Scars in the Mirror: Chapter 48

The Sky: Chapter 7

Chapter 48: Indifference

Eric stood in the kitchen, all manner of goosebumps spreading about his body.

It was like 2 million tiny insects ceased to exist, somewhere very far away.

He flinched, and Violet didn't understand why. And then the miasma of death struck, almost like a wave of nothingness. They both had nothing to say, even knowing that something awful had happened, they couldn't bring their bodies to move. The grey tinge and pressure in the air...it was suffocating them.

For several minutes, they were silent, and did not even seem to draw breath. A strange sort of understanding was felt through their connection. They had both come to the same conclusion. Many, many people had just perished, no, vanished. Eric could almost feel something, from somewhere far off…

Fury; or was it indifference?

It felt oddly familiar, like an old friend.

Eric suddenly found himself able to speak, for just one, lonely second.

And then everything moved...backwards?

aaaaaAaaaaa

The darkness of night consumed their home as Kousei's transformation dropped him down, all the way human again. He reflexively let go of Kaori as his entire body lit up in pain, dropping him down to his knees.

Kaori could see that he was definitely in a lot of pain. But she couldn't feel it through their connection. Her eyes widened at the implications of the situation.

"He's blocking me out to protect me," the thought echoed through her mind. She stood there, useless. There was a flicker of something within herself. She couldn't bear to watch this, couldn't it just stop….

And just as suddenly as it had started, the pain stopped coursing through his veins, and Kousei fell to the floor, broken.

And Kaori fell, too. She somehow knew that it all would be okay. She still felt that flicker, even as deep inside the dark recesses of her mind it was. It felt...stronger than she'd ever been.

Before she knew it, she slammed into the floor, and passed out.

aaaaaAaaaaa

Eric hadn't felt this riled up in ages. Something had just messed with the natural order of the world, and he'd felt it as vividly as if they'd slammed a brick into the back of his head.

The heat behind his eyes let Violet know that he was about to get serious.

"We'll talk about this later. I need to go investigate." He said, stepping out onto the porch. He'd actually figured out how his powers worked. He drew his strength from the World itself, the Earth's flow of energy never being too far from his grasp.

Violet raised her hands in mock-defeat.

"Fine. But be safe."

She saw him turn his head to the side slightly, and smile grimly. "I won't be."

She scrunched her nose up in annoyance but accepted it all the same. Violet felt the heat of his transformation, his hair gaining the familiar golden hue, wings spreading out from his back.

Leaping off of the porch and into the air, he twisted around and blasted off. Violet was left in his dust, in more ways than one, as he disappeared into the air, just like he had taken to doing.

What she'd taken to doing when he was gone was meditating. The exercise in serenity helped to control the odd roaring in the darkest parts of her mind; the star would not consume her, not if she could help it.

She got herself changed into her athletic gear, and did some stretches out in their growing orchard. She had a feeling that this would take him longer than the routine grocery run.

aaaaaAaaaaa

Eric hadn't been able to re-access the Origin state with nearly as much ease as of late. It was annoying, but as he hurtled through the air at a ridiculous speed, it took most of his concentration just to keep moving forward whilst tracking the location of the anomaly. He didn't notice, then, when he entered the airspace above a restricted-access military operation.

Immediately, troops on the ground were granted permission to knock him out of the air, and as he moved out of the way of several projectiles, he noted the amount of shit he was now in.

Moving down to the ground, he casually knocked around anyone who came at him. While dodging all varieties of explosives.

"Can you stop firing at me? I'm getting a little tired of this, and I'll start fighting back soon if you don't stop." This comment only seemed to exacerbate the situation, and Eric started to calm himself in preparation for the perfect silence of the Origin State.

"I don't have time to fight you. Surrender…" he said, the not-so-unfamiliar light shrouding his body, "or die."

He was fired upon from all sides as he completed the transformation, with a soft pulse of energy starting to flow between him and the World. His eyes snapped open, and the casual nature of his movements meant his enemies would finally understand how out-matched they were.

He whispered. Two simple words. "The World." Walking through the perfect silence, he blurred around several heavy-duty rounds of mid-air ammunition. Reaching one of the heavier-set soldiers, one blow to the stomach seemed like it would do. He flashed around the corner as time restarted.

The soldiers got to see one of their own be violently wrenched in half by an unseen blow. Blood spattered the ground, the earth beneath the poor man's feet greedily soaking it up. Eric winced at the unintentional death he'd caused. "Too much force, huh." His lapse in concentration dropped him from the Origin State, and he was quickly reminded of what he needed to do, immediately taking flight once more, and he quickly disappeared over the horizon, unnoticed.

aaaaaAaaaaa

It was well past midnight, and the moon was well-concealed by thundering clouds. A violent clap of thunder jolted Kaori awake, from where she'd collapsed bodily on top of her fiancee. Remembering what she'd done, and then not done...she rushed to the bathroom to vomit what little she had left in her nigh-empty stomach. She gripped the toilet with base desperation, nearly slamming the seat on her head, such was the force of her heaving.

The storm shook their house with an unexpected violence, and the clattering of their dishes brought her back to her senses.

She shook, her body exhausted, and she stumbled towards the shower, hoping to clean herself up. She was, perhaps, too aware of how she smelled, having gotten vomit on her shirt and in her hair.

Another shaky step brought her into their shower, where she didn't bother with taking off her clothes. She just turned on the hot water, and sat down. So weak, she didn't even have enough life left to cry.

She just stared at absolutely nothing, in a puddle of shame and disgust.

aaaaaAaaaaa

The first thing he knew was pain; a sore, dull, ugly thing twisting its way through his chest. Registering the fact that he even existed, Kousei attempted to sit up, looking into the darkness around him. A sharp, throbbing pain slashed its way up his spine, and he hit the ground, writhing in pain. Flipping himself over in forceful desperation, he cried out as his chest cracked, something popping internally. Blinking through the tears puddling in his eyes, he crawled, unable to stand for the ripping sensation raking its way up his legs. Kousei crawled, for he had one thing in mind. Kaori. His best-friend, his lover, his life. She was in pain, smothered by her own remorse. He could feel it every time he even so much as thought about their connection, and he was all the more determined for it.

"Don't...worry. I'm c-coming," he whispered weightily, his breath hitching. He continued onward, his energy slowly fading. He'd made it halfway up the stairs when the muscles in his arms failed, his head and chest ramming into the wedge-like surface. Struggling, he gripped the stair above his head with his last bit of ever-fading resolve. When he gripped the top step, he couldn't cry anymore, and as his second wind hit, his eye color changed.

aaaaaAaaaaa

His only companion was the wind, as he flew forward, onward. His guilt was pulling his state of mind to the morose, the man's death being repeated in his mind, over and over again. Thoughts of what he should have done differently were suffocating him. It was inescapable, the pull of the void.

He had taken a life. Tarnished something sacred about himself. As the air rushed past him, he became aware that he had left the land behind him, and all he could see had become the glare of the sun and the surrounding ocean. In fact, he'd left the land behind a while ago.

"What sort of monster am I?" was all he could seem to think to himself, even as he hurtled forward through the air.

The determination in his grey eyes wavered.

aaaaaAaaaaa

Gardening never left her alone for hours at a time, at least. Violet found quiet solace in her spade and soil; no matter how much work she'd done already, there was always more earth to till, more to nurture, more to plant. Even when she'd spend the whole day alone, she was more than content to let it be so.

The sweat converging on her eyebrows, almost seeming to do it on purpose, was annoying.

Everything seemed to start to get on her nerves, as she stood from her work.

It was almost overwhelming. The screaming in the back of her mind had returned, and she felt herself start to get uncomfortably warm. Ozone scratched at her nose as lightning crackled off of her skin, raking at the ground. She felt something snap, deep within the confines of her consciousness, even as she tried to keep it in check.

Falling to her knees, Violet knew she was losing control as something hot and all-consuming pushed its way through her mind.

Her efforts to bottle it up were in vain. She screamed; a strangled, violent sound emitting from her throat. The Star was reaching out towards the center of her being, brushing aside her connection with Eric. She felt it as it snapped, her eyes changing to grey.

And then she was drowning in light, not ready to be a conduit for such power. A pillar of light flashed from her body, fire filling her veins.

And then everything stopped. Her surroundings were charred; the dry, wispy remains of part of their orchard crumbling under its own weight. She stood in the center of a cracked, blackened crater.

The flame that danced from her frame ever-so-gracefully billowed with an ancient light. It contained a queer indifference to everything around it, burning all with impunity.

aaaaaAaaaaa

Kousei had rested for several minutes, and had eventually struggled to his feet. The storm had briefly settled, before returning with an all-too-familiar ferocity. His footing unstable, Kousei gripped the walls, trying to at least keep himself upright.

Pushing himself forward, he wrestled his way up the steps, exhausted in both mind and body. He had to keep forcing himself to keep going more than once, his body sore and inflamed. He heard the shower running from down the hall.

When he turned on the light, he fell to his knees, defeated.