Litany

     With all the awkwardness of a statue attempting to come to life, Blue’s eyes flew open as he gasped loudly. The ceiling above gazed down benignly. Colorful birds called outside. He closed his eyes slowly, chest heaving with rasping breaths. His stomach burned, telling him he’d been away from the Universal Plane for longer than he’d imagined. Blue was not surprised- time was slippery between Planes.

     “Are you alright?” Takaeyama’s voice cut through the haze in Blue’s head.

     “Fine,” he coughed out in reply. He opened his eyes again to see both Takaeyama and Yukiiae looking down at him, wearing expressions of concern. “I got it.”

     “Great!” Yukiiae smiled. “You just relax. I’ll get you some water.”

     “Thanks,” he said as she left his field of vision. To Takaeyama he asked, “How long was I away?”

     “Over a week. Harata’s going mad… but I knew you’d come back.”

     Blue said nothing in reply, but smiled slightly. After a few moments, he struggled into a sitting position, his mind clearing, body readjusting to being inhabited once more.

     “Are you really okay?”

     “Yeah… just tired.”

     “It’s just… you seem kinda… I dunno… disturbed.”

     “It was a little tough, getting the Litany. Pandemonium is… unpleasant.”

     Takaeyama said nothing, just looked skeptically at Blue. He couldn’t shake the impression that the Night’s Herald had pieces missing- as though he’d gone to sleep whole and woke up broken. The transformation was frightening, and the Corduran was relieved when Yukiiae returned with Harata and Chieko in tow. The GelbFaust immediately flung herself onto Blue, who returned her embrace awkwardly.

     “You’re okay! Yukiiae said you got the thingy. Was it scary? Did you get hurt? Did you meet that Caiaphas guy? Was he really bad? I mean, he must be bad if he’s in Pandemonium, but really, like, evil?” Chieko finally paused for breath.

     “I got the Litany,” Blue said, looking at Harata. “We can use it as soon as you want.” He turned his gaze to Chi and smiled. “And I wouldn’t recommend Pandemonium as a vacation spot.”

     She giggled.

     “I’m glad you’re back.”

     “Me, too.”

     “Okay, everybody out,” Yukiiae said firmly, ushering them toward the door. “Give the guy some peace. He’s exhausted.”

     “How can he be tired?” Chieko protested. “ He’s been asleep for a week and a half!”

     “Out.”

     Once Chieko and the others passed through the door, Yukiiae turned to Blue and smiled somewhat sadly.

     “I’ll come back in a couple of hours. Get some sleep… We’re all proud of you. You did it, Blue. Whatever happened, just remember that it wasn’t real.”

     She turned and left, closing the door gently behind her.

     “Blue got the Litany or whatever it’s called,” Ayame announced as she flopped to the ground beside Keisuke and handed him the bottle of water she’d retrieved from the hut.

     “Fantastic,” he replied without enthusiasm. “At least now we can get this whole thing over with and I can go back to living my life.”

     “Yeah, I guess.”

     “What’s the matter with you?”

     “Well… It’s just that I don’t really know what’s going to happen to me after this. Finishing this Task may well be the end of my life.”

     “You really think you’re going to get Taken when you go back?”

     “With all that I’ve done? How could I not be? I’m a walking corpse. Funny thing is, the night that Harata found me in Mianuus, he saved my life. Now I realize that this was all nothing but borrowed time.”

     “Wow, you’re depressing today, aren’t you? It’s not that bleak, Aya. Who knows? You may return in glory, being a Champion and all. Cheer up!”

     “Harata keeps promising he won’t let them do anything to me, but I don’t see how he’s going to be able to do anything about it.”

     “Especially not after I kill him.”

     “You’re not going to let that go, are you?”

     “Nope. That Oath will be carried forever, even beyond my grave if it must.”

     “How tragic,” Ayame rolled her eyes. “My illicit Angemal lover sworn to slay my long-lost sibling.”

     “Huh?” Keisuke looked at her suspiciously. “You mean about what Qa Haran was saying?”

     “No, I mean we’re really related, like in this life. He’s my older brother. It’s kind of a long story.”

     “Well, I won’t make you pick a side to cheer for then. Crazy! How long have you known that?”

     “Since the night of the party in Anrakshi. He was shooting off his mouth and when I confronted him about it, that’s when he told me.”

     “You’re so loyal not to rat him out. He doesn’t deserve it.”

     “I think it’s funny you two hate each other so much. You’re really very similar people on the inside.”

     “If you say so… but it disgusts me to be compared to that bastard.”

     Ayame only sighed, looking up into the tangled growth above. The air hung heavy and humid. It would rain again today, that much was certain. Nothing else seemed to be. She looked over at Keisuke when she felt his hand on her arm. Unanswered questions fluttered in her mind. Most would be resolved in their time. She looked into his ink-black eyes and wondered what would become of the both of them. Keisuke smiled his devil’s smile at her. Leaning close, he whispered,

     “I see talking isn’t going to make you feel any better. Let’s do something else.”

     Ayame accepted his proposal without hesitation.

     “Blue’s not here?” Takaeyama asked, looking around the little room.

     “He went for a walk,” Yukiiae explained and turned back to tidying up.

     “Oh, alright.” Takaeyama turned to leave.

     “Taka… maybe you should let him be for now. If he wants to be alone that’s his business.”

     “But-“

     “Look… Pandemonium’s a horrible place. Whatever was done to him there was probably pretty awful. Give him a chance to let it sink in.”

     “Yukiiae, I get what you’re saying, but he’s been funny for a while. It’s not right how we all dump our problems on him and then just assume he doesn’t want to talk about his own.”

     “I don’t think-“

     “Well, maybe you’re wrong,” Takaeyama said with uncharacteristic abruptness and walked off. He didn’t hear Yukiiae sigh softly behind him.

     It took a while to find Blue. The rain Ayame had predicted earlier had begun to fall softly. The light in the jungle was a hazy grey-green. The sounds of calling animals and gentle raindrops filled the air. Blue was standing, leaning against a giant, mossy tree and looking away from where Takaeyama was approaching. The Corduran came within feet, then inches, and realized that he didn’t know at all what it was he wanted to say. Blue turned and looked at him in his usual calm and friendly way, saying,

     “What’s up?”

     “Nothing,” Takaeyama said nervously. “I just came here to be with you.”

     Blue nodded and his gaze drifted back to the hazy green in the distance.

     “Did something bad happen to you?”

     The Night’s Herald said nothing.

     “You can tell me. You always listen when I feel lousy. I want to do the same for you.”

     “I’ll be fine, really. I just… learned some truths that were kind of hard to accept.”

     “Like what?”

     “Well, for one thing, the soul I have- me, myself, I guess- was the soul of Caiaphas’s great-grandson. We’re related in some way, I suppose, since my soul never did get to complete its natural cycle… at least, he sees it that way.”

     “Just because you’re related to a bad person doesn’t make you bad, too.”

     “What makes you think he’s a bad person?”

     “He’s in Pandemonium, isn’t he?”

     “A lot of the things he said to me made sense, from a certain point of view. It’ll take me a long time to figure out whether I agree or not.” Blue sighed, an unusual occurrence. “I guess I heard a lot of things I didn’t want to hear.”

     “I know how that feels,” Takaeyama said, empathizing.

     Blue grew quiet again, until the dull ache within overpowered him, informing him that speak or remain in pained silence, it would never fade. He had never felt his peace shattered so, a feeling that a storm brewed within his heart that would rage until all that remained of him was a hollow, broken shell. Accept it. He demanded of himself. Just accept and allow this to become part of you as well. Stop caring. Without warning, he spoke, his eyes still on the tangle of trees and vines ahead.

     “Taka… when you saw me on the beach, what did you think?”

     Startled, then embarrassed, Takaeyama felt the urge to lie, to protest that he hadn’t been there, hadn’t seen a thing. Somehow he knew that his falsehood would never been accepted, that to tell the truth, as hard as it was, was the only option. He drew a shaking breath.

     “It was the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen, or one of them. The starry sky and shining water- all things brought together in perfect completeness, and you. You standing there as part of, I dunno, the wholeness of it all. I felt like my heart would break right then, not from the sorrow I’d come there with, but with the sight of something whose perfection made me remember what it felt like to be alive. I thought of all these wonderful moments in life, and for a few minutes I forgot who I was, just thinking about the beautiful scene before my eyes. I’ll never forget it,” he admitted.

     “Why didn’t you tell me?” There was no accusation in Blue’s voice, only curiosity.

     “I thought you’d be angry. I was afraid that, because I’m… you know, how I am- you’d think I was a pervert or something. I didn’t mean to see it. I just did.”

     Blue finally turned to look at Takaeyama. When he did, the Corduran was taken aback by the expression on his face, one that would’ve seemed far more fitting on his own. It was Blue’s eyes that had altered most, that barrier which had been so long in place cracked like glass, revealing a soul drowning in agony and defeat.

     “Blue,” Takaeyama whispered gently, reaching out instinctively to touch the Night’s Herald’s face. His cheek felt wet, possibly from the drops of rain that had made their journey through the dense foliage above. “I never meant to hurt you. I didn’t tell you because I thought it would. I’m sorry. It’s just I… I think of you as part of that perfection. I never want to see another beautiful picture in front of me without you in it.”

     “I…” Blue choked, let his eyes fall, then turned his head. Takaeyama’s hand hovered in place for an instant, then fell to his side.

     “I get it,” he said bitterly.

     “No, Taka… I- I feel like that, too.”

     For a few breaths, Takaeyama stared in shocked silence. Eventually he said,

     “Blue, look at me.”

     He did, and Takaeyama could see the tracks of tears being slowly hidden by the falling rain. Hesitantly, lost in a fear of his own, he reached out to Blue, who fell into his arms. They held each other in silence as the light patter of rain grew heavier.

     “Come with me,” Blue said softly. “When all this is over, come with me. Stay with me. I want to be with you whenever you need me.”

     “Is that really what you want?” Takaeyama whispered into Blue’s dark hair.

     “I’ve never wanted anything more.”

     Two sets of blue eyes, one pair shocking in their brightness, the other a frozen winter sky, gazed into one another. As the heavens opened and a torrent of rain crashed down, Blue and Takaeyama kissed, ignorant of anything but the joy they felt together.

     “It’s very simple really,” Blue was saying as he gazed around the circle of faces that watched him in the firelight. “Caiaphas made the process more elaborate than it needs to be, but there’s no accounting for taste, I guess. I’ll recite the Litany- it’s written in an ancient language, you won’t understand. When I’m done, just get up and walk away. Go wherever you want. Eventually, you’ll meet someone. That person is your opposite on the circle- kind of like your antithesis. Put your palms against that person’s palms, and try to clear your mind as best you can. That which you need to know should be revealed to you.”

     The assembled Champions nodded, some skeptically, some with enthusiasm.

     “Let’s start,” Harata said.

     Blue shook his head in acquiescence, then began to speak words that seemed to come from someplace outside his being, eyes focused on a distance the others knew they’d never see. They listened in silence to the rise and fall of his intonation until he, too, became quiet. Trancelike, they stared at him a few moments more before standing and scattering, wandering into the dark belly of the jungle that had swallowed them.

     All but Kat and Blue himself.

     She was standing, finding herself lacking. She didn’t want to go into that dark abyss, but to stay by the light of the fire. Someone else was bound to come back, she rationalized. She felt no urge to leave her place.

     “Why aren’t you going?” Kat asked Blue.

     “I am where I am,” he replied. “The one I need- who needs me- will find me. See?” He smiled.

     Kat looked around. There was no one else.

     “Me?”

     “Or so it seems,” he responded, still smiling gently.

     She approached him, though with apprehension, looking down on the young man she’d traveled with for all this time. Kat had never liked Blue, never trusted him, though she had to admit he’d given far more of himself to the Task than she had. Perhaps it was his blind faith that made her feel so uneasy around him, that way which he had of accepting whatever it was he had to do without question. Some might see it as a strength, but Kat had always viewed it as foolishness- a dangerous lack of vision.

     With growing dismay, she knelt beside him, and they pressed the palms of their hands together. Yellow light spilled around the daughter of the First Order, whose power came from her status on the land, while electric blue emanated from the Night’s Herald, whose only worth lay in the heavens. Worldly power mingled with-married- that of the spirit, and suddenly Kat felt a knowledge of herself open up, a door within her being that she’d never known existed.

     The power that she had.

     It both amazed and surprised her, filling the well of pride that had been running dry in recent days. She looked upon Blue, whose eyes were closed, far away, pondering,

     I could make him worship me. I could be to him as all those goddesses he adores. I could hold his very being in the palm of my hand.

     Chieko skipped off merrily into the jungle that surrounded the hut. Things were looking up, she reflected. Blue came back from Pandemonium, they got that Litany thing, Kazuki and Takaeyama were okay, and the Queen of Anrakshi herself had promised to replace her dad’s yacht. They’d complete the Task soon, and she could see her dad and brother again- and maybe even Kieran. He did say she could visit. After bouncing along happily for a while, Chi began to feel a bit tired, so she decided to sit down on a rotting, felled tree. She’d just begun humming to herself when she heard someone else crashing toward her. She knew what that sound meant.

     “Kazu!” she cried happily.

     “Chieko? That you? It’s friggin dark.”

     “Over here!”

     Kazuki came within sight, making Chieko remember what had brought her there in the first place.

     “Hey, Kazu, we’re each other’s opposites on the circle! How cool is that?”

     “I forgot what we’re supposed ta do. I got nervous,” Kazu admitted sheepishly.

     “Hold up your hands,” Chieko instructed, doing the same.

     He copied her motion, and she pushed her own palms against his massive ones. The air around Chieko glowed green, while that around Kazuki was bathed in orange. The power and will of those who set the gears of production in motion joined with the strength of those that produce through the sweat of their brows and skill of their hands. The beginning of an economical symbiosis arched into its end and Chieko grinned widely.

     “Kazu, watch!” she cried.

     She lightly touched a jungle flower, which slowly turned to gold, the metallic aura spreading from the place where her finger alighted to radiate throughout the rest. Heavily, it fell to the humus-rich jungle floor. Chieko picked it up and handed it to Kazuki.

     “Cool, huh?” She laughed.

     “That is cool. Watch what I kin do.”

     Kazuki placed his palm on the rotting tree where Chieko had been sitting. He focused a second, then pressed. The whole thing crumbled to dust. He did the same with a mossy boulder on the other side.

     “Wow,” Chieko whispered.

     Mina wandered through the jungle until she came to an abrupt halt.

     What the hell am I doing?

     She realized that the question was not only applicable to her present situation, but to everything she’d done since she’d hung up the phone in her cabin that fateful day. Admittedly, she felt ok with completing the Task, but deep within there was an aching regret that she’d lost the silence of her life. She feared she’d never regain it. After entering this social dance with all the others, would she ever be able to excuse herself? And then there were the things she’d seen… Things that made her question her dismissal of humanity as nothing more than a pack of over-privileged animals. All she wished for was some peace, some quiet time alone, without the pressure or the needs of all the other bodies that had come to surround her.

     In mockery of her wish, someone called her name in the darkness.

     “Mina, is that you?”

     It was Takaeyama, lighting his way through the lush growth with a little puffball of blue flame.

     “Yeah,” she replied sullenly.

     When he reached her, he sent the fireball to hover above, casting an eerie glow over the vicinity.

     “There’s got to be some reason you can do that,” Mina said.

     “There is a reason.”

     “No, I mean, a scientifically feasible reason.”

     Takaeyama only shrugged.

     “I feel stupid, doing this,” Mina admitted.

     “I guess we gotta do it, though.”

     That was the frustrating thing about Takaeyama. You’d think, given his condition, he’d be driven to ask as many questions as possible, impart as much knowledge as he could on others- a hyper-accelerated give-and-take- before he faded away completely. But no, he plodded along mule-like, not exactly willing, yet simply trudging along where ushered with a surrender of outer will. His inner self might burn with a fire not unlike those surreal flames he somehow produced, but to observe him one would never know it. This drove Mina to distraction.

     “Yeah, I guess,” she said petulantly.

     Awkwardly, they pushed the palms of their hands together. While the space near Mina swirled with a soft pink light, that around Takaeyama glowed in a pale blue that echoed his fire. Science and reason joined in a dance with the inexplicable, the surreal, the mythical, and Mina was flooded with a clear understanding. Suddenly, her ability to reason, to calculate, culminated into an entirely new talent, one which she could hardly accept, despite her perfect knowledge of its existence.

     She watched Takaeyama as he reached out slowly to touch a tiny sapling. He gazed reverently at it, ignoring her.

     “You’re going to make it move,” she whispered, watching the scene as it was yet to be, unfolding in her mind.

     He did. The sapling danced, as it had in Mina’s vision.

     Yukiiae sat alone, cross-legged, on the floor of the jungle. She longed to lose herself here, find conversation with the life all around her and forget her own lot. Shaking her head, she thought, Stay focused. Time enough for idle chatter when you haven’t got something to do. She felt heavy and tired, all the losses she’d never forgiven herself for piling burdensome on top of her present worries for her companions. She feared, more than anything, failing them as well. It was so tempting to forget, just to fade into the jungle around her and become one with the life there. Yukiiae’s ears pricked as she heard footsteps- human footsteps- coming nearer.

     “Who’s there?” she called out.

     “It’s me,” the familiar, death-laced hiss of Keisuke’s voice came in answer.

     Eventually, Yukiiae made him out, pale skin glowing in the dark.

     “Keisuke,” was all she said.

     “Figures,” he said in reply, reading her thoughts, a skill he was adept at.

     He held out his hand to her, and she let him help her up.

     “You still wanna do this?” He asked her. Somehow she knew it was the Task in general to which he referred, not just the completion of the Litany.

     “I have to, Keisuke. I won’t be allowed to rest until I do.”

     “Or you could just fuck the world that caused you so much pain,” he said slyly. “I know how much you loved that girlfriend the soldiers killed. I know how badly you don’t want to watch Takaeyama go the way your sister did. I know you, Yukiiae. I know you, and I’ve loved you for what I know for the longest time.”

     “Keisuke… we can’t…”

     “Can’t what? Damn this stinking planet to oblivion? It’s in our power.”

     “But we can’t. And you know it, too.”

     “And that,” he said, edging nearer, “is why I love you. You’re as trapped in this as I am, but accept it with a grace I never could.”

     “Keisuke…”

     Her protests were drowned as he kissed her softly.

     “If we just leave, we could live in peace until the end. To the Wolves with our Oaths and our suffering.”

     “I’ll never have peace again, Keisuke. I won’t feel anything but loss until I fall as well. You know that. And you? I know your soul would never rest if it died in dishonor.”

     He was quiet a moment, until he finally said,

     “So, we’ll see this to the end, then?”

     “You know it’s the only thing we can do, whatever lies beyond.”

     “Then it’s due to your virtue that the world shall be saved.”

     He kissed her again. This time, she responded, thinking about how different it was from being kissed by Rain, but not unpleasant. Not at all.

     “Let’s do this,” he said.

     Compliantly, she raised her hands. He placed his over hers, and the air around her began to glow red, as it had back in Diasminion when she’d called up the Elementals. The space around Keisuke seemed to grow even darker, from the blackness emanating from his very being. The bringer of death faced the salvager of life and violet eyes locked with inky black. One set narrowed as the other widened, and Keisuke exalted as Yukiiae crumpled to the ground. She began sobbing. The noise irritated Keisuke, who thought,

     I could kill her.

     Not with his swords, not with a gun, but with a touch- a simple touch- he could end her life. Such power! He laughed, the sound of his glory mingling with the sound of her wretchedness.

     “What are you crying for?” he demanded.

     “I- I could’ve saved them all…” Yukiiae choked out. “It was always there. I could’ve!”

     “What are you talking about?”

     “On the journey into Death… I can bring them back,” she sobbed.

     Squatting down, Keisuke took Yukiiae by the shoulders.

     “Look at me,” he commanded. “Look in my eyes.”

     She did so, trying to still the breaths that were raggedly escaping.

     “Promise me. Swear it. If I die before you, don’t bring me back. Promise!”

     “I- I promise. I won’t,” she replied, sobering.

     “Don’t.”

     Ayame walked through the jungle, pretending to be purposeful until she was sure that no one else was around. Then, her shoulders sagged and her pace slackened. This is silly, she thought to herself. The whole thing was silly, really. Her hand moved to her shoulder where the scar from her gunshot wound could be felt through the light silk of her shirt. It had hurt so much to be shot. There was far worse waiting for her if she returned to Diasminion. Fear welled within. I’m going to rescue a world that will kill me. Now that’s silly. Even as she thought this, visions of Yukiiae, so kind to her, and Blue… even of Keisuke, filled her mind. No, she realized, it’s not the world that will kill me. She listened to bats flutter overhead. They would not harm her. The trees would not tear her soul from the world. It was simply a few- an empowered few- that would bring her life to a close. She’d been born into this. It had always been that way. She knew her own fate since that day she’d held her mother close for the last time. Ayame realized that her sorrow came only from not being able to make the most out of the life she’d been given. The remainder would be spent as a fugitive, hiding from the HeadHunters. She’d never be given those few peaceful years of bliss allotted the Dauern- the arranged marriage, the children, the cushy job cleaning houses or toilets or whatever. Her hands instinctively fell to her abdomen. No, any children of hers would be born into more fear even than she had been.

     Ayame could hear someone coming. For a moment, her fear-drowned mind imagined that the HeadHunters had already found her, that they would gun her down in this far-off place and drag her bloody body back to Diasminion and hang it on the walls of Mianuus as a warning to any Lower Clans who thought themselves above the law. She held her breath, waiting for the end to come.

     “Aya?”

     It was Harata, standing there stupidly, looking at her.

     “Oh, it’s you,” she answered, relief creeping into her voice despite her caution against it.

     “So, I guess you’re my opposite then,” Harata said in a voice that he hoped passed as light.

     “Suppose,” was all Ayame said in reply.

     “Aya…” he began.

     “Save it, Harata. I know how you’re going to tell me all about how you’ll really, really protect me and make sure nothing bad happens to me, but seriously, if I’d been looking for a savior all these years I’d be a pretty sorry case. I know my lot. I’m learning to accept it.”

     Harata was silent for some time, obviously agitated.

     “Ayame,” he said strongly, “you’re selling me short. I know you’ve had a hard time of things and I’m sorry. But you know what? All those years stuck on that island, never knowing when I was going to get to go home, all I thought about was you and mom and how badly I wanted to see you again. My dreams were shattered, too, Aya. All I wanted was to go back home and have you and mom waiting for me, welcoming me home. What I came back to was a mother that’d been Taken years ago and a sister who didn’t even know my name. This isn’t what I wanted either.”

     Ayame was silent, not knowing what to say.

     “I didn’t ask for this, not me. Maybe that soul I was all those years ago, but not me. I’d give all this up in an instant to have you and mom happy in the sun, standing on the docks in Mianuus, waving at me on the ship. But I’ll never have that. And you know what, Aya? I say I’m going to protect you, I mean it. I’ve got plans. I’m gonna take up where Qa Haran left off. I’m gonna take his place. I’ll rule Diasminion. It may not be what I wanted, but which one of us can say they’re gonna go home to a life they wished for anyway?”

     “You really think you can do that?” she asked incredulously.

     “I’m the friggin Clanless, for the sake of the gods! If I can’t, who can?”

     “I’ll be rooting for you then,” Ayame said with a smile, “but Keisuke’s planning to kill you.”

     “I know. I’ll deal with him if I have to.”

     “Forgive me if I don’t watch.”

     “Understood.”

     Harata and Ayame smiled at each other.

     “We’d better get this over with,” Ayame said.

     “Agreed.”

     They placed their hands together and the surrounding jungle was lit with the soft white light of one who would fight against the system until his dying breath and the violet light of she who had the grace to accept life as it was, even if it meant the end of her being.

     “Heh, that’s weird,” Ayame said as a small stone sailed between them, followed by a twig.

      “Did you do that?” Harata asked, already knowing the answer, realizing he’d know the answers to whatever questions he had about others’ minds from now on, should he so choose.

     “Yeah,” she answered proudly.

     Together they made their way back to the fire and the hut, to where they’d find the other Champions as changed as themselves.