Infernity Mirage: Take Flight
An LLS Production
All we have to believe with is our senses, the tools we use to perceive the world; our sight, our touch, our memory. If they lie to us, then nothing can be trusted. And even if we do not believe, then still we cannot travel in any other way than the road our senses show us; and we must walk that road to the end. So I am told by her when I entered the Arcadia Movement.
My name is Misawa Nowaki, and I have many names, chief amongst them Youkai, Sylph, and one other I forget that passes my mind. It matters not. What matters, here, is where I meet them.
Green shrouded over Neo Domino City, the Rex Goodwin Cemetery quiet as the silent winds stirred, free and unrestrained and out of control, as they should be. Even though there would be words to be had when I next came face to face with Setsuka-sama, I hardly cared. My jacket was... somewhere, I forgot. Sanctuary would have spares, anyway. It was almost a rule of the world. Sanctuary... here was the only one left in the city. Satellite was too wary of Setsuka-sama to stretch the boundaries where I could run on the winds, and even flight would have gathered unwashed masses gawking at the skies. No, better to remain here by the grave of that long-gone old bag... sarcastic old Baa-chan she was, she was way better than the geezer.
Roses... Ryuusei again. And... the tall blond one, an Atlas, no doubt. The other... black hair, black eyes, and... an expression that set him aside from the rest of the world. How curious.
The winds stirred as I floated, the extremely black person hovering back as I examined his face. A pleasing, fine-boned structure, and even his stunned expression was something enjoyable. Grey, no, black, no, eyes of shadows and veils that show everything they've seen, yes.
What brilliant eyes that burn.
He challenges. I accept. We begin the Duel, and he continues despite the pain. I am amused, I let victory slip from my grasp but once. Surprisingly, this Chase, Chase Princeton, his grey eyes burn with fire and light, and soon I face three dragons of three thousand attack and no chance of a comeback.
"And that's game," his face was twisted, disgust evident as the holograms vanished. "You can play with whichever you like, but never underestimate my deck, or my pride as a Duellist."
Such pride of a duellist... "I- I'm sorry. I- I thought you needed a break-"
"I have gone through hell to learn the way of the Infernity," he was obviously angry. "Your mercy is not appreciated. For kami, I'm friends with him!" He jabbed a thumb towards Ryuusei's general direction. "How many times do you think I've been thrown about?"
"O- Oh..." Oh, how interesting. I find myself attracted even more to this one.
Right there and then I would probably have created an extremely awkward social situation had I not been kicked in the head and my partner showed up. Kujaku Satsuki was hardly polite and well-mannered – as much as a girl who includes 'shitty' in her daily vocabulary can be – but she is a competent Duellist of both Harpies and Black Feathers, the black whirlwind capable of matching my mastery of the winds. I was forced to down my pills, reality crashing with increasing dullness as I smiled at the interesting one. Ryuusei I knew full well, Atlas everyone heard of, but this one... I am drawn to him. It is odd. Or not, it is his fire.
Even though I am the wind, free and flighty, it was like shackles were held down as Satsuki and I took to the skies.
I have come to the conclusion that my Chase is extremely awkward around people. Doubtless, flinging people about was no way to make a good impression, but at the very least I was not in a bloodthirsty look as the darkness was apt to. He was also loud, and prone to overreaction, all signs of repression. I longed to see what would happen if I gave him the tranquillisers Setsuka-sama kept around. She might not let me near the things, but I could try to palm one off Ryuusei the next time they were used.
I have figured out why; it was the curse. The curse of white hair, red eyes, and powers just like a demon... all thanks to that person, and it could be resolved by this person. That undying spirit would chase it through hell and back... of course, with Ryuusei, it was almost laughably easy to get an agreement.
Setsuka-sama introduced Kaido to us. Kaido I did not mind; he was of the same persuasion, but prone to keep his hands to himself, logical, and not into teens. Good enough, as expected of one of the pawns of Setsuka-sama, and the only one who kept on after all of them were promoted. Get it? I preferred Go myself, but obviously Setsuka-sama liked chess. More leads followed with Kaido, more elaboration, and the name strikes a chord; Nurarihyon. Master of demons, lord of Pandemonium, leader of all of the night. And the newest one, that Mutou Ryuuki.
Mutou was laughably easy to read; he had no interest in my Chase past the superficial, and obviously he was not about to run head-first into a brick wall of the famed Fudo denseness or into an Atlas punch. What part of his genes required him to flirt with every living being I could hardly figure, but I give him a thin smile and a message to stay away. He proves the existence of testosterone by challenging me, I accept, and I would have won. A pity... but I beat him to the punch. I am the Youkai who steals into the night; it was no matter to set up my Chase.
My Chase hits hard. Perhaps I deserved it, but... he does hit hard.
Here is where my own powers of words fall short. He is certainly handsome. He is manifestly intelligent, and courageous, and gentle. When he is on my arm, I feel ten feet tall rather than one-seven. How such a man can be in such denial away from me is a mystery.
It is exhausting, him. I may well be exhausted, I may even be flirting dangerously with complete loss of consciousness, but when my brain is preoccupied, I do not feel it. I know, that when my mind is sifting difficult, perplexing, contradictory, obscure data that the rest of me becomes quite as relevant as wings would be to a brook trout. What he does not know, and what I cannot tell him, is that I adore the sensation of fixation. Even if taking flight, the ground is a harsh reminder once we fall, and the ground is where I live, after all.
My Chase and his moods are mercurial to the point of predictability. To reconcile the two clearly opposing words I shall endeavour to give the Ur-example; faced with a D-Wheel built by Fudo Yusei, he chooses to fixate on the Professor himself. A childhood crush that did not manage to die quite an ignoble death, yet itself unlikely to blossom... unlike any prospective feelings with the Mutou heir approaching.
Chase is smart; he runs to test the D-Wheel. Of course, Ryuuki is not quite evaded, but the Duel ends on a satisfactory, perhaps even good note as his D-Wheel goes haywire and I save him... somewhat. It is rather difficult to argue with a teacher named the Handless Demon, after all. Still, his teacher acknowledged me... as a boyfriend?
How odd. I am... satisfied. Even if he does overreact.
"Chase," I thought aloud. "Chasing... you really looked like you were chasing to grab Ryuuki's throat on it." I laughed. "Red suits you."
He names it Carpe Jugulum. I have never felt more proud.
I am perched on Baa-chan, the winds still for once as Neo Domino was silent. Kaido was hardly joking; it was my fault for underestimating his power. Clearly, even a pawn of Setsuka-sama needed some significant power to have survived in her service.
"Misawa Benten..." I looked up to see Chase squinting at the moss-mottled headstone, one side of it painted with red ink.
"How did you find me?" I mumbled.
"I guessed," he shrugged. "I'm guessing your Psychic powers happened after the... séance?"
Seance. A fancy word for what Saiou Takuma did... no, what fate dealt my way on the pursuit of truth. "...yeah," I mumbled. "He was right, you know. About everything."
"So, you want to remove the-" he motioned to my face. "-to live as a normal human?"
I shifted. "I... I just don't want to be alone. I mean, the only person in the Arcadia Movement I can somewhat relate to is Shimotsuki. She seems so cold, remote, alone. I have a sanctuary, but I want to know where I belong, you know?" I have never told anyone this, except Setsuka-sama, and only because it was true. Setsuka-sama had lost everything because of her powers, everything except for Nakamura-san.
"...so, you don't know if you're human or if you're part Duel spirit or something," he hypothesised. "Because you look so different and think differently."
"Doesn't everyone?" I countered.
His answer surprised me, truly, it did. "...Kiryu-sensei once told me that only humans question where they are in life. Things like monsters and spirits don't care, they only know that they exist. That's why questions exist, he said. To prove that we are human."
"That's why questions exist," I echoed. "To prove... that we are human..."
More silence passed as I chewed over the thought. To ask questions was to be human; by that same vein, I had to be human.
"So, who's Misawa Benten?"
I told him. There were more inane details. What came after were the more pertinent details.
"Now I'm envious." He stated. "It doesn't make a difference to me. Your past, that is. You're still an annoying stalker that intruded himself into my life and doesn't look likely to leave soon."
I blinked at him.
"For kami," I was hauled down, sprawled before the stone plaque. "Say goodbye to grandma, we're going back. Then Carly-san can show us her horrible purchases that we have to agree with on pain of the double Atlas Punch. After that we can pull out horrible cheap movies or animé and get chips and watch. Tomorrow we have school, so we have to sleep early. In the morning when sleep is still fuzzy and we have other things to do, we can then think about it. Got it?"
I think I had him figured out, and he surprises me. I could hardly stop smiling the whole time.
Here I must make a small detour and confess something which I have never confided to any living creature. It is not for nothing that I spent years schooling my mind into strictly regimented obedience to order, for when it gets away from me it is a far worse experience than I can easily describe. As a Psychic Duellist, the results were often far worse, I assure you. Such interludes happened often when I was young, and it was a supreme effort to train myself to keep my own imagination under control. As a child, it seemed as if I was seeing visions – whether they were based in practical fact, or something as absurd as waking in the night absolutely assured that not one but several highly aggressive hydra were stalking our grounds, the results were the same. I could see nothing and hear no one until the vision had ended, and due to one or two trying but irrelevant circumstances, the monsters were more frequent visitors than I should have liked.
Needless to say, I am faced with innumerable nightmares when I think of Chase meeting the family. Never mind the geezer, his opinion can rot, but Ryokai specialises in ruining everything I hold dear, and has made it his life's mission to do so. A hate for me, he would quite cheerfully get the Arcadia Movement to kick me out if not for Setsuka-sama and her iron control. Say what you like about the ice queen of Neo Domino; worldwide, all the heads knew who was boss, and it wasn't that love-struck lunatic down under.
Hieratic... he did love the flashy new stuff. Still, dragons notwithstanding, I was holding my own until Setsuka-sama broke up the fight. Destiny, threads... we had to fight each other. To the death...?
No, no, ten thousand times no.
Setsuka-sama proposes a tournament, funded by KaibaCorp of all things. She get funding, we make a spectacle of ourselves, and if we beat them, there's the icing on the cake if Ryokai ends up in the ICU. And, the best thing, was that there was no way we could kill each other on televised Duels.
She was a freaking genius.
Dedication through Light and Darkness... there was no doubt that Ryuusei and Chase would make it. Though I beat Ryuuki, who had experience and talent, Ryuusei had more going for him than Ryuuki ever would have. No one else in the Movement can expect to stand up to Setsuka-sama on a regular basis, after all. I lost, but it was expected, and I was satisfied to have had him on the ropes.
Chase, though... facing three Blue-Eyes White Dragons, and a Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon as well... he makes a comeback, and wins with zero life points and a special Trap card. Here is where words fail me yet again as they cannot describe the awe I felt then nor the terror and admiration the coursed through my blood when the Infernity faced the Hieratic and came out on top once again. Ryokai got pissed and nearly incinerated Chase, I was there and holding on to him.
"It's enough. You won, Chase. It's enough."
"I... won..."
He won. He was wonderfully alive.
Things need not have happened to be true. Tales and dreams are the shadow-truths that will endure when mere facts are dust and ashes, and forgot. So it seems... the nightmares persist, of moonlight-soaked night and the swirling shadows that beckon ever onwards... Vacuum, and Absolute Zero... to open the doors between worlds.
They left, slowly, one by one, with reluctance, leaving the safety of the light for the chill certainties of the darkness. It seemed like the night sucked them up, took them into its dark heart. It seemed like the darkness swallowed them … perhaps it did. Perhaps not. Either way, I knew what to be done, what to do-
"If you enter there, you prepare to give up the world of humans. Sorrow, pain, joy, love... all of these you will forget. You will be bound to the rules of legends long before that had bound the balance, and so you submit yourself. Well? CHOOSE."
For love is no part of the dream-world. Love belongs to desire, and desire is always cruel.
When I dream, sometimes I remember how to fly. You just lift one leg, then you lift the other leg, and you're not standing on anything, and you can fly. Now, I have the wings within reach, but can I afford to let go of the ground? So what I want to know is, when I'm asleep, do I really remember how to fly? And forget how when I wake up? Or am I just dreaming I can fly?
The lights flicker like stars. I like the stars. It's the illusion of permanence, I think. They are always flaring up and caving in and going out. But, from here, I can pretend … I can pretend that things last. I can pretend that lives last longer than moments. Gods come, and gods go. Mortals flicker and flash and fade. Worlds don't last; and stars and galaxies are transient, fleeting things that twinkle like fireflies and vanish into cold and dust. But I can pretend.
There is a madness needed to touch the gods, yes, this is true. Few mortals possess it, the willingness to step away from the protection of sanity. To walk into the wild woods of madness.
"Can I do it?" I whisper as it is my turn. The key rotates, the door opens for a crack, and I leap.
And if there's a moral there, I don't know what it is, save maybe that we should take our goodbyes whenever we can, and that's all.
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