11th of January, 10:20 pm, Aqua's hideout
That might be my chance. Aqua thought as he caught himself while barreling through the air. His knife, which he was by now sure he had lost, reappeared in his hands. His eyes focused on Tera's torso while his ears drowned out every single noise. It was so silent he thought he could even hear Tera's heartbeat, though this could've very well just been his own.
His fingers clenched so hard that he was already beyond the point where he still felt pain or anything for that matter, his sheer hatred far exceeding what he felt in that forest with Kamiki. But the thing that was more prominent than anything else was his resolve; it filled him with a strange sense of tranquillity that numbed every other sensation.
He just closed his eyes. There wasn't anything he could've done now that he already flew anyway, so he just let gravity and velocity do their job. "Argh," he yelped a moment later as he first heard a thud and then felt a sharp stinging in his right torso. When he opened his eyes again, the knife that he hoped would now be stuck inside Tera's heart loomed dangerously close to his own.
Tera turned, unnecessarily slow, and glared down at Aqua, his facial expression dark. "Aquamarine… You are a fool at last. All this time in which you were the only person that could see me, you never once thought that I might not be there at all?" Tera said. His long robe gave off a coldness that chilled Aqua to his core, freezing him just like the time they had first met. "In reality, Aqua, I too am little more than a mere illusion in your mind… But that is of none of your concern now… All of this will be over soo-" Tera halted as he looked down at Aqua more closely. His eyes were sparkling blue, filled with passion. "Why aren't you Shura?" He asked, his voice just a bit more than a mere whisper.
"Impossible," Tera muttered as he looked at the floorboards. He remained still for a moment before his gaze darted up again, staring deep into Aqua's eyes while kneeling right in front of him. "It doesn't matter. This is nothing we can't fix," he added as a wicked smile crossed his distorting face.
"Ai died because you were too weak to stop it." It was really peculiar. One would think that Tera's voice would've sounded cruel to mirror his words, but it was kind, empathic even. "She was truly happy for the first time in her life, but your greed had to ruin it."
"Your other mother... She was also more or less happy..." Tera recounted the events of Gorou's birth exactly how they happened. "That's right... I've been watching you all your life... Your birth was what killed her. You murdered your mother... twice."
"You haven't failed me; on the contrary... I am the proudest I've ever been… I will always be there for you… I want you to live your life to the fullest… I've missed you so much, Aqua…" Aqua swore he could hear someone else's voice in between Tera's breaks.
"Your father, Hikaru Kamiki, you murdered him in cold blood… He was no good man, but he was no more than a victim of the industry either," Tera said.
"The cut on your friend's face could've been prevented if it wasn't for your pride in that moment… If you would've just let Kamiki hold his monologue, then she wouldn't need to hate herself now... Her life would've been so much easier altogether if it hadn't been for your egotistic greed."
"Just think of how devastated Ruby would be… Or Kana, you are the most important person for her too… Think about Miyako; she treated you like her own child, and you want to abandon her just like that?... Did you ever call her 'mom'?... Even if you continue to reject my feelings, I will be forever grateful for what you've done for me… no… I will forever love you." Aqua heard another voice in between Tera's breaks.
"Your sister was almost raped because of your obsession over her and your mother…" Tera's voice should've made Aqua's skin crawl, but right now Aqua was not much more than an unmoving shell of a human being.
"Your friend here will die a horrible and lonely death while her parents are worrying about her because of your temper…" Tera signaled over to Akane's body. She looked even worse than Aqua did. Her torso was soaked in blood, which had begun to pool under her, while her eyes looked right past Aqua.
"108 times, I called you 108 times… I stayed up all night worrying about you… Please, don't come. I can take this. He would just kill you." But then again, another voice rang through Aqua's mind.
"You are the reason Sarina Tendouji died, too. In all the time you spent on this earth, you couldn't save anyone."
"All of this is your fault. Everybody would be happier if you were never born to begin with, so just do all of them a favor and finally die, turn to a Shura, and let me have your body!" Tera commanded Aqua.
A single tear rolled down Aqua's cheek as he was once more confronted by the full force of his failure. Tera was wrong; he knew it. He was so certain of it, but was he really? Everywhere Aqua went, death and dread followed close behind. No matter if it was about the times people were hurt because of his inability to make a difference — like Gorou's mother or Sarina Tendouji — or the times when he did make a difference, but for the worse — like with Kana's face or Akane's current predicament — It all led back to him. If you would've just taken him out of the equation, none of it would've ever happened. However, does any of this truly matter?
"Aqua… I want you to be happy."
These were her words... Ai's... They weren't empty words of someone that didn't care about him like Tera's; they were genuine, the absolute truth, and they made him see something he should've seen long ago.
Akane once told him that no matter how often he'd come short, if his heart remained in the right place, then it would all be alright. He quickly dismissed this as something she said in the heat of the moment to sway his mind, but he never forgot her words, and now he finally understood what it meant for his heart to be in the right place.
Akane didn't utter these words for his sake or in the heat of the moment; she did for everybody else's. The people he hurt stayed with him not out of obligation, but out of their own free will. They saw something Aqua himself never saw: the truth. Aqua never hurt them willingly, and when he did accidentally, then he was the one to carry the heaviest burden.
But if he would give up now, then he would for the first time willingly hurt the people around him, and without ever getting the chance to repent and make things right at that. This was it — what she meant when she said his heart was always in the right place, something Aqua simply couldn't accept now that he once knew it; thus, he rose.
He used all his remaining strength and willpower to pry himself off the ground, groaning in pain, while ignoring Tera's barrage of insults and attempts at making him fall again. He walked right through Tera, like he was nothing more than a big dark cloud of smoke, not even worth breathing the same air as he did.
His eyes were fixated on Akane. To be specific, the piece of paper she clutched onto so tightly the entire time. As he passed through his bloody ritual circle, where the blown-out incense still stood in a perfect circle with its scent lingering in the air around him, he read the words 'Ai Hoshino.' A strong reminder of his past failures and fears, but even more so of his love and admiration.
"What are you doing, you fool? Where are you going?" Tera screeched at him from across the room; yet, he didn't even turn around.
"Akane." He knelt down next to her as his shaky hands moved to her throat. He slowly placed his hand on her jugular vein. For every moment that went by, his heart ached more; her pulse was gone. No matter how he tried to put it, it wasn't there anymore. His face turned stone-cold as the back of his index finger went over her rapidly cooling cheeks; the bit of makeup she wore was smeared all over them as she couldn't hold back the tears in her last moments on this earth.
'She cried in her last moments...' Aqua thought. But that fact in itself was only the tip of the iceberg for him. For that, he knew the reason she cried wasn't for herself, but for his fate once she was gone; that was the real breaking point that made his gloomy mind almost forget the revelation he came to just moments prior.
Aqua believed that Ai's hug just earlier would be the most vivid sensation he would ever feel, but he was wrong, so, so wrong. The sudden pain in his heart overshadowed it all; it wasn't just mind-numbing, it was enough to turn a sane man brain dead in an instant. Even his ribs, which by now he was sure were broken, seemed like nothing more than a faint poking, too distant to care. He wanted to scream out and once again blame himself like he always did in such situations, but he couldn't. Blaming himself was his way of coping for as long as he remembered; this time though, he didn't deserve any relief. He just lowered his head and squinted his eyes so hard it hurt.
"I don't get it..." he mumbled as he leaned with his forehead against the wall next to where Akane leaned against. "I don't get it. I don't get it. I don't get it," he mumbled over and over again. However, as he knelt there, wanting to repeat these 4 words until he either drowned in sorrow or died of thirst, he remembered that even after the darkest of nights the sun will rise again.
Thus, he opened his eyes to do exactly that; they cast away the everlasting darkness and let the light in once more. They were once more filled with unwavering resolve as he gently took Akane's limp hand into his own and carefully pried her fingers open. In her balled-up hand was a small piece of paper. Where most people would've probably used both hands to try and stop their bleeding, she had chosen to protect the piece of paper instead. Keeping it concealed tightly within her hand so not a single droplet of her precious blood could ooze onto it.
Aqua quickly opened it using his right hand while continuing to tightly hold Akane's hand with his left. It was a cut-out of the book Tsukuyomi had given her, though 'cut-out' was probably too nice. She had forcefully torn half of the page out and crumpled it up till it was almost beyond the point of recognition. Even in such a messed-up state, he knew Akane cared for it deeply, though.
On it was written the actual ritual Tera had referenced. It was a ritual to keep souls that hadn't fully left the realm of the living yet at bay. It wasn't definite proof; there was still the possibility of another ritual that could bring Ai back, but he didn't need the definite proof anymore. At this point he would've taken Akane's word for it without even doubting her for a second. Ai was gone, dead and buried, never to walk on this earth again.
The hand Aqua had wrapped around Akane's tightened while the other one failed, sending the piece of paper down into the still-wet puddle of blood that had formed beneath him, slowly sinking beneath its surface. "I wish I had been just half as smart as you are…" he murmured.
Aqua slowly removed her thick coat and pulled her shirt up enough to expose her stomach. He spotted the stab wound, which had stopped bleeding by now, rather quickly since it was really hard to miss. It was right atop her liver. Aqua yelped in mental torment as the medical knowledge of his past life gently whispered into his ear that her death was slow and most likely agonizing as well.
Tera, who had been silently observing from behind Aqua, spoke, "You are pathetic. I hope you know that. Why don't you finally just give in to the pain? What is left for you to live for?"
Aqua whipped around. His eyes, which added much to Tera's pleasure, started to turn gray once more. "You did this, not me!"
Tera laughed loudly. "You know that you were the one who did it. You just want to find a scapegoat for your sins."
Aqua stood up after gently making sure that Akane's body wouldn't fall over all of a sudden. "No, you did this. You also stole my body when Ruby was attacked, didn't you?"
"Well, maybe I did…" A wide smirk formed on Tera's face. "It is over for you; you are as good as dead. Maybe you'll see your friend again, though… No… I'm just lying… if your soul and your body are separated, you don't go into the afterlife; it's just going to turn dark for you forever."
Tera had honestly expected for Aqua to attack him again; however, what he actually did was even better. Much to his amusement, Aqua bowed down in front of Akane and began to lift her. His malnourished and sleep-deprived body caught up to him as he could barely bring her up, but he fought through it until he finally lifted her off the ground.
"Don't fight it, boy," Tera frowned as he followed Aqua into the hallway. To his surprise, Aqua didn't head out of the front door with her; instead, he slowly and carefully placed her down in another empty room of the house. He silently pulled his bloody yet glittering knife out of the waistband of his pants. Then he slowly raised it until its tip aimed right at Tera's heart.
"You know that this won't work, so how about you quit playing around?" Tera said, by now slightly annoyed by Aqua's resilience.
Aqua, who looked like a walking corpse a moment ago, had all of a sudden a smug expression on his face as he raised both of his hands high above his head. He closed his eyes and wrapped his left hand around the blade of the knife, tight enough to draw blood. One pull and the room was pierced by the disgustingly wet sound of flesh being cut, followed by the sound of blood trickling, at first onto Aqua's head, then onto the ground.
Aqua gasped and growled in pain as he began to write Akane's name onto the floor with his own blood, splinters from the old wood digging deep into his flesh. He only stopped once his palm was drained of blood, setting another cut somewhere else before continuing.
"You fool, stop this right now. If you die of blood loss, then I can't inhabit your body!" Tera shouted at Aqua in a blind fit of rage. Yet, Aqua didn't even notice him; he was fully determined to finish this.
After a few agonizing minutes, it was done. Aqua, who was feeling more than a bit light-headed by now, turned back to the living room to grab the incense and his lighter off the floor, all while Tera followed after him, not keeping quiet for even a single second. Miraculously, though, Tera didn't touch him even once.
Aqua carefully placed everything down around Akane's name, making sure that everything was perfect before heading over to Akane and gently pulling the brooch he had gifted her two weeks into their relationship out of her hair. "This should work as the item, and when this is done I can just buy her a new one," he murmured before heading back into his circle, ready to try and defy fate.
"So, great job, Aqua." Tera said mockingly, "Let me remind you what was written on that page, just in case you already forgot. For this ritual to work, you will need to sacrifice something of equal value." Tera laughed as he mentioned the one thing Aqua had overlooked. "I don't even think your own life would be sufficient."
Aqua turned as pale as a ghost as Tera's words penetrated his mind. He completely forgot about this part. He had only now realized that there was nothing he had left to give.