Saccharine

by Scythers

Life goes on, even for Ichijouji Ken. However, during the college years, what happens when a Darkness from his past returns and destroys his delicate balance? [2/?: "The Fool" // profanity warning ]

2. The Fool

* * *

SACCHARINE
Chapter One: The Fool

* * *

                       (( part i ))

"Power doesn't have to show off. Power is confident, self-assuring, self-starting and
self-stopping, self-warming and self-justifying. When you have it, you know it."

Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man

* * *

The sun was hemorrhaging. Since midday it had begun a leaden, agonizing descent down the eastern stretch of sky, dripping a strange orange blood that steadily darkened into red. Nets of flashing gold line, fine like a fisherman's, spread from the horizon and caught the burning orb in a web of inescapable light. An illusion of fire melting into cool earth was given as the sun continued to fall in slow motion. The last hour of the day's heat still caused the air to shimmer; paved asphalt and erected brick appeared liquefied. There were less and less people on the street as late evening drew closer, heretofore their preference being to stay indoors instead of swim through the mucky humidity: A rainstorm was in the making.

Adjusting rather chic sunglasses, Tachikawa Mimi stared down the remaining dayglow courageously. The twenty-something hadn't decided to journey abroad for the sake of solar radiation's pleasure in chasing her to shielded safety.  She had already been to Australia, where the ozone was no thicker than a sheet of paper in some places on the continent. Europe was far better off, and she was grateful of that, as the amount of SPF lotion that saturated her tan skin did not need to reach criminal proportions. She also wore a sunhat made of thatched straw for extra protection, a black ribbon with white polka-dots she lifted in Spain tied around its crown. The brim was held onto as a stiff, sticky breeze blew past with the force of a young colt charging down the narrow street.

Italy truly was a romantic country. She caught a train from Switzerland that went over the northernmost border, while within her private compartment she entertained herself by writing letters to friends and family still at home in Japan and America respectively. She was alone on Daddy's expense and enjoying it immensely despite the lack of a true companion. Palmon had passed on the opportunity. No matter! Mimi thought when she looked back, popping a Swiss truffle into her mouth and penning another address onto a blank label. She doesn't know what she's missing. Those purchased sweets only lasted as long as her appetite would allow. (She was secretly pleased didn't have to share them with her partner.)

The train stopped at various cities as it wound south along the system of railways. Much to her disliking, the visits began to become very monotonous with the same sights to see, the same atmosphere, and the same crushing throngs of foreigners drawn to the same neon tourist traps. She lost full interest the third town inward and decided to mill about the train's platform and adjacent waiting area, being flirtatious with the locals; lingering until it was time to set off again.

Rome concluded her train ride. She would be departing for Japan the following evening, her funds dwindling, and her friends begging that she return for one last reunion before everyone went their separate ways for college and so on. They had already lost Miyako to an American institute that conducted summertime sessions for incoming freshmen.

The hotel she was staying at in the meantime was very grand, and aside from the blustery couple that stayed next to her, jiggling the knob of the locked door that connected their rooms together every five minutes, the accommodations were comfortable enough. After stowing her suitcases of souvenirs in the closet, Mimi decided to have one last go at sightseeing. She went to the lobby, requested that the receptionist call up a contracted guide, and that was that. (A guide in Rome is not to be mistaken with someone that shows you around. It is a colloquialism for a translator, one who follows you and interprets should you wish to converse.)

The guide was in his late twenties, surprisingly fair-haired, green-eyed, and became hesitant with Mimi implied that they should proceed off the beaten path former excursionists had carved with their flip-flop sandals. He could supply no suitable reason -- "Instinct," he said in slightly accented English -- and his consort was not in the mood to listen. She had already seen how clean and safe the city was: The Vatican even had private police force there, combing blocks upon blocks. Once he gave up trying to convince her, he realized that no consolation of Euros would be received for walking away; and grudgingly conformed to her demands. The potential adventure simply unsettled him.

A hallowed, saintly looking icon stood with marbled wings outstretched; smooth granite features set into that of euphoria as it cast its unseeing eyes to the vespers and retribution beyond. One stony dove, tinted with rust that desired to eat away at the metal framework of the statue, remained docile in rain-worn palms. The nameless carving of an emissary from above, robes frozen and capped in bronze, abided beside the two more animated persons at the foot of the downward slanting street. Mimi situated her hat with another thick hairpin to prevent a second wind from stealing it away, signaled to her jittery companion, and went with her long shadow towards the first cluster of cramped, domesticated-looking shops.

In hindsight, Mimi considered that none of the buildings had been ostensible at all. They were practically mirror images of one another, following a strict uniformity with their Romanian-style architecture, rising to the same height and widening to the same girth. The hard, dark Transylvanian wood was melancholy; made sculptural by coats of varnish -- that a whittler's tool had been able to carve intricate designs along the plastic surfaces. This artistry drew no more attention than the lightless storefront windows with weary, dusty display cases did. Actually, there only seemed to be one place that gave any indication that someone was present and tending; it was the furthest down, squashed between a wall overgrown with ivy and a neglected music discounter. The windowpane was overcast save for the cardinal sphere of fire that flickered behind the glass, originating from an oil lamp of burnished metal that was set within a display of varying items for sale. It also served to light the words stenciled onto a placard -- IL NEGOZIO MAGICO! -- that was propped nearby and bathe some of the skinny sidewalk.

". . . The Magical Shop," the guide breathed, before Mimi had a chance to ask for his assistance. He gave a start when he saw her pursue the concrete walkway to reach it. "You want to go there, miss?"

"Yes! I've always liked magic," she replied, giggling and waving traveler's checks like a hand of high trump cards over her head. An electric sensation in the air was perceivable; she spotted a cluster of pregnant clouds moving overhead from the southwest, boiling with the threat of a downpour. Matter-of-factly: "It'll rain soon anyway, so we should find something to do while we let the storm pass. I could buy the others presents!"

The man muttered a curt, "As long as there's something left for my tip," and followed.

Inside the shop, things were no brighter than they had been on the exterior, despite the several other oil lamps that had been spread around conservatively. (They all burned with different colors -- red, blue, violet, green, and yellow -- and each made visible only a precariously small diameter of floor.) Everything was draped by a heavy, inescapable smell of smoldering jasmine and dust; somewhere behind her, Mimi heard the guide sneeze twice, harshly. He pardoned himself, saying something about his allergies, and how he would await the maiden outside and face the rain if need be. Once the door swung open, he ate his words: The storm had begun and torrents of water ravaged the already eroded lane twisting by the establishment. Cursing in Italian, he disappeared into the deluge; Mimi snickered in spite of herself and walked deeper into the store.

The door slammed shut and caused her to jump, nearly upsetting a pedestal that supported a stack of mildewy books. She frowned as she balanced them back into equilibrium, noticing just how seriously the place could have used some sprucing and cleaning. Queues of ceiling-high bookcases with gold and leather bindings were set in a line to nothing, crammed with things that weren't only limited to volumes of stale scripture. Jars, boxes, tins, cans, pots, cases, kits, globes, and other containers were thrown about haphazardly on the shelves, their contents only identifiable by the slim labels that were pasted to each. A stout canister came with Gemme stuck to its top, and the observer paused to ponder over whether or not it was a cognate for "gemstone." She was pleased when she pulled off the top, and after a few barely living moths fluttered from the confines, she discovered that half of it was filled with glittering jewelry, molded around all sorts of jewels. Returning the lid, she moved to another shelf. Ying-yang symbols imprinted onto anything from wind chimes to oriental fans dominated this area, along with a great number of dream catchers adorned in feathers and glass ornaments. Above that, three wicked ritual daggers with ruby-inlaid ebony handles sat on a handcrafted stand. A human skull grinned at her from nearby, its empty eye sockets just gaping voids . . . with something dark and wet running out the right? Disturbed, Mimi quickly found a new bookcase entirely.

Extraneous movement caught her eye.  Behind a curio filled with badly cracked pieces of bona china, a tacky waterfall of partially translucent beads curtained one somewhat hidden doorway.  The cover's left side was incessantly being pulled back and forth, open and closed, as though an invisible hand was attempting to lure any unknowing visitors to the next section. Casting a self-conscious look over her shoulder, the young woman stepped through (still courageous!) after brushing a few glistening lines of rose quartz away.

The room was much better illuminated than she had expected, although really was no less cramped and claustrophobic than the previous portion of the store had been. Blades from a ceiling fan sliced through the air lazily, easily, and seemed to cause no disturbance in the standstill ventilation that made every last smell detectable. Thankfully, that unbearable jasmine incense's influence (and she knew it to be incense because of packages bearing Gelsomino that she passed just then) was abolished to some small and kindly extent. A neon green chalk arrow drawn on the floorboards directed her toward the opposite corner; however, she first had to brave a pod of three-foot-tall garden gnomes.  They reminded her, with their humbleness, of the angel statue keeping vigil at the road's crest. Finally, she caught sight of a bona fide second human being in this jungle of pseudo-mystic bric-a-brac, who was nonchalantly shuffling cards atop cleared waist-high counter . . . and she forgot how to breathe.

Their actions -- it was hard to tell whether or not they were male or female -- were very fluid and anticipated, as there was not one card that escaped each fluttering of the deck. Pale, nimble fingers with primly manicured nails led to effeminate, but strong-looking hands.  Mimi's eyes traced the graceful curve of the palm when it was exposed, and all the way to a lightning-quick wrist that snapped about soundlessly when appropriate. Here, regrettably, the milky flesh was lost underneath a double layering of handkerchief cuffs, bleak and black like midnight consuming the moon, while long-sleeves became arbitrary for the arms. The neck was also concealed with a maddening ruffle-topped collar and burgundy-lined jabot; meanwhile, a procession of pearly buttons (Oh, they had style) held the garment modestly secure.  Lending to the countenance of a Count was the detached regard of lilac eyes, and even while the person slouched forward to again rearrange the deck, they were holding themselves regally.

It was when a guilty Mimi moved closer and her eye-candy looked up that the veil of androgyny unraveled, likened to moth-eaten stitching on a sweater of raw cotton. He, and it was most certainly a he, smiled at her while almost anticipatory of her awed reaction . . . (and heartbreakingly beautiful Mimi noted while nervously wringing her hands and brushing back sienna locks and shifting her weight from foot to foot while wondering would her pheromones begin working overtime from the rush of adrenaline?)  Somewhere in his mid-twenties, and looking like he filled every bit of those years very nicely, his hair was a rich Gizan lapis long enough to be pulled into a tidy ponytail at the nape of his neck -- and so it was -- with thick bangs framing his face picturesquely. Deftly, he swept up the cards once more, and his head bowed, revealing smears of jet-violet that highlighted the already dark, natural silk. Paying her no more heed, he cut the deck and stacked it twice in rapid succession, before dealing himself enough to fill a three-card spread, each one upside-down.

Mimi cleared her throat just as the man was about to flip over one of the cards. His eyes snapped up, and somewhere his smile had turned almost unnoticeably ugly at her; none too inviting and gently impersonal as it had been before. She wasn't with enough time to register this change, though, because his dusky alto brought back that lung-constricting reverie:

"Sì, mancanza?"

Embarrassment was stamped into her with what felt like an angry bovine's hoof. Why hadn't she forced that translator to come with her, even with his infernal allergies? She scuffled her leather boots on the wooden floor, floundering with an excuse of, "I don't speak . . ."

"No Italian? That's all right," he replied quickly, and Mimi was bewildered. His English was virtually perfect in a section of Rome that had very few somewhat understandable speakers of it. "Is there something you need help with?"

She felt mildly helpless. "I was just . . . I was browsing your store . . ."

That seemed to please him, as unsaid compliments were bound to do. His card layout was forgotten for the time being; those spindly arms hidden in such drab fabric were crossed precisely so in front of his chest. An eyebrow quirked with curiosity and question for this young woman standing before him, her apprehension a shining aura around her, and he gave the benefit of a doubt with a soft, melodious laugh. "So you like my shop?" he asked, tilting his head.

She nodded, relaxing only a marginal amount with her response. "That's it. I like magic a lot."

"If your preconceptions about magic are limited to superficial parlor tricks involving doves and et cetera, you've mistaken my store for something it's not," he said and eyed her critically, looking like a man about to flip a coin. "Unless . . . ?"

"Oh, no," she answered tensely, her muscles again kiln-fired lumps of clay in her neck and shoulders. "I lost interest in that when I was a little girl . . . I meant spells, charms; and other rites of the occult. Some people say I'm a little eccentric with my tastes."

Bare fingers thrummed on his forearms as he watched her, contemplating something that gave dullness to his already solid eyes, those that held no other variation from the whitewashed purple. They narrowed, snakelike, calculating and chilly, before he pivoted towards an oaken shelf to his left that she hadn't seen. Spheres of polished crystal, no larger than baseballs, were grouped into a mismatched rainbow. His outstretched hand lightly graced each with the fingertips, but that was all, as he instead focused on the multi-tiered tray positioned beside them.

"You wouldn't mind my giving you a demonstration then, would you?" he said, removed purposefully from any inflection that would otherwise mark his intentions. Those indifferent ocular slivers mutated into a sickly gray-amethyst, like a passionflower felled by decay and disease, and he cast her a sidelong glance at best. The hand roved purblind over the far more precious stones lined in columns on the lowest platter. ". . . To express my talents . . . it's completely safe."

She was genuinely interested. "Okay."

The affirmation made him downright giddy as he smiled and tittered; in that moment, he retracted an ornate gold chain from where his hand had been probing. Attached to the end was an icicle-shaped pendulum composed of ruby, sparking embers under the light that flared in reflection off razor-edged facets. It screamed a warning, but Mimi was unable to decipher exactly what was so wrong about the situation . . .

"Hypnotism," he clarified, winding some of the metal's length around his lithesome fingers. "A little suggestion and exploring of the consciousness. I could make you live out your wildest fantasy all within your head, with no real repercussions."

That is . . . different. Mimi chewed on her index fingernail. "I don't know . . ."

"Come on," he said, winking at her.

". . . I guess."

There was no stereotypical swinging of the jeweled instrument upon her consent. Instead, an invisible skewer that was piercing and white-hot embedded itself in the volunteer's skull, and all blood seethed and wanted to eke from her brain and out of her ears. Her stomach tied itself into a convenient knot of throbbing tissue and acid, and completely dazzled, she teetered back on her heels. Even as she shut her eyes tight, away from the pretty one and his blinding tool, everything seemed to slow and grow louder -- the ceiling fan fluctuated only every five seconds, barreling through the air like an encumbered rhinoceros. Superheated redness seeped down behind her lids, superheated, and she felt as though she was turned directly at the broiling sun on a day with no clouds . . .

"Now you're listening solely to my voice."

Darkness, ice, and silence overtook her then, and it was mercifully nirvanic.

* * *

It worked.

Beat.

. . . Of course it worked.

Beat?

"Thank you!" she shouts at you shrilly, even though she stands only a foot away. You barely acknowledge the words as they ring harshly in your unprotected ears. There is a clatter of metal coinage and less noisy paper bills on the cashier's counter, along with a traveler's check that, once signed and dated perfectly, makes up the remaining balance. Hands, frighteningly claw-like, grab at the bags upon bags of things purchased from your store. "I'll be sure to tell my friends all about this place."

Your brain galvanizes into gear inaudibly, the neurons stimulated by the sudden mention of persons elsewhere. Reaching out, you gingerly rake the small fortune into a more proper pile like one does for casino winnings: you're protective and greedy. You feel your lips curve into a smile, but it's only that character you wear like a studded cloak, sweeping and charismatic and dark just like yourself . . .

She looks no different than when she had first entered, save for the extraordinary exuberance that manifested during her shopping binge. Is she always like that? Maybe it comes from what had happened minutes ago, that of which she holds no recollection of; what with the garnet crystal tucked away in your slacks' pocket, you wonder if it actually occurred as well. But it worked. Of course. There wasn't any reason it wouldn't, since your wanton threads of control spread to all angles and aspects, don't they? Connected to gold; connected to silk cord; it simply doesn't matter. It is there -- here -- that you won't be beaten. Not at your own game.

Oh, yes.

You listen, lukewarmly entertained, as she babbles and stumbles over herself in the rush to balance each overloaded sack in her full arms and even on her head. You lend no help, and rather only nod with that amicable smile of yours, counting the money thrice over before depositing it into the old-fashioned pull-lever cash register beside you. She somehow manages to stack the last up, without it tumbling to the ground to break something expensive (while you don't care since she's already purchased it), and cranes her head to look around the mountain of trinkets at you. Light chestnut hair is strewn across her face, horribly disheveled, and there is an eerie brightness in her honey eyes that seems implanted, as the artificial coloration of her cheeks almost, but not quite, disturbs you. She suffers you no more soprano words and instead presents a pure white smile; satisfied with all she's seen, she departs rather slowly due to her large haul.

You don't need to see her to know she's leaving: Abrupt thunder clamors outside, as well as the roar of a flood from the sky. The heavy wooden door bangs shut, like the final word of a conversation that never took place, shaking sawdust from the creaking timbers above your head even that far back in the shop. The hinges squeal, belated, and you suddenly have a longing for a window out which you could see a forest or the gently rolling waves of a salty seafront. You shake yourself, and subsequently the desire departs as well. Your eyes, harder again with a frosty glaze, shift towards the three-card spread that has somehow managed to stay in basically the same position they were first placed into.

Where were you before? Right . . . it is simply going to be a very quick tarot reading. Each card represents one thing -- Body, Spirit, and Mind -- and reads left to right like a standardized book. Your fingers dance over all three, indecisive, and you let your instincts guide you to the one you should overturn first.

Spirit takes the initiative, sandwiched between the other two choices.

You love situational irony.

The Emperor glares at you as a very magnificent looking dragon of scarlet and copper scales, with stretches of indigo pigment that make the burning lizard only seem to facilitate more emphasis on being the embodiment of an inferno. His kingship is muscular and powerful, seated on a dark throne, while wretched, twisted branches draw around certain key points, devoid of any greenery. A hairless goat's skull, a possible sacrifice, rests near the clawed feet of the nightmarish creation. Balefire leaps up in the background of the portrait, and the dragon only looks smug as it holds a solid gold scepter to its sharp beak; the unprotected white belly is a long shot for any well-to-do knight that may wish to slay the divine beast.

Quite.

And the sent letter? It should reach its destination soon.

Beat.

* * *

                        (( part ii ))

"A Death on the City Pavements -- that's the title of a detective story or something I read
somewhere . . ." He laughed. "I only mean meta-phor-ically speaking. They're living, but
dead. Dead-in-living . . . a unity of opposites."

Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man

* * *

He was unblinking, unfaltering, and unwilling to be imperfect.

Go.

Every change in the atmosphere sent a helix of calculations through his head, spurred violently by necessity, while his impassive face beguiled nothing to the horizon of onlookers.  His adversary, the sole survivor of this pitched battle royal, only leased a hostile stare in his direction for matters of frivolous psyche.  He cared nothing for the enemy, though he had to serve his blow in retaliation; he drew his hand backwards with anguishing slowness, nurtured with power that was in the molasses contortion of the hemp fibers he held.  The rosin on his glove's thumb prevented anything from slipping as he flattered the word emotionless, and the many pairs of eyes that lingered, incorporeal, gave their owners bated breath. After much righteous stalling, meant to savor something preemptively, he finally unfurled his fingertips from around the shining, taunt line.

The consequential sound rung clear and true as the bowstring snapped back into place, and launched an arrow fletched with swan feathers toward its immobile target.  A delicate sphere of hard, black licorice made up the sought-after core the projected was headed for; it almost now sneered at him in contest.  Lightweight aluminum composing the shaft streaked like a straight bolt of karmic lightning, one that was said to carry the archer's spirit along its tail for the purpose of smiting the mark explicitly. Flesh tore apart those meters away, thin paper shrieked in pain, and it was crystalline after a moment that the obsidian heart had been penetrated in the center.

He only needed one exact, flawless bull's-eye to be the victor. The audience realized this too, and the collective cheer they gave was piercing, like a sudden scream on a circular saw, that ended up drowning out the final announcement of a tired referee. Lowering the bow in an extreme performance of outward control, feet that had pulled apart in a customary stance again slid together. Toes pointed toward the murder of the hoshi mato -- the star target, bearing only unblemished white paper with a fat, filled circle of black in the middle -- opposing him, whose face was now torn open like a superficial wound with no blood.

When he allowed his eyes to flick away, noncommittal to the fact he had just won an archery tournament that matched learned and natural skills, he saw that his now-defeated opponent was clutching at an expensive bamboo bow, knuckles as white as the target. The winner stepped down the lane running on the far left, the gravel arrow retrieval path, though he noticed out of his shrinking peripheral vision a very ugly grimace of disdain from the runner-up. Unfazed, though permitting a meager chuckle over that loss of composure, the flesh-and-blood ASCI White collected a handful of metal arrows from a beaming attendant who had already picked them up.

"You were amazing, Ichijouji-san," she said.

Ken smiled, shrugged, and then took an arrow case from her. The top was twisted off, decorative tassels pinwheeling lazuli, and he deposited each of the arrows inside with neutrality-imbued ease. He handed her both the decorative rattan container and his own lacquered bow for secure keeping until he was required to use them again; he mechanically undid his shooting glove to give to her as well, once he shook moisture-preventing ash powder from the surface.

"That must have been the finest performance Rika Daigaku has ever seen," another voice interjected, tinged with a rare, gracious smile.

The man turned, violet eyes minimally widened, and presented his archery coach with an immediate bowing of his upper torso; ribbons of royal blue hair fell over his ears and overlapped upon his slim shoulders. Like the cloth of spun-silk, these bands moved with the quality of material water, and the natural color aided the illusion.

"Thank you."

* * *

It had been five years, and in those five years, the wonting hands of the Chosen children had constructed a peaceable kingdom; from all corners of the globe, they had worked together to ensure that neither a darkness initiate itself from a plot egg of dormancy nor a rogue digital creature discover an artifact of ancient power and end up going off the deep-end. (There had been a Vamdemon scare two years ago, but most people only laughed him back into oblivion.) In another twist, everyone on Earth was knowledgeable of the world that lay parallel to their own, although only the original group knew anything about how to exactly get there on the physical plane.

It had been five years, and in those five years, the children had become adults to some degree and were beginning to move on from their ambassadorial duties. Most had entered institutes of higher learning with respective dreams-gone-goals, or had taken an alternative route. The latter, which a few did walk upon, was for the sake of finding meandering inspiration on a lonely road; and molding that into acute, heartbreaking art somewhere in the humanities. Or maybe they were just lazy. That sounded about right.

Among those who went on to concerning themselves with another level of schooling had been, of interest, Ichijouji Ken.  Many universities had warred over his accepting their scholarships for attendance, as he was highly in demand with his exceptionally bright mind; but it had been one that was only a stone's throw away that caught his eye and received approval. The Science University of Tokyo -- Tokyo Rika Daigaku on Kagurazaka Campus -- opened its doors to him with much excited ado. As an eighteen-year-old student, he was already expected to graduate summa cum laude, even after just one term of his freshman year. If confronted with this media-proclaimed charge of his mental breadth, Ken only smiled and mentioned brusquely about how much homework he was required to do.

A very unwelcome set of incomplete assignments made a fan of white and colored paper on the top of his desk. Ken was looking at that now, hands idly pulling apart loosely-knotted ties to remove the black, ankle-length skirt of his archery practice uniform. The towel-like Obi belt was already lying on his dark green bedspread, and soon after the pleated Hakama joined it; the larger dominance it possessed engulfed the wide ivory cummerbund. He slipped a robe over his gray kimono-like top, a color reminiscent of his school uniform in years past, and stole to the foyer's doorway to pick up his mail on the way to the bathroom.

The mail hadn't been delivered, it seemed, but that thought was made moot when the door flared open and in barged someone busily leafing through a stack of envelopes. Motomiya Daisuke never quite learned the manners of knocking on his best friend's off-campus apartment door before entering, or even leaving his personal belongings alone for more than twenty seconds.  ("Safety!" he explained once with an insufferable grin, eating from a bi-weekly package of cookies Mother never failed to send.  "You never know what those rabid fan of yours will do.  Maybe they'll learn how to fit into an envelope.")  Agitated, Ken took the handful of letters from Daisuke with a sharp report on the wrist for his mischief, and placed them in a wall-niche.  The burgundy-haired young man became doleful, snuffled, and shoved his hands into his khaki pockets as Ken rolled his eyes.  The companionable silence between them wasn't tangible to those who had never experienced talking without words: Daisuke winked, smirking in a silent challenge, before the prodigy had a chance to ignore him by turning away.  He glanced back, jaw set, and entered an impromptu staring match with the grinning Motomiya that went on for several minutes.

"What is it?" Ken asked smoothly at last, squinting.  His reading glasses were sitting on top of his textbooks at a side-table, just out of reach, and would have corrected the problem of his farsightedness.  No one could ever say Osamu hadn't left a more physical mark on him, after all, since he had inherited the same tendency for fatigued eyestrain when reading long into the night for insanely time-consuming literature assignments.

Daisuke held up his hand, looking serious.  "How many fingers?"

"How classic," Ken said stoically, reaching out to push the fingers – he felt three – away from his face.  "Now is there a point to your visit, or can I go –"

"– finish up homework?" Motomiya completed sardonically, looking very skeptical of his friend.  "I say this everyday, you know, and you never listen.  You need to actually go live life a little, before something comes along and fucks it up beyond repair."

"That's rich, coming from you," Ken retorted.  Daisuke was one of those daydreamers that had declined the choice of going to college, even after being offered an athletic scholarship that overshadowed his bad grades.  (His calling was out there somewhere, he said.  Somewhere.  Meanwhile, he was temporarily working odd jobs to pay for his own place, at least until he could coax Ken into letting him move in.)  "He who can't decide whether he wants to be a window-washer or a garbage-collector."

Daisuke appeared mildly stung.  "At least I'm not working my ass off with that star-planet-physical-thingie-orbit – the science shit."

"Astrophysics.  You know, I think your use of expletives has increased since yesterday."

"Yeah, that's it.  And shut up, dumbass."

Ken cracked a grin.  These circular arguments were daily, and sometimes he wondered whether or not tying up the regular initiator of them and shoving him in a closet would provide any relief at all.  Was verbally sparring with someone through a gag possible?  Knowing Motomiya, he'd find a way to keep me up until all hours of the night, the genius reflected.  Figures.  I'm going to get anxiety wrinkles at eighteen from arguing with my best friend.  "You choose to call me that in my own apartment, no less.  What is it you want really, Daisuke?"
 
"Seeing as you rarely have time for your friends – or your D-Terminal messages – anymore, I'm just telling you that there really is going to be a party tonight.  Takaishi told me that you were yet to mail him back about it, and I told him I'd make sure you were coming."  Daisuke paused.  "You are coming, right?"

"Let me think . . . No, I'm pretty sure I'm not.  I never went to those reunion things before."

"Not unless I hog-tied you and stuffed you in a sack," the tan one snickered.  "But that's your other problem: You need to come to at least this one, since I suppose it'll only be a few of us left after everyone goes wherever they're going.  You'll always have me around, though."

"Goodie," Ken said dryly.  "If you weren't aware, that's what e-mail is for, since it provides communication over long distances.  It's the same with telephones.  Tin cans and wires.  Carrier pigeons.  Are you following me?"

"Don't you ever shut up?" Daisuke asked.  He blinked, scrunching his nose up.  "Shit.  Just get in the shower.  You smell bad."

Lips creased into a pale smile; the blue-haired man entered the bathroom, calling out above the sputtering of the showerhead as it was turned on.  "Okay.  And I'll even come along to prevent you from having your brain swell and burst inside your skull.  You have to drive, though."

"Of course I will!  You'd probably get my ass killed while operating a car with your blindness.  How many fingers am I holding up, Ichijouji?"

Daisuke barely dodged that projectile loofah.

* * *

Even for someone who had multiple hours of repetitious work waiting for him at home, Ken had to admit that the get-together really wasn't too much of a star-crossed affair.  He neither knew previously of, nor cared about, Mimi's skylarking in various places around the world, while he, the dutiful prodigy, had been slaving over a summer semester that force-fed equation upon property upon jargon into his brain.  Although, it had been moderately nice just to mill about and see everyone again, especially without Miyako staking a claim to him, and Takeru being less flirtatious with the males than usual.  He managed to dodge the vaguely toxic-looking punch that was being served, even after Daisuke's persistence, and remained the most sober of the bunch, including Iori, who was still in a college-preparatory school.  His only complaint would have to have been an infamous vacation slideshow, complete with prerecorded commentary, which was met with enough discontent halfway through to have the screen torn down and replaced by another event Mimi had been prepared for.

She put on show an impressive, but scary collection of artifacts she had picked up from each of the locales she visited.  The "Kangaroo In A Can" from Australia had been silly, while a leather whip with copper brads she found in a pawning shop in the middle of Sudan, where slavery was still widespread, carried a much more ominous note for the presentation.  These dynamics were reached occasionally, but everything else concluded to being a bunch of shell or pewter figurines she had purchased naively, thinking they were especially native to the particular place.  The only exception was a finely made cuckoo clock she had bought in the Black Forest of Germany, which even Ken was actively curious about.

"And last, but not least," Mimi announced, digging around in her jeans, "I have something special I picked up from Italy.  There's a whole room filled with similar stuff – I guess I went a little overboard – but this is my favorite item."  A snowflake-shaped crystal, glittering like actual morning frost, spun through the air along a dark velvet strand.  It consisted of a repeatedly chipped and shaped formation of smoky, see-through aquamarine of the beryl variety; it rotated in a slow circle as the young woman simpered brightly at the whispered ooh her private assemblage exhaled with.  She held it up.  "See?  It goes well with my hair, too.  There was also a book I found dealing with how to hypnotize someone . . . it is really cool.  So now it's time for audience participation~!"

"I've always wanted to see Ken flap his arms like a chicken," Daisuke proclaimed suddenly, leering in the said man's general direction with hooded eyes and slurred words.  "Or maybe actually do something seeeex-ual since he's so damn unconcerned with hormones all the time.  What's it called?  Prostate-a-sex-mm-stimulation-chicken . . ."

"Asexual," Ken said helpfully.

"Yeah, that's it!  Hey, didn't I tell you to shut up?!"

Ken had the distinct feeling he'd have to drive Daisuke home.

"Has he dated anyone?" Mimi queried innocently, flicking lightly at the pendulum.

Daisuke looked disgusted.  "No.  There's been fucking no one at all, unless he has a sex demon visiting him at night.  So . . . so there you go," he finished and waved his hand out blindly to indicate something emphasizing his point.

Mimi was positively enthralled.  "This is perfect!  We can probe through Ken's mind and discover why he isn't interested in anyone!"

"Because I have no time?"

"Maybe there was a girlfriend who broke his heart into utter fragments . . ."

"Hello?  Are you listening?"

". . . Or he's actually gay and just hasn't admitted he's sinfully in love with his best friend!"

"No, college is just really busy for me."

"Ken!  You're in love with me?!"

A sob: "I thought you loved me best!"

"Takeru: go drink some more punch.  Daisuke: I'm not in love with you, for the last time.  Mimi: it's been fantastic, but I've really got to get going –"

"Oh no you don't, pretty-boy!  Get him!"

There was only a brief skirmish involved, since everyone who had been more or less observant up to that point spontaneously decided to help subdue Ken.  Even though he battled assertively, tooth and nail, the genius was still forced into a chair at the center of the room, wrists bound tightly behind the back by some coarse rope Mimi had bought from an exotic jungle trading post.  Taichi whimpered over some of the uncouth hair-pulling that had transpired.  Mimi snorted as she laughed and reached down to pluck a pair of glasses from the Ichijouji's nose; everything went blurry for him, and was even slightly distorted.

"Isn't that so much better?" she said sweetly, her rosebud-painted lips only a daub on a canvas of peach skin and rich eyes.  The fragmented outline of his wire-framed lenses melted away into the garish colors that marked the remainder of the room, lost to the fuzz of poor eyesight.  Ken was disturbed.  He tested his restraints, and wondered what fiendish character was responsible for the circulation-restricting square knots laced around his wrists.  "Don't try any of that, Ken. It's futile."

"It's futile," Daisuke echoed. "This is revenge for you callin' me a window-washer!"

"You are a window-washer," returned Ken.

 "Shut up, dumbass."  The genius was rewarded with a roll of dirty socks being stuffed into his mouth, to prevent any further abusive comments.

"Now boys," the Tachikawa scolded, backing an irate Daisuke away from the vulnerable Ken, as he looked scorned enough consider using the man's head as a blue-topped soccer ball.  She smoothed her hair out afterwards.  "We'll get to the center of this mess soon enough."

"Damn straight we will," Motomiya grumbled.

Ken set his eyes on a point on the floor, consciously trying to will away the taste buds that carpeted his tongue.  The smell of spent sweat was ugly, but the wool socks had their own unique, special blend of flavors that caused the saliva at the back of his throat to thicken and nearly cause him to gag.  He remained ever patient, however, knowing to the bottom of his heart that his friends would untie him, dust him off, and apologize for their little joke.  Maybe.  Suddenly, he was filled with an intense, inescapable feeling of terror.

Misty seagreen crystal flashed before his face, swaying to the left before reaching its zenith, and submitting to gravity to be pulled back down, where the process was repeated on the other side.  He felt insulted that such a simple utensil could possibly reveal anything more than how vexed he could get in a limited amount of time.

"Okay, Ken.  You actually have to look at the pendulum for this to work."  The victim's expression must have said enough, because she sighed and continued.  "Come on.  If you think this is bullshit, why don't you look?  Are you afraid?"

No.  I just think this is stupid.  He stretched against the manacles one last time, just to assure himself there was no other way out of the situation.  He then gave a raucous curse inward, revolting footwear hot in his mouth, and finally focused his gaze on the now stilled piece of snow-motif stone.

Nothing happened.  His intelligence was berating itself for procuring apprehension on the matter at all, and he was going to kick Mimi – oh!  How it hurt!  Any air that he had been inhaling felt like it had crystallized with needles of ice, scraping and scratching down the trachea, all until they could puncture both of the lungs mercilessly.  It then, thankfully, solidified – even though he could no longer breathe, there was only the one round of sharp pins driving into the brachial tubes.  Fright doused him like a bucket of freezing water; he was more alert than he had been in ages.  Ice began to pool at the ends of his limbs, a tortuous assailment of frostbite; Ken's knowledge that he was actually sitting in Mimi's apartment at a nice room temperature was impermanent.  Closing his eyes presented only a furtive sapphire glazing the darkness on the backs of his eyelids, and the cold was creeping rapidly up his arms and legs towards where his vital internal organs clustered together fearfully.  It reminded him of something, a place that was far away in his dimming memory, with angry silver sky and a perpetual haze of owl-light over ever-placid waters deeper than black.

"Can you hear me?" Mimi asked, though it seemed like she had been yelling for a very long time.

There was only an airless void as he tried to gasp, because then he was consumed infinitely.

* * *

He landed hard, and he thought he heard his tailbone cracking on solid ground beneath him.  His skull also struck the compact earth since he was much too jarred to catch himself, the thin scalp clipping cleanly on a sharp rock, a shallow breath fleeing him coercively from the resulting pain.  Wheeling about wildly as if a frightened flock of birds, his brain took a number of moments to correct its position; he gave an audible moan – there was nothing stuffed into his mouth – and then lurched into a sitting position, legs straight out in front of him.  This wasn't right.  His eyes fluttered open, like hastily undone polyester window shades, and his vision had a stark clarity that he knew was impossible without corrective lenses (those were absent too).

Everything was virtually monochrome, like an exquisitely detailed repoussé, with pastel shades of silver-tinged oil paint coating the proper things.  A dying tree without any foliage became hazel-umber, and where its roots were entrenched into the sparse grass, there was the sheen of metallic jade; however, an indiscriminate line separated the two, and some of the colors ran into one another.  The remaining articles – a few bushes, a dark stone wall with an archaic gate that was slightly ajar, and a clump of pale horse bones – were much the same, while the sky flashed with strangely silent, ghostly forks of lightning in the distance.  He let a hand leave his side to touch the cut on his head, but he froze just as his fingers came into view: They were the same pale flesh, the same slim contour, but the cuff near them was gray with a row of three gold buttons, that led to a gray sleeve, that led to a gray overcoat and slacks, that led to Ken bolting immediately onto his feet and then heading swiftly to the lustrous mirror-like quality of the iron gate.  It was, in fact, his Tamachi uniform that he donned; what was more, was that the face staring back at him was no longer eighteen, but only just entering the teenage years.  He felt sick as he shakily touched the tips of dark hair, no longer shoulder-length, but somewhere around his chin, and realized he hadn't needed glasses until he was older, which explained . . .

"Ken!"

The feminine voice startled him from his thoughts.  He whipped around, thinking he was prepared for anything after the backwards aging of five years . . . although, a jumbled assemblage of equine bones standing up on their own accord, with the long skull bearing eye sockets that blazed with a deep red, was something he hadn't even begun to count on.  The skeletal stallion cocked its head at him, brittle jaw flopping as the words came and went breezily around flat molars, as though the animal was an instrument for the wind to speak.
 
"Can you hear me?  Ken!"

He knew that timbre.  ". . . Mimi?  What the hell?"

"Oh, good.  You are there.  I'm going to suggest a place to you, and then you'll see it, so we can delve into your mind a little."

"I'm already . . . somewhere.  I'm standing outside of a wall with a gate, and –"

"What?  That doesn't make any sense.  You shouldn't see anything until I give a verbal command."  The horse, absurdly, looked puzzled, even though it was a framework of bleached silver-white pieces.

"Whether it makes sense or not, I'm here," Ken snapped.  "Will you get me out now?"

Lightning flashed nearby, muted, and temporarily illuminated the area further in an ethereal glow.

"No way!"

"Excuse me?"

"You're not going to get out until you find the purpose of being there.  I think you have to go through that gate you described and find what's on the other side," Mimi stated, sounding very schooled on the subject of out-of-control hypnosis experiences.  She added more in a purposefully smaller voice: "Plus, I'm not entirely sure how to let you come back . . ."

"That figures, knowing you, Mr. Ed," he ground out, pressing the palm of one hand against his young features.

"What?"

"Just forget it!"

Ken swung around and stomped away as loudly as he could, very angry (and very afraid), and was only vaguely aware that the beast with Mimi's disembodied voice was trotting after him – its hooves touched the ground only half the time.  The wind was bitter as he approached one side of the tall gate, a foot or so breech allowing entry to the court that lay behind it, and he paused to regain his bearings.  After a time, he stepped within.  The horse, though only bones, was unable to spirit through the gap; it hovered about indecisively, before finally crumbling into a pile of ashen powder.

"My consciousness is fucked," the harassed boy muttered.  Two turrets of stone stood to his left and right, and the steel gargoyles perched on them grinned eerily and laughed below hearing range.  A rustling whisper in his ear of the dead leaves by his feet provided enough mockery.

Brambles dominated this new area, dark and beautiful, though harboring spines that were as sharp as knives; the thick vines sprawled out over the pitch, suffocating the grass, but somehow managed to provide a somewhat-defined lane that twisted into a quaint, gloomy orchard.  Weightless, watery-pink apple blossoms spiraled through the air in helical formations, courtesy of the wind, playing dangerous games of tag and hide-and-seek around the broad creepers.  (Occasionally, an errant flower would fail to yield to the long spicules, and would find its wings split down the middle, golden center sundered and bleeding silvery sunlight, and then unable to fly again.)  As Ken went quickly toward the gathering of fruit-bearing trees, he could have sworn more than once that the hard-shelled plant-life coiled around him was moving every so often, with a sound akin to snake scales rushing over each other.  A bridge of warped oak slats made passage over a small stream, and ended the journey to the sparse woodland.

It was much colder there, though he wasn't sure if the chill was fabricated or not considering his increasing paranoia.  The smell of wet birch occluded all else, heavy like an iron blanket, while the night that surrounded him seemed wrong for how little the sky was canopied.  Orbs of light dotted the path in increments of five yards, held within heavy camping lanterns, and prevented any serious accidents.  As the trees bundled into a full-blown forest, the route wound downhill, and along the way there were forks with other trails, not lit at all, that seemed to disappear into pure nothingness.  He decided to keep darting between the illusory protections of each undimmed circle, as that susurration of callous skin in meeting clattered within the static shadows.  The slope grew more and more steep, each step more and more treacherous, and Ken wasn't really surprised when he lost his footing and was sent – headfirst – down the muddy hill, pirouetting in midair at some points when the ground dipped suddenly, banking against prickly sable bushes at others, and generally being made into a mess by the slithering thicket.  His travels slid to a halt when everything leveled out, his face and clothes covered in stale sediment, and him on his hands and knees, sputtering through the brown cake for life-giving air.  Hands tore at the layer over his lidded eyes, pulling off moist pieces, until he was able to see again when they opened.

The forest was completely gone.  Bewildered, Ken stood more awkwardly than normal, looking back to where a towering rise of dense forest should have been to mark his slippery plunge.  There was only a perfectly flat expanse of prairie, the area around him lighter again, with progressions of tall grass that bent with even a gentle touch.  Wide flowers, sterling-red, speckled the landscape with the smudged quality of an impressionistic painting, like last-minute accessories to a classical portrait of backcountry reality.  In front of him was a single monument that seemed larger than he would have imagined, made of discolored marble that bore chiseled captions.  It was a tombstone.  A large hourglass sat beside it, the fragile bottom bulb cracked enough to allow diamond-dust to pour out in thin streams; its shimmering supply never seemed to go lower than half-way.  He reached out to touch the eternal mechanism coating the ground in snowy white sand, when something crashed like a clap of the missing thunder inside his head: Again, just as before, his fingers were almost as they had been . . . but now they were even smaller, with boyishly stubby fingers, and the wrist was no larger than a child's, which brought him to the conclusion of his being one.  The well-polished stone gave a reflective sheen, and in it he made out the cropped haircut he had worn for all of his early adolescence, the pale blue tee shirt, and the broken innocence on his face.  His eyes abruptly focused on the words that he had been looking past, hammered precisely into the stone, and done deep and bold enough to be made easily read:

Here lies Ichijouji Osamu

November 13th, 1988 – September 11th, 2001

Son, brother, friend, and world's prodigy:

"But being so much too good for earth,

Heaven vows to keep him."

"Osamu 'nii-san," Ken murmured, more perplexed than before.  "Is this my purpose for being here?"

Without warning, a fetid odor was made alarmingly perceivable to his attuned senses.  The ground before his feet began to shift and stir, and astonished, the small child stumbled backwards until he tripped over an errant rock, and came down painlessly on his bottom.  It was gruesome to watch – even the atmosphere seemed to be taken directly from a terrible B-movie, while the soil was raked back and forth from within by something digging, digging, digging, and struggling to reach the surface from its entombment.  The prisoner finally plunged a hand straight up into view, and the malodorous smell intensified, while broken nails and spoiled cream skin shone in the half-light; there was a woeful groan of effort, and a second hand joined the fray; then, clawing unabashed at the earth, the entity began to create a hole large enough to squeeze its body through.  Dirty, waxen tendrils of long lavender hair dribbled with white clay, while bent frames with one glass piece missing did nothing to hide a crazed pair of cornflower-blue eyes, made of colored glass.  Parched, cracked lips split open and leaked diluted formaldehyde as they pulled into a wide grin, the teeth decayed and carbonized.  Moving jerkily, what appeared to be a teenage boy lunged onto his feet, spine soft and bending to one side to keep him staying hunched while his sterile neurons fizzled, ineffectual.

Ken pushed back against the ground, scrambling for solid handholds, his breath stolen from him.  "Osa' . . ."

"Oh . . . oh, Ken-chan," the late Ichijouji Osamu said draftily – his vocal cords had long since atrophied from disuse.  His fake eyes could focus on nothing in particular, and only rolled back and forth nervelessly, smearing electric silver and cyan.  His arms hung like a broken doll's.  "I knew you'd come back to me . . ."

"Osamu," Ken managed to say fully, his panic meter taking a dismayed leap from yellow to red.  He would have screamed, but his throat decided to constrict until nothing could pass, making his lungs burn dreadfully.

The elder brother smiled only black, while one hand bearing loose folds of skin began to fish through the pocket of the dress pants he had been buried with.  "I have something for you," he replied in a hiss, managing to look both insane and excited, "something good.  Look, look.  You'll like it.  It's here.  It's so good."

He revealed a pristine envelope, untouched by the dirt that lay all around, one that wasn't even smudged by the filthy ice-cold fingers that withdrew it from its confines.  The zombified portent held out the letter insistently, and sensually brushed his fingertips against his brother's when the seated boy reached up – against better judgment – to take it.  Ken recoiled instantly, drenched by fear and disgust, but still had his grip around the gift-of-sorts that had been given to him.  Osamu became pleased by the success of his delivery, but his jaw fell open as though surprised; save, he lifted the same hand as before to forcefully snap the bone back into place, producing a loud stomach-churning crunch.

"Erk," Ken squeaked.

"Open it.  Open it."  Osamu clapped his hands, but they only thudded dully when the palms met, striking off like a beat on a tom-tom stretched with human flesh.  He kept chanting: "Open it, Ken-chan.  Open it.  I promise you'll like it so much."

He did as he was told, hurriedly, wondering if this would provide the answer he sought after for getting out of this mad, upside-down world that his mind was unwittingly fueling.  The envelope was in shreds, his fingers too clumsy and too tremulous to open it properly, and he pulled out the prize with a desperate, mind-numbing plea that this was it, this would be it, and he'd be able to go home and hide under his blankets.  Maroon letters were penned in a very silky, very eloquent cursive script, spelling out a line of text that exploded like a rifle shot:

You haven't been Real since His reign, Ichijouji Ken.

Osamu began a cappella in front of him, the dried laughter-like shrieks tearing down the sky of his surviving sanity.

* * *

He opened his eyes with a resonant, body-wracking cry that made all members of the room jump.  The tears on his cheeks were hot.  Ken looked around wildly, like a caged animal, picking out the dubious faces of those he had come to consider as friends over the years.  Mimi was shaking his shoulders, and he felt someone rubbing vigorously at his wrists, because his hands felt numb and he supposed, unattached, at all of the blood had been cut off from them in his final moments of dementia.  He choked on his words as they curdled, and he shoved those who were hanging over him away with as much strength as he could muster, despite their indignant protests.  Daisuke was calling for him, but he couldn't understand what he was saying.  (Is it really Motomiya, or is it just a voice in my head?)  He ran out the door and sprinted down the hallway; the elevator doors rushed to greet him, but the car was too slow to come, so he bounded down the stairs haphazardly.

"I need to go after him," Daisuke said in a rush, reaching for his coat, as even with the intoxication of his senses, something told him that a very bad thing had just happened to his best friend.

Mimi placed a hand on his arm.  "No.  Let him go.  I think he saw something he needs to work out for himself.  Plus, you can be my next subject . . ."

Trying to escape was, of course, futile.

* * *

The stack of letters lay in a shambles on his floor, some ripped apart in the confusion that resulted from his poor eyesight for things that were close-up.  There was one envelope, however, manila and perfumed like a love note, that he tore open with the same fervor as he had the one in the unreal world, with its dead, rotting Osamu and counterclockwise measure of time.  He hurriedly yanked the page out, shaking its pale trappings away, and ran his eyes over the side toting the letters that were still partially discernable.  It read just as the one in his mind had, violet-red and shiny, all the way down to the peculiar curlicue the 'L' of Real had worn.

Ken slid down the wall he was leaning on, leaving an attenuate film of fresh blood from a manifested cut on the back of his head.  Once he sat, he dropped the letter by his knees, and simply stared – unseeing – at the ceiling above him.

* * *

owari, chapter one

* * *

Author notes:  This took a really long time to write.  Now for some notes!  Part one was mostly composed of imagination, answers from occult reference books, timid questions for Marc, and more questions I assaulted my father with about his time spent in Rome.  He was very exasperated with me after a week or so.  Part two's Japanese archery section I lifted from information I found on the web.  The first scene with Ken and Daisuke is closely based on a conversation Daisuke-Guru (Phil) and I had.  (I just got my glasses recently!  Now I can see!)  If you see similarities between this and Stir of Echoes, well, uh .. hush.  I'm very aware of what date I set Osamu's death at, but that was only pointed out to me after the fact; I decided to keep it for God knows why.  (The years themselves are based on my perception of the Digimon timeline, which you can visit by going to my website.)  The quote on his tombstone was taken from the last few lines an epitaphic poem written by Ben Jonson, interestingly enough about the death of a thirteen-year-old child.  Zombie!Osamu was just something that I needed to write on before he got mad and decided to eat my brains for keeping him locked up.  Ohh, I wonder who the mysterious letter-sender-person could be?  The Invisible Man quotes provided a lot of inspiration, and stuff.  I used a lot of stylistic things from the book in this chapter.

This is dedicated to Marc, Phil, J, TP, and the readers playing at home.  Standard disclaimers apply.