It's a terrible life

Elyss words hit hard. They were sobering, cold, at least they felt that way in that very moment. Hanako couldn’t say what she had expected. She realised that Elyss, it seemed, had taken her own baggage away from the experience. She seemed to remember her past, even her time as a mortal. Hanako didn’t know if she ever had been a mortal or if she had been born a soul. Everything she had now was the name and a vague feeling of a connection to that village. What else there might be she could not say.

Hanako felt ashamed and selfish, that she had not thought about what it would mean to Elyss. What she had seen and felt in this illusion. Did she have regrets about her life? Did she wish she had taken another route, another road, leading somewhere else? It probably was as hard on her as it was on Hanako. Still, even if she realised it all, a part of her couldn’t help but feel left alone. Couldn’t Elyss see what it meant to her? What it meant to finally see that the void could be filled? That there were memories somewhere, hidden in some deep, dark place, but still there to recover.

‘Don’t get too caught up in the past.’ she said. Couldn’t she see what the past meant?

With Elyss’s next words, Hanako finally understood. She understood and she immediately regretted her prior thoughts. How could she have been so selfish? Oh, Elyss…

She wasn’t looking at Hanako, but still there was a faint smile creeping onto her face, beaming towards the redhead's back. Suddenly the rain didn’t feel as cold anymore. Once again, she had misunderstood Elyss and couldn’t feel more sorry about it. And at the same time she was incredibly happy that this woman and no one else was with her, who had again found the right words.

She had been Ameko Sato once..but she was Hanako Yamada now. Without realising on a conscious level she had already built a life. She was someone...even someone who meant something to others. Even if she had no idea yet how to resolve everything, only a few words had brought about the real epiphany: Hanako Yamada was no illusion, no fake, not a china doll created to hide nothingness. There was no need to fear that she could break and simply vanish. Not anymore. There it was, another small seed that was ready to take hold in Hanako’s mind and grow. It would take time, but it could also not be stopped anymore. And somewhere in a world that was neither an illusion, nor on any real plane of existence, so to speak, a large creature in an old Samurai’s armor sat on it’s back porch, looking at a picture that was finally not blurry anymore, hummind with satisfaction.

With a few fast strides Hanako caught up with Elyss and looked at her face from the side, only for a short moment. It was as wet as hers, her hair sticking to her skin, just as Hanako’s were sticking to hers. Hanako would have liked to establish some form of physical contact, take Elyss’s hand, but didn’t know if she would have liked it. It didn’t matter. There was already a connection, one that needed no contact and no words.

“Thank you.” she whispered, hardly loud enough to be heard over the rain. “You’re very dear to me, too.”

Almost no words.