Cogito ergo Hakkai est…

(I think therefore Hakkai is…)

Disclaimer : The day I'm rich enough to buy the guys, I swear you'll be the first ones I'll tell. I just borrow them from Minekura sensei to play. I love these toys! (sorry, boys)

Summary : Seeing the memory of who you were in somebody else can be disturbing… Hakkai muses about moral, Hazel and Gonou. Gojyo tries to sleep. Midnight chat once again…Sue me ! Kinda obscure without knowing Even a worm's first chapters.

Hazel. The saint.

This is how they call him. The mere thought of him makes my hands grip the bedsheets and squeeze. Hard.

Don't judge lest you be judged…

I didn't believe in God, even then. I still don't. I've met gods already, anyway. Battled them, killed them. To be honest, they don't strike me as having some kind of wisdom I could covet. They all seemed as lost as we are… But some of the sisters' precepts remain. Not as beliefs. Mere memories of words so often heard…They sometimes come back, late in the silence of the night.

Don't judge lest you be judged…

I judged.

Today.

Hazel said…

— Resurrect the dead. Isn't that the ultimate dream of humanity ?

Or ultimate blasphem, I'd rather think. I don't believe in God, but I'm pretty sure there are some kind of universal laws… I understand the temptation nontheless. How hypocrite I would appear otherwise ! Kannan's single life, I valued more than a thousand youkai's lives ! Why should I be shocked ? Why AM I shocked ?

And I hate youkai. Every single one. Every single part of me. I have told it so often, even.

The child looked at me. Youkai child. I felt Hazel's hunger in my back.

— Can you stop the jeep?

I hate youkai. Why?

— I can't I answer.

Why can't I allow Hazel taking this life?

How come I'm ready to fight for this unknown child?

— Out of souls, he mouths casually… Which is why, did I not say just now?

"Stop the jeep."

And I get mad. Really mad.

— What -kind- of person are you...! I ask. I have to know.

Why does it bother me so much, this viscerally? Why?

Because it is who I have been. He is Gonou.

Hazel said:

— The people resurrected via my powers were those who had been killed by youkai. Therefore…They confront youkai with a similarly revived hatred.

I do understand that. Hatred.

Night falls, only Gojyo can hear me. I'm not really talking to him, though, when I say, in the middle of our conversation:

— We are perhaps similar.

But he thinks I address him, and he answers.

—You and That Guy? Just wheeeere is the similarity?

— Is that so? I ask

-— That is so, he says.

There is evidence in his voice.

A castle as silent as a tomb. Corridors littered with laying corpses. Rain, outside. The scent of wet earth coming front a broken window can hardly outpower the one of decay that starts floating in the still air.

A silhouette walk through, graceful, it almost glides, in fact. Feline. Youkai. It's me. I know it. There is no pain in spite of the blood and entrails staining the fabric. I just turned, maybe. That's why I can't feel the pain, yet. Perceptions of my own self have to settle. My mind is gone at the exact same time Chin Yiso's body hit the ground. A shadow catches my eyes, I lung for it. My claws meet glass. It was a mirror. My shadow. I look at myself. The vine leaves on my skin have disappeared. There is no youkai's slit pupils in my eyes.

But the irises aren't green anymore.

Eyes open in the night. Hardly the beginning of a faint start.

A dream.

Chin-Yiso killed Cho Gonou. I remember the loath in his voice, the insane jubilation, his talons on my skin, his hand through my guts. I remember the pain. And I screamed. And I changed. And I killed him. Or so I thought, then. And I thought I would die, too.

And then, there is a hole.

Gojyo told me I was still conscious when he found me, and I don't even remember.

In a way, I am like these reborn people. Or I have been. I can't remember. My head hurts.

Perhaps this dream was a memory?

Had Gonou yellow eyes when he stormed into Hyakugan mao's castle on a rampage?

This dream is absurd.

I sigh.

It's absurd too, how loud it sounds in the dead of the night.

Looking from the outside, even my nightmares are quiet, Gojyo once told me. It sounded like he didn't like it, and I don't really understand why.

I hear Gojyo cursing in his pillow and a dull thud which might be his fist against the poor thing. Silence ensues a few seconds before I feel a weight on my matress. His weight. Before I guess, hands fall each side of my pillow and feel the ghost of crimson strands on my cheekbones. His hands. His hair.

It's familiar. And this always how I know always know I'm not in hell.

My fingers remain folded neatly on the comforter and my chest.

And I look up at the ghost of his face in the dark.

— Why aren't you sleeping?

His tone is accusatory. He forgets he is not sleeping either. Or maybe his tone is accusatory because he can't sleep when I can't sleep.

Don't go there. This is nonsense…Even if the contrary is often true.

— What's the matter? he prompts again.

— I'm thinking.

— It's not as useful as sleep, he gruffly answers.

— This is useful. Cogito ergo sum.

I can't help. I almost smile. I can't see the dumbstuck face he must arbor, now. But I can quite guess. The teacher's things always unsaddle him…

I just can't help grabbing one of the crimson strand which keeps taunting me with its slow balancement just over my face. I wouldn't dare pull it the way Goku does, though.

— This is a bloody red, I say. Which is a stupid thing to say. It's going to hurt him even if he is not going to let it show. And it's even not as if I could see red, right now. In the silky darkness of a moonless night, even Gojyo could forget he is a hanyou… Should forget.

Too bad. Never been able to tell him how much I like this red, how much I need it.

My other hand reach for him. My palm falling on his nape as if it was its natural place. I pull him slowly to me, until his ear is so close to my lips that I don't need to voice the word ; a breath is enough.

— Reminder.

The word comes from the past.

And now…

He is as silent as a tomb, as still as a stone…

He grabs my wrist, as if to make me let go of the prisoned strand. But I don't.

— Reminder, I repeat.

Of a sin (which one ? Incest ? Or crimes ?) I wanted to flew, I told him once.

But it's not the truth. Reminder of who is Hakkai now.

Cogito ergo Hakkai est…

Hakkai who has the right to feel disturbed by this Hazel who falsely pretend to virtue by trading lives… Because Cho Hakkai isn't the Cho Gonou he was once. But this Hakkai knows he may understands better than some others this child with innocent face and cruel credo who is Hazel. There is a loss behind all that. Somebody is gone, I can feel it. And the hole that person left is full of hate, of anger. I don't think he's -that- bad. Really.

I am changing. Maybe is this the mercy of the ones who wanted me to become Cho Hakkai. The lesson to be learned in my skin. My youkai's skin.

And today, I judged.

oOowariOo

Yup. Nonsense story again. Apologies.

Zan-chan. I got the typo right. I think. I hope. I pray.

About the latin : Somebody told me I got it wrong. It's true the time I studied latin is far far away (faaaaaaaaaar). But I really do think I wrote what I meant to say. I remember the « cogito ergo sum ». But I don't think it suits Hakkai whose problem actually is it's very diffucult for him to simply BE Hakkai (after having been Gonou) or BE a youkai ( after having been human). Hence the use of the third person : it's because he thinks that he can be (and not is) the person other people call Hakkai.