Impossible to Forget

Chapter 37: Just not Here

"Not here, anywhere but here."

My eyes narrowed at her pleading as I stalked closer to her pathetic form on the ground. "And why should I give you that consideration after all of the people that you have killed? Did you listen to their final requests? Humor them before you slit their throats?"

"Just not here." Nori's eyes were filled with a broken fear that I had never expected to see.

"Give me one good reason why I should listen to you."

"This cave..." Tears started to leak from the corners of her eyes. "I was so weak and scared. Ten days in this cave. We could hear them searching for us outside. Feel their bloodlust. Barely any food or water, huddled together against the cold. And there was that, that thing sleeping in here with us. It leached the warmth out of the air. So quiet, so unbearably, painfully quiet. So cold. Sasainako started poking her own arm with a senbon just to feel things again. We were so cold, so damn cold. Kanaye would try to predict what was going to happen, to figure out a future where we all got home safely. Muttering under his breath for hours on end. I decided to never be weak again. I was going to make myself invincible, never have to cower for fear again. I just never wanted to be scared again, I just never wanted to be weak. Feeling so powerless, lacking control, it fed my deepest fears. I know that it drove me insane." She looked into my eyes sadly, "I just don't want to die in this cave."

My heart clenched with pity. This was my mother.

Closing my eyes with a deep sigh, I bent down and picked up her katana. Pointing it at her throat, I began slowly, "We will take you back to the village. You will be tried for your crimes, but you won't die in this cave."

She gave a resigned nod.

I set aside her sword, and bent down to weave my left arm under her injured right.

As I helped lift her to her feet, a glint of light in my peripheral vision was all the warning that I got as she threw the kunai that I had dropped to the ground during our fight at my neck.

Muscle memory taking over, I extracted my arm from around her and caught the kunai out of the air before snapping my elbow straight and embedding it in her chest.

Nori looked up at me in shock as she coughed, blood pouring out of her mouth. I knelt down next to her dying form with a sigh.

"Won't go down without a fight, huh? If you had just let go for once, you wouldn't have died in this cave. I'm honestly very sorry that you have to die here, but it is your doing." Her eyes started to roll up into her head, and I knew that the collapsed lung with the kunai in it was taking its toll. She was going to die. The hole in the tissue had created a vacuum, collapsing the lung in on itself, and that coupled with the major arteries that I also hit, she was done. I had just killed my own mother. Yes, it was in self-defense, but I had just killed the woman who gave birth to me. I was now officially an orphan, and it was due to patricide.

I felt a tear slide from my eye as I wove my hand in her hair to cradle her neck. "I'm truly sorry that it had to end this way, you know. I wish that you had just said something all those years ago, let us know that you needed help. Dad and Sakumo would have done anything that you asked, and the Third would have tried to get you the help that you needed." Another tear slipped out. "I guess, that in the end, I forgive you. F-f-for e-everything that you did. If I had been in your shoes, I would have reacted the exact same way; I would have become you. I understand that now."

She blinked at me owlishly, and I swallowed hard as I removed my hand from behind her head and placed it by her side.

"Goodbye, Mother."

The fingers by my hand twitched, and she weakly grabbed on.

The second time in my life that my mother had ever held my hand.

A few more seconds passed in absolute silence.

Nori's labored breathing finally stilled.