Death No Obstacle
by cultnirvana

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Chapter 5 - Revelations
 
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Ash had barely said a thing to Misty since the night before when he woke her from the nightmare.  Come to think of it he hadn't really said much to anybody, even Pikachu.  He just seemed to be in a bit of a daze.  But then again so was she.  Her mind was still replaying the happenings of that dream.  She could feel the tension between them, but she was too afraid to ask Ash what was wrong.
 
They walked past the Viridian City limits and onto the street they knew lead to the Pokémon Centre.  After a few short blocks, they arrived at their destination.  The group walked towards the reception desk, dodging several trainers that stood in their way.  The centre was rarely this busy.

"Hi.  Could we have a double room please, Nurse Joy?" Ash asked.
 
Joy looked towards Ash, instantly recognising him.  "I'm sorry, Master Ash, but there is a major competition tomorrow, so all of the rooms are occupied for the night. However, I can look after your Pokémon until tomorrow if you wish."
 
"Thanks."  They both collected their Pokeballs, Ash remembering to keep Snorlax incase of an emergency.  He then picked up Pikachu, sitting him down upon the desk.
 
Pikachu looked up at Ash, confused at why he was going to leave him behind.  "Chu Chu?"
 
"It would be better for you to stay here tonight, Pikachu, where you can be warm and comfortable.  Don't worry, me and Misty will be okay."
 
"Pika," he agreed, happily jumping into Joy's arms.
 
"See you tomorrow, Pikachu."  Misty rubbed in between the rodent's ears as her way of saying goodbye.

"Bye," Ash called back as he walked to exit the centre.
 
"Pika pika!" he squeaked, waving.
 
Ash and Misty searched for a safe place to stay for the night, still saying little, finally deciding upon an area slightly within the forest to the north of the city.  "I can't believe all of the hotels are full up.  Just our luck we arrive here when there's a competition.  I thought maybe the Pokémon Master would have some kinda sway."
 
"Yeah, but I don't wanna kick people outta there rooms.  Don't worry.  We should make it to Pallet by tomorrow night if we get an early start."
 
Silence spread over the two again for a short while as they arranged their sleeping bags.  After a few moments, Misty said, "I have a few things to pick up in the city before we move on.  I shouldn't be that long."

"Okay,” he answered, giving her a weak smile.

Misty was still unnerved after the dream. She couldn't believe that something that had started out so hopeful had ended in such tragedy, and that it had affected her so much? It was only a dream. Why had she become so attached to it?
 
But it had always felt like something different to a fantasy. Everything had felt so real, like she was actually Kasumi. She had even experienced physical pain and pleasure. In any other dream she had had in all her eighteen years that had never happened. It couldn't have just been a story created by her mind. It may have sounded stupid, but she was beginning to believe, now that it was over, that it was somehow more.
 
On a whim, she headed to the city's library. She didn't know why, but it seemed her mind was suddenly seized by the desire to find out, once and for all, what had been happening over the past while in her subconscious world, and this was where her instincts had lead.  She instantly headed to the history section, and after scanning the titles of several books, she took one from the shelf that she somehow new would have the answer - 'The History of Kanto, 1000-1400'.

She sat down at one of the desks, and flicked through the aged pages to the the correct period, the 1240's.  And there she saw the name of someone she knew, Emperor Yawa, Kasumi's father in her dreams.  But that didn't prove anything, just because one of the characters in her imaginings had the name of an ancient emperor.  She had heard the surname countless times before.
 
She centred her attention upon the paragraph that contained the name and read down.
 
      'Emperor Yawa was succeeded in 1256 by the husband of his second daughter, Empress Hoshi-'
 
Misty instantly stopped reading.  "Hoshi," she whispered.  That was a second coincidence.
 
      '-after the suicide nearly ten years previously of his oldest child, Kasumi."
 
Misty could feel herself begin to shake.  That couldn't be a coincidence.  But that didn't mean anything.  She looked down at the page again and noticed that after the name 'Kasumi', there was a reference to another page within the book.  She flipped to the specified page and began to read again.

      'One of the best known medieval romances from Kanto is the story of two star-crossed lovers, Kasumi and Satoshi, the oldest children of two rival regions, Kanto and Johto.  It is unknown how the young lovers met, but just a week before Kasumi's planned marriage, the two eloped, and attempted to travel out of the Kanto region.  However, after a few a months, they were tracked down and captured.  Satoshi was executed, and Kasumi was forced to miscarriage the baby she was carrying.  After losing the man she loved and their child, Kasumi committed suicide, unwilling to live without them.’
 
She must've heard this story before, read it somewhere and adopted it into her fantasy.  Maybe she saw a parallel between their forbidden love affair and her unrequited love for Ash - two relationships that could never be fully realised.

She looked on down and noticed that the entry went onto the next page.  She turned...and what confronted her shocked her to the very core.  Misty dropped the book onto the table, the sound reverberating around the library.
 
She studied the two paintings on the page, one of Kasumi, the other of Satoshi.  But...they looked exactly like her and Ash.  Her whole body was quivering.  How...how can they look like us.  It's...it's just not possible.  She forced herself to look at the book again, and to read the next passage of the entry.
 
'For years after their tragic deaths, a number of people have claimed to be Kasumi and Satoshi's reincarnations, searching for each other.  However, if these claims are true, it seems the lovers have never found one another again, and the last claim of this nature was several hundred years ago.
 
'In recent years the popularity of this story has diminished.  Where it had once been one of the most famous love stories of the medieval period, it had now vanished into obscurity, along with the claims.'

They...they weren't dreams, she realised. They were...memories.  And me and Ash...we are reincarnations of Kasumi and Satoshi.
 
Suddenly everything came back to her.  Her life as Kasumi, her romance with Satoshi, and even of the other lifes she had lived between then and now.  It was as if discovering the truth was the physic to the amnesia.

Ash struck the match along the rough side of the box and set the burning stick upon the small collection of wood and moss, igniting the pile.  Rummaging in his bag, he pulled out the pots of instant ramen that were to be their dinner.  God, I wish Brock had come along with us, he thought, staring at the plastic containers.
 
Setting a little stand over the fire, Ash placed the pan of water upon it.  Misty would hopefully be back soon.

He lay back down upon his sleeping bag, trying to ignore the countless pieces of twig and stone that jutted into his back, and thought back to his previous day with Misty.  Why had she been so quiet, so depressed?  But then he had been exactly the same way.  That dream had totally freaked him out.  The images continually flashed before his eyes, and there was nothing he could do to banish them.  He swore he could still feel the pain in the left side of his stomach, though he knew it was just a phantom ache, a psychosomatic response caused by the reality of the dream.
 
As he softly rubbed the spot, he closed his eyes.  If the images from his dream wouldn't stop torturing his eyes, he might as well watch them, and grieve the death of his illusionary counterpart.
 
As he lay and watched, images that he was sure hadn't been part of his dreams filtered in.  What?  What's going on?  He concentrated upon the faces that appeared, but he was sure that he did not recognise the people they belonged to.  Then, as the flashes became more rapid, something else began to filter into his consciousness with them.  Stories, entire life stories, of childhood, adolescence, adulthood and old age, and they all belonged to people who looked identical to him.

And with them came the knowledge of what was happening.  The truth of what he'd been going through the past week or so.

They can't be memories, his mind told him, but he knew the truth, and no matter how confusing it was too him, he couldn't deny it.

Misty left the library and began to head out to the place they had decided to set up camp.  As she slowly approached she could detect the light from a small camp fire, and saw Ash staring into the red and yellow glowing flames, seemingly deep in thought.  She studied the serious look upon her friend's handsome face, the way his eyes were completely focused.  And then she realised why.  He must have discovered the truth as well.

She entered the camp, slowly treading towards Ash, hoping not to alarm him.  As she stopped, still several feet from him, he calmly lifted his head and looked into her face, a confused visage covering his features.
 
"Ash?" she softly moaned, unsure of what to say.
 
Ash stood, closing the space between the two of them.  "Misty?" he said in the same tone.
 
"S...Satoshi?" she asked, unsure.
 
"Kasumi?!"
 
They stared at each other for a moment, unsure of what to do. Ash moved closer to her, taking her hands into his. They could feel one another tremble, afraid of the truth, but could also feel an intensity of emotion.  Ash couldn't just stand there, staring into her beautiful eyes.  His feelings for her overwhelmed him and he lost control of himself.  He rushed forward, clutching her face in his hands, and placed his lips upon hers with a tender, but passionate, force.  She kissed him back, bringing her hands up to thread themselves in his raven black hair.

 
The feeling of their lips together was familiar, and yet entirely foreign.  Every second longer they remained that way, the more memories of the kisses and embraces they had shared in that previous life came flooding back to them.  And with every touch of lips and tongue, the more they desired each other, the more they needed each other.
 
"Ash," Misty whispered between kisses, her breath rampant.  "I want it to be the way it used to be."

Ash understood her meaning instantly.  He pulled away from her mouth and looked deep into her eyes.  He could see a painful yearning there, caused by a millennia of separation.  It was a yearning he could feel within himself as well. Misty grabbed the back of his head, bringing the two into another intense kiss.  Ash could taste her love and lust for him, which just enticed him further.
 
And there, for the second and first time, they made love under the full moon, free to be held within each others arms, finally free to love.

He looked down at her, lying with her back against his bare chest, and pushed a bang of red hair from her perfect face.  The simple touch gently stirred her from her slumber. She opened her aqua orbs and turned her head slightly so she could see his face.  "Hey."

"Hey.  Sorry."  She blinked the sleep from her eyes, yawning.  "I must have dozed off."
 
"Don't worry.  I love watching you sleep."  He looked at the scene around them.  They were laying in the middle of a small closing, a sleeping bag below them, and one ontop, blossoming trees surrounding the lovers.  "This reminds me of those days we spent in that forest.  Cuddled up close under a blanket of stars, the soft ground underneath us..."
 
"...The rushing water nearby," she uttered, continuing his train of thought.  "The luscious land bathed in moonlight, the sweet wind bringing the scent of cherry blossoms with it."  She sighed, contented.  "It is so romantic."
 
"Misty, ever the Romantic," Ash laughed.  "You've always been that way.  Maybe you should give poetry a go.  Give Keats a run for his money," he teased.
 
She gave him a confused look.  "Since when did you know anything about poetry?"
 
He giggled again.  God, how she loved his laugh.  It was the laugh of a ten-year-old, of someone who had not yet experienced the pain the world had to offer.  It always made her smile and forget her troubles.  "Well, I guess it was when I realised that I was falling for you.  I knew you loved all that stuff, you know Keats, Shakespeare and Wordsworth, so I read some of their poems.  I hoped to impress you with it someday," he looked away from her and down towards the ground, "but I never really got what they were talking about.  I'm not the most intelligent guy in the world."

She placed a few fingers under his chin and raised his head.  "Of course you're intelligent, just because you don't have what they call 'book smarts'.  You're a strategist and a tactician, and, believe me, that takes brains."

"Thanks," he replied, blushing a little.  Ash shifted to lie upon his back, and Misty made a pillow of his chest.  He stared up at the moon, contemplating recent events, wrapping a strand of her hair around his finger.  "So, who are we? Satoshi and Kasumi, Ash and Misty, or one of the countless people in between?  I mean, don't they say a person is just a sum of their memories?  Well, we have several life times of memories.  Who does that make us?"
 
She thought for a moment, unsure how to answer.  "I guess...I guess we're a bit of everyone, but mainly Ash and Misty.  That's who we were born as in this time.  But that isn't really important.  What is is that we're free and have each other.  We finally have everything we had back then, and more."
 
He paused for a moment, thinking about what she had said.  Yes, everything was back to normal.  Almost.  There was still something missing.  He brought his hand down to her abdomen.  "Well, almost everything we had."

A momentary wave of melancholy passed over her, making him wish he had avoided that subject, but she then smiled, placing her hand over his.  "We'll have that again."  She then laughed, "but not for another five or ten years or so."
 
"Don't worry.  I'm not planning on that yet, either."
 
After another brief silence, Misty said, "You kept your promise."
 
"What promise?"
 
"In the court, before they took you from me, you said that we'd be together again, and now we are.  It may have taken nearly a thousand years for us to find one another, but we are finally together once more."
 
He embraced her lips again with his, moving his body over hers, hoping to initiate something more than kissing.  Misty giggled through the kiss.  "What?" he asked, a little annoyed at what seemed to be mocking.
 
"Calm down, my love.  Don't we have to get up early tomorrow so we can make it to your mother's house before it gets late?"
 
"Mmm, yeah, but I'm willing to be a little late if you are."  He moved his lips down to her neck, nipping at a newly discovered spot that drove her crazy.
 
"You're incorrigible," she muttered, accepting her 'defeat'.
 
Through kisses, he said, "It's just it's been so long since I've been able to feel your soft skin, to be so close to you."
 
She giggled.  "I love you, Ash."
 
He stopped his administrations, causing her to protest slightly, and looked up into her face.  Kasumi had said those words so often to him, but he had never heard Misty utter them.  His heart rose even higher, and he suddenly felt light headed.  Placing a kiss upon her lips once again, he looked deeply into her aqua eyes, and softly said, with all the emotion he could, "I love you, my goddess."