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“G-gaaah! Gnngh….!”
The school invaders were surrounding me from all angles, attacking me with all the strength those monsters had. My battered bruised body was just holding on with the determination I had to stay alive for the moment. As long as those Futuran children had gotten out of here safely. My Class Armor could take more damage than a normal person could, but at this rate, I wouldn’t hold out for long.
“A-aah…!”
I clutched the backpack I came here with, the Undying Flames bomb safely tucked away inside. My wounded hands felt around for the detonator. I truly had no fight left in me, but with this, I could…end it…end everything.
“Nnngh…G-guh!”
Destroying the invaders was nothing but a bonus. As my fingers felt the switch on the bomb that could destroy everyone around it instantly, I knew what I was doing this for. Saving those native children with this really wasn’t such a bad idea. Even throwing away the life of the horrible man called Eito Aotsuki…would be worth enough for something like this.
As the sharp pain from the invaders’ weapons stabbed me around my whole body, I held the bomb tighter. This was it…
All I had to do…was…pull…this….
“HAAAAAAAHHH!!”
A sudden scream came from several meters away. A voice I knew all too well. But it couldn’t be…Surely, the memories Sirei implanted in me were causing me to hallucinate, but…
Loud sharp slashing sounds came from nearby. The pounding from the invaders suddenly stopped. The heavy breathing and grunts of effort coming from the man I thought I’d never hear again confirmed what I was thinking.
“...Takumi…kun?” I muttered, coughing after straining myself to speak.
“A-Aotsuki!” That was his voice. Takumi Sumino’s voice. He was right here, like a guardian angel, saving me from certain death. I smelled that monstrous stench of his as he came closer to me. I started breathing heavier, trying to keep my body conscious after the beating I had taken. Takumi-kun’s words of concern were drowned out by the thick fog in my head.
Then, before I knew it, everything went silent.
I awoke, sitting on a hard tiled floor. I still couldn't see a thing, of course. I tried to lift my head up, groaning in pain from the pain I endured from before. Actually…how long ago was it? There was no way to tell. After gouging my own eyes out, it’s not like I could take a quick glance at a clock to see what time it was.
“Oh.”
That voice again. The one from the dream I had last night…except…
“Aotsuki, are you awake? Can you hear me…?”
It was him. I hadn’t had a dream last night…Takumi-kun coming to my rescue was real after all. Here he was, directly in front of me as I sat spread eagle on the 2nd-to-Last Academy cafeteria floor.
“Ugh…” I groaned, holding my head in my hand. A blistering headache suddenly assaulted me. Whether it was the smell of his horrible human musk, or the fact that I had just taken a horrible beating, I wasn’t sure.
Takumi-kun sighed in relief. I felt a bandage tightening around my right forearm, and he grunted. “Alright…That should be good. I’m not an expert at this, but…It’ll stop the bleeding, at least.”
I tried to remove the mental image of his disgusting flesh mitts touching my body. Sighing, I replied weakly. “Takumi-kun…I’m alright,” I told him, biting back the “Thank you” I almost gave him.
“Good…” he said softly. I wish I had removed my scent glands so I couldn’t smell the stench of his breath so close to me. “What were you doing out there? Sirei told us you went to the 2nd-to-Last Academy, but…Why were you out there fighting?”
“I’d…hardly call that fighting,” I laughed bitterly. He and I both know I was laying on the ground in a fetal position when he found me, ready to accept my death.
“You know what I mean…” he sighed. “I know you weren’t trying to defend this academy…right?”
Of course, that’s definitely not what I was doing. This place was my only real refuge after being kicked out of the Special Defense Unit by the man in front of me. I couldn’t have been here for a few days, before… “The children. What happened to those children?”
“Huh? Children?” Takumi-kun was clearly confused at what I was talking about. That was a good sign that the Futuran natives were out of sight by the time he arrived.
“They…must’ve made it out, then…” I mumbled.
A pause. Takumi-kun seemed to be trying to figure out what had happened since I got here. “They were… Futuran children, weren’t they? I didn’t think they could be all the way out here…”
Those children had only wanted to go out and find food and supplies, and ended up here. They disobeyed their elders, and only managed to find this place…and me. “...Yes.”
We both sat in silence, other than the sound of our soft breaths. I sat there for a while, trying to come up with the right words to say at that moment.
“Takumi-kun…” I started, taking a deep breath. “...What are you doing here? Why are you by yourself?”
“I…well…” He sounded almost embarrassed. Surely, he’d come to ridicule me, then put me out of my misery himself. Nothing was more deserved for an evil man such as myself. “...I came to find you.”
I looked at him, despite my eyesight being completely useless now. I could only imagine the devilish smirk he had on his face. After all this time, after all the horrible things I had done, this man finally had the chance to enact his revenge against the pathetic person who ruined his life.
“Aotsuki, I…I couldn’t stop thinking about you,” he said, too softly. He almost sounded…nervous? Afraid? “When I told you to leave the SDU, I…I thought I made the right decision. But I know now that I was wrong. That’s why I tried to tell you to stay afterwards…and why I came here.”
His words had cut me. Just a small slash to my heart as I took in what he said. This man…who wanted nothing to do with me anymore, he…
“And I know you might not even want to see me here…” Takumi-kun forced those words out. “But…I couldn’t stand the thought of…losing you. Out here, all alone, because of me.”
He was breathing heavier now, like he was having a hard time keeping his composure. “Takumi-kun…” I replied slowly, my thoughts spiraling.
Takumi-kun wasn’t…trying to joke with me, was he? He wasn’t here to twist the knife, or make me feel even worse about my decision to leave, or be the one to end my life himself…was he?
“It’s…only been a few days,” he said, taking a breath. “But today, I just…couldn’t let it slide. What I did to you, I mean.”
If he was grinning from ear to ear from what the trick he was trying to convince me with, I didn’t know. If he was crying, tears dripping down his cheeks from his sincerity…I didn’t know that either. “...Did something happen, Takumi-kun?” I asked.
He sat there still for a moment, then chucked lightly. “I…think I got my head chopped off. By a commander none of us knew about…I only just woke up after that this morning.”
I couldn’t help myself from laughing at the mental image of his head plopping onto the ground after an invader lopped it off. “That…sounds harrowing, for you anyway.”
His breaths sounded more relaxed now. I heard shifting in front of me. “Aotsuki…we should get back. The others are waiting right now.”
I furrowed my brows, looking up at him. “‘We,’ you say…?” I laughed bitterly.
“Y-yeah. I came here to bring you back,” I suddenly felt his hand touching mine. “I’m…sorry for what I said to you. You’re welcome back to the SDU, Aotsuki. Don’t worry about Sirei…I’ll convince him to let you back in somehow.”
I chuckled once again at his words. There was no way he was serious with all this, right? “You really are a complete fool, aren’t you…Takumi-kun?”
“Huh?” He took his hand away as I laughed in his face.
“You interrupted my grand finale…” I sighed wistfully. “After taking out that swarm of invaders with this… It would’ve been all over. But you came in to be the big hero of this story…” I put my hand on the backpack next to me, thankful it was still there. “You just can’t help yourself…can you, Takumi-kun?”
I couldn’t help but laugh at all this. Me, go back to the Last Defense Academy? Pretend everything was fine? After all I had done, after all my other timeline selves have done? For a villain such as myself, there was no good ending. There would never be happiness for someone like me. I was destined to die, be defeated by the hero, alone…Here, by myself.
Suddenly, I felt his hands gripping my shoulders.
“I need you, Aotsuki!” Takumi-kun suddenly exclaimed. “We need you… All of us! That commander, Dahl’xia…and V’ehxness… We can’t defeat them without you! We all want you back in with us!”
I laughed again. This whole thing was simply foolish. “And you want a blind man with a horrible disorder to be the one to save you…? Have you lost your mind? I was sure you were getting rid of me to stop me from betraying you and your–”
“I was wrong, Aotsuki!” He shouted at me. “I was wrong…and…I came here to make up for it. You’re…not a villain, Aotsuki. You’re one of us.”
That last line gave me a bit of pause. One of them? One of those rotten, putrid, disgusting humans? There was no way…except… None of us were really, were we? Everyone at the SDU was forced to fight this pointless war. We were cloned. Created from Futuran DNA. That reality began to sink in once again. After everything I had done, after all the betrayals Takumi-kun had no doubt witnessed me commit… He was still…
After everything I had done. After everything I had been through, with Takumi-kun… Now that I thought about it, there was no doubt he had experienced a time where I was one of his allies. From what I could remember, my alternate self had only turned heel towards the end of their 100 days. If everything went according to my plan… Making friends, bonding with those miserable humans, pretending to care about their problems…
The Eito Aotsuki he knew was no doubt very different from the one I thought he knew. And the Takumi Sumino I knew…had still been the one to spare me. He’d still been the one to let me off despite my previous self’s sins. All the manipulation I did to him and his friends, the scheming behind their backs, the final betrayal of his friendship…All of it was due to this defect of mine. Hot tears started to roll down my cheeks.
“A-Aotsuki…?” Takumi-kun asked with concern in his voice.
“I…” Nothing I could say could encapsulate what I was feeling. Everything about me was defective. My sight, my smell, all of my senses… They caused me to do horrible things. All because of…my inflated sense of justice? I still had no doubt in my mind that humanity deserved what was coming to them from the Futurans, but…what about the man sitting in front of me?
Did he deserve any of that?
He didn’t say anything. I could smell his breath closer to me now. All of a sudden, I felt like I could tolerate it. I laughed bitterly once again. So it was like that, huh? This man in front of me, offering me a hand of forgiveness after everything… I couldn’t contain these powerful emotions I was feeling.
I leaned in closer, wanting to find his face in the darkness of my lack of vision. Our noses touched, and I could feel a small bit of the grimy skin he had on the tip of it. Or at least, what I thought was grimy. I moved my mouth close to where his was supposed to be, and…
I kissed him. Through the revolting sensations I felt on my mouth, I locked lips with Takumi Sumino. No other action could justify how I felt about this man. This man I once hated, who only caused bile to rise in my throat…Was the man I felt deep love for.
It felt like we sat there like that for a while. I kissed him deeper, wanting more of him. As I moved closer, however, he pulled away and started to breathe heavily.
“...Aostuki…” he said simply. “What are you…doing…?” I didn’t need my vision to know the look on his face was worth making me laugh softly in spite of myself.
“Takumi-kun…” I breathed, almost a whisper. “I was under the impression people kissed to show deep affection. Am I wrong…?”
“I…w-well…” Takumi-kun stuttered. I almost felt my heart skip a beat. “W-why me, though?!”
I laughed again. “You’re even more of a disgusting fool than I thought, aren’t you…Takumi-kun?”
There wasn’t any doubt in my mind at this point. After I sat there for a while, listening to his breathing and embarrassed grumbling, I heard him shuffling once again. I felt his hand on mine once again. I paused for a moment, considering the offer he silently made to me.
I stood up, holding his hand in mine. I smiled, despite everything.
Takumi-kun held my hand, leading me out of the abandoned 2nd-to-Last Academy. This time, of course, I wasn’t leaving on my own. Only hours ago, I had attempted to sacrifice my worthless life for the sake of some Futurans… But right now, I had allowed myself to be saved by a knight in shining armor.
____________________________________________________________
After several hours of traveling, my bandaged wounds causing me to move slower, we managed to make it back to the main academy. As Takumi-kun opened the door for us, I realized we had made it. The coldness of the nighttime air was replaced with the warm welcoming atmosphere of the academy I once called home.
Takumi-kun went to the war room immediately to speak with Sirei, his hand still in mine. I barely paid attention to what was said. He repeated what he told me back at the other academy, that he and the others needed me here to fight some commander or other. It seemed like Sirei begrudgingly agreed, but insisted I stay in my cage I’d been staying in for most of my time here. Nothing wrong with that. I had gotten used to the feeling of the blankets and cheap bed, after all.
He took me to the courtyard, and I felt my way back inside the cage. It seemed like it took him a while to close and lock the door behind me. Of course, I couldn’t read the expression on his face.
I let out a sigh, sitting down on the bed I knew so well at this point. “Good night, Aotsuki…” I heard Takumi-kun say. I smiled. Somehow, even hearing him talk to me when we were on my own made me feel a comfortable tingling in my chest.
Laying down and pulling the covers over me, I felt my exhausted body relax into the stiff mattress that fit around me after many weeks of sleeping in this spot. The door to the courtyard opened and closed as I felt my body succumb to my tiredness.
It wasn’t long after that that I heard the door open once again. I stirred groggily, feeling as if I fell asleep at some point, but I had no way of knowing for how long. I heard footsteps approaching my cage, but I remained still under the covers.
“...Aotsuki?” I heard a familiar voice say quietly to me.
“Ah…Takumi-kun?” I removed the covers, turning towards my visitor with my eyelids closed. I smiled. “Have you come to read me a bedtime story, perhaps…?”
The cage door rattled and then opened with a light creak. After a moment, I could feel his hand on my shoulder. “Do you…” Takumi-kun’s anxious voice made me keep the smile on my face. “Are you…comfortable here at night?”
I moved my hand towards his, wanting to feel him again. “What gives you the impression I’m not…? It sounds like you have something to offer instead…Takumi-kun.”
“L-Look, just…come with me, alright?” He huffed, and I could tell from his vibe that he was flustered about something. I sat up in my bed, holding his hand once again.
The two of us went through the halls in the quiet of night, going up the stairs of the academy and eventually reaching the roof. I felt the cool crisp air hit my face as we stood outside together, hand in hand. This man, this disgusting, putrid man…who I couldn’t get out of my head.
He led me inside his dorm, closing the door behind him. “I just…feel bad you have to sleep in that cage,” he told me nervously. “If you want to sleep in here instead…that’s fine.”
I felt his hand let go of mine, and I heard the shuffling of blankets as he got into bed. “Do you…want me to sleep on the floor, Takumi-kun? Are you adopting me as your new pet?”
He paused for a while. I heard shuffling on his bed once again. “There’s…room…here.”
Only a day ago, the idea of sharing a bed with one of these filthy rotten humans would make me throw up on the spot. However, after today…After this man had gone out of his way to save me, and then brought me to his room as if we were newlyweds on our honeymoon…
I slowly climbed into Takumi-kun’s bed. For some reason, I felt compelled to take my gloves off as I felt his presence in front of me. This man I was laying with…Even if I only felt a horrible vomit-inducing flesh creature, I…wanted to touch him. Just once. And so…I took the gloves off my hands one by one.
“Aotsuki…” he breathed softly to me, a bit of worry in his voice. “Are you sure…?”
I wiggled my fingers to get used to the feeling of not wearing gloves in front of someone else. I took a deep breath. Slowly, I reached forwards and wrapped my arms around Takumi-kun’s body as we laid together. He sounded nervous and flustered, like he was embarrassed to be held by another man in bed.
I moved my body closer to the man I fell in love with. My hands touched his clothes, his body, his everything that night. And somehow…all of it felt simply beautiful.