by fallacies » Mon Oct 10, 2011 7:08 pm
Section 6: The Cloth From Which We Are Cut
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1984 CE // The Garden of Earthly Delights
Tohno Akiha had two older brothers. The one who wore glasses was calm and mature, and the other -- who kept his hair long to annoy the governess -- was lively and full of mischief. The boys didn't always see eye to eye, but she loved the both of them equally. The days she spent exploring the grounds with them and her friend Hisui were filled with endless adventure.
As she neared her sixth birthday, though, the time she was able to spend in her brothers' company dwindled. Her tutors had extended the hours of her lessons, thinking to put her ahead of her peers at the academy she was due to attend come April. Overwhelmed by her studies, it wasn't until a month before school that she was aware of the strangeness that had descended upon her home.
---
On Sunday, Miss Kirino, her violin instructor, kept her until she could play Bach's Minuet Number Three without mistiming the notes. She ended up staying a good fifteen minutes into her lunch hour, and was further delayed because the music room had to be cleared of her belongings before her father's planned renovations could be carried out. With twenty-nine minutes on the clock until arithmetic, she lugged her violin case and backpack through the shadowy corridors.
On the landing of the stairwell between the first and second floors, she caught some feminine voices conversing in hushed tones in the hall above. A few steps up the stairs, and the speakers were recognizable as the pair of particularly chatty maids from her father's janitorial staff.
"You don't feel that the Master's being unfair, telling us to avoid him?," said one of them. "He shouldn't be speaking like that about his own heir."
Heir? Father was badmouthing brother? Eavesdropping wasn't right, she knew, but this was more important than the opinions of her dumb manners instructor. She crept up the steps to listen a bit more closely.
"Unfair? No. Merely cautious. The brat's attitude was terrible enough before he started throwing all of these tantrums. Now he's potentially dangerous. God only knows why the bastard child bothers to defend him."
Akiha didn't know what 'bastard' meant, exactly, but she knew that it was a bad word. It had become the servants' nickname for her bespectacled brother since shortly after his arrival.
"We shouldn't be ostracizing him, Suzuki. He's just a boy."
"A spoiled, difficult boy nearly on the threshold of the Crimson Red Vermillion."
"That's an unfounded rumor, and you know it. I've never heard that inversion could happen to anyone so young."
"Think that if you like, but the Master's orders practically confirm it. No need to go looking for trouble."
The terms were unfamiliar, but it was clear to Akiha that something bad had happened involving her brothers. She hadn't noticed it at all. Why was everyone keeping it secret from her?
Making sure that the maids didn't hear her footfalls, she tiptoed up to the second floor landing, and then up again, clutching her instrument case tightly against her chest. Her arithmetic instructor would scold her for being late to lessons, but she'd made up her mind to find her brother and force him to tell her what was going on. There was no sense in letting him face his troubles alone.
---
"Mind your own business," he said, pocketing his hands and walking away.
Before she could follow, she felt a tug on her arm. A pair of blue, bespectacled eyes sadly met her own.
"Give him a little space, Akiha."
She broke eye contact first, looking at the ground.
"I just wanted to help him," she said. "He doesn't need to be such a jerk about it."
"He's going through a hard time right now. I'm sure he'll be alright, eventually."
He wasn't trying to reassure her, she realized. It was more like he wanted to convince himself that he was speaking the truth.
---
Preparations for supper had yet to begin, and when the bespectacled boy stole into the kitchen for a can of cola, he found it empty of staff. It was just as well -- the head chef didn't like him in particular, and had complained on several occasions when he'd dirtied the marble tiles with footprints of earth. He didn't understand why she'd gotten so worked up about it -- it wasn't as if they served food off the floor.
Kicking the door of the fridge closed, the boy opened his drink and stopped in front of a window to take a sip, watching as the rain poured down outside. The sensation of the fizz in his throat felt reassuring, somehow.
The click of a doorknob caught his attention; a young redhead in a maid's dress had entered, carrying a tray of silverware and miscellaneous food-stained dishes. Reacting to his unexpected presence, she blinked several times before nodding at him in greeting.
"Good afternoon, Shiki-san," she said.
"Afternoon, Hisui," he replied, nodding back.
Formal today, he mused, taking another sip of his drink as she placed the tray on the counter beside one of the lower sinks and donned a pair of dishwasing gloves. It was something he'd come to notice about her in the past year or so -- often, she seemed to swing between two different moods or personalities. There were times, like now, when the cheerful girl that had become Akiha's best friend was nowhere to be seen, and her face took on a somber, focused cast, as if she were driven by some unexplained burden or duty. He wondered if it was because she worried about his father's recent bout of sickness.
"I can, uh, help you with the dishes if you like," he offerred as she turned on the faucet.
"No," she said in a panicked tone, a little louder than necessary. Seeming to collect herself slightly, she continued in a softer voice, "Please allow me to do the dishes myself, Shiki-san. It's a part of my duties as a chambermaid to the Master."
"Sorry," he said. "I didn't mean to offend you or anything." It seemed that his father's sickness weighed more heavily on her than he imagined.
"It's alright."
Tilting the soda can back against his lips, he looked outwards into the grey skies, listening as the raindrops hit the building. He wondered if the weather had kept the other boy from going out to the stone pavillion in the forest.
"You're worried for your brother, aren't you?" asked the girl, as if reading his mind.
"A bit," he admitted. It was an understatement, but it didn't feel right explain everything to her.
For a time, she continued her scrubbing as if she hadn't spoken. Lightning flashed outside, followed by the sound of thunder, and she began rinsing the plate she was working on.
"For my sister's sake," she said without inflection, "I have to stay strong and be patient. Sometimes, that's the only thing you can do."
Strength and patience, hm? It felt odd, getting advice from a younger girl, but what she said seemed sound. He emptied the remainder of the soda into his mouth and tossed the can into the trash. Maybe her odd focus wasn't on account of his father's health, he thought -- maybe she was worried about this sister of hers?
"Thanks, Hisui," he said. "I'll keep that in mind."
---
When the boy left, Kohaku removed the gloves from her hands and placed them on to the rack to dry. Reaching into a pocket on her apron, she pulled out a small, unmarked glass bottle, filled with violet fluid.
"I'm not just doing it for me and Hisui," the girl reminded herself, holding the container so that she could see the storm-clouds through it. "I'm doing it for Shiki and Akiha as well. I'm doing it so that all of us can have a future."
Beyond the window above the sink, a bolt of lightning streaked across the sky. For a brief moment, the silhouette the girl cast across the kitchen floor was long and dark.
---
Two weeks before school, Akiha took to trailing her longer-haired brother at a distance whenever there was a break in her lessons. He had, she discovered, a habit of going off alone into the darker parts of the woods behind the manor. She was hesitant at first to follow, but -- reminding herself of her resolve to help -- she ventured forth.
A strange apprehension came upon her when she finally located her brother's sanctuary -- a weathered pavillion that stood in a clearing near the center of the forest. Why it was, she didn't know, but at the forefront of her senses was the rapid pounding of her heart and a sweet, metallic odor that lightly scented the breeze.
Inside the pavillion, an object on the polished granite table caught her attention. She wasn't quite able to process what she was seeing until she was only a meter away -- and suddenly she regretted ever setting foot inside the forest.
Lying on the surface, the mutilated remains of a tabby cat stared back at her with glazed eyes.
"You shouldn't have come here, Akiha."
Her brother was standing behind her, just outside the pavillion. His hair wasn't the usual raven black that she shared with him -- it had gone white. In his expression, she could detect no sanity.
"B- brother," she said, involuntarily backing away.
"Your blood," he said, raising an arm before him. "I wonder what it tastes like?"
The flesh in his hand contorted, reshaping itself into a taloned claw. With a toothy, sadistic grin, he slowly advanced upon her.
---
"Someday, we'll both be monsters," the other boy said to him one afternoon a year ago, looking out across the grounds from where they stood upon the rooftop. "I hope that you'll do what's right."
The words had been uttered without context, in a mature and uncharacteristic severity that disinclined him from pursuing their exact meaning or intent. Unsure as to whether the boy had learned the secrets of his eyes, the only response he'd been able to muster was a hesitant nod and wary silence.
Three months ago -- when it dawned upon him finally that the person he had come to call a brother was being supplanted gradually by a hostile, possibly dangerous stranger -- the strange comment began to resolve in his mind as a request to perform a certain service.
Strength and patience, he'd told himself. You're just a kid. Your guesses might be wrong. Maybe you're overreacting, and the blood and the animals and the crazed eyes are just a phase or something. Maybe your brother will pull through this, and everything will be fine.
Watching now from the shade of a tree as his sister backed herself into the forest pavillion, he saw that the time for hope and denial was ended. There was a choice to be made, and no longer any space for restraint.
"I'm sorry," he said, taking off his glasses.
Fifteen meters were crossed within a heartbeat, as if his feet barely touched the root-veined earth. Moving his right arm along the most efficient trajectory on muscle memory alone, he plunged his fingers through the locus on the boy's back where the death-lines converged. It was sickeningly easy.
This was his limit, he knew -- the only solution that his eyes could see.
Limply, the corpse fell away, unblocking his view of his sister's blood-splattered face and dress. Her eyes met his, filled with a fresh terror.
Be prepared to live with the consequences of your actions, his sensei told him long ago ...
---
His father's illness came and went with the seasons, growing progressively more severe with each cycle. In the periods that the symptoms ebbed, however, the man threw himself to his duties with a tenacious intensity, as if to make up for lost time. Even bedridden, he processed a daily allotment of paperwork, which he organized into neat piles atop his sheets in the hours that he labored.
"Are you certain about this?" the man asked.
"Yes, Father," replied the boy.
There was a long, thoughtful silence as the man studied him through upper half of his bifocals.
"I told you before, I don't hold you responsible for what happened," he said finally. "Your brother was lost to us right from the start, and if you had just stood by, Akiha could've been injured severely. There's no need for you to punish yourself like this."
Incomprehensible, the boy thought. How could his father not blame him? He had stained his hands with his brother's blood, and Akiha now knew him for the monster that he was. No amount of forgiveness would make either of these facts go away. A life -- an existence -- had been concluded definitively, and his father was treating it as if it were a complete nonissue. Did he view his own flesh and blood merely as objects?
"It's something that I have to do," he insisted aloud. "My presence here has become a burden to Akiha, and it's only appropriate that I take responsibility."
Setting down the file he was holding, the man closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose.
"I'll arrange for you to move in with one of the branch houses," he said in a resigned tone. "The Arima family, probably. They live close enough nearby that you wouldn't have to transfer schools. You remember them, right?"
Vaguely recalling a young couple that had attended the Christmas charity banquet with their infant daughter several months prior, the boy nodded.
"That would be perfect," he said. "Thank you for your help, Father."
Hoping to be out of his father's presence as quickly as possible, the boy took his leave. The man settled back against his pillows, looking through the windows at the cherry blossoms that bloomed before his balcony.
"Do you want to attend the funeral?" he asked as the boy reached the entrance.
Pausing in the doorway, the boy stared down at the polished wooden floor. His reflection gazed back at him in silent accusation.
"No," he replied after a moment. "It wouldn't be right."
---
In Akiha's dream, it was dusk -- or perhaps daybreak; the sliver of sun above the horizon lit the time-ravaged music room only barely. Before her, two figures engaged in savage combat.
One -- a hulking, twisted humanoid -- gave a thunderous cry as it charged its opponent, swiping at him with a wickedly sharp claw. The attack failed to connect, but left four parallel gashes in the peeling, fungus-stained wallpaper.
The creature's adversary -- a somehow inhuman boy -- had nimbly evaded, and now silently glared as he settled into a defensive stance that betrayed experience in the martial arts. Save for his eyes, which gleamed with unholy violet light and an almost tangible menace, his features were hidden in darkness. He was not unhurt, Akiha could tell -- there were numerous tears upon his bloodied clothes, and he was favoring one of his legs more than the other.
Undaunted, the creature slammed a meaty, tightly clenched fist at the child -- breaking the floortiles, but again missing its mark. Having stepped back just in time, the boy responded with a roundhouse kick to the beast's side, launching it into the dance mirror along the northern wall despite its immense mass. The cracks that appeared in the glass surface centered about the area of impact like a spider web. Behind the piano, Akiha cringed at the crash.
The boy rushed forward without reprieve, catching the beast in a moment of disorientation. Fingers straightened in a knifehand, he plunged his right arm through the center of his opponent's chest as if it were so much paper mache. With a snarl of agony, the creature retaliated one final time as its lifeblood drained, sinking its canines into the boy's shoulder.
The boy screamed and jerked himself free, clutching his injury as he collapsed to the floor. Now heavily panting, he turned his glowing eyes to Akiha threateningly. Did he intend to kill her as well? Akiha scrambled from where she crouched in a panic, dashing to the double-doors a short distance away -- only to find the lock jammed. She heard the boy's breath approaching, and hesitantly turned. He was less than three meters away from her now.
"D- ... don't come any c- closer," she stuttered, feeling her legs give out beneath her. "L- leave me alone, you monster!"
Noticing a broken chair-leg on the ground nearby, Akiha grabbed it and pressed her back to the door, poising to stab with the sharp end if the boy drew near. Her makeshift stake seemed not to deter him at all. Leaving a trail of crimson as he dragged his body ever closer, he reached at her with a hand -- the same one that had slain the beast.
She squeezed her eyes shut and thrust the stake blindly at the space before her -- with far more strength than she knew she possessed. There was a sensation of the wood sinking into flesh, and then the weapon pulled from her grasp, followed by a slumping sound.
When Akiha opened her eyes, there was enough sunlight in the room that the boy's face was no longer obscured. Half-supine, her brother Shiki gazed at her through cracked spectacles, sadly smiling as a crimson blotch on his shirt expanded from where her stake had punctured. He delicately stroked her cheek, staining her face with the dark red fluid that coated his fingers.
"Everything's going to be alright, Akiha," he whispered. "The monster can't hurt you anymore."
In the cracked dance mirror, behind the carcass of the slain beast, her bloodsplattered reflection kneeled over Shiki's body. Looking down at him with inhuman, scarlet eyes, its lips twisted in disdain ...
---
Awakening, she felt the pressure of the hard wooden floorboards against her cheek. Pushing herself on to her back, she looked at the pendulum clock on the wall, and then upwards at the square panels of the ceiling. No trace of the room's former inhabitant remained; it seemed as if the servants had meticulously removed all evidence of the two years and a half he'd spent at the Estate.
She lifted and pressed her forearm across her eyes, wetting the black fabric of her sleeve. The funeral reception began in roughly three hours. Until then, she would remain here.
"Someday," she said, "I'll make it up to you."
---
Partial Dramatis Personae:
Brunestud of the Crimson Moon:
Type-Moon; the Witch of the Rainbow Eyes; the Mother of Bloodshed. A conceptual entity that occupied a series of humanlike flesh vessels, serving as the sole monarch of the Lunar Imperium in every generation of its thousand-year existence. Her true intent in founding the Imperium was to mechanistically regulate and limit the growth of the human diaspora of behalf of the planetary sentiences. However, it is possible that in the end of her existence, she admitted to herself that her actions were borne of something beyond mere obedience to her patrons.
Beryl Metallium:
A counter guardian appointed by Type-Metallia, who seeks vengeance upon the Lunar Imperium for the thousand years of suffering they inflicted upon the people of Gaia.
Type-Metallia:
The Ultimate of the dead world known as the Land of Metal, who preserved her bretheren from extinction by taking them into her reality marble, "the Shadowed Kingdom." Her sole desire is to colonize and settle upon a new planet.
Ado-Edem / Kino Makoto:
A talented swordswoman born of the Land of Metal; a soldier in the service of Type-Metallia, who normally disguises her gender with full-body armor. Wielder of the Knight Arm known as the Slash Empress, which is said to enforce the dreams of her race as a destructive power. In compliance with Beryl's plans for the invasion of modern Gaia, she has taken to maintaining a human identity as a girl named Kino Makoto; her orders are to grow closer to a certain human. Secretly enjoys pornography involving male homosexuality.
The White Princess Arcueid:
The main heroine; a human interface vessel prepared by Type-Moon. The elder daughter and heir apparent of the Empress Serenity IX of the Lunar Imperium. A cheerful girl talented in combative magecraft, but insensitive to the intricacies of court life. Gave her life to defend her younger sister the War in the Heavens; slain by Ado-Edem.
The Black Princess Altrouge:
The younger daughter of the Empress Serenity IX of the Lunar Imperium. The only known member of the imperial line known to possess black hair; the only imperial second child that made a debut to the Lunar court in the history of the Imperium. Though she possessed middling talent in magecraft, she was considered a prodigy in the affairs of politics and governance. For the odd circumstances of her inherited features and debut, however, she was regarded as an ill omen by her mother's courtiers, and was so stigmatized. As with all daughters of the imperial line, her father's identity was never revealed. She vanished and was presumed dead as of the conclusion of the War in the Heavens.
The Black Princess Nehellania:
The 9th Apostle of the Crimson Moon. The vampiric entity that in the Age of Divinities spearheaded the establishment of the "Apostles of the Crimson Moon" -- a governing body of the prodigal existences within the Moonlit Night that remains active to present day. Though a political moderate unpopular with a sizable fraction of the populace, she in truth holds much of the temporal powers of the organization within her grasp, and dedicates them toward maintaining the Masquerade before the awareness of humanity. As she normally takes the form of a girl-child, her strength as a combatant is underestimated; knowledge of her actual abilities and appearance have been lost to the passage of time. However, challenges to her faction are dissuaded before her mastery of the monstrous canine called Primate Murder.
Theophanus Ortenrosse:
The present 17th Apostle of the Crimson Moon; Lord of the White Wing; leader of the conservative Ortenrosse Faction, which seeks to restore to the world the glory of the Lunar Imperium. A powerful vampire who leads the opposition against the moderates that presently control the Moonlit World. Takes the appearance of a kindly, benevolent elder statesman.
Gransurg of Blackmore:
The present 16th Apostle of the Crimson Moon, whose history as a Count of the Lunar Imperium is little-known; also called Lord of the Black Wing. Thought to be a vampire by his compatriots within the Moonlit World. Maintains a human identity within the peerage of the United Kingdom as "Gransurg Cristophe IX," the Earl of Essex. Opposes the radical conservatism of Theophanus Ortenrosse. Though he also appears to disapprove of the policies of Nehallania, the two appear to have some relstion with each other, and physically bear a resemblance. This is a subject of speculation amongst the prodigies.
Ren:
A small, mute girl who travels with Gransurg of Blackmore. Her nature is unknown.
Nrvnqsr Chaos:
The present 10th Apostle of the Crimson Moon. Originally a human scholar of the University of Ingolstadt -- who, to further his knowledge as a student of naturalism, transfigured himself by means of alchemy to a chaotic conglomerate lifeform called the Lair of the Beast King. A member of the Ortenrosse Faction.
Louvre of the Northern Mist:
A beautiful vampiric youth, originally of Norway; merely for his appearance, he was sired to serve as a lover by an elder vampire some five-hundred years ago. In the time since his sire's passing, he has come into his own, but has yet to attain utility of the fundamental vampiric mysteries beyond the curse of regeneration and the capacity to fade into mist. To compensate, he has made a hobby of slaying mages and churchmen, collecting Mystic Codes and Conceptual Weapons capable of slaying his prospective opponents. Named by Nrvnqsr Chaos as successor in line to the title of the 10th Apostle. By a human woman, he has fathered a pair of twins, and trained them in the art of combative magecraft. A member of the Ortenrosse Faction.
Mizuno Ami:
A normal high school girl, who discovered one night that she was never what she thought she was.
Yumizuka Satsuki:
A classmate and close friend of Tohno Shiki; the human vessel within which Gaia has incarnated the being once known as Type-Jupiter. Targetted by the Ortenrosse Faction for reasons unknown. She is unaware of her true identity.
Lizleihi Justica, the Saint of Winter:
A human magus aligned with the Royal House of Gaia, slain during the Great War by Brunestud of the Crimson Moon in defense of the land of Terra Australis -- present-day Antarctica. The ancestral matriarch of the House of Einzbern, and the creator of the artifact known as the Alaya Terminal -- a system whereby the shared unconscious of humanity is able to act directly upon the world through the realization of a single human wish. The ritual for the activation of the device requires a demonstration of worthiness and strength of intent; sacrifices are necessary.
The Fisher King:
An ancient man of mystery, tasked with the safekeeping of the relic known as the Holy Grail; he who guides from within the shadow of history.
Tohno Makihisa:
The patriarch of the House of Tohno, which rules the phantasmal-human hybrids of the island nation of Japan. Seeking by any means to further the ends of his subjects, he is a man of many vices, who is at once saintly benevolent and diabolically evil. At the center of his heart, his desire is merely to serve as a good father.
Kotomine Kirei:
A priest of the Catholic Church. Prior to taking vows, he was married, and had by his wife -- now deceased -- a young daughter by the name of Karen. Presently, he recides in district of Shinto in Fuyuki City, serving as pastor to the local diocese, and a counselor and Bible studies instructor at a private school known as Mugen Academy. In truth, he is a trained magus -- a participant in a secretive recurring tournament known as the War of the Grail, which levelled a significant portion of Fuyuki some ten years prior.
Kotomine Karen:
A shy albino girl; a student in the junior division of Mugen Academy in Fuyuki City. Stigmatized by her peers for her natural ability to heal wounds. Dedicated to her father, who she loves more than anything.
Kishima Kouma:
A cold-blooded enforcer in the service of Tohno Makihisa; a member of a branch family of the House of Tohno, bound to serve as its combative force on account of purer demonic lineage. Though presently an expert in the use of Crimson Red Vermillion, in youth he was prevented from permanently giving in to its bestial impulses by Tohno Makihisa -- a boon for which Kishima has pledged eternal loyalty. Blinded in his right eye by the demon hunter Nanaya Kiri. His right arm was amputated as a result of a hostile encounter with Nanaya Kiri's son, Shiki. Despite this, he bears no grudges. It is possible that he is a kinder, more merciful man than he believes.
Fujou Kohaku:
The elder of the twin daughters to a disowned branch family heiress of the exorcist House of Fujou, born of wedlock. Her mother, a sickly woman, was cast out their head of clan, and died shortly after being brought under the protection of Tohno Makihisa. Kohaku pledged before her mother's deathbed that she would protect her sister at any cost. Several years later, she was approached by the Ortenrosse Faction with an offer she couldn't refuse.
Fujou Hisui:
Kohaku's younger sister. A naive, happy girl, unaware of her sister's many sacrifices.
Tohno Akiha:
Tohno Makihisa's young daughter. Her greatest regret in life has been the pain that she unwittingly brought upon those she loved.
Tohno Shiki:
A mere monster. The heroine's romantic interest.
The Other Boy:
Originally, a prospective heir to the House of Tohno, but removed from line of succession due to unstable, early-onset Crimson Red Vermillion, which resulted in regression to animalistic predation. A highly intelligent child, whose displays of childish egocentrism conceal a strange maturity.
Aozaki Aoko:
Miss Blue; Magic Gunner; Space Battleship. The younger daughter and heiress proper of the House of Aozaki, a clan that has preserved its tradition of magecraft from the Age of Divinities with the utmost high fidelity. A happy, easygoing woman regarded as one the strongest combative mages in the world. Though rumored to possess unheard-of destructive capabilities, by some obscure rule of conduct, she has distanced herself from resolving crises where her powers have a potentially beneficial use. On whose behalf does she truly act?
---
One more part until I run out of prewritten bits.
Please comment and critique!