The Voodoo Doll

Chapter XLII: The Beginning of the End

I was too late.

Too late to save Noah, too late to ask for help. The last thing I saw before I was thrown back into reality was Noah's terrified face, begging for me to do something, knowing fully well that I couldn't save him, that sooner or later, he would be gone, and I would watch as he disappeared, leaving me with nothing but despair.

I was on my knees, my hand stretched out before me, my lips open, a single word stuck in my throat. Noah.

Cassiel-obaa-chan was sitting on her favorite white sofa, drinking a cup of tea. I couldn't quite see her expression, for her back faced me. I stood up, tripped and almost fell from the effort. My legs felt so heavy, as if I was just awoken from a long paradoxical sleep.

I stood before her. Her eyelids were shut tight, as though she was meditating. Her tea sent an orange aroma right to my nostrils, mixed in with rosemary. It sent a faint feeling of warmth down my spine, and I found it to be a little comforting.

As a reply to my exact thoughts, the angel pointed to the table. A single opal teacup, decorated with pink roses at its bottom rested on the glass-made rectangular table.

"Sit down" , she whispered without looking at me. "Tell me what happened"

"How do you know something happened?" I couldn't help but ask.

"You're too quiet. Too calm." , she didn't hesitate, as if she already knew what my question was.

Tears immediately overflowed my eyes, clouding my vision. Cassiel-obaa-chan was one of the rarest people who understood me, who memorized every corner of my soul, down to its deepest, most embarrassing parts.

"I.." I sat down, looked down at my own reflection on the bronze-colored surface. My waterproof black eyeliner was beginning to fade with the frequent tears I shed. With this rollercoaster of events, I didn't have time to properly take care of my body. My cheeks glowed under the living room's natural lights, damp with the salty elixir. The happiness I felt with Noah, barely a couple of minutes ago, was gone, replaced with a brand new feeling of sadness, of regret, of uselessness. An immortal grimace deformed my lips.

Under the gradually fading lights of the winter evening, while the sun disappeared into the horizon to visit new worlds and forget our sad reality, I told Cassiel-obaa-chan everything. Starting from the day I met Noah, to the contents of my father's letter, down to what happened inside Typhon's phone.

"That device was the only way I could speak to Noah directly, without anyone overhearing us, without anyone interfering. Yet" , I said, my sobs catching up to my words in a frenzy rush. "Yet, it was also a trap to get Noah away from Honoka, then to take him away without anyone noticing."

To my surprise, Cassiel shook her head. She took one last sip of her tea, then rested the cup back into its plate on the table. The contact made a short click that seemed to me to be very loud in the midst of this silent house, in the far neighborhood of Fukushima.

"Kidnapping an angel child is no laughing matter. The Queen will know, sooner or later. Right now, Noah's essence has disappeared from Earth, and there's no way Lailah wouldn't feel it."

A thought occurred to me. A realization. Was that how Honoka appeared to us, on my first day of school?

"I need your help, obaa-chan" , I declared. "I trust no one but you. Help me find out who took Noah, where, why, and how we're going to get him out of there!" I took her hands in mine, and I stared at my caretaker with a determined look. Fear was nowhere near my heart, because at that moment, I wasn't the same Hitori who came to Shibuya for an adventure, I wasn't the same Hitori who cried endlessly, waiting for solutions to come her way. I've been abandoned by the world, I was an undesired child, born with the mission to kill my own father. However, I had decided that no one had the right to dictate my life for me. I chose my mission for myself, and that mission was to live for the boy who made me the person I am today.

Cassiel gazed at me with an undecipherable look. The fact that she didn't share my determination, that she couldn't possibly feel the way I did, that she wasn't the least surprised by any of the words I spoke, frustrated me to my core.

"Obaa-chan" , I insisted, my voice close to a whine, that of a child who couldn't get his toy.

Without uttering a single word, she placed my fists on her lap, then with one single move, she pulled me closer to her chest, caressing my blue locks with careful, slow movements, the way she always did when I was smaller.

"You are still weak, my child" , she whispered in my ear. "You're weak, so you cannot save Noah with your current self. You don't need my help. You only need to get stronger."

"But....Noah might die before then" , My voice broke towards the end of the sentence. Saying the truth out loud pierced my heart with countless needles, and somehow made my eyes more eager to produce more tears.

"If they wanted to kill him, they would have done it when he was still a baby." , she said, her tone the embodiment of calmness. "No, he is too important to be killed."

"Why? What do they want from him? and why after all this time?"

The angel rubbed her right cheek on my head in a gesture of affection. "It's time to tell you everything. It's time you become one of us, and when you do, you'll be able to save Noah, along with this world that is bound to end."

That's when I lifted my head to properly look at Cassiel. I wasn't sure I heard her properly. Me? Become an angel? How? Why?

"Us?" , I said. "I'm not sure I underst--"

I couldn't finish my sentence, for my eyelids grew heavier and heavier, and as my consciousness began to fade, I could barely distinguish voices.

Familiar voices.

"...to the Queen's chambers?"

".....way too soon...."

".....Heavens?"

"....about time"

"....we're running out of it!"

"...War....the only one who can do it...."

"Hurry!"

Before I could utter a single thought, I was pulled into a deep sleep, full of darkness that, only rarely, recoiled from the brightness of my dreams.

Dreams that spoke of a boy with ocean-colored irises over starless midnight hair.