Chapter 25 - Sealed Memories 6
TL: flarewk
Editor: SoushiYC (in prog)
Looking at Asaka who bit her lips till she actually bled, I hastily asked: "What"s wrong, Asaka?"
Still lying onto me, Natsu laughed as she said to me: "Hiroto onii-chan, Asaka"s definitely starving of hunger, let"s quickly give her some food to eat."
Looking at Natsu who had a still warped face despite her smiling, I managed a reluctant nod before wrestling out of Natsu"s bear-hug, pa.s.sing Mokuzai"s package which was full of food towards Asaka.
But Asaka didn"t take the package, even after quite some time, and when I lifted up my head to look at her eyes, I noticed that the current Asaka"s eyes were extremely scary; the moment I saw her eyes I immediately had a cold chill.... I have no idea how to describe the expression in her eyes other than using "empty and hollowed" for it.
Suddenly Asaka stretched out both of her hands and tightly gripped my hands, which was holding onto the package of food.
"Asaka, what"s wrong? Aahh........... your hurting me!!!!"
While Asaka was gripping my hand, she suddenly placed force on it, it was extremely strong to the point of me screaming out in excruciating pain.
Mokuzai who was standing beside me realized that the situation seemed to be a little unpleasant and quickly stepped in to pull my hands away from Asaka.
The moment my hands left Asaka"s, the expression in her eyes returned back to normal: "Ah? Hiroto.........s-sorry, sorry, does it hurt?"
"Of course it hurts, Asaka, why did your strength suddenly became so strong all of a sudden!!"
Mokuzai became a little purplexed as he asked too: "Ojou-sama, is there something wrong?"
"I don"t know either, Hiroto I"m sorry.....i"m sorry........"
I slowly ma.s.saged my still aching red hands with an unhappy expression on my face.
Natsu who was standing beside me then walked over, she clutched my hand and then bent her head to slowly blow my aching red hands.
"Natsu-chan, you"re really gentle, thanks, I"d feel better already."
Natsu blushed as she lowered her head and said: "Really? This..... no need for thanks, it"s fine as long as Hiroto onii-chan is alright."
Asaka saw what was happening: "Hiroto........."
But Natsu"s voice covered over Asaka"s, resulting in me not hearing Asaka"s voice. Natsu then tugged at my hand, saying: "Hiroto onii-chan, let"s sit near the windows to eat the food."
I nodded as I waved to Mokuzai: "Mokuzai, let"s eat over here together, don"t worry about the formalities."
Afterwards me and Natsu searched the package of food, and after selecting some favorites from the bag, we began to munch on it hungrily.
With red eyes, Asaka looked at the Hiroto and Natsu kneeling on the floor together and mumbled to herself: "I"ve made Hiroto hate me..."
Mokuzai who was standing behind Asaka comforted her: "No, he wouldn"t, waka-sama will never hate ojou-sama, otherwise why would he come to deliver food to you. Let"s go eat some food together with waka-sama."
Being way more cheerful than previously already, Asaka and Mokuzai then walked to in front of us and rummaged the package for food.
After a while, I laid onto the ground and gave off a loud burp. Turning to glance towards the package, I noticed that it had only food remains inside already, so I stood up and dusted off the dust on me, and said to Asaka and N
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atsu: "I"m full already, i"ll head back first with Mokuzai, tomorrow i"ll come see you again. After overmorrow, you guys won"t need to starve any longer, so we"ll be able to happily feast together afterwards."
Natsu tugged the hem of my clothes as she said with a lingering tone: "Hiroto onii-san you must remember to come again tomorrow."
"Mm, I will, bye Natsu-chan, and Asaka......bye."
Asaka remained silent as she kept staring intently at me.
After me and Mokuzai had just walked out of the hut, we barely walked a few steps forward when Mokuzai wanted to grab me under his arm.
I became a little depressed as I said: "Mokuzai, must you really grab me?"
"Grabbing waka-sama and running, this way it"ll be faster."
"Don"t grab onto me for tonight, let"s walk back slowly.... usually we didn"t get to chance to walk around here so I wanted to enjoy the scenery."
"Sure, but when waka-sama feels tired, just say the word, I"ll then grab onto youheh heh heh...."
I rolled my eyes at Mokuzai before starting to walk leisurely while gazing at the hill"s surroundings. I wasn"t that frightened when Mokuzai was around accompanying me, and I occasionally squat down to look at the flowers blooming in the gra.s.s patches while strolling serenely.
Suddenly I heard sobbing sounds from the nearby bushes, I shivered as i raised my head to look at Mokuzai: "Mokuzai, could it be a fox spirit, I"m a little scared......"
"Waka-sama, don"t be afraid, fox spirits don"t exist in this world. Let"s go take a look to find out what happened."
I became a little nervous: "Let"s not go, what if the fox spirit eats us up."
"Waka-sama..................you aren"t a scaredy cat, aren"t you."
"O-of course not, I"m.........i"m the most bravest of all, let"s go take a look who"s crying there!"
I carefully and slowly walked with Mokuzai into the gra.s.s patch with silent footsteps, and as my feet slightly trembled in fear, I warily pulled the bushes apart.
A little girl was squatting on the floor crying. I heaved a sigh of relief, and noticed that the girl was actually rather cute.
We walked towards her, and i squatted in front of her and asked: "Why are you crying?"
"I"m lost........ me and kaa-san went to the hill sides to play, but I chased some bunny to here and I only realized I was lost after I lost sight of the bunny, I miss kaa-san......"
"I see, hey Mokuzai, could you bring me and her downhill to look for her kaa-san?"
Mokuzai frowned as he said: "It"s not such a good idea, waka-sama, if normal people discovers our family"s location, it might cause trouble to our family."
Hearing Mokuzai"s advice, I then faced the sobbing girl and said to her: "Hey, we"ll help you find your kaa-san, but don"t tell your kaa-san that it"s us who sent you back, just say that you"ve managed to find your way, alright? Then we"ll send you back home, if not........we"ll leave you here alone to cry, and there"s a biggg baddd wooolf around here in the mountains~~"
That little girl sniffed and said: "I.......I won"t tell anyone."
"Mokuzai, let"s go find her kaa-san."
Unexpectedly, a gloomy Mokuzai then carried me and that little girl down the hill in a blink of an eye, to notice a lady frantically shouting: "Miwa, where are you, Miwa~ Miwa please reply kaa-san."
The little girl who was under Mokuzai"s arm upon seeing the lady nearly cried out in joy: "Kaa-san!!"
We immediately hid behind the bushes, and I softly told the little girl: "Oh, so that"s your kaa-san, well you can place her down now Mokuzai; remember, don"t tell your kaa-san that we"ve saved you~"
"Mm, mm. Thank you...."
The little girl looked at me with an evidently mesmerized longing look before blushing furiously and proceeded to run down the hill, tightly embracing her kaa-san.
"Feels good to have done a good deed~"
"Don"t start sighing and lets hurry on home, if Master discovers waka-sama missing then there"ll be trouble."
"Oh, right. Let"s hurry on then."
After being arm-held by Mokuzai to home, I bade farewell to Mokuzai at my room"s door, and after I took off my clothes to take a quick bath, I quickly laid onto the bed and fell into deep sleep.
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The next day, I woke up sleepily and stretched my arms in a lazy fashion, before noticing in surprise that Mokuzai actually didn"t wake me up today. I put on my clothes and exited the house, and the following scene shocked me.
The sky was as if became dyed in a pool of red blood; and atop large patches and patches of greenery were numerous scattered shadowy figures, their long-ago icy-cold faces seemingly implying their resentment towards death. The emerald-green sparkling gra.s.s that were present last night had already been bathed in a frightening blackish red color of bloodstains, and that bloodstains trail kept stretching all the way till the back of the hills.
Shocked, I knelt onto the floor, shivering feverishly and spat out the contents of my dinner yesterday, before remembering about Asaka and Natsu-chan.
"Dammit you b.a.s.t.a.r.d, be strong."
At this moment my heart only filled with one though, and that is to go to the back of the hills to save Asaka and Natsu-chan.
I slowly took tiny steps and persevered on; and as I see numerous familiar and strangerish faces, even seeing those of Kaze and Kazai, who were still alive and speaking to me a few days ago, but were now......... my eyes felt a little wet, and I stopped looking at the people under my feet and started to run.
Walking onto the route filled with corpses I finally reached the familiarish small hut, and when I saw someone"s corpse there, my tears couldn"t be held back any longer. It was Mokuzai, the guy who woke me up every day, the guy who purposely lost to me in video games every day, the guy who always puts up with what ever selfish requests that I"ve asked him to, he was like my elder brother...... I knelt beside his corpse and saw that there was a bullet hole on his forehead, with his eyes full with resentment, seemingly implying that he still have a trace of lingering in this world. My tears kept dripping profusely onto his oft-wearing greenish mask.
I wiped my tear-strickened eyes onto my sleeve, then pushed open the hut"s door, to discover that my second oji-san is pointing a gun towards my tou-san, and there was a bunch of masked men standing behind him, along with Natsu-chan.
Asaka was kneeling beside tou-san, and her face was expressionless; when she saw me, a trace of joy appeared on her face. Standing beside tou-san is Yama, who is a man hulking and muscular in appearance like a huge tower, but is now severely injured. There"s a ma.s.sive scar wound on his shoulders, visibly revealing his torso bones frighteningly, and blood dripped from his elbows towards the ground, but Yama still glared unrelentingly at the gun wielding second oji-san, and as I saw that tou-san was standing still with no visible injuries on him other than a few scratches here and there, I heaved a sigh of relief.
I looked at dad as I yelled: " Tou-san, what happened!!! Why, Kaze Kazai andMokuzai all died!!!!!"
"Heh heh, your second oji-san wants to take over the house position."
(TL: "house position" in this context refers he wants to be the Master of the Takane family)
When second oji-san heard this, he became rather agitated: "Niji, you know that I have no intentions of becoming Master of the Takeno family, the Takeno family is nearly finished, and other than Asaka, there"s no one else around that has the potential to learn spells, don"t just look at the surface right now, it will eventually be destroyed!! We could just seize the opportunity now, when there"s still our bloodline around, to switch to be doing commerce, our Takeno family will definitely suceed!!"
"The Takeno family has a few hundred years of history, so what if even if it"s our generation that only Asaka have potential, there will be the next generation, and us who have inherited centuries of glory will never ever be businessmen!!"
"Since it"s impossible, then die."
An empty sh.e.l.l fell onto the ground accompanied by the shriek howling of a man"s, and as tou-san fell onto the ground, my hands touched my face which was splattered with blood. The warm sticky feeling, along with the stench of b.l.o.o.d.y mess suddenly made me explode out my vomit onto the ground as I collapsed, kneeling. Yama grabbed me and Asaka into his embrace, used his body to smash the window gla.s.s, jumping out of the house to escape; with the sound of gla.s.s breaking and gunfire occurring at the same time. Everytime a gunfire was heard Yama gave off a painful moan, but he gritted and continued to run towards the forest direction while still hugging onto me and Asaka, while we could see masked men who were standing behind Ioshima earlier now chasing us.
The small hut.
Natsu knelt onto the ground as she pleaded to her dad: "Otou-san, please just let Asaka and Hiroto go free."
"Piak!" sound could be heard, with Natsu"s face having a red palm-print on it.
"Don"t call me dad!! You"re so ugly that it made me wanna puke in disgust, and also, don"t meddle in what I do."
After saying that, Ioshima haughtily left the hut.
Forest.
"Waka-sama, ojou-sama, you guys hide here in this tree-hole, remember, wait till sunrise had appeared before coming out, and please do not make any noise at all."
Yama placed me and Asaka within an extremely secluded tree-hole, said a few words and promptly left. I saw his back, they were riddled full of bullets made from earlier when we had escaped from the windows.
The wind made a "shaa shaaa" sound as it blew over the leaves; while I was being squeezed by Asaka in the extremely compact tree-hole, hearing her breathing sounds, I even suspected for a moment that it was just a dream.
After a little while, I could hear sounds from outside the tree-hole, it was Ioshima.
"Found Hiroto and Asaka yet?"
"Master, we haven"t found them yet."
"A bunch of worthless fools."
Afterwards silence ensued.
Feeling Asaka"s breath becoming heavier and heavier, I turned to look to discover Asaka suddenly pouncing her lips onto mine, caught unaware by surprise I tried to struggle back, but because the tree-hole was too compact, there really wasn"t s.p.a.ce for me to break free from her.
Asaka broke apart from our kiss as she laid onto me, whispering into my ears: "Hiroto, you must remain silent, what if we"re discovered then it"ll be bad...... even though tou-san died but I didn"t feel sad at all, why is that so............................... maybe because from now on Hiroto completely belongs to me already."
Asaka silently laughed, her laugh was frightening, and I suddenly noticed that there was some blood on Asaka"s face, which made me queasy once more. Just as I wanted to vomit again, Asaka once more leapt onto me, fiercely kissing my lips; not caring about my discomfort, just one-sidedly enjoying the sensation. My senses attacked by both being unabling to breath properly and the sight of fresh blood, I slowly faded into unconsciousness.
"Uwa." I suddenly awoke, and crawled up from the ground. As I looked at the familiar surroundings, I felt a little panicky for a moment, before touching my nose to realize that the blood on it earlier had already formed a scab. After trying to think for a while I suddenly recalled that Asaka nee-chan had been taken away by Kitagawa Mosuki, and that I"ve fainted.
"Was that a dream earlier? It seemed too real, isn"t it?"