DARK DAY FOR ANIME - THE RIGHT DISHONORABLE MARK A PAGE
<darkdayforanime@hotmail.com>

Disclaimer: Blah and blah don't belong to me etc...


----o


"What is your idea of paradise?"

Ketsu looked up into Rakka's face, as if seeing it for the first 
time.  Once more her head was lying in Rakka's lap.  Once more they were on 
the top of a small grassy rise in the middle of a vast landscape, the warm 
sun shining down upon them.  The question hung, eternally, in Ketsu's mind, 
and she wasn't really sure how long it took her to come up with an answer.

"I'm not sure."  Her mouth almost moved by itself.  It wasn't really an 
answer.  It was more an avoidance of one.  Something in Rakka's eyes told 
her as much.  She turned her gaze to the sky above, unable to look into 
those questioning, searching eyes anymore.  "Maybe something like 
this."  That was more like it.  That was truly more of an answer.  But 
Rakka was still silent and she felt she had to dig deeper within, to find 
the key that would unlock that silence.  "A place where there aren't many 
people to complicate your life.  Just those you care about.  Just those you 
want to see."

"You don't like people?"  Rakka's tone was one of disappointment, and Ketsu 
didn't want that.  More than anything, she didn't want to disappoint 
her.  She sat up and returned to Rakka's gaze.  The eyes were more 
pleading, now....  Hoping.  What was it that Rakka wanted to hear?  Should 
she ask?  Ask in return?  A question in return.  That was it.  That should 
be it, she was sure.

"There is no reason to like everyone, is there?"  Her voice sounded unsure, 
even as she said it.  "I mean, you're not going to be able to like 
everyone.  People just don't work that way."  She needed to find the 
words.  The words she was trying to say.  "That would mean being vulnerable 
to everyone....  Should I allow myself to be vulnerable.  That 
vulnerable?  It is impossible, isn't it?"

Now it seemed to be Rakka's turn to have problems, finding the words to 
say.  She opened her mouth, then looked down, as if trying to hide 
something from Ketsu, who grasped her hand and squeezed it tightly.  "You 
can't like everyone, can you?"

"No...."  Rakka turned away, watching the young woman, with long black hair 
and a cigarette hanging from the side of her mouth, packing up the small 
picnic basket nearby.  Ketsu knew the woman was there, but she didn't know 
how.  The woman had been there, before.  She was much older than 
Ketsu....  But that meant nothing in the end.  What were a few years 
compared to the forces of eternity.  And Ketsu knew that Rakka had a 
connection to her much deeper than the one she had to Ketsu.  "No, not 
everyone.  But you can't cut people off for that reason."  And in Rakka's 
words, Ketsu saw that moment of jealousy, laid bare.

"I'm cutting people off?"  Ketsu followed Rakka's gaze, but the young woman 
was gone, picnic basket and all.  She knew, instinctively, that she was 
nowhere to be found, but for a faint echo, like a voice in the distance, 
calling out to her, or eyes, watching her from a forest of 
trees.  "Who...."  Eternity hung on the words.  "....Was that?"

"Just someone."  Rakka's voice seemed to be fading away.  Even the feeling 
of Rakka's hand in her own was vanishing.  Rakka was vanishing, yet she 
felt she could continue to hold on.  Rakka wouldn't disappear from her, 
surely....  "She'll come back if you want her to."  She'll come back.... if 
she wanted her to.  There was nothing in the world she wanted more, 
surely.  Yet there it was again.  That sense of jealousy.  Ketsu didn't 
know if she wanted her back.  Surely, Rakka was enough, on her own.  She 
didn't need anything else.  Didn't need it.

"If I want her to....  But I don't know who she is."  Don't know who she 
is.  Was that a lie?  She thought she DID know.  But the woman was 
gone.  The woman had a name, a name that represented something.  A name 
that echoed through eternity and had a deeper meaning, in this 
place.  Would this place accept someone whose name meant 'blood', 
though?  Was her jealousy a sign of her own being, as an atrocity, an 
obscenity, in the eyes of others?  Rakka's hand was like paper.  Like 
water.  Like air.  Impossible to hold....

"Have you ever asked?"

Have I ever asked?  Have I ever cared enough to ask.  Is ignoring her 
ignoring a vital part of Rakka, a part so large that, to ignore it, would 
mean losing Rakka, perhaps forever?  Ketsu could no longer feel Rakka's 
hand.  And when she turned round, she could see, with her own eyes, how 
much she had lost her.  She stood and wheeled around, searching, ever 
searching, for someone.  For Rakka.  For anyone.  And there was nobody, all 
the way to the horizon that wasn't there, and beyond.

She called out for Rakka and ran, from the grassy rise, down across a small 
field and into a stand of trees, where a path awaited her....


----o


An Haibane Renmei Fanfiction

Red Feathers in Old Home

by Dark Day For Anime


Part 5

Regeneration - Death - Change


----o


"What are you doing?"  Yu held up the bedsheets with one hand and peered at 
Sa, who was looking back at her with equal surprise.  "It's time to get 
up.  We've got work to do, today."

"I'm not feeling so good."  Sa turned from her, pulling the bedsheets away 
and wrapping them tightly around her body.  Yu put hands on hips and 
pouted.  She prided herself on her ability to pout.  She was even better 
than Sa, who never really took to sulking as an emotional hit quite as 
much.  It really annoyed her that a good pout was being so completely ignored.

"You, sick?  Don't give me that.  You're never ill, even when you 
are."  And with that, she glomped her sister and started tickling her 
through the sheets.  "Come on, up you get.  Coochie coochie coo, and words 
to that effect."

"Oi!  Don't!  Stop that!"  Sa wriggled underneath her sister's attacks 
before sitting up and pushing her away.  "Mooouuuuu.  Don't do that.  Don't 
you ever do that."

Yu quietly watched as her sister stood from her bed and stretched before 
staring out of the window at the sunlight beyond.  Sa's silence made Yu 
feel uncomfortable.  Sa was never silent, not for any reason.  "So what's 
wrong with you?"  Yu jumped from the bed, landing on her feet as she 
crossed the room to where she'd left her neatly folded clothes on top of a 
small cabinet: a dark blue dress with the kind of frills that Sa would 
never think of wearing.  It was one of the recent additions to her 
wardrobe, though she'd never got around to wearing it.  For some reason, 
now seemed like a good time to really upset her sister.

Sa, of course, was in her own world.  "What do you mean, 'what is wrong 
with me'?  There is never anything wrong with me.  I'm perfect."  She 
chuckled to herself.  "I suppose that makes you the prototype, then."

Yu ignored the slight.  "Silence and you do not go together.  You hate 
it.  It gives you the opportunity to think, and thinking isn't your style 
at all.  It might mean you have to respond to your own 
thoughts."  Bah!  She had promised the house mother that she would 
apologise to Sa, but as usual, Sa always made it difficult....  It was hard 
to be apologetic to someone you were so close to that you might as well 
have been cast from the same mould.  No wonder she felt like 
differentiating herself, starting today.  How long had she felt that way?

"I refute the suggestion that I do things without thinking."

Yu looked across at her sister, who had still not turned from the 
window.  Ah well, might as well get the pain over and done with.  "Is it 
because of what I said last night?  If so, I apologise.  I was wrong to 
have reacted like that...."

"You're not wrong.  Not at all."  Sa looked aside at her in a way that made 
Yu feel really horrible about what she had been thinking.  But then, Sa had 
never looked like that, before.  Never.  It was so different from the Sa 
she was used to that she was sure a shiver ran down her spine.  "Not about 
anything."  Sa continued.  "Not about the voices you heard.  Not about 
anything at all."  She turned away again, and Yu felt she knew what Sa was 
going to say, next.  Perhaps it was true, what they would say about twins, 
having some kind of psychic connection.  At least, everyone in town would 
always say they acted like they had no independent thoughts of their 
own....  "I heard them last night."  She heard them, last night.  She had 
HEARD them, just like Yu had heard them, all throughout yesterday.  "I 
heard them, when I went up the hall to that room."  To THAT room.  The room 
where Ketsu had come from.  "When I touched the remains of the cocoon.  I 
heard her."

Yu's mouth opened to say something, but Sa was quicker.  She felt she had 
to be.  She could almost sense the thoughts going through her sister's 
mind, now.  She had to impress upon Yu exactly what had happened to 
her.  She didn't know why, but she was sure that it was something vitally 
important.  Something instinctive.  She turned from the window, stepped 
over to Yu and grabbed her arm, then dragged her sister over to the door 
and threw it open.  "Sa....  What is it?  What's wrong?"  But Sa didn't 
respond.  There was no need to respond.  Better to show.  It was so much 
easier for her to simply show, rather than explain.  She didn't have the 
way with words that Yu had.  That was a difference between them, and one 
she had felt most strongly, ever since Ketsu came into this world.  Ever 
since they found the cocoon.  Something was changing, inside of them, 
accelerated by the discovery of the cocoon.

She continued to lead Yu to the storeroom before she stopped in the open 
doorway, her mouth hanging open.  It shouldn't have come as any surprise to 
her, what with all that had happened so far, but all the same, the gobsmack 
was there.  Whack!

Yu managed to wrestle her arm from Sa's grip and moved around to see what 
Sa was looking at.  From Sa's expression, whatever she had hoped to show 
her had taken several psychological leaps forward.  "I...."  Sa started to 
say.  "I came here last night, after you'd run out...."  Yu's eyes hadn't 
quite got used to the gloom of the room.  The light from the hallway was 
much brighter.  Sa's eyes had adjusted much more quickly, which didn't 
please her all that much.  After all, she was the one who liked the night a 
lot more....  "....I came here....  I don't know why, but I had to see the 
cocoon for some reason."  Sa continued.  "And it was glowing.  In the base, 
but that was all.  A small red glow."  A small red glow.  Yu looked for it, 
in the gloom.  She expected to see it.  "And I put my hand on the base, and 
I heard her cries.  Only for a second, that was all.  It was just like you 
said, you know....  Just like you said...."

Yu could see the cocoon now.  There didn't seem to be anything out of the 
usual at first, but eventually, she could see the faint reddish glow that 
seemed to be emanating from its base.  And then she looked up along its 
height, and found that the cocoon was sealed.  As if it had never been 
broken.  As if Ketsu had never hatched.  The cocoon had repaired itself 
overnight.

"Oh my...."  Yu whispered.  "This isn't good.  This isn't good at all."


----o


Hana stared out at the morning sunshine with a sense of impending 
doom.  Something was going to happen today that she just knew she would 
regret being a part of.  This ability had grown over the past few years as 
she watched many of the younger Haibane of her own age grow and leave for 
the Abandoned Factory.  Even the other girls.  She found the place 
frightening, and every time she'd been there, she'd felt as if sky was 
going to fall on her head beforehand.  Invariably, the sky did fall.  She 
so didn't like the boys that lived there....

Though Old Home wasn't much better, what with the twins.  They had made 
much of her younger life a living hell.  Well, they'd made life difficult 
for everyone.  But especially her.  Because she was not only one of the 
long-term fixtures within Old Home, she was also almost their age.  And 
that meant that she was a prime target for some of their.... 
activities.  And, for some reason, she just knew that this 
sky-falling-on-head feeling pertained to them, somehow.

She beat herself over the head with her fists a couple of times.  There, 
that felt better.  It hurt, but at least she was ignoring the feeling, 
now.  It made life easier if she didn't know what was about to 
happen.  Like the moment when she was holding Ketsu in her arms, a few 
seconds after the girl had hatched from her cocoon....

She liked to walk the fields around Old Home in the light of early morning, 
when things were still likely to be quiet.  A short distance away there 
were holes in the ground leading to a rabbit warren.  There weren't many 
rabbits: probably no more than a dozen or so, but she could easily tell one 
from another and counted each to see if any had disappeared since her 
census the previous morning.  Only one had ever disappeared, taken by a 
cat, a big, ginger tom who looked particularly ugly and had the temperament 
to match.  Suffice to say, it put her off cats.  She hated it when 
creatures so seemingly helpless were threatened by something much larger 
and, well, uglier.  It struck some chord in her 'sense of justice' gland....

That was what she felt when she held Ketsu....  Like the girl needed 
protection, from something bigger and uglier than she was.  Like the 
rabbits.  She always seemed to relate people to animals, somehow.  It was 
an easy method of categorising their personalities, even before she got to 
know them, properly.  And Ketsu seemed just like a rabbit, with all the 
flighty propensity and vulnerability to go with it.

All the rabbits were there.  Indeed, there were a couple of kittens 
bounding around the grass that she hadn't seen before.  Change.  New faces 
replacing the old ones.  You couldn't stop change.  And, sometimes, that 
change was good.  She smiled and stretched, then carefully sat down on a 
stone at the edge of the field, brushing her skirt back so it wouldn't 
crease underneath, the bad feeling she'd had earlier having now well and 
truly faded.

 From this stone she could see down a small valley and across to a view of 
the township, the rooves of houses distantly glowing in the sun.  Sooner or 
later she was going to have to find herself a job in the township.  She was 
supposed to be one of the older feathers now, but was always too shy to 
visit there and ask anyone if they wanted her help....  Having had the 
dream of being a florist, she'd stood outside the florist's front door 
about a half dozen times and had been frightened away about as many 
times.  When was she going to change?  When was she going to have the will 
to do something with her life?

"Haaanaaaa-chaaaan!"  She turned to see Kana atop the rickety old bicycle, 
waving at her from the main path to the township.  She stood and waved 
back.  "Hurry uuuup!  Breakfast will be ready soon!"  Kana called out to 
her.  "I'll see you when I get back from work."

"Haaaaaiii."  Hana called out as Kana struggled with the tempestuous 
machine along the path.  As Hana watched her, she stopped twice to replace 
the chain on the cogs before disappearing over a rise.  Then her stomach 
grumbled, and she realised just how hungry she really was.  She jogged back 
to the Old Home, able to smell the aroma of pancakes wafting through the 
archway of the courtyard.  Her speed quickened as she approached the 
entrance and made her way to the common room.

"Honestly, I can help, you know.  I'm not that helpless."

"You are going to stay in that bed.  Rakka tells me you're about to go into 
the fever before your wings pop.  Even that looks like it's coming on 
early.  Don't look at me like that...."

Hana opened the door and peered into the room where Hikari and Ketsu were 
glaring at each other, Ketsu sitting up in the bed looking less than 
pleased to be there.  "Ohayo."  Hana said, pleasantly.

They both turned their glares to her and said, in 
unison....  "Ohayo."  ....Before Hikari turned her back on Ketsu, her arms 
crossed and huffing in frustration.  Despite her earlier protest, Ketsu 
didn't seem to be entirely with it.  After a quick glare at Hikari's back, 
she partly lay on her side, clutching the edge of the bedsheet between 
tremorous fingers, her eyes wavering between closing in narcoleptic bouts 
of sleep, and suddenly snapping open, darting around the room as if an 
explosion had gone off.  Hana watched her do this for close to a minute, 
biting her lower lip, before making her way across to the table, pulling 
out a chair to sit down.

"Hana-chan?"  Rakka popped her head out from the kitchen, gesturing her 
over.  Hana let the chair go and padded over to Rakka as she leaned over, 
whispering into her ear in a faux conspiratorial tone.  "Can you get the 
twins up here for breakfast.  They're dragging their feet as usual."

"Umm....  Must I?"  The bubble of Hana's good mood was well and truly 
burst, as she remembered her sky-falling-on-head feeling, again.

"Yes.  You must."  Rakka waved a finger at her.  "And I would mention that 
I'm not exactly pleased with Yu's little performance this morning.  In 
front of Ketsu, before I'd woken up.  Typical!  About the only way she 
would have got away with it.  She was quite upset about it."

"Yes....  I'm sure she was, if they were involved."  She screwed her nose 
up.  "I really don't want to have to get them.  Bad things always happen to 
me when I get involved with them."

"Then you should be fine.  They haven't had enough time to think up trouble 
this early in the morning."  Rakka smiled, turned Hana around and gave her 
a gentle push in the direction of 'on your way', a direction Hana 
reluctantly took.

As she passed by the bed, she glanced at Ketsu.  The girl was now staring 
blankly into the corner of the room, but her mouth was moving, just 
perceptibly, as if reciting something in silence.  An uncomfortable 
sensation crossed Hana's mind, and she turned away as quickly as possible....


----o


Sa grabbed the remains of the storeroom door and jammed it into the 
doorway, breathing heavily as she did so.  "Well, that's done that, 
then."  She didn't really know what had done what, but she was certainly 
glad to have put something between herself and the cocoon.

"What are you doing?"  Yu felt she was asking this a lot of her sister, 
lately, who was leaning her head against the door, a grim expression on her 
face.  She really didn't like this 'Sa thinks deeply' aspect her sister 
seemed to have developed overnight.  "We have to tell everyone about...."

"And what are they going to do about it?"  Sa grumbled.

"Well....  I don't know.  I don't think any of them have experienced 
anything like this before."

Well, Yu, that was one hell of an understatement, I'm sure.  Sa really 
didn't believe that she had to take her sister step-by-step through the 
'what happens next' guide to life as a Haibane.  "In which case, they're 
going to tell the Haibane Renmei, aren't they?"

"Well, I suppose so...."

"What are they going to do to Ketsu, then?"  Sa turned to her sister, using 
the question as a punchline.  "What will the Haibane Renmei do to 
Ketsu?  Those cries we heard....  What if the Haibane Renmei punish Ketsu 
in some way, for some reason?  Because this is happening, what if they hurt 
her?"

"They didn't do that the last time?"  Yu shrugged.

"What?"

"The house mother told me what happened the last time someone was born near 
that painting Rakka found....  They didn't punish the Haibane, or 
anything.  I mean, not at first...."

Sa grabbed Yu's shoulders tightly.  "So, you mean they DID?"

Yu was a little intimidated by Sa's sudden intensity.  "Well, not because 
of anything like this.  Not that I was told...."

"Not that you were told, yeah."  Sa let her go.  "So, did the house mother 
tell you about anything like this?"

"No.  Unless I missed something when I dozed off.  That old lady has got 
staying power....  She was still prattling on when I woke up."  Yu 
scratched her head.  "Though I don't know when that was, so it could have 
been a few minutes or a few hours...."

"Which means you don't know everything.  Which means this could mean 
anything.  Which is a lot of unknown 'means', if you know what I mean."

Yu chewed things over in the silence that followed.  Anything other than 
look her sister in the eyes when she got that superior expression.  "I 
don't really see what we can do about it, though.  I mean, it isn't like we 
can hide the cocoon from everybody, so they won't know what is going on."

"The crates that are in the courtyard.  We can hide the cocoon behind 
them."  Sa crossed her arms and nodded, smiling at her carefully laid 
plan.  Not as carefully as Yu liked.

"Yeah, but...."  Yu shook her head.  "There are so many, and they're 
heavy.  It took all those workmen ages to carry them out there.  The pair 
of us can't do it alone.  Not even in a day."

Sa was not one to be put off so easily.  "What is everyone going to think 
if we start nicking off with the crates, back to this room?"

"They're going to think we're stockpiling all the stuff for ourselves, for 
you to muck around with the gadgets and for me to sell stuff at the market...."

"Yeeeessss."  Sa nodded, superciliously.  "Nice to see you're finally 
joining the party, sis.  They wouldn't think twice about it.  About the 
worst they can do is tell us off.  Won't stop us, will it?"

"What if they offer to help us?"  Yu crossed her arms and looked away, 
feeling like she was being lead into something she really didn't want to be 
a part of.  "Someone might feel sorry for us, or be interested in what we 
find."

"Who the hell is going to help us with that lot?  I mean, I ask 
you....  Who would be stupid enough to help us carry all of that back into 
here?"

"What are you two up to?"  The voice might have been fairly soft, but both 
twins just about set the high jump record when they heard it.  They stared 
at Hana for a few moments with obviously guilty expressions as she looked 
from one to the other.  "Aren't you two dressed, yet?  Breakfast is going 
to be ready in about ten minutes.  And Yu...."  She looked from Yu to Sa, 
not quite sure which one she should be addressing.  "Rakka-oneesan wants to 
talk to you about scaring Ketsu-oneesan this morning.  She looked really 
cross."  And the sooner I get out of here, the better things are going to 
be for me, because you two look like you're planning to make my immediate 
future really, really difficult.

Sa looked at Yu.  Yu looked back at Sa.  Hana's worst fears were being 
confirmed in their minds.

"Hana-chan....  Would you like to help your oneesans this morning?  We've 
got some work to do."  Sa smiled as she leaned forward, almost towering 
over the younger girl.

Hana shrunk from them, feeling nervous as they did their best to put on 
winning smiles.  The sky-falling-on-head feeling had turned into 
sky-has-fallen-and-you-have-concussion-and-a-cracked-skull.  "What?"

"It's very important."  Yu put a finger to her lips.  "You mustn't tell 
anyone about it, or else Ketsu-oneesan might get in trouble."  And with 
that, Yu guided Hana towards the door to the storeroom as Sa moved it out 
of the way once more.


----o


Kana arrived at the edge of the township, feeling exhausted as the bike 
came close to slipping its chain as she bounced over the cobblestones.  The 
day was already starting to warm up rather quickly, and she could feel 
humidity in the air.  Looking around and up at the sky, she could see a few 
whispy clouds forming in view, just above the wall.  "Gonna be a sticky 
one."  She mumbled to herself, as she rode into the central square, 
haphazardly avoiding townsfolk who seemed to step into her path all too 
easily.  She skirted the fountain in the middle of the square and aimed for 
the shop underneath the clock tower.

She parked outside the front door and dismounted, checking to see if it was 
open.  Even though she was early, sometimes her boss would like to catch 
her out by getting there even earlier.  It lead to her wondering if he had 
a social life outside making and repairing clocks.

It was locked.  She shrugged and walked the bike around to the service 
entrance, pulling out a key.  She was about to unlock the door when a young 
woman she recognised as one of the girls who worked at the town 
haberdashery called to her from the entrance to the lane.  "Kana, is it?"

Kana turned to her and nodded.  She'd met the girl, named Maria, only once 
or twice, mostly through her being related to Kana's boss.  Maria trotted 
up to Kana, breathing heavily as she did so.  It seemed she had run quite 
some distance.  "You could tell by the wings, could ya?"  Kana chuckled as 
she twirled the key-ring on a finger.  Maria stopped and placed her hands 
on her knees, trying to catch her breath.

"Uh, yeah...."  Maria stood up and wiped sweat from her forehead.  "My 
uncle sent me....  He asked if it would be okay if you looked after the 
shop, today."

"Hmm."  Kana raised an eyebrow.  "The old man is starting to feel his age, 
is he?"  She chuckled.  "Be the only reason he'd trust me with his shop."

"No, its...."  Maria looked down at the ground, trying to find the 
words.  "A friend of his.... died last night."

"Oh...."  Kana stopped twirling the key.  "I'm sorry."  She looked around 
awkwardly, not sure what to say, next.  "Who...."

"A close friend.  You might have met them before, I'm not sure."  Maria 
gestured to the door.  "Open up.  I'll tell you everything inside."


----o


"Now Hana has disappeared."  Hikari grumbled as she chewed on her pancake 
and took a swig of tea to wash it down.  "That pair have probably kidnapped 
her and sold her to the thrift shop, or something."

"Come on, they aren't that bad."  Rakka watched as Hikari leaned back in 
her chair.  "Though this is all going to go cold if they don't appear soon."

"Can I have another cup of tea?"  Ketsu looked hopefully from the bed, 
shakily holding up a cup from her lap.  "Better not to waste everything if 
they aren't going to put in an appearance, isn't it?"

Hikari sighed and was about to get up when the door to the common room 
slammed open, both twins with Hana in tow racing into the room.  Sa grabbed 
a plate and some of the remaining pancakes as Yu grabbed the tea tray, with 
pot, sugar, milk and remaining cups aboard.  They then beat a hasty 
retreat, leaving Hana to make apologies.

"Sorry.  Sorry.  Stuff to do and all...."  She bowed to them and followed 
the twins from the room.  Three sets of eyes watched them disappear before 
Hikari settled back in her chair, staring at the ceiling.

"They'll probably sell the whole tea set, along with Hana."  Hikari sighed.

"I take back what I say.  They are as bad as you say."  Rakka shook her 
head, reminded of what Hana had said about always getting into trouble when 
the twins were around, and grabbed the last of the pancakes with her fork, 
stuffing half of it into her mouth.

"I guess there won't be any more tea, then."  Ketsu looked forlornly at her 
cup with bleary eyes.  "Probably a good thing.  I'm feeling kinda tired at 
the moment."

"Which is exactly why it was better for you to stay in bed."  Hikari 
huffed.  "I said as much to you.  It's too soon for you to be running about."

"Yeah, yeah....  I...."  Ketsu swayed for a second, her cup falling from 
her fingers onto the bedspread.  "I'm really...."

Rakka almost swallowed her pancake the wrong way as she jumped from her 
chair, and was coughing and thumping her chest as she crossed the room, 
just as Ketsu toppled sideways towards the floor.  Rakka managed to grab 
her before she was off the bed and cradled her as she first quivered, then 
went stiff, her eyes rolling upwards so far that only her whites could be 
seen.  Her face was pale as Rakka lifted her back onto the bed.

Hikari was at Rakka's side a second later.  "What....  What's 
happening.  It almost looks like she's had a fit."

"I don't know."  Rakka looked back up at Hikari as she placed a hand on 
Ketsu's forehead.  "She's really hot.  It might be the fever coming 
on.  I'm not sure.  Get a cold, wet towel."

Hikari nodded and raced into the kitchen as Ketsu started to settle, her 
muscles relaxing and the colour coming back to her face.  Rakka held 
Ketsu's wrist and checked her pulse.  At least she had one, and it was regular.

Rakka rolled Ketsu on her side and opened up the ties on the back of the 
girl's nightdress, checking the bulges on her shoulder blades.  They were 
larger than before, but not yet distending the skin too far.  It would have 
been a couple of hours before Ketsu entered the fever.  A hand holding wet 
towel appeared in front of her face and she took it from Hikari, cradling 
Ketsu in one arm and gently applying it across the girl's forehead.

"I told her not to push it too hard."  Hikari kneeled next to Rakka.  "I 
told her."

"Yes, you did."  Rakka grumbled, impatiently.  "But she hasn't moved an 
inch from the bed since yesterday, so you can say she took your advice, in 
retrospect."  Ketsu's eyes were now closed, so she opened an eyelid to see 
if they were still rolling abnormally.  They weren't, but the pupil seemed 
clouded over, giving a cataract-effect.  They eye then moved, slowly, as if 
Ketsu was following something across the room.  Rakka let go of her eyelid 
and involuntarily looked back, to see if something was there, but there was 
nothing.  She turned back to Ketsu, whose eyes were now half-open and still 
moving around in a half-daze.  And her mouth was moving, as if she were 
whispering something.

"Is she trying to say something?"  Hikari quizzed.  Rakka shrugged and 
leaned an ear closer to Ketsu's mouth, listening carefully.

"If.... her to...."  The words were, practically, little more than mouthed, 
so Rakka had trouble discerning them all.  "But I don't.... she is."

"What is she saying?"  Hikari asked, quietly.

"I'm not sure.  She's babbling, probably."

Rakka was about to lift her head away when Ketsu 
whispered....  "Rakka....  Rakka, where are...."

"Ketsu?"  Rakka turned and stared into Ketsu's eyes.  "Ketsu, I'm right here."

Ketsu's mouth stopped moving, but her eyes continued to wander in an 
unseeing gaze.


END OF PART 5


----o


This major rework of the chapter occurred because I simply wasn't happy 
with the original.

DARK DAY FOR ANIME - THE RIGHT DISHONOURABLE MARK A PAGE
<darkdayforanime@hotmail.com>
http://www.fanfiction.net/profile.php?userid=212110
FEATHER 2.0: 14th-17th September 2004


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