Chapter 12
Darkness.
It filled him; breathed through every pore of his body. However, from below him and above him came the sounds of chanting. One bringing him back to the land of the living, the other trying to take his body and soul for himself.
Anubis cursed softly as he fought.
"Kayura, no! He’s using this! Stop!" He muttered softly into the void.
He’d watched Zanaton, possessed of a new body from the forbidden art of Necromancy. Things he’d learned under Talpa’s regime, ways to turn death into something...else. Revulsion filled him as his mind once again replayed the image of Zanaton lifting Talpa’s empty helmet and placing it on his own. As was the nature of the armors, it fit him as if it was meant for him.
"Yes, Anubis... remember what you saw... The Daughter of Inferno will be mine." Came Zanaton’s hushed voice once more, as if it were traveling through water and not air.
"After three lives, Zanaton, you’re still a fool." Anubis replied with a forced cool. "That’s quite an accomplishment."
All the way here in this limbo between life and death, he could feel Zanaton’s rage. He wasn’t the smartest of the former lords of the Netherworld, but he was certainly the most overconfident.
"No matter. You’ll soon be leaving this world permanently, and your body will be my new abode."
"We shall see." Anubis replied in the fashion Talpa so often used. If there was one good point about Talpa, it was the patience he taught him over the years. He could wait. And when the time was right, Zanaton wouldn’t be able to stop his escape.
____
The smell of ozone and fear drifted on salt tinged air as the baying of hounds echoed throughout the city. Mixtures of steam and smoke rolled off from the cooling embers of an inferno that had claimed a quarter of the buildings in the business district. Already the mortals were beginning to search for the wounded. It had been the work of Gods that the losses were blessfully less than they could have been.
The old one adjusted his grip on his gnarled, wooden staff as he surveyed the damage. The wind rustled the millions of feathers that had been painstakingly sewn into his cloak, cowl, and robes. The gauzy hairs of his long white beard and hair waved softly in the wind like bird down. Nestled against the breast of his robes was a silver hazel nut... from the Trees of Wisdom themselves. His features were deeply wrinkled and worn with age, yet his eyes were clear and piercing. He had been old when Caesar had ruled half the known world, and when Gengis Khan horsemen road the land. He had seen much in his travels through the different worlds. He traveled the length and breadth of reality itself... but now he had returned. Recalled from the nebulous depths of time as he drifted among the melodies of the stars. Only one was capable of such a feet...
And above him, his precious falcons soared. Through their piercing eye, the old one watched. Through their strong muscles he felt the dizzying joy of flight and the thrilling rush as cold wind buffeted wings. It was a strange city, as more steel and rock poked above the skyline than anything he’d ever seen before.
"Nickodemus." Cale rumbles in greeting as he approaches.
"Anubisu." Nickodemus answers with a barely perceivable nod of the head.
____
"Cale!!" Rahne called as loudly as she could. She must be screaming, she had to be! "Cale!!"
High overhead he was conversing with a odd looking man, who reminded her vaguely of an owl. Little Theorn had been brought up there just a few minutes ago, but now it was just Cale and the odd man.
"Cale!!! Down here!!! Cale!! PLEASE!!" Rahne called once more. Damnit, he didn’t seem like he could hear her. Damn!!! She wished she could tell how loudly she was screaming, that she was normal. Damn!! She needed help! Kento... oh Gods... Kento!!
"Cale!! PLEASE!!!" She called, hoping it was louder, "Oh Gods... CALE!!! HELP!!"
To no avail, Cale didn’t seem to hear. He bowed deeply to the odd man, and then vanished. Soon after the odd man raised his arms high. High above, all the birds banked their wings and swooped down en masse with a flurry of wind and wing. They vanished as they closed on him; before he too, vanished.
Blizzard stared, hoping against hope that someone had heard, however as the minutes drew on, nothing happened.
"It’s hopeless, Rahne." Said the being behind her.
"Shut up."
Behind her were two Kentos. One mortally wounded and laying half in the protective shelter of an alley, and another whole, hearty Kento who stood just behind her. She knew this one to be false; one of the demons probably, for his skin seemed like it was in shadow and even his existence was somehow wrong, other, and definitely false. His attitude was all wrong too. He didn’t speak like Kento, either. Kento often spoke to her out loud, but there were times he’d mix speaking out loud and in sign language. He felt she needed the practice... But not this one. It was all wrong. And it was this Kento who was speaking.
"You’ll never escape... give up."
"No."
"Then prepare." Not-Kento smiled darkly, before grabbing her hair and yanking her to him, kissing her roughly. Rahne clamped her lips together and scowled at him, wanting desperately to attack. Yet even as she thought about it, her armor sang a warning - attacking was exactly what It wanted, so she simply stayed still and unresponsive.
It released her and laughed. "You will be broken... you will belong to us. And you will bring about the end of your friends."
"I’m not a Voodoo Doll or a slave."
It only chuckled and faded away.
She stared at the spot where the Not-Kento -the illusion- had stood for several minutes; numb and angry.
Then Rahne did the only thing she could think of:
She screamed.
It was a long keening wail, mixed with rage, despair, anguish, and terror. All the emotions that had been tearing at her since she’d found Kento passed out in an alley, looking as if he’d been impaled, yet still breathing.
She screamed until her lungs burned, and her throat scraped raw. She screamed until even her soul ached.
She screamed until she thought she would shatter.
Somewhere other...
The earth was screaming. The energy screamed, and thus he screamed. This was the demons’ doing. Even they didn’t know the power they’d brought...
Oh Gods... so much power...
The earth had been raped, and she was angry. Soon, the tremors would start... The earth would get her revenge, even if it meant tearing herself apart in the process.
Madam Pele...Gaea... Enki...Kami...
Stop please!! Stop!!!
Ptah...Tlaloc...Damuzi...Geb...
My mind... won’t stop!! Shut up!! Please!! Shut up!!!
Iron... nickle... hydrogen... oxygen.. nitrogen... sulphur... core... mantle... crust...
Shut up!!! Shut up!!! SHUT UP!!!
"Drop Gaea."
Wha...
"Drop Gaea."
"Drop Gaea!"
In a place other yet strangely here,
stood a young warrior.
A sacred lance held in his hand,
feathers flying in a breeze that did not exist...
red, yellow, black, white...
A shield on his arm;
a bison skull painted white...
A samurai...
a ronin...
refused to die when death called...
a coward...
no...a hero...
rising above...
beyond...
. . . Holding an orb. . .
In another place;
other,
A soldier - a man;
just barely grown
blue-black hair ragged and plastered
beneath a leather skullcap...
The reek of oil and grease and gunpowder...
hanging suspended
in an upside down gunport
like a fetus
in the belly of pure chaos...
"Xiu... drop the stone..!" The World War II gunner screamed at him, raising blackened goggles as if to look at him better. Blue eyes the same shade as his own stared at him, filled with urgency.
Great Grandpa...? But you died over Normandy...
"Xiu... drop it!"
I never met you... but you’re my namesake...
"We had Kongo!"
"This is not right!"
Everything shifted... the Native American warrior, the samurai, his grandfather; all wearing his armor... no their armor!
You/I/we are right... You/I/we are Hardrock/Kongo...
And Rahne was screaming too; screaming with the earth. They/he had to...no... he had to go... to her... to stop their screams...
Everything splintered as he grasped the energy the earth offered him, and felt the vision shatter like sunlight through a morning fog....
Back outside...
Rahne dropped to her knees on the ruined and icy concrete and sobbed brokenly. It was over. All that was left would be to walk down that alley and find Kento dead. They’d failed - SHE failed. She was supposed to be a Ronin Warrior... why did it have to be her! She didn’t want this!!! She didn’t want this!!! She wanted to be normal!!! She wanted to be better than this!!! She couldn’t do this!! Why did they torment her!! She didn’t want this!!!
And worst of all: It was over. And it was her fault..
A movement behind her and to the left, a shifting vibration of pebbles over the broken teeth of concrete. The reverb of booted footsteps, and the momentary shudder of breaking ice reached through her blue jeans to her knees that ached with cold-borne numbness.
And then words that she felt rather than heard, "No, it’s not."
Blizzard leapt to her feet with a cry. Kento smiled at her, his face filled with everything that made him one of her closest friends. He held his arms out, encouraging her to come to him. His face, his eyes...
"Stop crying, Babes. Can’t have that; nope." He winked; his smile going slightly crooked.
The power of their armors sang together, blasting her doubt into a million pieces that ceased to exist.
Kento grunted as the girl flung herself into his arms, clinging to his bloody shirt like it were a lifeboat to safety and comfort. He wrapped his arms around her tightly, holding her. With his freehand, he held the back of her head as if she were a baby and rocked slightly.
"...Kento...Oh Gods... Kento!" Rahne sobbed, "Kento! You didn’t... you didn’t leave me..."
"Shhhh..... Shhhhh.... it’s alright." Kento whispered, kissing her temple brotherly. "It’s alright to be scared. I’m here... it’ll all be alright..."
Behind him, glittering on the pavement was the demon’s stone; slowly being enclosed within a protective casing of rock. With a soft smile he asked the earth itself for one more favor... to take the crystal. The ground under his feet seemed to purr as though pleased, and slowly the crystal - a shard of a broken reality - was drawn into the ground; to keep until summoned, or until the planet itself crumbled.
‘Thank you. For everything.’ He thought as he smiled happily, and knelt; enclosing his friend in his arms.
____
Sage groaned as he awoke. Last night had been long and very painful; he couldn’t believe he was actually able to sleep.
The night had turned bitter cold; and he hadn’t dared build a fire and those things seemed to be able to track him via his armor. The choices hadn’t been easy: Build a fire and sleep without his armor on, risking hypothermia; or leaving his armor on and risking discovery. Last night, dying to a Warlord’s blade seemed like the lesser of the evils; he’d slept in his armor.
"Hey Buddy. ‘Morning."
Sage jerked his head up, his hand jerking instinctively for his No Datchi. However it stopped midway as he saw who it was.
Seated across the alley from him was a very cold and very miserable looking Rowen Hashiba.
Rowen moaned in pain as he rose, moving slowly, as though he’d aged almost a century in just twenty-four hours. He offered Sage his hand to help him rise. "So are you going to say ‘g’morning’ to me, or just stare at me?"
"Fine! Good Morning, my friend." Sage said jokingly in Japanese, grinning a smile more like a grimace and took the offered hand. The joints in his knees and ankles popped loudly as he stood; shooting needles of pain up his legs. He gasped and stumbled a few steps.
"Careful!" Rowen admonished. "Armor of Strata! Dao Inochi!"
A brief flash of light that Sage had long since learned to ignore, it was so everyday now that it seemed like a blessed dose of normality.
Rowen, now in subarmor, dragged Sage’s arm over his shoulders to help him walk. To be fair, it was more like they were leaning on each other. "C’mon. We shouldn’t push our luck."
Sage nodded and limped along with Rowen.
Ahead, the clouds were breaking into a bright, rose coloured hue that faded gradually to darkness as it reached the zenith. Slowly the horizon was turning golden.
'Dawn,' Sage thought. 'Was exactly what we needed...'
Dawn.