Two

When I forced my eyes open against the light, I felt like the world was swaying. My neck hurt and so did my head. Even before I could gather my senses and focus my vision though, I heard a shriek.

"She's awake! She's awake!" A high-pitched voice rang out from right beside me, making me wince and turn away with a groan. "Kou-chan! Kou-chan!"

Kou-chan?

"You're awake." I heard the deep voice again. Now clearly recalling what had happened, I panicked. I was in a room I did not recognise and I awoke on a bed that clearly was not mine. I sat bolt upright and surveyed my surroundings. Beside the bed stood the owner of the shrill voice from earlier- a girl of probably four with clear grey eyes and light brown hair that fell till her shoulders. A little away, on a brown sofa sat the man who had abducted me. He was now wearing a black shirt and steel-grey pants. His grey eyes were trained on me. Once again, I felt held in place by just his gaze. In the light that came in through the open window, I could clearly see his face. He looked like he was in his twenties and had a face that women might fawn over. For me though, in my situation, his features were far from pleasant. "Where have you brought me?"

"This is where you'll be living from now on." He replied. "I guess you could say it's home?"

Home? "You can't just decide that on your own. I already have a home and people who care for me." I got off the bed and looked for the door. "And they're going to be worried about me so I have to go home."

"No, Akane-chan!" The little girl ran over and threw her arms around my knees. "You can't go!"

"What the-"

"Chiyo." The man called and stood up from his seat. As he walked over to me, the little girl called Chiyo let go and stepped away from me.

"Kou-chan." She looked at him desperately.

"Don't worry. She won't leave."

"What?" I glared at him. "I will! I-I'll call the police! You've kidnapped me!"

"Akane." He reached over but I slapped his hand away.

"Don't touch me!"

He withdrew his hand, seemingly a little annoyed. "Do you not remember me?"

"Huh?"

"The day of the bombing. I was the one who saved you. Do you not remember me?"

I fell silent. There was no mistaking that the man who had saved me was just like him but the time gap just did not add up to his current appearance. I couldn't throw away my logic just yet, despite everything else that had happened.

"You do, don't you?" He narrowed his eyes at me. I turned away from him.

"I was... saved by a kind young man. That is what my parents told me. I could not see his face."

"You do remember me." He reiterated. I couldn't quite deny that so I chose to remain silent. "I shared my spirit with you to keep you alive. You would have perished that day had I not done that. I could not let you die. You were not supposed to die. That incident itself was my fault. I was careless enough to let it happen." He paused. "I'll tell you this. The bomb blast that day was not a bomb blast. It was a planned attack but it was no bomb. More than fifty people died that day. You were not just caught up in the explosion, Akane. The explosion was meant to kill you. You were their target."

I gaped at him. You've got to be kidding me! All those people... died because of me? That was preposterous! "I d-don't understand."

"You have a very powerful spiritual presence. Your existence has put an entire master plan in action. Your existence is a threat to a lot of entities. They tried to get rid of you through that attack on the restaurant. When they realised that they had failed to do so, the tried many times again. I have been keeping an eye on you."

They tried many times again? "Wait. You've been keeping an eye on me?"

"Kou-chan has been protecting Akane-chan for a long long time!" Chiyo chirped in. I looked between the two of them. The man did not even deny it. Basically, he had brought me back from the dead and had been protecting me from people who had been trying to kill me for fifteen long years?

"Like I said, you have a very strong spiritual presence." He spoke up. "That has to do with your bloodline. There are forces out there that want to snuff out even the slightest threat that they may feel. There was a Shrine Maiden a few centuries ago who conducted a purification to bring out a balance in the spiritual realm. My ancestors had served to protect her. You are her descendent. That is how I came to protect you."

"Why me?" My ancestor was a shrine maiden? This is starting to get really difficult to believe.

"Over the past few centuries, spirits have degraded beyond controllable means. With your spiritual signature, the conditions are perfect."

"For... another purification?"

"Yes. That means complete annihilation for them."

"So... they're trying to kill me."

"Yes." He said, looking a little relieved. "Seems like you're starting to listen now."

"No way!" I shook my head. "You're telling me to believe a four-year-old girl's bed-time story? There's no way that I could believe any of that bullshit!"

"Believe? You just don't want to accept it." He went right back to frowning again.

"Well, yes. None of this is even remotely acceptable or believable!" It was all way too far-fetched.

He was silent for a while before he sighed. "Fine. I'll show you."

"Eh? Show me what?" I recoiled.

"That you don't have anything else to accept." He looked at Chiyo. "Watch over the house."

"Roger!" She saluted, then asked. "Where are you going?"

He looked at me. "College."

"Huh? College... Mine?" I blinked.

"Does it look like I attend college to you?" He narrowed his eyes at me.

"Uh..." No. However, "K-Kou-cha-"

"Kousuke. Terasaki Kousuke." He cut me off.

"T-Terasaki-san. I..." I spoke big and refused to believe him but when he said that he'd take me to college to show me exactly what he'd talked about, I wasn't so sure about wanting to find out anymore.

College... Shibata-kun and I were supposed to celebrate my birthday together today.

"Akane, come."

"But-"

"It'll be better for the both of us if you had proof." He said, then looked down at what I was wearing. "We'll stop by the clothes store on the way there."

I was still wearing my night clothes. I couldn't possibly go to college like that.

Uncertain, I agreed. Despite my fears, I wanted to see for myself. I wanted to prove to myself that it wasn't true.

It was only when I stepped out of the building that I realised what time of the day it was. It was already past noon. According to time table, there was only one hour of class left. There was no statistics in the time table and so Shibata-kun was probably still in class. We needed to hurry if we wanted to catch him before he left for home.

Terasaki-san paid for the clothes and after changing into them, we went straight to my college gates. There were a lot of people around and I realised that I could easily call for help and escape but something told me not to. I had to know the truth and I felt that the police wouldn't be able to help me with that.

The last hour ended. I stood next to the main gates, keeping an eye out for Shibata-kun. Terasaki-san quietly stood beside me. With each passing minute, I grew more anxious. A little into the excruciating wait, I spotted the much-loved face in the crowd. Instinctively, I stepped towards him. "Shiba-"

"Miyazono!" Someone's raised voice drowned out my own and one of our classmates went over to him, slapping his back. "Where are you running off to?"

"I'm not running off anywhere." He replied.

"Oho? Then, do you have any plans for today?" Our classmate grinned.

That's right! You had plans with me!

"Plans? I don't."

"Alright then! We're going to the arcade! Coming?"

Shibata-kun stared at him, then shrugged. "I guess it's okay. The usual place?"

"The usual place. I'll go get the other guys. You go on ahead."

"Alright." He nodded and the other guy ran off to find the others. The exchange had baffled me. Shibata-kun had never gone arcading with the others before. What did he mean by 'the usual place'? That just couldn't be true.

While I was still recovering from the shock of having heard that, Shibata-kun had gotten closer to me. Keeping his eyes ahead, he walked right past me. I froze. I couldn't move or think properly anymore. He... walked right past me. He did not even stop on seeing me. He... did see me, right? I turned on my feet and began walking towards him but Terasaki-san stepped in front of me and stopped me, looking down at me coldly. "That's enough."

"Wha- No. He probably did not see me. I have to call out to him. W-We're going to celebrate together... My twentieth birthday..."

"He saw you. You know it too."

"No. I won't accept this." I shook my head, growing more and more desperate. He was right there in front of me and I couldn't reach out to him. I was right there in front of him but he walked right past me. He was everything I had outside home. I had other friends but none as close to me as Shibata-kun had managed to get. He was everything to me!

I turned my eyes back to him. Right there, I watched him get farther and farther away. I bit my lower lip to hold back my tears.

Shibata-kun... really did not know me...

Terasaki-san sighed. "Let's go home."

"This... can't be real, right? It has to be a very bad dream or something." I laughed bitterly.

"It's not." He said and for the first time since my encounter with the man, I could detect kindness in his eyes. "You need time to deal with this. Let's go home, Akane."

"No. I have my own home to go to." I did not want to accept it. Surely my parents would recognise me.

"The reason I brought you here instead of taking you home was because I didn't want you to see your parents to whom you were dead."

I pursed my lips and looked away. The meaning of his words set in. I was so upset by seeing Shibata-kun walk past me. To him, I was just someone he did not know. To my parents though, I was dead. I wouldn't have been able to stand that.

Maybe Terasaki-san was kind after all.

He gave me a minute before speaking again. "Shall we?"

I nodded without a word. There was nothing left for me to argue about. I was at a complete loss. At that point, to me, Terasaki-san seemed to be the only person who actually knew what was going on and what was to be done.

Just as we'd left, we returned. Chiyo threw the door open to us. "Welcome home!"

"We're home." Terasaki-san said and walked in ahead of me. I hesitated but I had nowhere else to go and that thought alone persuaded me to step in past Chiyo who shut the door. From her height, there was no way that she was going to be able to reach the latch on the door. Unsure of what to do, I had just stood there and looked at the door. Terasaki-san was already in the bedroom I had woken up in. Chiyo, however, did not seem concerned. She held up her hand and motioned upwards with her finger. The latch fell in place. I stared at it with growing surprise when I realised what she had done. She had just locked the door from her height with just the flick of a finger. She must have seen the look of utter disbelief on my face because she grinned immediately. "I know to do a lot of things but Kou-chan's way better than me."

H-How did she even do that in the first place? She can do more? Kou-chan was better?

I felt a little light-headed at that.

"It's the spirit." Terasaki-san said from behind me. I turned to find him leaning against the doorframe at the entrance to the bedroom. "I already told you about your spiritual presence being strong. Chiyo is similar. So am I. Just that yours is still more powerful."

"W-Wait. So I can do that too?"

He nodded. "With training."

"Impossible..." I looked at the ground, my mind in overdrive again after having been blank till now.

"Akane-"

"This all really has to- HAS to be a dream." They can- no- I can manipulate things using my really strong spirit? That's stupid!

"It isn't." He said patiently. "Take your time to think. Let it sink in." He looked at Chiyo. "Come." Saying that much, he went into the bedroom followed by Chiyo. Left alone there, everything just flooded in. My parents, Shibata-kun and the only life I had ever known did not have a place for me any longer. Who was I anymore? This is home? I didn't even know Terasaki-san and Chiyo properly and I was expected to just trust them and live with them? What if this was all just a big scam? What if this was the master plan? What if they weren't who the really claimed to be? What if they too were part of the lot that wanted me gone? What was I? The fact that I turned twenty... Was that also a lie?

I had surely lived the past twenty years of my life with the people I loved and who love me. Other than Shibata-kun too, all the people I had befriended up till High School and my neighbours and cousins and other friends and relatives... It was impossible for me to accept that I had lost everything that I had ever had.

I made my way over to the window in the hall. Below me, life in the streets was going on as it usually did. My existence had been erased from the memory of the world and it did not seem to have affected anyone. The people who knew me had mourned for me fifteen years ago.

Everything had been perfect. I had been planning the most beautiful date for Shibata-kun and myself and we were going to spend the day together. To think that that same Shibata-kun would walk by me like that...

What could have been more cruel- dying at the age of five or being forgotten by everyone I had ever loved?