Small Light
AU. 'A star is not a small, twinkling light that dwells amongst the heavens. It's a great gaseous sphere, raging and uncontained - and when you hold one in the palm of your hand, the world may burn.' Two human wrecks and their spirits in the ruins of barren Earth. Eventual Starshipping.
Part One
After the Chaos
Chapter I
Judai
The sky was white.
Thick, mood-less clouds obscured any shreds of blue that dared to peer past the blankness. It was as if there was a sense of being choked in the air; all azure hope had been forced back to where it could not be seen. Grey shades gave the clouds a look of heaviness, as if they were about to fall and crush the ground beneath them, thunder breaking the soil, but not a drop of water would fall. The world was too cruel for the thirsty these days.
And if the sky did fall, with those clouds gaining mass by some unseen miracle, then what would it all do? The Earth did not need any more destruction. It had already been broken. Everything was already dust and stone. Rubble and dust had left the countless landscapes grey and brown, the land black and blue and brown with wilted grass and fallen branches, rotten wood exposed. Dead beetles swarmed around streams of poisonous fungi. The fungi dwelled without an issue, it seemed, and wherever the fungi were, living humans were not. Nor living beasts. Nothing lived. Everything died. All creatures died. Humans…
Judai Yuki tried his hardest to not think of the human side of death.
It was an action easier dreamt of than done. Where he had been, where his weary feet had passed over, the ground reeked of it. The soil was saturated. He'd learned - had to learn - to ignore the damn stench, lest the whole impression drive him mad. There had not been much blood. Much of what he had seen had long since dried, amongst stony flesh and grotesquely broken bone, limbs splayed out of place, what were certainly skulls cracked in multiple places. The faces were the worst.
Too many to bury.
There was dust in his hair and a soreness in his joints. He had stopped counting the days since he had left the others behind, and had forgotten how long it had been since the chaos had struck. He had been alone for a while now, him and a rucksack of tinned food and the odd bottle, each day of journeying feeling like it stretched on for weeks. That was the cost of being alone; something he treasured and resented all at once.
It meant solitude and freedom and nobody to leave behind when the sickness came for their breaths. It meant relief, with no-one to wish well in the end.
With these moments of loneliness came that feeling that he may be the last.
"Kuri?" His small, furred-and-winged familiar emerged from behind, fluttering to take a better place beside the traveller. Only the last human, thought Judai, a fatigued smile taking form. The spirits remain.
He had memories of calling going back to childhood, to the bright times. Back then, he still had the sun. Friends - at times many, often few. He'd been a strange child, had talked to himself, been obsessed with imagination. His parents seemed as distant as his classmates. But Judai knew that what he saw, and nobody else could see, was not imagined. The spirits were real. They were countless, great and small, furred and scaled and skinned and wise and foolish and young; older than any man in age, even if not in appearance.
Kuriboh had been one of the first spirits he could call his 'familiar'. The small creature had been in his memories stretching back to the earliest days, as far back as he remembered, perhaps even before he could speak. Perhaps as far back and when Judai could never remember. A strange looking thing - a brown ball of fur that reminded him of a curled up kitten, with clumsy scaled limbs and great golden eyes. There were many spirits as such; a simple family with a certain charm. His vocabulary was limited, little beyond the sound Judai had just heard -
"Kuri-kuri!"
- and heard again - but Kuriboh, he knew, was far more intelligent than he seemed. And warm. And full of energy, even when the sky was dead and nobody was alive. This was the friend he needed, and was most thankful to have. Amongst the circle of familiars that had expanded over the years as he mastered his spirit-calling abilities, the little white-winged furball was indeed special. What he lacked in brute strength - and Judai had been challenged only once, then calling on the aid of a larger spirit - Winged Kuriboh made up for in solidarity. That was all he needed right now.
Judai winced as his stomach grumbled. And food, he thought. So much for being human…
His eyes scanned around the ruined town which he had reached. Kicking a small piece of concrete out of the way on the path, he searched for a spot in which he could rest. He had been awake for some time, struggling to sleep in the evenings but nonetheless forcing himself to settle.
Hunger? Is that why I can't sleep? Am I sick?
He hoped, more than anything, that he wasn't.
Judai, by force of habit, more than any other reason, often rested amongst ruined buildings. There had been no tremors for… weeks, he thought. He was never sure of the passage of time these days. What he was sure of, however, was that he could not go inside the ruins.
There was no supernatural cause behind it; being a spirit-caller was not being a vampire. He could enter and leave as he pleased, wherever he wanted to, provided there was no lock. Nobody could stop him entering. It would not be 'breaking', even, provided nothing was further destroyed. Entry wouldn not be difficult, what with the abundance of collapsed walls and flaking doorways, though if a roof had caved in, there was the added difficulty of searching through rubble. The fear of a full-on collapse was also imminent - that was true - but there were far greater reasons why he dared not enter a household.
Firstly, it was impolite to those who had dwelled there. Human sense. Judai was an opportunist, and had relied on theft from the odd food store to supplement his (limited) supplies, but he had morals. Clearly, the action felt wrong.
Secondly, he did not want to see any residents' bodies.
There were already enough on the streets to make him feel nauseous at times, and he was forced to choke down the bile at the sight of the unavoidable. That was reality, and he dared not make his own situation worse. He barely had anything to eat, with little room in his bag and the uncertainty of further raiding opportunities.
His eyes had seen too much for comfort, and he knew he would see more the further he went, but it had to be done. He did not want to remain in one place for too long. Growing attached was not a good thing. He needed to move.
For now, though, rest was important. Finding a small, flat spot alongside a white half-remaining wall - the shell of some larger building, though he did not know what sort - he removed his bag from his back, with Kuriboh settling beside him. He felt certain relief. The bag wasn't large, but it wasn't light either.
Slowly, he sat down amongst chunks of white stone and heaps of smashed bricks. Smashed on impact, he thought. The place looked near-abandoned. It was for the best. White walls, white sky. White for the emptiness. White, the colour of death.
He noticed white smudges on the red of his jacket; from the wall, most probably. The place seemed chalky with dust.
White dust.
Enough. I'm going to eat something.
Judai reached for his bag, tugging on the drawstrings and digging in deep in search for something to relieve the hunger, trying to distract himself from the fear still present. He was alive, for now at least, and he was going to stay that way. He'd have something to snack on and have a rest and get the hell up and go. He would carry on in the same direction, then whichever way any road he saw would lead to. If there were any signs, he would follow them until he came to the places they suggested. Then, he would rest, look around, see if any supplies needed refilling, then journey out again. Those were the rules of solitary life. They, like the rest of it, were a burden and a relief at the same time. He would be alone, for the best and the worst.
His hand settled on a small bar of chocolate. It hadn't been too badly crushed, only broken halfway. That wasn't a problem - it would all end up broken in the end regardless of its state in the beginning. Even if the brown inside lost its taste and colour, it would still be rationed, then eaten. Some things were pleasures to begin with, but in desperate times, those became part of rigorous necessity.
Unwrapping the foil, he picked away at the chocolate in his hands. Before all of this had happened, he recalled loving anything sweet. Anything with sugar. Once, he remembered, he had said that he would die for more chocolate. Now, he could only stare at it. The joke didn't seem funny any more. Eating felt more like a chore with each day. Maybe, thought Judai, it would be easier to die.
He broke off a square and with a small, useless smile, offered it to Kuriboh. The small spirit, of course, had no use for human food, and only chirped gently in return. Judai knew that the action was foolish, but thought of his solitude again. He had offered the food as he would have offered it to any other human. In some way, pretending kept him sane.
He moved his hand back to himself, sighing. The chocolate was his alone. Reluctantly, he placed the square in his mouth, the once relieving taste providing him next to no satisfaction. He savoured the taste, avoiding his usual habit of gulping it down, trying to keep the sweetness there for longer. Still, his mood didn't lift.
Even if it meant less for himself, he longed to share the chocolate with others. Others were what he lacked. Yes, he had his familiars, the spirits who shared his journey and had served him - and whom he had served - for seventeen years, assuming he had been born that way. Even so, they weren't the same. They were not truly human.
Was he really the last man on Earth?
Perhaps, he reflected. Perhaps… But I doubt it. I really hope not.
Perhaps there were other survivors. Perhaps he was not truly alone, or at least, not the last human alive. That had to be true. Judai felt certain, or almost certain, that others had lived. He had not been the only one at the time right after the chaos.
He wondered what became of the ones he had walked away from. Were they still alive? Would he ever see them again? Would Asuka still call him selfish if he came back to them? Or would he be the laughing stock of the group, grovelling back, pale and hungry and driven insane?
The memory of the cough disrupted his questions.
Asuka's accusation. Cough. A rebuttal. Cough. One last look at his friend's body, a silent prayer that his eyes would open and he would see that watery blue again. Bitterness, holding back tears. Walking away.
Asuka's cough. Just like Johan had coughed, like others.
The cough.
The herald of the end.
He shook his head. He didn't want these memories, not again. His heart had sped up, breaths tense. This was not what he needed. He couldn't be ill. He couldn't die here. He had not lived enough yet. He had not found survivors. He had not achieved anything.
Kuriboh floated closer, almost perching on his shoulder, as if to ask what had just occured. "Kuri?" His whole round body tilted, almost in questioning.
"It's OK. Just bad memories." His voice was barely used these days; he had nobody to speak to but spirits. He could use his thoughts to communicate without a problem, but he wanted to speak. He wanted, so badly, to find somebody and speak. To feel human again.
He took another square of chocolate, toying with it with his tongue. It hadn't bloomed, but had none of the taste he once loved. Fed up, he chewed and swallowed. He could eat the rest later. Not now.
Looking towards the small brown spirit next to him, who had settled on top of his bag, he gave a sigh. As if he could tell his caller's intention, Kuriboh moved away, letting Judai place the chocolate back where it came from. Judai reached for the bag, hoping he still had some water left; he wasn't looking forward to raiding anywhere new -
A sudden shiver thrashed down Judai's spine, sending goosebumps through his limbs. The air felt colder in an instant. Judai shivered. He could not tell which of his senses had reacted so suddenly, whether it was one of his human five or the additional perception that came with spirit-calling. Whichever it had been, the resulting feeling was strange. Something strange was afoot. He gasped. This was not something normal. Something was coming.
A screech rang through the atmosphere surrounding him. Judai looked up.
The sky was still white and the clouds had not parted, but he could make out the origins of the screeching noise; most likely, it had also caused the strange sensation inside of his body. It was flying low, but still far beyond the reaches of even the highest remaining spire of the ruined townscape.
Pale, but visible amongst the dense white clouds, he saw it. A silvery, long neck and a sharp ended tail, long and shining, even in the lack of sunlight. What seemed to be chest muscles were a bright, clear violet against the pale silver-and-blue. He made out armoured limbs, strong-looking legs, four of them. And above that, beating the winds, were wings, as blue as river water, their edges shining almost… unnaturally without true light.
The dragon - Judai knew it, it had to be one! - soared above, almost trailing light in the sky. Like water sparkling in the sun, like sparks, like -
like stars!
Judai's mind kicked in. A spirit!
A spirit he didn't know meant another human, doubtless. But that - his breath hitched - also meant another spirit-caller.
Quick! With the thought bolting into his brain, Kuriboh reacted, fading out as quickly as the familiar could muster. He had to hide. This spirit looked dangerous.
Judai gritted his teeth. He'd been lucky in the past. Spirit-callers were rare, that was true, but what made them dangerous was the vicious nature. Perhaps something in the mind, or some side effect of the 'sixth sense' attached, his kind were known not for their hospitality. Calling could easily become territorial, he had been told; callers could summon strong familiars to battle others. For dominance, for hierarchy, to terrorise the other into leaving the area designated 'territory', to kill, even… A fight was the last thing he wanted in this state of being. If there really was another caller in the area, he could not give away his own status.
Giving his weakness away was not on the agenda. Yes, Winged Kuriboh was not his only familiar. Yes, he had others. Some stronger. If worst came to worst, Neos could surely handle the dragon. It was he, himself, that was the problem at hand. He had nothing.
If he ended up being forced into a territorial conflict… Judai thought, the last thing I need is to die before I've found any others. Friendly others.
He wasn't sure if the dragon had noticed him - it didn't swoop down after him, but did make a swift U-turn in the air, gently folding in its wings to dip in height before a swift flap to follow, rising again. Turning, it faced in the direction from whence it came, with the feeling that had suddenly paralysed Judai beginning to subside. Definitely the sixth sense thing, he concluded.
His eyes continued to be fixed upon the dragon - its silvery-blue tail, its huge, star-streaming wings, the extraordinary sight and the sign of life it seemed to be as it flew back… to its caller? He didn't know. Rogue spirits did exist, but those, he knew, were rare. In almost all cases, a spirit needed the aid of its caller to emerge in the living world.
Should I be relieved? I'm not alone, but… if this ends in a fight, it'd be worse than being alone.
The choice was there - to face the caller when they came, or to get away. Judai pondered the idea of even revealing his fellow caller status; heck, what if they would be a friend - but what if not? And what if he just moved on to another place? No, he sighed, that dragon flew damn fast. They'd catch me again, and then it might just get worse.
The shape of the dragon grew fainter as the beast disappeared into the whiteness beyond. Judai felt his neck ache from craning his head up to view the dragon. Lowering his head, he felt Kuriboh reappear beside him, bouncing in anticipation. "Kuri-kuri, kuri-kuri!"
The little spirit seemed to be optimistic, the tips of his white wings fluttering gently, up and down. Judai ran a hand through his hair - unwashed for a while, yes, but that was circumstance; it was still the same brown as Kuriboh's own fur - and tried to smile in spite of the worries rising in the pit of his stomach. Anticipation, a slight fear, nagging anxious shakes, a sense of hope, relief, the awe that remained from the spectacle of the silver-blue dragon, a torrent of feelings he wasn't sure he could quite contain…
"I'm not alone, Kuriboh." He felt himself smiling, the positive vibes overwhelming the fears, if only just for a second. "I'm not alone. I'm not the only one!"
note
[Revised Aug. '15 - adjusted age error and cleaned typo. Added 'Part One']
I said I'd write no more. That was 2 years ago, thanks to a toxic former fandom. YGO and the relating spinoffs are a born-again fandom love for me that goes way back; I got this idea after a resurgence - and finding this shipping! - all of a sudden and have been writing notes for days.
As always, this is a fanfiction, and I don't own the series in question, all that.
Much love. Review if you can.
Yours, Celestos
