Chapter 11

I drifted in and out of consciousness for a while, and I say "a while" because I wasn´t exactly sure how much time had gone by already, or when the cycle would end, if it ever would. I also didn't know where I was, because nothing seemed familiar anymore, but then again, nothing seemed exactly off to me either. I felt like I wasn´t living anymore, merely existing somewhere in the world, but not in a specific place and yet everywhere at once at the same time.

At times I could feel my body breaking apart into a million little pieces, only to be joined back together again in different ways every time. It was confusing and disorienting, but at least I was aware of…something. At least I knew I was real.

Other times I wasn´t so lucky. In random moments I couldn´t predict, I suddenly lost all awareness because there weren´t enough pieces of me joined together to become whole. Suddenly, I couldn´t feel a thing.

Not my body.

Not my mind.

Not my soul.

Nothing.

It was just a…void, an endless void all around me that wouldn´t let me think or escape, similar to having fallen asleep, but very, very deep inside my own mind. There wasn´t much I could say about these moments, because they were fleeing, and a concept of time I could understand didn´t exist within them. All I knew is that once I resurfaced, it made me scared and restless every time, because I didn´t want to go back under. I didn´t want to disappear, and yet I couldn´t seem to control my own mind from fracturing.

I was lost somewhere, and I had no way to go back home…wherever that may be, so I spent my time in a state of constant confusion, floating endlessly without eyes to actually see, ears to hear or hands to touch…until I felt something I couldn't quite name. An energy that wasn´t exactly me, but it was familiar enough, and most importantly, it was warm and real.

In the moments I could think almost clearly, I tried searching for that source of warmth, following it across the darkness as if it was calling for me without any need for words, because it didn´t have a mouth, or even a body either. I felt its connection to me, like a moth drawn to a flame, and I tried calling for it to come closer, to find me, but I didn´t have a voice, and I didn´t know words to speak. That energy was as lost as I was, dancing away uncaring and disoriented, broken and dispersed in the oblivion, even more so than me. Maybe it was searching for a fellow soul, maybe it didn´t think and it could only exist, but it was definitely scared, that much I could sense.

I could feel its heartbreak and its terror all the way to my being, to my soul, to whatever part of me that was still around to actually feel something, and I wanted to make it better. I wanted to make those feelings disappear, because they mirrored my own. An ethereal connection was forged between us then, and before I knew what I was doing, I found myself in a strange sort of mission: gathering pieces of that source of warmth and bringing them together to the very small and weak core. One by one, I took the pieces and let them be joined together until that warmth grew and widened, and when it enveloped me, I suddenly realized how so very cold I was. I wanted that warmth, I wanted more.

As I searched for all those pieces, parts of me seemed to be coming back to join my own core, and only then I realized, that strange energy was following on my footsteps, trying to help me become complete again. Gradually, I was able to feel the tickling of my own hair against my neck, my own weight suspended in the air, and labored breaths inside my lungs. Little by little, I started to remember myself, every piece that made me who I was, and I concentrated on the image I had of me inside my mind until my body became as real as it had ever been.

I was almost complete, I was almost back as a person, but there weren´t enough pieces of me yet out there to finish the job, and in a desperate attempt at completing the whole puzzle I rushed towards the very center of that ball of energy, that light that was now visible and almost blinding and perfect. Without a thought in my head, I joined it and the warmth enveloped me in an embrace I never wanted to be apart from. A surge of power went through me like lightning, and suddenly my body fused completely with all the pieces that were missing, and wherever I had been during that confusing time, I catapulted right out.

It hurt, but I didn´t have time to suffer, because as soon as my eyes opened, I was met with an expanse of blue and a rushing in my ears. My stomach dropped, and my hair was all around me to see much of anything, not that there was much to see other than the ground rapidly starting to come closer to where I was.

No, I thought in terror, I am falling.

And then panic hit.

My heart started pounding so hard in my chest it hurt like nothing I had ever felt before, and all the thoughts in my head were still messy, incoherent and useless. I couldn´t do anything else other than scream mindlessly and move around in search of help, but there was nothing there. There was no one to help me, and I would die a stupid death because my power wasn´t enough to save me from a fall this high.

The only thing that made any sort of sense was the image of a face I could see inside my mind, a pair of golden eyes, green hair and way too pale skin. A face I couldn´t stop seeing, because it kept appearing before me, and it anchored me to something, it called me and with the last effort of my strength, I called it back by its own name.

"Kish!"

I felt my body hit something hard, and I immediately reached forward with arms and legs to hold on to whatever it was that broke my fall. A couple of arms surrounded me, and I felt the distinctive heat of a body next to mine, a body that was able to float in the air, and was holding me as close as we could get. In a normal situation, I would have pushed Kish away, but right now, I held on to him for dear life, and gathered my breath. Nothing could make me let go.

We were still in the air, but at least we weren´t crashing at high speed all the way to the ground. I knew if I turned my neck I would be able to get a glimpse of where we were, but I wasn´t ready for that yet. I wasn´t ready to turn my face away from Kish´s neck and look down. Somehow, I didn´t think I would like the image very much.

"…you have no idea…" I heard Kish murmur against my hair, and maybe it was the wind, or his voice was too low, but I barely heard him, although I didn´t miss the broken tone of his voice.

"What is it?" I asked, my own voice faltering a bit.

Kish raised his head and when he looked at me, he seemed the most exhausted I had ever seen him, which made sense. If the last three days had wrecked me, I couldn´t even begin to imagine what it had been like for Kish after fighting for me, receiving mortal wounds, and functioning with very limited sleep. Ciniclons could be stronger, tougher and more resilient, but they were still mortals, and he had clearly reached his limit.

Kish actually looked like he could faint in the next second or so, which was a problem for both of us, because right now, he was the only thing keeping us from the ground.

I need to keep him awake, I thought.

"You have no idea how close we were to…losing ourselves" He explained, in almost a pained way. "We almost didn´t come back."

Come back from where? I wanted to ask, but I didn´t dare say that aloud, I was too scared to actually know the answer to that question. All I knew is that for a very unclear amount of time, I had felt detached from absolutely everything, like I wasn´t even a whole person anymore, just pieces without its core, scattered around the universe and just…lost. My body, my mind, my spirit, everything that that made me who I was, somehow seemed to peel away layer by layer, until all that was left was…nothing. Absolutely nothing.

I could have handled darkness, or fear, or pain, but a void so deep there didn´t seem to be an end to it, had scared me. Still scared me, and I didn´t want a repeat of that show. I didn´t want to imagine it ever again.

"We are back" I said, unhelpfully. If Kish had lived through the same experience, then nothing I could say could make him forget the loneliness still inside himself. I felt it too.

We were both silent for a while. I didn´t know what to say, and I guess he didn´t either, or maybe Kish was just too tired to come up with a full sentence, but strangely I didn´t mind. The silence, the stillness and the warmth from his body to mine was actually kind of nice. After a while of only breathing and holding on to the other, I realized we weren´t even moving anymore, which was fine with me. I kind of needed the world to stop moving for a minute, and just let me breathe.

I gradually managed to slow down the beating of my own heart, and the adrenaline inside my body seemed to dissipate slowly until I was able to make sense of the world around me. I risked a look down and didn´t recognize the landscape, but it wasn´t a surprise considering we were miles from the ground and everything seemed as small as ants to me right now. I looked away, feeling a little squeamish and I suddenly got distracted watching green strands of hair tangling slightly with my red ones in the air. The sight was sort of pretty.

Not a bad mix, I thought stupidly.

I breathed once, and then I asked:

"So…that´s what happened to us? We were disintegrated?"

"Yes" he answered calmly, looking at me as if he couldn´t believe his eyes.

His hands tightened on my waist, and I did the same thing with my legs around his hips. Somehow, I think we both needed to make sure the other one was still there, that neither of us would just vanish again into oblivion. The position was a little awkward, but since Kish wasn´t spouting any immature comments, or winking lustfully at me, I let myself relax a bit. He seemed so tired; I doubted he was completely aware of the situation anyway.

His lids started to drop a little bit, and I feared he would actually fall asleep mid-flight.

"Why did that happen?" I asked, in an attempt to keep him awake, "I mean, why did your teleportation failed?"

To the sound of my voice he jerked in surprise, and his eyes opened completely, looking at me as if he had forgotten I was even there. He looked down, and then held on to me a little tighter before starting our descent back to the ground.

"Because I wasn´t completely healed yet. In order to teleport safely from point A to point B, my body needs to break down into fragments, and then regroup back together again in the desired destination, along with the person I take with me, in this case: you," he explained simply, "Teleportations errors are rare but not impossible to happen, is sort of against our very nature to risk it."

"And I made you do it," I realized, "I´m sorry."

"Don´t be…this is my fault too, I just…hoped we would make it, I guess."

"We did…just…not the way we were expecting" I said, my voice growing quiet, and after a few seconds of hesitation, I asked what I really wanted to know, "What would have happened if we hadn´t…come back?"

"No idea," he said, blinking rapidly trying to stay awake, "I never even knew we what exactly would happen o us, I mean… I knew in theory, but I didn´t know, you know?"

Yeah, I guess I do.

We were quiet for a while, and I raked by brain trying to think of safe and easy subjects to approach in order to keep Kish talking, aware and functioning, but I was so tired too, and there was nothing coming to mind.

In the end, he decided for me.

"I feared something bad would happen" he said, with such guilt in his voice it almost caused me pain, "I knew my body was damaged enough that I wouldn´t get us here in one piece, and still I…"

"No, don´t do that" I cut him off, "I made you teleport us, remember? It was my decision."

The expression on his face made me realize he wasn´t actually seeing it that way.

"We didn´t have a choice, anyway" he answered, eyes closing tightly, "It was either this, or being killed by a bunch of savages."

"I prefer this," I said immediately, surprising us both, "What type of weapon is capable of doing this to you, anyway?"

"Yeah, I don´t know the name" he admitted, finally opening his eyes to look at me, "Pai could tell you, probably. All I know is that it acts like a drug in my system and it can disrupt all my abilities for a certain period of time until the drug wears off. It´s very effective, but I don´t recommend being on the receiving end."

I guess he tried to make a joke, but neither of us was in the mood to laugh, and we just let it slide. I

"By the way, how did you do it?" he asked, with a very curious expression in his eyes despite his clear exhaustion.

"Do what?"

"Bring us back"

"I did that?"

He probably thought I was kidding, because he laughed briefly, but when I didn´t join him, he got serious again, and stared at me in surprise. His big golden eyes seemed to be burning into mine.

"Are you telling me you did it by accident?" He asked, dumbfounded.

"I don´t even know what you are talking about."

"I´m talking about the way you saved us. We were…lost, Ichigo, just drifting away like nothing, and out of nowhere you seemed to be all around me. I can´t really explain it, but, somehow you put us back together, and I´m not sure how you did that."

I opened my mouth to answer, but closed it again when I realized I had nothing to say to that. Nothing important anyway. I felt like denying his allegations, because they sounded crazy enough to me, after all, how would I be able to bring us back from whatever alternate reality we had somehow drifted into? I was powerful, but not that much.

Then what do you think happened? I asked myself inside my head, because something sure did.

A moment later, I decided I was too tired to care about any of this right now. I was exhausted, my shoulder wound had opened up again, my hair needed a serious washing, and I had a new alien problem to deal with the moment my feet touched the ground. The experience had been scary as hell, but it was over, and that was all the information I needed to know.

So I just shrugged.

I guess he was expecting a little more out of me, because he blinked stupidly at me for a few seconds before he abruptly started laughing. Despite the fact we clearly didn´t have any reason to laugh, I joined him, because, well why not?

It felt good to laugh for once, and as we floated closer and closer to the ground, I laughed until my belly ached and my eyes watered. I laughed until all the tension in my body went away, and before I knew it, my feet were touching soft grass.

"Are you okay?" Kish asked me, with his arms still around me.

"I am" I said and pulled away from him. I immediately felt cold, but I ignored the feeling, "how about you?"

He seemed a bit shaky to me, and way too pale (even for him) but he was standing on his own two feet, and his flight ability was clearly back, so I guessed whatever drug had been in his system, was probably gone already.

Took long enough.

"I´m okay," he said, and then offered me his hand, "ready to go?"

"Where?" I asked, staring incomprehensively at his hand.

"Well, wherever you need to go… I guess Tokyo for starters."

I looked around, and only then I realized we were nowhere near Tokyo, at least not the metropolitan area I was used to. Around us, all I could see was an expanse of bright green grass, blue sky, and a couple of hills far enough to probably be unreachable by foot. No cars, no busy streets filled with people, and no signs anywhere. Suddenly, it dawned on me that our trip home was not nearly done.

I must have made some kind of panicked expression, because Kish grabbed me by the shoulder and made me look at him.

"It´s okay, I have my ability under control again," he said in a soothing voice, "we won´t get lost again."

I had half a brain to doubt his words, and was just about to come up with a stupid alternative that would probably get us home in about month, when Kish grinned at me.

"You can´t possibly be scared right now," he said mockingly, "you almost made us jump off a cliff!"

"I am not scared…but even if I was it would be totally justified!"

"Didn´t you trust this stupid alien?"

"I…"

"Was it just the adrenaline…or do you actually, honestly trust me?"

As much as I would have liked to blow it off as the adrenaline, I knew deep down it wasn´t true. Somehow, in the last three days, I, Ichigo Mamoiya, had forged an alliance with Kish…whichever his last name was. Not only I knew he wasn´t out to get me anymore, but I was sure he would put his life on the line if it meant saving my life. After all, he had proved it more than enough times over the last few days.

A very weird sense of calmness enveloped me as I raised my hand and held on to his. Part of me was still afraid of another jump through space, but I managed to stay still.

"If I become garbage floating in the air again, I'm coming back on my own next time and leaving you there to rot, understand?" I half-jokingly threatened.

He only grinned, and in one motion pulled me to him.

"Understood…kitten."

A moment later, he made us disappear. I felt the air shift around me, and my feet stopped feeling the ground beneath for only a fraction of a second. I didn´t have time to be scared, or to hold my breath, not even to close my eyes, it was too fast for me to notice any kind of change, until we no longer were in the meadow, and had appeared right before the Café. I don´t think my body even realized we had changed locations.

Relief flooded through me, and I felt like I could take my very first breath since this whole ordeal had started. Not only Kish was apparently cured from the effects of Saya`s weapon, but had managed to bring me home in one piece.

Well, almost in one piece, I reminded myself when the pain on my shoulder started asking for a bit of attention. Soon I could get a proper medical care, and that was all my body wanted.

"Dizzy?" Kish asked me.

I shook my head.

"No, just…tired," I answered, "really tired."

I kind of wanted to sleep for a week straight, then wake up for like an hour to eat, and go to sleep again. Both my body and my mind needed rest, but something told me I wouldn´t be getting any for the time being, especially not with a new alien on Earth out to get me personally for something I wasn´t even responsible for.

Saya, whoever she may be, had decided I should be punished for being the object of her current fiancée´s attention a few years ago. Never mind that I had never shared or helped encouraged him to develop those sort of feelings for me, I had intended quite the opposite actually, but I guess she didn´t care about that. She wanted the little interesting cat experiment to fall into her hands, and be able to find out for herself just how much it took for me to break.

It had been a while since an alien was focusing its attention solely on me, but I was rapidly figuring out, Kish hadn´t been the worst enemy to have on my back. After all Kish had been aiming for me to fall in love with him, and half of his attacks hadn´t even been deadly, but Saya, on the other hand, wanted me to be scared, wanted me to suffer, and from what I could tell, she wouldn´t hold back at all.

How had the tables turned so quickly and completely? If someone had told me years ago, Kish would become an ally of mine in a war to come, I would have laughed my ass off…but here I was, still holding on to his hand and trusting this boy I barely knew anything about. Was he thinking the same thing about me? Was he glad about getting me home because it meant he no longer felt responsible for my life? Was our brief truce over?

He took his hand back and pulled back the hair away from his face in a kind of nervous manner. He opened his mouth, and I had a brief moment of panic thinking he would say something to mess our shaky relationship up.

But then he went and said:

"I´m sorry."

"For what?" I asked, confused.

He breathed in deep, as if he was preparing to let go of something painful, and then he spoke:

"For…everything. I didn´t mean for you to be in danger, or in pain or dying. I had forgotten how scared it made me to see you hurt. I don´t like that."

No, you never did, I thought.

He had always seemed so brave to me, so stupidly brave and arrogant about his own abilities and master plans, and an ironclad will others could never posses. At times, he had even seemed to be a walking death-wish, and I would have never guessed Kish could be scared of anything…until me. For some reason, when it came to me being hurt, he lost all his bravery, and that was a very uncomfortable, and yet very comforting thing to have in mind.

"I guess that`s the reason why I kissed you," he kept talking "and I´m sorry about that too. I´m making this huge effort to prove to you I´m not the same jerk you met before, and then I go do the same shit. It was a spur of the moment sort of the thing, and I know it doesn´t justify my actions…but I wasn´t thinking clearly then. I was just…I was just glad you were breathing."

Something inside my chest fluttered. It might have been my heart, but I wasn´t sure I even wanted to find out; all I knew is that I suddenly realized Kish cared about me. Maybe not as much as when we were kids, maybe not in an obsessed I-need-to-have-you-all-to-myself sort of way, maybe he didn´t love me…but he still cared about me. He still suffered if I was hurt, and worried for my sake in a fight, and would still grieve if I was dead. Somehow, after all these years he still cared, and I could never tell him just how strangely warm that made me inside.

A few years ago I would have ran like hell at that feeling inside my chest, because I knew Kish was the type of guy to use tricks and guilt to force his feelings on me if it meant getting what he wanted. God knows he had tried more than once to shape me into a stupid alien bride, and thankfully I hadn´t let him persuade me into falling for his illusions of love, but I was out of practice of now.

Or he is better at it than before. Either way, it wasn´t as easy to ignore Kish over the last few days, as it had been in the past.

Was I letting him persuade me without me realizing it? Was I allowing him just a small passage inside my mind and my heart? He had stated repeatedly he was engaged to another girl, but was it okay to let my guard down around him, or was I being very stupidly and slowly deceived? I didn´t love him, I was sure of that, but I was beginning to think I could…care about him too, and I didn´t know what that could mean for either of us!

In my mind, there was a scared little voice yelling at my body to escape, to cut all ties with this boy who had terrified me way too many times for me to forgive so easily, and just go back to my life. The voice yelled at me to tune out his voice, because otherwise I would fall for lies that would take me apart. I wanted to run, to go inside the Café and forget about him, and his fiancé and this new war to come. I wanted to put clean clothes and call Masaya and have that date we had re-scheduled three days ago…but that wasn´t my life.

And I don´t think this is the Kish I used to know... At least, not the obsessed boy I remembered. Whoever this boy…man was, had saved me, apologized for his actions and cared about me. No matter what the voice screamed inside my head, something else told me to reach out and trust.

"Do you understand what I'm saying?" He asked me, and his hands shook me a little in their place over my shoulders, "I´m not the same person I used to be. I'm not interested in chasing you around or demanding anything from you, I'm just here to protect you, and then I'll leave again, I promise."

He was clearly waiting for an answer, but I didn´t have one for him. Not yet. My mind was all over the place, going back and forth from scenes in my head to all the times I had interacted with Kish. What was I supposed to say to all of this? Was he waiting for my approval or my permission? Would he just leave if I asked him to? Did I even want to ask that of him?

He was deliberately putting his life on the line for me, someone who he would never see again after all of this was over. It made me wonder what he gained from everything, could I believe his word that this was all just a way for him to repay his debts to me? To let go of his guilt? Or was there something else?

I wanted to ask him, what he truly felt for me, but I wavered and then I shut my mouth, because I didn´t want to know. If he actually had feelings for me, I would ask him to leave, that was sure, but if he left I would be forced to fight alone, and I wasn't sure this was a battle I could win without his knowledge on Saya. So if he did have feelings for me, then I wanted him to hide them, to bury them, and I would ignore them until we won.

Kish seemed a little disappointed with my lack of response, but he didn´t say anything.

"Well, I got you back almost in one piece," he joked, "so mission accomplished, I guess. Be safe, Ichigo."

He raised his hand in a wave, and before he could teleport, without thinking I threw myself into his arms and hugged him tight. He was stiff as a board at first, and didn´t touch me in any way. I think he was a little shock to move.

"I told you I trust you, stupid alien" I said rapidly, and then I let go, "and I mean it."

I ran to the Café without looking back, got inside and closed the door. I didn´t turn back or spied over a window to make sure he had gone because I didn´t feel ready at all to see his reaction. I was already struggling with my red cheeks and pounding heart.

What the hell had just happened? Why was I so damn anxious? I felt stupid, like I had done something very stupid, but at the same time, relieved, like I had let go of something weighting me down. Both emotions were struggling inside my chest and I didn´t know which one would win in the end.

Something had changed, I could tell it in my bones, like there was a snowball rolling down a hill, getting bigger and more dangerous by the second. At some point, inevitably it would hit, but would it crash to pieces on the bottom? I didn´t know.

All I knew is that the danger was only jus beginning.

Hello there! So, this is the last chapter from "What I couldn´t see", a story I started working on in spanish a few years ago and just recently decided to try translating into english.

I know the ending is kind of open, and it´s because there is a sequel dealing with the aftermath of Kish´s return and the new war approaching, but unfortunately, this sequel is only in spanish for now (I´m still a few chapters away from finishing it). It is much longer in amount of both words and chapters, and even though I would love to eventually translate it into english too, Im not sure when that will happen since it will take me a long time, and I want to put my energy in other stories too. It´s been a long time since I have been writing in the "Tokyo Mew Mew" fandom, and maybe I need a change for a while.

I dont completely discard the idea of translating it at some point, but its not going to be soon, so for now, if you are interested in reading the sequel in spanish, it´s called "Sentimientos Encontrados".

Thank you for reading and commenting. Im really glad you liked my story and made me very happy to read reviews. Hopefully you liked this chapter as well! See you next time!