A dream is a wish your heart makes, when you're fast asleep. But for some, very rarely, those dreams spread to others, like a virus.
The lights of the stadium are brilliant and bright, and the roar of the crowd is chanting loud. "Kukai, Kukai, Kukai!" The black and white soccer ball has just been passed to him, and he's got an open drive towards the goal.
The goalie--a girl he's never met, but somehow feels he recognizes--stands with a grin on her face, waiting for him to make the shot. She looks excited, determined, with short and fluffy brown hair. "C'mon, champ, take the shot!" she calls to him, jeering just a little.
Somewhere on the sidelines, his family is cheering among the crowd. His older brothers, and his little adopted sister. He can hear all of them, cheering excitedly ... all except Sachiko. A quick glance that way and he can see her, clutching her hands worriedly, watching nervously, dressed in a pretty fluffy dress, surrounded by his brothers. "Come on, come on," she mouths, somehow audible over the cheering of the crowd.
But the defenders are coming, and he's only got moments left to make the shot.
It's been a great game. It may be the best game of Kukai's career. He knows he's older, but he still looks the same as he does now, because it's hard to imagine what he'll look like when he gets older, even a few years - taller, more fit, better shape even more than now, perhaps? - as he stops the ball with one foot, and he turns to run towards the goal. Several short stuttering steps, moving the ball closer, and then suddenly one foot raises back and launches the ball at the girl goalie!
Whether or not the ball goes in doesn't seem to matter. Kukai's vision pans over to his family, seeing his brothers and mother and father and grandfather all in the stands, cheering for him! There's abstract figures there besides them, one with purple hair, one with pink, but their faces and bodies and even clothes are obscured, blurry and indistinct. There's even a full sized teenaged Daichi in the crowd, cheering for Kukai to win!
There's Sachiko, too, and she's saying something. Come on? Wait, where was he supposed to go? Oh, right! The locker room - the game is over. He won - how'd the ball go in? Dunno. Doesn't matter. He leads the team into the hall leading to the lockers...
"Nooooo! ANSHIIII!" screams Sachiko. Kukai can hear it somehow, over the roar of the cheering crowd. No one else seems to notice, but Sachiko sounds distraught, desperate. Why? Anshi's dead, what does she have to do with the game?
In the locker room, his coach cheers him on, his team mates congratulate him, and everyone's excited. It's a whirl of positive emotions, and not much time to dwell on Sachiko's emotions.
When he leaves the locker room, Kukai's family is there waiting for him. His brothers and his parents and grandfather all hug him excitedly, happy for his victory. But little Sachiko is sitting by herself to the side, crying and clutching her knees.
Kukai doesn't look back as Sachiko screams. It's weird, and it's bad, but he doesn't exactly understand it. Whatever she's screaming about, he'll find out later.
There's a quick flicker, and Kukai is in the locker room, already washed and clean, as his teammates and his coach cheer and pat his shoulders. Kukai is in a whirl of good vibes, and exits the locker room into even more good vibes. It takes a moment for the sound to penetrate his world, and he looks over at Sachiko, blinking. "Sachiko? What's wrong?"
The little girl that looks up at him seems somehow wrong. Her cheeks are too porcelain, her eyes too dark. It's Sachiko, but more like the memory of her than the warmth of her. She starts to answer, but Kukai's mom interjects, "Don't worry about her, dear. She's just fussy about her sister, again."
"IT WAS HER LAST GAME!" Sachiko screams at Kukai's mom, shoving past him to charge towards her. One of Kukai's brothers scoops Sachiko right up, and she beats at him with hands, kicking her unshod feet in the empty air. "SHE JUST WANTED ONE WIN BEFORE SHE GOES AWAY!" she turns around and points at Kukai, "AND YOU TOOK IT FROM HER."
Kukai stares at Sachiko, trying to see her more clearly. That's Sachiko, all right, isn't it? It's the pretty little slightly crazy girl. He blinks, looking over at his mom. That doesn't sound exactly right, either, but then Sachiko starts screaming and the sound seems to send a wave over everything, vibrating the outlines.
Kukai turns, trying to reach for Sachiko, but his brother steps back. Or Kukai's stepping back. Or his arms are so heavy. Something's strange, but it's a dream, who knows what's going on? "I didn't know, Sachi. She never said it was her game... where is she going? I mean.. it's a game. You might lose if you play."
It's Kukai holding Sachiko, now, suddenly. Or maybe it was him all along. She's beating against his chest with her tiny hands, kicking her striped-stockinged feet, crying and beating at him, but of course she's so small that it hardly hurts the sports star.
"She's dying," Sachiko reminds him. They're alone, in the hallway, no one else around but the pair. "She's dying, and you took her last game! You're a monster! I hate you! I hate you! She just wanted one game before the witches take her away!"
Kukai feels every one of those little strikes making his chest ache far outside the power in her fists and feet. He blinks at her, then shakes his head. "Wait. Why is Anshi dying? She was already dead. Wasn't she? I'm not... wait. The witches? I thought you said she was dying?" He shakes his head. "It feels like I'm thinking through mud. What is going on here?"
Of course, that's probably because he is thinking through mud. They're standing outside in the cold rain, the wind is whistling around them, and the mud is already thick up to Kukai's ankles. Sachiko's pretty dress is already soaked through, and so are Kukai's clothes.
"She's not dead!" Sachiko insists. "you're killing her! You're killiing me! You're a monster! Why did you do this to me?! You were supposed to save her! Supposed to save me! Why didn't you save me!?"
The storm kicks up around them, raging and whistling and chilling Kukai as he hugs Sachiko closer to him, feeling a sinking sensation of dread in his stomach. "I'm not.. I didn't do anything! I didn't kill either one of you! I didn't do anything! What the hell is going on here!"
He looks up at the surrounding area and gasps. It's Seiyou Public School, but Tokyo looks bombed out, destroyed. They're standing ankle deep in the soccer field, the grass dead, the ground a morass of mud. "No! I didn't do this! What is this?!"
"It's your fault," Sachiko answers, voice barely a whisper. It's punctuated by a stroke of lightnign that streaks down, crackles through the air, and strikes the ground nearby, sending a spray of mud skywards. Sachiko begins to fade away, melting into nothingness in Kukai's arms.
Kukai stares at the place where Sachiko was, then lets out a yell of surprise as the lightning strikes nearby. Mud fountains up into the air, gushing and splattering all over him, and the places where the mud lands on him are superheated and burning!
Kukai sits straight up out of his bed with a scream, heart beating hard, staring at the darkened room. "Hey! Kukai? You ok?" It's a brother - Shusui, apparently, from the next room, but it takes Kukai a moment to respond. "I'm.. I'm ok!" He looks himself over, searching himself for burn marks (of which there are none), as Daichi flits over, staring up at him with big eyes. "What happened, Kukai?"
Kukai lies back down after a moment, breath going back to normal. "I dunno. A bad dream. A really bad dream..."