Chapter 8: Saturn Station
"Black Mage? Who's singing?"
"Hm?"
"I mean, there's no one left on the train but us and we're not singing, but I can still hear someone singing. Do you hear someone singing?"
"Yes."
"So who's singing?"
"It's the Universe, Fighter. The Universe is singing, and everybody hears it differently."
Fighter pondered that, "Do you hear the 'Nearer my God' song?"
Black Mage shook his head, "No."
Fighter frowned. It wasn't usually this difficult to get an answer out of Black Mage. "What do you hear?"
"'He leads you where otherwise, you would not go.'"
Fighter frowned again, "That doesn't make much sense."
"It does to me. Unfortunately."
"Saturn Station. End of line."
They stepped out into utter blackness. Beneath them, a vast abyss swirled, sucking stars into the blackness at its heart.
"So this is the soundless, boundless, bitter sea," Fighter said quietly.
Black Mage turned to stare at him, "Now how did you know THAT?"
Fighter blinked at him, "I saw it in one of your school text books. I was dusting one day and it fell off the shelf because you never put your books back properly."
"Oh."
They watched the abyss for a while more, then Fighter asked in a soft voice, "What does your song mean, BM?"
Black Mage grimaced. He didn't really like the answer to this. "It means I couldn't have gotten this far without you."
Fighter thought about that, then nodded, "I understand."
"You do?"
"Yeah. Your books were always falling off the shelves. One of them talked about how we have three selves that make up our soul, and one of them's self-centered and ego-y and makes all the decisions, and the other one is all childlike and simple and sees a lot of things that the other self misses, and I always thought that was kinda like us."
Black Mage stared at him for a long time. "Maybe you should be the one wearing this robe," he muttered.
"Nah, I wouldn't want to wear a robe. It'd get tangled up when I tried to swing my swords."
"Right."
"So if I'm the kid self and you're the decisions self, who's the third self? Y'know, the divine one?"
Black Mage grinned, "The way our luck's been running? - probably Black Belt."
They thought about that then both started sniggering. Fighter shook his head, "Nahhhhh. Black Belt couldn't be the third self. He'd get so lost, he'd come back to life again."
"Heh heh, yeah." Black Mage fell silent then looked at Fighter again, "So you've finally figured it out?"
"Figured what out?"
Black Mage shook his head, "You amaze me, Fighter, you really do. Well, you'd better get going. Train looks like it's about to leave."
"BM? What's so special about my ticket?"
Black Mage cocked an eyebrow, "A round-trip ticket on the Phantom Train? That's pretty special."
"Am I special?"
"Definitely."
Fighter put his hand on Black Mage's shoulder and faced him, "You'll... You'll be okay, right?"
"Yeah, I'll... oh geez, don't start crying... I'll be fine. I know where I'm going."
"O-okay... Goodbye, Black Mage."
"Bye, Fighter." Black Mage watched his longtime companion walk back to the train alone. Then he looked at the map. He could trace the route that he and Fighter had taken to get here, but it was only one of many possibilities; there were others. One of them led from here, straight through the realm of the destroyers, through the hell realms, and back into the manifest world.
He grinned. He knew exactly what to do.
As the train pulled away from the station, Fighter watched with streaming eyes as his best friend spread his arms, the sleeves of his robes flapping like a dark angel's wings, and leaped into the swirling abyss.
"Fighter! C'mon, wake up! Snap out of it!"
"Huh?" Fighter blinked and looked around. Someone was shaking him awake. This was unusual; normally someone was stabbing him awake. "Oh, hi, Red Mage. I had a really neat dream..."
"No time for that! We need you now! Its time for the ol' alley-oop!"
Fragments of memories were dissolving rapidly as Fighter tried to concentrate on what Red Mage was saying, "The ol' whatty-what?"
Red Mage rolled his eyes. Now how would Black Mage have phrased it? - ah yes... "Sword! Stabby! Bad man!"
"YAR!!!"
