December 25th
Author's Note: SMT IV, post-Neutral route. Nothing against religion, just something that evolved out of a thought about how Christmas would be regarded in the post-Law and post-Chaos routes. For the purposes of this piece, the date of the endgame victory has been placed on Christmas day for symbolic significance.
"On this day we give thanks to the Lord for the birth of our first saviour, for the Lord had given us His son, he who gave his life to redeem our souls..."
"Hey, King! Do you know what day's today? 25th December. My grandfather used to cry and curse the heavens every year on this day, calling it 'Christmas'..."
"And on this day as well, we give our thanks to the Lord for sending us our second saviour, for the Lord had worked His will through his chosen champion to protect us from those of tainted souls..."
"But you know, I never got why. I mean, praying to a god that abandoned us in this shithole crawling with demons? Sitting in a corner begging for someone else to help you? What for? When you defeated Merkabah a year ago, you showed them what the strong really can do..."
"Our fifth son..."
Not again. His eyes flew open. An all too familiar face completely drained of all colours save a blinding whiteness, with tear tracks permanently frozen upon his cheeks. After that whole mess a year ago, he had thought himself at least done with the White forever.
Flynn twisted onto his feet and stepped away, instinctively putting distance between himself and Not-Issachar. Stark white leaves crunched beneath his boots. "The White," he greeted, eyes searching out the rest of Not-Issachar's brethren. Where one was, the other three were usually never far behind. "What do you want from me this time?"
Not-Issachar only tilted his head slightly, watching Flynn with the painfully familiar half-grin of his old friend. The first of so many friends he had seen die. "You found your own way here, back into this rift of God, demons and man."
Flynn's heart lurched uncomfortably. For the first time faced with the White, his sword was gone. And both Burroughs and his demons were unusually silent. If the White attacked him now... His last time here had involved him defeating all four of the White, then relying on Steven and the spirit of Tokyo for a way back. Without his weapon or demons, Flynn doubted he could possibly repeat the feat.
"You rejected the path we laid out for you," Not-Isabeau's voice echoed around the clearing in that strange way he had become accustomed to hearing the White speak. The figure herself emerged from the foliage without a sound to suggest she had done anything but materialise directly from the mist. As with Not-Issachar, it disturbed him to see his friend's image so twisted by the White. "You chose your own."
Not-Issachar was still watching him curiously. "Yet the question is, why did you return? Do you perhaps regret the path you have chosen?"
Regret? What did Flynn have to regret? Unthinking obedience? A cutthroat world with no room to spare a thought for anyone but themselves? "No. I still think you're wrong. All of you." And he had defeated them all in order to forge his own path towards a world where people had to live by neither absolute.
"You speak so quickly." By now, the remaining two figures of the White had appeared, joining their fellows in silent scrutiny. "But those are words we have all spoken before."
"You are our fifth son. Four times before we had each chosen our paths with confidence, and every time our regrets have unchangingly led us here."
"Yours will also be a path that ends in regret. Such is inevitable." Not-Isabeau's blank gaze stared into Flynn's own. "We will always be watching. And waiting..."
In what seemed like the space between blinks, the image of Isabeau before his eyes exploded into colour. Dark brown, red-brown, the deepest of reds and blues. The harshness of the blue sky silhouetting her face. The intensity of the colours burned his eyes, yet Flynn drank them in greedily.
"Flynn?" Even the confusion and concern in her eyes was something to be appreciated, after the soullessness of her white twin. He could hear the mental hum of his demons' presence in the back of his mind, a comforting sort of white noise he had gotten used to in the years since becoming a samurai. He had hardly realised how used he was to their presence until the unnatural silence in his dream. "You do not look well." His fellow samurai's brow was furrowed.
"...the White spoke to me." Flynn admitted quietly, as Isabeau helped him upright. His voice was slightly hoarse, as if he hadn't spoken for a long time.
Isabeau's eyes widened, before they narrowed again sharply. "They're back? What did they want?"
He only shook his head. "Just a greeting, I think. Warning me that they too, had all started out with the best of intentions."Warning him that he too would fail.
Isabeau said nothing for a long moment, her chin raised as she observed him in a way that for a moment, reminded him eerily of the White. "That only means they failed in the end. And just because they failed, does not necessarily mean that wewill. We did what we felt was right, and that's all we need to believe in for now."
Flynn could only smile at the resolve in her voice, tinged with the Luxuror haughtiness he now fondly recognised as self-confidence. What Isabeau had was a gift. Her refusal to bow to haste, to choose from only those options presented to her by others. When he had returned to Camp Ichigaya after defeating the White, knowing nothing but what he didn't want to do, it had been Isabeau who had finally set them upon their present way forward. The people acclaimed him the hero of Tokyo, but Isabeau was definitely the heart of their operation. "Thank you, Isabeau."
Isabeau smiled slightly in return, straightening to her feet. "Commander Hope sent me after you. The celebrations for the first anniversary of Tokyo's freedom cannot begin without its hero, can it?" She offered him a hand to help him to his feet.
To bow to no one, to help each other, to celebrate together. Yes, it was probably enough to believe in for now.