Angel With A Shotgun

Chapter 2

Earth

I was born. Born and raised to be strong. Born and rasied to be brave, smart, kind. Born to feel love, experience hate, experience pain, and to come out victorious. I was born and raised with a single mission in my head to be forgotton upon my first breath of 'life'. That mission being all that I wanted to learn during my human experience. It would be my last if I was victorious and learned all that I wanted. But it would be only my first if my lessons weren't incorporated. Damn, I regret it all. Every lesson I ever wanted to learn. Everything I thought it would be like. Because it came with a price. A price that was too daunting and painful to pay.
I was born. And the world in which I was born in, was closer to hell than I could have ever imagined.

I was born early december, 3002 on a day such as this. The sky was gloomy, the air was thick and bitter with its icy kiss of winter, and the ground beneath me was cold. Or so mother had told me.
Maybe that's why it felt so comforting? Why I felt so at ease with the bumps on my skin and the chill that slipped between every muscle. I was shivering, though I enjoyed it. I always had. Six years and not a soul could rip me from the snow without a fight or tantrum.
My mother found it strange, and even more so my eldest sister. Rin. She thought I was a freak show and made sure to remind me every moment she could.
Whilst I sat alone, avoiding the villagers as I usually did, her footsteps in the snow alerted me of her taunting presence.
Crunching. It continued till I could almost feel her warm breath on my bare back. Then, it stopped.
I was prepared for a jibe. An insult. A push. A shove! I was not prepared for what she had to say.
"Enjoy it."
I quietly turned to her. "Enjoy it." she repeated. "This is our last winter here. The capital is sending us to district six. To the south. I heard the winters there are blessed with blossoming cherries and endless greenery. There will be no more snow."
"Lies!" I cried, though I knew she was partly telling the truth. The crops here were dying. Harvest barely supported a hundred families here in Makkari and there was nearly three hundred.
I had heard mother and father talking with our neighbors and they were speaking on the famine. Our ancestors couldn't shame us for picking up roots. We would leave with our heads held high and a smile on our faces.
Though as of late, smiles were rare. Especially mother's. "Oh, yeah. Akira." I blinked. "Father has left for battle."
***
The night was as lonely as any other. From a young age, neither of my parents had much time to spend on my sister and I. Rin had it worse than I. According to her, there had been a time when mother and father sat down for dinner and they all talked. Rin had cooked meals with Mother. She had gone hunting with father. Father had devoted time to teaching her how to fight and mother had taught her how to read and write.
But, as life has taught me, times changed. Our family had come to learn of the fuedal system that had been reacquainted when the aliens attacked. When the shadows of the night invaded and crept through our lands in the broad of daylight. Taking with them our brave soldiers, our men, our women, our children. They took billions of lives and left endless disease that still plagues our land to this day.
Many perished and only the smart ones, the fearful few were left.
Those few came to bear my grandparents, then my parents, and finally Rin and I. But the result, the emptiness, the feeling of an open sore didn't quite make itself present till our father became sworn to this akiya I now lied my head in.
It was a shoin-zukuri that sat between many tall trees and overlooked a beautifully frozen lake. Though it was vacant, even with mother and Rin as Noble Tanaka-Youta kept father on his feet and in the battle. Where to? No clue. He was told not to speak a word of it. And he never did.
Now, he was gone again. Maybe for a week? A month? Half a year. We didn't know till he returned. And this time we didn't know if he would. Father was growing old and weak. Even with his strength and battle scars acquired from the war, that didn't stop his biology. It didn't stop the facts. Nothing and no one lasts forever.
***
Rin and I had returned to the akiya for our evening meal: fifty grains of rice each and then were sent back out to play. Not a word was said. Mother collected our bowls and chopsticks, washed them, then disappeared behind her fusuma. Evening was her only time to rest and she took it without hesitation. She rose before dawn and left before sunset to go work out in the field.
The sky was endlessly bruised black and blue, though it seemed we saw the sun more often than her.
Many days such as this passed. Days that became weeks, that became months. Then, it was my birthday.
I expected a change.
I received none.
After our fifty grains of rice, washed down with some melted snow, mother did as she always did. Collected our utensils, washed them, then sought sleep like a mindless drone stuck on a loop known as life.
And Rin and I were left alone in the middle of our vacant house.
"If you thought she would spare her time to read you a bed time story you truly have been oblivious these past six years."
"Seven." I remind her.
Rin's twelth birthday had recently passed, as well, and all the recent years' neglect had placed her in a dark place much worse than my own. "I didn't think she would, Rin-chan. I just hoped."
I slammed shut the sliding doors on my way out and instead of venturing farther out into the cold, I lowered myself unto the steps leading to the akiya.
Tears filled my eyes. I couldn't keep living like this. "Otōsan... okaa-san..."
I hear Rin step out and do the same as I did. Though she does it more violently and I jolt. "Don't walk away from me when I'm talking to you, you little brat! When are you gonna learn to grow up? I'm all you've got, got that?!"
She grabs a fistful of my hair and turns me around to look into her eyes. Her normal brown iris and slanted eye socket. My petite hands grasp at her wrist and try to force her off, but there's no use. My strength can't even be compared to her's.  "Those blue eyes. I've always hated them." she tells me.
"And I you!" I shout back, still struggling. There may be no use, I may be weak, but I fight with all the strength I have. "Let me go, Rin-chan!"
Just then, the sliding door opens by mother's hand. "Rin!" Her hand roughly slides across Rin's cheek and in that time that her hand releases my thick, brown strands my feet propel me up and I'm running. Mother is screaming behind me and Rin is in shock. I don't look back, I don't try to listen to what she's saying, I just keep looking forward. Seeking, searching for my sanctuary.
It doesn't take long to reach the outskirts of the village, but in that time it has already gotten darker. My bare feet are barely visible. Tears streak my face and the bitting snow feels like needles in my toes. But, I do not cower to the cold. I stand alone, without a single soul in sight. They all know the shadows like to attack at night. So then I ask myself.
Why am I here? Why did I run? Was I running from Rin or Mother? Was I escaping the loneliness or seeking it?
Do I want to be taken?
I fall to my knees and the knives drive further in to me. I clench my open fists and bring the captured snow to my face. I mush it into my face then cast my hands aside. I inhale, then exhale.
"Kill me!" I scream.
***
It is far beyond late when I return. And to my surprise, she does not scold me as I enter the akiya. But instead, she falls to her knees and sweeps me into an embrace. My eyes widen and I almost push her off in shock. She has not held me in years. But my arms are stiff from the cold, my body and eyes too heavy to fight back.
"Akira! I am so sorry! Gomen-nasai! Gomen-nasai!" she pulls me away by my shoulders to stare me in the face. Tears stream down her firey cheeks that are usually porcelain and regret is beneath the bags of her eyes.
I am silent and still. She repeats the embrace, but when she pushes me back she slaps a palm to her forehead. Then, again. "I am so stupid. Please, forgive me, Akira."
I blink and Rin turns the corner into the room. She's holding a lantern. Her face darkens at the sight of us. "You!" she accuses, taking a step forward. My eyes darken. "Enough!" mother screams.
I envy her. I envied her. She had no idea the hell I was facing. The monster I had to deal with that she created. I was so lonely, despite the presence of her and Rin. So bothered by how useless their presence was.
"Enough!" she screamed, again. "You two are sisters! Will you not act like it?!" She looks to Rin, to me. "I know, I am so sorry for neglecting you two but I am trying my best."
Rin's hate is wafting. It reeks and I unknowingly consume it, looking to our mother with hatred that can not be expressed with words.
But suddenly, her glossy eyes withdraw from Rin and are piercing mine. They plead for forgiveness, for understanding.
"You've been hurt to?" It was a question that held more accusation, more statement than anything else. Her heavy head falls into my lap and I lower myself to my knees till she's resting on my lap. Her tears slip across my skin.
She's hurt. Of course she is. Her husband has been called to his death, her daughters are fighting, and she's only able  to provide a fourth of the amount her, father, and Rin used to.
"You two have to be strong. For me." she says as soft as a whisper, as broken as glass. I feel my own interior crumble. "Why would we do anything for you? You-"
"Rin...please." I beg, feeling a sense of defense creep over me. "She's trying to apologize."
"Well, she can shove that apology up her-"
Mother was quick to stand and was swift as she moved across the tatami bamboo floor to Rin. Her petite bun came loose, revealing flawless black strands that flew to the front of her face and unto Rin's shoulders just as she stopped a breath from colliding.
Rin's eyes widened expecting a reaction opposite the one she received. "I'm sorry..." Okaa-san fell into her arms and to my surprise Rin caught her.
But then she lowered the the two and just before she could reach the floor, just before she could be driven to loosen the grip on her cold heart, she let go.
"Okaa-san!" I scream.
She falls to the floor, a horrible thud echoing through the room. Rin watched without so much as a hint of remorse. Before turning to me. "Isn't it funny? How the heart can burn and burn, then suddenly turn to ice?"
Then, she left disappearing within the walls of the akiya. Leaving behind the flames burning in the lantern.
I ran to mother, she was ice cold yet beads of sweat darkened the colors of her large white T-shirt. I held her in my arms. "Don't wory, okaa-san. I will protect you."