking like her father when he wasn’t in his formal King tone. She should be arguing back at him for how he was pinching her cheeks. He had questions for her, though he couldn’t ask since he was more irked by how she was unaffected by his fruitless pinching.
It was as if what he was doing was no more than a slight inconvenience. Without any prompting, Shizu moved a hand under his shirt. He shivered since they were cold and from how awkward this was. Why was she touching him so much?
The answer to that was in her eyes. They were red and there were some small tears in them. Then, the topic of the kengiri came up.
Azi frantically asked. “What happened with the Kengiri? Is Kajima alright?”
“C-calm down Azi, it’s dead, worry about yourself first.” Shizu said and then muttered under her breath. “You have a pulse and you’re.. Warmer than before. If this is a dream, then it feels so real.”
“What? A dream? And what do you mean calm down? What happened after I blacked out?”
“Y-You died. You’re supposed to be dead.” She said weakly.
“I what? But I’m alive right now.”
“I know, but.” Shizu almost looked as if she were going to burst into tears. “I’m just as confused as you are, I don’t even know if this is real, is this a miracle? It has to be. Right? Or.. a dream?” She choked up. This was the first time anyone had returned from the dead. Many times had she sat beside her comrades on their deathbed, eyes shut and their body stone still.
None of them ever woke up from their heavy injuries if they were far too gone, yet Azi did. She explained what had happened. The fight, Yashimu’s arrival, and how the practitioners had diagnosed him. Azi was astounded, and glad, that it all turned out alright thanks to Yashimu. But really, they thought he was dead?
Must have been one heck of injury I took.
Shizu asked him if he recalled anything after he got hit by the kengiri, but he shook his head, it was a blank space, a gap in his mind. For whatever time he was left in that unconscious state of his, he couldn't recall any sounds or any experience. He described it like a blank dream, and like with every dream, his time there was only fleeting, and only that, not truly real from his perspective.
It was as if he had only passed out or woke from a long nap.
“You’re really alive, you.. You didn’t die.. And you.. You protected me.. Me of all people.”
Shizu’s eyes fell to her hands in disbelief, she had them gripped together tight, still unsure of the reality of this event.
Azi gave her a teasing smile to help lighten the mood. He guessed she was either worried for him or blaming herself for some reason, she had that noble and righteous personality, Shizu seemed like the type.
"If you’re feeling sad you can hug me again if it helps? Only, don’t suffocate me, okay?"
“You-you.. You! Jerk!”
Shizu pouted at his nonchalant attitude. You could have died! Is what she wanted to yell, but instead of giving a retort she just moved to hug him as if he was her pillow. She picked him up from the mat and buried him in another one of her hugs, tearing up as she vented.
“Idiot! Idiot, you freaking weak little idiot. Don’t you dare take me lightly!”
“Ow! Ow! Ow! Do you have to be so rough?” Azi could help to complain as his injuries pressed with pain. “I’m kind of.. Well.. I don’t think I’m all recovered yet. And what is this? Why are you hugging me this much? This is starting to feel really weird with you crying.”
Confused if Shizu was either outraged or guilt ridden, Azi had no idea what to do with his hands. He was fine, he wasn’t dead and while the prospect of that was serious, maybe it was a false diagnosis on someone’s part in the field.
The medical knowledge of Kujyuri wasn’t omniscient in his opinion. He was actually expecting Shizu to initiate the usual routine of bickering that they had gotten used to getting into at each other's snide remarks. He did, however, find her worrying insults to be a good follow-up, albeit a bit too emotional and with too many tears.
“I’m fine Shizu, really, now stop hugging me like some cute animal, or do you want me to pet you. I’d prefer it if you let me touch your ears.”
Shizu began punching him in the gut for that teasing of his. “Fool! You’re saying that now! After all that! You can still quip! Give me back my worries!”
“Oof! Ah! Ouch! Okay! Okay, I’m sorry! Just stop hitting me. I’m already sore enough as it is.”
“Then be quiet!” She snapped. “Don’t say anything! And just, just let me cry!”
“Fine, alright, now calm down.” Azi said placatingly. Lending her his shoulder, Shizu took to him in a flash. The air in his lungs was pushed out as Shizu squeezed her arms around his back.
By the soreness flaring up all across his body, Azi knew he had suffered a lot of physical trauma. Luckily, nothing was broken, yet that was. Shizu might break a bone if she held him too tight. He saw how strong she was and knew what one of her punches felt like. He’d shatter if she got serious enough.
Still, this exchange caused a warm butterfly to flutter in his heart. The apparent cold of what was likely the night air was warded away by Shizu’s hug. The warmth that chased away the chill was different from the ones he could remember.
It wasn’t warm like the sun, more like an old emotion and it came from an old vague glint of memory that seemed to be in too many pieces to remember.
As hazy as the memory was, the emotions at least came through. Joyful and full of glee.
It made Azi happy and it calmed him as he truly believed that he may be growing close with Shizu as a friend. Perhaps she would treat him better for what he did for her, but shook that notion away. It wasn’t like I did it for her thanks, it was.. Was.. well.. the right thing to do.
Shizu let go of him for a second to pat him down. Azi cupped her face, pressing on it to make her frown turn upside down. Her brows went angry and her eyes sharpened. She slapped his hands away and returned to hugging him.
Azi shrugged and nestled closer to her as they turned in for the night. Grabbing with a hand, he pulled and covered them both in a fur blanket, Shizu’s tears were getting on him but he kept his words on that topic out of his mouth.
She was definitely giving him some mixed signals though. She went from frowning to smiling to sobbing and then repeating that as she looked at him. He knew it was impossible that Shizu actually felt that way about him.
No, her actions.. they were her attempt to look out for him. Exactly like how she promised before they set out for the forest. Azi thanked her in his heart and brought his face close to her chest. If she was going to let him feel how soft her breasts were then he wasn’t going to pass off the chance.
The heat coming off of her was better than the fur blanket and he could hear her heartbeat as it pounded along with his own. They seemingly pulsed in a rhythmic synchronism. Both of them seemed to relax in each other’s arms and teetered back into a realm of sleep.
Shizu was long asleep by now, no doubt that she was still exhausted from the fight with the Kengiri. Azi soon followed, the lullaby of Shizu’s heartbeat serenading him like a lullaby.
He dreamed, this time though, it was different. It was.. An actual dream, a dream he’d think he would at least remember in the future.
***
Unbeknownst to the pair, at one point in their sleep, a glow emitted from a point on both Shizu's and Azi's hearts. Shizu's glowed orange-red and Azi's was a blue-ish white. The veins on Azi's arms began to brighten in blue and soon extended to his fingertips.
The blue glow then formed a line that extended from his fingertip and traveled into Shizu's back. In a sense, a connection was forming, yet the two had no idea of what was transpiring.
Asleep, a soft pressure creeped into Shizu which made all her muscles relax as the blue glowing line moved and connected to where the orange-red glowing outline of Shizu's heart was. As soon as the blue line touched the orange-red glow, a small spark of orange-red traveled from Shizu and up the blue line back into Azi's heart.
Azi’s veins pulsed blue and then Shizu’s pulsed in her own color. The interior of the tent was a lit of a second but it was too fast for anyone to notice. The glowing pulses stopped after a few seconds and everything in the tent went back to normal.
All that was left happening inside of the tent was the sight of two people sharing a nap together. Shizu unconsciously affectionately hugged Azi in her arms. He returned the affection with an unconscious hug of his own. The two’s close embrace was as if they were animals huddling from the cold, their soft snores and breaths filled the tent's interior.