Sureiyazu

Episode 37: Into the Light

"You seem reluctant to come, Akuma," said Hikari. "Why?"

"It's not you!" Akuma tried to tell herself, shutting her eyes against the misinforming image in front of her.

"That's not true," Hikari cooed.

Akuma's eyes opened themselves again.

"Come with me," Hikari repeated. "Everything will be okay."

"N-no."

Hikari was visibly hurt. Her eyes welled up with tears, and she slunk back a few feet.

"Why?" she asked. "Why are you hurting me like this?"

Akuma's breath stuck in her throat. "I - I -"

Hikari collapsed on the floor, tears streaming down her face. "Why? Why? I thought you were my friend, I thought you'd help me . . . I did so much for you and . . ."

Akuma stood still.

"Help me! Please!" Hikari wailed. "I'm so alone, it hurts so much!"

Akuma held her breath, or else she might have asked.

"I thought you'd remember what I did for you . . . you'd still be dead without me . . . please, help me this once . . . I'm dying . . . save me . . ."

Akuma reached out her hand to grasp Hikari's.

A wicked smile leapt across Hikari's face.

But Akuma had already done it.

Hikari - the dark recreation of her, Akuma reminded herself - dissolved into light.

And slowly, around her, the tunnel she stood in, the rocks beneath her feet, dissolved too.

Akuma fell into nothing.

~~~

And suddenly, there was a rocky ground, racing towards her -

She was about to be flat as a pancake -

This was sure an annoying way to die -

"Oof!"

Or . . . no . . . she had landed in Heishi's arms?

Heishi set her down on the ground.

"Are you okay?" asked Heishi.

"How the heck did you get here, Akuma?" demanded Kasai, who was suddenly in her face.

"Um . . . I don't know?" said Akuma. "I fell?"

"Great, now we have another person we've gotta get out of this hole somehow," Kasai said angrily.

Akuma suddenly felt very bad for Heishi, being stuck in, well, a hole, with an angry Kasai.

"Could this day get any worse?" Kasai went on. "First we -"

"Look, Kasai we already went through how bad this is right now, and I don't really want to give the universe a reason to make this any worse, so -" Heishi began.

"AAAAAHHHHHHHHH!" came the sound of two screaming voices.

A moment later, Heishi had caught an irritable-looking Aya, and Kasai had caught an even more irritable-looking Taichi.

"You just had to say something, didn't you, Heishi?" said Kasai.

"You taunted the universe first," he pointed out.

"If we make it out of this alive, I'm going to stick you in a dark hole of my own," Aya growled at Taichi.

"So long as you aren't the one to come 'rescue' me, I would be perfectly content with that," Taichi said back, his light tone no less intimidating.