GARO Fanfic – Garo’s Secret (Chap. 3)

When Jabi came back into her patient’s room, he was already awake, and Kaoru was beside him, grinning. The couple turned their head to the door.

“Now, I can go” Kaoru said “you‘re between good hands”. She tilted on him for a farewell kiss. “See you”.

She also greeted Jabi, and left. The priestess looked at her as leaving, while that bit of envy tormenting her these days appeared again. Enough, she scolded herself, it isn’t your destiny, And turned to the lying Kouga.

“Did you intend to kick the bucket without even saying goodbye? Who is ill-breed, now?”

Jabi showed him a warm smile, warmer than expected. She could not hide her joy to see him recovered, which was beyond the satisfaction of knowing she was a good healer.

“So, you made me to return to scold me? You always were an impertinent one.”

Kouga was not a good actor, so he could not appear some discomfort. If Kaoru had seen him now, trying to do a bit of humor, she would have believed to have a reason to feel a little jealous.

He rewarded her with a half smile as he used lately, and she broadened hers in genuine joy. Soon, however, she turned serious.

“Zaruba said me what happened. How did you allow to be cornered? You'd have felt that more horrors were coming, and you, Zaruba, shou...”

“There weren’t anymore” the young man cut into. “But there was an unusual concentration of objects with a dark side: because of that we were there. Four horrors appeared almost simultaneously, and later four else”.

“A trap”.

Jabi was visibly worried, but Kouga turned his head to the opposite direction, to the window; he did not need to be said what he already knew. She realised and changed the subject.

“How do you feel? It must hurt all over your body, I asume”.

“You asume right”. He still looked at the window brighting with the light of the day.

“And your mood?”

“A bit tired”.

While he said it, Jabi saw his face change as if, indeed, exhaustion had fallen upon him. She felt stunned, but she said nothing. He had to take strength from this exhaustion. Garo in his completness must be able to do it.

Suddenly she remembered this particular Garo had not could receive the guidance of his predecessor, he has spent much of his life away from the Makai settlements: sure, the fate is overwhelming him, and he can not do otherwise as taking it. He still looked at the window, discouraged, but whithin his eyes the ousider light was reflecting intensely. What a symbol! Such a thirst for light! What a hard fate the Garos have! Finally, Jabi intended to say what needed to be said.

“When it was?”

He did not react. She insisted.

“When your walk through the darkness was?”

The brighting eyes of Kouga opened up a bit. Then he swallowed, but he did not looked at her.

“Yes, I know. You can not hide it from a Makai priestess trained to recognize it”.

“They train you to find some deviations?” Excepting those ones used to say it, he did not move a single muscle.

“It's only taught to the few ones being depositories of Garo’s secret”.

Kouga’s head turned at last.

“May I know what are you talking about?”

“So, it's true, no one has said anything to you”.

“About?”

Why fate did go astray for Kouga so hardly? She went to sit at his bed, where Kaoru had been before, his eyes following her.

“Kouga, haven’t you wondered why Garo has been rewarded with the highest status among Makai Knights?”

“I've always assumed it was a matter of a hard work”.

“This's the general opinion,” Jabi admitted, “but I know how you all are trained; I know there’re no substantial differences. Only individual skills could make a difference, but this’s not only Garo’s heritage”.

She had his whole attention. Under a lesser serious circumstance, she would have challenged his look.

“Kouga, what happened to you was a part of Garo’s destiny”.

She understood his uneasiness, and approached her body to his a little, relying her elbows on her knees.

“When you passed the initiation which made you a Makai Knight you had to accept some commitments, which only would been some simple words if, as you repeated them inside of the armor, a Makai Priest didn’t tie your energy to the one of the armor. So, you made Garo’s destiny yours, among other things”.

Kouga remembered it well, but the implications it had now was bewildering, and overwhelming.

“You joke, right?”

Jabi denied with her head. He took away his look to focus on the window again.

“So absurd!”

She sighed, and put her back right. The revelation was being more difficult than expected.

“It wasn’t my work to tell it to you, but your father's. He had to prepare you for this, but it couldn’t be. In his default, the other only one who knew it, my master Amon, had to”.

The boy looked back at her, surprised that it could be true. The priestess saw his struggle between his trust upon her and the normal excepticism to news like this.

“ I don’t know really why he didn’t do it", she went on. “I remember that some few days after he met you, not much before he died, when I came back from a trip to practice, he told me Garo’s secret, as I was his successor. My face looked like yours, I’m sure. Plus, he confessed that he’d been able to tell it to you, but hadn’t. I didn’t understand why: you had every right to know it, as all preparations would put you ready barely, but my teacher firmly believed that if fate had denied it, it was because you hadn’t to get it. He thought perhaps you had resources enough to face it or, if you passed, probably you’d be the best Garo of the history. Or both”.

She paused and closed her eyes to remember it deeply.

“How many times I insisted! Even, I offered myself to come and tell you, but I was banned”.

“So, when you and me met ... “ Kouga added.

“Although he’s already dead, I was forced to obey , as you know”. She looked at him again. “But now you’ve passed the test and does not make sense to keep it. Moreover, in the not too distant future you’re going to train the next Garo, and then you’ll need all available information”.

The young man nailed his sight at the ceiling, silently.