19/3/94
Speed-walking, really running, through Yokohama with a child would slow anyone down.
Even if that child was say, 'athletic', 'fit', and hauling ass like death herself was after them. I went in every direction Sora pointed and did my best to keep up with him but his gait had me lagging behind at every point. If we were being actively chased, one of use would have be snatched up by now, and that someone was probably me.
In nature, it's always the young and the weak that predators go after, and I got it now. My body just couldn't compete with an adult, not at endurance.
Sora looked like shit, himself, but he could still go faster, go harder. Whatever fear possessed him was motivation enough to do what I couldn't and the entire time my body was screaming not to even try.
We had been gone for a long time, too. It hadn't dawned on me just how long, not until we neared the last stretch with the train station in view, but we'd been on our feet since the morning, and it was damn near nightfall. From then to now, with only a short, strange, stressful break in the middle. It was no wonder I wanted to just collapse into a pile.
I felt it in my bones. I felt it in the staticky numbness where my feet were, in the dull ache of my legs, the unconscious up and down of my chest. I was
this close to just passing out. I didn't care if Sora picked me up or left me in the street, didn't care if I missed the train.
It was pathetic.
The cold air on my temples stirred up a headsplitter that radiated into my neck. The migraine only got worse the colder I got and I was freezing. My clothes were sweat-soaked like I'd just done a track meet. Dehydration never left anyone looking pretty, and I felt worse than I looked. If this was how I handled the low-stakes run, what was going to happen if I actually
had to run? Not from hurry, or fear, but from a present threat.
I had never passed out from exhaustion in my first life, but I figured this was how it felt right before lights out.
I used to go on ru that left almost left me feeling this bad in my first life. Running a mile for a physical evaluation, the time I raced a car on foot for a girl, all bad. But this was a different kind of weakness. I wasn't full grown now. I wasn't in my prime. I was small and weak, and that reminded me of the runs I took with my grandfather. In another life, another time, he used to run me ragged and whenever I wanted to quit because my lungs felt like fire or my stomach wanted to crawl out my throat he always had the same attitude:
Push through.
Silence the mind.
"You decide when you move, not your legs."
"It's not your stomach that's in control. It's not the ground you walk on and it's not the sun above, it's You. Now come on, finish this lap."
It probably wasn't the healthiest attitude to have toward exercise, being a mortal with limits, but it was an anchor to ground my worries with and just keep moving. Keep moving that little bit, to finish without surrendering to my own weakness.
We made it to our destination without me collapsing, and for that I was thankful. I avoided tossing up the dumplings from earlier, and I called
that a win.
Though, I was even more thankful to just have a chance to rest. Sora had chosen this station because it was so far out of the way, that was obvious. Nobody living anywhere close to home- to where we did would have came all this way just for a train, not even the desperate ones. Sora really picked the hardest way out of town that wasn't in a body bag. And I was quite partial to one by this point.
I felt more like a corpse than a person, at any rate, and from the stares we were getting, others thought so too. The late day crowd, a mix of literally everyone and anyone who hadn't managed to hop on the trains before they closed down for the night, they weren't quite gawking. But they weren't quite minding their business either. A number of old ladies chattered to their younger daughters while shooting me glances, shooting Sora glares.
Waiting for Sora's chosen train, it felt like ages just trying to catch my breath, stop catching all the subtle Japanese shade from passersby.
Waiting for Sora's chosen train, I also came to a conclusion. Now that I could think straight, breathe, I gathered something obvious:
No hollow is this slow or this discrete.
Even the shifty ones wouldn't have held off this long from doing something strange. And after the event in the restaurant, I was sure that I would see it, that I could.
What we were running from, or rather, what we were avoiding had to be something else. Sora had never shown any sign of spiritual awareness, and today was no exception. What happened in the restaurant. That happened to me and only me. Not a soul in the place even skipped a beat, Sora included, and if that wasn't a spiritual thing then I needed a psych evaluation.
If it's not spirits, then it's people.
So who the hell was Sora that afraid of?
We managed to make it this far without being ambushed, to make it onto a train without being obviously followed.
Whatever Sora was running from either didn't want us that badly or didn't even know we were running.
We were not the top of the class when it came to evading anything. We were moving too slow, too haphazardly, too conspicuously. If anyone started to ask around, "Hey, you seen a weird guy and a little girl." Everywhere we passed through would know exactly who they were talking about. The out of breath little girl and a fidgety 20-something in a spare business suit, we made a notable pair.
It was a testament to the Japanese sense of propriety that so many people kept to themselves, even now. Yet still the concerned looks continued, still the old women sized my brother up to see if he looked like trouble or if was just running from it, or if it mattered either way.
I made sure to get closer to him, just so no one thought I was kidnapped, just to make sure no anonymous tip came in about us. Even in a time and place where no one had the time for it, we still caught attention.
"Sora, when's the train supposed to get here?" I asked, the anxiety starting to poke through my exhaustion apathy.
"9:30." He said, checking his watch. "They're late." He must have saw me glancing around the station at a particular set of watchful eyes because he continued, "Ignore the old ones, they're just nosy. I think we're safe, for now."
"What makes you say that?" I asked, probing.
"We would know by now if we weren't." He sighed, looking down the tracks at the incoming train. "Looks like they're here after all." He said with a small smile.
"Good." I said, more to myself than him at any rate. "I've had enough of running from shadows." Sora seemed to agree, absently. But something else was on his mind.
Though for the moment, I couldn't care what it was. I simply followed him onto the train. Standing up straight was my main mission then.
Even if I may decide where my body goes, what it does, it definitely decided how I felt about it. My mind was set on sitting down, warming up, on thanking the gods that I didn't end up in somebody's trunk or something's stomach. I wasn't ready for either.
And I suppose in a roundabout way, I was thankful for the day finally settling what's been eating at me for so long.
I had spiritual awareness.
I hadn't seen a ghost yet, no hollows, no shinigami but, those kanji... that was good enough for now. I didn't have to second guess myself anymore. Powers or no powers, I was on the path and now I could rest in one piece.
It was a bittersweet end, I think. I felt like shit, but the evening sun made for a pretty capstone to an otherwise terrible day. Warm colors but weak light, it was fitting. I couldn't feel any warmth through the train car windows, but it was still a comfort. I shiverred like a wet dog, but it looked nice. It really did.
And so did the city.
I doubted I would see it like this again, not in this headspace, at this station, at this time. So, I drunk in the sights and the sensations I felt and called it special. It was a waking dream in a dozen shades of vermillion, each darker than the last. A damn good sunset.
With every passing building, the sun got lower, the city darker. But while it lasted, Yokohama was perhaps the most beautiful city I'd ever seen.
The view didn't make any of this worth it, but there worse ways for a day to end; falling asleep to the tides of heaven. A day gone out, a night come in, the train chugging along regardless.
"
I'm so tired..."
"Then sleep, 'Hime."
- I know you all will probably hate how short it is , but there's more on the way. The original version of this chapter was wayyyy longer, but then I realized after a certain point that I was writing 10 parts melodrama with two parts plot progression. So, I started cutting and splicing. There's lots of scrap for future chapters. But that said, these Apotheosis chapters work best the more contained they are, I think. They are foremost about one thing: 'Hime and her spriitual awareness. There are other things going on in the background and the foreground, sure. But, that's what gets resolved.
- If I were to do this over again. I think the last two chapters would be put together to make this section of the story a two-parter.
- Expect the next chapter within the next week. The story must move on.
