Creation began on 05-24-17
Creation ended on 06-16-17
Samurai Jack
Ashi's Blessing
A/N: I can't stand how the series ended a little. Usually, the hero never gets the girl, but in most cases, the hero deserves to be with the girl.
Time. Something that the primitive mind desires to understand completely. But it is impossible to fully comprehend. Even those that were masters of it had to follow certain rules to it…unless endowed with the power to bend or break the rules of time by the true masters of time.
Such was with the eternal rectifier that was Brother Correction, who has used this power many times to go backwards and forwards in time in many different worlds. To visit many eras, all four hemispheres of a planet, alter many lives, either to save or punish, to become a bringer of retribution to the guilty…or an avenging angel for the innocent. And as he sat on his wooden throne in his universal domain that was connected and cut off from every other universe, permanently trapping every soul that was as dark as the fallen angels that were cast from paradise to spend eternity in the netherworld, he just bore witness to the cruel hand of fate that was a demonic, shape-shifting entity by the name of Aku, whose defeat was predestined to happen after spending more than fifty years in a far and unusual future where the entity reigned. He saw the predestined samurai warrior suffer the loss of his first love, a young woman that had been the surviving sibling of a set of seven daughters unknowingly spawned by Aku, as she was removed from the timeline the samurai existed.
Ashi, he thought, disliking this fate…and viewing it as an unnecessary casualty that was the only time Aku was able to hurt the samurai emotionally. Time works differently for everyone it affects. Aku may have been dealt with in the past, but your time began in the future, which is different from the past. It's time to bring you back to the past…so you can have a future.
Rising from his throne, the harbinger of hope and redemption for the innocent and suffering and retribution for the guilty vanished as the next breeze swept past him, his destination already set.
-x-
As the samurai turned to leave the forest after thinking of the unwritten future, he sensed that he wasn't alone, anymore. He turned back to face the tree…and gasped at who was there.
A young woman, dressed in an over-sized blue shirt and dark boots.
"Jack?" She asked, wondering if this was really happening, that she was here.
"Ashi?" He responded, wondering if she was truly here. "How…how are you back?"
"I…I don't know. The last thing I remember…was disappearing from your arms and then…nothing. But then, I saw this man appear to me…and he told me that it wasn't my time to depart from existence…and he brought me here."
"Who?"
"Me," a new voice cut in. "I restored your love to this world."
It was a dark man. Not that man that wanted to be like the samurai, but was dressed in a gi similar to his own, but sporting trousers underneath. His eyes were unlike those of other people's; there seemed to be something in them that bordered on the divine, like he had powers beyond human understanding. He was standing in front of them.
"Who are you, sir?" Jack asked him.
"I have been called many names throughout my existence, both good and bad, based on the views of those that have seen or heard of me," he spoke cryptically. "Brother Correction. Demon. Friend. God. Savior. I'm the relative of all the spirit-endowed that have ever lived or ever will live. I see things that are mistakes because they make good people suffer unnecessarily…and I do all that is within my power to rectify the mistake so that the suffering is undone."
"But…how were you able to save Ashi? She comes from the future that Aku dominated. When I defeated him, she faded away because he was a factor in her existence. How are you able to undo something like that?"
"That's because time is a complex thing. The ability to manipulate it causes loopholes and such one can find a way to benefit from. However, even if something happens in one point in time, it doesn't always affect other events that can or must happen. Yes, you defeated Aku when you were returned to the past, thereby altering the future, even undoing the fates of those ended by you when they chose to persist rather than walk away, but not everything changes… Not without something else happening to preserve things or people like a shelter. In which case, Ashi here would be what you call a remnant from a time that no longer exists, preserved for the new time."
"I don't understand."
Brother Correction then raised his hands up…and the world around the three changed to one of the cosmos as a large, board-like construct appeared in between the god-like man and the couple.
"Say that time is broken into three spheres of influence," he told Jack, conjuring a white marker in his left hand, and drew a large circle in front of him. "This sphere represents the present. Today. Now. This sphere (he then draws another circle on Jack's left side) represents the past. Yesterday. The previous year and so on. And this (he now draws a third circle on Jack's right) is the future. Tomorrow. Later today. The time where Ashi and her sisters come from…or could exist. There are events in time called paradoxes, occurrences that want to happen like before…and occurrences that happen at a later or earlier than expected. The past, where you defeated Aku, was where the demon's time began, where he originated. However, because the former Daughters of Aku's origins began in the future, their future is past, how they began, separate from Aku's. Even if he's no longer a part of the future, it doesn't stop them from being part of the future. And Ashi's future…is to be with you, Samurai Jack."
He could've explained it in other ways that could've made absolutely no sense to anyone unable to understand what he was saying, but Brother Correction knew that the samurai needed to know no further than what was said to him. In his mind, it was simply put that Ashi's fate was undone by forces greater than Aku, and that she was returned to him.
"Thank you," he told the dark man.
-x-
It seemed like the second time was the charm, as Ashi walked down the aisle to become Samurai Jack's wife. Within the masses of people, Brother Correction watched happily as things played out better than the first time they tried this. He watched as the vanquisher of one of the greatest forms of evil kissed his bride in front of everyone as they cheered for their happiness.
"Don't you just love happy endings?" He spoke, not really looking for a response from anyone.
Taking a chance, he allowed himself a glimpse into their future…and smiled greatly at what was seen to happen in the years to follow this grand day of joy and hope.
Good luck, you two, he thought as he disappeared from the crowd, unseen and unnoticed by anyone.
He had to get back, back to the past…and won so much more
A/N: Now, I feel so much better. How about any of you? How do you feel? Should a sequel be added?
