- Pages:
- 1
- 2
| The Angel of Winter; [Closed] | |
|---|---|
| Tweet Topic Started: May 28 2013, 01:38 PM (487 Views) | |
| Dante | May 28 2013, 01:38 PM Post #1 |
![]()
WHERE THE FUCK IS MARIO
|
Aleksandria had heard Takeo was in the hospital. Ever since she had heard of this accident, she had gone into hiding, seclusion. The Russian had nothing to say to anyone and her accursed wings, those that she thought gave her so much freedom turned out only to make her into even more of an outcast. She was Russian, she had roots in the seedy underworld, being born of two warring powers and more importantly, she was unlike everyone else. In this world, she was alone. In this world, she was solitary. The leader of the Archangels needed no-one else. She could reach out but with those hands. Those hands... she couldn't touch anything. All she touched burned. Everyone she helped suffered. In the end, the Archangels were no different. They suffered like everyone else. She had come to the hospital in the dead of night. She had sneaked into Takeo's room and it was there she stood, by the entrance, clad in nothing more than a robe. She looked almost otherworldly. As her feet padded across the room, she knew Takeo would hear her. "The Angel of Healing. It appears not even your powers can save you from this grim fate. I am sorry Uriel. I have failed you." Her words were quiet and slightly accented. A small weight formed at the side of the bed as the Russian perched herself on it. A breeze blew over him as she adjusted her wings. "I heard you had been injured.. but not like this. What happened Uriel... what happened, Takeo-san?" She spoke quietly, enough to be heard as naught but a whisper on the wind. If he could see her now, he might have thought that the Angels had come to take him to his spot. Where he would stand by the Lord himself. How amusing she didn't even believe in that story. |
![]() |
|
| The One True Nobody | May 28 2013, 01:57 PM Post #2 |
|
"...does this clockwork hand follow you... or guide you?"
|
Boredom and blindness combined to create... very strange sleeping patterns when one wasn't used to it. Visitors came on occasion, but Takeo's time in the hospital didn't have any visible means of passage anymore, beyond either the nurses attending to him or bringing him meals. Apart from that, day was marked by a clamor of auditory activity and night was... quiet, save the for the heart-rending sound of a an emergency patient being run through the halls and, at one point, when Takeo had awoken earlier... a creeping, as if someone had just left his bedside in time to miss him awakening. Was it Kira? He knew she sometimes snuck about the hospital, healing patience where she could. But then, perhaps the creeping had been but a wishful illusion, a figment of his need for someone to be there with him. Tsubaki could only stay during visiting hours... the rest of the time, Takeo was alone. It was that possibly-imagined creeping that had woken him up and that was why he lay awake. The hospital was quiet. Night-time, then. Takeo sighed, and lay back. His eyes were... he couldn't tell whether or not they were closed. Or even still had eyelids. That thought was depressing every time it occurred to him. Was every day going to be like this from now on? Just sitting here, wasting away? No. No, blind people had passtimes, but--but all of his passtimes involved eyesight! What was he supposed to-- There was a fluttering. At first Takeo thought it was the curtains over the windows, but it had come from the opposite direction. It was followed by footsteps. Takeo tensed--who? It didn't sound like one of the nurses, the door opening had been too quiet for him to hear. He hadn't heard it open and hadn't heard it close, which meant whoever had come in had snuck in-- That voice. Aleksandria. Takeo took a breath. He had known this moment was coming. He hadn't expected Aleksandria to sneak into the hospital, but then, she cared for her angels, all of them, not just Kyo and Kira who had known her before the organization, but all of them. Including him. He felt a familiar weight in his chest, like his heart trying to droop out of its place behind his ribcage. Light wind over his face, and a ruffling sound. She still... had those wings, then. He could only hope this wouldn't make whatever kept those wings on her back even worse. He answered her whisper with one of his own. "I was on my way back from the ruins. Out of uniform, so I don't think this has anything to do with the Archangels. They--got me from behind, knocked me out with some kind of, of chemical on a rag. Held me in place until it worked. There were two of them. They said someone didn't want me dead, but they'd... 'neutralize' me anyway. I've had time to think. I think--it might have something to do with my parents." Takeo frowned. "But even knowing they were involved in this, I--I don't believe they could have--I don't believe they meant this to happen. I just, I don't know. Aleksandria, don't talk like this is your fault. I'm the idiot who told them I was a Persona-user, expecting them to just... stay away. This is all on me." |
![]() |
|
| Dante | May 28 2013, 03:02 PM Post #3 |
![]()
WHERE THE FUCK IS MARIO
|
She listened to his voice. It was the same as before, a hint of fear. He was still adjusting to blindness. He spoke about how it was his fault. Nothing the Archangels did was their own fault. She took their sins, their suffering and made it her own. She carried their crosses, so that she could forget her own. She buried her past by focusing on theirs. "I protected you all. When you are harmed, I have failed you. I am sorry Takeo-san. I cannot accept this not being my fault when I am the one who put you into the firing line." A hand over his head, she was aware that the man was blind, so touch and sound were their only communicable interfaces. "I have failed you. I am sorry." She bowed her head, unable to realise he could not see them. "The tenets that bind you bind myself as well. I wrote those tenets knowing that I would be subject to them. I failed in protecting you." She sighed, lifting herself from his bed, her weight moving as she moved to his side, the feeling of her walking closer, the sound of her robes as they slightly swayed in the breeze. "I...I want revenge. But I could not do that. I could not do that in your name." |
![]() |
|
| The One True Nobody | May 28 2013, 03:35 PM Post #4 |
|
"...does this clockwork hand follow you... or guide you?"
|
Takeo stiffened at the word revenge. Her touch had been comforting, but now she spoke of desire for revenge. That was--that was something he had enough to worry about from already-- "Please don't..." It came out in a quiet, small voice that nonetheless was more than a whisper. A pleading murmur. "Please don't..." he said again. "I'm already--Tsubaki is already--I don't want anyone doing anything they'll regret over this, and Tsubaki is already--no. Please, just forget about it. This was something that probably goes back to well before I joined, anyway. And you can't be expected to be there all the time, right? Just..." Takeo grimaced, his head turning blindly in the direction of the quiet rustling, to where he could feel her standing. An aborted motion of his arm: he seemed to have wanted to reach for her shoulder, but had thought better of it, considering what other parts of the female anatomy were on that elevation level. In the end he gritted his teeth, and said it plain. "I don't want to be the reason you go back to being that kind of person, Aleksandria. I already might--drive my girlfriend back to being what she was before." One of his hands drifted over the other, rubbing lightly at the skin, to the now-healed fingernail-puncture wounds he could still somehow feel in his mind. "If you let this get to you like that, you're letting them win." Takeo's grip on his own hand tightened. "Besides, you didn't 'put' me anywhere. I asked to join. Remember?" |
![]() |
|
| Dante | Jun 8 2013, 04:20 AM Post #5 |
![]()
WHERE THE FUCK IS MARIO
|
Aleksandria would not be deterred, this was his problem, but it was in the tenets. Look after your brothers. She had failed her own Tenets. She could not hold the others to them if she could not obey them either and without those tenets, they were nothing but another group of vigilantes. The Tenets kept them pure, kept them safe and most importantly: Kept others safe. "I won't forget about it Takeo-san. But if you ask me not to commit vengeance in your name, then I will stay my hand, I cannot take the word of a brother so lightly, especially one who has been injured. Whether or not you feel this was your fault is irrelevant however, as the tenets cover that we most always keep our brothers safe. It is the bond that ties us together. She paused for a moment. A shake entered her voice. He knew. He already knew this was what would drive her back, back before the Archangels, back when Aleksandria Fyodor was a name to be feared, before she donned the mask of Alexis Kriemgund. "What can I do? You've... you've been hurt." He would be able to feel a small weight on his chest as the girl pressed her head against it. "I want to hurt something in return. I just... I want revenge. I am a pathetic creature, but that is my desire. I want the men that hurt you to hurt just as much." The weight shifted, lifting from his chest, a hand on his cheek. "You did. You asked and became one of my finest. I will never forget what you have given to the Archangels." |
![]() |
|
| The One True Nobody | Jun 9 2013, 10:17 AM Post #6 |
|
"...does this clockwork hand follow you... or guide you?"
|
The weight of her head against his chest. Contact. Previously such a gesture might have come across as intimate, but now, the loss of eyes made this the closest thing to seeing her, or anyone, that he was capable of anymore. Feeling her physically and unmistakably there was reassuring, comforting, and not uncomfortable at all. Takeo briefly recalled a scene in a certain visual novel, where a blind girl requested to touch the protagonist's face, to get a sense of what he "looked" like. Would he be doing that soon as well, he wondered? How does one ever translated the shape of someone's face into a mental image, anyway? The concept had seemed surreal and romantic when he'd read about it. Now it was just daunting. As she spoke, the weight left and the feeling of a hand on his face replaced it. He could only respond by leaning slightly into it, turning his head more directly toward the sound of her voice. After so much time alone and in the dark, he realized, he needed some kind of contact, or interaction. Her touch was like those heaving deep breaths a person needs to take after spending whole minutes underwater. Refreshing, live-giving. Necessary. "Aleksandria," he said, "everyone wants revenge from time to time. You're not even the only person who feels that way about this. Don't go thinking you're any different just because you do." He chuckled a bit. "One of your finest? That's flattery. Thanks for saying it, but I didn't contribute nearly as much as the others. I wasn't anywhere close to your level and I could barely keep up with the others in a fight. My Persona isn't even strong enough to make up the difference. But thanks. It's nice to hear." The sightless man paused, thinking. How best to disabuse Aleksandria of this notion that she'd failed to uphold her own tenets... "Aleksandria, you know there was no way you could have done anything, right? Things happen. It was outside of your control. You don't have to feel like you failed," he said. "No one in their right mind would blame you for this. God Himself wouldn't blame you for this. Don't be the only person in this life or the after who'd go and blame you for something you had no way of stopping." Edited by The One True Nobody, Jun 9 2013, 11:19 AM.
|
![]() |
|
| Dante | Jun 19 2013, 05:21 PM Post #7 |
![]()
WHERE THE FUCK IS MARIO
|
Aleksandria smiled slightly, feeling him push against her hand. "My finest does not imply strength Takeo-san. You worked your hardest to keep up and you were one of my first. You heard the tenets from me and trained directly from me. I feel close to you, but not in a sense of love. More in a sense of a bond between all of us." She gently ran her fingers along his cheek, keeping that touch. That lifeline. She was here. She nodded slowly. "Yes. You're right. To seek vengeance, to cling to my tenets.. to claim I have failed. All of these are to keep myself from falling back into the darkness." A flash of bright light entered the room as Gabriel was summoned. "Gabriel stands as a testament to this. Gabrielle stands as a testament to this. I changed. I don't want to go back. That is why I lust for this vengeance, but I cannot cover my pain with violence. It will not solve anything. I will simply slide back. Slide back further into the abyss. I just.... I'm scared Takeo-san. I don't want to go back." |
![]() |
|
| The One True Nobody | Jun 19 2013, 05:42 PM Post #8 |
|
"...does this clockwork hand follow you... or guide you?"
|
"Then don't," Takeo answered firmly, frowning slightly as he heard the heard the faint flutter of a new pair of angel wings. His leader's Persona, from which she had taken her alias. It hit him then--he'd never thought to notice before now, but her Persona really was quite beautiful. Something he wouldn't see again with his own eyes, he knew. Perhaps through his Persona, but lately... ...lately Dorian Gray had fallen utterly silent, and all attempts to summon it had met with a resistance. A resistance that he could feel. Dorian was still there, but it felt as though a block had formed in Takeo's mind, preventing him from drawing on either it or its powers. He tried, then, tried to call his mask so he could summon Dorian and look upon his leader and her Persona. Again the block, again the resistance. Somehow he found himself unwilling to ponder the cause. He focused instead on Aleksandria's problems, pushing his own to the back of his mind. "Aleksandria, who you are and who you were don't matter," he said quietly. "Whatever urges you might feel don't matter, either. You're the only one who can decide what you do or where you go. You know that, right? You don't have to be scared of what's going on inside as long as you know you can control it. Don't forget that you can control it, and you'll be fine. I know you will." |
![]() |
|
| Dante | Jun 20 2013, 03:00 PM Post #9 |
![]()
WHERE THE FUCK IS MARIO
|
She froze. "Just... like that?" The Russian gently kept her hand near his face. "I can control it. I don't have to return to the darkness.... if it..." She laughed darkly. "If it was that easy Takeo-san, I wouldn't be fearing the return of my father. Or the the return of my mother. I was born between corporations and crime. I am destined to fall into darkness. No matter how far I climb Takeo-san, the world will never allow me to see the light." She gently moved her other hand to grip his. "If it was that easy, I would have done it." She laughed. "All of this, the Archangels, the tenets... tell me Takeo. Have I been deluding myself? Could I really have escaped?" She shook her head. "No. That's not what's important. I came here to see you. Not deal with my problems. To keep you company." She smiled slightly. "Because you are my brother." |
![]() |
|
| The One True Nobody | Jun 20 2013, 03:29 PM Post #10 |
|
"...does this clockwork hand follow you... or guide you?"
|
Takeo leaned forward, then. One hand he placed over the one she had at his face; the other reciprocated Aleksandria's grasp, tightening around her hand just a little bit. He shook his head and said, "That goes both ways, you know. If I'm your brother, you're my sister. You can't just expect me to look away from your troubles, even if I can't see anymore." Wings. She still had wings. It occurred to Takeo then: she'd gotten those wings after her father and mother had reentered her life. Wings meant flight, the sky, soaring like a bird. Freedom. Basic symbolism at its most obvious. Yet she couldn't fly with them. An illusion of flight. An illusion of freedom. Was that what those wings represented to her...? "You have freedom," he said firmly. "You've won, don't you get it? Your father and mother, whatever the hell they are, can't make you do anything now. I can't make you do anything. Nagashima can't make you do anything." His grip tightened, then... loosened. He sighed, and slumped back a little. "If you're deluded, I guess I'm deluded right along with you, huh," he said. "But I think... you've done too much and come too far to give up now, that's all. Even if you've been fooling yourself, keep fooling yourself hard enough and it can become reality anyway." Takeo snickered a bit, a sad snicker, devoid of humor. "Kyo-san told me that last time she was here. I don't even know why she said it. I think might have been drunk, because she smelled like Vodka. Again." There was a slight pause. In a tone of concern, he added: "She smells like that every time she comes here." |
![]() |
|
| 1 user reading this topic (1 Guest and 0 Anonymous) | |
| Go to Next Page | |
| « Previous Topic · Hospital · Next Topic » |
- Pages:
- 1
- 2
| Track Topic · E-mail Topic |
2:26 AM Jul 11
|







2:26 AM Jul 11