DISCLAIMER: I do not own Yami to Boushi to Hon no Tabibito. If I did, I wouldn’t have stuck everyone with such a horrible excuse for an ending.
NOTE: In the beginning as the chapters are short, I will be releasing two at a time. I divided the chapter as we the different ages we see Hatsumi. Once the chapters get longer as she grows older and I have more to write about her development, I will change to one chapter at a time.
I had always known this day was coming, as the years went by I could feel the energy slowly growing within my body. She was in there. When I was younger and the thoughts first began to surface, I had my doubts. I thought perhaps it was all been a dream and yet it was one that clung to the surface of my mind and refused to be forgotten. Ririsu, that stupid bird and Eve... Hatsumi.
The memories had slowly trickled back throughout the years as though the ice encasing them were gradually melting and returning rivulets of forgotten moments to me... Youko, Kuiru, Miruka, Princess Fuji, everyone... I know now the reason why I had always known that I would have a child and what her name would be. This was because it was Hatsumi’s way of returning and coming home to me. So while I waited, I threw myself into school, into work, into everything so that time would pass faster. Pass it did but then I began noticing that even as life went by my body seemed frozen in the image of youthfulness. Of course, it was just like what had happened to those other two that had been bathed in Eve’s souma.
Now I am lying here on the thinly carpeted floor of that same empty room I had found myself waking up on forty eight years ago. Hatsumi’s old room was what I knew it to be from my old memories of a life that didn’t happen. This house was only a husk without her in it to make it warm but I couldn’t have born selling it even though I was rarely there with the constant traveling I have been doing. Make up was no longer being a very effective way to hide the fact that even though I was supposed to be sixty four, I looked no older than twenty three so it became important that I was never anywhere long enough to be recognized anymore. However, I had recently met with a useful man by the name of ‘Smith’ who seemed willing to help me with some documents with minimal questions. I’m hoping that this will allow me to settle down again for at least sometime.
Pain hit hard and fast and even as I grappled for something to hold onto my hands found nothing but air and dusty carpet. That green glow from so long ago began filling the room, emanating from my womb. Before too long it began fading, leaving me in an agonized heap and the room suddenly seemed eerily quiet but for my laboured breathing. I suppose that I had expected more lights and dazzle and less pain through this ordeal, it was not as though I had the luxury of pain medication as one would have had in normal circumstances. The pain receded and after a few moments to catch my breath I managed to sit up. Lying on my jacket which I had laid down in the corner earlier was a small, delicate infant with soft blonde fuzz and crimson eyes.
Even though Hazuki had told herself over and over again that she shouldn’t, she almost always gave in to her own weakness eventually. The little girl was in the garden alone with no sign of her caretaker anywhere nearby. She was busily throwing a small green ball around in a carefree manner, giggling to herself all the while. Hatsumi... she was only five years old.
The little child soon spotted the tall woman by the fence and raced clumsily over.
She had dreamt that all she had to do was leave Hatsumi to be raised by the stranger she had hired. Since she wasn’t aging any, there wasn’t any reason Hazuki couldn’t wait for the other girl to grow up and then they could be together again but this was indeed just a dream after all. In reality she hadn’t been able to keep away and in reality it was apparent that this Hatsumi was different.
Hazuki knew she had been foolish to think that it would just be Hatsumi as she had known her, in a childish body. This Hatsumi loved her Auntie ‘Mura who had raised her, this Hatsumi loved her magical girls cartoons and of course... this Hatsumi could speak.
"Hazuki!"
In all the times the two of them had met, 'Hazuki' was what the little girl had sharply been told to call her benefactor at all times. The reason for this was that while the dark haired woman may have brought her into this world the last thing she wanted to be thought of as was Hatsumi’s mother. Nor could she ever be Hazuki-sama or Hazuki onee-sama. Hazuki could not stand the kind of relationship those names intimated. She had legally adopted Hatsumi, stating that she was a child she had found abandoned on her doorstep. The baby had cried unendingly everytime she had been separated from Hazuki. She had cried until she got sick and eventually the child welfare agencies who had initially resisted, had no choice but to place the infant in her care.
"How are you, Hatsumi? Where is Shimura-san?"
As always the best excuse she could come up for herself being there was to give a couple of additional instructions to the one she had left Hatsumi in the care of. She knew it was a feeble reason at best because what could not be conveyed by telephone or electronic mail these days?
"Oh..." The little girl sounded disappointed. The older woman never seemed to pay anymore than a few seconds attention to her. "I’m alright. Auntie ‘Mura is around the back, tending the vegetables."
Hazuki nodded and strided to the back garden, not giving a backwards glance at the child. It was enough, that small moment had been enough to tide her over until... until the next time she could not bear being away from her love.
A twelve year old Hatsumi stared out the open window of her room. There was a soft breeze that caused the curtains to billow in and out gently but the teenager paid that very little attention. Her thoughts were on Hazuki, the mysterious woman who would simply appear out of the blue to visit and then disappear just as suddenly. The older woman had never spoken more than just a few words to blonde girl but Hatsumi could always feel the intensity behind the seemingly cold blue eyes that bore into her own when Hazuki said anything to her. Hatsumi shivered in remembrance of several such occasions.
Azuma Hazuki was a puzzle to her. Shimura had told her they story of how Hazuki had found her, adopted her and then placed her in the kind older woman’s care but somehow she knew there was something not quite right about all of it. Why would Hazuki do such a thing? Something like taking in a child but not try and raise or even seem to care about her? More important than that, why was it that while she loved Shimura who had looked after her all this time did she feel so much stronger a feeling towards a woman she hardly knew beyond the fact that she paid for her upbringing?
Hatsumi furrowed her brow in thought, something that made her high forehead even more prominent than usual. The serious air of melancholy around her dark-haired benefactor never changed, she was always sad. For as long as she could remember Hazuki had been like that. Actually for as long as she remembered, Hazuki had always been the same... She had noticed it as she was growing up how with each birthday, she grew taller and her body changed but for Hazuki, that had stopped. It wasn’t a case of her being an adult and not growing. It was that she never aged at all. The real surprise though, was that it didn’t really even surprise her. Something in her had accepted this as how things were supposed to be.
Footsteps coming from below disturbed her from her reverie and looking down through the window, she was startled to see the very subject of her thoughts making her way up to the front of the house. Hatsumi quickly scrambled from the window seat and straightened herself up before practically hurtling down the stairs so that she could be the one to reach the door before Shimura. She knew that if she didn’t then Hazuki would most likely not even greet her before holing herself up in the study with her caretaker.
She didn’t even wait for the knock on the door before she flung it open and came face to face with a rather surprised Hazuki who had her hand raised with the intention of knocking.
“Hatsumi... you are quick.”
The young blonde nodded and smiled brightly up at the taller woman. “I saw you coming from the window. I think Aunt ‘Mura has just stepped out for a moment, she should be back soon.”
She stepped aside so that Hazuki could enter the house and pulled out a new pair of house slippers from the shoe cabinet for their guest. Her heart was thumping against her chest like crazy and Hatsumi had to take in a quick breath to calm herself down again.
“Why don’t we go into the living room to wait? I-I’ll bring in some tea.” At Hazuki’s curt nod, she hurriedly scurried ahead to the living room. Making sure the tall woman was seated and fairly comfortable, Hatsumi went into the kitchen to make the tea.
The sound of the kettle being filled, cabinets being opened and the tinkling of teacups were soon heard coming from the kitchen as the young girl bustled about preparing the tea. As Hazuki sat there waiting she couldn’t help but think how Hatsumi was growing up. To Hazuki it sometimes seemed that time passed all too quickly and yet there were times that it seemed to flow excruciatingly slowly. The twelve year-old was getting closer and closer to how she remembered Hatsumi before. The then older girl had never been very tall and this Hatsumi was just lacking in those final couple of inches before catching up with her former self. The child Hatsumi was, Hazuki realized, was growing into a woman.
xx
“Yaa... She’s done it again!” A peeved Ririsu whined loudly to the musty book filled stacks of the great library. Indeed, apart from an overweight yellow canary with a Kansai accent, she was the only living being in the library.
“Ooh, that Eve has done it this time! She promised that she wouldn’t leave me behind alone again! Idiot big forehead endowed girl!” Ririsu knew exactly which series of book contained worlds to check first for her wayward little sister.
“No, no, no... Oh, Hazuki in a swimsuit... oops, I guess I shouldn’t be getting sidetracked... although I still think she’d look better in a two-piece...”
Ririsu continued to search through the series until she came across one that she thought could be it.
“Hmph when I get my hands on you then you’re toast, you brat! Ken-chan! I’m leaving things here up to you, okay? Don’t mess up!”
“Ririsu, wait! You ca—" Before the chubby bird could finish protesting, Ririsu was gone in a burst of sparkles.
“Dammit.”