by Ash Masters
*
‘I don’t expect you to understand, Kioshi.’ A calmed and saddened Ayumi claimed as she sat against a wall on the roof of a department store, one knee drawn to her chin whilst her other leg was extended in front of her.
‘I don’t want to understand, Ayumi.’ Kioshi lied.
‘You know that is a lie; it’s in your very nature to want to understand. After all, the reason you’re here is because of the compassion in your heart. Not just selfishness.’ Ayumi smiled weakly. ‘In the end, I couldn’t care less of what you think of me. I don’t know what to think of myself. Not anymore.’ Her eyes narrowed.
‘I am watching... I want to understand how someone can be pushed so far over the edge of their sanity.’
‘I grew up in a world you never knew, a world filled with pleasures that you can’t fathom. But living in this world has its own negatives as well. Here I was isolated, and this Shibuya may as well have been in its own dimension. My father taught me everything I knew but he also knew that with no-one willing to contradict him, what he installed in my mind was what I considered right and wrong. In time and with enough training my concepts of right and wrong would become different to what you believe. That’s how I was able to do the things I did.’
Kioshi sat against the low wall that overlooked the scene, eyeing Ayumi with interest. ‘Whether you believed it was right or wrong is the problem, Ayumi. The problem is that you enjoy it.’
Ayumi looked up through tired eyes. ‘Yeah, it feels great. It’s not the deaths I enjoy nor the infliction of pain. What I enjoy is the satisfaction realizing the discontent in my heart.’
‘Still!’
Look back at Kioshi now, Ayumi cut him off. ‘Tell me Kioshi, acknowledging your true feelings, didn’t it feel good? Didn’t it give you a rush? Look at me down there. Does that girl look like the girl I am now?’ Ayumi raised her other leg. ‘Every bit of morality, every bit of innocence was beaten out of me and torn from my mind with his power. I am a machine programmed to his will.’ Staring at her hands she added, ‘realizing that anger, it felt so good and yet here you are now saying that everything I’ve know is wrong? I don’t understand.’
‘Because, you have no right to steal other people’s lives! How people live their lives is up to them! Whether they choose to live! To devote their lives to their work! Or to Die! It’s all up to them! People should be in a world where they’re free to live! They shouldn’t have to commit suicide to find peace!’
Kioshi looked away.
Teary-eyed, Ayumi argued, ‘Why is it fair for others to hurt each other! For my father to hurt me! But when I hurt others it’s wrong!? I can still feel his abuse,’ Ayumi’s body drew closer together and became tense. ‘I can still feel his “adjustments” to make me a good girl! The girl I am today! I hurt people and their screams fill me with joy, because that’s how I was raised. I don’t know any other life or any other way of thinking!’
Looking at Ayumi, Kioshi couldn’t help but feel sorry for the girl. Her heart must be aching from everything she’s experienced. ‘I will never forgive you.’ He claimed.
Quickly Ayumi stared at Kioshi, crushed by the lack of understanding.
‘I will never forgive you,’ Kioshi continued. ‘But that doesn’t mean that I won’t be there for you.’
‘What... do you mean?’
Kioshi crawled up to Ayumi, taking her cold, rough hands in his own and staring into her eyes. ‘To go through that pain and to be twisted so much, I understand why you’re hurting so much. I can’t imagine what it feels like to have suffered so much – to be transformed into a being filled with so much hate and rage. However, I can’t forget all the pain you’ve caused to me an my peers. Killing Seito, hurting Aki, blinding me. Still, I’m not the sort of person to turn my back on someone even if that someone has wronged me. If you’ll let me I want to help you heal.’ Following his words, Kioshi smiled warmly at Ayumi.
‘How... How can you be so kind to me? After all that I’ve done to you?’
‘Because, I’m willing to put faith in you. Now let’s get out of here.’
Ayumi nodded, shifting so that she sat opposite Kioshi then closed her eyes but when she opened them again they were different; her pupils had disappeared and her irises had a pattern across them that looked to Kioshi like shattered glass. The feeling of her stare bit into his eyes and his eyes bit into Ayumi’s own. As they matched stares the world distorted around them, becoming black but this black faded into white then the world began to take shape around them, features coming into view; the walls then doors followed by windows, floor and ceiling. The last thing to materialise was Zone One outside the school’s walls.
Simultaneously they blinked and simultaneously the school erupted with screams as everyone returned from their own hell.
Closing her eyes, Ayumi let the screams sink in. Their screams once filled me with joy but for some reason my heart feels different, it hurts... Ayumi thought.
