Covering my face with my hands, I hurried back up the stairs. There, I discovered that the bedroom had been renovated as well. There was a big new bed with colourful sheets and I tripped over a thick rug on the floor, falling with a painless thump onto its soft new surface. It smelled nice and I sank into it. It was so comfortable that I almost didn't want to get up. Instead I rolled on it and enjoyed the sensation.
When I did sit up, the Man and the nice man were sitting beside me, watching me with with amusement. I dove into the nearest arms with some embarrassment.
Hands covered my ears and a kiss landed on my forehead. I saw the lips move, making noise. As if a switch had been flipped, the noise turned into words and the words into comprehensible speech.
"You can stop hiding now. You don't have to be afraid," the Man told me, hugging me tight once more. "You have been set free. You are no longer a prisoner. You have been given your liberty. You are now free to love and be loved. Nothing can hold you back or hold you down. You don't have to suppress your wants and desires. You need not hide your love for your husband or for anyone else. Nobody can take this freedom or your love from you. Listen to me, daughter. You are free and free indeed."
"F-free?" I echoed with hesitation.
"Yes. You are loved. You can love. You are free," the Man repeated. There was the hint of words of power within what He had said.
"Free," I echoed once more in a faint voice, as information washed over me in waves. "I love…?" I looked at the Man and the nice man as information about them seeped back into my comprehension. I spoke His name and He smiled.
"I made you and have redeemed you," said the Man - the Creator Father, now that I remembered who He was. "You are mine. I bought you back from the enemy with my own blood. You are now under my covenant and I have called you by My name. I made you and created you for my own glory. If I have saved you and you are not free, is not what I sacrificed for you all in vain? Now, my daughter, I command you. Be strong and of good courage. Be not afraid, neither be dismayed because I am with you wherever you go. So rise up and stand. Stand firm. By My stripes you were healed. By My strength you stand and walk. By My power, you go forth and are free. I have loved you with a great love - even to the laying down of my life. If this does not prove to you that you are worthy of my love, what will?"
There were so many words of power packed in that speech that it struck me dumb for a moment. I felt my memories and feelings and everything rush back into place with a slam. A part of me did as He had commanded - like automatic. Before I knew it, I was standing and my will was rising up under the strength of His power.
And then when I opened my physical eyes, I was standing indeed. What a miracle.
The medical staff swirled around me. I was swept off for more tests and investigations. When they were done, the doctors debated and sent me for another round of tests and investigations, thinking they had seen wrong or that there had been a mistake. After a third and fourth round of tests, the doctors just sat back, dumbfounded.
I didn't know what they had seen. I didn't really care. Shigure was the one who looked and talked and was amazed with them. I, on the other hand, was just happy enough to have been allowed to take a walk in the little courtyard garden, enjoying the sunshine. Watching the butterflies. Feeling the wind on my face.
My side of the link with Shigure was undergoing a change and I watched the renovations taking place with great expectations. It was being infused with colour, frills and lace. Rooms about Shigure had been opened and his details were being stored and sorted within them. My rooms weren't like the ones that Shigure had built about me. My rooms for him were more places that had been built specifically for him to go and relax. Places he would like and enjoy being in.
I was building a study room, a lounging room and a garden for him. There was also one room for when we decided to just hang out together with the Creator. It was all under wraps and he had been blocked from coming to my side of the link while the changes and building were taking place.
But he didn't know that yet. I wasn't about to tell him and wreck the surprise yet. I had made the Creator Father promise not to tell him anything for the moment either.
It made Shigure hop around with curious excitement, asking me constantly whether it was done yet. Seeing him behave in such a relaxed, childish manner showed how much he cared. It made me smile. Laugh even, which made him hop around with even more frustration.
Sometimes, I couldn't hold my joy in. I had to run to the bathroom to laugh or to jump into Shigure's arms to laugh and share my excitement. I had known it before the the truth hadn't made sense to me yet. Now I knew it, understood it and had received it. Now, I could make that truth a part of me.
I didn't have to be so careful and fearful anymore, tentatively acting and reacting to what other people said. Now I had firm ground to stand on. An anchor and foundation to secure me and to back me up.
I was loved. I could love and give my heart. I was free to do so. Free to be free with my emotions and to allow myself to change because of it. I didn't have to protect myself so hard anymore. I could love and express my love not just in word, but in myself.
I hadn't understood before, but now I did. I couldn't help but be clingy with Shigure. I wanted to hold his hand, have him hug and kiss me and do the same in return. It wasn't the same as before where I was acting more out of a superficial bodily lust type feeling. Now, I could give him the same depth of love he had been harbouring for me in the same measure, if not more.
The medical staff were confused. The scrawny rooster, ahem, I meant, Shimizu Ietsugu, had been and was even more confused. He thought I had gone mad. He had asked in detail about what had happened that day Fuki had been kidnapped and what I had done. When he heard there was a god involved and how my sudden, rapid healing was related to that god, he had balked.
"There are no such things as gods and demons," he had frowned.
"Your people have shrines everywhere worshipping various spirits and you say there are no gods or demons?" I snorted.
"Some of the others believe in that stuff, but I never did," Shimizu Ietsugu had scoffed, but his scoff was subdued.
After all, I was the evidence of a miracle that had happened. Someone who the doctors said whose brain had been burnt by what had looked like an invisible laser through some of the most important parts of the brain from end to end and who they had expected to become brain dead after a struggle on the edge of life and death, shouldn't have been able to make the kind of come back I had.
The surgeons and medical staff who had been in the theatre with me when it had happened were still traumatised by the event. Some of them had heard I was better and had come to see me, trying to find out what had happened. Even after explaining to them in what I felt was a clear manner, Shigure still needed to interpret and reword what I had said into a way that they could comprehend. And then, they had usually left with disbelief. Some, I heard had started paying visits to all the shrines They came across, praying devoutly.
Only a very rare few asked for more details and then to be introduced to the Creator Father. Even fewer took the last step to believe and then step into the Creator Father's ultimate blood covenant. That is, of all the tens of people who knew what had happened, only two person joined the club of glowing people. It was sad.
But now that Miki-san had joined the family, I could speak with her more openly and we could still talk even when we weren't physically together. As long as she was within my area of reach, we could talk mentally, as if we were on a mobile phone. It turned out that she hadn't realised, but she had already been gifted with an ability. Hers was super hearing. I had suspected before but being able to confirm it had been great. With her super hearing, she was also more mentally sensitive, which made her easily able to access and open her mental senses with a bit of guidance.
That had blown Shimizu Ietsugu's mind and he had promptly recruited her into his team. Although, not without a fight from her police unit. In the end, I believe Miki-san was working under Shimizu Ietsugu on loan from the police.
Fuki was the other person who joined the Creator Father's family. Ever since the kidnapping, she had been unstable. Her visits to me in the hospital and chats with Shigure had helped keep her calm, but it wasn't enough. It was only when she entered the Creator Father's blood covenant and was able to converse with Him on her own that she was able to settle down.
Her care workers brought her to Shigure and I on a weekly basis, so that we could teach and guide her in managing her abilities and emotions better. They had made her wear a special suit and had been keeping her in a secure facility so that she wouldn't accidentally hurt anybody, but now she was gradually being able to transition back to normal clothes and a more normal environment.
Once my initial clinginess with Shigure had worn off, that lanky, scrawny rooster pulled us apart again. Shigure was sent on missions again, but this time with Miki-san in tow, so that she could be trained. I, on the other hand, after a longer spiel of observation and tests in the hospital, was sent to the secure facility where other special ability users lived. Ostensibly to teach and train others. But in reality we discovered that I wasn't a very good teacher. Very few people could understand my attempts to explain things. No matter how I tried. It was like I was speaking a totally different language.
I might have been talking the same language and they might have understood my words, but they hadn't understood what I was getting at. Just like how Director Worth and Mr Holt had struggled to understand my explanation of where the Nihon wagashi store was back in the day. It had brought back memories for me and tears to more than one eye of those I was trying to explain things to
My best ability might be to enhance understanding, translate and interpret languages of things other people said. It just didn't work when the words came from me myself and I wasn't interpreting or translating for someone else.
In the end, I became one of the students because they didn't know what else to do with me. There were special teachers because of the special students. And since my brain seemed wired differently from most people, I also benefited from learning from the special teachers.