Disclaimer: I don't own Xenosaga ...and stuff. Yeah.
Author's note of greatness: Yeah, I'm well aware that Bonds of the Soul is not finished. But unlike all you losers, I know what's going to happen. In the end, beginning, middle, even the 14 years that we're not even going to cover, and on the days that will not even be covered in the Bonds of the Soul (sinister laughter). In fact, I came up with parts of the plot. To be fair, she comes up with parts of this here plot too. It's all a team effort, you see? We only need to come up with the time to write it all down. Still, enjoy!
Major Note: It would be an excellent idea to read whatever parts of Bonds of the Soul that are posted before trying to read this. (even though she's lazy and hasn't updated in like...forever).
Numbers
Gaignun Kukai felt empty inside, truly empty. A feeling that had haunted him all his life except for a short period of a month or two about 14 years ago. He felt…isolated. Only it was an isolation that no man could ever really understand (Well, except one other, anyway). The best way it could be described would be with numbers. If people had a numerical value, Gaignun would be 0. That little, almost meaningless number between positives and negatives, the brink by which numbers are defined as either greater than or lesser than and broken into two groups accordingly. It was the number that had no effect when added or subtracted, something in this case to be completely ignored. He was the number that destroyed other numbers when they were multiplied by him…. He was an executioner. He was the number that would destroy both himself and another if he had ever been left in a denominator. He executed again if her were the numerator. He was the number that the Ancient Greeks and Romans had not even considered a number and hence gave it no name. He was the number that scientists sought to get rid of in their equations because they knew zero would only destroy everything. Furthermore, he was the number that mankind could fathom least. Zero was nothing, and no one knows what nothing looks like. To have no apples, you have air or a table or a ground to picture. Space still exists. The concept of nothing is beyond the understanding of the realm of humans. The only time Gaignun Kukai really felt was when he was around his friends or his only remaining brother. It was like they subtracted themselves from him, giving his a new value, a time where he would make a difference to them. It was around them, however, that he felt that separation, that difference and he would envy them for meaning something. For not needing a negative number to give themselves positive value and not having to feel the guilt of taking a positive and un-willingly thrusting it into its own reflection on the scales of life.
His only time in life that he had felt his own value, (not like everyone else's value, though. Something very different but not better, not worse, and not the same) was when he had been 12 years old and had come to know a little, blue-haired girl. She had been alone in her world for her whole life. She never mentioned her situations and took efforts to make sure that everyone was in the dark about them. He could feel her thoughts, though. He knew exactly what she was then, even if he didn't know how she got there. What was didn't really matter then. What mattered was that together they had a place. They had something. Some value that fit together, that fed off each other and became even greater. They had a home with each other, not like lovers or friends; it was something indefinable that just worked.
But God's gifts are only fleeting, to be enjoyed for a mere fraction of time. After that month or two of absolute bliss,she had been taken away for good, whisked away into whatever bit of infinity laid beyond this world. She was taken away from him by the same phenomena that had brought her to him: a car accident.
Hot, silent tears rolled gently down his cheeks as he reflected back to the child-goddess's funeral: the sleek casket that was her final resting place, the faces of those in the crowd that had known of her, but couldn't possibly have even understood what she really was. He was left to be the sole barer of her remembrance. She then existed only as the gentle warmth in the back of his mind that wasn't really there. It was only his memory taunting him and yet he made not move to stop it. He couldn't bare to rid himself of her any further, even if keeping these bits brought him pain.
And then the emergency line opened and Mary's face came up right in front of him with an important message….