Broken Wings

Chapter 9: Synchronicity

The noise rang in his ears, trying to blast every sense of self out of him. He struggled against the cacophony of madness, what was no longer even a melody but a pounding, scraping, cracking roar. He felt it wrap its tendrils around his body. He tried to speak but the monochrome nothingness drowned out his voice. He would be nothing, just scattered notes and echoes. He would be everything, the sum of every screeching fragment. Flailing around as his body broke apart, he found nothing to save him...

As Kaito snapped back to wakefulness, the wretched sounds in his head ceased... the only remaining sound the calm morning rain.

Ever since he'd purified Haku, he began to have a recurring nightmare of being torn apart by a terrible sound. After purifying Yuma, they'd become more frequent. Tonight, hours after saving Mizki, the details felt so much clearer...

As he lay his head back down on the futon, he lamented that his dreams had grown so negative. Would that he could have relived the joy of a sky lit up again, or tasting so many delicious sweets, or playing silly games.

With Miku.

"Seal of the Seruva..." he murmured. Every Herald called him this, yet the title meant nothing to him. Maybe they'd mean something to a priestess though...

'Luka...'

Sometimes instead of nightmares, he'd start seeing fragments of another life. Of flying over a human city, of playing with a child whose face he couldn't recall, of watching his mother dying from seizure fits. Yet Meiko assured him she'd died alone... that he'd been unconscious due to the attempt on his life, he'd never left the Islands, he'd had no other friends...

Perhaps it was merely echoes of the Noise he'd been repeatedly exposing himself to. He had no guarantee that his actions were safe. Only that he was saving others. He could already hear the rebukes from Meiko and the Elders for giving so freely of himself to humanity, the sworn enemies of the people he'd once nearly died trying to lead...

But for now, all he could hear as he lay in bed staring at the ceiling of Miku's apartment was the rain pounding against the patio outside.

For Luka, sleeping in her own bed again had quite a different feeling to it after having spent three weeks on a couch.

Of course, it hadn't been her idea.

"Gakupo, we've been through this. You can't sleep on the couch."

The Seruva warrior cocked his head at her, a seductive smile on his lips. "Who said anything about me sleeping on the couch?"

The lustful melody in his voice, coating his shameless invitation...

She studied his sleeping face carefully. If he suffered even a single nightmare, his face betrayed nothing. Even in sleep, he was able to control himself when he so willed it.

Luka carefully crawled out of the bed, gathering her undergarments from the floor. Perhaps it was reckless to become so intimate with someone she knew so little about. But the freedom he offered her... not needing to keep her secrets, not needing to feel ashamed of where she came from and how she got here. How could she deny that? Relationships with humans always ended quickly due to the necessary lies and deceptions. With another Seruva... she could be truly free.

As she slipped her robe on, she was careful to tiptoe out of the room so as not to disturb her warrior. Yet he stayed at peace, the only sound the soft raindrops on the windows.

"So we're super heroes now, right?!"

Miku watched Rin's body shaking with excitement as the gathered group sat in the Kagamine's living room, her hands balled up into little fists as she bounced around in her pink sweater and yellow skirt, her brown boots thumping the floor. The continuing rain had ensured the Vocaloids were not going to be gathering outside for the next few days at least. Naturally, none of them even bothered putting their costumes on for fear of getting them wet. Gakupo appeared with his wings unveiled – no doubt rather comfortable given how he'd have to hide them for hours on end. He wore a ¾ length black sleeved shirt and tight black pants.