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After reaching the Twi-LIGHT building, numerous bad memories hovering around my consciousness as I headed up to my room, I felt like I was ready for bed again. When I exited the stairwell, I saw Kairi sitting in front of my door, asleep.
I bent down in front of her to pick her up and she stirred muttering,
“I had a bad dream and I wanted to sleep with you but you weren’t here…”
I picked her up saying,
“Sorry about that. I was tending to some business.”
“Were you with Anan?” She asked, still half-asleep.
“Hell no.” I answered automatically before cursing at myself silent for cursing in front of Kairi so much…if I kept it up she’d be cursing like a sailor by the time she was ten.
You were cursing like a sailor when you were ten.
Yeah, but I’m trying not to be the world’s worst example for a child though.
I sat down and she snuggled under the covers with her plushie cat as I removed my belt and boots, shoving my boots under my bed as I took them off so I didn’t intoxicate myself. They smelled like sweat and mold…a common thing for shoes that get wet regularly.
She snuggled up beside me and I heard her mutter something that sounded like “mommy” and I was in a total “WTF?” state of mind as I nodded off. I wasn’t sure I dreamed it or not, but hovering a semi-conscious state I heard a motorcycle speeding away from the Twi-LIGHT building.
When I woke up, it was in a similar manner as I did for the early-morning rendezvous with Niketa, for I was cursing as I reached for my damn cell phone again.
“Moshi-moshi?”
“Akhy, when can you be at my office?” Maaya asked urgently.
“Matters if there are going to be other humans there and I have to shower.”
“You can shower after I tell you this; best I don’t say it over the phone. Twi-LIGHT has been trying to hack the Exodus satellites since we started the invasion.”
“Gotcha.” I grumbled and sat up slowly so I didn’t wake Kairi. I pulled on my foul-smelling boots inwardly thinking that I should wear socks, and pulled my belt on with my katana.
I reached Maaya’s office in fifteen minutes, and I was glad to see it was only her and Katsu there.
“Anan’s gone.” Maaya said the second the door closed behind me. “So is Lena. We think they’re heading to Kyvia, but we don’t know.”
“Do you have any idea why they’d go?” Katsu asked after she finished.
Damn…how did he fall for it Niketa was right…But, what could she of said to convince him? He said he wanted to go to the Spherical Line and Niveldon with me even after Lena was resurrected…What on earth could she of told him?
“If you did ever see him again though, would you kill him?”
“I don’t know what I’d do if I ever say him again. A few years ago I would definitely have killed him, but I don’t really know now. I’d lump him up pretty bad, but I don’t know if I’d kill him.”
“Zeev.” I said. “Lena told him Zeev was still alive, I’m sure of it.”
You might of killed him then…but now you would.
“Zeev Rozarera?” Katsu asked, “The general of the Special Agents?”
“General? He’s a Special Agent?”
“The best of them all, supposedly. I don’t really know though.” Katsu replied. “That’s only information from a Twi-LIGHT soldier prisoner, so it could easily be wrong.”
“How is he connected to Zeev though?” Maaya asked.
“They’re half-brothers.”
“So why did he kill Lena if they’re brothers?” Maaya asked, sounding perplexed.
“Not all brothers get along like yours do, Maaya. They’re only half-brother too.”
“Why does Twi-LIGHT want Anan, anyway? Surely they’d try luring you there to be ambushed rather than him.”
She doesn’t see, does she? That Trenxi just does all this so I give up?
After a long hot shower, I got dressed. I heard Kairi jumping on the bed and talking to Yuna. I listened for a moment, and heard something about “how exasperation couples were” before I left her to talking to her plushie. I pulled on a pair of jeans, no-sleeved orange shirt and a loose mid-sleeved, button-up, collared, and red-ish maroon shirt over it. I left it un-buttoned though, as more of a jacket kind of thing. I sprayed my boots with Lysol again, and slid the Odor Eaters I’d bought into them hoping that’d reduce the small. I was a good gremlin for a change too; I remember to put socks on. I looked at my reflection in the mirror, and pondered cutting my hair since it was even with my shoulders, but decided against it as I rinsed with orange Listerine.
“My mommy never let me jump on the beds. She said it ruined the springs.” Kairi said as I entered the room. I smiled saying,
“Well, since wherever we stay it’s only for a little while, you wearing out the springs isn’t that big a deal. Also, a few guns and ammo equal the price for a mattress. Your mother, although never had to worry about money, was annoyingly obsessed with conserving things. Even though she never hesitated to spend a few thousand on dresses…” I added as I sat down at the desk that was beside the bed, to the left. The room was rectangular but extremely long, with a small kitchenette straight ahead upon entering, bathroom before the kitchenette, dresser and flat screen HDTV to the left, along with bed, nightstand, desk, and sofa to the right. The room was probably twenty feet wide, so there were no tight squeezes and the colors were mainly wood-tone and blues, but I didn’t really like it all the same. Kairi had showered in the time I’d been talking with Maaya and Katsu and she flopped down on the bed, pulled her shoes on, and picked up Yuna and jogged to the door saying,
“I’ve got a surprise for you!”
I was surprised too, and idly wondered what she was up to. Apparently, her surprise wasn’t far away since she left the door open and I heard her jogging down the hall. I opened up the control panel on my PC, and left the Disk Defragmenter to it. She came jogging in with a large clear glass vase of lilies and put it down on the nightstand saying brightly,
“One of the Exodus ladies tending to the garden gave this to me. I don’t know if you like lilies, but there’s a lot of them around Nioglow.”
They were Akiko’s favorites…I though, but kept to myself as I looked at the Star-Gazer lilies. They were blue and white ones and red and white ones. Some of them had the red in the center and melted into white, the others had white in the center and melted into red. Same kind of thing for the blues ones. I smiled saying,
“Thanks, Kairi!”
“Now are you going to cheer up and stop arguing with Anan?”
“Wait a second, how did you know we were arguing again?”
“You get in a foul mood and get rather violent and he’s extra anti-social when you’re fighting.” She said and hoisted herself up to sit on my lap. “I’m good at noticing symptoms of irritable couples, my mommy cried a lot when her and daddy fought. Daddy just stayed in the underground working all the time. My mommy once told me that someday that we’d get away someday, she didn’t say it but I knew it was because daddy didn’t love her.” She looked up at me asking with no clear emotion in her eyes, “That’s not going to happen, is it? Does mommy really have to die to help save the world?”
I hugged her, debating with myself if I should tell the truth. Once again, if I lied it’d hurt her. But if I told the truth, and told her that both Akiko and me had to die, would that be worse?
“Yes.” I replied. “She does.”
Kairi nodded and started crying silently.
I think I know what you mean now, Skyevi. That more time with people means that when you have to say goodbye, it’s just more painful. But, doesn’t that also mean Anan’s better off forgetting all about me? Even if he ended up as one of Trenxi’s dogs…if he could be content with Lena and no memory of me, wouldn’t that be better than making him suffer by losing me? He said himself before he knew me and I was only a name in a government, he hardly cared my parents were assassinated…wouldn’t it be so much better this way?
Later that day, I found myself wondering again and ended up at the graveyard. This time, I passed my parents’ graves and my own, and sat down by the lake side (with no perverted cherry blossoms this time). I leaned back an scrawled out on the grass, idly debating with myself what I wanted to do.
I could fairly easily infiltrate Twi-LIGHT, find Cloud, and try getting him to remember me…if I head out now, I could probably get there by dusk. Of course, I couldn’t tell Maaya or anybody. But…I still don’t know if that’s the “right” thing to do.
“Damn…” I muttered absent-mindedly. “I guess Lena was kinda right when she said the decisions I make that involve lives, the fate of those lives hardly ever affects me…”
I wonder if all generals feel like that…or simply think of their soldiers as weaponry so when they’re killed it doesn’t hurt. But, how many times have I had to make choices about lives that are going to have an effect on me?
Not often.
…But what I chose now is going to have an effect on me.
“Most of the people you care about will be able to move on if you chose not to walk this road, I do not know about one, but it is certain if you decide to go onward this one shall not move on. Although, if you decide not to go on, you may spare the one you care most for much pain, this choice could also lead this world into oblivion.”
“End of Time is only the first weapon.”
“You should go and save him.”
I jerked to my knees to turned around to see Akiko. She stood looking down at the graves of our parents, her voice kind but sad.
“Akiko?” I demanded.
“I never believed in peace that had to come by sacrifice…” She said thoughtfully. “I still don’t like it, but there’s not enough time right now to do it another way. Although, I cannot help but fell responsible for this in some way. Kairi once asked me if Reluzera ever loved me…at the time, I lied to her. She was very young then, and I didn’t want her to grow up like we did. Although it seems I will not be the one to see her grow, she always asked me questions about you.” She smiled sadly at me saying, “Although she looks older, Kairi is only six. You were running around with Exodus more than ever when you were fifteen and I was nineteen, if it weren’t for that I’d never would have been able to keep it a secret when I was pregnant. Being a mother before I was married was…interesting.” She said bending down and leaning on her knees as she placed a lily on each out our parent’s graves.
“So that’s how Trenxi hid his real intentions about forcing you to marry him before you wanted to…”
“Yes. It seemed very logical at the time, because I wanted you to meet Kairi…it just, didn’t turn out that way. And although I know you’re going to argue the fact that I’m responsible for all of this, and I know that even if I hadn’t married Trenxi or decided to have Kairi, that this would of happened anyway. And Akhy…there’s another reason I want to keep my persona when I’m melded with Skyevi and End of Time…because if I can, than I can kill myself with only some of your help. It’s not just because I feel I owe you something, it’s also because you have to kill Reluzera. He’s just like Skyevi, Akhy. He had all the endurance of Skyevi, with none of the potential or abilities.
“Trenxi is the reincarnation of Reluzera, Skyevi’s lover. He had all of Reluzera’s memories since he was very young, so he had no chance of having a will of his own. He might as well be Reluzera. Skyevi knew she couldn’t obliterate his soul, only stop it from being reincarnated like divine souls do. Skyevi have him the power he has now, so there’s a chance that if Skyevi dies, he will to. After all, the only reason he was reincarnated and not left to be at peace, so without that divine power he might just die or become mortal, but I’m not positive.”
“Akiko…”
Her eye met mine and she smiled saying,
“You should get going. You don’t want to be late. Plus, you picked a cute guy. Better go remind him he’s taken before somebody else snatches him.”
“What the fu--hell are you rambling about?”
She chuckled and stood up saying,
“He worries about you too. It’s very cute, you know.” She turned around adding, “He loves you, if you couldn’t tell. Even with Lena around he’s only confused because he loved Lena for years, but has only known you a few months. Good luck, Akhy.”
“Hey, Akiko wait!” I called, scrabbling to my feet. But when I blinked, she was gone.
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