Daybook – Entry 11

 

As Hatake recounted his tale, I watched his features retain a resolute peace despite the brutality of the narrative. I knew that he had no wish to go back to life as a hunted man, preferring to be a man of books rather than the blade, a giver of life rather than a taker, yet they’d forced his hand, and those fools did not know what they’d unleashed. I’d heard murmurs that there were some within the upper echelons of Ilaria who had warned against baiting such a beast – mostly the Methuselah, those who were the oldest of all of us – yet those with their actual hands in the dirty little mess wouldn’t listen.

Ah, the young ones – how foolish they are in their arrogant follies.

“So, what now?” I asked, closing my journal and taking the last cup of tea.

“I’ll use my contacts in Ilaria to help Alan and Peter get to Julia, then I’ll head to Puerto Rico to help Balleseros contain things down there.”

“I would think you’d want – ”

Hatake shook his head, sighing. “I’m afraid I’m the last person she’d want coming to her rescue.”

“But you’re her father.”

“By blood, yes – by deeds, no.”

Hatake’s face was lined with anguish, the first time I’d seen him truly regretful about anything he’d ever done. Even as he’d wrestled with the fate of the stolen children, he’d always said it was a “necessary evil,” something that had to be done in pursuit of science.

“You did what you could to protect them – Constance, Scythe, you couldn’t have seen that coming.”

“Should have, would have, if I hadn’t let myself get caught up in Ilaria’s lies about a better future.” Hatake chuckled bitterly, lowering his eyes and tracing figures on the napkin in front of him with his fingertip. “Maybe I truly am getting old.”

I stroked his cheek lightly, resting my hand upon his smooth skin when he looked up at me, his eyes glinting with surprise at my unexpected gesture of affection. “You’re only as old as you feel, Hiroshi.”

He smirked, taking my hand and kissing my palm. “Then at the moment I feel every bit of my five-hundred-plus years.”

The familiar warmth of his lips upon my skin, the stirring of butterflies within my abdomen – these are the cause of the effect which followed, of my lips meeting his, speaking that which could not be articulated with voice alone. Oh, no doubt he loved – still loves – Jane with all his heart and soul, yet being Immortal, one tends to bond with one’s own for that sense of security, permanence, and understanding that no mortal, no matter how deeply they’re ingrained into our hearts, can fully fathom. Said bond more often than not lasts as long as each keeps breathing, holding fast no matter the different paths their hearts and destinies turn upon, no matter the rifts or upheavals they endure.

Our bond is as such, frayed as it were by the Shin’ar’s geis against involving oneself with one’s “commission” and our clashes over Ilaria’s true purpose. He held onto that bond fast this night, clinging to it as if to his last breath, knowing that he must let it float once again into the ether.

I watched him getting dressed in the dim light of the hotel room, eyes tracing the scars upon his back much as my fingertips had earlier in the evening, every motion a study of grace and purpose. He walked and sat on the bed, pulling a flash drive out of his pocket and closing it into my hand.

“What is this?” I asked.

“My life, Ilaria, everything.”

I cocked an eyebrow. “I’ve been chronicling you since you came into Ilaria, Hiroshi – there can’t be much in here I do not already know.”

“This goes back way before Ilaria, before the virus. This is the beginning of who I was and who I was to become.”

Realization came to me suddenly, horrifically – this was his final treatise, his closing epitaph. This was one battle he wasn’t expecting to survive.

“No, Hiroshi, no, no, you do not get to lay this on me now, not after – ”

Hatake placed his fingers upon my lips to silence me, smiling. “Tell my tale, Kiernan, ensure these mortals know that there is good in even the most selfish of gods.”

With that, he kissed my forehead, rising to leave, leaving me once again with that emptiness in my gut.

“Hey, old man.”

Hatake stopped as he opened the door, looking back at me with a bemused frown.

“Don’t lose your head.”

“Don’t follow me.”

“Frak you, Hiroshi.”

“Love you, too, Kiernan.”