| The Final Bardo; [Single Post branching off of "In the Depths of Winter..."] | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Feb 15 2014, 05:33 PM (187 Views) | |
| Czernobog | Feb 15 2014, 05:33 PM Post #1 |
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Best Influence.
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Naoya felt a jolt, as if he were being thrown upward by an invisible force. He drifted, bodiless, upwards. Below him unfolded the mountain, and he could see Kyo and Daichi approaching his body, his uncle emerging from the foliage, he could see Hanako coming down the side of the ridge, and Chika and Kakeru upon it. Some distance away, Benkei and a girl he didn't recognize were proceeding up a path. In the middle of it all was his shadow, wearing his body. It looked up, and then leaped after him, carried aloft by the same invisible force that was dragging him skyward. It looked just as he did: completely awful. Its skin was ashen and its neck was bruised, eyes watery and eviscerated-looking, face skeletal. For the first time, he could see what others saw when they looked at him: that he was dying by degrees. "So that's that, then," it said. "All tests passed except this last one." "What...what is it?" he asked. It hurt to speak. "The most important question of all, fuckhead. One I've been trying to prepare you for, but of course you didn't get it. You couldn't get it. Because you had decided on an answer and it wasn't the right one. You're just so stubborn and shit-brained that you couldn't see the solution, despite the one you chose being such an awful choice." "What's th' question?" Naoya asked, tiredly. They had begun to accelerate upward, or perhaps the world was just shrinking around them. The clouds peeled back, but he didn't feel cold at all. Above them, the star-studded sky unfurled like a great banner, each an ember burning an eternity away, forging the stuff of being within their hearts. "Do you, or do you not, wish to live?" the shadow asked. "What? Th' fuck kinda question's that?" Naoya asked. The clouds below seemed to darken, and after a moment stars appeared there, too. "Answer it!" his shadow snarled, its face appearing a handsbreadth from his own. "And answer it truthfully!" This was his shadow's other way of being. Less the insulting, gnomic trickster, and more the beast which would lead him to wreck the city. Its eyes lacked whites and pupils alike, being nothing but a limitless yellow. He considered the question: did he actually want to live? He fought hard to survive when the reaper had chased him, but he had put himself into the position where he could be chased. He had fought Toru, but he had accepted that he might die, and felt no stress at the prospect. He thought back to his hesitation fighting the black hoods: it had been Chika's cry for aid that had snapped him out of the fugue he had been in. It had been for her that he had come back to himself. Did he want to live? No! Fuck no! Life was painful. Life was a string of nonsensical events that hurt and embarrassed him and gave him opportunity to screw up. Gave him chance after chance to cause someone else to hurt. If he had been given a say in his own birth, he would have lobbed invectives at his parents, telling them just what he thought of their life and world and begging them not to force it upon him. He never wanted to be at all. Why bother with it? What was the point of it? It hurt and it embarrassed him and he was lonely and he was thirsty and he was crooked and he wanted so many things that he would never have and he was too weak to help the people he cared about and too stupid to think of something clever or useful to say and he just made it worse and why even bother? No one cared that he had killed people. He hadn't meant to, but he did. He was guilty. His life had been marred by chaos and death and all he wanted was to just not. What was so good about it? So, no. He didn't wish to live. He drew breath to speak. Surely this would cause his shadow to hollow him out and just take the body for itself. Good luck. Let it deal with the joint pain and the scars and the inability to bathe. However... If he were to die, his uncle would be all alone, save for the memories of his brother. If he were to die, Jiro would be consumed by anger and pain. After all, they were brothers, weren't they? Or something... If he were to die, Kyo would be haunted by his ghost. Whatever that meant. If he were to die, Aleph and Seiji and the others would have to look after the forge by themselves, and he had left such useless instructions. If he were to die, he would never see Chika get better, or find out if the answer was "no" or "never." If he were to die, then he wouldn't see how the story ended. That was it. He wanted to know the ending. He wanted to help write it. This wasn't a good ending. He couldn't get off the ride here. "I wanna live, but I don't want y' t' act like 'm supposed t' be happy 'bout it." "So..." the shadow began, cocking its head to one side. "So...yeah. I wanna live. Th' answer's 'yes.'" His shadow burst into motes of brilliant white light that began to diffuse through the sky. Some pattern-recognition circuit in his brain tried to distinguish the motes from the stars, and he couldn't, and he realized that they weren't stars at all, but dreaming faces, removed from him by an infinite distance. And he heard hoofbeats. Something was coming out of the darkness. Be calm, for I come! The voice, now undistorted, was familiar to him. From the Sea of Souls, I arise! Rising from the mud and sediment, astride the swift white horse, Devadatta, bearing the torch kindled from the fires of creation, Wielding the blazing sword, Answering your call, I come! You are not alone, for I am the eradicator of filth and foulness, I am quickened by the spark of the divine, I will ride before you and light your way, I will strike down any evil thing that crosses your path, for I am I, Kalkin the Eradicator, of the Judgment Arcanum! Strong right hand of the highest, the herald of the Satya Yuga, Slayer of death and despair. I will answer your call: I will lead you from darkness into light! I will lead you from ignorance into truth! I will lead you from death into eternal life! Or, at the very least, I will lead you into glory! Allow me to lend you my strength, and we shall be the heralds of the new golden age! Accept my offer, and acknowledge the Truth: For I am Thou, and Thou art I! Naoya blinked. He had just said that he wanted to live, but this thing frightened him. He had seen it wrecking his home, seen it killing people....but, still, it was what was offered to him. He gave the only answer he could think to give: "Uh...yes! Yes, that!" |
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2:38 AM Jul 11
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2:38 AM Jul 11