5. Now Comes the Pain #3
My daughter appeared again, much more mature and standing in a kitchen full of morning light with a little baby of her own, sleeping in her arms.
She crossed the room to me, and I sat older than I had ever imagined growing, and she lowered that small warm baby into my lap. "Hold her, Mama."
Kenji bent over my shoulder. His long silver hair fell forward as he took in his granddaughter, and his big hand trembled as he touched her cheek.
Warm.
My grandbaby was warm in my lap.
Even here.
Even on the cold stone.
She had that same impossible heat as her mother when she was just a baby too. I curled my arms to bring her closer. To hold both of them at once across all those years—the new grand baby and the daughter who grew into a woman.
No.
I gasped, and it all disappeared.
Tears spilled from my eyes.
The flashes broke over me all at once, the bicycle, the dress, the stage, and the grandchild, every stolen year of her, and I understood with a clarity that gutted me that none of it would ever come.
I would never hold her.
Kenji would never run beside her in the grass.
Hiro and Reo would never glare at her date.
We would never weep in that graduation hall, and we would never greet her daughter—our grandchild.
I was burying all of those precious memories tonight. Every version of her. Every year she would have lived. And she would never know. She would never get the chance to be angry at me for it. She would never exist enough to forgive me.
Oh God.
The tears blurred my view.
Before I sat on this stone, I said I would own this. I would sacrifice her with my eyes open, and I would carry the weight of this decision for the rest of my life.
I thought back to the Itako’s screaming about that bad timeline, and placed it against the bright memories I had just watched die behind my eyes.
I would mourn the bright memories forever.
I would let them die so that bad timeline could never be born.
Sniffling, I wiped my tears away. “Yes. . .I’m ready.”
The Death Guardian’s eyes watered. "Then we will begin. Lay back, Tora."
Oh fuck. This is going to hurt.
The hooded figure holding the rod came forward and aimed that needle tip my way.
Jesus Christ.
I spread my legs open.
The figure with the bowl stepped over too.
“I will hold you.” The Death Guardian wrapped her strong arms around me. Warmth radiated from her. She sniffled. “I am with you.”
More tears left my eyes. “Okay.”
“You are not alone.” One tear left the Death Guardian’s eye. “I too. . .had to sacrifice in this way. . .”
My bottom lip quivered. “And did you regret it?”
“That does not matter now. We all make our choices and things happen the way they do.” She held me tighter. “Close your eyes.”
I did.
The tip of the rod began to enter me.
God. . .help me. . .do this. . .
“Now comes the pain, Tora.”
The tip touched me.
Went deeper.
Too deep.
And then pierced.
Stabbed.
Ripped.
Tore.
Burned.
“Oh God!” I grabbed the Death Guardian and screamed. “AHHH!!!!”
The other figure wrapped her hands around my mouth, keeping my screams in.
The Death Guardian's mouth came closer to my ear. "Then comes the power."
The tip twisted, and I howled into the hands, and they pressed harder, and still I struggled and battled through it all.
Ahhh!!! No!!!! No!!!
My back left the stone.
My screams tore loose and broke against the woman's palm, and the sound of it stayed trapped behind her hand.
Trembling, I clawed at the Death Guardian’s arms.
So much hot burning pain.
I screamed again.
The first hand could not hold all of it, and a second hand came down over the first, and the two of them sealed the sound inside me.
The Death Guardian held me tighter.
The world narrowed to the pain as I thrashed and even bit down against the palm over my mouth and tasted my own breath coming hot and fast through my nose.
Tears ran sideways into my hair and pooled cold in my ears.
Screaming under the hands some more, I opened my eyes and the torches blurred into long smears of orange.
The pain owned every inch of me, every nerve, every thought, and it burned the timelines, my memories of my daughter, and even Kenji's face down to ash, until nothing remained inside me except the agony, stone, and hands on my mouth.
My vision swam at the edges.
The moon doubled and slid across the black sky.
"The Dragon will not stand alone as the only one who rises tonight in power." The Guardian’s voice followed me down into the darkness. "Your sacrifice was not just for him.”
He can never know. . .what this cost. . .I’ll carry this one alone.
And the rod’s needle stabbed at me more.
Warm blood spilled and slid down the inside of my thighs.
“You rise with him.” The Death Guardian tightened her hold on me even more, squeezing some of the pain out of me. “And when you both have risen, the Fox will surely die."
The clearing went white, then silver, then black at the corners, and through all of it I held Kenji's face and the face of the daughter I had just buried in every year she would have lived, and I gave the bowl exactly what it begged for.