"Ughh—" Aqua groaned as he forced his eyes open. It was hard; they were stuck together like after a good night's rest. When he finally managed to force them open, it stayed dark. No matter how dearly he needed to see, the world remained plunged in darkness. If it wouldn't have been for the too-familiar cold hardwood floor that pressed against the side of his skull, as well as the faint smell of burnt wax in the air, he wouldn't even have known if he was still inside the same room. It wouldn't have been the first or even second time that evening that his mind was kidnapped against his will. This time was different though. There was nothing that bent reality, and there was nothing that pulled his attention either; it was just silent.
His clothes rustled all around him as he pushed himself up, or rather rolled around on the floor, trying to find anything to hold onto for support. "W-What happened?" he groaned quietly as he finally found a wall he could use for leverage. It wasn't easy, but eventually he stood. The moon, which was shining through the window earlier, had long since moved on, and the streetlamp, which was roughly fifty meters away, didn't help it either. You couldn't even see the window, much less differentiate the outside world from inside.
Aqua began to feel his way along the uneven walls of the room when, 'damn!' He thought in the split second his foot was interrupted mid-step by something lying in his way. Reaction or reflex — it didn't matter; before his face could meet the invisible floor once more, he managed to find a wall and break his fall. "What is-" he mumbled but quickly held the breath in his lungs as he bowed down to inspect what made him trip.
"Akane," he stammered as the memories of what happened right before he had lost consciousness flooded back, urgency in his voice as he felt the tips of his fingers glide over her cold skin. "Please be alright. I can't lose you," he whispered. His own heartbeat spiked, sending shocks through his body that made it really hard to assess the situation as he, just like before, pressed two fingers against Akane's throat. "I promise you, I will give you everything I can, just please don't do this to me," he begged as his other hand fumbled over his own face in distress. Then he felt it; after a few agonizing seconds he felt it. It wasn't much, almost nothing, to be honest, but it was unmistakable.
"Akane," he gasped, a few particles of spit flying out of his mouth, as he blindly pushed a strand of her hair out of her face. His own face felt like it was on fire as he could only guess how Akane's looked. "T-Thank you... Thank you so much... I swear I'll do everything I can to make everything right," he panted, looking up to the ceiling, almost like he was praying to some deity that had heard his call for help. However, this wasn't it, Aqua had done all of this himself. There was nobody he had to thank.
"It will all be okay from now on," he whispered into Akane's ear. He engulfed her in a semi-warm hug. it was almost too gentle. If it would've gone the way he wanted, he would've squeezed her so tight that their bodies merged into one, but her heartbeat was too weak and her breathing too shallow to take any risks. "You have done it, Akane... You can be proud of yourself," he mumbled, gently rocking left and right with Akane's unconscious body.
Aqua slowly reached beneath her shirt, feeling himself up and down her stomach a good few times before he was certain of it: the deep gushing wound that was there just earlier was gone without even leaving behind a scratch.
He pulled his hand back and away from her flawless skin and wrapped it back around her as he pressed his body into hers once more. "Let me warm you up a bit. I hope you don't have a problem with this."
Aqua pressed his face into the crook of her neck as his heart rate dropped below 120 for what was probably the first time in hours. He took a long whiff of her glistening skin and the few loose hairs that stuck to it. It made him feel like a major creep. It might've been for the fact that she was unconscious, or if not, because he didn't even know if she still liked him after what he had done.
Yet, he pushed that weird feeling to the back of his mind as he exhaled again. She should've probably smelled like blood, the decaying wood, or the penetrant veil of incense smoke that had seeped into the entire house and was now looming everywhere like a dark cloud, but it was nothing of that. She smelled like pure bliss to Aqua. Even now the faint scent of her cologne hadn't disappeared.
He, on the other hand, must've been a walking contrast to this. Not showering for a few days would've been bad enough in itself, but also running around, being soaked in blood multiple times, as well as various other dirt couldn't have made him smell better than the average homeless person — Scratch that, he was definitely even homeless among the homeless.
After he had smelled her enough, he placed the side of his head against her torso for a good while. Each of her slow heartbeats flustered him and sent an unexplainable wave of emotions through him. Beyond anything, said heartbeats were soothing like nothing else; as long as they were there, she was too.
Akane is still really cold. I don't even have a jacket for her since I just had to give mine away to that cafe worker…
You have to stay strong, Akane. I can't have you dying on me again, since this time would probably be final.
What am I thinking? I know you're strong enough to win against a little cold.
This feels really good… Her heartbeat… thump, thump, thump… I wanna stay like this forever…
I really hope she doesn't mind me being this close to her…
Akane is smart; she would understand that I'm only doing this to keep her warm…
Aqua gently rubbed the side of his head against her collarbone, like a cat rubbing its head against its owner.
Yeah… That's right… Akane is smart, so she'd definitely see my ulterior motives.
This is probably really selfish of me. What if she actually needs medical attention?
Just a little while longer…
The time I spent with her in a relationship would've definitely also been a sufficient sacrifice…
Maybe I could…
Aqua pulled slightly back, his expression really serious all of a sudden, as he looked right where he believed Akane's closed eyelids to be. "You have done so much for me, Akane. You even found out about Gorou Amamiya. Come to think of it, you are probably a bit insane…" Aqua smiled faintly. "Rich coming from a guy that killed his own dad, I know."
"Anyway," Aqua grabbed Akane's limp shoulder as he spoke, "From now on, I will be the one who keeps an eye out for you… Or I'll at least try my best…" He shook his head. "No… That isn't it. Let's support each other as best as we can. I know, I'm a bit greedy that I'm still asking for more after you did all that, but how does it sound?"
"That sounds fantastic," a voice, coming from right behind Aqua, said. He didn't turn, though; that voice could only belong to a single person on this earth.
"Long time no see, Tsukuyomi," Aqua smiled, completely unbothered by her sudden appearance.
"A long time is relative. It was just six months that had passed ever since we last spoke," Tsukuyomi argued as she stepped closer to Aqua.
"What's a long time is different for each person individually. My entire life was nothing more than a short while for you, probably... Anyway, what happened to him. What happened to Tera?"
"He is defeated. He even had to pull back the curse he put on me," Tsukuyomi said as she stopped right next to Aqua, pulling a bright candle out of nothing more than the thin air around her.
"This means he is still out there…" Aqua sighed with a hint of worry in his voice.
"Tera cannot die, at least not like you can." Tsukuyomi knelt right next to Aqua.
"So he will just keep finding new subjects for his torment for as long as time wears on?" Aqua asked.
Tsukuyomi gazed down at the floor. "I suppose that's right. Tera, or rather Amaterasu, came into existence through pain. You probably thought that the likes of me and him just always existed, but that assumption would be incorrect. Tera was brought into existence through some ancient, even for my sense of time, event that conjured more pain in humanity than any other event that ever took place.
"It is the same for Susanoo and me. Something wiped humanity's memories about 5000 years ago. Due to that, Susanoo was born, the one who observes and keeps track. As for me, I was brought into existence about 1500 years ago, when a human deceived millions into following him."
"But then why is he gone now? I definitely didn't just eradicate the concept of pain… Did I?"
Tsukuyomi grinned. "No, but the thing you sacrificed for Akane's life was the trigger for your dread…" Tsukuyomi explained without looking into Aqua's eyes. Their shine was just far too bright for her to bear.
"So what you're saying is my sacrifice made him lose his grasp?" Aqua made a small pause, then spoke again. "What even is it I sacrificed?"
Tsukuyomi deliberately shook her head. "I won't tell you. You might find it out on your own someday, but definitely not through me."
"But-" Aqua wanted to argue but was just as quickly interrupted by Tsukuyomi again.
"Last time when you went against what I thought was good for you, you almost lost your soul and turned into a Shura," Tsukuyomi said, her voice far stronger than Aqua's; it was hard to believe it belonged to such a petite girl.
Aqua turned his head again, looking back at Akane, whose face was slightly illuminated by the candlelight. She had a big goofy smile plastered across it as she was unknowingly snuggled up against Aqua's arm, her face slowly regaining color as her blood properly circulated through it. "You're right, I don't feel bad right now, so risking turning sad for the potential of a bit more knowledge would be irrational…"
"You finally see it." Tsukuyomi stood back up, allowing her candle to continue burning down next to Aqua.
"What is it I am seeing?" Aqua asked casually while standing up again, gently cradling Akane in his arms. This time around he could lift her with ease, completely unlike earlier, when it felt like she weighed a ton.
"Irrelevant," Tsukuyomi said as Aqua was already halfway out of the door. "It is just important that you see it."
"I hope we meet again some day, Tsukuyomi, but I have to get her to a hospital now, just to be safe," Aqua explained before shutting the door behind him, leaving Tsukuyomi standing in the dimly lit room.
She walked up to the window of the room and placed her left hand on the glass right as Aqua left through the front door, his sight straight ahead. "Today, Aqua, you haven't only sacrificed what you believed was the most important to you to save the world… No, you have also shown me something completely different."
Tsukuyomi continued to look after Aqua, who turned smaller and smaller the further he walked down the long road. "Today, for the first time, you have looked ahead for yourself. You didn't ask yourself how you could be the best for the people around you, but how you could become the happiest you've ever been."
…
Aqua held Akane's limp body in his arms, pillowing her with the utter care one would hold a newborn baby with, as he walked down the road. The barely noticeable clouds of vapor that formed in front of Akane's mouth as she shallowly breathed in and out filled Aqua's legs with enough vigor to walk all the way to Osaka and back.
She worked so hard for all of her life. Dying now, before she gets her harvest from it, is completely out of question.
I almost killed her the same way Kamiki wanted to kill Ruby out of love…
Maybe I am not so different from him.
He is my father after all, so me having some of his traits would be realistic.
Aqua shook his head as he saw Akane's chest quickly rising, just to slowly sink in a moment later. "No, that wasn't me; it was Tera… And even if it would have been me. In the end, I have decided to save her. Maybe there is still hope for me after all."
…
Aqua continued to walk with Akane; he had no clue where he or the nearest hospital was; all he knew was that as long as he felt her heart beat, it was all okay. His head snapped up as he heard the quiet sound of footsteps in the distance. He was barely able to make out any details of the person at first, but the closer he got, the clearer it became.
He froze as he realized the person slowly approaching him, looking exhausted and beat up, was Ruby. Her hair was disheveled from the strong wind. Her corpse-like eyes, which looked like they were about to fall out of their sockets, turned big as she, too, finally recognized Aqua. Her slightly curved back turned straight again as she stopped just like him, about 15 meters away from the reunion.
Both just stared at each other for a good while before they hesitantly raised a foot, unsure if they really wanted this. Before they could decide on it, though, the night sky was filled with dozens of beautiful shooting stars flying by.
Neither Aqua nor Ruby had ever seen something in nature that was this gorgeous in their combined four lifespans, and I am positive that they never again will, either. The moon, which was usually the most exciting thing they saw in Tokyo due to all the light pollution, wasn't even that dim today, but the sheer amount of stars shooting by let it pale in comparison.
It looked like the kind of sky one could lose themself for hours in while just exploring all the different colored stars overhead. But even when you ignored the meteors that passed by them, the sky was still beautiful in itself. Nobody really knew why, but that day, the light from Earth didn't seem to disturb it even a single bit. It looked like it wanted to perform a light show just because it could.
Galaxies — there wasn't really another word to describe them — hid behind the shower of rocks. They looked so far away; light would've probably needed decades to reach them. So all that one saw that day were their past selves, but that was more than enough. Some were tainted red, while others were engulfed by a violet aura. The stars within them were mostly swallowed, but many were massive enough that thousands, if not millions, still remained painted.
Even the aurora borealis drew itself across the night sky. This was an event that only occurred so often in Japan and never even once in Tokyo. This would surely have catastrophic consequences, yet nobody cared about them right at this moment. Right now, every head was tilted upwards, looking at the painted sky, green like the grass under their feet, Aquamarine like the water in the lagoons far away, and pigeon blood red like the ripe pomegranate arils that originated in a distant country.
Then, seemingly out of nowhere, a shooting star so massive it made the ground shake — though this could've been a well-timed earthquake — passed by. I believe that everyone has, at least once, back when they were a child, heard about the story that when you wish for something when a shooting star passes by, it will come true.
Obviously, it had never been proven that a shooting star could actually improve one's luck when it came to that. But one thing could be said with 100% certainty. Humans will always strive and prosper to achieve their goals, and even if the shooting star is just a reminder of said goals, as long as it helps, the magic behind it is real.
Aqua as well as Ruby also had their wishes. I mean, who wouldn't wish for something when they had a once-in-a-millennium star pass over their head?
The old Aqua would've wished for Ruby's safety; perhaps he would've even been thoughtful enough to include Kana and Akane in this wish.
The old Ruby, on the other hand, would've wished for her dream to perform at the dome to finally come true, or later on for Kamiki to die a painful death — though she would've probably gotten nervous and wished for a sandwich instead.
Times have changed, and both harbored new wishes, new ambitions, and new goals. And while their old goals hadn't died, as a matter of fact, they were more alive than ever before; they both reevaluated their mindsets that night. They found out that these wishes would lead to nothing; they wouldn't bring them the joy they searched for.
You might ask yourself now, "but what were their wishes?" I can say that their wishes were similar in many ways. It wasn't the exact same one, obviously, but the belief that twins can be psychic with each other might not have just been another random old wives' tale after all.
Other than that, I can't say any more about their wishes, since:
If you speak the wish out loud, it won't come true.
-End of Part 2-