Crescent Moon Fan Fiction ❯ Sublunary ❯ Penumbra ( Chapter 3 )

Disclaimer: see part one. # # #text here indicates flashback# # #

"Yet more mood music: Inhaler (Hooverphonic--especially during the flight scene), Code Red (Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within OST), Out of the Shadows (Sarah McLachlan), Vox (Sarah McLachlan)

A/N: Mea culpa! My muse, the fickle wench, decided we needed more *background*. ::rolls eyes:: I expect to wrap everything up by chapter seven. ::glares at muse:: *Right?!* Sublunary 3: Penumbra
by Cerise Tennyo

Mahiru double-checked her satchel three times before closing it. At school, she knew she had a reputation for being something of a ditz, always forgetting a textbook, an exercise book, her lunch, bus fare home, whatever. And that was just on regular days! Now, with her thoughts flying in a million directions, she felt grateful she hadn't yet tried to leave for school still in her pajamas.

Wouldn't Mitsuru get a good laugh out of that one, she thought, securing the last buckle."Okay, I think that's it."

Talking to herself, in her own room, was a habit she'd developed not long after her parents died. A strange new bedroom, surrounded by strange shadows, and a grief that seemed like a bottomless well. She'd begun whispering to herself in the dark. The sound of her own voice eased some of the dreadful silence--and some part of her still hoped her parents might hear her, and come back.

Mahiru touched a fingertip to Koumori-san's fuzzy head."Behave yourself," she said. The bat only gave a sleepy chu, then wrapped up tighter in its wings.

She sighed, and started for the door. Nothing to do now but face the world. She'd hidden herself away in here all day, yesterday. But just like after her parents died, the world marched on, and if she didn't try to keep up, she'd get left behind. She pushed down on the door latch and stepped out into the hall--then winced as the door handle snapped back into place, striking right against the cut. Yep. It's Monday.

She started for the stairs, turning her hand over to see if the cut had broken open.

"Mahiru-chan."

Startled, she looked up. Nozomu stood by the stairs leading down to the side entrance they all used. He looks terrible! Mahiru thought in shock. Even after an exhausting stage performance, Nozomu wore at most a look of tired contentment. Now, he looked haggard, his skin sickly pale, his eyes dull. And he wore layers of shirts over his jeans, gloves on his hands, dressed more for late fall than mid-spring. Mahiru dropped her satchel and hurried to him.

"Nozomu! Are you all right? Did something happen?"

For the first time since they'd met, he raised a hand in a slight gesture, warning her back. She stopped in her tracks.

"Mahiru-chan," he said, "I'm sorry about what happened the other night."

It took her a moment to realize he meant the accident in the kitchen. "Oh, never mind that! What's wrong? Did you--I mean...are you sick...or something?" Her voice got smaller and smaller as she struggled to phrase the question.

She recalled Akira's almost-hysterical babble at Mitsuru's bedside, about all the weaknesses the Lunar Race had here, things they didn't even know about until it was too late. Had something happened to Nozomu yesterday while she hid like a slug?

He stared at her. "Never...mind...?" For some reason, he laughed, but it wasn't a happy sound.

"Nozomu...?"

He broke off, shook his head. "No, I'm okay." He smiled at her, but it seemed weak, the kind of good cheer shown to visitors when a person was sick. "I--"

"Isn't she up yet?" Mitsuru's voice reached them, echoing up the stairs. "If I'm supposed to play taxi, she could at least be on time!"

Mahiru winced, flushing with guilt. Nozomu rolled his eyes, an expression that almost reassured her that he was okay. "She'll be down in a minute, learn patience, will ya?" he called back down the stairs.

Nozomu looked back at her. For a moment, he looked as serious and sad as when he'd confronted her by the waterside. "I really need to talk you. Please...come look for me when you get home, okay?"

"S-sure," she said, her heart beginning to jump with anxiety. Did I do something wrong? What's going on? Why does he look like this?

"All right. See you then." He began to turn away--but not before she saw give a surreptitious rub to a spot just above his heart, as if it ached. The same place she'd felt that invisible thread break. The same place that still ached a little in her.

Mahiru grabbed her bag and dashed downstairs, tossing a hurried, "I'm leaving!" over her shoulder as she reached the door. It's my fault, she thought. Something happened, and it's my fault. The demons relied on her luck, and it was a running joke at school that she was a good-luck charm.

But not everybody near her got lucky. Not people like her parents or her aunt, who'd put so much of her life on hold for her that she might never make up for the lost time. Not Mitsuru, who'd died. What had she done to Nozomu? What might she do to the others?

She found Mitsuru outside, slouched against the wall, arms folded, ankles crossed. Usually, he made some kind of comment, or just grabbed her, then pushed her away while he transformed. Since the museum, he said nothing to her in the morning. She wasn't sure what was worse: his physical bullying or this silence.

A strong wind swirled through the alleyway. Mahiru raised a hand to shield her eyes. When the wind faded, Mitsuru stood before her in his alter-form. She thought it might have been her imagination, but the transformation seemed to go faster this time, with less effort on his part. But the only changes her body went through was to reflect back the light of the Teardrops, so what did she know? Without comment, he caught her around the waist like she was a bag of rice and launched them both skywards.

Mahiru squeezed her eyes shut and held back a startled cry. Flying wasn't like swimming. All she could feel around her were the shifting air currents--and the tengu who controlled them. Up here, she was helpless, dependent on someone who'd said over and over that he hated her. She shivered, the winds shearing away her body heat. At least he no longer flew so high she had trouble breathing, or her eyes teared up.

For the first week of Mitsuru's "taxi service," her friends had been in a panic when they saw her, fearing she was sick, that she cried herself to sleep every night, or worse. It was the one time her reputation for personal bad luck had proven useful: no matter how outrageous a story she spun, they believed her. After all, those things just happened to Mahiru.

He still flew too high, though.

She couldn't understand why Master Oboro kept throwing them together. Mahiru remembered the gust of wind that had knocked her off the roof. By then, she'd been pushed around and roughly handled so often by Mitsuru, she had almost felt his will, his hands, behind that wind. Even before he fought with Misoka, he'd been trying to get rid of her.

He wanted me to fall, she thought darkly, turning her face so the wind didn't whip at her exposed skin so fiercely. I'll bet that if I slipped now, he wouldn't even try to catch me.

Her heart began to pound, even harder than anxiety warranted. Anger pulsed through her now. Mahiru, who never got angry at anyone, who loathed fighting and suffering, felt her patience and temper at last beginning to fray. I didn't even know the Lunar Race existed, or that that song was anything but a dream, a story to keep me company in the dark. Why is he still blaming me for things I didn't do?

Wisps of memory, of late-night conversations she'd shared with Nozomu on the roof-top of her old home returned to her. Mitsuru hated her for reasons beyond her lineage. He hated her for having had a home where she'd been loved, for having friends who worried about her. He hated her for belonging somewhere, when he belonged nowhere. Part of that's his own fault, she thought. If he wasn't so nasty to every person he meets, maybe he could have friends, too. He could have a home. But he thinks everybody's out to get him, so he never gives anyone a chance!

It wasn't fair! She'd tried so hard, reached out to him, attempted to be his friend. She might as well have saved her strength. At once, she banished the thought as unworthy. It didn't really matter. It just had to be done.

Mitsuru lay on the bed of his room. She'd never seen inside the others' rooms, never intruded on their privacy, but she found the bareness of this room chilling. Only a few posters tacked up on the walls made it look lived in. All pictures of racecars, she noted, a visual capture of wind and flight. Probably the only things Mitsuru had ever been able to call his own.

"This...this can't be all we can do!" Mahiru cried. She couldn't even feel the tears sliding down her cheeks. "That gas...it was sleeping gas, you said. So this is like an overdose, right? You don't have to die from something like that!"

Akira, half-sprawled against the bed that held the body of his friend, cried only harder. Mahiru stared through blurring eyes at the too-still form that lay covered to the chin. His face wasn't covered, like it would have been for a Japanese person. He looked pale as chalk. Sickly pale, not dead pale, not-- 'They're treating you like one of them, even now!' she wanted to shout at him. 'How can you leave them? Wake up!'

"Mahiru-chan...there's nothing more that can be done," Nozomu said, gently putting his hands on her shoulders. "I know--"

She turned on him, fierce as a cat. "You don't know! You're giving up! And after you've done all this...this stealing, and frightening people--would they have even tried sleeping gas if all those passengers on the ship hadn't been put to sleep? The police couldn't know you hadn't used the same thing!"

Silence, except for Akira's muffled weeping. No one spoke. No one moved. Mahiru pressed her hands to her temples, trying to still the whirl of thoughts in her head. She'd had to take an emergency first-aid and lifesaving class, along with the rest of the swim club. Too many accidents happened around a pool to risk even one club member being ignorant of what to do in an emergency. The class had included what to do for a suspected overdose--but none of that would help now. They all said Mitsuru was dead already.

She opened her eyes--and saw the Teardrop Misoka still held. "The Teardrop." she whispered.

Two words, and she had everyone's undivided attention. "You told me," Mahiru said, watching the plan taking shape in her mind, "you came here for the Teardrops, that you believed they strengthened your--your life energy, or something. Death is gentler and kinder to you," she continued, though her throat almost closed on the words. 'Gentle' and 'kind' were words that never belonged with 'death.' Never! "Is it longer, too?"

From Akira and Nozomu's expressions, they had no idea what she was talking about.

"You are correct, Princess," Misoka said, his face still expressionless. "We live longer and die more slowly."

"That's it, then!" Mahiru's fist struck the carpeted floor. "If it's like an overdose...if there's some way to reach him, like when he went berserk that time...can't the Teardrop be used to make him stronger? Strong enough to come back?"

Silence. The other members of the Lunar Race looked at each other.

"It...might be possible," Nozomu said at last."The thing is, our orders were to collect the lost Teardrops. We don't have permission to use them. That's--" He broke off, jerking upright as if he'd gotten a sharp elbow in the ribs.

It didn't matter. Mahiru already knew what he meant to say. 'That's why we need you.' They made it sound pretty, with Master Oboro asking her to 'light their path', all the friendly overtures. Mitsuru had been cruel, but honest: she was a tool to them, a means by which they could access their powers and get back something they'd lost centuries ago. In her heart, Mahiru could not blame them, any more than she could have turned her back and let them all die. Just like she couldn't choose a chunk of crystal over a person's life.

"Please," she whispered. "If it's all possible...we should try!"

Misoka started for the door, the Teardrop clenched in his hand. Nozomu looked after him in surprise. "Kanrisha-san?"

"The Princess has made a request," the fox-demon said tightly."I will bring it to Master Oboro's attention."

Mahiru looked up, blinking back tears. For a moment, Misoka's words made no sense. "What?"

"Master can give permission...if he chooses," Nozomu said softly.

"Why wouldn't he?" Mahiru demanded. "I mean, Mitsuru--"

"We're a dying people, Princess," Nozomu said.

Mahiru stilled. Nozomu never called her 'princess', not once. He'd returned to the far corner, slouching against the walls, his arms crossed. He looked as distant and removed from this scene of sorrow as when he'd drawn on his power in front of the museum. "That Teardrop can keep many of us alive...or..."

Mahiru bit her lip, using the pain to wall off the sob clawing at her throat. The door hadn't closed all the way. Mahiru could hear Misoka's voice, pitched low, but still full of music. Master Oboro said something in reply. Mahiru closed her eyes. She could see/feel the light of the Teardrop, though the crystal wasn't even in the room. It called--sang to her, just as the others had the night she'd dreamed of the demon warrior's death.

She looked down, expecting to see blood on her hands. Yet Mitsuru hadn't been killed by edged weapons. Her hands were clean, but she still felt the heaviness of death on them. A dazzle-burst of light jerked her back to the present with a gasp. Misoka held out the newly recovered Teardrop. Strange...it didn't shine half so brightly with her eyes open.

"I've spoken with Oboro," the fox-demon said."We have permission to use the sacred Teardrop's power. The rest." he said, putting the crystal in Mahiru's hand, "is up to you, Princess."

The power of the Teardrop--a chance! "Oh, thank you, Misoka! Thank you so much!"

She would have hugged the fox-demon in gratitude, but too much time had already passed. She put the Teardrop between Mitsuru's limp hands--still warm, she noted, but utterly without strength--and folded her own over them.

Now what? she wondered. This wasn't like when she'd sung Mitsuru's winds to calmness--with the others' help. She might have the 'power of the Moon', but she still didn't know what that meant. All it seemed to do was make her some kind of battery to re-charge the powers of the Lunar Race--and how would that help now? With the others, she at least had legends of vampires, werewolves, and kitsune to inspire her. She didn't know any stories about tengu. She didn't know what to do!

Sacred power... Once before, she'd made a desperate prayer to her ancestress, begging for help. Maybe, if she tried again... She exhaled forcefully, emptying her lungs as much as possible, just as if she were preparing for a dive. She breathed in deep, slow... She bowed over the Teardrop, as if praying before her family shrine.

Yume-hime, if anything the creatures have told me is true...if you ever loved the demon you pledged yourself to...help me to help them! Help me set it right! The light between their clasped hands flared even brighter, forcing Mahiru to close her eyes. For a moment, she thought she saw shadowy figures in that light, figures that refused to settle into a form she could name. Without another thought, she cast herself into the light, as she would have into a river. Brightness...iridescent brightness, like the heart of an opal. Mahiru drifted in the light, amazed to discover it had currents and eddies, like the waters she loved. The current carried her to the edge of the light, where it began to fade into darkness. A thread of melody reached her, the whisper of a woman's quiet song. Demon child, demon child, why do you cry?

That wasn't the song, not the words she knew, anyway. Did the demons have their own version? But Nozomu had sung the one from her dream...

Images swirled and snapped in and out of focus. She could see a child's ball, a boy with tengu markings on his face... Mitsuru? she wondered. He wore play clothes identical to those of any human boy. A person's life was supposed to flash before their eyes when they died. If she waited here, in this river of light and shadow, if she timed it just right, maybe she could pull him back!

She heard the boy's heart-rending pleas for his parents, remembered her own, how they'd had to drag her from the beds that held her parents' bodies. She saw his rising panic, as the images swirled towards something out of a nightmare, with the human world pressing close, the dead reaching up for him.

Omigosh! This is the Sanzu! Mahiru realized. And they were drifting far too close to the other side.

"Mitsuru!" she called across the river. "I'm over here! Let me help!"

He recoiled, retreating into the grasp of the dead. His anger, his hatred, dimmed the light, deepened the shadows. Dead hands pulled at him, dragging him under.

"Mitsuru!" she shouted again, but he was almost out of sight by then. Water is water, she told herself. She imagined herself perched on the diver's block at the pool, poised and ready. Wait...wait...not too tense, not sloppy-loose, don't miss... Ready...set...

The dead wound their bindings around Mitsuru, ready to pull him down into the Dark Lands. His hands, his mouth...his eyes were closed, a drowning man, giving up.

Mahiru pictured a shallow dive, remembered the feel of it in her muscles and joints, in the sheer focus required--follow the Moon as it sets into the sea--reaching out, even as her body lay prostrate across the bed. So far away, that world...that world where she held a piece of the moon in her hand. The Moon...it watches me... She dove after Mitsuru, into the dark, just as she had the night they'd all escaped from the cruise ship. She didn't worry about air, about how to come back. She saw a sliver of light, gray as a new dawn.

Mahiru didn't know if it was the Teardrop, reflecting the tengu's lifeforce, or if Yume-hime had once more shown her the way. It didn't matter. She never felt her 'luck' leaving her when the others touched her, but if anyone ever needed it now... She pictured it as light, focusing it and her knowledge of its effect on the Lunar Race through the Teardrop. 'Think of your body as an instrument,' Misoka had said that day. Focus luck through the Teardrop, like light through a crystal, just as she'd learned in science-class.

The bindings frayed and unraveled, disintegrating. Wake up, Mitsuru, she prayed. Wake up, or you'll be stuck here piling rocks! WAKE UP!

The hands between her own twitched, then clenched. Mahiru surfaced from the inner sea with a lung-searing gasp. Her head swam from the rush of oxygen, her vision wouldn't clear. Looking down, she saw herself reflected in Mitsuru's eyes. In her mind, she heard the sigh of a woman, weary past strength.

"MITSURU!!" Akira shouted, loud enough to make Mahiru jump. He bounced on the edge of the bed, all floppy ears and fluffy tail.

They touched down three blocks away from Mahiru's school. She always walked the last three blocks, blending in with the other students who'd taken the bus or the train. She stepped back, and looked Mitsuru straight in the face. His tengu-form still looked strange to her eyes. She couldn't understand why she still sometimes saw the demon warrior around him.

"What?" he snapped, looking away. "Quit staring."

Oh, he was back to normal, all right. Nasty moods and all. Mahiru brushed at her uniform skirt and hair, trying to smooth out the windblown disorder. But she didn't regret it, she realized. She couldn't just stand by and watch somebody die, even someone who'd been rotten to her, like Mitsuru. She was with the others at the Moonshine, not just because of her own strange powers, but because they needed her. She couldn't turn her back and let them die. It just...wasn't right.

Yet there was still so much she didn't understand. Inspiration came, so fierce and sudden she blinked, wondering if it was all her own thought.

"Um, Mitsuru...you don't have to come get me after school today, honest. I know you don't like it."

Mitsuru seemed fascinated by a nearby brick wall. While she'd been distracted, he'd slipped back into his human form. They were just a boy and a girl standing together, if anyone happened to walk by. "Doesn't matter what I like, dummy. Oboro told me to do it, so--"

"I'll be responsible for it if anyone gets mad at you," she interrupted."I've got...club stuff today. I don't know how long it'll be. No reason to make you wait. I promise, no matter what, I'll be back in time to help with the setting up."

Slow currents of wind curled through the alleyway. "You better not be planning to run off. They'll skin me--and I'll do worse to you."

She glared at him. "Like I could. The four of you have been following me around from the beginning. I couldn't go someplace alone if I wanted to!"

"Big surprise," he retorted. "The other one made a promise, too, and she lied. Can't blame us for thinking that, too."

"You don't know she lied!" Mahiru said. Her throat burned, as if she'd been shouting. All she could see was the long-dead princess, held by her warrior, the tears they both struggled not to shed. "You don't know anything, so quit calling me stupid!"

She dodged past him, neatly avoiding his grab at her arm. He'd done that before, done it often enough she could tell what he was planning before he did it. She burst from the alleyway into the sunlight. He wouldn't follow her, she knew. Because then he'd have to explain...and he couldn't.

She turned on her heel, proud she'd managed a dramatic exit--then slipped as her left shoe skidded in a greasy puddle. She went down hard on one knee, her satchel smacking hard against her ankle.

"Mahiru! Duckie, are you okay?"

She looked up, spotted her long-haired friend running towards her. Behind her, she thought she heard a snicker from the alley. Mahiru sighed. Her bad luck just never let up, did it?

Her day did not improve. When the instructor called on her to recite in class, she discovered she'd translated the wrong passage, and had to endure a ten minute lecture on being prepared for class. She'd forgotten both her lunch and money to buy food, so had to mooch off of Junko and her friends. She fell during gym class and tore open the cut on her hand and had to wait fifteen minutes in the infirmary before it was tended.

"I bet you're still hungry," Junko said when classes ended. "How about we go get something--my treat?"

Mahiru shook her head. "No...I've got some stuff to do, then I've got to go to work...but next time, okay?"

Junko frowned at her. "You're working too hard, duckie. You need to have some fun, too."

"The class trip is coming up," she reminded. "I'll have fun then!"

She dashed off with a hurried wave and an apologetic good-bye. Luckily, losing herself in a crowd of girls in identical uniforms wasn't difficult. She had to get away, get some time to herself to sort all that had happened in the past few days. The others were willing to answer her questions--but they couldn't tell her how she was supposed to feel about something.

I help steal back treasures for creatures out of stories, cross worlds when I'm in the water, and I've brought back the dead. I think that deserves some thinking time!

Her feet took her along familiar paths, until she found herself at the marina, her 'secret place,' where she came whenever she was troubled, or her luck had failed worse than usual. Mahiru sighed, took off her shoes, and sat down on the sun-warmed cement. She could hear the water lapping against the piling, see the water-birds as they swooped and danced through the air. She'd loved the water all her life, but at times, a swimming pool just couldn't soothe her like a stretch of open water could. She watched the ribbons of lights twining on the surface of the water, and let her mind still.

"You're our princess, Mahiru."

What was that supposed to mean? She wasn't a princess, not matter how many times Misoka addressed her as one. 'Descendant of the Princess,' they called her, but her family couldn't even claim a last name before Meiji and the fall of the samurai. The Lunar Race called the 'Moon Palace' home, while she lived in Tokyo. So what did princess mean to them, a human descended from a woman they blamed for their decline and approaching death?

Except Akira looked it had meant something when he said it. Misoka said it like it meant something, like she was a real princess. He never once used her name. 'Because you're our princess.' Like, 'you're our...' what? What could a clumsy high school girl mean to creatures like those she lived with now?

"And I thought figuring out this 'good luck charm' stuff was a headache," she sighed.

"There you are."

Mahiru started. Nozomu!

Still more A/N:
[1] Yume-hime: 'dream-princess', the unnamed daughter of the Minister of the Left who haunts Mahiru's dreams. I struggled with this one, not sure if it should be 'yume-no-hime' or the version I chose. Again, sincere apologies if I've made the wrong choice. If someone knows the correct form, let me know.
[2] Sanzu: the river between the lands of the living and the dead. (Reference: courtesy of the glossary in Lone Wolf and Cub, vol. 5)
[3] Dark Land: a name given to the Shinto land of the dead.
[4]"Pile rocks" Dead children piled rocks on the banks of the river Sanzu as prayers for their parents. (Same ref as #2.)

I feel like I really owe an apology to the Mitsuru fans...I'm not being very kind to him, and uh, it won't improve much. If you're curious as to why I choose Mahiru/Nozomu over Mahiru/Mitsuru, please visit: http://jdemorae.slashcity.net/snapdragon/windosorrow.html

Once I realized the story was going to get longer...I had to figure out what I was going to do about Dawn's Venus (personal opinion here, but that's got to be among the stupidest names for a group of demon-hunters I've ever come across), and their role. Half a bottle of Advil later, I think I've got it figured out. But man, has this story changed from the original outline!

And thanks to you, my readers and reviewers! While I can't respond to each one, be assured that I read each and every comment, and appreciate them all. If you have questions about the story, please make sure that I have a way to contact you with an answer (signed review, or leave an e-mail address), or contact me directly (my e-mail is listed in my profile.)
Until next time,
Cerise.