4 Awakening

The sun was making him sweat what felt like gallons of water. He was helping the daughter of Aiko with harvesting the crops for the winter that was closing in. The girl, whose name he had found out recently was Shoko, had offered him to stay here after he had cried in front of her. That had been two days ago and he remembered feeling embarrassed crying and thanking the young girl who had helped him come to his senses. He still didn't think that he would ever forgive Aiko and the others who had killed his loved one and there was still a wrathful part inside of him. But right now he didn't feel a need to quell his anger with bloodshed, instead, he simply for the first time in six years, wanted to live.

"Are you already done, Hotaka?", it was Shoko who had interrupted him in his thoughts. "Do you think you can just stand around all day and daydream?, this is a though life but the only thing you need to survive it is just that, the will to survive" She had a playful tone too her voice and he could tell she was making fun of him. "Well I'm very sorry that I've offended you, my lady" He had a big stupid smile on his face when he answered. "Well it's okay, as long as you understand my dear servant" She had made her voice have a higher pitch while saying that, she sounded like an opera singer and he couldn't help but to laugh. After he had started laughing she followed suit. They were both just standing on the field crouching over from the laughter.

It was starting to get late and the sun was going down. "Are you sure you still want to sleep outside this night as well?", Shoko was worried about Hotaka also getting sick. "Yes, I prefer to be outside and your house's cramped enough as it is" He was glad that she was worried about him but when he had been an assassin the places he had been forced to sleep made this seem like a dream come true.

They went inside the house and found the boy, whose name was Shoya, once again sleeping with Aiko. Aiko herself still hadn't woke up but sometimes he would hear her blurt out names in her sleep. One of the names which he had recognized was Daiki and she always said it in a panicked manner.

He was working on a medicine for Aiko which he was making out of some herbs he had found in the forest nearby and from some of the crops they were growing. He had learned how to make it while going through his assassination training. Now that he thought about it, that was twelve years ago, "time sure moves on without any regard", he thought.

He was playing a card game with Shoko to keep her company in the lonely night. He had been done with the medicine a couple of hours ago and Shoko had feed her mother the green mush by spoon. They were both too tired to really play the game so they mostly just stared at the beautiful pictures on the cards. One of them had a lonely wolf in it, standing on the edge of a cliff and howling with the moon shining upon it. Another one had a snake in it who was quietly sneaking in the grass to catch a mouse who was naively sleeping on a small stone.

"Hotaka?, I'm sorry if I sound rude but... Who are you really, how come you know my mother? This question had been bugging her for a while, but she hadn't had the courage nor the desire to ask him about it in these couple of days." Who I am?, how I know your mother? Well... That's a long story, but if I'm going to keep it short I guess you could say we used to work together. But then, after a couple of years I did something very bad to one of our... Bosses... After that, the people I worked with was forced to make a decision. Either they would punish me or they too would be hunted by the very organization they worked for. So they choose to punish me and took someone very important from me. I would probably have done the same but I still got very mad when they did that to me. Although, you don't have to worry... You have a very strong and reliable mother so don't ask her about it when she wakes up, okay? She was not really sure about what the right thing to do was, but she trusted Hotaka. "Okay, I won't ask her, but what happened to the organization?

" It fell a couple of months after I lost the person who was very dear to me, with all the backstabbing going on, it crumbled on its own. She wasn't to sure what he was talking about but he didn't seem to like talking about it and so, she stopped asking questions.

"Hotaka?!, is that you?"It was Aiko who had woken up. Hotaka just sat in his chair completely still, he didn't feel any different now from when she had been sleeping but it felt wrong to not have the first reaction be a need to draw his weapon. Instead he was almost paralyzed and the only thing he felt like he could do was to met her eyes with his. "Thank God that you're here!, listen! , you need to find Daiki! He's gone completely mad!, he's on a killing spree... Finding old members from the Kirai and executing them" He just sat there, dumbfounded by every word she said. Is this really how she treated the man she had once betrayed. He was okay with not trying to take his revenge on her, but right now... He was mad. "You betrayed me and! ... And Aila!! How dare you act as if nothing ever happe..." "Listen Hotaka!, you need to stop Daiki, you need to stop your brother!!