Blue Heaven, chapter 13
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Chapter 12 was here.
Blue Heaven, chapter 13
by cinnamongrr1
Beneath Kazuma’s hands, Saki made a hiccuppy sound and opened her eyes. Her head lolled around on her mass of black hair, and she reached out toward him.
“It wasn’t supposed to happen this way,” she murmured. “It wasn’t, it wasn’t.” She curled onto her side, her face buried in Kazuma’s lap, and began to cry.
Dumbfounded, near frantic with worry for Kyou, Tohru could only watch as Hatori tried to save Kyou’s life. Across the room, Akito had revived and was sitting up, leaning heavily against Kureno and coughing.
“Gone,” he mumbled insensibly between gasps. “Gone, gone, gone.” An unsettling smile flitted across his lips, and then his face crumpled and he began to moan, a low-pitched sound that grew to a wordless, wailing expression of grief.
Kyou gave a choking gurgle, then, and rolled away from Hatori to retch violently. Beside them, Kazuma let out a heavy sigh of relief. Across the room, Kunimitsu had been successful with Shigure, who lay limply on his back, breath shallow but steady as he blinked up at the ceiling.
“Kunimitsu, my bag is in the car. Can you get it, please?” Hatori asked raggedly. Kunimitsu nodded and went to get the bag, and Hatori turned back to Kyou. He still lay on his side, trembling and shivering, his skin grey and clammy.
Tohru, too, was ashen and felt all strength melt away from her limbs. She wanted to heal him, protect him, save him, and found herself sort of collapsing inward in relief, curling down over Kyou as if she could shield him from harm with her own body. Her hair fell around their faces, and she began whispering to him in a low voice.
“You’re fine now, Kyou-kun,” she murmured. “Everything is fine now. I love you. You’re going to be alright.”
“They’re in shock,” Hatori said, drawing her attention. “I’ll go get blankets.” Kazuma nodded absently, and turned his attention to the girl still quietly sobbing against him. He pulled Saki into his lap, cradling her close and using the corner of his sleeve to wipe away the mixture of tears and blood from her face.
“Is Tohru alright?” Hana managed to say.
“She’s… fine,” Kazuma replied. In truth, he thought Tohru looked one step away from collapse herself, but he didn’t think telling Hana that that would be helpful. “What just happened here?”
“I couldn’t let him hurt her,” Hana said brokenly. “I never actually tried to use my abilities before… always, it was by accident, when I was upset. I think… I think I pushed too hard and it affected all of you. I never meant… please believe me.” She clutched at his sleeve with her fingers, staring earnestly up at him. “I never meant to hurt anyone, not even that Akito, I just wanted to stop him from hurting Tohru-chan. Please, please…”
Kazuma exchanged a glance with Tohru. ”I believe you,” he replied. There was such anguish in her dark eyes, such remorse. She was crying again, in great heaving sobs against his throat, and he gathered her tightly to him until she calmed, seeming to drift asleep.
A hand held out a blanket to Kazuma; Hatori had returned with a pile of them. Kazuma tucked it around Hana and watched as Hatori covered Kyou, Tohru, and Shigure with others before bringing one to Kureno for Akito.
The head of the Sohma family was rocking back and forth, keening to himself in an eerie singsong and clinging desperately to Kureno; if he noticed when the blanket was wrapped around his narrow shoulders, he gave no indication.
Kunimitsu was soon back with Hatori’s doctor bag, which was ringing vehemently. Hatori extracted a shrieking cell phone from it.
“Yes,” he said. “Yes, it happened here, too… Akito-san, Shigure, Kyou, and myself.” He paused a moment before continuing, his gaze flicking across the room to the Rooster, suddenly inscrutable. “And Kureno.” Kureno turned his eyes back to Akito. “Who is accounted for?”
Hatori let out a harsh breath at the reply. “I want people looking for Rin,” he said. “Everyone you can spare. You won’t be able to stop Hatsuharu from going, but don’t let him go by himself, he’ll get lost. I’ll go to Ayame’s.” He glanced over at Tohru. “I think we know where Yuki might be, I’ll go there, too.”
“Watch them closely,” Hatori said shortly to whomever was on the other end. “Who’s not accounted for?”
At the reply he received, Hatori slumped back against the wall as if too weak to support himself.
“I’ll be there as soon as I can leave here,” he mumbled, and closed his eyes. “Soon.”
“What is it?” Kazuma asked, sounding apprehensive. “What’s happened?”
“It seems all of the Jyuunishi have been affected by… whatever it is Hanajima-san did here tonight,” Hatori replied wearily. “All suffered severe seizures and stopped breathing. Momiji, Hiro, Kisa, Ritsu, Haru, and Kagura were all revived. No one’s seen Rin in hours. There’s no answer at Ayame’s…“
He broke off, jabbing a number into his cell phone and drumming his fingers on his knee as he listened to it ring.
“…so I’m going over there,“ he said bleakly, getting to his feet.
Kazuma nodded, laying Saki carefully on the floor and standing as well.
Just then, Shigure flung back his blanket and lurched up, uncharacteristically clumsy. “I’m going, too,” he said.
“You should stay here and rest,” Hatori said sternly, cupping his cousin’s elbow to help him balance himself upright.
“You’re just as shaky as the rest of us,” Shigure protested, frowning at him. It was true; there was a fine tremor to Hatori’s hands that had not gone unnoticed by the others. “Tori-san, it’s Aya.”
Hatori stared back a moment before sighing and nodding. “Fine, fine.” He turned to Tohru.
“Tohru-san,” Hatori said, placing his hand on her shoulder in a gentle jostle to get her attention, “try to reach Yuki. I know you have an idea where he is. Call my cell phone when you learn something.”
Slowly Tohru sat back from her crouch over Kyou. She pushed her hair off her face as she gazed, unblinking, up at Hatori, and then nodded.
He turned away, rifling through his bag, and fished out a bottle of pills, which he handed to Kureno.
“Give Akito two of these right away, they’ll calm him down. I don’t know when I’ll be back. If he’s still upset in an hour, give him another, but no more.”
Kureno took the bottle, nodding gravely.
“I think they will be fine. Keep them warm and calm. If any of them seem to take a turn for the worse, ring for an ambulance without fail, absolutely without fail.” Hatori’s face seemed lined, suddenly, lined and tired and old. His shoulders were slumped, as if they supported the weight of the world, and Kazuma grasped his shoulder in a show of camaraderie.
“Let us know how everyone is,” he said.
Hatori exhaled, consciously releasing some tension, and was then gone, Shigure following close behind.
Tohru’s motions were jerky as she stood, shrugging off her blanket and carefully placing Kyou’s head on it.
“Will Hana-chan be alright?” she whispered to Kazuma, watching her friend as she lay there, unconscious.
“Hatori said they would be…” Kazuma ventured, and bent to tuck an edge of blanket more securely around Hanajima. “Go, call Yuki. I’ll watch them all.”
She nodded and padded out to the hallway phone, her gait careful, as if she were afraid that one wrong step would have her tumbling to the floor.
Kazuma went to Akito; he lay curled in Kureno’s lap, quiet now but still rocking back and forth.
“Is he well?” Kazuma asked, studying how the other man was breathing, the colour of his complexion.
“I don’t know,” Kureno replied simply, not turning his head toward Kazuma, who stood there a moment longer before returning to the other side of the room. For all the suffering he’d caused everyone for the past decade, Akito was a pathetic figure, and any resentment Kazuma might have harbored drained away at the sight of his frail body clinging so pitifully to Kureno.
Kazuma knelt between Kyou and Hana and reached out to both of them, his anxiety lessening just watching them breathe easily. Relaxing fractionally, he allowed his mind to wander to less emergent issues. Why had the Zodiac members been more harshly affected than the rest of them? For that matter, why had Kureno not reacted like his fellow Jyuunishi?
Less puzzling, but no less worrying, was Kyou’s fate. Akito had tried, if unsuccessfully, to take Kyou to the Cat’s room. Hanajima had bought Kyou a reprieve with the use of her powers this evening, and for that alone Kazuma felt an almost embarrassing amount of gratitude to her. But how long would it last? What would happen when Akito had recovered? Would he uphold his promise to let Kyou graduate high school, or continue to insist that Kyou be locked away immediately?
“I won’t let them take you away,” he murmured, combing his fingers through Kyou’s unruly hair. The boy’s face was mottled with pink, and there were dark, bruise-like shadows under his eyes. “Even if we have to leave town and move somewhere else, I won’t let them.”
“Good,” Tohru said, and Kazuma looked up to see her standing by him, back from using the telephone. She dropped heavily to her knees at his side, placing a hand on Kyou’s head also, their fingers almost touching in the thick auburn mass. “But if you go, can you please take me with you?”
“I-“ Kazuma didn’t know what to say. How could he bring a girl, with no blood relation, with them?
“Please,” she entreated. Her eyes were huge, pleading, but dry. “Please,” she repeated, more urgently, when he didn’t answer. “Please don’t take him away from me.”
A hand brushed both of theirs from Kyou’s head; Kyou himself had woken up and was struggling to sit up from under the mass of blankets piled on top of him. He glared when they went to help him, pushing himself upright under his own power.
“I’m really glad you want to take me away from the family, if Akito still wants to lock me up,” he told his surrogate father. “But I won’t leave Tohru.” He looked away, a faint blush staining his cheeks as he mumbled, “I’d rather be locked up here, close to her, than free somewhere else.”
Kazuma was rendered speechless. Kyou was not the most forthcoming of boys in the best of circumstances, but this…
His surprised musings were interrupted by Tohru’s gasp- she clasped her hands together at her chest, the supplication on her face abruptly giving way to apprehension before she launched herself at Kyou, almost knocking him backward as she wrapped herself around him, clinging like a limpet.
“No, Kyou-kun!” she exclaimed, eyes squeezed shut. “That’s the nicest thing anyone’s ever said about me, and I’m so happy Kyou-kun loves me so much, but, but you can’t! It would be horrible if you were locked up, just so you could be near me! I couldn’t come visit you, after all, and it would all be a waste! A horrible, terrible waste!”
There was no reaction to her words, and in fact the body within her grasp had gone very, very still. Tohru lifted her head from his chest and peeked up at him, then over at Kazuma, who was similarly frozen.
“Kyou-kun?” Tohru asked haltingly. Had she done something wrong? Been too insistent? Offended them by telling Kyou what to do? “Shishou-san?”
“Tohru, where’s the blanket?” Kyou asked then, his voice sounding thin.
She peered around, and spotted their blankets discarded on the floor.
“Right there…” she said, wondering why he cared. And then the heartbeat under her ear grew louder, started pounding faster, and shock slammed into her.
“Kyou-kun…” she began slowly. Wild hope sparked to life within her. “If the blankets are over there, and I’m hugging you…”
His arms came around her with painful hesitancy, holding her securely against him as carefully as if she were made of glass at first, then with more strength as time passed uneventfully.
“I’m still not changing,” Kyou whispered at last, lifting wide burgundy eyes to his father. “Shishou, I’m still not changing.”
He buried his face against Tohru’s hair, then, and after a moment his shoulders began to shake. Kazuma realized he was crying. Tohru’s arms slid around Kyou’s neck and she held him, stroking his back and hair and whispering to him. Kazuma felt his throat tighten with emotion as the full import of it hit him.
“You’re free,” he said roughly, passing his hand over his own damp eyes.
Movement to his right made him glance to the side; Hana had sat up. She seemed older, somehow, and infinitely weary. She had wrapped her arms around her waist and was looking at him with a sort of resigned expectation.
She was waiting for him to become angry with her for causing everyone so much pain, he realized, and almost smiled to think of how far from anger he felt at that moment. In her, Kazuma saw nothing but the person who had liberated his son from a terrible fate.
He took her hands, startling her so that they lay slack in his grasp. “You have saved him,” he told her gravely. “You have saved all of them.” One by one, he lifted her hands to his lips, pressing a kiss to their palms.
She blushed, more from shock than modesty he suspected, and turned her hands in his grasp to cup his face, just gazing at him with her limpid eyes.
“Oh, no,” Kyou moaned, and they turned to see him staring at them in horror.
Tohru, however, was beaming at them brightly. Her face was still drawn and pale, but there was a light in her eyes that spoke of great joy, unshadowed by fear for the first time in a year.
Chapter 14 is here.