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The clock ticked.
As it did, Noriaki understood.
He knew that he was dying, but his mind hadn't slowed down at all. He couldn't move, he could hardly breathe, yet a million confused thoughts had raced around in his head before finally coming together to complete the puzzle, and he understood.
He had to tell them.
He had to tell them, he had to do something; somehow, some way, he had to tell them, he had to summon his Stand. He called on Hierophant Green, his old friend...once, his only friend. He and Hierophant weren't alone, not anymore, but now they would have to leave their new friends behind. Behind, with DIO, and the terrifying secret of his Stand.
No, no, not a secret. Noriaki had to tell Mr. Joestar...somehow....
Finally, his faithful companion appeared at his side. It took all of his concentration; but the whole rest of the world had already been muted to him. Noriaki could faintly hear Mr. Joestar and DIO's voices, muddled as if traveling through water, and everything he tried to fix his eyes on kept slipping out of focus; but Hierophant Green was here now, with him. He was smaller than usual, and lackluster, but he was there, and Noriaki poured every last bit of his strength into one final --
He coughed. It was unlike any other sensation he had ever experienced. Hierophant Green vanished as Noriaki was consumed by pain beyond his ability to describe, felt the life being forced out of his body, felt blood spatter down his chin and onto his chest and -- in some strange phantasmal way -- onto the abdomen that was no longer there. His eyes glazed over and his breathing became more ragged than ever. His head threatened to drop forward, never to rise, but he fought the overwhelming urge to surrender, fought the blackness creeping into the corners of his vision. He had to...tell....
Suddenly, words pierced through the indistinct hum in Noriaki's ears.
"Joseph Joestar! Die!" A bright gold blur streaked across Noriaki's hazy vision, and without warning all his senses became hyperactive. His pain faded to the background as he fixed his eyes on DIO, flying toward Mr. Joestar, and he knew he had to make his move.
Finding new strength he didn't know he still had, Noriaki summoned Hierophant again and fired an Emerald Splash at the clock tower without a moment's pause. "M-my final Emerald...Splash...," Noriaki whispered. It was almost funny: the small stream of green jewels had reminded him of his very first Emerald Splashes, when he had been a child with barely any control over his abilities. But the job was done...the clock hands had been destroyed. This time, he dismissed Hierophant with satisfaction. The job was done....
Noriaki's senses were still heightened, but he was still dying. He could hear everything, see everything, but he felt disconnected from his body, as if he were watching a film.
He watched Joseph and DIO both look toward the clock face as it exploded. He watched Joseph's eyes widen, watched shock and confusion play across his face. He heard those emotions in his voice, too, when a questioning noise slipped from his mouth.
"What?" he heard DIO say, full of disdain. He watched DIO turn away from the clock. "He didn't even aim in the right direction. I suppose he wanted to use up the last of his strength to go out with a bang."
He watched Joseph's brow furrow. Noriaki hoped he was thinking his hardest.
It's a message. The movie was ending. The sound began to fade and the lights began to dim. Noriaki's eyelids began to drift downward.
It's the best I can do. The pain was completely gone now. Noriaki was numb...empty, even. He had given everything he had.
Mr. Joestar, please understand! If he didn't...if he didn't understand it...Noriaki didn't want his friends to follow him. He had to go, but they had to stay, and he would leave his hope behind with them. He could only believe in them.
Please, figure it out. Noriaki closed his eyes.
"Kakyoin!" Joseph called one last time. The name fell on unhearing ears. Kakyoin Noriaki...had died.
It was warm. Noriaki turned to face the source and opened his eyes to see a lush and verdant forest, splendid under a clear midday sky, until a train rushed in soundlessly to obscure his view. It curled out of the depths of the forest and barreled past him, not lifting a single strand of his hair or ruffling his clothing, and magically came to a stop with its tail end only a few meters away. Noriaki found that he wasn't perturbed by its sudden appearance, nor its lack of noise -- or indeed, lack of any sign of existence at all. He was at peace, and contemplated everything around him with placid curiosity.
There was still no sound when the door slid open and people ambled out. They all moved at a languid pace, gradually spreading themselves out over the train platform -- sitting on benches, standing by pillars, making themselves comfortable however they pleased. A small number of them spoke briefly to one another with voices Noriaki didn't hear; one pair of men disembarked with their arms slung over each other's shoulders, deep in conversation. The last person to exit was a slender woman, almost Noriaki's height, with short wavy hair. She lingered longer than the others, scanning the whole platform until her eyes landed on Noriaki. She froze, just looking at him, until her mouth slowly curled into a smile; and Noriaki found himself smiling back, wondering why he felt his mood brighten as she approached.
"To have our first meeting here, instead of there," she said in Japanese, standing before him and staring. Her voice was very soft, and trembled slightly.
A few moments of silence passed before Noriaki carefully asked, "Excuse me if I'm being rude...but do we know each other?"
Casting her gaze down to the ground, the woman mumbled, "Not really."
This was not helpful, and Noriaki wanted to ask more questions, but he noticed the pain which swept over her face and decided to drop it.
"Come on, let's sit down," she said abruptly, her voice now steady. She led him to a nearby bench, which had been occupied, Noriaki was sure, mere moments ago. Nevertheless, he sat down beside her. And they sat in comfortable silence for some time, until the woman asked, "Would you tell me about yourself?"
Noriaki hesitated for a moment, then turned his head look at her. She met his gaze with earnest eyes, and Noriaki faced forward again with a sigh. He couldn't find a strong enough reason to deny the plea in those amethyst eyes. "If you insist."
In the corner of his eye, he saw the woman nod in confirmation before looking forward as well. Clouds began to assemble over the skies of the forest in front of them, and as he spoke, Noriaki watched them supernaturally swirl into a storm. "My name is Kakyôin Tenmei, but I prefer to be called Noriaki. I was born and raised in Japan, but I take great interest in learning about various things around the world. I learned how to do voodoo recently."
The woman shot him a look, as if she were daring him to verify what she had heard. Noriaki's only reaction was to suppress a smile. Badum-tss!
"Other than learning new things," he continued nonchalantly, "I really like cherries, and playing video games. I always did very well in school, and my father would tell me incessantly that I should become a lawyer, that I was suited to it." The clouds grew thick and dark over the forest, and the branches swayed in a silent gale.
"Did you want to?" the woman asked after a pause. She too observed the storm brewing before them; the clouds darkened even more and branches began to bend under the ferocity of the wind.
Noriaki was quiet for a time. "I wasn't sure yet," was all he said in reply. He had often wondered if it would present a challenge to him...and wondered if he would meet someone who was in any way like him in a law office.
"And how...how did you die?" The woman's voice was once again soft and tremulous, and she clasped her hands together in her lap as if to crush whatever emotions were overtaking her.
"How did I die?" Noriaki echoed. Lightning flashed in the storm clouds, staying high above the trees below. At the same moment, it was as if a light was turned on in Noriaki's head. He did not feel as if he were a dead man; but as soon as she said it, he realized he had known that he was all along. He cocked his head and tried to remember just how he had died.
"I was killed," he said at last. The woman flinched, but Noriaki was too preoccupied to notice. His voice was halting but steady as he focused on making sense of the fuzzy memories from his past life. They were becoming very clear. "Yes, I died in a fight. I...I was punched through the abdomen, like a donut. By --"
The woman inhaled sharply, and Noriaki did notice this; he stopped short, turning to face her with a slight bow. "I'm sorry," he said, chiding himself for using such indelicate words with a lady. "I don't think you need the details." Honestly...'like a donut'? Noriaki, control yourself.
Rain began to fall on the forest, and a singular tear escaped from each of the woman's eyes as she turned to look at him. "Makes no difference either way," she told him sadly. "It led you here, and we all get just one round-trip ticket. So I...."
Breaking eye contact, she trailed off, and then wiped away her tears. She didn't finish her sentence, but it still caught Noriaki's attention: she had said 'I,' which reminded Noriaki that he knew nothing about her.
"Tell me about you now," he prompted softly, after giving her time to compose herself.
"There's nothing about me to tell," she answered, with a hollow laugh. Noriaki didn't think that she was trying to be modest or cryptic or evasive. She sounded genuine, which made him all the more curious. "Look, do you see that?" she asked. "Between those two trees over there." She pointed toward the forest, where the rain was beginning to lighten. Noriaki followed her finger and, after patiently peering into dense foliage, he could just barely make out what he thought was a very large flower bud.
"I'm a lot like him. The biggest difference is that he is eager to begin blooming and proceed to the next stage, while I, as of this moment, do not feel so confident." Noriaki kept his eyes fixed to that flower bud and, sure enough, he noticed the petals peel back slightly to seek the light as the clouds overhead thinned and dispersed.
Noriaki thought that he might have been given enough puzzle pieces to make a picture, or at least a partial one. "You said that we all get one round-trip ticket," he began slowly. "If that's the case, and assuming I can't return to life after dying...that means that here is where I started." There was a slight pause as Noriaki shifted his gaze from the flower bud to the woman, before getting to his point: "Is this an afterlife and a...and a 'before-life,' of sorts?"
The woman, smiling, met his eyes and opened her mouth to answer, but she froze with the truth on the tip of her tongue. She tilted her head and frowned, her eyes darting back and forth as if she were searching the sky for whatever had caught her attention, something which couldn't be seen. "My train is coming."
She had barely finished speaking before train blew past them, whipping the woman's wavy hair across her face, and stopped where the last one had stopped, though Noriaki noticed that this train hadn't come from the curve that disappeared into the forest. It had traveled straight, its path stretching back as far as Noriaki could see. The woman smoothed her hair as she stood, and bowed to Noriaki. "It was a pleasure to meet you. It's my time to bloom again, regardless of what I want."
Noriaki followed her as she walked toward the train door. But then people seemed to be appearing from nowhere, crowding the train station which had been mysteriously empty ever since Noriaki and the woman had sat down on the bench. Many of them were boarding the same train that that nameless woman was boarding, and Noriaki had to fight to make sure he didn't lose sight of her. "Wait!" he called several times. Though the crowd was silent for him, the woman didn't seem like she could hear him. "Please!"
This last plea managed to reached her, when she was a step away from the train's entrance, and she finally turned around, letting other people flow past her. Noriaki wasn't certain that he knew what was going on in this place, but he did know that neither of them would be staying here.
"What's your name?" he said simply. At the least, he wanted to ask her if she had a name. Perhaps she did not -- Noriaki was wondering if she were some kind of manifestation, not of someone who had died, but rather of a person who had not yet been born. Someone he had never met but who recognized him because she would know him in the future, someone who had nothing to say about herself because she had yet to live....
"My name?" She seemed to be at a loss. "I don't...I don't know," she said, with a small bow of apology. "Goodbye." She held his gaze as she stepped backward into the train; it began to move away, gradually picking up speed. Noriaki and the woman stared at each other until realization suddenly crossed her face. She shouted her name to him, just as Noriaki's own train thundered into the train station on the opposite rails, fast enough to ruffle his clothes despite the distance. His lavender eyes widened in surprise. He almost didn't hear the name. He didn't even hear all of it. But he heard something he wasn't expecting.
He turned around with a soft laugh and a gentle smile on his face, joining the stream of people who were also boarding his train. He still didn't truly understand what this place was or how it worked, but he didn't need to. He was at peace, and contemplated everything with placid curiosity.
Noriaki gazed out of the train window as it traveled; it soon brought the passengers to a giant, labyrinthine garden which, from what Noriaki could see, was filled with all kinds of plants from all around the world, in breathtakingly exquisite arrangements. As he stepped out of the train at the new station, a small bunch of red spider lilies caught his eye. Without trying to, he recalled what they meant in hanakotoba, the Japanese language of flowers -- perhaps because his subconscious felt they were meant for him...they symbolized abandonment, lost memories, and never meeting again.
"Isn't that all so fitting, little sister?" he whispered. "I'm sorry. Live well. Goodbye."
She didn't cry when she was first born, for longer than usual. In those few short, extra moments, the more anxious adults immediately worried that something was wrong...while the baby, though she obviously did not have the words to describe it, was feeling content. Protected. Then the feeling passed and the newborn began to howl the way newborns do, proving that she could breathe, so she was given into waiting arms of her mother. The mother held her daughter tightly to her chest, overwhelmed: relieved that the difficult pregnancy was over and nostalgic about the one she had gone through before; ecstatic that her newborn baby was healthy but heartbroken that her other baby was not. In her soothing, protective embrace, her baby gradually fell silent again.
In the future, when that child had grown into a young woman, she would start to have a recurring dream -- which felt more like a memory -- and that inexplicably familial sense of comfort would always come with it. She held tightly to both the dream and the feeling it brought her. It wasn't long before she decided to have people call her Kakyôin Sakura.
For the transience of life, like the transience of sakura blossoms, was something she could never forget. How could she, knowing she had a brother who had died so young not long before she was born, a brother she would never truly get to know? But with or without the stories people told of him, or the pictures of him her parents would show her, or the name which helped her feel closer to him -- both because she had chosen it for herself, as he chose the name Noriaki, and because the blossom shared the name of his favorite fruit -- she knew. She knew he was always with her.