This work was something that was picking at the back of my mind for a while, and I decided to commit to writing. Please enjoy!
Chapter 1:
And the Pendulum Swings...
His neck burned. That was Aru's thought as he lay there bleeding, trying vainly to staunch the blood coming out. There was so much of it, though. Aru's hand was slick with it, the crimson liquid flowing steadily through his fingers despite his best efforts. He could feel nothing, however. His fingers and feet were cold, frozen, with the rest of his body following suit. And yet he had done it, hadn't he? He'd shown Yukiteru the truth. What happened before and after had left him feeling out of sync.
It had been Yuno that had tipped the balance. After Yukiteru had murdered his friends, his true friends, Aru had run after, trying in vain to catch up with him, to stop this madness. Instead, he had arrived too late. Hinata, Mao, Ouji, they were all dead, having been shot by Yukiteru in his attempts to get to Eighth. After that, it became a blur. He'd confronted Yukiteru, told him the truth, tried to get him to see reason, and then went after Yuno. Gasai had other plans, however, and had a spare diary from her other self, the real one in this world.
This world, he thought humorlessly. This wasn't his original world, was it? He didn't remember all the details, only that somehow he'd made it all the way to Yukiteru and shown him what he'd figured out. Somehow that motivated Yukiteru to stop Yuno before she attacked him. There were so many somehows that Aru wasn't sure of all of them. He'd passed out not long after, and had only reawakened when he heard something. Voices, his muddled mind reminded him. Instead of the rubble that had surrounded him before, he was in a home. Gasai's home, if he recalled.
The voices grew closer, one panicked as something had happened. Aru wasn't sure, only that his eyes closed tight against the flashlight that suddenly blasted his vision. He blinked repeatedly, trying to see beyond the light, when he felt movement around him. Someone was touching him, probably assessing the wounds he had, while another was checking his throat. They tried to move his hand away from the gash and he slapped them away, not even thinking about it, only realizing that if he took his hand away he was dead. However, his efforts were weak at best, and they pried his hand away long enough for him to realize that they were possibly trying to help. By this point, however, his mind was sluggish and his eyes slid shut. He remembered nothing afterward.
When his eyes opened again, Aru saw a white ceiling and walls. People were rushing around him, talking and moving and doing something. He tried to find his voice, to say something, but he found he couldn't. Something was shoved down his throat, and someone else was above him, squeezing something rhythmically. It was then that the person above him must have noticed he was awake, because they turned and said something. Aru tried raising his hands, tried to do something to get the thing out of his throat, but other hands held him down. It was then that drowsiness clouded his senses, and Aru's eyes slid closed again.
When they opened again, everything was still. His eyes travelled around, taking note of the white walls, the white ceiling, just, the white everything. Something seemed stuck to his throat, and he reached one hand up to touch it experimentally. Fingers brushed over plastic tubing, and he let the hand fall. He'd been intubated. He tried to talk then, and gave that up with a hiss as pain lanced through his neck. He reached up with probing fingers again, finding cotton covering a good portion of his throat.
How did he get here? He remembered everything, of course. The argument with Yukiteru, the fight with Yuno, Yukiteru stopping Yuno from finishing the job she'd started, everything was clear. That still didn't explain where he was, or even how he'd survived. Had Deus intervened? Somehow he doubted it. He'd defied the god by refusing to be reabsorbed, and was now just as human as any of his friends ar-were. They were dead. He should be dead.
Tears threatened and escaped from his eyes as he realized that out of everyone he knew, he was the last one alive. Was even Yukiteru alive, or had Yuno managed to kill him off? He didn't know. If Yukiteru had lived, then where was he? Had he managed to do the impossible and revive the world? No, he couldn't have. Even Deus had said that no one could revive the dead. So had Yuno won? Or Yukiteru? He didn't know. He should know.
It wasn't long before a nurse came into the room, confirming Aru's suspicions that he was indeed in a hospital. She looked startled to see him awake, but proceeded to check his pulse, breathing, blood pressure, well, pretty much everything. She checked his abdomen, where Aru winced as he remembered being stabbed by Yuno there. He'd forgotten about that wound. Then again, it hadn't been bleeding nearly as badly as his neck had been which the nurse checked next. Seemingly satisfied, she went about changing his bandages, where there seemed to be only a little bit of spotting. Probably from when he tried to speak, he thought.
When she finished, she looked him over and frowned. "Okay, Akise-kun, do you feel any pain? Right now you're being fed through a tube so that you don't damage your throat any further. The doctor gave me instructions to try and keep you as comfortable as possible to avoid tearing the stitches in your neck."
Aru just shook his head slightly, trying not to jostle the tubing or the stitches too much. He felt exhausted, and figured it was due to the stress of however long everything had been happening, emotional drain from the realization he would never see his friends or family (Was there a family, or was that another of Deus's constructs to keep his identity on Earth a secret?), and finally, blood loss. The nurse just nodded and left the room, informing him that the doctor would be informed that he was awake.
Aru's mind started going through the last few months of his life, trying to figure out just what happened. He knew, but there was a difference between knowing and realizing what it meant. He knew he was probably more traumatized than he realized, but it hadn't sunk in yet. He knew that he would probably be jumping at shadows and trying desperately to remember he wasn't…
Where exactly was he? He couldn't remember much beyond the fight Yukiteru and Yuno had, and who the final victor was. He didn't even know that. He didn't even know if the world had been reset or if something happened and somehow…
A cold dread settled in his stomach. He tried to shove it away, but it sat there. Yuno had come from another world, where she won the game and became God. She had somehow come back to a point where she probably killed off her alternate self in his world and played the game there, to try and get Yukiteru. If she killed Yukiteru…
He couldn't just lie here. Not in bed, and certainly not while he knew that Yuno could easily be doing the same here. Had she gone back again after killing Yukiteru and he got dragged along? He didn't know. He briefly remembered seeing something of Yuno's home before he woke up here, but was that just his imagination or something else? He hated not having the answers, and there seemed to be more questions than answers.
When the door clicked again, Aru glanced over, and then nearly did a double take. Hair tied back, wearing a nurse's outfit, was Minene Uryu. The Ninth diary owner closed the door carefully behind her before making her way over, both eyes visible, but only one focusing on him. Her right arm was encased past her elbow in a glove, and Aru frowned. He opened his mouth to speak, but hissed instead as he felt the stitches pull.
Minene rolled her eye and walked over, handing him a pad of paper and a pen. "Seriously, I thought you were supposed to be the smart one of your friends. You try and talk or sit up, and I will smack you upside the head. Got it?"
Aru nodded, wincing, and then picked up the pad of paper and pen to write. What happened?
Minene took a moment to look at the note and frowned. "You wouldn't remember, would you?" She crossed her arms and frowned, looking down at the bed for a moment before she looked back up. "I guess since I'm the only one with answers that's currently sane, I might as well answer."
She leaned forward and poked Aru in the middle of his forehead. "You happened. I don't know what you said or did, but apparently there was a fight between Gasai and Amano. Gasai ended up killing him, and since Eighth was already dead, and I no longer had my diary, she was proclaimed the victor. I arrived too late, and I could only grab you before the world went to hell. I don't know how the fuck you survived, but somehow you weren't dead, despite being stabbed in the neck. I managed to pull you through the vortex she created through time before the world collapsed. What I want to know is how the hell she did it, and why did she come back here. It's not the same time as it was when we're from."
Aru frowned, tapping his pen as he quickly wrote out his response. What time is it? He couldn't act without knowing the full story, and while Minene's explanation did explain a bit, it wasn't the full story. Why was I at Gasai's earlier?
"Now, that's an easier question to answer," Minene replied with a smirk, one that faded as she regarded Aru. "It's April thirtieth, two years ago, and we were there because that's where Gasai ended up. She ended up murdering her counterpart here, Akise-san. I want to know why she did that, and what she hopes to gain from it."
Aru flipped it to a new sheet before he started writing quickly, wincing as his handwriting was getting a bit sloppy. She's not the Gasai Yuno from our world. She won the game before and traveled back to try again in ours. She had her double's diary and I destroyed it, thinking it was hers. I guess she had it on the off chance someone tried to destroy hers and hid hers so that no one could find it. I didn't discover it until she tried to kill me.
"Damn." Minene punched the bed beside her, causing Aru to jump a bit. Her eye then travelled back to Aru's. "So, what now? We just let a psycho try the game again and end up with the same result? No offense, but I know that it's going to happen again. I don't even think Deus is even aware of what's going on. If he knew, I'd have been called to him to discuss the situation. I don't even know if I can contact him in this world."
Aru frowned, a memory tugging at the back of his mind. Didn't you die? I thought that you blew up in the vault when you tried to go after Eleventh.
Minene barked out a laugh. "Oh, you would remember that little detail. Deus happened. He apparently gave me some of his abilities and thoughts when I met with him last, and pulled me out before the place exploded. I guess I owe him for that, don't I?"
I guess he liked keeping pawns around… Aru didn't want to think about what happened the one and only time he could remember seeing the god. Being disassembled was not a memory he wished repeating. He vaguely wondered if that was one of the memories the god gave to Uryu. What did he tell you about me?
"He didn't tell me anything. Why? Is there some secret revolving around you that I should know about?" Her eye focused on him, and Aru swallowed. Or tried to. His throat stretched and he winced before he could complete the act.
I'm not human. I only look it. I was created to observe the games, as well as the diary owners. I wasn't supposed to survive him.
"Nice." Minene's tone suggested otherwise, and the woman rubbed her forehead. "So, what do we have? A reject from the games that should have died a long time ago and a construct of a god that outlived his use? What are we supposed to do? Stop Gasai from what she's about to do?"
We don't have a choice, do we? Otherwise, this world's fate is going to be the same as the last world's was. I don't even know if there's a world left. Aru felt bitter as he wrote the words, but he couldn't help it. Yukiteru was dead, everything he knew was gone. All that was left was himself and Minene.
"It's a damn sad choice, that's what I think. I never wanted to be a god in the end, and yet, now? What, am I supposed to replace myself in the game to try and defeat Gasai?" Minene laughed at the idea. "No offense, but I think that brain of yours got fried when Deus died. There's no way we can defeat someone that's twice over a god."
Before he could respond, Aru heard the door click and an older man walked in. He paused, seeing Minene sitting on the bed with Aru before he walked over. "I wasn't aware that someone had come in to see you Akise-san. Visiting hours are over, young lady. He needs his rest."
"What, and a sister can't come to see her baby brother in the hospital?" Aru blinked over to Minene, surprised by her lie. "I didn't even get a notification that he was in the hospital until just an hour ago. Had to sneak in here to see Aru-chan."
Aru tried not to let the surprise show on his face as the doctor looked first at him, and then at her. Aru quickly turned the page in the notebook, not wanting to show the man what they were talking about. It was bad enough that he doubted anyone would believe it. He also doubted he'd do any good locked in the psyche wing at the hospital.
The doctor however seemed satisfied and turned to Minene. "I'm Dr. Tanaka. Since you're his sister, I should inform you of his prognosis. Quite frankly, he's lucky to be alive. He lost quite a lot of blood, and had he been found minutes later, he wouldn't be alive now. The stab to the abdomen was bad enough, since it pierced his diaphragm, but add to that the injury to the neck? I've never seen wounds like that before where the patient survived. He's lucky we have a talented surgeon on call, otherwise he'd be as good as dead."
Aru winced. He hadn't known how bad it had been. He knew he'd had trouble breathing, but he assumed it was from his neck wound. His hand ghosted to his side as his forehead furrowed. Minene however looked at the doctor with her own frown and questions. "How long before he can leave the hospital? And what's going on with the tubes and such? Does anyone know who did this?"
Aru would have laughed as he heard the last question. Minene knew full well who had done it, as did he. However, saying as such didn't do any good. Though if he had been found in Gasai's home, there had to be plenty of questions about how he got there and why.
The doctor to his credit answered Minene calmly. "I don't know who did that. You would have to talk to the detective in charge of the case. As far as tubing is concerned, it's helping him to breathe. While we repaired his diaphragm, the stab wound to the throat nearly severed his wind pipe and nicked his artery and vein. We're trying to reduce strain on the windpipe as much as possible and watch for infection. He should be able to leave in a few days, barring complications."
Minene nodded. "Well, Aru-chan, I guess that means you're going to be staying in the hospital for a while. Don't worry; I'll let the school know so that you don't get in trouble for skipping school."
The doctor frowned. "What about Aru's parents? Shouldn't they be informed?"
Minene shook her head. "They're both deceased. Our father passed away earlier this month due to a wasting disease, and our mother died when he was born. I was given custody of him until he gets out of school."
The doctor nodded, and then turned to Aru. "Given the circumstances, I'll advise the staff that you'll be staying, I assume, miss…?"
"Minene. Akise Minene. And thank you."
True to her word, Minene stayed after Dr. Tanaka left. They worked on their cover story, building up on the lies that were ironically closer to the truth than possible. Minene discussed the fact she'd have to be falsifying records for the both of them, if for no other reason than she was still a wanted terrorist and Aru was more than likely not even a twinkle in Deus's eye. Coupling that with the fact that they would have to work together to stop this madness, and it stood to reason they both would have to stick together for the foreseeable future. Having discussed everything for what seemed like hours, Minene stood, stretching and wishing Aru a good night. "Don't worry," she assured him. "I have the fun part. You just worry about getting better before I have to kick your ass for dying on me, Akise-san."
After that, Aru had a troubled sleep. In his dreams, he was being chased by Yuno. She cackled and screamed that Aru would not have her Yukki, and she would take his head to ensure he could never be near the other boy again. He awoke thrashing, arms being pinned to his side while someone gave him something to sleep. He slipped back into a dreamless sleep.
It was the fourth day after the surgery that he was allowed to leave. His clothes previously had been discarded, being too bloodstained for him to wear, and he was in the bathroom trying to button up the shirt Minene had gotten for him. A red puckered scar shone grimly on his alabaster skin, and Aru glared. He wasn't allowed to talk yet, considering his throat was still bandaged as they had removed the tracheotomy, but even so, he knew it was only a matter of time before he was allowed to.
Minene had somehow worked her magic, and had procured identities for the both of them. He was still Akise Aru, but she was now Akise Minene, his older sister. Both orphans, she was caring for him after the death of their father. Where they were staying, Minene had said she'd taken care of. Hopefully that didn't mean they were living somewhere in a shack. While he had faith that Minene knew how to live on the run, he didn't.
Sighing, he gave up on buttoning his shirt all the way up and decided that he would just deal with his shirt being open at the neck. Closing his eyes, he leaned forward on the sink, letting his forehead rest against the mirror before he pushed himself upright again. He hadn't been outside in four days, and he wanted to breathe something other than medicated air. He'd never been sick in his life, courtesy of his supernatural origins, he figured. He just hoped to never see a hospital again for as long as he lived. Considering what was likely to happen, he didn't think he had long anyway.
Stepping out of the bathroom, he was greeted with the sight of Minene sitting on the bed, arms and legs crossed while her eye patch rested over her glass eye. Her hair was tied back loosely with a clip, while a simple blouse and skirt completed her outfit. Aru didn't pay much attention to her, mostly because he couldn't speak, and mostly because he didn't know what else they could discuss. As it stood, she had been his main source of information, and she had stated that she'd been on the lookout for Yuno in case she found out that Aru survived their encounter. It felt weird knowing that she'd basically become his protector while he was incapacitated, but here he stood, ready to walk out of the hospital with her.
He slipped on his shoes easily enough, but paused when he got to his personal belongings. His phone, all but useless now, his notebook and pen, his wallet, and a set of keys were lying on the table beside the bed. His notebook and phone he could easily take with him. His wallet he figured they had used to identify him, and he pocketed that as well. When he got to his keys, he hesitated. No matter which way he looked at it, he no longer lived there. If it hadn't been just an illusion that Deus cooked up for him. His own doubts as to what he was, and everything in his past, he hated having them. He hated thinking that the parents he had lived with his entire life might actually be a lie. He hated the idea that every memory he had from his childhood was probably processed from millions of others to give him the illusion of a past. He especially hated the fact that he now doubted everything about himself. He knew one thing, however. No matter what Deus had stated, he believed that his feelings for Yukiteru were real.
Picking up the keys firmly, he turned toward Minene and found her standing with a small satchel over her shoulder. She was watching him carefully, he realized. Was he really that obvious? He knew she had lost Nishijima and any future the two of them had, but her eye told him there was something else troubling her. Was it him?
The moment passed however and she got a cocky grin on her face. "All right then. Let's just see how many wrenches we can throw in Gasai's plans."
Aru didn't know what to expect, but arriving at his old house wasn't one of them. He stared at it, recalling the last time he was there. His hand instantly sought the scar on his neck, and he shivered. His eyes wandered around, taking in the area. Could he pinpoint the place where Hinata, Mao, and Ouji met their ends? He shook himself out of his recollections long enough to hear Minene ask him if he was okay. What could he say? Stiffly he nodded, climbing out and reaching into his pocket.
The key fit into the lock, causing Aru to hesitate. Could he really face the ghosts of memories he knew he would find? He felt a hand touch his shoulder, and he shoved back against the memories to enter. The front room was just as he remembered, the last time his home was whole. No pictures lined the walls, and from what he remembered, there never were any. Suddenly feeling an impulse, he walked quickly through the home, looking in each and every room, trying to find something of his existence in it. There was nothing, however, not even a hint of what would be, only an empty home for someone that never existed.
Finding his way to his room, he slowed and opened the door. Inside there was everything he remembered, but lacking anything really pinpointing that he lived here. Finally giving up, he collapsed onto his bed, face burying itself in his hands as he tried to think. What did he expect? To find his nonexistent parents? To find himself, a younger version, idly shifting through the detective novels he kept on the shelves? He didn't know, and for once, he was at a loss. He laughed then, a harsh, choking sound that burned his throat, but for days without hearing his own voice, he didn't care.
When his laughing subsided, he felt rather than saw Minene standing in the doorway. Her one visible eye looked worried, and Aru just shook his head. "I'm fine. I just need a bit of time." The words were rough, and his throat burned as he spoke, but he ignored it. He'd survived, and he needed to be something of himself before he felt his world collapse.
"No, you're not. What are you, thirteen, fourteen? Maybe even fifteen? You just lost everyone you ever cared about. If you were really okay after it all, I'd kill you here and now and deal with Yuno myself. I don't need another psycho running around." The bed dipped next to him as Minene took a seat. She observed him critically with her one good eye and sighed. "When did I have to worry about teenagers, huh? I never had to until I ran into Amano."
"Guess you're just lucky like that, huh?"
"And what's with this disobeying doctor's orders? You were told not to speak for another day just to let the tracheotomy heal, and here you are, blabbing all over the place." Minene scowled at him. "Honestly, if I find myself nursing a depressed teenager, I will put you out of my misery, got it?"
Aru nodded, a light chuckle escaping his lips that led to a brief coughing fit. When it subsided, he looked over to Minene. "So, what do we do now?"
"You are going to school. I hope you enjoyed your first year in junior high, because that's where you'll be going. I even arranged that you'll be going to the same school Amano's going to, just so you can keep an eye on Gasai. I know the game doesn't start for another two years, but we need all the help we can get. The more information, and the more you can try and keep Yukiteru away from her, the better." Minene looked over Aru as she spoke, and a frown crossed her face. "Are you sure you're alright?"
Aru shrugged. He wasn't sure about a lot of things. He wasn't sure if he was really okay. He knew he had to do something, however. Despite what he was feeling, he had to do it. He had to find a way to break the cycle. If that meant meeting whatever demons he now possessed, then he would do it.
To be continued...