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“I had a dream.”
Aotsuki watched the disgusting figure in front of him intently, trying to decipher the meaning in his words. Upon coming here to this Academy, the boy had been the most interesting thing to Aotsuki. Not the surprise kidnapping, the sentient robots, the ravaging of the Earth, or this war they found themselves in. It was Sumino Takumi that interested him.
Or to be more precise, how calm the boy was when he defeated Aotsuki and pronounced him as a traitor in his last 100 days.
He had known Takumi for only one day, but from how boisterous and eager he was in joining the fight and following the war propaganda, Aotsuki expected a more vibrant reaction. If he truly did betray them all after 100 days in Takumi’s past, he would assume the monster before him to be more…energetic. Loud. Angry. Shouting at the top of his lungs and called for Aotsuki’s demise.
But instead, Takumi just stared at him in silence, eyes hidden from his view. He had let the silence stretch on for so long, the atmosphere turned oppressive, until Sirei had had enough and demanded Takumi for his next move. The boy personally escorted Aotsuki to the cage, then disappeared from his sight since.
“Dream, you say?” Aotsuki wasn’t sure what Takumi was getting at. He wasn’t sure how to decipher the forlorn look Takumi was giving him, or that calm, almost nonchalant smile plastered on that putrid head. There were no strong emotions underneath those complexions, like a calm ocean without tides, expanding into vastness. He could detect neither hatred nor anger in that face. Just sunken eyebrows, dull eyes, and breathing too shallow to be healthy.
It reminded him of his days in the hospital, when he first accepted the despair that his life was a nightmare in daylight.
“Yeah, dream. What do you think about what happens in them?”
“Research will tell you dreams help with processing emotions based on what you experience. Others will tell you what happens inside dream is the opposite of real life.” Aotsuki didn’t have any comments on the topic itself. He either had dreamless sleep, or constant nightmares. He knew where both came from.
“That’s…more technical than I thought. I read it in a book back in the TRC that dreams are flashes of our memories coming back.” If Takumi was expecting more, he didn’t hide it well. “My dreams have been…confusing, you can say. I need to talk about it to someone, so,” He looked straight at Aotsuki’s eyes and offered a handshake. “Will you be my confidant?”
Aotsuki was surprised. He had planned on offering that position himself, but he never expected Takumi to take the initiative. There had to be a reason behind this unfounded trust, this willingness to show a vulnerable part of yourself.
He closed his eyes, temporarily blocking that hideous figure from his mind. When he was young, Aotsuki tried to imagine the few humans being nice to him as something else, something that wouldn’t scare him. His parents would be a pair of puppets. His first tutor a box of chess. The nurse that gave him books a frayed novel worn by time. In the end, disgust won over imagination, and all of them disappeared from his life regardless.
Takumi would be a box then. Or a cabinet. A cabinet of mysteries with locks all over, waiting for him to figure out. He wouldn’t be the monster that would one night melt into the same cacophony that haunted Aotsuki’s dream.
Who knew how long this interest would last?
He reached out to that hand from behind the bars. Takumi’s eyes lit up as they made contact, healing some of that awful complexion.
“I just had a dream yesterday.” The boy said as their hands parted. “Of someone familiar. The same face, the same voice, even the same gestures at times, but it still wasn’t the person that I thought I know.”
“So I guess my question is: if there was another copy of a person you like - same face, same voice, same everything, but they don’t share your experience - will you still like them?”
“What a horrible question to start our session, Takumi-kun.” Aotsuki shook his head. “I know nothing about love.”
“I know. Change it to hate, if you want. It doesn't matter which in the end.”
Aotsuki didn’t have a specific target in mind. His hatred had long ceased to be personal; there wasn’t anyone out there that he wished to pursue to death. Instead, he put himself inside Takumi’s shoes, as much as he loathed to. If Aotsuki had to travel back in time to look at these disgusting ‘friends’ who didn’t know him, what would he think of them?
“I will kill them then.” He concluded. “They are effectively no more than strangers to me.”
“You made it sound easy.”
“Sci-fi stories abuse this plot point to death. If you wish to change history, you have to bear its consequences. The people that are here aren’t the people that you want to protect.”
It was Takumi’s turn to close his eyes in contemplation. If not for the slightest sound of breathing, Aotsuki would have thought he was looking at a corpse.
“…Maybe you’re right.” Takumi exhaled. “The Aotsuki I know is no longer here.”
“I doubt he exists from the start.”
“Harsh.” Takumi chuckled. He still maintained an eerily calmness, so unlike the Takumi that Aotsuki first knew. Maybe that Takumi was a dream as well, and now he never had a chance to know if he would be interested in that Takumi or not.
“Thanks.” Takumi said. “I’ll see you later then.”
“Before that, can I ask you something?”
Takumi stopped on his way to the gate. He turned his head, giving Aotsuki a silent agreement.
“Why did you want me as your confidant?” Aotsuki asked. “I don’t mind the role, but you are quite trusting in front of someone considered a traitor, aren’t you?”
Takumi didn’t answer for a while, likely trying to think of an answer himself. In the end, his answer was another unexpected puzzle.
“I did think about who I wanted to talk about this. But right now, I don’t know if I trust anyone with the dreams I have had.” His eyes found their way to Aotsuki once again. “But I can always trust this you with one thing.”
“And that is?”
“That you have killed a human before.”
It was exceedingly boring inside the cage.
The Courtyard was a normal part of the Academy, but Aotsuki had never seen any monsters ever since he was put in here. Not even a curious glance from the hallway up the third floor. He assumed that Sirei had forbidden everyone near the Courtyard. Aotsuki only knew about the new students from their curious voices ringing just beyond the door. He only knew a battle had happened through the warning, never the result. The lack of information was making his life duller than ever.
The only highlight of his captive life was Takumi. The so-called appointed Leader was the only one who ever opened that door. Takumi would lie on the grass field right beside the cage, while Aotsuki sat on the bed, watching until the boy felt like talking. Looking at their positions reminded him of a therapist talking to his patient, though Aotsuki knew he was anything but qualified.
“Did you know you can make an avatar through hemoanima?”
“First time I had heard of it.”
“Shi-the guy that showed up with me on our second day, that was his. If your will is strong enough, you can conjure a ghost of your own.”
“I assume this relates to your dream?”
“Yep.” Takumi exhaled. “I made one of that in my dream. It kept following me around like a toddler, doing anything I told it to, agreeing with anything I say, wanting to be my loyal follower. I tried to make it as close to a normal person as possible. But then it realized that it was an avatar and not a real thing, so it broke.”
“It grew a will of its own.”
“Ironic, yeah? It was my will that gave it life, after all. I tried to fix it over and over, but the dream ended before I could salvage anything.” Takumi frowned. “Maybe I shouldn’t have made one from the start.”
He never thought of Takumi as the strict, controlling type, but dreams did reflect reality, if only a small part through layers of distortion.
“Forcing something inside a mold will break it.” Aotsuki said. “What did you want from that avatar? A blind, devout follower? Then you shouldn’t have given it a chance of being human from the start?”
“Look at you, being all philosophical. Maybe you make a good counselor, after all?”
“Spare me the horrors, Takumi-kun. Just entertaining my thoughts, that’s all. It’s monotonous just walking inside this cage.”
Takumi looked all over the cage and gave a nod.
“No one ever visited then?”
“No.”
“Well, that works for you, isn’t it? You hate seeing our mugs.”
Aotsuki wasn’t about to disagree. But if the options were between a peaceful life behind bars or a chance to escape, he would choose the latter in a heartbeat. And without any information from those hideous mugs, he had no chance to escape.
“Did Sirei order you all not to approach me?”
“You are a prisoner.”
Takumi was always evasive with the questions. The boy never outright refused to answer, but his response may as well amount to nothing. He was deliberately keeping Aotsuki in the dark, but without making it obvious. He had learned nothing since.
“If you can change someone to your ideal version, will you?”
As usual, their session always ended with a question from Takumi.
“Depends on the method.”
“Yeah?”
“If I have to change someone, I want them to fall on their accord. So they could look back in horror to realize the real monster that they are.”
Takumi laughed.
“You sound like a comic book villain.”
“I do learn from them.” Aotsuki shrugged. “Is that an answer you want?”
“Hey, I ask you to be my confidant, not my yes-man. I don’t need an answer that I want anymore.”
Anymore?
“But well, at least that’s better than my answer. Thanks for today.”
As Takumi left, he hurriedly shut the door. Aotsuki didn’t get to see a glimpse of the outside.
He had to wonder whose mind Sumino Takumi had ruined before.
“I kill someone in my dream today.”
Aotsuki was awakened in the middle of the night by the sound of leaves rustling. Takumi was standing before the cage, breathing heavily like he had just run all over the Academy.
“Who?”
“I don’t know. I can’t remember.”
Aotsuki approached the boy, leaving a distance big enough to not catch any smell, but small enough that he could still whisper to the boy in the dark.
“Calm down. I can’t hear you like this.”
Takumi took one, then two huge gulps of breath. His erratic heartbeat gradually returned to its normal rhythm and sweats stopped coating his hair. Takumi almost collapsed, but Aotsuki steadied his shoulders before the boy could do so. The bubbling texture gave his goosebumps all over, but Aotsuki wasn’t keen on having a collapsed Takumi in a 5-meter radius.
He also couldn’t deny the urge to see that calm façade crumbled away
“It’s not real, Takumi-kun.” He got his voice to be as soft as possible. Takumi, with all the bravado and serenity of a senior soldier, always seemed to cave whenever Aotsuki acted with the barest nicety.
“Is it?” Takumi snapped, but the tension soon simmered away. “It’s not about real or fake. I’m more scared that I can’t remember the faces that I have killed anymore.”
What the boy said flashed to the back of Aotsuki’s mind. “You have killed a human before.” He wasn’t sure of the implication, but looking at Takumi, rushing to his place instead of any of his friends on the roof, something dawned on him. The difference between someone who had death on their hands and who didn’t was like night and day. A raw wound that etched in their mind, changing their perception forever.
Who had Takumi killed?
“How did you feel during your kill, Aotsuki?” As usual, his questions went nowhere. Takumi wouldn’t give him a straight answer anyway.
“Nothing much. I just stood by and waited until the flame did its job. If I had killed by a knife, maybe I would have some personal attachment. But a gun, a bomb, those can be done from afar. The distance is too wide for me to feel anything. Not like those monsters need any sympathy.”
Takumi never took his commentary on humans too hard, so Aotsuki kept tacking them on at the end. In fact, the boy always chuckled whenever he made those remarks, like being reminded of a good memory. Aotsuki figured that if he added one here, it would be enough to pull Takumi away from those figures haunting his dream, if only for a few moments.
Just like he expected, Takumi chuckled.
“You really won’t get along with Omokage.”
“Who?”
“You don’t have to know.”
There it was again, the unequal balance between them. Aotsuki had a sneaking suspicion that it was Takumi, not Sirei, that ordered for his isolation. He had no proof for this – hard to come by any when you never get to see anyone else – but Takumi being his only visitor didn’t do him any favors. Kept in the dark, unable to fight, Aotsuki could only guess as to why he was being kept alive. Was being the Leader’s emotional barf enough to guarantee his survival?
Takumi was looking out up towards the hallway connecting the two sides of the third floor. Strained their ears, and they could hear faint music blasting from there.
“We just had a battle done, so everyone decided to throw a party. Guess they’re still at it.”
“Why aren’t you there then?”
“Don’t feel like it.” Takumi looked away from the hallway. “If I’m there, then I should be happy, or enthusiastic, or at least positive for the rest of our days, but I can’t muster any energy for them. I don’t want to bring the mood down.”
The boy fidgeted with the hem of his clothes. The distant between Aotsuki and him was palpable, but the distance between Takumi and the other members was even more so. There existed a wall between them, one that Takumi conjured himself.
“For someone who time travel to protect their friends, you don’t seem to enjoy being around them.”
“I have joined so many parties with them, over and over. I can even tell what they are going to do or say without being there.”
The boy’s face was tinged with guilt as he addressed Aotsuki.
“I guess I feel the same as you.” He smiled, a melancholic, bitter smile. “I’m bored.”
A moment of joy repeated a hundred times, and it would lose the allure. The same event repeated over and over, and it was nothing but a routine. How would you derive emotions from the mundane?
“Do you feel the same way about killing?” Aotsuki whispered. “Like in your dream?”
Takumi’s breath hitched. He grabbed the pale hand that had steadied his shoulder the whole time and squeezed it hard. Aotsuki flinched from the sudden slimy contact, but he couldn’t pull away. Not when the trembling traveled from those hands to his arms, threatening to make both of them collapse.
“That was what I’m scared of the most.” The grip on his hand tightened, and Aotsuki could almost hear the trembling in Takumi’s voice. “That I will get used to killing.”
In the echo of the party, Aotsuki thought he heard his name whispered at the end.
When Takumi finally visited Aotsuki again, he looked more tired than ever.
Two more battles had happened since their last visit, a much more rapid pace than ever before. When Takumi entered the Courtyard, Aotsuki thought that his body might burn alive. The blood in his vein screamed at him about potential danger, warning yet longing to synchronize with the overwhelming source of power in the air. It took him several minutes to calm down. Aotsuki didn’t know if the hemoanima in him was going berserk or not, but he did know the reason why.
Takumi plopped down on the grass and fell asleep almost immediately. Aotsuki let him sleep; he needed time to calm himself down too. He knew too little about hemoanima to draw any conclusions, but he could feel the pull towards Takumi getting stronger. The boy was stronger now, his hemoanima enticing, begging for a knife across the throat. The newfound urge surprised Aotsuki himself.
He balled his hands into fists, suppressing the bloodlust in check. Takumi was his only contact to the world. It had been so long since that fateful day, Aotsuki couldn’t even remember the faces of his fellow students. He only got one day with them, after all. But Takumi was the constant in his life, despite knowing his true nature.
This was not attachment, he told himself. Just a newfound interest in this accursed world. But emotions was never a part of his repertoire, and Aotsuki didn’t like lying to himself.
“I think…” Takumi said, eyes still closed. “We only have 4 Commanders left.”
“That was fast.”
“I had a dream about them.” Takumi groggily sat up. “I was one of them, arguing about who got to go next, who should do the hunting and who should do the guarding, all that jazz.”
Takumi talked more about the Commanders, and Aotsuki couldn’t help but notice how…humane, for a lack of better word, the Commanders appeared in that dream. Sirei told them that invaders, Commanders included, were mindless monsters created by World Death to ravage the Earth, but the way Takumi described them made them sounded like individuals with culture, language, and self-aware.
That meant Sirei, and humanity, was lying.
It might be Takumi’s dream, but Aotsuki had stopped believing them as such.
Aotsuki let his mind run through the possibilities. The fact that Commanders were a separate species alone had flipped everything he knew about this war from the top, limited as it was. He didn’t realize he had gone quiet until Takumi spoke up.
“No comments on my dream at all? That’s why I keep you here, you know?”
Aotsuki snapped out of his thoughts to find those bulging eyes trained on him, waiting for a response.
“Your dreams are creative, as always.” He tucked the chaotic thoughts into a corner of his mind. Aotsuki didn’t want to give Takumi any more advantages, not when he was on the verge of discovering something.
“No one said that about me ever.” Takumi stood up, legs wobbly from sitting for too long. His small frame almost fell against the bars. Whatever Takumi had been doing during the battles, it left him in bad shape.
“Takumi-kun, what did you do to the Commanders?”
“What else do you think?” Takumi pushed himself away from the cage, forcing his legs to stand straight.
“I killed them. To protect everyone, I have to kill them.” The hemoanima was screaming in Aotsuki’s ears again. “There’s no other choice.”
He could feel the power bubbling inside that small frame, threatening to spill, to break that vessel into pieces.
“Do you share your dreams with anyone else?”
Takumi had been coming here more regularly. When he wasn’t chatting with Aotsuki, the boy would sprawl on the grass and sleep there, sometimes even through the night. Just as Aotsuki never got to meet the other members of the SDU, Takumi didn’t seem to be spending time with them either.
Intriguing behavior for a so-called heroic boy.
“Why ask?” Takumi yawned. Despite spending most of his time in dream land, that complexion never got any better. “You’re my confidant. Why would I make you one just to tattle my secrets to someone else?”
That meant Takumi didn’t share his dream about the Commanders to anyone either. If that was the case, the rest of them might not know about the truth of this war. If that was the case, then he had some strong words for Takumi, who let this injustice continue. But not just yet, not before Aotsuki could confirm something. He didn’t want to scare Takumi off.
He didn’t have anyone but Takumi.
“I had a dream just now.” Takumi shifted in his place. He wasn’t lying right beside the cage like usual. “I was running on a busy street. When I thought I reached the end, somehow, I was back at the start again. On and on I went, but the end was nowhere in sight. There were people I knew along the way, but their faces blurred together the more I ran.”
“Like being alone in a crowd.”
“Yup, like so.” Takumi nodded. “I always wake up before I got to see the end.”
Aotsuki drummed his hand on his temple, trying to think of what to say.
“With so many vivid dreams, you might as well find a book and study them rather than asking an amateur like me.”
“Hey, don’t give up on me like that after all this time.” Takumi got up and walked near the cages. His remark seemed lighthearted, but there was a hint of surprise when he thought Aotsuki was giving up. “I’m not much of a reader anyway.”
“No?” Aotsuki’s eyebrows furrowed. “Here I thought you read books about dreams back in the TRC.”
“…Ah.” Takumi didn’t even bother with explaining himself. He only let out a small sigh.
“Let’s drop this charade, shall we?” Aotsuki rose from the bed and walked towards the bars as well. “They were never dreams to begin with, aren’t they?”
“Was it obvious?” Takumi smiled. “I was hoping you will be oblivious for longer, even if you only pretend to.”
“And keep playing a fool for your amusement?” Aotsuki scoffed. “Dreams are memories flashing in your mind, you told me so. Those were your past experiences.”
Takumi simply nodded.
“That’s a lot of memories for 100 days, aren’t they?” Aotsuki grabbed the bars, bringing him closer to the boy. “How many 100 days have you gone through, Takumi-kun?”
Takumi’s face fell at the question, but Aotsuki would not let him get away. He grabbed Takumi’s wrist tightly, letting the gruesome texture seep into his glove. The rigid figure flinched from the contact, and eventually, Takumi relented.
“More than you can imagine.” Takumi exhaled. “I had high hopes when I first come back, you know? That I finally got a second chance to fix everything, to make sure everyone stays alive. Even you. How was I supposed to know that fate would give me more than a second chance?”
“I told myself it was fine. This just meant more tries, more ways to see what works and what doesn’t. Surely, I could save everyone this time, and if not, there was always another.” His mouth quirked up into a bitter smile. “Stupid. The moment I started to think there would always be a next time, I had already lost.”
“It became repetitive ever since. I can’t do anything about the first commanders, so I won’t even bother. I go through this party, and no one dies, so I don’t need to participate in this one ever again. If I bond with this person, the outcome will always be better, so why bother with the others? Enough of tries, and even the friends I came back to protect felt nothing more than stock characters whose dialogues I’m tired of hearing.”
Takumi finally looked up. Greeting Aotsuki was not the dull eyes as usual, but sparkling fondness.
“Except for you.” Takumi chuckled. “You really like to make my life hell. You will escape. You will be my friend. Or you will betray me over. I can’t predict what you will do. Among the loops, you were the only highlights, the only thing I look forward to.”
“The first time I tasted solitude was when I killed you, you know? Everyone suspected me of being a lunatic making up time travel as an excuse. Couldn’t say they were wrong. But now that I have gone through that solitude more than enough times, it didn’t sting as much as feeling like you are alone in a room of familiar faces.”
“So I tried to keep you alive. Putting you in the cage, brainwashing you, hell, I tried to let you kill Sirei to gain your trust. But you always wriggle away from my plan, like how the current you are doing now. As if all you Aotsuki Eito were conspiring together to make my life miserable.”
The more Takumi poured out his emotions, the more Aotsuki felt the hemoanima pulling him in. He wanted to distance away, before the urge overwhelmed his reason, but Takumi just had to choose this moment to collapse. Aotsuki hurriedly kneeled down and shook the boy, and Takumi waved his hand away.
“It…It’s fine.” Takumi winced. “The hemoanima I absorbed was too much, that’s all.”
“That’s all? From what you told me about hemoanima, there had to be a catch.”
Hemoanima could create avatars. It could heal, it could destroy, it could exchange memories.
Who to say it couldn’t change a person?
“I said I’m fine!” Takumi shouted. The boy got hold of Aotsuki’s shoulder, a reminiscent of that night when he came to Aotsuki for what was perhaps the only genuine nightmare. “I’m so close this time. Everyone is alive, and we only have the Supreme Commander left, so please.”
“Just stay here until everything is over.”
That was something Aotsuki couldn’t promise.
“Why do you even try so hard?” Aotsuki pried that hand away. “For people who only wear the faces of your friends?”
If a person has the same face, the same memories, but not the same experience, will you still like them?
Takumi only smiled.
“Who knows?” He said. “Maybe it’s because I’m a machine who only knows how to fight.”
The alarm had been blaring for a while. The faux peace inside the Courtyard couldn’t hold up in the incessant noise.
When the door opened and the robot entered, Aotsuki almost didn’t remember his name.
“We have an emergency.” Sirei – right, it was Sirei – waddled in panic.
“…What happened?”
“What didn’t happen?” The robot fiddled with the lock. “The Supreme Commander appeared all of a sudden. We somehow managed to defeat her, but then something went wrong with Takumi-kun. Now we have another enemy that needs to be eliminated.”
Aotsuki felt his mind go blank. But at the same time, it wasn’t a complete surprise either.
“We need as many fighting power as possible. I’ll permit you to fight this one time, Eito-kun. I will re-register you in the Revive-o-Matic, so get out there.”
“Why should I trust you?” Aotsuki didn’t bother to move. “For all I know, you can just throw me as your meat shield out there with no chance of coming back. I’m not fighting a losing battle.”
The robot groaned in agony. The tiny eyes sparked red before a screen lit up, showing his information in the machine.
“There, you happy? Now transform and help the soldiers, posthaste.”
They must be in such a bind for Sirei to panic like that. The robot didn’t even sense the scythe as it came close.
Aotsuki swung the weapon with all his might, finishing what he should have done a long time ago.
He woke up inside the intimidating machine. The bomb in his body must have exploded.
Aotsuki stumbled down from the pod, still clad in his Class Armor. The weapon in his arm was heavy, unfamiliar. It was his first time actually using it; the feeling as metal cut through metal was satisfying, worth a death over.
He walked out of the Infirmary and looked over the window. The battle was still ongoing. Among the hideous figures were some familiar shapes, but Aotsuki could care less about them. He cared more about the giant Commander that they were fighting. But it wasn’t a Commander. The red scales in the shape of armor covered his monstrous form, the azure flame sprouting from his back, radiating heat that could be felt even inside the Academy. But there was no mistaking the alluring pull in his heart: he was looking at Sumino Takumi, now morphing completely into a monster.
Takumi was beautiful.
Aotsuki only watched as the students tried to struggle in futile. He didn’t have any intention of helping.
They were the reason Takumi became like this, him included.
On the quiet battlefield, blackened corpses strewn all over the place.
Aotsuki stepped into the Schoolyard covered with invader’s gore and approached the Commander-shaped monster crawling up in a ball. Blood stained those scales, and the rumble reverberated through the school resembled hiccups. Takumi was crying.
He shouldn’t be. Not when he had done too much for these worthless creatures.
Aotsuki stabbed his scythe into one of the corpses. Did it belong to a face he already knew, or a complete stranger? Takumi surely would know. He hacked and slashed at the corpse until it couldn’t be desecrated anymore.
What…what are you doing?!
The trembling voice didn’t suit that monstrous form at all.
“What does it look like I’m doing?” He started his way to the next corpse. Even if they were just strangers, they were no doubt important to Takumi. If he could just direct those emotions to him, if he could transform that sadness into rage.
Truthfully, Aotsuki didn’t know what he thought about Sumino Takumi.
Aotsuki hated him, just like he hated every human. But Takumi was also his special person, his constant that saved him from solitude. Except that solitude was created by Takumi alone, and Aotsuki fell on his own accord.
If his past self could see him right now, he must be horrified.
Takumi howled in anger as the scythe destroyed yet another corpse. Rage blinded reason, and the Commander raised his sword against Aotsuki. He retaliated in return, swinging his scythe and let the hemoanima dance. The blood screamed in his vein, bringing with it the familiar urge to sink this weapon into flesh. Aotsuki was alone, he was unprepared. This was his first battle ever, but fear never crossed his mind.
As they lost themselves in the fervor of battle, Aotsuki could only wish to savor this moment as long as possible. Fighting Takumi was perhaps the most fun he had had in this life.
It was over before they both knew it.
Aotsuki could tell he was losing. He had dealt considerable damage to Takumi, but that azure blade wounded him just as much. The loss of blood made his vision dizzy; if he didn’t finish Takumi now, the boy would not let Aotsuki have a chance to use the Revive-o-Matic. He let the spike drunk all the blood he could spare and aimed the Specialist Attack at Takumi’s heart.
He didn’t mind if he failed. Humanity already lost the war.
The azure blade came for him just as he swung the scythe. Takumi was stronger, faster; in a battle of pure hemoanima, Aotsuki would die.
But the blow never happened. The blade stopped just before Aotsuki’s neck. The same mercy wasn’t granted to Takumi as the scythe plunged deep into his heart. Hemoanima burst out in waves, flowing into Aotsuki, enveloping him like a cocoon.
Aotsuki was drowning. He was thrusted into a sea of memories, of dozens of hundred days merging together. Aotsuki screamed in agony as the memories ate away at his own self, overwhelming his existence. He was Aotsuki Eito. He was Sumino Takumi. He was a prisoner stuck in a cage. He was the time leaper. He was the only one who could save everyone. He…He…
Who was he?
“AOTSUKI!”
A hand forced its way into the sea and caught hold of his wrist. Aotsuki held on to that lifeline, that foreign warmth. Slowly, that hand dragged him away from the cacophony of memories, back into the real, cruel world.
Aotsuki snapped his eyes open. He was laying on the ground, just a few meters away from the giant Commander. The outer shells were slowly scattering into the wind, until it left only a limp Takumi behind.
“Takumi-kun!”
He scrambled towards the boy, holding him up in his arms. Blood cascaded down his chest where the scythe tore away flesh, and Takumi’s face grew paler and paler.
“Takumi…kun?”
Aotsuki felt his throat constricted as the hideous visage peeled away, until it matched the glimpses he caught in the sea: bright crimson hair with blue eyes, a vulnerable face that was smiling at him.
“Sorry…” Takumi coughed. More blood spilled down from his lips. “I shouldn’t…have let you kill me. But…I also don’t want to hurt you any longer.”
“You won’t die. The Revive-o-Matic can fix you.”
“Are you panic for me? That’s rare.” Takumi chuckled. The gesture forced more blood out of his mouth. Aotsuki held the boy tighter, sharing his warmth as much as possible. But there was no use; the cold permeated the body faster than he could. Aotsuki only knew how to kill. He didn’t know how to stop the death of an important person.
The Revive-o-Matic wouldn’t revive someone whose hemoanima had mutated beyond human. There was nothing he could do.
“Sorry…and thank you, Aotsuki. For relieving me of this dream.” Takumi’s eyes went dull. The boy hovered his able hand in the air, as if unsure where to find him. Aotsuki held that hand tight, and Takumi’s face brightened. Ironically how only when near his end did that face ever look alive.
“Even if you only wear the same face, the same voice, even if you will never know the same me…” Takumi’s voice was getting smaller. “I guess…. I still can’t help but love you.”
Takumi closed his eyes. Just like so, a moment lost in time, and he left Aotsuki alone, without even leaving him a chance to get a word in.
Aotsuki held the limp body in his arms. He kept holding on to Takumi, until day turned into night, until he could no longer feel any warmth. Even so, he didn’t want to let go. Of the only human he ever got to understand. Of the only human who said he loved him.
He kept holding on until darkness took hold, until it was his turn to be plunged in the cycles of destiny.