Chapter 4: Continued Pursuit

The sound of waves crashing against rock resounded loudly in the chilled air of twilight of this Pacific shore. The smell of salt was thick in the air and heavy on the offshore winds, while the sight was just as overwhelming. A sight of a vast expanse of water that lay farther than that of the seen horizon... a blazing orb of reddish-hued sun, sinking into that very horizon's depths.

A setting sun. It was always setting.

He sighed as he lifted himself from the dock railing he was leaning against, the feel of failure heavy, and the realization of a promise sinking into the sea.

He had traveled across the expanse of the United States, pursuing even the smallest meaning of Katrina's words, yet had found nothing. He was no closer to understanding his destination than he was to understanding himself... or even the nature of his dreams. Dreams which had revealed segments of truth to what he was, but in essence, only served to bring about more questions.

What he was... he had thought about it a lot. He thought about it almost as much as he thought of Katrina, and what she was. What she really was.

A sword... a weapon? Or was the weapon something of his own creation, and he was only creative in the presence of the lingering ghost of his wife? A ghost... that even if she was a ghost and untouchable to emotions and contact, he never wanted to leave. That if it came to that action, he'd forfeit his life for the ability to follow her.

He never wanted to be without her again.

But... right now, she wasn't going anywhere, and he wasn't any closer to truth than he was the land of the rising sun... wherever it was. And Katrina, standing beside him as usual, never leaving, never displaying emotion or notion of life... was doing nothing as usual. If only she'd give a hint or clue to their destination... but she didn't do much of anything. She wasn't even looking at him.

It was just as well. It wasn't good when she did talk, because he usually answered without hesitation... even in crowds. He had gotten so used to her beside him; he nearly forgot that he was the only one who could see her, and made himself to be as crazed as he looked.

He chuckled to himself as he thought about it.

It was as if he was in love with a hallucination... and in that perspective as when as the truth, if was quite sad.

Whatever... he had long given up on caring.

"Katrina..." he whispered softly to her spirit. Though no one was around anyway, it wasn't necessary to talk any louder. "What are you thinking about... what do you know that you can't tell me?"

He waited for a moment, as he waited for a reply from the unmoving, unblinking image of his wife as she stared out into the sunset. It was a quiet night, and no troubles had found him of late. In that respect, her calm demeanor was apropos of the peace.

But even so, he wished she would speak to him... even if it was with her eyes. But in this end, she didn't even look at him.

So long as... she's with me right? He asked himself before he sighed again, staring along with her into the sunset.

Into the sunset—? No, past it.

He looked back to the actual land and then back towards the sea.

It couldn't be...

Or was it? Her silent and longingly empty gaze wasn't simply her ignoring him, but giving him answer to the question he posed. That the destination—his and hers—was still out there... to the west and somewhere across the sea.

Across the sea...

He clenched his teeth together at the thought. This wouldn't be as simple as bus fare.

"Well, Katrina," he whispered softly to the air. "Let's go."

Without so much of an acknowledgment, she turned from her sea-staring position and followed him from the dock to the land beyond.

It was going to be a busy night.


Hours later, in the dim lighting of the cellar bar-turned-drug ring, the blood that stained the edges of Katrina's blade was already dry to the point of flaking.

He'd been lucky tonight.

What might have seemed an impossible task to assemble the needed finances before practically fell into his lap after following the right individual. Though not as much money as what is rumored in media drug transactions, it was still an amount that dwarfed all previous acquisitions of funds. With this, he might be able to reach his goal without bloodying his hands more than necessary.

With this it might be possible to discover that which his life was devoid. He might find an answer to the question. Then again... given the infamy he was generating across the states, if he didn't find a viable solution to his dilemma, he might find death.

As punctuation to the dark note in his mind, he kicked over the last free standing table that had survived the massacre of before and scattered the contents of whatever packages had been left untouched prior. Where the now broken packs of coke, meth, and whatever else had been part, a flash of a 2-D hologram caught his eye. He picked it up on whim of curiosity.

A ticket?

He dusted it off and held it under one of the yet unbroken lights that lined the bar.

A cruise ticket... round way ticket to Tokyo, Japan.

Japan?

He rolled the word in his head. It sounded familiar... but he couldn't place its location. Even the street teachers he studied under didn't teach everything. Though if memory served him correctly, it was somewhere across the ocean. The Pacific Ocean.

He'd take it.


A salty sea air was his only physical companion as he watched the shrinking coastline from the stern deck not even twenty four hours later.

For all that he hadn't known, he was able to move about successfully enough. Though taken back by his immediate appearance, he was fortunate that the importance of secrecy concerning the deal and the nature of the traveler was enough for him to be accepted aboard without suspicion. For the first time in a while, he didn't even have doubts or the perception of fear. It was just the first step on the unsteady path that he felt any real confidence about.

However, that was then. Now, he felt as though his home country was disappearing behind him, though as unwelcome he had become there, he had a lingering feeling that this would be his last time to set eyes upon it. It was a lonely feeling.

He sighed to himself as he closed his eyes upon the sight that would soon disappear forever, then turned his back so as to not open them upon the sight again. Yes, he would face the same direction as his beloved Katrina... for that was all that mattered to him now.

She was all that would ever matter.


Five days later, he lay in his extravagant bed staring at the ceiling. He was beyond bored now, and the activities of other guests hardly concerned him.

It was alright for the first two days, in which he practically slept through. The third day was so-so, and same for the fourth... but he couldn't sleep any longer, though it was safe to assume that the finest state he had ever been in was the one he would never see again, so he had tried his best to maximize the return, but to no avail.

He couldn't do it anymore.

At first he tried to press answers from Katrina, but whether from weakness or just her being difficult, he was unable. And sitting around wasn't going to improve his understanding. He had to get out. Where didn't matter, so long as it was out.

Anywhere was fine with him. He'd just let his feet carry him.

Soon enough, he found himself out of the lower decks. As it was late into the early morning, and a little colder than the season, it was perfectly devoid of people. The air crisp and much purer than any air he had been used to thus far in his life, he let it fill his lungs deep before watching his exhalations hang dancing upon the air before dissipating among the star-filled sky.

It was peaceful here. If only Katrina and he had been here when alive... he would have held her warm until the sunrise. The only two alive to the world.

He gripped the deck rail hard as he clenched his teeth together.

How it pained him. To see her yet not be able to touch her as one would touch another human. That she was so close yet still so far. And that she wouldn't give cause or explanation was driving him mad with anguish!

Katrina...

He stopped in his thought. Just then a sound on the air caught his attention. He closed his eyes and let himself slip into the vision of red—an aspect of his mask that he had come to control with practice—which wasn't so red at all. Instead, the blackened world was only mildly splashed with the red pulses that were otherwise muffled by the ship or his own pulse. But its message was definitely clear.

He was the only provider... even though he knew instinctively that he wasn't alone.

Knowing this, but unsure, he opened his eyes again and turned about slowly to act natural, and leaned up against the rail as he pretended to look across the deck towards the upper decks. As he did so, his eyes confirmed what his senses could not. A less than solid representation of a human, which his mask would be sure to recognize as a faded white shadow. Of course there was no pulse.

This girl was dead.

All the more evident on a closer look was the severed chain link that hung loosely from her chest... and actuated by the fact that she simply wasn't dressed for the weather in her swimming suit. It was a fact that made her presence all the more tragic.

By the look of her, it was easy to understand even without knowing. A young girl of around seven, having died while in her swimsuit, and being alone... obviously due to drowning either by the on deck pool or more tragically—off the side of the ship. More likely the latter since her spirit remain behind instead of traveling elsewhere.

Not that he knew where souls went to begin with. Not that he could offer any help to the deceased save by giving them company.

He shook his head in amusement and went back to looking over the dark ocean. Whatever her reason for being out, it was obvious that she wasn't a worry worth the effort. Perhaps in ignoring her she'd go back to wherever.

"It's nice... isn't it?" she asked softly as she leaned against the lower rails. She didn't even bother to look up because her words didn't seem to have any particular focus. "I like this view as well."

He frowned. Was that level of reflection and relation to another's typical of a young age?

"It's not often that I get company out here... I'm pretty bored... and tired... and lonely." She said softly. "That when the world is sleeping I feel the need to be awake. If only I was different when I had the chance to be.

"It's too bad..."

"No." he said softly to the sea. "It's depressing."

She gaped up in shock. Completely convinced that he wasn't seriously talking to her but not hiding the surprise of the possible coincidence either.

He looked down. "Can you be depressing elsewhere?"

"You can see me?"

"Plainly."

"Really?" she asked with a tear in her eye. "I'm glad."

He nodded once and looked away. His people skills were lacking enough with the living. It was completely unreasonable to assume he had any with the dead.

However, it seemed like she was the one to take the initiative.

"Yoko!"

"Hm?"

"My name..." she said quietly as she also looked over the ocean. "It means 'Sun Child'."

He frowned. "In what language?"

"Japanese. My mother's language." She said as she became saddened.

"I see." He said quietly. "Scott."

"Okay."

There was a moment's silence as a tear rolled down her cheek as she remained in thought.

"Are you an angel, Scott?"

He smiled out of the humorless thought. "No. Such things don't exist."

"Because you've never seen one?"

"No, because the beautiful exist only to kill more efficiently... that we would be only so fortunate to meet a more merciful demon."

"Then... you'll kill me?" she asked without fear. Her level of maturity staggering. "It wouldn't be such a bad thing." She held onto the sole link that remained connected to her chest plate. "This was that much longer those eight years ago... to a point that it was binding."

"I see." So she was only a couple years younger than him? It explained a lot. That the two should meet... was it not because he had something to do?

She held onto the link as though it caused her pain. Tears welling in her eyes as her thoughts focused on the situation at hand.

"I... it just hurts so much now... if it were to get even smaller—?"

"Then it would simply be that much harsher of a fate waiting."

Both turned to the new voice, the flat and toneless female voice that cut through the air yet did nothing to indicate its source. However, as the sound of footfalls upon the air sounded closer, fine tendrils of mist molded the familiar shape into existence. The ghostly yet alive image of the young enigmatic woman somehow at the root of it all.

"Katrina..." Scott whispered softly.

Seemingly unconcerned about anything else, Katrina continued on her statement from before as she reached out to the young girl-ghost's face with a gentle hand.

"A fate of a hollow... a fate that one wouldn't want to choose if given the option of choice."

"A hollow..." Yoko repeated softly, with no hint of want to retreat from the touch upon her face.

"One without a heart... one that thrives on instinct alone." She slid her hand from the girl's face and gently touched the plate on her chest, her other hand reaching out towards Scott, as though to grasp the air only, before seizing that which he never had seen before... a chain of fate.

"Wha-?" Scott uttered in surprise.

Yoko stared as she looked to the place of his chest where the plate would be, since she had yet to ever see a living person with a chain at all... because why would there be a chain if the soul was attached? But when she looked she saw nothing... but emptiness.

However, what was with his chain? The way it wrapped around him... bound him. Not attached but not separate either...

"I don't understand..."

"I wouldn't expect it. But his fate is not like the others of his kind. Not yet." Katrina looked sad for a moment before it was gone again. "Though like his kin... he only has an ability to destroy. As do I."

Scott narrowed his eyes. Though he didn't understand everything, he had learned something about himself that he didn't know before. And the chain that was invisible before was now clearly before him. It made sense with all the things before.

Somehow.

Yoko on the other hand, didn't look upset as one might believe her to become, but instead looked as though she had reached a point of resolution. She had decided something.

"Then..." she placed her hand over her chest plate. "If it's like that..." she looked up sadly, but with a deeper longing in her eyes, "could you, destroy me?"

"If that is your wish..."

Katrina closed her eyes as her body began to lose substance. The familiar looking gold and black blade forming in the air between Yoko and Scott. Scott knowing it was time for him as well, as he reached out his hand, his world collapsing in crimson and faded sight as his mask seemed to melt out of his skin and onto his face, locking his jaw and submersing him in the all-too-familiar world of suffocation as his mask arrived on his face.

"Th-this is—?"

"Your destiny." Scott replied in his altered projected voice, his deep tone resonating in her head, as her eyes saw him take the blade between them.

"W-will it hurt?" Yoko asked with tears in her eyes. Her hands clenched on the ever throbbing chest plate that had caused her so much suffering already. She closed her eyes. "No... it doesn't matter."

"I wouldn't know regardless." He stated simply. "Prepare yourself."

She nodded, eyes still closed, as she removed her hands and lowered them to her sides.

"Thank you."

"Yeah." He pulled the blade back. "I'm coming."

She screwed her eyes shut as the full length of the blade thrust through her chest plate and out her back, shock doing nothing to dissipate the pain as a heart-wrenching scream tore from her lips, fragments of the broken plate slamming into the surrounding skin and a tearing feeling of being separated from the reality overwhelmed her entirely. Her hand stretching forward just as it began to break back into its elementary particles and her existence was dissipated into the night air, promptly disappearing altogether.

Whether it worked or not... the deed was done.

As in the vision, the last of the white faded away, and she was gone.

A creature of destruction... eh?


Sometime later on, he had found his way back to his room and found himself lost to his thoughts.

In several more days, he would find himself in Japan... perhaps then he would find some answers. Perhaps he would find nothing. Either way... it's where he would be.

With enough thoughts on his mind, he fell asleep. There was always more to do tomorrow.