Gazing from different eyes (Updated 2/4)

[Mirage_GSM]

Ah, finally the plot thickens...

"In some sick way, she's right."

Wow that's pretty harsh, coming from a doctor about the parents of a patient in the presence of the patient...

[andros414]

This is starting to read more and more like a "Reset" story. Hisao got the Manly Picnic ending (evidenced by the falling dream) and through some cosmic force (or something else), he got a second chance. Only problem is that not all his memories of Yamaku and such were erased during the reset, resulting in a fairly blank slate instead of a normal Hisao, with bits and pieces of memories he has yet to (and already) make surfacing.

That would cover the amnesia he's suffering (most everything before the reset is forgotten, as well as things that have yet to happen because they haven't happened yet), as well as how he knew what to do when he had the first heart attack and his knowledge of Yamaku Academy.

[Eprlide]

I love all these theories that you guys keep making.

But you're all wrong.

I think by next weekend I'll have the next two chapters done, but don't count on it.

[griffon8]

I love all these theories that you guys keep making.

But you're all wrong.

Good! I'd rather it be something I didn't think of.

[andros414]

I love all these theories that you guys keep making.

But you're all wrong.

I think by next weekend I'll have the next two chapters done, but don't count on it.

Oh? Well my other idea was somehow Hanako being sent back in time, but the method requires her to take over someone and because of it, she landed in Hisao's body, taking over for him. This idea doesn't have much merit because it's only based on the line "It has a pretty good library, too."

[Oddball]

I love all these theories that you guys keep making.

But you're all wrong.

I think by next weekend I'll have the next two chapters done, but don't count on it.

Oh? Well my other idea was somehow Hanako being sent back in time, but the method requires her to take over someone and because of it, she landed in Hisao's body, taking over for him. This idea doesn't have much merit because it's only based on the line "It has a pretty good library, too."

If that was the case, Dean Stockwell should have shown up by now.


... anybody get that reference? Anybody?

[griffon8]

If that was the case, Dean Stockwell should have shown up by now.


... anybody get that reference? Anybody?

Yes.

[Eprlide]

It's this again. Falling. Dying. An unavoidable fatality every time I plunge myself into this dream.

I still remember that this could be the only link to my past memories, and now, more then ever, will I need them to come back.

Why Yamaku? Why Arrhythmia? Why Iwanako? Why me?

There's only one thing I haven't seen yet in this dream, and it's time I figured out who or what it is.

I keep falling, closer and closer to that body. The one who died first, who I chased after. Who is it, and why do I feel such importance from him?

How it ends is unavoidable. What I can gather before it ends, isn't.

Ten feet. Keep yourself together. The ground is coming. But you must see who he is. For everything that matters, look at his face!

Six feet. Brace the body.

Three feet. Prepare for impact.

One foot. LOOK.

*THUMP*

...I can see. But what I see...

...How?

By Slight of Hand

No. That one thought pierces my head as I exit the dream.

What... what was that? I know what I saw, but it's not something I can comprehend.The very nature of the possibility defies natural law. It would be like if god just decided "have fun with THIS!" But... If it's true, what can I trust? What meaning would this life have anymore?

But that's probably not my biggest problem. The most mind-wrecking, sure, and I'll get back to it eventually. The more prominent problem is my future.

Iwanako hasn't been here in a while. I can only assume the worst; that somehow she got the news of my more-or-less forced transfer to Yamaku Academy when I am released. It's been four days since that argument which lead to Hisao's mother breaking out, finally letting out how much she didn't want me to die. Things have gone coldly since. No one has come to visit since that day save the doctors and nurses, and considering how it ended, I think my fate is sealed. It's not something I would like to admit, but more and more I realize where exactly the limit of my strength and influence is. To the mother, it was so great that she couldn't stand how I was trying to hold up for myself when all she wanted was for me to be safe, while on the other hand, I'm to weak to show I can take care of myself. I can be safe, I know how to be safe, but for her that's not enough. That attack from regaining my memories, which they never figured out, most likely only further solidified her intention for my well-being at all costs. I think I can recall her willing to sell the house to pay for a cure for the Arrhythmia a long time ago.

Of course, for something like this, there is no cure. There is only treatment.

In all honesty, Yamaku itself isn't that bad from my memories and what I've been told about it. The doctor, or the "head cardiologist" as he's more properly called, has been telling me about how good of a school it is, how they don't pressure your condition onto you, how one of his colleagues is from there, etcetera etcetera. Open to all crippled students, welcome to a place that you won't feel weird in! But sorry, if you're mentally handicapped, we can't accept you! Good luck in the asylum! We'll send post cards!

Damn it, stop. I can't even concentrate. Somehow, that feels a lot like who I am.

A lot like...

"Hisao Nakai?" The nurse, enters the room after calling my name. "You overslept again. Your food has gotten cold. We'll need to go downstairs to get something warm at this hour."

This hour? The clock reads... 10:39. That is a bit late for breakfast. But my stomach demands otherwise.

"I guess it would be good to get some exercise. Mind helping me out?" I sit up and hold out my hand to her. She takes my arm, helps me out of the bed and supports me on my right shoulder as I try walking.

"I feel so weak." I comment.

"A few days in a bed will do that to you." Kaede replies. "It was highly recommended after you had your attack a few days ago, but you seem fine now." She talks halfway between us as friends and as a normal patient-nurse relationship.

"I guess so." I release a yawn-sigh mixture that wakens me up a little. "Sometimes I just don't know how strong I am or how weak I am and I don't know which one I should be." Kaede stays silent for a bit, pondering over my statement.

"In my opinion, you should see how strong you need to be" She begins with. "And then go beyond that. From what I've seen, it's always worth it to go the extra mile. Sometimes it may not seem like much at the time, but later on when your strength will really be tested, you'll be thankful of the strength you have." We exit the room and begin down the hallway, slowly being able to hold myself on my own. "Doctors and nurses need a lot of strength, not just physically. But the more a work requires us to have, the better the reward can be."

The greater your strength, the better the reward, huh.

"I'll be thinking upon that." I grin a little as we pass by the stairs, no thank you, and go over to the elevators for a ride down.

-------

With breakfast for the other patients having passed a long time ago, the eating area is mostly vacant except for some older people who take their time with the food. This room has a more of a common feel to it then the rest of the hospital. The smell of food still permeates the air with rice, fish and countless veggies. The hospital needs to cater to everyone's special appetite for their own conditions, so they need enough variety in the food offered to be able to feed everyone. Yamaku is the same way if I can recall, but you'll be able to pack your own lunch if you so desire. Here, I'll just be happy with what I can get, though I have this craving for pizza...

None served. Damn. Must be the work of the... government? Was it something else?

"Hisao?" Kaede snaps me out of my thoughts.

"Sorry, lost in thought." I go and grab whatever is still warm and go sit down to eat. But there's something I want to hear from her.

"Kaede, what's your view on strength? You say that doctors and nurses need a lot of it, but what about the time with the guy that got amnesia?" I begin to eat as she responds.

"I still think I'm right on that. But I don't think any amount of strength can prepare you for a surprise like that."

"Something like a kick to the groin?" She laughs at the question.

"Yea, I guess. Maybe for you." She calms herself down before continuing. "But even with things like those, there are some people that can pull on through and still do something amazing with it." The breakfast goes calmly with conversation going back and forth until a while later.

"Mr. Nakai." A male voice comes from the entry way. "You have a guest, but do you wish to return to your room first?"

"I'll be fine here." The man nods and leaves. Early morning on a Sunday means it could be anybody. Its possible that it could be my father coming to further discuss my future. I don't think after what happened on Wednesday will give mother any-

"Hi Hisao." The calmest voice in the world breaks my thoughts, and I turn to see Iwanako in a winder outfit, which if true to my memory, was also what she wore on that day. Is she trying to tell me that she's over the incident?

Wait, first things first. "Kaede," I grab her attention "could you leave me and her alone for a bit?"

"Just promise not to scare her off." She flashes a grin at me as she gets up and walks away, leaving me alone with my... girl friend. Thats right.

I decide to start off with a question. "Why weren't you here for a while?"

"I'm sorry. I wanted to visit you, but I had a few... family problems." She twirls a loose strand of hair as she talks.

"Same here, actually." I hate being the bearer of bad news, but I figure that I might as well be the one to-

"I heard about what happened, actually." Nevermind then. "Your family contacted me. They were very serious about you leaving for this Yamaku that would 'assist' to you better in your education then you would be staying here. And of their dislike of your response to it." She sighs and takes a seat next to me. "And they didn't like mine either." I would imagine her not taking this well. She's gotten stronger, sure, but that doesn't mean she can hold the world on her shoulders.

"How did you react to them?"

"Not the way they wanted me to." Her face doesn't show a distaste of the subject, which I would expect from her. Perhaps she realizes that this is something that must be done. "They expected me to approve of you going away, that after what happened it would be better for you to be gone from here." She looks at the table while her hands twirl their fingers in her lap.

"But you would rather stay here with me, right?"

"Just with you, yes." She answers without a moments pause. "But, I did think about it. You did have a sudden attack, even at the hospital. Even at the safest place you could be, your condition still got to you. I know that you're strong, but I really want you to be safe. Yamaku is a good idea. That's why..." No. Please, why are you siding with them? After all I've done to get us here, why-

Wait, why are you grinning like that?

*flip flip flip*

Um... "I'm not getting what you're doing with your hands." She chuckles a bit.

"That was sign language for 'I had to pull a few strings'."

"Sign language?" She nods with confidence in her movements.

"My grandmother was born a deaf-mute, and my mother, being the only child in the family, was forced to learn sign language so they could communicate. And as her daughter, I was taught as well for the same reasons."

"But how does this-" She holds up her hand, and I half-expect her to go off into another slight-of-hand show before she continues on.

"After the phone call, I looked up the academy your parents spoke of. It was everything that they told me about, and I could see how safe it was for you. The location, the services, the environment, and it even had a nice view of the city downhill. But, the one thing that I found that they didn't speak of was how non-crippled students could enter the academy if they were there for specific studies to help disabled students, such as interpreters." She begins to smile widely now, her expression full of joy and excitement. "I talked with my parents about this, and along with the fact that I wasn't getting along in our high school anymore, they agreed to transfer me to Yamaku with you!"

Iwanako... you...

"You really pulled it off, just to be with me? I was really worried about you getting hurt from all of this."

"Then we were thinking the same thing for each other then. At least, I didn't think I would be the only one hurt by this." I'm completely amazed at her, she really found her own strength. I didn't know I could influence people this much. Maybe I've found my own strength too, but from what?

Oh... thats right. I still can't figure it out.

"Hisao?"

Who AM I?

"Hisao? You alright?"

"Oh, sorry." I try to clear my head, but the thoughts are still there. "I'm very happy that you figured this out, but there's still one thing I need to do." My head begins to hurt slightly and my hand automatically gives it comfort.

"Your amnesia?"

"Yes... I think this is something I need to do on my own." She looked worried for a while, but she nods in understatement. "These are my memories that I need to find on my own."

"Then I wish you all the luck in the world."

"And how will you do that?" I question her.

"Well..." She thinks for a while, then quickly moves in and-

...That felt nice on my cheek.

"Thanks, but I think that kiss will keep me occupied for a while." We both smile and laugh, and I feel like this is how it was supposed to be in the end. Maybe. But it will depend on what I can figure out.

"Well, best of luck." Iwanako bids me farewell after having told me the good news. As for I, I feel like the world is nothing to me. I could take the evils and crush them in my fist! I could rally the people against the oppression! I could-

"Seeing stars yet?" Kaede comes back with a grin on her face, breaking my thoughts. "I kid you, but you're one lucky guy aren't you?"

"I wouldn't call it luck if I worked for it." I retort to her. We share a smile, and again everything looks great for me.

Just except for one thing.

"Well, shall we head back?"

-------

"Call for me if you need anything." The nurse reminds me before she leaves the room and shuts the door.

But this is the time I need for myself. I know this whole situation has gone this way mostly because of my lack of memories, but retrieving them has eluded me for so long. My dreams, if they mean anything at all, have only given me mixed messages of this one time at night where I fell to my death, and another time when I was pulled into somewhere I probably didn't intend to go to.

Maybe it doesn't really matter. In the end, I did all of this on my own, without a past. I've made my own memories, gotten myself a great companion, and set a future for myself. I didn't need any memory to do any of this, and it's not something that I really need to do. I just...

"Just wish this could go on for forever, right?"

"Yea..."

...

"...No. There's something I need to fix."

"Fixing would be an incorrect statement unless it would mean to fix your memory. What you're probably thinking of is-"

"Finding." I look up from my bed, and right at the doorway is a man in a formal suit carrying a suitcase with him. I can't recall how long he's been here, but just looking at him makes me think he didn't just walk through the door to get in here.

"How long have you been here?" I ask immediately.

"The whole time. I do my best to keep out of the circumstances I set up. However you've been such an interesting... person since this began that I had to see it for myself. It's not uncommon for my works to be successful, but the way you've done your part... has taken an interest in me." He's making no sense, yet I can feel it.

This- no, he means everything.

"Who are you?"

"I wish I could tell you, but I do not know much about myself either. All I can tell you is this; my name is Kii, and it is my job to grant the most desperate wishes of this world. That is all you need to know...

Kenji Setou."
(I was contemplating about giving you guys a double-whammy tonight for your patience, but I think I'll leave the true explanation for tomorrow just to torture you guys. Oh, and here's your Dean Stockwell [though not really Dean Stockwell, will be explained tomorrow])

[andros414]

So... Kenji fell (or jumped) off the roof during Manly Picnic to try and save Hisao. After landing, he wished with his dying breath that he could do it over again and stop Hisao from coming to Yamaku. Kii heard this and used whatever voodoo he can do to rewind time and drop Kenji's soul in Hisao's body shortly before his heart attack.

So we're back to my time travel dealy, only using Kenji instead of Hanako (or Future Hisao), and magic ghosty powers instead of science. ┐(￣ー￣)┌

[griffon8]

Yeah, you dropped enough hints that it was Kenji in this chapter. Hints large enough to leave dents.

[Eprlide]

Mirror mirror, in the eyes that I see,

Tell me, which one is the real me?

Although I think this sight tells no lies,

It could be an effect before someone dies.

I pray for an end to this complicated story.

For I see Hisao, and in him, I see... me.

Kii Magic

"...Kenji Setou."

That name. Just hearing it was enough. It was time to remember.

"That's me, isn't it?" I ask Kii, who still stand tall in the back of the hospital room.

"Your collective conscious, yes. Your body is... quite another thing indeed as you have experienced." His manner of speech is strange. He seems formal, but his pauses make him sound... unstable?

"Then who is Hisao Nakai?"

"You should know that yourself, don't you?" His wicked lips show a smile in the back corner. "You have gathered so much, yet you refuse to admit these 'dreams' were real?"

The dream... I had lost something. Someone important to me. A comrade, a man of arms at my side. One who was as lost as I was. That's why I connected to him. I felt like I had to guide him, even if my guidance wasn't the best. I thought that if I could help him, he could help me too. That's why I didn't want to lose him, and went after him, and...

Joined with him.

"How much do you remember?" Kii asks, showing interest. "A fall is not something easy to recall upon. Your body panics so much, and in a drunken stupor, it would be much worse. Tell me... do you remember your wish?"

"I wished for something?" Kii says he's a wish granter, but only for the most desperate wishes in the world. "I don't any wish I could have wished for would be spectacular enough."

"You're correct. Your wish was very... vague, per say." He rolls his neck around, bones popping and cracking. "I don't just grant any wish I see. Thousands are made every day, from simple and mundane to extraordinary, super-human feats. Then, there are the sincere wishes, from the bottom of the heart, when all else has failed someone. Those kind of wishes are the ones I'm supposed to grant. But wishes are not free of charge, you see. People must work, one way or another, to fully achieve what they want, and I simply give them the circumstances to do so. What I can do to get them to that starting point, I do not yet know my limits. Time can go in reverse, incurable sicknesses can be healed, DNA can be rewritten, universes made, memories lost, transformations, resurrections... and even the transferring of souls. Yet, I do not know what I am, other than a wish granter for those who deserve it, who will work for it, just as you have done."

"But what was my wish?" Whatever I wished for, it was the foundation for my situation.

"It was something simple and vauge at the same time. You wished 'I could have done things differently'."

To have done things differently? "That doesn't sound desperate enough to be considered good to grant."

"It wasn't... alone." His smile grows a bit wider. "What made it so interesting is that he wished for the exact same thing." Hisao... wished he had made the right choices?

He was alone. If he was here, he would be lost. Lost in a repeating loop of depression and sadness. He wasn't strong enough to save himself, and probably Iwanako either. He most likely had a full-on heart attack, and stayed much longer then I did here, watching the days go by outside though a small window while on a bed with his life in turmoil. The one chance he had to revive his life, the one chance he had to get back on his own two feet...

"He spent it with someone else who had lost everything." It's a bitter coincidence, one that cost both of us our lives.

"I could see the past of both of you, what you both went through, and where you both fell short." Kii continues on after my statement. "I determined your wishes were desperate and honest enough to be granted a second chance."

"And where is Hisao... his soul?"

"You know where he is already." He taunts me with a smile, but...

Oh.

"That time..." I only saw it a few times within my dreams, but I remember felling it was horrible enough that it would have broken any lesser man... which I was. I only had -her- for support, even if she was too naive to know.

"He was placed on the same psychological time line position as you were for his body. Your days when everything... changed."

"And I became a lunatic..." I fear for something. "How is Hisao faring in my body."

"I cannot tell you." His response is quick and blunt. "You will have to find that out yourself." His smile vanishes, showing no sign of either positive nor negative emotions on the matter. So he's leaving me blind until I see him at... Yamaku, most likely.

But I think I can trust him. I connected with him because I thought we could both be strong when the time came.

"You've done such extraordinary things with what you were given. You managed a girl friend, your condition and the future without so much as leaving the hospital grounds. Out of all of the successful wishes I've granted, yours has been quite entertaining to watch."

"Well... Thanks." I'm a bit flattered, but I need to give my respects as well. "I must thank you too, wish granter. None of this could have happened with you."

"Maybe I should do this more often. Getting thanked in person sure does feel good." He chuckles and smiles, checking a watch on his wrist. "Alas, I can do no more with you. I cannot stay here much longer, and your life is now within your hands. Who you are is dependent on who you want to be, not what you used to be or what people think you are or should be. Continue taking the high road of life, Kenji Setou, for it will always be the more rewarding path." With a nod to me, he exits the room and-

... did the room just get brighter? Oh whatever, I'm not good with the dark side of things or conspiracies anyway. I don't need to worry about it anymore, at the least. I may not remember everything, but hopefully the nightmares will stop now. The memories may come back with time, but only that universal constant will tell.

In the mean time, I many important things to plan out, and I must get started. Time to drive the high road of life.


(An explanation: I blame Key studios for this. In most of their works, the "key magic" that helps the protagonist out comes in the form of wishes. After having watched/read Kanon, Little Busters, Clannad and Air, I was left wondering how the whole "wish system" worked. I got the idea of an omnipresent being from another visual novel -which would be spoilers for said novel if I said where it was from- and I just connected two and two together. The last part was trying to find a way to get this working into the Katawa Shoujo world, and the answer came faster then I thought it would. This project soon came afterwards.

Thanks for reading this until now, the last two chapters will hopefully bring this full circle!)

[Guestimate]

Full circle... that's... not encouraging... Something tells me Hisao isn't doing nearly as well in his loop...

[Eprlide]

I'm afraid I must cut out a chapter from the story. I originally had planned to have a first date scenario for Hisao/Kenji and Iwanako once he was released from the hospital, but with college and other things going on I couldn't think of what to put into it. Therefore, the last chapter will be what I planned to be the epilogue, which will be posted by Monday. Sorry for the wait, life has been too much fun.