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The first thought Kohaku has is, it's warm.
Her heart is pounding, and each beat spills blood over the brim of the gaping hole in her porcelain body. The arm piercing her chest forces her heart aside, out of place. The result is both fascinating and nauseating, the seams in her ruptured from the ensuing pressure, spilling out blood and stuffing and chunks and glass. The front of her kimono is soaked through already, and the cloth clings to her skin. The stench is overwhelming, close to sticky-sweet.
She opens her mouth, intending to gasp, and a thick, gurgled sound erupts from her. Her mind's racing too fast to keep up, every prickle of air across her skin and every creak of sound stark in its clarity. Something rises in her throat, but it doesn't burn enough to be bile.
“Kohaku!”
SHIKI crows in triumph, and his manic laughter is indistinguishable from those endless nights of torture. Kohaku coughs, and like a bubble bursting, blood spatters SHIKI's face in front of her.
When he rips his hand from her chest, it's no longer warm. There's nothing but pain now, ripping maddeningly at the hole in her chest. Kohaku falls, and the impact is surprisingly soft. Someone is holding her up, but Kohaku's legs give out regardless, and she crumbles.
“Kohaku!” The voice is thick, and Akiha's face is upside-down above hers, her hair hanging down, framing both of their faces. Kohaku realizes distantly that her head is pillowed in Akiha's lap. “Kohaku, Kohaku – ”
Nothing is warm except Akiha, but the warmth envelopes Kohaku, washes away the pain of dying and even of living. It's the most memorable thing Kohaku has ever felt, and – if it's like this, Kohaku has a sudden understanding of the lengths demons would go to seek it.
With that thought, it dawns on Kohaku, finally, what this pain signals. This is it. This is game over. God had picked this girl's life twice already. A weight lifts off of Kohaku's chest, and for the first time, she feels something like a taste of freedom and flight.
“Kohaku, please, no – wait, just wait – ”
Something wet falls on Kohaku's face. Her eyes meet's Akiha's, whose hair is growing more and more crimson by the second. It's the only thing that Kohaku can still focus on, the rest of her mistress's features more blurred by the second.
It's strange. The more Kohaku dies, the more alive she feels. Her body is thrumming with energy, seeping into every last bit of vein and tubing, tapering off into the very edges of her blackening consciousness.
She could move, if she wanted, and she has half a thought to brush her hand over Akiha's tear-streaked face to wipe them away. It's all wrong. This last time she saw Akiha Tohno cry, it was over the body of Shiki as a young girl. Here, now, the head of the Tohno doing the same over something like her is – the scale is all wrong.
“You win,” she says instead, a smile on her lips.
When she closes her eyes, it's warm all over again.
The first thought Kohaku has upon waking isn't so much a thought, but a wave of exhaustion slowly washing over her.Her breath tastes stale and her eyes glued shut in a way that's unfamiliar, impossible for someone whose duties begin at the crack of dawn. A part of her wants to drift back to the realm of inanimacy, but now that she's awake, it's all too stiff and uncomfortable. She wiggles one finger, same as always. It's a ritual, to see if today is the morning where she finally fulfills her fate and finds herself unable to move. She can feel the cloth of the sheets dip beneath her finger.
Same as always.
She opens her eyes. The ceiling in her room is stark white, and when Kohaku tries to wiggle, she finds herself swaddled in a mass of sheets. She blinks again, and finally breaks the routine.
I died, she thinks, testing herself, prodding for a reaction. There's nothing other than awareness and a faint irritation. I died, so why am I here?
Images of SHIKI and Akiha play out in her mind, and it's unsettling, thinking of SHIKI's enraged face and Akiha's barely restrained sobs in the same flash of thought. They're both of the Tohno line, Kohaku reminds herself. There's no difference between them, really.
She hears the door to the room open, but she can't bring herself to look at who the visitor is.
“Nee-san!” Before Kohaku registers her presence, Hisui is next to her, a hand covering her forehead. Her hand is clammy against Kohaku's sin. “Nee-san! You're awake!”
“Morning, Hisui,” Kohaku says, and even she can tell how today's usual greeting has lost its cheer and luster. It's hard though, Hisui looking seconds away from bursting into tears. Out of everything, there's nothing more unfair than what this world did to her sister.
Hisui removes one of Kohaku's hand from its hold in the sheets and clasps it between her own. “Nee-san,” she says again, and buries her face in their clenched hands. “You're awake,” she repeats, disbelieving, and Kohaku's hand suddenly feels wet. “Thank you. Thank you...”
“You're so strange, Hisui,” Kohaku says, but she can't meet her sister's eyes. “You're treating me like a child.” She laughs hollowly. “What sort of thing is that to be happy over?”
“Don't play dumb, Nee-san. This entire house has done nothing but that for years, and it's time we stopped.” Hisui nods slowly and Kohaku can feel the curve of Hisui's lips against her hand. That smile is one of the most precious remnants of this world. “I'm proud of you.”
Kohaku's chest feels tight. “Proud of me? For what?”
“I would have supported you no matter your choice,” Hisui lowers Kohaku's hand, although she still grips it tightly, “I did do that. I even used Shi-...nothing matters to me more than you and what you want.”
Kohaku flits her eyes to Hisui's, and finds no trace of uncertainty, not even of guilt. It shouldn't surprise her – this is the girl who suppressed her natural personality for years out of sheer force of will.
“You knew, Hisui?”
“Yes. About everything. About SHIKI-sama, and Akiha-sama, and...what was going to happen in that school. And that, despite what has happened and the retribution that may be rightfully deserved, you care for Akiha-sama. I'm proud of you for realizing it, at the very end, so that both of your lives could have been spared.”
“Both...?” No. Kohaku's heart is racing, blood pounding in her ears. That's wrong. Kohaku had gambled, and she had lost. There had been a fifty-fifty chance that Akiha would sacrifice her own life in exchange for Kohaku's, and she hadn't. Nothing Kohaku herself could have done would have changed that outcome.
“Nee-san?”
But that certainty doesn't align with the truth of here and now. Dolls do not dream, so Kohaku has not had a dream in over eight years.
I died, so why am I here?
“Hisui,” her voice wavers, “what happened?”
She slips into the room past midnight. The moonlight slants in through the gap in the heavy curtains, and Kohaku is grateful for the cover darkness provides as she flits lightly across the carpet, her limbs quivering with the effort of feigned casualness.
Kohaku stops, faced with the reality that she had been informed of, and one that shouldn't exist. She's standing here, alive, and yet in this bed Akiha Tohno also lays, breathing. Her face is paler than her usual, and her eyebrows are furrowed, as if she's in pain.
Hisui had told her all, or at least, the all that she knew herself. Hisui and Shiki had arrived at the school and the scene of the incident: SHIKI drained of all life and withering away into dust, Akiha draped over Kohaku's body. Both of them barely existent, but miraculously alive, nonetheless.
Kohaku's hand finds itself over her chest, the place where SHIKI had pierced her. It's healed over – has been since Hisui and Shiki found her, from the odd glance Hisui shot her when she asked about it, but the spot still throbs under her touch. It's impossible that someone should still live after being brutally murdered by a demon, she tells herself, even though there are already two violations to that law residing in this very mansion at this very moment.
Why? Kohaku kneels next to the bed, and she's eye level with her mistress now. If Akiha turned and opened her eyes, then she would be...
She's shown no sign of waking up, Hisui had said, and she had finally hesitated in her explanation then. Kohaku and her sister were not human, not close, but they were closer than Akiha was, so it would have made sense for Akiha to be the one to wake first.
No, Kohaku had said abruptly, and Hisui glanced at her curiously as the realization dawned on Kohaku. If Kohaku's hunch was right, then this...
Akiha's face has already taken on some color, and her expression relaxes, her breathing slowed.
Kohaku grits her teeth, steeling herself as she looks onward. If Akiha had not saved her from SHIKI, then it had simply meant that her guilt over her lineage was not great enough. Not a matter of fault, then, not when the only cause for blame flowed in one's blood and not the travesties one committed.
But...to do something like this. Kohaku's throat clenches. Akiha shouldn't even be alive anymore, and she must have known that when she made her decision. The only thing that had saved Akiha Tohno's life is Kohaku's own incompleteness, and not even Akiha could have been aware of the extent to which that ran. Part of Kohaku finds it hard to regret the brokenness, as she watches Akiha's chest rise and fall.
Kohaku takes Akiha's hand between her own and squeezes. Akiha makes a soft, sad sound and turns her face toward Kohaku, but shows no sign of waking.
“Why?” she asks, her hands trembling. It had been a simple matter of love and loyalty and guilt, tested in that split second. Nothing of premeditation or decisions thought upon. It's all wrong. “How cruel.” She tries to smile. “It would have been far more simpler if you let me die. Why didn't you...?” In the darkness, no one answers, and Kohaku clings to one last, shared borrowed piece of life.
One week from that fateful night, under the tree in the backyard, where this all began eight years ago with one young boy and the girl who loved him, Kohaku turns around and smiles.
“So punctual, Akiha-sama.”
Akiha stumbles to a stop, as if unused to the action. “Do you expect otherwise from me, Kohaku?” she asks primly, straightening her skirt, her grace and elegance oddly absent, as it has been since she awoke four days ago, the morning after Kohaku spent the night by her side.
“Never.” Kohaku smiles. “There might have once been a time where I would have said you could never surprise me. I might be clumsy, but the true hallmark of a proper servant is to be attuned to their master's whims and unexpected follies.”
“The true hallmark, was it? Is that how you justify all of the broken vases?” Akiha shares in Kohaku's smile, regardless. “You and I clearly have different opinions on the matter.”
“I'm not quite sure what matter you're discussing here, Akiha-sama.” Kohaku allows her smile to widen. Akiha looks unimpressed.
“You wouldn't have summoned me here if you wanted to continue this charade,” she says, pretenses dropped, rising up and staring coldly. It might look impressive to one unaccustomed to the chagrin of the Tohno head, but all Kohaku notices is how small Akiha looks, the hair-raising aura of blood and danger she once exuded next to eradicated ever since...
“Well, I suppose you called my bluff, Akiha-sama. I expect nothing less from you. But that's exactly what led to us standing here, wasn't it? A miscalculation on my part.”
“A miscalculation? Is that what we're calling the fact that I'm alive now? Well,” Akiha's eyes darken, “I shouldn't think so highly of myself that I ought to be offended by the wording.” She turns her eyes to Kohaku, and Kohaku sees how she's gripping the sides of her blouse tightly. “Did I throw a wrench in your machine on that night, Kohaku?” She scoffs. “Don't expect me to apologize. If it's as simple as killing me, I'll play along, but if you really think I'll allow the untimely death of one under my service, then you really aren't as masterful a puppeteer as you fancy yourself.”
Akiha's head is held high and proud. It's something of a marvel how she can manage this in her state.
“You're a fool, Akiha-sama,” Kohaku says. “It's ironic, you know. The only thing that saved you that night is that the Tohno broke me to begin with.”
Akiha flinches, and Kohaku doesn't know how to react to the stirring in her chest at the movement.
“You're not br – ”
“Please don't interrupt me, Akiha-sama. To save me, you gave me half of your life. But you had already given half away eight years ago to Shiki-san. In short, you should have died. Moreover, you assumed you would have.”
Akiha's eyes are closed, and Kohaku continues.
“Maybe if it wasn't me, who's been broken ever since Makihisa-sama abducted Hisui and I to this mansion, you would have been correct. Half of a half. That's all it took to save my life. That's all it takes to sustain me.”
Kohaku ponders a little on the thought. She is exactly half to Akiha what Shiki is. Being someone who could even just half-rival those feelings – it's more power than she ever could have hoped, and both warmth and ice runs through her at the implications.
“But what of you, Akiha-sama? You're only a quarter alive. Even before, you struggled, but like this – ” Kohaku's voice catches, and she internally chides herself at her slip.
“I don't regret it. Is that what you're asking me? Is that why you've called me here?” Akiha's abrupt openness must also be attributed to her weakened constitution. “Why have you always insisted on driving me to places when I would have walked there on my own, if it's what you wanted?”
After the outburst, Akiha shakes her head and pushes her palm against her forehead. Her eyes are glassy, and shame colors her every feature. For the first time, Kohaku is speechless. Akiha had always – Kohaku can't think clearly, her entire body tingling with something too dangerous to voice.
Akiha looks angry, but Kohaku's always known that Akiha had never truly been angry at her. So, this irritation must be directed at –
Like that, Kohaku comes to a decision. It's as simple as the one made four years ago, that the Tohno had to die, because that's how she best thinks. As complicated as the gestures are, the purpose of them is always the same. Kohaku had assumed that nothing would come after the first reason she had come up with, but dolls could be repurposed. It's only a matter of finding something worthy enough of the cause.
“There are ways that the Tohno have made up for their weaknesses,” Kohaku says. “Even an existence such as yours isn't one that can't be maintained.”
“You – ! ”Akiha is trembling, enough so that even Kohaku can sense the danger in the air. It takes that for Kohaku to realize that Akiha's trembling with rage. “I'd rather die than do something like that...!”
“And I'd rather you did not,” Kohaku says simply, and like that, the moment is passed. Akiha stares at her, taken aback.
“I've decided on a new purpose.” Kohaku walks up to Akiha then, and takes her hands so that they're all grasped together. They're frighteningly cold. “Since you'll surely die of something as mundane as pneumonia in such a weakened state, then I, as your other half, will stay with you to make certain such a thing does not occur.”
“What, so that you can be the one to kill me?” Akiha says softly. Her hands squeeze Kohaku's back. The warmth between them is already growing, the blood connection shared before only strengthened by Akiha's original life flowing between their hands.
“I already said, didn't I? I have a new purpose.” Someone as foolish enough to choose Kohaku, so that they are two broken people apart, and still broken together. Only certain emotions can drive that sort of decision, and they apply to either end. Kohaku ignores it as she raises her gaze. Akiha's eyes are burning with an intensity that Kohaku doesn't care to divine the meaning behind.
Or not. Ah well – wholeness is reserved only for those like Hisui and Shiki.
“If you live, I'll always be at your side. I wish to always serve you. So, if you feel sorry for me at all, please do not die. As for me...I'll make certain that you don't.”
“Kohaku...” Akiha diverts her gaze. After a long, still moment, she sighs. “You're asking for something pretty difficult.” But, regardless, Akiha brings their hands, clasped together, to her mouth, and that's really all the answer Kohaku needs as something cuts deep into her chest, past all of her carefully crafted defenses.
“I see.” Her voice shakes. “Thank you, Akiha-sama, for indulging me.”
Kohaku leans her forehead against their clasped hands, which are trembling now. Neither of them comment on the tears falling freely to the ground.