APRICITAS [ENG] || Johan Liebert || Monster

Chapter 31 - The Promise

"Please... leave the window open." Nina spoke in the direction of Tenma, in a weak voice, lying in a hospital bed. She was connected to a drip, because due to recent events, her body still hasn't recovered.

"All right." Kenzo replied, turning his head towards her.

"How long have I been lying here?" She asked.

"Don't worry about it." He moved away from the window and sat down in the chair, right next to Emiko; the girl sat by her friend's bed motionless, staring at her face with worry written in her eyes. "You should rest." He added in a gentle tone.

"Thank you. Somehow I know... that you two took care of me all this time. Don't worry. It's fine now. I don't think about suicide anymore."

"Doctor Reichwein and Dieter will be arriving soon." Kenzo informed her.

"What about you?"

"I have to go."

"Where?"

"Well..." Emiko's brother made a serious face.

"Did you two analyze all the materials you collected? Have you learned anything?" She turned her head slightly and looked at them. "I'm fine, you can tell me."

"I spoke with many people from the former StB and subordinates of General Wolf... to get as much information as possible." Kenzo began and took out from the bag he carried with him, a bundle of papers with notes.

"About Franz Bonaparta?"

"Yes. He's a very mysterious man... but slowly his image is coming together. Czechoslovak born in Germany." He was reading. "Probably the name 'Franz Bonaparta' is fake. After World War II, although he was born in Germany, he was expelled from Bohemia and settled with his family in Czechoslovakia. It's not known what function he held there during the communist rule... I discovered that he married a Czech woman with whom he had a son. His son was one of the students attending his reading sessions in the early 1960s. 'Bonaparta's son is in Prague.' I think Petr Čapek's last words pointed at him. In an old photograph, a copy of which I managed to obtain, there are all the children participating in the sessions from the 60's." Nina tilted her head and looked at the photo Tenma was showing her. "The child is on the left-"

"He wasn't an outstanding child." The blonde answered unexpectedly. "He was expelled from classes because he wasn't 'an outstanding child'."

"How do you know that?" Tenma asked in surprise.

"He was rejected by Bonaparta. I'm pretty sure I met him in Prague."

"Does he know where his father, Franz Bonaparta, is now?"

"I don't know. But this is our only trace. We must hurry before something terrible happens."

"Something terrible?"

"I feel... that Johan wants to do something." In this moment Emiko remembered Nina's words when they talked in Prague for the first time. When she told her that twins feel a bond and know what is happening to the other, even if they are in distant places...

"What does he want to do?" Kenzo asked, leaning slightly towards the bed.

"He wants to plan the perfect suicide. True loneliness... that's his definition of love. If we don't hurry up... many innocent people will die." In that moment, in that one moment, young Tenma's heart jumped to her throat and froze there for a few long seconds, depriving her of her breath completely. She felt a great pressure in her chest, as if the emotions running through her veins were trying to convey a brutal truth to her mind at any cost. She remembered everything... These four days they had spent together, when they formed a great bond and when they parted. The words he had spoken to her back then.