I'll Always Come For You

Chapter One: "I'm going home."


"Asch, eh?" the old woman chuckled, something glinting behind her milky grey eyes. "You sure about that?"

"The next time you open your mouth," said the God-general. "I'd better hear some useful information."

"All right then," she smiled, rocking lightly in her chair. "What would you like to know?"

"What the hell am I doing here?"

"You've been recovering. I found you on the outskirts of the Absorption Gate, barely alive," she calmly explained. "That was a little under six months ago."

"Six months," Asch said in the most bored manner he could manage, trying not to betray his reaction onto his face. Six months. Six months. Six months. "And who are you to care if I lived or died?"

The old woman spread her arms wide. "I am but an old and lonely crone. I have nothing to care for but my plants, and even they have long since died. I considered it a message from Lorelei to save you."

"Hn," Asch closed his eyes, fighting against his emotions. I have to ask... "Did you... Did you find anyone else with me?"

She smiled as kindly as possible. "No. Only you."

The God-general flinched, but it was a movement so slight that if one hadn't been watching for it, it would have gone unnoticed. She had been watching.

Asch opened his eyes and looked down at his silver robes, testing the material against his porcelain skin. "Why did you dress me like this? What happened to my armor?"

For the first time since meeting her, Asch thought that his self-appointed savior looked uncomfortable.

"For awhile," she began uneasily, averting her strange eyes from him. "Right near before you woke up, it didn't look like you were going to make it. Please don't misunderstand me," she started, when she mistook Asch's signs of interest for discomfort. "You were in no immediate danger, but you just remained.. stable," her eyes took on a reminiscent quality. "Like you were never going to change. Never grow older. Never open your eyes again," there was a slight pause, and then she seemed to snap out of wherever her memories had taken her for those few seconds, and her voice took on a matter-of-fact tone. "So I decided to dress you in robes that I thought would please the spirits, if my charge were to pass from this world to the next."

Asch immediately bristled at being referred to as her "charge", but decided to let it go in favor of addressing other, more pressing matters.

Luke. Luke is gone. She did not find Luke with me. We were separated. Luke is gone.

Luke is gone.

Asch couldn't wrap his mind around the words in his head; they all started to meld together until they didn't make sense anymore. He could see the memory so clear in his head now. He refused to think of it as his last memory of Luke.

***

"Dreck," Asch whispered, broken and bloody. "I think I'm dying."

"I need you," Luke barely got out his words, his throat was so constricted. He stared heartbrokenly at his original cradled in his arms. "This can't be. We'll do it together, like we always have. There has got to be a better way."

"Shut up!" Asch rasped, and then coughed up blood. He felt Luke's hands grip him tighter, and it calmed him. His eyelids began to slowly droop. "...Let me say what I have to, while I still can."

Luke shook his head. "You can't leave me," he insisted. "You are the reason for my existence, without you what do I have to live for? You gave me everything. There has to be something I can do for you. Anything. Anything..."

Asch felt a crystalline tear land on his cheek, followed by two more. He heard the words that Luke didn't say: 'I would trade places with you in a heartbeat.' He wanted to reach up and touch his replica, to brush away his tears... but he found that he couldn't feel his arms.

"It's all up to you now," the dying God-general whispered. "I did the best I could, and I'm leaving you my legacy. When you think that it's too hard, and things are too much for you, and if it's not enough to suck it up and do it for the sake of the world," Asch paused, trying to reach through time and space, to somehow convey to Luke everything that he's meant to him. "... Then do it for me."

Something broke inside Luke. His tears flowed like a river as he held his other half in his arms, the world around him losing colour as he felt his original's breath almost still.

"I will never forget you," The broken noble whispered, not knowing if Asch could even hear him anymore, but knowing that he had to try. "I'll live for both of us. You'll live in my heart, forever."

Asch's consciousness began to slip away, and he desperately tried to cling to Luke's words.

Luke felt the ground beneath him begin to shake, and instead of panic, he felt strangely calm. He tenderly lifted his left hand and brushed away a strand of blood-soaked crimson hair clinging to Asch's forehead.

"I will never forget you."

And then the ground caved in.

***

But I didn't die. Asch thought. I lived... and Luke was the one that disappeared. All those words... and we didn't know anything at all. We didn't know.. that it would happen in reverse.

Your other half is gone. A small voice in the back of his mind told him. He dimly recognized it as the voice of reason trying to bring him back from the edge of despair, upon which he was now dangerously balanced. He tried to ignore it. Where will you go now?

Asch slowly rose from the bed, and demanded his armor.

"Whyever for?" the old woman asked, honestly puzzled. "It's probably rusted by now, so you may keep the silver robes."

Asch shot her a filthy glare. "It's Kimlascan Steel, First Order," he spat. "It wouldn't rust in two millenia of lightning storms."

The old woman shrugged. "It's in the chest at the foot of your bed," she continued to peer at him as he kicked fruitlessly at the lock on the chest. "Where are you going, child?"

"I'm no child," kick. "I want my armor." kick. "I'm going home." KICK. "Now give me my fucking sword, this isn't working."

"Your sword," the woman said, smiling sinisterly. "Is in the chest."

There were twenty-seven heart beats of complete silence, then...

"ICICLE RAIN!!" he screamed, and mighty icicles appeared out of nowhere and smashed the trunk to pieces.

The old woman still hadn't moved an inch from her seat in the rocking chair, but she raised an eyebrow in question.

"What?" Asch barked, wasting no time in retrieving his things from the shattered trunk. "At least I used ice, something that would not set your house on fire."

"How... considerate," she smiled, quirked eyebrow still in place. "And if I may repeat myself, where are you going?"

"Like I said," Asch pinned her with a trademark glare as he struggled to fit his boots on, hopping around on one leg. "Home."

She chuckled when he overbalanced and crashed onto the bed. He stared sideways at her and a thought struck him.

"Old woman," the God general barked. "I don't know your name."

"Well," she chuckled again and slowly rose. "At the risk of losing your endearing nickname for me... My name is Amane."

Amane. The name rang a bell, but Asch found he couldn't place it, so he swiftly gave up.

"Well," the crimson haired soldier fastened his tabard, and tucked the silken robes into his bag, for a reason he wasn't sure of at all, if only to remind himself of this strange woman's kindness. He tried to think of an appropriate way to thank her. "Thank you for trying to poison me, the horrible sleeping accomodations, the clothes that look they belong in a monastery, and all the goddamn sympathy."

"You're welcome, Asch," Amane smiled. She watched the God-general begin to turn away and make for the door, then at the last second made up her mind. "Where is 'home'?"

With one hand on the doorframe, Asch paused and half-turned back.

"Baticul."


A/N: Just to let you all know, this is all just set-up, I promise that the following chapters will get MUCH more intense (and longer^^)! Ahh I hope that chapter was vague enough for you all XD What will Asch find when he goes to Baticul? Is Asch angsty enough? No? He needs more angst? Then review review review ^^ the more reviews I get, THE ANGSTIER THE ASCH!!

Asch: What the hell!? 'An angstier Asch?!' No no no don't review!!
B: Oh? What's this? Asch, you're volunteering to do my disclaimer ^^ !
Asch: No! I don't owe you anything, you've turned me into an angsty teenage girl!!
B: And I'll do worse to you if you don't do my disclaaaiimmmerrr ^^!
Asch: ...
B: ...
Asch: ... xxBellatrix doesn't own Tales of the Abyss or any of its characters.
B: (shh. What Asch doesn't know won't kill him ^^)
Asch: *glare* what was that...?
B: ^^;