Heat-Haze Days

August 15th, 12:30 pm.

Nobori rose a hand to try and shield his eyes from the harsh glare of the sun, the warm rays usual intensity made even worse by the fact that this day in particular seemed to particularity sunny. Not a single cloud in the sky for the sunshine to hide behind. Not an unusual occurrence for a Unovan summer, but still bothersome in its own way, especially if you worked in an underground facility that was significantly less well lit than the outside world.  He gave a light sigh and lowered his hands, shoving them in the pockets of his trousers. His uniform coat had been abandoned for the time being (the dark color, high collar and thickness of the material itself did nothing to ward off the heat), in favor of the most more temperature appropriate dress shirt and tie. This was one of the rare days he actually got all his paper work early and wouldn't have to worry about manning any of the trains for another hour. It was a time he could loosen his tie, so to speak.  If he was going to complain about anything, it would be how crowded the city got around this time, the streets mostly filled with people who were either on lunch break, or children who were rushing over to the ice cream stands that had been set up. And of course on such a beautiful day the amusement park was a must-visit location, not that Nobori would partake in such merriment. Not without the persuasion (read: begging) of his brother and a certain brown haired trainer.

"Oh! Hey, Nobori!" Speak of the devil. Nobori stopped and glanced over his shoulder, sure enough the girl he had been thinking about running over to him. His eyes instantly fell to the Purrloin White had held to her chest, the mischievous feline looking only slightly annoyed by the hurried pace its holder had taken. "You're out early. What's the occasion?"

"No special occasion other than finishing my share of the paperwork early. If I may ask, Miss. White, shouldn't you be preparing for your gym battle with Miss. Elesa?" Nobori glanced down to the Purrloin, who looked back at him with sickeningly sweet emerald green eyes. "Surely you don't plan on bringing that into the battle with you."

"Him? Nah. He just started following me randomly, so I'm taking him to the Pokemon Center to see if anyone's looking for him." White adjusted the Pokemon's weight in her arms slightly. "And I'm preparing! I'm just taking a day off is all. Nothing wrong with that." She defended with a light huff.

"I see." Nobori mused lightly, choosing not to point out that White had taken three days off in a row.  Anyone else would have probably been to Mistralton City by now.

"Anyway, why don't we walk together for a while? Not like we've got nothing better to do." White shrugged casually. To be honest, Nobori was planning on having a nice lunch at that little bistro, but he concluded that the Pokemon Center wasn't too far out of the way. He might even invite White, provided that she didn't order something so expensive that it ended up burning a hole in Nobori's wallet. Whatever the case Nobori allowed the girl to accompany him, almost instantly striking up a one-sided conversation about Trainers she had battled during her journey.  "And there was also this one kid, Cheren. He was strong enough, but he seriously had a stick up his ass or something." The two of them had just come to a cross-walk, and Nobori was just about to scold the girl for saying something so disrespectful about her fellow Trainer before the Purrloin leapt out of White's arms and began scampering across the street. "Hey, wait!" White called, only taking a few seconds out of her time to check to see if the walk-light was green.

The traffic light turned green, and White was just about half way across the street. If she had been faster, she would have avoided the truck that was hurdling towards her.  

"White!" Nobori shouted, temporarily forgetting any and all formalities as he took a step out into the street, arm outstretched as if he could suddenly reach her. The girl just barely opened her mouth to scream before the truck hit her. There was a loud, sickening sound of something slamming into metal, drowned out by the screeching of tires against the pavement. Nobori watched in horror White was launched back into the air before the back of her head stuck the pavement with a disgustingly audible smacking sound before her body was sent rolling, eventually skidding to a complete stop at least a yard and a half away. Wordlessly Nobori dashed towards the girl's body, skidding to his knees as he cradled the girl's body in his hands. He felt something warm and sticking soak the palm of his right hand, and pulled it away. It was completely soaked in dark red blood.

It was then that he noticed the crowd that had assembled, several men woman, and even children clinging to their parent's legs, had surrounded the pair.

"Don't just stand there!" Nobori bellowed to the surrounding crowd, trying his very hardest not the let his composure slip away. Not an easy feat, considering the fact that there was a dying (dead) girl in his arms and no one was doing anything to help! "Get help! Do something!" Nobori's voice dropped to a harsh whisper, the edges of his vision blurring as he looked down at the motionless, pale girl in his arms. "Do anything..." In the back of his mind he noticed how labored his breathing had become, how his shoulders rose and fell with each mouthful of air.

"It's hopeless, you know." Nobori looked up, and his eyes widened at what he saw, standing next to him was an exact replica of himself. The difference being that the copy had an overall red tint to him, and his being seemed to flicker in and out of existence slightly. He looked down at the Subway Master with soul piercing gred eyes. "The only way you can save her is if you turn back time." The Copy tilted his head to the side, a sinister smirk coming to his face. "Are you interested?"

"Of course I am... but going back in time." Nobori shook his head. "That isn't possible." The copy chucked, folding one hand behind his back as he tipped his cap to Nobori resepcfully.

"See you later." Nobori blinked up as his copy and was about to question him before the sound of crickets sounded in his ears. Quiet at first before the volume intensified, sounding like there were hundreds of thousands of crickets chirping inside his skull. Nobori grasped at his head, ignoring the blood he was smearing in his hair and the fact that he had just let White's head drop to the ground. He grit his teeth and shut his eyes in an attempt to block out the noise before he felt himself falling. Falling into nothing as he felt unconscience tug at the corners of his mind before everything became black, the crickets maddening hum dulling into silence.                                                                                    

Nobori shot up into a sitting position, gasping for breath as his hands unconsciously gripped the material of the blanket in his hands. ...Wait... blanket?  He looked down at the material in his hands, the black, course material familiar under his bare hands. He ran a hand through his bangs and closed his eyes to try and calm himself down. Had everything he seen... just been a dream? Nobori looked over to the bedside table and scooped up the digital clock that that upon it, straining his eyes to read the time and date that the pale white numbers on the face read.

8-15,
12: 17 AM

The sound of Kudari snoring on the bed across from his brought Nobori out of his trance, he looked over to the tangled mass of sheets and limbs that was his younger brother and smiled faintly. It really had just been a dream. Some horrible scenario that his mind dreamed up for one reason or another. Stress most likely. Nobori settled back into bed and pulled the covers back over himself, feeling blissfully at ease at this new revelation.  Most importantly White hadn't been killed, the comforting thought tempted Nobori back into a (thankfully) nightmare free sleep.
--------------------------

It was 12:30 PM, when Nobori found himself venturing out of the subway, raising a hand to block the glare of the sun. He froze when he remembered himself doing the exact same thing in his dream, but quickly shook it off as coincidence. The day was rather bright, and he would much rather not have his eyesight ruined by the glaring rays of the sun.

He was walking down the street when White's voice called out to him, and he felt his shoulder's tense up when he heard her choice of words. The exact same as his dream.

"Oh! Hey, Nobori!" She trotted up next to him, the same smile on her face and the same Purrloin in her arms. "You're out early. What's the..." She trailed off, obviously noticing Nobori's shocked facial expression and tensed body language. "Ummm... is there something wrong?" The fair haired man was snapped out of his stupor by the question, and he mentally smacked himself for behaving in such a way. This was all just a coincidence- there was no way what happened in his dream was coming to life. There was no possible way that the nightmare he had seen was manifesting into the waking world. This could be explained away by it being uncommon for Nobori to be out early and White being her usual curious self. Simple.

"No. Nothing." Nobori chocked out before starting to walk away White hot on his heels, predictably enough.

"Come on, I've known you long enough to know when something's bugging you. Spill it." White persisted. She was still as stubborn as always, and she probably wouldn't going to let the topic drop until she got an answer. As to be expected from the real, living, breathing White.

"If you must know," Nobori began with a light sigh, folding his hands behind his back as they walked down the too crowded street. "I had a dream like this last night. The exact same scenario up until you ran into me happened in the dream." He rubbed the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes in thought. "It is most likely a coincidence, but it is still foreboding in a sense."

"Maybe you're psychic!" White laughed, adjusting the Purrloin's weight in her arms as they stopped at a cross-walk. The same cross-walk. "How'd the dream end?"

"I'd rather not say." Nobori mumbled. At that moment the Purrloin once again wiggled out of White's arms, and the girl called out and moved to chase after it. The gruesome image of a broken and bloodied White passed by Nobori's vision and he reached a hand out, securing it tightly around the girl's wrist and pulling her back. "Leave him. He'll find his Trainer on his own, if he has one."

"How did you..?" White looked up at the Subway Master, her expression questioning before her attention was turned to the sound of tired screaming against the pavement. Right on schedule, a truck roared past them before screeching around a corner and driving out of sight. "Arceus on a bike..." White mumbled, eyes wide and face at least two shades paler than normal. "That could have hit me if I ran out into the street! I could have died!"

"Yes you could have." Nobori said to himself, partially hoping that White didn't hear him before clearing his throat.  "I was just going out to lunch. Since we're together, would you like to join me?"

"Yeah, sure. But you're paying." White responded, still shaken by her near-death experience. Nobori said nothing as he led White away from that particular cross-walk, to a safer, albeit longer, route to the bistro.

What he had forgotten was that particular part of the city was having a new apartment complex being built, a crane hook carying several thousand pounds of steel girders and pipes hovering menacingly above the street hundreds of feet below. Nothing out of the ordinary, Nimbasa City was constantly going under changes and expansions in order to house any and all residents comfortably. It was standard procedure that happened at least one every year.

What wasn't standard procedure was the steel cable holding a bundle of pipes to suddenly snap. Nobori heard someone scream shrilly, and looked up to see several steel pipes hurdling down directly at him, the broken part of the steel cable whipping around helplessly.  Everything seemed to move in slow motion as he stared dumbly at the hundreds of pounds ready to crash down upon him. It was only when Nobori felt someone's weight throwing itself at his back, forcing him forward several steps and out of harm's way, did time return to its normal state. The loud, thunderous sound of steel hitting the pavement filled his ears, but most frightening off all was the slick, wet sucking sound that accompanied the horrid chorus.  A woman screamed at the top of her lungs, and Nobori turned around to a sight that made him sick to his stomach.

A pipe, by some sick chance of fate, had fallen at just the right angle to run straight through White's stomach, the girl being hunched over slightly. Blood bubbled out of her mouth and splashed onto the ground as dull, dead blue eyes seemed to look at Nobori before rolling back into White's head as her body fell onto its side. All around him, people were panicking and rushing to get away from the scene before anything else fell from the sky and killed them while others stumbled for their phones to call an ambulance. Out of habit of course, no amount of medical treatment could held a girl who had a lead pipe shoved through her stomach. And in the midst of it all, all Nobori could do was stare at the body. Too shocked to cry and to stricken with grief to scream or move an inch.

"Awww, did you actually think this was a dream?" Nobori turned his head and saw his copy standing there again, looking at the scene with a sick sense of fascination. It was as if he was trying to determine which organs had been shredded and how quickly White had died. "You're not dreaming, I'm afraid." The copy looked at Nobori from the corner of his eye, a large and sadistic smirk spreading across his face. "Looks like you get to try again!" The copy exclaimed happily, and sure enough Nobori heard the same roar of thousands of crickets fill his ears before he fell to darkness.

When Nobori woke up in his bed again, on that same morning just a little past midnight, he found himself unable to go back to sleep. Instead he stared, blankly at the ceiling above him until the sun rose over the mountains and his alarm clock screamed for him to wake up.
----------------------------------

How many times had he been going through this now? Thirty? Forty? Maybe even more? Nobori honestly didn't know anymore, he had given up trying to counts the "days" a long time ago. Any other man would have given up by this point, unfortunately Nobori could never leave anything unfinished with a sound mind. More to the point this was different, this wasn't some paperwork he needed to read, look-over sign, look over again and then send in before the day was over. This was a human life. One single human life.

In the grand scheme of things, one Trainer not even out of her teens wouldn't affect the world as a whole. Her death would be broadcast for about thirty seconds before the news anchor moved onto the dialy whether or which sports team had one the last game. At the end of the day, whether or not White died didn't mean anything, it was just one less competitor for the Champion's throne. Nobori knew that, and one would think he would have accepted it by now. If had been anyone else, he would have let it go and accepted it as a fact of life- people died everyday- and yet he couldn't. Not when it was her life that he had been given the opportunity to try and save.

"You know," Nobori's copy spoke, piercing the silence. Nobori's hands clenched into fists as the copy continued. "I allowed you to try again so many times because I thought I'd be fun. But now this is just getting sad." The Copy said casually as he plucked a string off his glove, a bored expression on his face. "Haven't you noticed that every time you try and save her, her death gets worse? Need I remind you of when she was actually hit by a train?" The Copy asked, Nobori gritting his teeth and clentghing his fists tight enough to draw blood before responding.

"What would be the point of that?" Nobori asked through clenched teeth.

"The point of that would to show that maybe you should give up already. This isn't fun for me anymore, and you're driving yourself insane. And for what?" The Copy laced his fingers together and held them up to his cheek, tilting his head to the side slightly. "To save the girl you love?" He asked, his voice high pitched in mockery. "Look, I'll give you one last chance." He said, his tone returning to normal as he pointed sharply at Nobori.  "I'm sure you'll think of something, I mean come on! You're supposed to be intelligent." With that The Copy, thankfully, left Nobori alone. Even though knowing him, it wouldn't be for very long. Unless of course Nobori would think of a way to prevent White from dying. He had thought of a way, but hadn't gone through with it yet, mostly out of fear. What would White think if he went along with his plan? Arcues, how would Kudari react?  It seemed like no matter what he did, Kudari would suffer in some way. Losing a brother and losing the girl who was practically his little sister would devastate him, regardless of who died.

Was Nobori being selfish? Of course, he was being incredibly selfish. But Kudari.... he'd understand right? He would probably stay mad at Nobori for days on end, but he would understand wouldn't he? Nobori closed his eyes and set his jaw.

One death wouldn't mean anything in the long run.
----------------------------

Nobori hadn't gotten any sleep the previous night, had had spent the entire evening trying contemplating whether or not to leave Kudari a note of some kind. In fact there were about a dozen crumpled up notes in the waste basket of his work room. Eventually he just gave up, he couldn't find a way to put his predicament into words because it was just so outlandish. Of course there was also the fact that he was basically writing a suicide note to his younger brother, it might as well have been his last will and testament for all it was worth.  At the end of the night, he decided that, unfortunately, Kudari would have to  learn of Nobori's demise the hard way. Usually, in this situation. the person who was about to commit righteous suicide would go out of their way to be as kind and generous as possible. If Nobori tried that stunt Kudari would know something was wrong. He would know his older brother was planning something drastic. Such came with being a twin.

That in mind their day went the way it always had (the exact same way it had gone the past thirty or forty times this day had been reset), and while Kudari probably did pick up on the fact Nobori was a little off, he excused it as the older of the two staying up all night and left it at that. Nobori felt his chest ache at the idea of leaving his beloved little brother behind and go... wherever it was people went after they died. He wondered if he would see his mother again, although she probably wouldn't be very happy about her oldest son throwing his life away prematurely.  Perhaps she would understand that he would be doing it for someone he cared for- his mother was that kind of woman. 

Oddly enough when the clock struck half-past twelve in the afternoon Nobori didn't feel frightened. Although that could have just been his mind blocking away the fear, or maybe he had simply accepted it. As he ascended the staircase leading up into the city, he saw his copy waiting for him, eyes glowing with curiosity while he wore that disgustingly smug smirk.  He didn't pay the Copy any mind, even when he felt him shadowing his movements as he stepped blinking out into the overly bright sunshine.

He knew how the remainder of the morning would go, he had memorized White's speech about why she had a Purrloin with her, right down to the infliction of the words. He knew her excuses about why she hadn't faced Elesa yet by heart, and by this point had her pouting face engraved into his memory.  More than that, he knew exactly when that damn cat would jump out of White's arms and dash blindly into the street. As the pair stood at that dreaded cross-walk, Nobori's Copy smiling widely at the original, the Subway Master counted down the seconds in his head.

Three...

Two...

One...

"Hey wait!" He heard White call, he grabbed her wrist and pulled her back before rushing out into the street himself. The fleeing Purrloin was swaggering across the street casually, like it didn't have a single care in the whole wide world. Nobori saw the feline Pokemon looked back to him, green eyes glinting before the sound of screeching tires filled his ears.  The next thing he knew was pain. Blinding, deafening pain that caused a high pitched ringing in his ears. For a few horrible seconds he felt the left side of his ribcage shatter, heard the sounds of the bones splintering in his ears before all his senses went numb and his mind was wiped completely blank.  No... his senses weren't completely dulled. He did hear someone, a girl's voice, distant and far away, scream out his name.
--------------------------------

Her throat was raw. Her legs felt like they were made out of jelly, and it felt like all her eyes wanted to to was cry. White heart and felt her voice crack from the strain, and after just standing there for a few seconds, the smell of fresh blood on hot pavement assaulting her nose, she ran towards Nobori's broken, lifeless body.  Left behind to stare wide eyed at the scene Nobori's copy let himself smile faintly once he finally regained himself.

"Well played." The Copy murmered as he faded away into the warm summer afternoon air. However something else took his place, a flickering blue being that looked exactly like the sobbing, shivering girl who was sitting in the middle of the road. The new copy smirked and casually strode over to the pathetic, whimpering little girl.