Reality's Blade

Chapter 27: Truth Revealed

I stared at the visor, it glinted back at me. I'd been doing this for probably ten minutes, and most of the evening before that too. I tried to recall what Takahashi had said in our little session, it had made sense at the time, but now that it came to the moment of truth my nerve was failing me. I hadn't spent my night crying over something as trivial as hurt feelings, but after a mostly normal day at work I was finding it hard to remember why I had been so afraid.

I had thought I had wanted to kill Hikage, but that didn't seem possible, he was my best friend. He'd tailored Legerdemain's settings personally so that we had far more control over our bodies than any other players, it just didn't seem right that I could lose control that easily. Had I overreacted?

I was getting nowhere. The only way to solve this problem was by going back and talking it out with Hikage, I was sure he would understand.

I put the visor on and lay down, remembering to put my lamp on this time in case it turned into a lengthy stay.

It was nearly night in Legerdemain, the shadowy forest looked darker than ever and the sky was an ink blue. A single flaming torch glowed in the dusk, reflecting off the black lake as it danced to and fro as if trying to stave off the gloom of the overwhelmingly large expanse of darkness.

Nervousness made my insides uneasy as I slowly ambled up to the figure hardly visible, almost lost to the deepening night. Sat there I thought he looked every bit the Dark Samurai. He made no movement at all as I inched closer, but I knew by now that he was more than aware of my presence. I tried to stop the shaking that had started to consume my body but to no avail. I was scared. Scared of whether he was angry at me, whether he'd want to even listen to my pathetic attempts at explanations and scared as to whether he even wanted me back here. Just like Kazehiro's silence, it was in the moments of stillness that Hikage became the most terrifying.

I was close behind him now, I felt that if I reached out my arm I could have brushed my fingertips against his lonely back. I was this close, but no words came to mind, I didn't know where to start.

"You said two days."

His voice glided on the air as if the breeze itself had spoken to me.

"I did." My voice came out barely more than whisper, not daring to intrude too far into the night.

Silence consumed the atmosphere, it was almost suffocating. I took a step forward and found myself confronted with the same pleasant scent as before, it seemed stronger now. I looked around, straining to see if there was anything that could be causing it, but there was nothing that seemed to be responsible. Around me I could hear a beating, it wasn't like the peal of the bells that rang out in clear melancholy notes, it was more rhythmic and closer together, somehow more lively feeling. Dun-dum, dun-dum. The answer came to me as if I had known it all along, it was a heartbeat. I also knew that it wasn't my own. I gazed at the forlorn figure before me and extended my quivering hand out, feeling like I could capture that heartbeat in my palm.

"Why did you run away?"

I paused, my hand so close to touching him that I could feel the heat radiating from him.

"Because I was scared." I admitted, letting my arm fall back to my side.

The thumping noise echoing in my ears grew faster.

"I was scared of hurting you. I felt like I was losing my mind, I didn't know what was happening to me." I confessed, panic rising in me as I tried to explain.

"I told you I could help you. You didn't want to listen."

Every word he said felt like it was shattering my heart, his voice sounded so pained.