Without Love It Cannot Be Seen

“No problem”, Kurogane said with a smirk, following Ange with his gaze who was getting ready to try out her new colouring book. “I’ll be on my way now”, he said. “If you want to talk, just call me or something.”

Then he turned to Ange one last time. “Since we cut the training short today, I expect you to train twice as hard for next week.” But he was still smiling.

She smiled, “Yeah! I will!I’ll be able to defend my friends when you see me next!”

Battler gave a nod. He would. He would many more times he was sure. Every time it felt like his life was about to fall apart again he knew he could count on his friends to help him put it together.

Once again, Kurogane thought how unfair it was that Battler had to deal with all of this… And how remarkable Battler was for dealing with it how he did. Battler had gone through something that Kurogane considered a lot more horrible than what he went through himself, and still, unlike him, Battler hanged in there, and was still able to live what amounted to be a quite normal and happy life, factoring in the circumstances. It was nothing short of inspiring.

Kurogane shook his head when Ange hugged him and thanked him. “Well done”, he said. He knew Ange could do it. He raised his face and returned Battler’s smile with his own small one and then nodded. “You got a really kick-ass brother”, he said, more to Battler than to her.

That last comment managed to get Battler to laugh a little. Him? Kick ass? Far from it as far as he was concerned. Honestly to him he was damned mess, a mess that somehow got lucky to be in a somewhat normal life. He could’ve just as easily went a different way or ended up dead.

“Onii-chan? Why are you laughing?” she asked

“Ah, nothing. You wanna colour that book together?”

She nodded with a smile, walking back up to her brother feeling more at ease now. There was still a long road ahead, but at least she didn’t have to face it alone.

“Oi, Kurogane, thanks.” he said, “Thanks for bringing her home.”

Ange didn’t need any more convincing to go up the stairs to their apartment, and Kurogane was proud about how brave she was.

For how long the two held on for, they didn’t know. Ange was the one to let go first once she noticed he ws calming down. She let him gather himself as she wiped her own tears away. There would still be friction between them going forward for sure. She was growing up, and they were both stubborn. She was going to do what she thought was right, and he would fight to keep her from straying off into something terrible.

It ws inevidable, but at least this ws proof they would, somehow, make it. Especially since they wouldn’t be alone going forward.

“I think once you see him, you’ll know what to do”, Kurogane tried to reassure her when she said she didn’t know how to make up with Battler. He smiled a little when he realized that she immediately sensed that making up with her brother and probably giving him a big old hug was what would make everything much better. That was the big difference between how Ange dealt with all of this and how Kurogane dealt with it back then. “You’ll be fine”, he said from the bottom of his heart.

Then she asked him if he could come with her. If that was the last boost she needed to muster up the courage to make the first step to making up with her brother, Kurogane more than happily obliged. 

“I’ll be there”, he promised and nodded. “Come”, he said, handing her the bokken he had carried for her and they made their way to Ange’s home and her brother.

She gave a small nod, “O....ok.”

She took the bokken out of his hand and clutched it close to her. The entire way back she stuck herself close to his side. The last thing she wanted was to be out in the open when she felt like this. The closer they got to home, the more nervous she became. Once they were inside the home, she stopped for a moment at the stairs, wondering if this was such a good idea after all, and gave a look to Kurogane.

She already knew it was a little too late to turn back now.

Kurogane would be okay with either of her decisions, and when she decided to take his hand after mulling it over for a few moments, he just walked next to her, letting her set the pace. Her hand was awfully small in his big one, and she felt cold, but that wasn’t a surprise, because Kurogane always had a rather high body heat himself. They walked in silence and Kurogane noticed that she was coming a bit closer. They didn’t speak a word until they reached the park a couple minutes later.

Kurogane looked down at her, but she didn’t look distracted at all. She looked like she was very far in her head and didn’t even properly process the park around her. 

She looked lost.

Kurogane decided that it would probably be best if she talked it through with her brother. Or they at least worked out some kind of truce. Even though he wouldn’t force her to do it: She had a home, and when you were lost, it was best to go home to the people you loved. If all else failed, she could stay at his and Yuui’s place for some hours until she felt prepared to face her brother. But she would have to go home sooner or later anyway.

“Oi”, he said, squeezed her hand a little to get her attention and let out an empathetic sigh, once again kneeling down in front of her to get into her line of sight. “Let me take you home”, he offered. “I know you’re angry at your brother and said you don’t want to see him, and that’s okay. But I bet he’d be as happy as you would be if you two could make up. I’ve seen you fight before; you’re both very good at making up.” She didn’t even have to forgive Battler. Just making up for the time being would be fine.

She barely registered the squeeze at first. He wasn’t until he knelt down and talked to her she seemed to register it. He was right, she was lost. She felt lost, and somewhat alone. Even though Kurogane was close to her, what she needed, what she really wanted, couldn’t come from him. It could only come from her brother.

What she needed was her brother to be there, at her side, to tell her everything was ok. No one else could really do that.

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She looked in the direction he was pointing. A part of her wanted to go further. A part of her wanted to run as far as she could away from here and find a way back to Japan, but she couldn’t do that. She was too tired, and she knew it was impossible.

He offered his hand, and for a moment she thought about refusing it. At the same time the whole conversation left her feeling defeated, vulnerable, and she wasn’t ready to walk on her own like that. She slowly took his hand and stood up, finding herself drifting to his side. Something about him standing tall at her side made her feel a little better, even if it wasn’t by much.

She said nothing, there really wasn’t much to say as they walked towards the park. She thought the fresh air would help, but it didn’t. The cool breeze felt harsh every time it blew making the vulnerable feeling she had worse. She could hear the balls in her pigtails click together, and suddenly they felt heavy on her head. Strange, she thought.

Ange reacted like Kurogane thought she would - and he completely understood. It was how he would feel in her position. How he had felt when he had been in her position, for years. He took his hand from her shoulder when she brushed it off, but he stayed close nontheless. He could take her anger and desperation as long as she needed to vent them. That was all he could do, though.

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Ange couldn’t say much to that. She stared up at him with a mix of emotions. On one hand she felt sorry for her teacher. She had an idea of what he must’ve felt, turning every corner and waiting to get jumped by something awful. At the same time she couldn’t get a grasp of the scale. Still, if Kurogane of all people, someone she looked up to as being brave and strong, had been terrified, it must’ve been awful.

On the other hand she still felt like it was her right to know. She should know what happened to her family that day. Maybe it might not make any sense, but wasn’t knowing the truth better than a fanciful lie? If you knew the truth, then isn’t that a step in letting go?

Kurogane kept his hand on her shoulder, but he didn’t say anything while Ange let out the desperation, sadness, anger and frustration she was feeling. Of course it hurt him to hear and see her crying, but he knew this had to get out. 

He knew how she felt. And it was not like he could give her an answer to the question that hurt the most;

Why did they have to die?

She looked up at him with clenched fists.

“I don’t know”, he said calmly and truthfully. He didn’t know if Battler knew why the murders happened, either.

He wanted to tell her that Battler had certainly done what he thought would be best for her, but he stopped himself from doing that. When he had been in her position, young and hurt and aching, those words had always felt like a slap to the face from the adults around him. ‘It’s what’s best for you.’ It had sounded like lame excuses. It had been infuriating.

It had taken him years and he had to grow up to be an adult himself to figure out that the adults in his life had actually done what had been best for him by leaving out the gruesome details around his parents’ deaths. Not to speak of the identity of who did it.

“I think he told you about the witch because he thought it would be easier to handle than the truth that regular people did it”, Kurogane truthfully said. “But there’s no way you can properly handle it, anyway. It will always hurt. The only thing you can do is try to trust your brother that he’s doing what’s best. Or at least that he’s trying to.” And not make the same mistake Kurogane had made; distance himself from every adult who had tried to reach out a hand to him when he had most needed it and act up awfully instead.

“What’s... best...” She grit her teeth together, facing back downwards. He was right, that did sound like a slap in the face. It sounded like she ws being ignored, left in the dark, and for no purpose that she could see. Didn’t she have the right to know? It was her family too. She was sick of being purposely hidden from things, being lied to, and being told ‘what was best for her.’

She tried to push his hand off her shoulder, not wanting to be touched anymore.

“What’s best for me is not being told the truth? What’s best is telling me some witch killed everyone? Some witch I’ve been afraid of because I can’t do anything about a witch? What’s best is being afraid some witch is going to come knocking down the door and killing everyone?!”

She wasn’t crying anymore, but perhaps it was because she was too angry to. No, she was infuriated now.

“I would’ve accepted some 19th normal person doing it all, but no, he lied! I’ll be he’s going to try and tell me now it was someone else that snuck on the island, but I’ve been thinking about it, and I’ll bet that isn’t it either! He would’ve just told me! It had to be someone there! More than a servant, it had to be! Everyone thinks it’s Aunt Eva, and maybe it is! They all say she wanted the inheritance for herself! It would also explain why he had to run away, right?”

She wasn’t considering that fact that Eva’s son and Husband both died as well. She really didn’t have an explaination for it either. She was too angry to think about it.