Chapter 34: The City of Lost Light
Miki and Len has long since fallen asleep, and rightfully so. If the spirit had been them it would have fallen asleep long before they had, mainly because neither angel was the best of company. But that want why the two of them were asleep. They're been extremely tired, and who could blame them? Hence why they were both now snoozing gently as they were waiting for Luka.
The spirit however had grown tired of waiting for Luka. She was still sound asleep like she had been for the past several years (a bit of an exaggeration but the spirit wasn't known for having the best patience).
So the spirit decided to do some floating around. But down to Earth it was.
The spirit zoomed down, deciding to check on a Gakupo again. Gakupo was still asleep, a boring revelation. The spirit was going to have to do something about that.
What was an interesting revelation, however, was Gumi. She had her head leaning against her knees and appeared to be crying softly. The spirit frowned. Gumi wasn't particularly known for being one to cry. So the spirit floated down towards her. It rested its hand either side of Gumi's head and closed its eyes, peering deep into the young girls mind.
So she'd had an argument with Sonika. Well, it could hardly class as an argument, since they weren't actually arguing, but Gumi had snapped at Sonika, and so Sonika had freaked out and yelled back before fleeing the room. Rin had apparently run our after her.
It was a Gumi's fault for ignoring the fact Sonika was her best friend and would undoubtfully be crushed when Gumi said friends weren't as important as family.
"What have I done?" Gumi muttered sullenly.
"Messed up, that's for sure," the spirit remarked as it pulled away.
Since the spirt had nothin better to do with its time it floated away down the corridors, grabbed the first nurse it saw, a nurse by the name of Cul, and whispered to them to go to the infirmary. When Cul got there she asked Gumi whether she was okay or not. Gumi then promptly burst into tears, the stress of everything overwhelming. Cul comforted her, and when Gumi had finished crying demanded she go after Sonika. Gumi would have protested but Cul insisted she could look after Gakupo perfectly fine. Gumi smiled and need no further encouragement. She was out of the room like a flash.
The spirit smiled, and would have loved to see what happened between Gumi and Sonika, but it had messed around enough. It could sense Luka was awake, so it was time to go back to The City of the Lost
Luka didn't wake up elegantly, that was for sure. She grunted and pushed herself up into a sitting position. Her hair was a gigantic mess, anyone would be surprised birds weren't nesting in it. But what was more of a surprise was that fact she wasn't dressed head to toe in her own blood, as would have been expected with repeated blows from Miku, and the fact her arm had been torn off.
What was also a surprise was there was no fire. No heavenly flames burning her. She was actually perfectly fine. Not even burn marks on her skin.
Maybe that was because she was dead. She was, after all sitting in the middle of nothingness. Had she died and gone to, well, Heaven? An angel's version of Heaven? No, most likely not, because Len and Miki were both kneeling down next to her. Unless they were both dead too, which would be no surprise considering this was Miku she was dealing with. She could have easily killed them all.
As her thought grew slightly less groggy Luka wondered if in fact they were alive, how did they escape? She would have asked if neither angel had been sleeping. They had their heads resting against one another, snoring slightly, and Luka felt rude if she woke them up.
Clumsily, the pink haired angel got to her feet and looked around. She really was standing in the middle of nothing. Just white surrounded her. Confused, she looked around for any form of civilisation but there wasn't any. The only form of life were spirits that floated around, disappearing and reappearing. Where were they?
As Luka turned around she noticed one of the spirits was standing behind her. She jumped slightly, but didn't make a sound, and then stared at the spirit, leaning in closer to get a good look. The spirit mimicked her movements, then slowly pulled back and turned to float away. When Luka didn't move it turned around to look at her, then beckoned for her to follow.
"But what about Len and Miki?" She asked. "I can't leave them."
The spirit just shrugged, as if to say 'who cares?' and floated away again. This time Luka did in fact follow.
She found herself being lead aimlessly through the white light. She had no idea where she was being taken as the spirit lead her through twists and turns of invisible corridors, and then came to an abrupt halt. Luka stared at it as it indicated to the space beside it. She hesitated then walked forward to whatever it was pointing to, a closer examination seemed to reveal the very, very faint and fuzzy outline of what Luka presumed was a door. Slowly she reached for what she could only assumed was the handle, but as soon as her delicate fingers had touched it the door came into proper view. A stone door towered above her, carvings decorating its face. Luka looked up at the spirit for an explanation but it only shrugged, yet again, and floated brought the door. Luka sighed, turned the handle and walked inside.
It turned out she was in a large, stone room. Carvings, stone statues and ivy covered the walls, wisps of light floating around and giving the place an eerie glow. There was a long runway in front of her and at the end stood an altar of sorts. The spirit immediately floated over to there, so Luka ran out of it.
When the spirit reached the altar it started to change. It started to take a solid form until a spirt wasn't standing there, but a fully functional angel, with the most gorgeous wing one would die for. Wing envy bubbled up inside Luka, for she no longer had such beautiful wings. The angel standing in front of her had long golden hair falling over her shoulders, piercing blue eyes and flawless skins, flawless skin which Luka could see an awful lot of considering the angel was standing there completely naked.
"Who are you?" Luka asked lamely.
"I'm a spirit," the angel replied. "Isn't it obvious?"
"An angel spirit?"
"I guess if that's what you want to call it."
Luka blinked a couple of times, stared at the angel then looked away uncomfortably. The angel rolled her eyes and waved a hand, within seconds a floating white dress had formed to cover her. Luka looked back.
"Where am I?"
"The City of Lost Light, as Piko and Miki decided to call it."
"Piko and Miki...?"
The spirit nodded. "For twenty three years I've been stuck inside this place, and so for those twenty three years I have been whispering to the two of them. I told them about this place, this ancient place hidden behind their walls. I have been teaching them, or had in the case of Piko."
Luka remembered Miku mentioning something about having killed Piko, quite impossible to learn when you were dead.
"So what is this City of Lost Light?" Luka asked.
"A city from long ago, during the reign of the original Goddess. This is a place full of ancient magic, that has been laid to waste over the years."
"It's that why it's all white outside?" Luka questioned.
The angel snorted. "It's all white outside because that's the lost light my two lovely angels named the place after."
"I'm not following," Luka admitted as she stepped closer to the altar.
The angel perched on the edge of the altar and crossed her arms. "Where do you think Earth's light went when Miku took it away?"
Luka's eyes widened. "Here?"
The angel clapped slowly. "Precisely. This is where all lost things go. Lost light, lost spirits, lost angels, lost people."
"And are you a lost spirit or a lost angel?" Luka probed, taking another step closer.
The angel chuckled. "Neither, actually."
"Neither?" Luka questioned. "Then what are you?"
"Piko and Miki named me the Conscience. I told you I spent twenty three years whispering to them. I've been teaching them about this place to build up to this very moment."
Luka impatiently shook her head. "Stop avoiding the question. What are you?"
The angel chuckled again. "A lost person."
"Person? But you have wings." Pulls narrowed her eyes slightly at them to check if they were real or not.
"Well I didn't ask for them." The angel snorted and flapped them slightly. "They were a gift, as was my never ending knowledge of angels and the Goddess."
"Never ending knowledge?"
The angel nodded. "Yeah, it's kinda sucky really since I can't do anything useful with it."
"Sucky?" Luka questioned the angel's choice of words. The angel just nodded so a Luka moved on to the next question. "So if you were a person before why do you have wings?"
"A good question that I don't know the answer too." The angel shrugged. "Like I said, they were a gift, but I don't know why I was gifted them. She doesn't exactly explain."
"Who?"
"She."
"Yeah, I got that but she who?"
The angel shook her head. "I'll tell you in a bit, just hold your horses."
Luka stood still and stared blankly at the angel.
The angel rolled her shoulders back and clicked her tongue. "Do you know who I am?"
"No, I've never met you before."
"No, of course you haven't." The angel rolled her eyes. "I'm guessing you're going to want an explanation of why I'm here."
"If you'd willingly give it, then yeah," Luka replied, crossing her arms across her chest. It was fairly cold.
The angel patted the altar next to her so Luka hesitantly sat down.
The angel snorted. "No need to look so nervous. Now anyway, I came to Heaven twenty three years ago."
"We've already established that," Luka said dryly. "I want to know where you've come from."
"Doesn't the term 'lost person' give it away?"
Luka stared at her blankly.
The angel grunted. "Honestly the humans are turning you into one, a thick headed, idiotic human. At least I wasn't like that."
"Thick headed and idiotic?"
"Yes, I like to think I wasn't. Not that I can remember being so."
"So." Luka frowned. "You were a human?"
The angel clapped slowly, and slightly sarcastically too. "Well done, give her a gold star. Yes, I was a human before I came here."
"Then why are you here?" Luka asked. "Did you die?"
"Theoretically, I guess you could say that," the angel replied.
"So this is a land of the dead?"
The angel snorted and shook her head vigorously. "Not a chance."
"But you said you were dead," Luka complained.
"No, that's what you said, I just said 'theoretically'." The angel leant back agains her hands. "This is a land of the lost. Didn't I say? All lost things come here. Like Neverland."
Luka didn't know what Neverland was so she said nothing.
"So no dead people?" She asked.
"Of course there's some dead people." The angel chuckled. "This is the City of the Lost, can't the dead count as lost?"
Luka pondered this. "I suppose. Anyway, you're only 'theoretically' dead, so what actually happened to you?"
"Miku," the angel said sullenly.
"Miku?" Luka echoed.
The angel nodded. "Miku lost me."
Luka frowned. "How did Miku lose you?"
"She wiped me from existence."
Luka's eyes widened. "That can happen?"
"Apparently so." The angel didn't sound too pleased. "The moment I disappeared I came here as a spirit, an angel, whatever you fancy."
"That happened twenty three years ago?" Luka asked.
The angel impatiently shook her head. "No, it happened a day ago."
"A day?" Luka asked. "But you've been in Heaven for twenty three years, how is that possible? Are you sure it was a day ago?"
"Yes I'm sure," the angel snapped. "Can't you remember, Luka, you were there."
"I was there?" Luka frowned.
The angel screwed up her face, counted to ten under her breath then stared at Luka long and hard. "It's me, Luka. I'm Lily."
~Author's Notes~
Dun dun dun. I tried to make it as un-obvious as possible that it was Lily throughout this chapter which was very very hard, so I wouldn't blame you if you got it by the first line. Hence why I tried to emphasise as much as possible that she'd been there for twenty three years, which is true, I'll get around to explaining it soon.
~Kate