Prologue: One Step to the End
«Kaleidoscopes are magic!»
«How are they magic?»
«Because reality is just one, but looking through the kaleidoscope you can see a hundred of different worlds!»
His brother looked at him raising his eyebrow.
«Magic, you say? It's nothing but an illusion.»
«Why?»
«Because…»
.
.
The walls were white, the squares were white, and the carpets were white.
Even the young boy's skin was so white it was hard to tell where the border of the starched collar ended and his snowy neck began.
Ludwig watched the youth wearing his pearly gloves, impassive. He brushed his left arm, where the holes of the injections were still itching: he must continually keep an eye on the Axis, without any sort of rest, so he took a medicine which annihilates his need to sleep. He hadn't taken a single nap since the day he became the Guardian.
He sighed, his lips pressed firmly together. As Guardian, he was responsible for watching over the boy every minute of every day, and he wasn't allowed to let himself get distracted. But the position of the Axes was far worse than his: he was doomed to a lonely life, locked up in the Quartz Palace. The utmost isolation was the only way to keep him immaculate and uninvolved in the dirty mess the world was, because only the Axis's purity granted the stability of the Confederation.
Despite the retirement, a Guardian was necessary, since there were herds of criminal starving for Axis's powers.
Ludwig fixed his light blue eyes on the tiny back of the boy in front of him, who had just pulled the milky hat on his head. Those fragile shoulders were supposed to bear the weight of the destiny of the entire Confederation, but they were as fine as the silk mantle on them.
Feliciano finished his clothing and spun on his heels to face the Guardian.
«Done!» he warbled, before he headed himself to the marble altar.
Ludwig placed himself behind the boy. The big sword hanging by his shoulders scratched the iridescent pavement. Another day of loneliness and prayers. As always.
Feliciano folded his gloved hands and, before the ritual hymn, whispered his own wish:
«I hope my brother will be fine, wherever he is.»
.
.
In another place, another whiteness was born.
It was the ghastly pale of the chief of the guards' checks, staring incredulously at his subordinate.
«You did what? You imprisoned Lovino Belial?» he stuttered.
«He is a dangerous criminal, sir. A pirate of the worst kind…»
«Are you completely stupid or something?» the chief blurted out, his face suddenly turning a purplish hue. «We cannot take a delinquent of his caliber in this old prison!»
«He could be as strong as he wished, but until he's shackled…» a sentinel noticed as the chief abruptly hushed his voice:
«He is Devil's Left Hand! Ring any bells?»
He came close to almost scratching the dull expression from his men's faces as he continued, spitting out hysterics, «Let's call for reinforcements, or let him go! I don't want my prison torn down for such a…»
«I'm afraid you're way too late for regrets.»
The sudden interruption frightened the chief and made him jump so high he nearly reached the roof. Out of the blue, the owner of the voice appeared from behind - a little boy, a ghostly shell of a human being, with copped hair and pinched skin. Shackles couldn't stop the youth, as was apparent as he brushed his reddened wrists with an annoyed frown.
«May the Axis protect us!» slipped out a guard.
Every single hope faded away under the scowl of the boy and his angry words, «Don't you dare mention the Axis. He should not even exist.»
A deafening roar shook the prison, its walls crumbling violently, brick and cement fragments darting all around the dusty air. The screams of the guards weakened as they collapsed, hit by wreckage or suffocated by the debris.
When that clutter ended, Lovino stood up in the middle of the circle shaped by the fainted sentinels, his left hand pressing a gas mask on his face. The wrist of the chief twitched, shortly before his vision turned black upon that unmoved figure: such a skinny boy prevailed among a crowd of armed men, uninjured and impassive like as a wicked being was protecting him through his sinful powers was something far larger and terrifying. That's why he was called the Devil's Left Hand.
The chief fainted, so he couldn't see the man who came to rescue Lovino: he didn't catch the sight of the Devil's Right Hand, getting out of the Airship with feline grace.
Lovino gazed disapprovingly at the Airship as he watched it land on the prison, disintegrating its walls, and at the captain.
«You're late. And you made a mess, as always.»
«You've just broken your chains, so my timing is perfect,» the man contradicted him with an endearing smile drown on his lips.
«I though you get your heavy ass up to help me with these,» objected Lovino, showing the remaining pieces of the shackles.
The smile of the man migrated into his eyes ad he bent down to murmur:
«You're my lover, Lovino, but you're not a damsel in distress. I think you can manage such a small issue, can't you?»
The boy head butted his chin, and jumped on the Airship while the man was massaging the hurting bone.
«Let's go,» he decided despondently.
Antonio followed him, fluttering and careless of his partner's bad temper. The seamen greeted the Devil's Hands enthusiastically and moved quickly in order to obey their captain's commands.
The Airship roared like a stormy sea as the light blue rocket motor allowed gas to escape. But his growl was covered buy the shout of war of another Airship, flying straight in their direction.
Antonio and Lovino sighed at the same time, noticed the waving flag of the ship.
«Is that Arthur again?» said the Hispanic. Lovino nodded, gnawing his own cheek like a bitter pill.
Antonio's Airship darted into space and, at a turbulent speed, raced with the Britannic forces once again.
Despite of the supersonic speed, Lovino was able to steal a glance to the Quartz Palace, clear and bright in the dark space. He ground his teeth like a trapped animal and snarled:
«I'll get my brother out of you, you bastard.»
.
.
A silky rustle accompanied the movement of the oriental youth on the bed.
He picked up his red nightgown, using it to cover his nudity, and sat on the bed. His onyx gaze was instantly attracted by the sword laying near his legs.
He wrapped his fingers around the hilt and almost drowned in the celestial whistle of the blade abandoning its sheath.
Ivan will keep his promise soon.
Together, they're going to kill Kiku.
.
.
The Flemish smiled over the wine glass, watching the afflicted glare in the bloody eyes of his fellow.
«Where do you think all of this will bring us?» asked histrionic.
The man shook his silver head, and his answer blew out in an irritated snort:
«I don't know. I don't have a single clue, damn it! The Universe itself could disappear thanks to this trivial quarrel.»
Francis dipped his lips into the delicious taste of grapes: The Flemish could always appreciate good wines, the pleasures of love and well narrated poetry. Even if death was no farther than a step.
«Do you remember how all of this started, Gilbert?»
«What's the point in recalling it now?»
«Maybe it couldn't change the flow of the story, but it's a good thing. Turn back when you are so close to the end, I mean.»
«Why?»
«Because sometimes the path is so long you forgot the reason which made you start your journey.»
Gilbert emitted a sound mixing a snarl and a retch, and blurted out:
«Stop talking in rhyme. If you have something to say, just say it!»
Francis smiled, drank a sip of wine and whispered:
«It's not a big deal. I've just felt a little nostalgic for the fellow who left us along the way.»
«Regrets» criticized Gilbert. «That's why you shouldn't turn back.»
«You have a resolute tone, but your shoulders are shaking.»
«Shut that noisy hole under your nose up!»
Francis hushed himself and emptied the glass.
And let his memories free to run wild.
Chapter One: A Scepter in the Sky
Nobody knows what exactly went through Sir Vargas's mind when the midwife told him his wife had given birth to twin brothers. Her face resembled the stone face of the sculpture of Villa Topazio. But everyone remembered his first words for his newborn babies:
«Only one of them will become the Axis. The other one is useless.»
Since the very beginning of the Universe, Vargas' family had sent his first born son to the Quartz Palace in order to serve the Confederation as Axis; the duty of the second born was to assure many descendants.
In those days the Axis was the uncle of Sir Vargas, but he was pretty far gone and all of the family was desperate for an heir worthy of the honor. And then, the newborn babies arrived.
But twin brothers were something evil in the eyes of the Vatican, the family in charge of religious affairs of the Confederation; a single soul separated into two different bodies was something wicked and unnatural, and centrally it would bring great disgraces.
He would wait until the babies showed their powers, he would choose the best of them and throw away the worst, in order to give the chosen one back the rest of his soul.
In that very moment, the twin brothers started crying. And the midwife didn't understand why, all of a sudden, the two newborn babies howled and looked for their brother as they feared to be roughly separated.
Sir Vargas somberly frowned at them.
«Witchcraft,» he hissed, leaving the chamber.
.
.
Ten years later, the two brothers intertwined their fingers, floating in the ocean of white blanket that was their bed.
«Look!» said Feliciano, pointing to the vitreous ceiling. In the black dome of the night, the Quartz Palace was emitting the picture of tranquil clarity, the magic of the Vatican family keeping the crystal shaped building in the sky. It floated gracefully in the heart of everything, brightening the World of the Confederation with its angelic aura.
Lovino bent his head, perplexed.
«Looks like a scepter in the sky.» he commented.
«I want to see it so bad!» chirped Feliciano.
«I'll pass,» muttered Lovino.
«Why?»
Lovino twisted his mouth, vexed.
«It seems so… alone. Etched on nothing. It's a crying crystal.»
Feliciano's hand gripped his hand harder.
«You'll never leave me alone, right?» he almost wept, snuggling up in his brother's arms.
Lovino ruffled his hair and exclaimed:
«We're brothers, obviously we'll never be alone.»
«What if someone takes us apart?»
«Even so, I'll be in your blood, in your dreams and in your memories. We're twins.»
He wasn't so confident about his words, but he could feel Feliciano's smile growing on his shoulder. Even if the Quartz Palace was still cursing them with its light, Feliciano was smiling. That was enough for him.
.
.
Sir Vargas knew twin brothers were some sort of witchcraft forged in the very depths of Hell. And his sons had proved it every day.
If one of them was hurt, the other one felt his pain at the same moment. And sometimes, the children shared dreams during the night, and discussed them in the morning. Innocent episodes, which filled the children with joy and their father with suspicion.
Then, one day, Heaven sent an unquestionable sign about which one of the two brothers was the chosen one. Because of the warmth of the spring season, the two brothers went to the wood for a walk. A wild wolf suddenly came out from the trees, and Feliciano joined his hands and murmured a prayer. His little body blazed like a star, causing the beast to flee.
And Sir Vargas cleared his mind.
The order was precise and merciless: separate the twin brothers and bring Feliciano to the Quartz Palace. And discard Lovino on the most desolate planet in the whole Confederation.
«He's refusing food?»
Sir Vargas bitterly ran his hand through his grizzled hair.
They dragged Feliciano to the Quartz Palace, and he made an awful exhibition of himself: he fought against everyone, kicking and crying his brother's name. And since the day he crossed the gate of Quartz Palace he had refused food. He did nothing but breathe in a corner of his room, foodless and speechless.
The sentinel suggested to go in and cheer up his little boy, and Sir Vargas followed his advice reluctantly. The behavior of his son did not make any sense to him - being the Axis was the highest honor achievable inside the Confederation.
An exsiccated little voice hardly climbed the dried throat of the child:
«I was waiting for your coming.»
Sir Vargas contracted his mouth in a bitter grimace. They had to erase those shadows under the little boy's eyes, and they must do something for the chaps on his lips. They could not allow a grotesque caricature of a child to damage the beatific image of the Vatican Family.
«Where's my brother?»
His father folded his arms and bombarded him with a cruel answer:
«Your brother is not here anymore. He must return to you an half of your soul, and he did it.»
Feliciano tilted his head back and a uncanny glare lightened his eyes.
«No. You failed,» he curled up his scraggy legs and carried on: «When he hurt his elbow, I would feel the pain. When he fell, I couldn't walk either. When he dies, I will dead with him. That's how I know he's still alive.»
«We cannot tolerate an Axis with only an half of his soul. So we had to… cleanse you of him,» replied Sir Vargas, unaffected. «And his powers were immoral. Far from yours.»
Feliciano's head dangled in disagreement, and he reached out his hand to his meal, barely touched on the white bedside table.
«He'll come back to rescue me. He promised. He will not leave me in the scepter of the Sky. He will not leave me crying along with the crystal,» he sank the spoon in the soup, but, before swallowing, he declared: «I'm not eating because I want to become the Axis. I'm eating because I seek to see my brother again.»
Sir Vargas went out of the room, exasperated. Twin brothers surely were the most troublesome creature in the universe: they were so morbidly attached to the other one they could not see the right path, and how merciful the grown-ups were.
He would have sharply reprimanded him, if the same stubborn Feliciano had left the room, the day after. But the chamber regurgitated a totally different eleven-year-old.
A child, impeccably dressed in the complicated tunic of the Novice Axis bowed to Sir Vargas, smiling the whole time.
«I'm willing to start my training, father,» he murmured melodiously.
His father accepted his inexplicable change with a good grace, while the blood of the sentinels who saw that scene ran cold: during that foodless week, little Feliciano patiently and methodically sewed on himself a mask. He paid attention to every single detail and decorated it with graceful liar, and there he was, in a blaze of Heaven's light and kindness in despite of the challenge he issued to his father the day before.
They could not see the soul behind that mock smile, or the real thoughts that good mannered attitude was hiding.
They soundly swallowed, frightened of the nonchalance the little boy had showed disguising his very soul. Twins were really terrifying beings.
«Come, Feliciano,» his father invited him. «Your Guardian is waiting for you.»
The child accepted the offer of the father, and his smile scared the guards even further: it wasn't the innocent expression of a baby, it was the make-believe of a youth forcefully grown up in a week.
They tried to warn Sir Vargas, and their bodies were burnt up in a faraway planet as a result.
Once that dissenting voices had hushed, Sir Vargas could finally amuse himself hearing the praises and the adulations for his son, who was far more powerful than his predecessors of the last three hundred years.
.
.
The sand was hot and scratchy, but not as much as his parched throat, itching for water.
Lovino trudged in the dust of the desert planet he was left on, feverishly determined to survive in that hot desolation.
He was to be executed, but no one would ever raise his sword against the sainted fruit of Vatican Family: it would bring a thousand years of misfortune on the whole spawn of the miserable retch who dared such a blasphemous act. Therefore they had left him on Saharian planet, permitting the cruel sun to finish him in their stead.
Lovino wore out, breathing dust and burning air. He did not wish to die in such an insipid way, leaving his brother all alone in the middle of the Sky.
He blinked his dehydrated eyes: in the air distorted by the heat, he saw the trembling figures of a crowd of men, but it could be a nasty trick his roasted eyes were playing on him.
He moved his lips twice, unable to speak, before he collected enough saliva to spit out, «Anyone's there?»
The blurring shadows swung in his direction, and snatches of conversation reached his boiled ears:
«Why is a child here?»
«Where did he come from?»
A callous hand grabbed his collar, lifting him up like a cat, and crude fingers tangled themselves in the hair at his nape. His noble linage gleamed under the blazing sun beam: the sign of the Vatican Family, a silver cross shaped tattoo, caused disapproving barbs from the plebs around.
A swearword such as he had never heard before sandpapered his neck: that kind of words didn't exist at Villa Topazio, not even in thoughts.
«He is a Vatican!» yelled a sour voice above him.
«Let's waste him!» barked another one.
«Don't…» Lovino coughed and fumbled then he articulated: «Don't kill Feliciano. You can kill everyone else, but not Feliciano!»
An imposing figure shaded his face, and a warm and sardonic voice blew:
«A Vatican child is begging a mob of pirates to kill his own family? Come on, Garcia, let him go! You'll break those blackbird's bones of his with the shovels you have for hands.»
Lovino collapsed to the ground the very moment that the energumen set him free, and he was saved by the owner of the ironic voice.
«I meant kindly, Garcia.»
«You should be more specific, Capitain.»
The little boy's head weakly dangled, while two muscular arms lifted him up.
Lovino caught a glance of a pair of green irises with his desiccated pupils.
«We'll give you some water. And, after that, we'll gladly hear what else you have to say about your family.»
Then the world became too vorticose and colorful for his shriveled senses.
.
.
His teeth clenched with a growl as the jug was carried away from his hands.
«Don't drink so fast, or you'll feel sick.»
«I almost died out there. It can't be worse.»
Lovino spitefully stared at the man, returning the glass to him.
He must be the captain of the Reina de la Oscuridad, Antonio Fernandez Carriedo, an Hispanic with emerald eyes and mocking smirk. A queue of dark curls came out from the three-cornered hat and laid down on the scarlet coat the captain was wearing. The little boy focused on the decoration of the crimson textile: on the left side of the line of buttons the symbol of the ship proudly showed up, while on the right side he lined up the medals he had taken from the defeated captains. And they were as many as stars in the night sky.
«You're way too young to beat that many people,» Lovino accused him, before he dipped his lips into precious water.
«I'm older than you, anyway,» Antonio replied. He ran his fingers through the medals, which proudly tinkled. «The Vatican born like you are suited for clerical jobs. On the other hand, the Carriedo are… skilled in different sorts of stuff. And thanks to that, I can also beat more experienced captains.»
The little boy gazed at him over the border of the cup. Antonio crossed his hands on his stomach, and studied him. «Are you really intending to betray your family?»
The glass was placed on the table with a dull thud.
«I want noting but to take my brother away from the Palace. Ii doesn't matter how.»
«And are you willing to do anything to pursue your aim?»
«Anything.»
One of the three tips of the hat touched captain's shoulder lightly as he saw the scrawny boy from a different angle.
«It's a merciless declaration,» Antonio emphasized every single word, in order to worsen their weight. «Beside your cleric powers…»
Captain's doubts flew away with his books, literally. Lovino closed his eyes for an instant, and suddenly everything in the cabin started whirling in the air, with the exception of the chairs they were sitting on.
Antonio watched the delirium all around him with a disarming calm, until the little boy opened his eyes and caused everything to stop.
«These are my real powers. But I can do something worse,» Lovino confessed. «And this is one of the reasons for my father hates me.»
«One?»
The child bit his lips until they bled, and Antonio respected his silence.
«We'll have ample opportunity to discuss it again during the journey.»
A suntanned hand waved under his nose, expressing a precise offer.
«Are you ready to join my crew?»
Lovino looked the fingers up and down, suspiciously. He wasn't sure he really desire a life of escapes, battles and incessant work. Nevertheless no one, except the outlaw leading the Reina de la Oscuridad, would ever be crazy enough to go with him against the Quartz Palace.
Lovino firmly shook his hand, and a deadly smile rose on Antonio's bronze face.
Together, they will be able to shatter the crystal in the Sky.
.
.
«Magic, you say? It's nothing but an illusion.»
«Why?»
«Because it's just the same picture repeated over and over. Not a single change. This is the saddest part.»
.
.
.
Notes:
Reina de la Oscuridad (Spanish): the Queen of Darkness
.
Beta Reading: Amethyst Asheryn