Chapter XXXV:

Skeleton

When Kodora opened his eyes, he was back on the roof of Thorn Tower, a bloodied sword in his hands and a hole in his shoulder. Oodora’s gift – the simple white dress – was miraculously still upon him.

But none of that registered him with him at first. The first thing he saw was Cyn, who was staring with those dark eyes straight into his with a look of horror upon his face.

Kodora’s – no, it wasn’t his, not really. Ryuuzaki’s sword had pierced his chest.

They were both still attached to each other, Ryuu’s sword inside Cyn’s heart, and Cyn’s blade inside Kodora’s shoulder. Shakily, Kodora removed his hands from his weapon. It slid to the ground with a disgusting clatter.

What had he done?

Cyn wasn’t blinking, wasn’t moving. For all Kodora knew, he could be dead on his feet.

But slowly, the man removed his hands as well, and his weapon copied Kodora’s. He raised his hands to the wound where his heart should be.

Kodora staggered away. The puncture to his right shoulder was bad, but it was fatal, not yet. Cyn, on the other hand…

“Cyn…”

The man raised his eyes, still unblinking, to look at Kodora. Then he vomited a huge about of blood.

Wait, Kodora thought frantically. That wasn’t right. He wasn’t hurt in the stomach…

Cyn fell to his knees. He gasped for air, his wide eyes no longer to able to look anywhere than at the ground.

“Cyn!”

“Your father!” the dark man shouted suddenly, scaring Kodora badly. “How dare he put me in this horrid body?! Look at me! LOOK AT WHAT’S BECOME OF ME!”

Kodora couldn’t think. He could just stare in horror.

“This world gave me this accursed body! And look at it – it is rotting as badly as I am! This disgusting planet! The human race has defiled everything! It’s nothing but a black hole of suffering and sin!”

Cyn was attempting to get back to his feet, but failing.

He was dying.

Kodora wasn’t sure what to do. He wasn’t supposed to sympathize with this man - this murderer.

But for some reason he found he couldn’t help it.

He was drawn to this man.

He ignored the pain in his shoulder and walked cautiously towards him. “Cyn…”

“DON’T COME NEAR ME!” Cyn screamed. Kodora was surprised he could scream. Surely any normal human being would be dead by now, after losing so much blood.

But Cyn wasn’t normal. Neither of them was.

Kodora hesitated for a moment, but then decided he had nothing to fear. If Cyn had wanted to kill him, then he would have long ago.

Kodora got close enough that if he reached out, he could touch Cyn’s face. He realized, however, he didn’t know what he could do. He could not save him. He couldn’t save anyone.

“The world is not rotten,” he said. It was the first thing that came to his mind.

Cyn glared up at him, his face contorted with pain and dripping with sweat. “What?”

“There are good things here.”

“I don’t care. I’m sick! I hurt! Others should hurt too! You, of all people, should agree with me!”

“I don’t want to. I don’t want to think like that. I don’t want to be miserable. I won’t be! I’ll be happy!”

Cyn removed his hands from his chest and pulled at his hair. “I don’t understand!” he yelled, “I don’t understand how you can say that! I don’t know what happiness is!”

“Then you should learn!” And now Kodora did reach out, did touch Cyn’s face. And for a moment he saw something flicker across those features that didn’t look like fury. It looked… surprised, confused, heartbreaking.

“You can be happy, Cyn. You can be…”

Cyn shook his head wildly. “It doesn’t work that way! I’m not human!”

Cyn was right. Kodora didn’t have any basis to his statement. Maybe Cyn couldn’t be happy.

And that was the most pitiful thing of all.

Cyn collapsed onto the ground, no longer able to support himself at all. His breaths came out fast and ragged.

Kodora got down onto his knees. “You poor thing,” he whispered.

“Shut up,” Cyn murmured, the anger still in his voice, “I don’t want… your sympathy…”

“But you do, don’t you? You want someone to care about you. All people want that.”

“Don’t you… get it? I’m not… like you.”

“You’re not. I know that. You said you know everything about me, right? I know a little about you too. And I know what you really wanted.”

“Do you?” Cyn asked. His voice was back to its cold, emotionless state. He no longer had the energy even to be angry. “And what is that?”

“You wanted to love someone.”

Cyn’s eyes widened. “Love… someone?”

Kodora edged closer, and ran his hand through Cyn’s black hair. “That’s right. You told me once that you could not love. Oodora told me the same thing. It may be true, but that doesn’t stop you from wanting to.” Kodora lifted Cyn from the ground slightly to place him on his lap. “Cyn, you wanted to love me.”

Cyn looked up at him with empty, clouded eyes.

“Love you. Maybe…”

He closed his eyes.

“I was supposed to be you, Kodora.”

“Was that what my father wanted?”

“He wanted perfection. You… you are as close to that as this world can make.”

Kodora continued running his fingers through Cyn’s hair. He looked down at Cyn sadly.

“I don’t like that,” he said simply. “I wish people would stop saying that.”

“I agree,” replied Cyn. Kodora felt a lump form in his throat, but no tears fell. Maybe he had none left. Cyn opened his eyes again. They were clear, poignant, but still as impenetrable as they always were.

“If I could love...”

Cyn raised a bloodied hand to touch Kodora’s face.

His fingers were cold, like ice.

Like ice.

“…Would you have loved me?”

Kodora pressed Cyn’s hand against his cheek, ignoring the cold, ignoring the blood.

“I...”

Cyn’s hand slipped slowly from his grasp, leaving a bloody handprint upon his cheek.

Before Kodora could understand what was happening, something black and formless rose form Cyn’s body. It wrapped around Kodora once and then dissipated into the air like fog.

Kodora looked back down at Cyn with frantic eyes.

The life had left his body. It was turning to dust in his hands.

A gust of wind blew across the rooftop, taking much of the dust with it. All that was left was a metal skeleton.

“This was supposed to be perfection?” he asked forlornly, caressing its steel skull.

There was a great bang and the door to the rooftop slammed open. Kodora hadn’t noticed that it was closed. A group of people appeared in the doorway, three young men and a woman.

“Kodora!” the woman cried, dashing towards him. “Kodora!”

Kodora blinked. He knew she was his mother, but she didn’t look much like the woman he remembered. And it had been so long since he had seen her, so long since he had a parent, he wasn’t sure how to react.

She wrapped her arms around him, sobbing. Kodora bit his lip. He really didn’t know what to do. How did he feel about this woman?

He looked at the others who were with her. There was a tall blonde man, and two boys about his age, one with flaming red hair (it reminded him of Tsubasa’s) and one with silver.

He knew, somehow, the silver haired boy was Rin. The boy Oodora had mentioned.

The blonde haired man removed his jacket. “Yuriko-san,” he said, speaking to Kodora’s mother, “Kodora-kun is injured. We need to get him out of here.”

Yuriko removed herself from Kodora shyly, wiping tears from her eyes. Kodora noticed she looked almost childlike.

The blonde man put his jacket over Kodora’s shoulders, and the two boys came over. The redhead looked down at the skeleton in Kodora’s arms. His eyes were hard. “That’s Cyn, isn’t it?”

Kodora nodded.

“So that’s what he really was. Just a faceless puppet.”

“You… killed him?” Rin asked uncertainly.

Kodora nodded again.

“He’s not dead, though,” he said.

The others blinked. “But if you killed him…” said the redhead, “If that’s him…”

“He’s not dead,” Kodora repeated. “This was just a vessel. He’s still out there. He’ll find another body. He’ll return. He’ll… return…”

No one seemed to know how to respond to that.

The blonde man was the first to speak. “We can worry about that in the future. Right now, we really need to get out of here and treat your wounds, Kodora-kun.”

He lifted Kodora into his arms, and Cyn’s skeleton rattled to the ground. Kodora suddenly felt very tired. He wanted to sleep. But he couldn’t. Not yet.

“No,” he said. “I have to go home. I have to go home. I have a promise to keep…”

He could say no more before he passed out.