· · · · · · ·
Constant identity was a fruitless effort amongst the unborn. Those who had enough consistency clustered around Seira, but she still needed guidance from her other self to clearly speak with them. She had an easier time sorting through the tide of knowledge of alternate realities than their disjointed words. The few that had enough identity clustered around her, but still needed the guidance of her other self to address her.
Many did not agree, and they constantly had to remind their other selves of why they were here and what they were doing. Seira alone had enough clarity to not lose her senses, and only so because on earth her pearl still existed.
She and her orange kin waited for a chance to move and she hoped for Michel to arrive, but the Panthalassan spirits waited for someone else. Until then, they swarmed around the celestial cities. The shortened crosses that were their mark had burned into the doors, locking the Ancients inside. There were millions of Ancients, but a billion Panthalassans. Even if one Ancient needed a hundred Panthalassan souls to keep them contained, there were enough.
From her distorted other self, she learned that Panthalassans had come into existence some time after mermaids had turned more humanoid. Panthalassa meant all oceans, and when Gaia broke apart Pangaea, the sole continent so long ago, it separated the once unified mermaids. The Anima Mundi itself had brought them into existence to unite land and sea, born from humans and mermaids, their purpose to tie together land and the separating seas. This much she gathered from the memories of the orange swarm, but it left so much unanswered. Why had they come now, had Fuku summoned them? Where had they come from? Seira didn't have the slightest idea of where the paths of the afterlife led. Had it been this easy to return for spirits, she would have expected every mermaid princess to be haunted by Panthalassan spirits pleading for their descendants to be freed.
"The Aqua Regina prevented them from reaching the planet," said a familiar voice. Seira startled when Sara suddenly was at her side.
"What? You? What's —"
"Going on? Well, your new kingdom whispers, and as an orange princess I can hear," Sara said, gesturing around her. The unborn mermaids kept at a distance from her, weary but not aggressive. Sara didn't acknowledge them further, and set sad eyes on Seira. "If I had known you'd go this far, I would have paid more heed to our plan's side effects. I am sorry that you've come this way."
"But not sorry for the world?" As if she didn't know the answer.
"Off course not," she said. "But for your sake, I'd like to tell you what is about to happen. We are aiming to lure out Thalassa in a position where we are immune to her fate. She naturally has a wheel of her own, which she can use to influence the surrounding world. Even if the Panthalassans are not directly influence by her aura, she can turn the tide against us by depleting spiritual energy."
Sara paused, expecting Seira to catch on.
A position where Thalassa couldn't influence the world meant the presence of Ancients, who were entirely immune. Sara's stunt in the Indian Ocean and Gackto taking over Michal, who had blood of the Ancients, had been a ploy to lure out Thalassa.
When Seira realized the implication, she couldn't stop her rage from leaking into her other self, who started hissing deeply. The unborn swarm at once turned against Sara, but the former princess nimbly darted out of their reach. She went closer to Lucia's wheel, a shield of Panthalassans rising behind her.
She turned around, smiling sadly. "Seira, you need to understand these are my people as well," she said softly, spreading her arms to gesture at the Panthalassan spirits. "It is not only vengeance we seek, but also salvation. Thalassa should hold fate in her hands no more than Gaia or Fuku deserve it. Some suffer now, but we sin for the greater number that will come to be."
Gackto emerged behind her, laying an arm around her waist and casually looking over at the orange swarm. "How are negotiations going, my beloved?"
"As expected, my dear daughter and her new people find it difficult to comprehend. They did not even let me finish."
"Well, Seira, as Sara was about to say, once we have Thalassa, we will retreat. The Ancients will be free to cut the wheel loose," Gackto said amiably.
"Every second you wait longer, more people die," Seira whispered, less in an effort to convince them than just to express helplessness. That helplessness mingled with rage, and then she found the words she sought. "You two are playing necessary evil, so we won't have to? It's not really for our sake if you can't let us make the hard choices. You don't care for the world, then stop playing with the world. If Thalassa is such a danger, then let us deal with her!"
"Maybe you all could deal with Thalassa, should she become a problem once more. But vengeance isn't a negligible part of our deal," Sara said easily as she leaned into Gackto's embrace.
"And here I am, about to be erased from existence without even an afterlife to look forward to, because you couldn't be bothered to be open with me and the other princesses."
Sara's smile finally faltered. "You don't have to be erased. If Lucia remakes the world without either Gaia or Thalassa, then it will be one where you can exist. She won't care for the logic behind pearls and undeath."
"At the cost of self awareness? I've seen what my life would be like, and I've seen what will happen to the souls around Lucia if her subconscious will ends up shaping the world. There would be life, but it wouldn't be me or any of the others. As it stands, I'll cease to be no matter what."
Without a further glance, Seira retreated into the swarm. The others surrounded her with their chaos, and Seira couldn't help but perceive all Sara's possible realities. Worlds where she stayed with Gackto, worlds where she returned with Taro, worlds where she and Gackto were released long before Fuku set his plan in motion and so fought against him, worlds where they avenged Thalassa before Fuku even got a chance to plot anything. Worlds where Sara and Seira had a bond of trust, and worlds where Sara gave up on Seira.
Thalassa stood at the source of some realities, and at the root of others was Gaia. Seira saw glimpses of her only when Thalassa fought her for the control of a wheel of fate. The images of earth's goddess fleeted away from memories, like she was never the same. Even less visible was the struggling will of the Anima Mundi, subjected to the whim of two goddesses.
The more she saw, the more she was insignificant.
How long passed in this way, Seira couldn't tell. One thing that was unknowable here was time.
"Ah, our guest of honor!" Gackto's voice suddenly rang out.
"Michel is here. Thalassa is here. It is almost time," the unborn whispered around her.
Seira struggled back to a singular mind and found her other self separating before her. They looked at one another, confused before they found their identity. Then they moved to the inner edge of the swarm, which lay like a half egg shell around Lucia's wheel. The Panthalassans lay in a thick ring around the wheel now, together with the rebellious Ancients, who likely had no idea they didn't fly side by side with devoted allies.
Below the wheel was the blue of the calm Pacific Sea, edged by distorted land. From there, two glowing forms rose up rapidly. One was tinged green and pale white, she recognized Michel.
The other was tinged radiant white and golden, this was Thalassa. She looked as splendid as ever and had no trace of the sea about her. It only now occurred her how strange it was that she had no tail, ever.
They must have met on the way up here, though why Thalassa came only now, or at all, was a riddle. She couldn't directly envision the goddess's actions when none of the orange mermaids were visible to see it, after all.
Michel arrived first, his eyes darting across the scene before him until he found Seira. He changed course to her, and Seira moved lower to meet with him. The mass around reluctantly let go, though she still could feel a hold on her.
"Seira, what's going on?" He reflexively tried to embrace her, but when he found her to have no substance even to him, shock came across his face. "Are you alright? What happened? You don't feel like you're here."
"I'm not alive nor dead, I think. I don't know what I am right now." There was a shiver in her voice betrayed fear she hadn't realized before, an emotion like lost amidst the memories of lost realities. "It's all been one sick joke by the gods. Lucia's destiny, the entire mermaid world, even us two. I don't know what's real about anything."
That wasn't quite true. She was painfully aware of multiple realities and knew exactly which was true and which false right now. It just was that she wasn't part of any of them anymore. The longer this went on, the worse it felt. She now understood why they were so desperate to cease existing.
"Seira, I can't hear you."
Oh, like she needed another problem. Sara and Gackto had understood her fine, so why not him? Had something changed? Behind Michel, she saw a horrified Thalassa come to a half below the wheel, and from the Panthalassans emerged a man she ... the king she had once fought. The sinner who she cursed. Perhaps his arrival had something to do with it, or maybe Thalassa was using magic to counteract her enemies? Whatever it was, it wouldn't do.
"Seira?" Turning her attention to Michel, she reached for his hand. There had to be a way to will contact now they were up here. If the other unborn could create prisons to hold souls, then this should be ...
Her hand solidified against his and she took hold, gathering in her mind everything he needed to know. The very thing that had prompted him to return to earth had been leaking information from a satellite, so this should work.
It worked too well.
Michel passed out as Seira passed on all the knowledge she had of the situation, including everything she'd seen. He went limp and started to drift back to earth. Panicking, Seira tried to force herself into greater solidity. She didn't quite manage, but the other unborn were more experienced. They flooded around her and grabbed his wings, holding him up.
A quick glance ahead revealed that Thalassa was in a debate with the cursed king, Gackto and Sara floating on either side of him. The traitor Ancients were becoming restless as they noticed more Panthalassans were flooding towards the debate, abandoning their post at the cities.
"Michel!"
His eyes flickered up, and Seira would have breathed in relief if she had lungs. The others let him go and he stayed up on own strength.
"Ugh, I loathe this ... we loathe this," he muttered. "If Michal hadn't had something similar like this, I'd probably be out still."
"I'm sorry, I didn't realize it'd be this bad. I just needed to share the information quickly," she said, then remembered that didn't work.
She took his hand again, this time trying to keep her head clear with just her most recent words. He winced as if in pain, but then said, "I think I understood that. Don't worry, we can deal with it. Michal recently figured out how to hide things from me."
His blue eyes were unfocused though. Likely he invoked Michal to help sort through the knowledge.
She couldn't help but laugh a little. We. She felt like having jumped a bandwagon, Michel and Michal had been dealing with cross-leaking minds years ago already.
Her counter self was also feeling something, but it was more like anxiety. Her eyes were focused on the Panthalassans, who were slowly blotting out earth by now. They had surrounded Thalassa, who shone brightly through their translucent, misty bodies.
Michel turned around now, eyes turning sharper again. She followed his gaze to the still entrapped wheel. The Ancients around it drew closer to it and tried paying attention both to the Panthalassans and to Michel.
"What now?" he asked her.
She carefully, with one finger, touched his wing. It was more a gesture than any real control, but her intention seemed to work.
What she relayed him was how the wheel worked : like with a carriage, the wheel carried one across a road, the road being the planet, the one representing life. Taking control of the wheel away from life was unnatural, but possible, and the wheel was necessary for movement in time. The road had no business driving the car. Right now, Fuku, Thalassa and Gaia all vied for control over Lucia's wheel, with Fuku having most through his machinations of the Panthalassans and the unborn mermaids.
Speaking like this was beneficent now, she could also tell Michel the plan with risking anyone hearing it. He would have to sever the threads around the wheel and at the same moment, she and the unborn would bring Lucia somewhere to prevent her from taking charge of wheel while still in this dangerous mind. Her momentum right now was that she wanted to force unity in the world.
"And what can we expect where you'll be bring her?"
Gaia.
"Alright. Then let's hurry this up. The longer it takes, the worse it becomes down there."
His flute morphed into a sword, and he charged right for the wheel.
A mass of Panthalassan spirits came in his way. He didn't hesitate to cut through them, but though they were intangible, they formed a thick mass. Where Michel could normally move like through air regardless of where he was, now his progress slowed as if he was deep below water.
"Don't waste your time and precious energy, sky lord," a loud voice called to him. It was of the old Panthalassan king. "We will not let go until Thalassa is gone. She might just try to seize the wheel back. Don't you realize that?"
Seira was pretty sure she and her followers could prevent that, so she followed over Michel. He had to go onward.
But Michel now turned towards the congregation around Thalassa.
"Are you mad? You helped Fuku gain control of Lucia's Rota Fortuna just to draw out Thalassa? Have you even seen what this did to the world?"
"We already had this conversation with Seira, it was quite fruitless," Sara said. "You ought to worry more for what will happen to Seira if you set the world 'right'. She took a form that cannot exist within order."
Michel froze.
A more ideal Seira might have encouraged him quietly, but there just was no time. She shot at him, set her hand on his shoulder and had him know she absolutely wouldn't tolerate him being someone who'd consider the world less than this one person he happened to care about. To her relief, he now gripped the sword with two hands and resumed struggling towards the wheel. She caught a wisp of pain and sorrow, but then he was out of reach.
"Oh come now, we were having such a fun trial," Gackto said, sounding merely amused. Seira guessed that he was just humoring the other spirits by drawing out whatever they meant to do. The king at his side had manifested a staff with a cross atop, like the Panthalassan symbol, and stamped it on an illusionary floor every time a servant spirit read something off of a translucent list.
Seira met Thalassa's eyes, found them defiant yet a little frightened. There was something inherently compulsive about her, begging to be adored, but it was a tiny feeling now. Behind Seira stood the hate of the unborn. Thalassa perhaps had not been at the root of Lucia's creation, but she'd been behind the warping of the mermaid species, and so had a hand in the creation of this ill fate.
Michel met the Ancients that stood guard, who either backed away hesitantly or tried to speak to him, telling him to return to earth and finish. He would have to be there to properly integrate his will into the new world Lucia was creating, he didn't want her to take control of the skies too, right? He had to take it all, sky, land and sea, but he had to be there to subvert Lucia's flawed rule. It was not entirely truthful in the implication that Lucia could affect the cities of the Ancients, and Michel knew so too.
He laughed sardonically and said, "Well, too bad I just convinced her I've gone evil and am possessed by Fuku. Wonder how that'll integrate into her story?"
They drew back in shock and confusion, and Michel rolled his eyes. Had they honestly expected he'd go along quietly with their plan?
He reached the first white thread, razor thin and shining as it emerged from an apparent nowhere. With one swipe, he cut through it.
"I suppose we'll have to cut things short," Gackto told his ancestor king. "Wouldn't want to be left here without any Ancients or other things that work against our behated goddess, do we?"
The king had a lot less humor about it, discontent eyes on Michel. "I suppose."
He snapped his fingers, and the Panthalassans flooded away from around Lucia's Rota Fortuna. Michel was left to enact his growing rage on the strands that tied the wheel and the Panthalassans threw themselves onto Thalassa.
The unborn told her it was time to leave. They would yet have to find Lucia, but Seira couldn't tear her eyes from what was happening before her. It wasn't every day one saw their goddess executed.
The Panthalassan spirits now had Sara in the lead, who fell onto something just before Thalassa. Under her touch, a ring manifested around the goddess. It lacked spikes and a center, its engravings were unique to her and it moved in her accordance rather than a stagnant spin, but it was unmistakably the Rota Fortuna of a goddess.
The Panthalassans spirits glowed brighter and contracted until they only consisted of the glowing crosses on their forehead. By the hundreds, these fell onto Thalassa's Rota Fortuna. It broke like crumbling ashes under their weight, and Thalassa screamed. The crossed formed ropes around her, holder her arms down and preventing her from fleeing. A sea of light was formed around her, contrast all the sharper by the presence of the dark unborn. The quiet whirlpool of crosses was like stars in a peaceful meeting, but the fear on the face of the goddess told anything but peace.
Gackto and his king came to stand before her while Sara fell back.
"I remember seeing you for the first time," Gackto said to her. "You were so glorious and divine, who would doubt your wise words? You told Lucia that a certain Gackto and his minions threatened the peace of the sea a long time ago and you had to seal us for our crimes. Funny, since our clan was sealed ten thousands of years ago and the seal existed at my birth already, waiting to separate me from my twin. Tell me, do I have an ancestor incidentally named Gackto, which you conveniently forgot to tell Lucia about?"
"Yes, I lied," Thalassa finally said, an edge of defeat in her voice. "It was important that Lucia understand the gravita of her mission. What I did was for the sake of all mermaids. Isn't that exactly what you are doing now? The mermaid kingdoms know no deep misery, deception, depravity or —"
"How nice that we at least agree on how to ... handle the world. We however never made anyone permanently suffer, like you did when you sealed my descendants. Is that not right, my children?" the king said. The mass of spirits shouted a million times yes and drowned out Thalassa's answer. Or perhaps it was another scream. The voices of the Panthalassans turned louder and primal till it was nothing but a shrill cry.
Sara still moved away, towards Seira now. She raised her hand and below the drone of voices, Seira heard the starts of words.
"Seira, please don't end yourself ..."
That too was a conversation they'd already had.
Seira abruptly turned away and let the unborn surrounded her. Her last look at heaven was on Michel instead, who was still cutting the threads with monstrous dedication.
Her own last look wasn't the last she got, though. Through the eyes of her other self and more, she saw the cities of the Ancients opening as the crosses left their doors. The Ancients poured out, all towards Michel.
Meanwhile, the goddess' soul was torn to pieces by a living fire. Once, doctor Amagi had died by becoming that same fire, and later extinguished himself in order to end the emperor. Lacking the power of emperors, many Panthalassans would have to cease existing in erasing the goddess, which was a cold consolation for Seira.
· · · · · · ·