Epoch Augmented

Volume I – Stigmatized

Chapter Eight: Devoted Hearts

By: Juki

                                                Soothing waters, silvery pools, lapping infinitely across the midnight clear. The refreshing coolness against the humid spell of the summery night despite the absence of the sun. Treetops with hands that thrusts up into the heavens, no bounds as if grasping for the stars. Floating along the tantalizing waves of water, marvelling at the stars alone…the only other presence, his brother. "The stars…" He remarked, "Are like tiny white glitter across the sky…with lots of different shades of blue that melted into one another…and the moon…" He breathed in deeply, "Like a big round white cake." He looked over to the one floating near his head, those feet a year beneath his. A pair of legs that led up to a young boy no older than seven…soft golden curls riveting in the spellbound lake, his eyes a hologram of blackness but showed more light than sorrow. He drifted closer and with the softest of all voices asked, "How many stars are there?" He diverted his eyes from him towards the sky, "There…there are too many, I can't count them all." He kicked his feet past the little boy, and slowly fell vertically erect and began to swim up to his brother. "We've better get home." He said, "Ma might worry." His hands came gently up against his brother's side, which squirmed and cackled from the ticklish squeeze and began to swim with the guidance of his older brother. "Maybe if one day I could see…" The young one said, "I'll count all of the stars in the sky and then tell you." He laughed lightly, "Promise?" Almost at shore, within walking level, the young boy paused. "Where's the bracelet?" His small hand clasped around his own wrists, searching for it. "Do you have it?" He asked the older boy and probed along his arms, finding no small chain he gasped. "I think it might've…fallen off." He turned and was about to return when a soft hand stopped him. "Stay here…" The last thing he would let his brother do is venture off in a lake alone…without vision.

                                The tingling caress of the water against his cheek, the rocky bottom with glittery sands and odd coloured fishes. Plunging deeper into the solids, trying to catch a glint of silver in midst of the scattered moonlight that looked like diagonal pillars across. The water above like the heavens without the moon. There…a few metres ahead, the bracelet sitting, the glint he had caught it. Swimming towards the glow, there a cavity within a bed of rocks and within sat the delicate chain of silver…single braided…a gift between the two…from their deceased father. His hand, threatened not to fit but did as he fished through and with a light brush against the chain, nudged it to the side. With his fingers trying to catch a good hold but unable to see it through the cracks, suddenly felt a sharp ting from his foot. There…a jelly fish…and with a frightened release of breath…tried to free his hand from the cavity while fighting to keep his breath. The fear that struck him…with all of his strength he fought to free his hand while the essence of life slipped away.

                Across the shore a loud cry, "Kaito!" The boy standing on shore cried, it had been far too long since he had heard the surface lap of the water… With the wind carrying eastbound…and a whole bed of forest lying ahead of him, what more could he do than shout for his brother? Falling on his knees, despite his disability and how he loathed it, dove into the water, screaming…screaming for his brother while swimming deeper and deeper to his fate. The peaceful waters now a tyrannous enemy, he dove under with a large breath and touched the bottom, no signs. Surfacing he swam another metre and repeated the action in hopes where somewhere on the line, he would hit close to home.

                                His grip loosened from the bound bracelet, which if he had released…would have been able to free his hand. Half of his body paralysed the muffled cry of his name, "Kaito." Sounded further away than before. His eyes fell to a close yet he would not release the bracelet in his hand and with a startled spark…the cavity of the rock shattered and from then slowly surfaced…but not soon enough. The last voice he heard, "Goodbye Kaito…" Was from his own mind, the agony of drowning and lungs full of water…the still of his heart and alas surfacing, falling straight into his brother's arms and with the solemn grip, delivered his last heartbeat. He touched frantically the body that drifted towards him, "Kaito…!" He cried frantically, probing his face to his nose, the damp tears mixed with water, no breathing, he cried. How he wished he were not blind, and now from the panic losing all sense of direction…which way to the shore?

                The thought now, the wish…the only thing…the anguish, at its peak. Clawing at the water, never letting go even if it meant his own demise, would he leave his brother adrift forsaken. The resounding splash…he shot his head around…and there a soft whisper in his ear, "If I promise you vision…" She began, "Will you give me your devotion?" He shot around, no one around but the drifting body of his deceased beloved and the carrying breeze. "Anything." He called out, shut his eyes, "Anything…" A painful twinge as if something had punctured his eyes, he winced and covered them…and then upon opening saw the blurriest of all vision…the shore more than a hundred metres off…in the centre of the flowing body of black water… Clearer the more he blinked and with his arm looped around loosely around his brother's head, clawed towards what seemed to be the shore with a woman standing across waiting for their arrival.

Heaving he drew his brother on shore, shook him while the woman loomed over them coldly, her hazy amber gaze…a beacon in the night. In her hand a tall staff, her auburn tress…spiralling down to the ground. "Please…" He crawled to her foot, tugged at the hem of her dress with his wet shaking hands, "Save him…" She cocked her head, "Why?" She asked him in return, "Why should I save him?" He wiped his tears away with his hand but only matted more water across his innocent face. "I love him." He tugged at her hem until she looked down at him. "What will I gain?" He sniffled, "O-our devotion…" Too young he did not know what that meant…he released her dress when she failed to react and crawled back to his brother, cradling his head on his lap while brushing the short platinum tress from his face distorted with pain and fear. He looked to the hard fist and there…only for him did those fingers open like a flower, to reveal the silver bracelet that in trade for its find lost his brother's life. "Kaito…" He breathed out in a snagged cry and with the bracelet, bound it around his wrist. No one deserved it but him.

                                "Then it is done." With the word, the simplest phrase…a hazy dense humid air ignited around them in the milkiest of amber…embedding deep into the boy's open wound by his wrist that had bled a river. His eyes opened strangely, the soft blue purified with the coldest azure and with the parting of his lips inhaled the amber haze…filling his lungs with air and his blood…power beyond his imagination. Her soft porcelain like hand descended upon his heart, "I shall take this." Her hand purged through his heart as his cry of agony shot through the forest like no other. No equal. There…a peak of golden light ignited from the open heart and from it…a diamond like crystal with the most fascinating of light and mystery…unveiled itself. She gazed at it with her levitated hand, "Your devotion." She whispered, "Is in my hand." Her fingers, twisted, locked around the beauty and along…crushed it into sand and with the breath out of her mouth, scattered it across oblivion.

                The boy sat up immobile, empty of emotions across his face as his younger brother nudged him, "Kaito…Kaito!" The silver bracelet the only emblem of his past, a distant memory…scattered heart, "Kunzite." The woman called him by name, the new entity, he stood up and without hesitation walked towards her extended hand. The woman turned towards the young boy, "Give me your devotion." The boy clasped his hands over his heart, he had seen what it could do…yet she refused to take his decline. With her extended hand that never reached him, a ghostly shadow cast from her palm with an acute jab, entered his heart through his hands. A second cry of agony…a price for everything, there emitted from his heart a crystal like no other, of bathing silver and from it she twisted in her unworthy hands, destroyed it and drift it in the wind then renamed, "Zoisite."

                                His eyes snapped open as the blurred vision of a woman kneeling over him filled his eyes. Her sharp Prussian eyes a beacon in midst of the dimmed cloudy sight…and there the fragrant scent of peaches and lavender entered his deep inhale and haunted him forever. His hand extended slowly, to grasp the truth? The silver chain glistening on his wrist, he had never abandoned, fingertips traced against her face, the flustered beauty, a Goddess. She stared down into his faultless splendour, the poignant gaze…void and crying for something to fill it. Her hand covered his gingered hands, "You're awake…" She breathed out, her feverish blush the only essence warming through his flesh to his heart. This kindness. This moment, he wanted to last forever but as reality dawned, he slowly diverted them away from the angel. "Thank you for saving me." He shattered what would've been beautiful, he is not capable of it.

                She composed herself and helped him to a sitting position, a glass of water brought to his lips he turned coldly away, water. She relieved him of what made him uncomfortable, this stranger, beautiful stranger. "Will you be alright?" She asked him. He turned to her, "Will I?" He asked her in return. She touched his face, she could not help, this attraction that were best known as a forbidden sin. The mortal medicines running through his veins, the only substance keeping him alive that without the woman, he would not live accordingly. She stood up, turned to the bag sitting off in a distance, his hand linked to hers before she drifted too far apart. "Stay." He whispered quietly, loathing solitude, loathing water. She blushed, how had she become so easy? "Why?" He looked past her, contemplating and with all of the sincerity he could muster said, "I need you." That simple phrase was enough, she sat herself down on the ground beneath his feet, how from a turn of fate she had become his slave.

                All things that are beautiful, he tilted her head upwards while he veered downwards as if descending from heaven. Lips locked, the burning fire, he closed his eyes, could not control, could not hold what is beautiful but would as long as he could. She submitted, though her mind cried for her to stop and be rational, she could not, her heart followed him…from the first sight of his azures…she had fallen. Crested with his breath within her, the melodious harmony, her eyes slowly fell from its doubtful gaze to a close, and with wild flames of passion…melted into him. Regret, she knew would be here, but what more could she want than a moment of pure happiness? Even with the devil. What more could she ask for…than have someone truly love her for one second than never have? What more could she ask for than this? Nothing, no more…her heart is content…and has…through the locked lips, given to him to hold.