From morn
To noon he fell, from noon to dewy eve,
A summer's day; and with the setting sun
Dropped from the zenith like a falling star.

-John Milton, Book 1, Paradise Lost

He once was a god.

But that wasn't really right, to begin with; it would be more accurate to say that a god once was him, that he once pulsed with black light like a terrible neutron star, spinning at incomprehensible speeds, so dense and full of matter that a teaspoonful would dwarf the human world - but now. Now he is nothing, trapped in earth and drowned in water and bound into these human bones. Into his human bones, because he can't pretend they are foreign to him anymore. His heart is nothing like crystal and starlight; it is a tiny thing now, crushed and cracked and bored full of holes from the angry fingers of his god.

He is so empty, now.

Sometimes it is hard to remember being VECTOR, a BARIAN, being as hard as rocks and as bright as suns and as terrible as the vast acid sea; sometimes it seems that those memories are distant and fogged, that they were just a dream that Shingetsu Rei once had while burning with fever and delirium. That maybe he had just been unconscious for a month when he awoke sprawled on the ground, head heavy, body aching, when he'd felt the last fading remnants of starlight in him die all at once when the Wall slammed down and the universe recoiled like a cut spring.

He had screamed, sprawled in the city street, like an animal pierced with hot knives, until they took him to a hospital and tied him to a bed and explained to him that he had been missing for a month now, Shingetsu Rei, that his teachers were worried and that he had been acting out ever since his parents died in that accident, and all the while he had thrashed and cursed and spit that he didn't know what they were talking about, that Shingetsu Rei was a fiction, he didn't exist, he had made him up, until they gave him medicines that made him even number and emptier, until he finally stopped shouting and just nodded and let them take him to an empty house they insisted was his home.

(Vector knows this has something to do with Nasch, when he can remember Nasch, the sea-star who had flooded his fire. That this has something to do with his death, with his life, with his deaths and lives, plural, and the god Don Thousand and the orders of the stars. He wasn't meant to fall on this side of the Wall, and this is his punishment - to be cast from heaven.)

(Shingetsu knows this has something to do with Shark, when he can remember Shark, who was Yuuma's favorite until he went away. That this has something to do with those Numbers cards that no one else remembers them releasing, with Yuuma's pendant and his missing father, and with those three months that are the only thing he can remember perfectly anymore, that he somehow fucked all up because of something that doesn't make sense. He wasn't supposed to lose his mind, and this is his punishment - to be alone, and scared, and confused forever.)

None of the others remember him right, they only remember bits and pieces about Shingetsu and so when he returns to school (because they have truant officers assigned to him if he doesn't, because this world has made unwanted room for his fake existence) they talk to him about all the nonsense that he used to do (for the sake of Barian). And then there is Yuuma, Yuuma who has lost all navigation, lost the north star and the sea-star and all the ones shut out beyond the Wall now, and when his eyes first landed on Vector, he had gone sheet-white and had to go home sick.

(On some days, Vector thinks that there is a faint satisfaction, when he remembers what it is to be satisfied, in this. He may be so empty, now, may be dulled and broken and doused, but there is at least a kind of revenge in being able to hurt Yuuma with his sole existence.)

(On other days, when Vector is a hateful dream in the dark corners of Shingetsu Rei's mind, he hates and doesn't know why, recoils and can't explain, and there is something inside him that gnaws and aches because it hurts to be this lonely, and because he can't shake the feeling that there's a reason he's insane and maybe Yuuma knows why, and the thought of someone knowing that before he does scares him so terribly that he can't look Yuuma in the eyes.)

Another day, Yuuma had cornered him at lunch, alone, found him in a room and hissed angry words at him from a distance of at least two desks like he was scared, had called him "Vector" and asked what he was doing, what he wanted. Vector didn't know. It was so overwhelmingly gratifying to be called Vector, to be reminded that he was once starlight and fire and he hadn't dreamed it all, that he couldn't react to Yuuma at all, could only stand there dumbly and stare while Yuuma backed away one step after another irregular step like a cornered dog.

The rumors start to go around that Yuuma and Shingetsu, once inseparable, had some sort of crazy falling-out. Vector doesn't alter his tone of voice anymore, because he doesn't remember sometimes why that was even necessary, and it confuses some teachers while other classmates pat him on the back and tell him it's about time his voice changed.

(With every day that goes by, it is harder to remember what it felt like to burn brightly inside. He counts the splashes of freckles on his arms and watches bags form under his violet eyes and sometimes he bites his fingers just to watch blood well up and stream out rubyred. He comes to school with taped-up fingers and no other humans seem real except for Yuuma, because Yuuma is the only one who can remember the stars. Yuuma seems angry a lot now, and sad, and he forces smiles for Kotori (who doesn't trust Shingetsu), but no one else.)

It takes him two weeks and he waits for a day when it is raining, because he isn't sure he won't cry when he does this, and he doesn't want it to be seen. He goes to Yuuma's house and stands in the middle of the street, and stands there waiting until Yuuma's pet garbage robot asks him what he wants, and when he says he wants to talk to Yuuma, she tells him not to move because he should get run over by a van. Yuuma comes out later but he won't leave his porch, and they shout their answers and questions at each other over the loud, pouring rain.

I hate you, Vector says, his cheeks already hot with water that isn't rain, Tsukumo Yuuma, I hate you. I wish I could hate you to death.

I hate you even more, Yuuma shouts, Vector, you've taken everybody from me, it's your fault and everyone's gone and it's your fault, what did you want, a trophy? a medal? why are you HERE?

And Vector has no answer for that, but Shingetsu does, and it leaks out in shameful little syllables between his lips and the teeth that try to nail them shut: I don't remember why I'm here, I'm not supposed to be real, I'm not supposed to have a history, I'm not supposed to be human but I am and I'm crazy and it's your fault and it's Nasch's fault -

and when he says Nasch, Yuuma's face crumples like paper, and he runs into the rain, and he grabs Shingetsu by the shoulders and shakes him and hisses, you remember Shark? (Shark, maybe not Shark, it's all so disjointed now because of the Wall, but he sometimes can remember Nasch and Merag, and at night when no one can hear him he whispers, I'm sorry, out his window because he knows he hurt them and it's because his heart was once so full of hate.)

(Not that he's any better of a person anymore, mind; the difference is that his heart is just so small now, so small and full of holes. It is too tiring to hate when he can't remember why, or even how. It is too exhausting to plot and plan revenge when he is so empty, now, and nothing makes him feel bad or good. Not even Yuuma's hatred can make him feel anything.)

Yuuma ends up pulling him inside and making a big fake production of "we-were-fighting-but-now-we're-okay-again" to his sister. Vector's clothes are so soaked there's no saving them, and Yuuma's grandmother forces him to change into a cotton yukata while she hangs them up to dry. The two of them end up on Yuuma's floor, Vector clutching a towel around his head. This is surreal, but everything has been surreal since the Wall, so really, being in the same room as the person he hates most in the universe isn't much of a stretch. The ends of his bangs drip on the floor.

Yuuma asks what he remembers about Shark, and Vector mumbles about Nasch, disjointed memories - Nasch dueled him, Nasch took the darklight from him and left him broken, left him to shatter until he woke up in the human world, dead and reborn. Yuuma asks, no, but what about Shark, but Vector can't remember enough to say. It disappoints Yuuma, but the kid soldiers on and asks if he remembers Alit (he does, Alit was the best of them even though he was also an obnoxious idiot goody-two-shoes fool), and Gilag (he does, only vaguely), and Mizael (he does but it hurts to remember, Mizael who was so bright and so proud and so brave, enough to actually scold Vector for the worst of him), and Durbe (Durbe who deserved better than Nasch, to be quite honest, but that was foolishness and blind devotion for you), and Merag (at that, Vector turns away, and will not speak), and As-

but Yuuma stops himself, because he cannot ask Vector if he remembers the Messenger. Vector couldn't tell him if he did remember, the memories are all bound up with the god Don Thousand and the chaos terror Number Ninety-Six and the empty spaces in the small, crushed-can thing he has for a heart.

And after a while, Yuuma asks if he feels like tabletop dueling, and Vector doesn't have cards, so he borrows a deck and flicks through it three times in a row to memorize the setup, and Yuuma beats him handily even without... without some cards Vector thought he'd had, because Yuuma has dueled so many times now with his current deck that he couldn't be bad at it anymore if he tried. Vector reshuffles and they go again, and this time he loses by a much narrower margin, and he wishes he had his Shining deck with him. They go a third time and Vector's mind is elsewhere now, and on a winning streak he accidentally - genuinely, accidentally this time - summons a 0-ATK monster in attack mode before he's ready, and the two of them just stare at it on the floor before Yuuma starts laughing, and he starts laughing too because it's easy to laugh with Yuuma, and Yuuma says, wow, way to be, Shinge—

and they stop, and it hangs between them, and the air is brittle like glass for a long time, until Vector looks away, and pulls his towel tighter around his head even though his hair is nearly dry now, and he says,

"I don't... mind."

(Shingetsu misses when it made sense.)
(Vector is just tired of being empty.)

A faint and terrible shadow passes behind Yuuma's eyes, for one moment, before he holds his cards up closer to his face, and says, you can end your turn now, you know.

Shingetsu does, and he smiles when he loses because of that error, and when Yuuma guiltily asks if he wants to go back those two turns and replay from that point, just to see how it'd go, he says, no. No, he won't take it back.