Last Question - Angel Notes Fanfic
N.B. Angel Notes is a short 'story' of sorts by Nasu Kinoko set in the future of the F/SN universe, if you haven't read it you probably won't understand much of this fanfic. I highly recommend that you read the excellent translation by Evospace at Gaku Gaku Animal land. You won't regret the decision.
Empty Journey
A dead world. Population of one. Red sun overlooks grey planet.
Endless journey. Crossing a barren landscape, void of all meaning. Walking forever. Destination none. Pointless searching for an existence that was but no longer is. Following the plot of a story that has already ended.
Cloudy eyes that hold no light. A moving body no longer alive. Translucent hair floats behind him, ghostly strands reflecting black sky. Member of a vanished race, impossible organism. Something that cannot be called human.
But in this reality of empty horizons, desolation without end, there is no one to contradict him.
So he keeps walking. Time has no meaning here but purpose was lost long ago. Concept of existence does not apply. With no memory he has no past. With no reason for life... Can he be said to be living?
... Why?
One day the traveller stops. At his feet lies a stone. Small and rounded, dull white shape. He looks around. There are hundreds of others like this one. Was there a reason for stopping here in the first place?
None. There never was a reason. Reason was unrequired. Just another pointless action in a series of pointless actions.
The traveller starts walking again, nothing has changed.
Except one.
In his left hand is the stone. It vaguely resembles a wing.
Ended Existence, Paradox Alive
Endless gravestones. Crosses that scar a planet's corpse. Flicker of memory goes through the wanderer's mind.
A huge flying cross moving away within the ashen clouds.
That thing which changed its course disappearing from sight while continuing to rain down judgement on everything below it.
The end of the battle, beginning of the end of what was his life.
Death. The recollection of dieing. Colorless world hanging before him. With no air to breathe he passed away, alone but satisfied. Secure in knowledge that the 'other' would live at least another day. At that moment the wanderer remembers 'question', purpose returns to mind. He begins to 'live' again, and in doing so starts to wonder why he is still alive.
Standing there by that cross-shaped crater, the wanderer begins to examine himself. Hands, memory of flesh and blood. When he looks down two unfamiliar shapes of glass meet his eyes. He twitches his fingers. The shapes move. Curious he pinches his right hand. The left shape pinches the shape on the right. There is no pain, yet it is indisputable that those are his hands. While he is experimenting with this strange addition to his body some little irregularity bothers him. Air. Lungs. Mouth. Breathe. Yes, that was it. Human beings needed to breathe in order to live.
He opens his mouth and takes a breath. Nothing happens. Confused, he tries again and again to no avail. Finally he stops and touches his chest. It does not move, there is no heartbeat. Realisation strikes.
Of course he can't breathe. He is dead.
Overwhelmed by this reality it perceives his mind 'dies' again. Memory and mind fades, leaving behind only the traveller. Journey begins anew. Again there is no purpose. Just the meaningless trip across this world. No longer Land of Steel, now Finality's End.
Stray Path, Find Again
There was no way to cross.
The traveller's journey comes to an unexpected halt. Upon cresting a hill the nothingness without end stretches before him. There is no bottom to this rift. One cannot see the other side. No choice then but to go around.
His 'detour' takes the traveller along the rift. Wordlessly he puts distance behind him. Though the sun sets and rises countless times such things have no significance to him, or anything else for that matter. Only the need to 'move' drives him.
Finally the rift comes to an 'end'. How the traveller decided this even he didn't know. For one could imagine that the rift is in actuality a giant hole in the planet, and that the journey has taken the traveller along its rim. At any time he could have chosen to start walking away from the rift and it would not have made much difference in the end.
As the traveller walks away his mind awakes for a brief moment. Makes an idle comment before fading away again.
Ninety-two times now.
Maybe Dream
Where once the last city stood there are only the memory of ruins.
To the traveller there are no distinctions between this and the empty plains. He does not even notice the change in his surroundings and walks on.
Sound.
Mind awakens. In the traveller's place the wanderer slowly approaches a crumbling wall. From behind the wall comes a sound he hears in his memories. The squeaky voice of a guitar, the type that used electricity to produce sound.
About to go around the wall the wanderer suddenly stops. If this was just a dream... Just another phantom produced by his mind... He wished to stay here and listen to it forever. Letting the clumsy music play on without an end.
So he leans his head against the fractured concrete. A little fragment breaks off and hits the ground. The music pauses, then picks up again as if nothing had happened. For a timeless moment the wanderer stays like that. Lost in the nostalgia the tune provokes.
Finality's End, Last Question/Answer
The moment passes, the music ends. Time has come to face reality.
But try as he might the wanderer cannot get his body to move.
After struggling for a long while he gives up. Even though his mind is willing, it appears the rest of him disagrees. Instead he sits down and rests himself against the wall.
Silence returns. There are no noises, not even those of his own breaths. A fact which is obvious. After all, he isn't breathing in the first place.
Then, for the first time in a meaningless expanse of time, the wanderer speaks.
"Awful as ever, you haven't improved much have you?" A question to which he expects no answer.
"How rude," The unexpected response. "You are the same as ever."
The wanderer closes his eyes as he hears that sweet voice. A voice he has heard countless times in his memory. He wants to get up and run across to the other side right now, but is afraid to see what he will find. So, he continues the conversation.
"Of course I am the same. Why would I be any different?"
The silence stretches out again, and just when the wanderer is about to get up and walk away the voice speaks again in a faltering tone.
"Because... You never came back..."
You never came back, those words strike a stake through the wanderer's heart. All too easily he can imagine the expression on this person's face as she says those words. All too easily he can imagine the pain she must have felt as she waited for him.
"..."
But that was something unavoidable. To stay with her meant to watch her die. If by going he had been able to give her even just one more second of the life she had enjoyed so much... Why, he would have been satisfied with that.
"Idiot, I'm back now aren't I?"
An exclamation of surprise can be heard. As if someone has just realised the fact. The wanderer shakes his head. No, she hadn't changed either. She was still an idiot. The same gentle and sweet idiot as she had been when she first appeared in his room. It was good to know. And now, it was time to say what he has waited all this time to say.
"Hey."
"Yes?"
"After I left someone I knew asked me a question."
"A question? About what?"
"Why I fought. Why I didn't want to die. And... most importantly... Why I wanted to live."
Those three questions that he had been asked twice before. At the farthest limit of his memories, the second time around, his answer to that last question had been different from before.
"How did you answer?"
The voice seems slightly different from before. Holding a note of uncertainty in its sweet tone. Without answering her question, the wanderer stared up at the cloudless skies. So different from the first time he had seen her.
"Hello? You there?"
It was different from the last time he had seen it too. That red sky had disappeared, leaving in its place the Black Sky.
"Umm... Did you fall asleep or something?"
"What? Oh, no. Just daydreaming."
"Geez. You shouldn't leave someone hanging in the middle of a conversation you know."
"Sorry. Sorry."
A giggle could be heard from over the wall. The wanderer smiled at the sound.
"Anyway you want to hear the answer?"
The giggling stopped. To be replaced by a gentle request.
"Yes please."
The wanderer takes a deep breath. Or tries to before he remembers that he no longer needs can. He then says those words that he had carried ever since that day. Speaking slowly and clearly so that even an idiot like her wouldn't have trouble understanding.
"I wanted to live because... I wanted to see you..."
No answer. There is nothing but silence. The wanderer stands and walks around to the other side of the wall.
There is no one there.
He shakes his head. That was something he already knew, there was no way she would still be here. So long after that day. Still, he had said what was needed. And even if that was just in his mind, he was satisfied with that.
Conciousness starts to disappear. The wanderer's body begins to fade. A memory from a dead world, the last fragment of continuation finally coming to rest in Finality's End. With eyes closed he waits for the end to come.
Then, a soft whisper by his ear.
"You know Godo... I wanted to see you too."
The wanderer opens his eyes.
Just one brief glimpse before he disappeared.
Just one slight moment before he 'died'.
Just a moment before he was about to fade away, he saw her.
-- Amidst the growing darkness, he saw a fake angel.
On the last page of the world's story last memory meets last wish. They share a farewell kiss, a fleeting taste of each other's lips. Then they are both no longer there.
And so, finally together, they left that reality. All that was left behind in that empty world was a blue electric guitar and a small white stone, carved into the shape of an angel's wing.
End