16: Resurrection
I'm not quite sure how to describe Dyka's initial reaction to what had happened. It was a mixture of shock, and of anger, yes. But there was something else in her face which seemed more profoundly struck by the scene, something I could really not describe if I wrote pages on what it might have been.
That she was home so quickly was all the worse for me, for I had not expected her home from her engagement so soon. As far as I can assess, looking back, she must have seen the light that Tsukinousagi had brought forth when I had attacked her. It is the only possible explanation for her having returned.
She looked at me, then down on Tsukinousagi's body. Then she looked around the room, seeing many of the knocked over items shattered on the floor. She looked around, and saw the blood on my appendages. Then, the blood coursing out of Tsukinousagi. Then, back at me.
I began to quiver as everything began to sink in. I saw her expression turn deadly when she came back to me.
-...............................................I-
I should not have opened my mouth. For the next thing I knew, I was grabbed. I had never seen rage before in another person, and when I was thrust up and forced to look into Dyka's furious eyes, I realized just how dangerous it was for me now.
-YOU INFERIOR GNAT!!!
I struggled, but Dyka was too quick. Her way of fighting, and her skills, were far superior to mine. I was powerless as she threw me into the wall. I actually came out the other side into her room!
-You DON'T want to listen, do you?!? As soon as I hit the floor, she grabbed me by the collar. -YOU NEVER LISTEN!!!!
SLAM. I gave a gasp as she threw me against another wall. This time, however, I didn't go through. I could feel the blood coursing down me as she picked me up yet again - this time, by my hair.
-HOW...... With each word, she began to slam my head into the wall. -DO......YOU......LIKE.....THIS.......WORM!?!?!?!
She hit me to the wall several times. With each time, I swore that the next one would be my last. I could feel my body losing its will to live with each successive hit, I felt everything within me snapping violently. I was sure - no, I knew that she would kill me then and there. It had come to that, for I had killed a sailor soldier, even though it had been one so lowly as Tsukinousagi. I simply closed my eyes and waited for the end.
-.....AAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!!!!!!
Suddenly, I was thrown again, this time towards the stairs. I tumbled down several steps and I stiffened as I finally stopped. The blood dripped onto the floor, some of it cascading down onto the next step. I waited for her to finish me off. I waited for the inevitable end.
-YOU!!!!! I felt something warm fall upon my side. -YOU'RE NOT WORTH IT!
I simply lay on the stairs after that. She would not kill me. She could not kill me. There were reasons for her not to, though I would not know that for some time to come. But, I think that then, a change was starting to happen after that moment. It was not evident then, certainly not then, to me. But it was starting within me.
That night, though, I lay bleeding on the stairs. I was badly hurt; I had cuts all over my body from the material in the wall. Pain shot up through my body, a result from being thrown across the rooms and through walls. The strength of anger was very powerful indeed.
As I slowly fell into a state of unconsciousness, it was then I saw another light. I was scared again for a moment, for I thought Dyka would truly kill me, for it was indeed coming from Dyka. But it was only for a moment. The light was too far from me for it to have been intended to kill me. It was coming from one of the rooms.
It was then, in that moment before I fell into darkness, that I realized what she was doing.
Dyka. No. Not that! Leave her.......leave her dead.........
But my screams were for naught, because I was almost unconscious. Almost being unconscious was almost as bad as a nightmare, because it was the reverse of a nightmare. In a nightmare, right at the end of it, when you get to the part where the worst part is about to happen, such as falling off of a cliff. And then, you wake up. It is the opposite with falling unconscious, for instead of waking up, you are falling asleep just as the worst happens. But I digress.
I heard Dyka, now, now a fugitive, a criminal of the very law she had for years, cry out in pain as her power began to tax out. Then, I heard another, louder cry of a pain that was unnamable and unthinkable, a pain that no civilized soldier could have ever bore.
Then, just as she returned to life, I slipped off, and heard nothing more.
