Frowning, Lyah glanced at the scrawled address written on the scrap of paper her mother had given her. Her driver, an older American man, regarded her coolly in the rear-view mirror.
"You're sure this is the place?" Her voice was laced with skepticism and more than a little disdain – how would her mother, in all her pride, even know this dingy little bar existed?
She saw the annoyance flash through the driver's eyes. "Of course I am, can't you read the sign? 'Nizi's,' that's where you told me to go, right? Well we're here. Now are you getting out or not?"
Glaring, she sighed in frustration as she opened up the door of the taxi and stepped out, passing over the required amount of money to the man, and turning her attention onto the bar itself.
'Well, here goes nothing...'
She walked to the entrance of the bar and opened the door, quickly stepping inside to escape the winter chill. The bar was very dim, and reeked of cigarette smoke and stale beer, causing her to blink tears out of her eyes and cough a little.
Regaining her composure, she strode toward the bar, catching the eye of a slightly taller woman with glasses and a bust that suddenly had Lyah feeling extremely self conscious. As she drew closer to the bar, the woman quirked an eyebrow, obviously piecing together that she was not quite the right age to be in the establishment.
"I don't think you're quite old enough to be in here, kid. Are you lost?"
Lyah's eye twitched at the immediate dismissal, but she soldiered on. "No, my mother sent me here. She said to ask for one Nizibel Evans," her voice dropped in volume slightly, "I have some questions for her."
The woman chewed on the inside of her lip, obviously debating on humoring her or sending her away, before finally asking, "What's your name, kid?"
"Lyah. Lyah Frigus."
A wave of different emotions exploded across the bartender's face, ranging from shock to sadness, before finally stopping on dim recognition. "Well I'll be god damned. I thought you looked a little familiar, but I never would have guessed..."
Blinking, as though she had just remembered something, she turned toward the dining area of the bar and shouted, "Oi, bar's closing! Finish your drinks and get out!"
A chorus of groans and protests were her response, but one glance at the strange gleam in her eyes was enough to get the scattered men and women on their feet and moving toward the door. When the last patron had exited, the bartender moved toward the entrance and locked it, before gesturing to an open booth not too far away.
"Have a seat, I'll be right with you."
Nodding her thanks, Lyah moved to the corner and sat down on the surprisingly comfortable bench, barely getting settled before two glass mugs were plopped onto the tabletop, their contents swaying precariously.
"There we go! Nothing like a drink to go with a good story."
Lyah blanched, her eyes wide, "I-I'm only nineteen!"
The woman grinned, waving away Lyah's concern with a flick of her hand. "And I don't give a damn. If I'm going to talk about what I'm sure your mother wants me to, then I'm going to have a drink. You'll be thanking me by the time this is through."
With that, she leaned forward, placing her elbows on the table, raising her mug and taking a small sip from it. "I'm Nizibel, if you haven't gathered that already. So what questions did you have for me?"
Lyah glanced at the mug in front of her before picking it up and taking a small sip, grimacing at the bitter, unfamiliar taste. "Mom told me that you knew my father. She said that the two of you went way back."
Nizibel snorted, though her gaze suddenly seemed far away. "Leave it to Rin to make the most casual understatement of this century." Snapping her eyes back to Lyah's, she nodded. "Yeah, I knew your father. It's all a little complicated, but we had... the same business in Fuyuki City."
Lyah blinked, and her confusion must have shown on her face, because Nizibel once again looked shocked. "Rin didn't tell you? Well, I guess I can understand that... She lost more than most of us, anyway..."
"What happened in Fuyuki City?"
Nizibel's gaze dropped to her mug of alcohol, before she sighed and picked it up, knocking it back and draining a significant portion of the glass. "The Grail War happened." She then huffed, her features twisting into a small scowl. "Jeez, leave it to that woman to pass the hard talking off on someone else. This is a long story, kid, so you might want to get comfortable."
Without waiting for Lyah to respond, Nizibel began talking, her eyes distant and glassy.
"The best place to start would be the very beginning... The event that got your old man involved in the first place."
-FROSTFALL-
A sole beam of light provided the only meager resistance against the creeping darkness that overwhelmed the ancient, musty chamber.
Thick walls of sekiseki rock surrounded and oppressed, the sheer draw of its power-absorbing properties making the near-suffocating air blatantly unbearable. The added streaks of rancid damp from leaking drips of water gave the ancient cell its last touches of hostility, making it seem as if it was some demonic entity that want nothing more than to drive its inhabitants to madness.
It was a place meant for one kind of prisoner – the most powerful to be sentenced to die.
Despite the raging darkness, though, a presence stood out like an object out of place. A woman, blonde and petite, knelt formally outside the cell proper, staring in with an unblinking gaze of piercing emerald green, her sharp beauty incredibly out of place in the depths of the dank prison.
The encroaching blackness seethed against her serenity with an almost physical malevolence, seeking to drive her away from its torment of the lone captive.
Despite the oppressive atmosphere, her gaze remained stalwart, locked on the one visible object in the cell. With the same intensity, a single near-luminescent crimson eye stared back at her, the emotions flickering inside of it unreadable.
The silent battle of wills continued until the woman exhaled, the noise seemingly a cross of a soft sigh of resignation and a harsh huff of irritation.
"I was sure that I made it clear that I was not to be disturbed. Not even by you, old man." Her voice was musical, though the underlying threat of her words gave the sound a sharp edge.
Silently, a hunched figure emerged from a dimmed hallway, almost invisible in the black monotony of the chamber, taking the form of an ancient, weathered man who seemed to be shriveled from the stresses of time, and whose body bore the scars of over a thousand years of warfare.
"Peace, child," His voice was low and gravelly, "I am but a messenger. The Forty-six has reached their verdict."
The soft-spoken words were enough to make the woman focus her unrelenting gaze on him, a dense pressure beginning to fill the room alongside the sharp smell of burning ozone. Though she did not speak, her request was obvious. 'Talk,' her eyes screamed.
The old man sighed, feeling every second of his thousand years aching through his body. "Though the opposition of Kurosaki and his many allies was... fierce, the vote was unanimous. Former Division Two Captain Cale Frigus has been found guilty of the crime of humanity's extinction and the tampering of reality via the Olde Magicks. As such, his soul has been deemed too hazardous to return to the cycle of reincarnation. The Council has decreed that his very essence shall be removed from time and reality, thus repairing the ruin he has brought to all the worlds."
"How?" The woman's tone was terse and frigid, and the power behind the sole word would have made him shudder had he been a younger, lesser man.
His eyes, which had been squinted closed previously, opened as he leveled a glare on the occupant of the cell, the room temperature rising significantly. "In three days time, the ritual will commence to chain Cale Frigus to the throne of Gaia, removing him from our existence and restoring the human race as his influence is wiped from reality."
The pressure coming from the blonde woman spiked for but a moment, before she closed her eyes and faced the cell once again, visibly reigning in her reaction. "Very well. Leave."
The old man did not budge. "And what of you, Mia? It will take some time for reality to truly rewrite itself. Years, even. Kurosaki is on the warpath. It is likely that this judgment will bring civil war to our doorstep."
The woman, identified as Mia, growled and stood, facing the old man fully as the smell of ozone grew to overbearing levels and the darkness of the room swirled around her, though not of its own volition.
"War? Is fighting the only solution that this wretched society can dream up? More pointless death and suffering. I'm goddamn tired of it, and tired of this place." She steeled her gaze. "I will have no part in this idiocy. You and all of the others here can drown in your wars and die just like the humans. It is no longer in my ability to care."
"Just like that, you would leave us to our fate?"
The darkness became a maelstrom for but a second as Mia's frustration reached its peak, then stilled as she calmed herself. "I will speak to Ichigo. After that, my debt is paid. What you do after is your business."
Realizing that there was no changing her mind, the old man nodded slowly. "Then that is all I can ask. Farewell, Mia. For what it is worth, losing you is a tragedy."
He turned and vanished with the sound of fluttering cloth, but not before her last words whispered past him.
"Should anyone attempt to return me to the hellhole, Genryusai, then be warned. I will kill you all. Starting with you."
Then the man was gone, and she stood in dark silence once again. One last time did her gaze flash towards the cell, hatred burning in her emerald visage.
"I warned you, Cale."
And she was gone.
-FROSTFALL-
So the threads of fate were strung again. Days turned into weeks, weeks bled into months, the months spawned years, which spanned across countless centuries, and eventually even reality itself was rewritten.
Without understanding the apocalypse that had taken them, humanity carried on, clueless as to the sacrifice that had just taken part. Whispers, rumors, and hints of long-lost myth were all that remained of the story of the Frozen Apocalypse.
"Das Material ist aus Silber und Eisen. Der Grundstein ist aus Stein und dem Großherzog des Vertrag. Der Ahn ist mein großer Meister Schweinorg."
The strings of fate are being pulled once again.
"Schutz gegen einen heftigen Wind. Schließ alle Tore, geh aus der Krone, zirkulier die Gabelung nach dem König."
As shown across the span of time, history will always find a way to repeat itself.
"Füll, füll, füll, füll, füll. Es wird fünfmal wiederholt. Nur ist es die volle Zeit gebrochen. "
As surely as those who would deny it, fate fights its own oppression.
"-I announce. Your self is under me, my fate is in your sword. In accordance with the Holy Grail, if you abide by this feeling, this reason, then answer."
Those who would fight to keep the Fates in their shrouded dark...
"Here is my oath! I am the one who becomes all of the good of the world of the dead! I am the one who lays out all of the evil of the world of the dead! You, seven heavens clad in three words of power, arrive from the ring of deterrence, O Keeper of Balance-!"
They shall find that Fate shall never stay in the night.
As the form of a regal blonde girl made itself known amongst the dust and debris of the summoning, a clock completed its melancholy chimes.
In the depths of her own home, Tousaka Rin smiled.
-FROSTFALL PROLOGUE: END-
AN- Ha haa. It's been about a year since I've even entertained the thought of restarting this story. I told myself I'd do it, though, and here it is. The fact that I received quite an overwhelming amount of kicks in my lazy ass is irrelevant, right? Right?
Bah, details. Anyway, I hope that you enjoy this, dear reader. I shall be making a forum posthaste, in which I will include notes, discussion boards, and all sorts of fun and adventure. The link will be in my profile, be a dear and give it a look?
Also, if you have some feedback, feel free to drop a review! It'd be totes sweet.
Until next time, Semper Gumby.
-Kapskaen