Part 49: A Question of Severance
Peorth reluctantly decided to admit herself to the Ethiopsylogic Clinic for a check-up after she realized that she had slid into an emotional skittering riot because of the destruction of her carefully-tended arbors of roses. At first, the vandalism was so complete, she thought she was imagining things. So she toured all her gardens in Yggdrasil, and discovered that every arbor of roses was murdered, not just the one at her GRO office node! Dozens of plots and ambroses representing several decamillennia of carefully honed floricultural skills...were wasted.
In a word, Peorth's sense of paranoia was over the top.
As she levitated amongst the mazes of rounded towers and floating gardens, she felt her tension began to coolflow outwards. She tried to relax and enjoy the relative freedom that she had; she was permitted to wander around the grounds at her leisure whenever she wasn't in session with the Clinical Proctor assigned to her case. These carefree moments did much to allay her compulsion towards disassociation. Peorth was very troubled...the shock of the affront had seemed to seriously detach her from reality.
When Peorth unfurled her tale of the destruction of her floral gardens, the Proctor assigned to her case admitted that, quite frankly, she didn't believe a word of Peorth's tale.
"How could such an act of wanton vandalism happen? If a being had done what you claimed, then they need to be here a thousand times more than you. Destruction is the process of a diseased mind, especially the destruction of beauty," the Proctor had reasoned aloud incredulously. Peorth could empathize with her incredulity. But much to her credit, her Proctor had personally investigated the crime anyway, accompanying Peorth to a selection of her cherished hortoriums and ornamental rose preserves. Soon, she was swept into the mystery of Peorth's claim. The further she deliberated on the cause of the bio-arson, the more the Proctor became puzzled.
This impasse only served to amuse Peorth.
"How could something bring death to your roses? No wonder you feel like a basket case, my dear! If this destruction was wrought by another Yggdrasilian God...then that being is seriously in need of therapy! And if it was something else? This would be a major problem if the cause was anything other than accident; it would be tantamount to a Demon running amok in the system!" she had stated. She assured Peorth that she would get to the root of the problem before Peorth finished her stay at the Clinic.
During one of her free time periods, Peorth found herself floating down a hallway when she imagined hearing concerned discussions mentioning Urd and the other Norns. Pausing for a moment, Peorth realized that she was overhearing some kind of debate about the Norns! Being a professional eavesdropper and bit unnerved to boot, Peorth had no qualms convincing herself that she had to listen in...
Her thoughts eartight to the wall, she listened in as a committee of Senior Proctors discussed whether or not they should inform Urd that her younger sisters were going to die of the same affliction she had contracted. Positions were dialogued with briar-like professional seriousness.
At first, Peorth thought this was some kind of macabre joke. Or possibly a trick her mind was playing on her because of the intense shock of seeing all her ruined rose plots. But as she continued her surreptitious eavesdrop, the earnestness of the Proctors' contentious debate convinced her that something was very troubling to them. This was more involved than a simple philosophical discussion of medical ethics...the arguing possessed the passion of desperation.
Finally, one of the Proctors provided a full diagnosis of Urd's condition as a sort of closing statement, including the unbelievable fact that the August One was powerless to remove her illness. The Eldest Proctor finally concluded the meeting by patiently explaining that the Almighty had recommended "full disclosure". The Elder Procter explained that it was His desire that the Proctors should tell Urd everything about the nature of her illness...and how it would claim the lives of her younger sisters very soon.
Peorth's heart sunk into a dazed melancholy as she felt herself hammered by what she had just overheard. She stumblefloated down the hallway in a daze, seeking the security of the cottage that served as her sanitarium while she was here at the Clinic.
"Merde!!"
Her thoughts screambled as her knees weakened away once inside her cottage in the Wishout wing of the Clinic grounds. The next day, she checked out AWOL from the Clinic.
Peorth had visited Urd's charming little family vacation loft several times as a young girl, so she decided to look there first...
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
Now she was here, in front of Odeyn and Freiija's vacation retreat; a messenger intent upon revealing the ghastly news to Urd's folks. The retreat home rested on one of the upper branches of a floating bubbletree, suspended several hundred kilometers above the Arcadian pastures in the PinkSky Zone. The bubbletree faintly recalled an Earthrealm oak tree: but instead of leaves on its branches, elongated frond-shaped bubbles stretched into the distance, each several hundred meters in length. Many Gods had built retreat houses here on the soft surface of the bubbles. As the bubbletree floated slowly throughout the PinkSky Zone, they could travel within the comfort of their homes.
Her knees were still acting on their own. Hovering amidst the colonnaded approach to the family's loft, Peorth felt them knocking together like wooden clappers after a sumo match. She levitated up to the entry foyer and then backed away.
Indecisive.
She was conflicted; torn between wanting to burst forth with the terrible news and otherwise just keeping her mouth shut. But if she didn't inform anyone, Peorth knew that she would live with lunatic dreams of regret later. She tried to develop the scenario in her mind as she imagined how it would unfold:
"Lessee...Urd will naturally try to keep it to herself, until her sisters start getting sick. Then she'll tell all. Once her parents find out, they'll recall all three Norns back from the Earthrealm. Keiichi would be très derange' when he finds out. Then, when they leave, he'll feel abandoned. This would make him a prime candidate for a wish...which I would grant, comforting mon chérie mortale in his time of need..."
"Peorth, how could you be so –selfish-!"
Peorth blinked away the guilt as she visualized a squadron of mini-Belldandys circling her head, admonishing her with accusing glares. She shook her head to clear the mental vision of disapprobation. She had to admit that she still was fascinated with Keiichi, even though he was Belldandy's human consort.
But keeping things to herself just wasn't part of Peorth's behavioral vocabulary. She floated towards the entryway again and halted just short of the entrance.
Still indecisive!
"What if Urd doesn't tell anyone until it was too late? Why can't Kami-sama just cure her? He's...the Almighty ! All mighty. He always uses His wisdom to see where we cannot, to do what we cannot fashion through our efforts," she muttered to herself. Peorth didn't want to believe that the Lord lacked the capacity to cure Urd. To entertain this notion...was not only insane but also verged on major blasphemy. The Almighty could do anything He deigned to. Or He wouldn't be the Almighty.
But...what if?
With a sinking heart she reasoned that, for His own peculiar reasons, it was quite probable that the Lord didn't want to help the Norns! In which case it was became imperative for her to tell the parents! Perhaps Odeyn and Freiija could convince Kami-sama to spare Urd and her sisters. Perhaps Peorth could help them...
Straightening up her body, she advanced on the door...and halted again.
"What if I'm meddling? Am I causing more harm than good?" The recent experience with granting Banpei's wish had prized Peorth's eyes open to a host of moral depths that she had remissed during her Wishout phase. Repeated lectures by the Proctors of the Ethiopsylogic Clinic had keyed in on topic of needing to do what was best for the good of the whole when granting wishes.
She knew that she couldn't detach anymore...
Peorth made her decision and floated in, only to find the compound empty. Even the pets were gone as she searched the place.
As she searched the compound, she could make a soft sobbing coming from the back of the loft. She settled down to the ground and walked out onto the back patio. The yard planed away into the distance with checkerboard patches of grass, punctuated by bubblegrass spheres floating lazily on the wind. Each bubble of grass was colored differently, creating the effect of soft floating marbles against the pink sky...
Under a nearby gazebo was a bald person dressed in white.
"What is an Earthrealm Shinto priest doing here at Urd's place?" she wondered in amazement.
"Hallo there?" Peorth hailed with a shout. The person ignored her. Perhaps they didn't belong here! A thought crept into her mind...
"What if this is the being who destroyed my roses?" her thoughts shouted. Her suspicions engaged, Peorth advanced on the intruder, hands aglow with pink energy...just in case.
"Who are you and what are you doing trespassing here!" she demanded, loudly threatening to voice. The bald person slowly turned and regarded Peorth sadly, her dimmed emerald eyes filled with resignation...
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
Urd was dressed in a simple milk-white gauze gown that clung to her gaunt fame. Peorth could sense immediately that she had lost a lot of weight; she looked absolutely emaciated! She seemed as fragile as waxlight in a scolding wind; not at all her usual vivacious self. Seeing this, Peorth felt heartbroken. After forcing herself to join Urd under the gazebo, she listened as Urd grimly described everything about the soul-searing experience.
Peorth was a countenance of disbelief.
Urd's face looked like a painting afire; a masterwork of a portraiture genius...yet ill-fated to be reduced to pitiful smoldering embers. In a word, Urd's skin was almost hideously complected.
And her Soul...
To Peorth's Goddess senses, Urd's Soul seemed to be clutched amidst some kind of permafrost prison. Peorth decided that it feel to her to do something to try and coax Urd out of her self-imposed shell.
"Urd? I really think you should go back to the Earthrealm and stay with your sisters!" Peorth encouraged with a faint smile, the best she could muster under the circumstances.
Urd's expression was as animated as that of a marble statue...her sad mien as hollow as a seashell. She hadn't even bothered to look once at Peorth while they were talking. She just stared into the spaces with a vacuous expression.
"Well, not exactly vacuous," Peorth reminded herself. Urd's eyes were startlingly bereft of hope...just like Keiichi's were when he thought Belldandy was going to get married away from him.
"What would you do, Peorth? I don't think that you can even begin to understand the depths of emotional agony that I'm going through!" she snapped back in a low voice. "I have lost everything, including my dear sisters! And I have to be the one to tell them!"
"Urd, you've lost your sisters anyway, if there is no cure for this! I hate to say it, Goddess-friend and sometimes sempai, but all the time you waste sitting here mired in your wintry sorrow...is only stealing away from the time you could be with Belldandy and Skuld! And your folks. Reality is, you're sick...and that's not going to change! You don't have all the time in the Multiverse to fool around with any more! Now I don't know what it's like to face the Real Death, but I do know what it is like not to face up to life!" Peorth said righteously.
Urd just shook her head in negation.
This wasn't helping, so Peorth decided to be even more confrontational.
"Pull your head out of your ass, Urd! Everything changes!" Peorth shouted in her face, trying to stir Urd up into petulance. She strongly suspected that this approach would get Urd riled up. Sighing loudly, Urd looked up at her for the first time since Peorth had joined her at the gazebo. Peorth wanted to turn away from those eyes, those icegreen eyes with their terrible depths of loneliness and pain. They showered Peorth with razored bullets of guilt for being so blunt.
"Urd...I promise you that I'll be with you every step of the way. And when Belldandy and Skuld's time comes, I'll take care of them..snff..like they were my own sisters!" Peorth managed, the thought nudging a few tears past her composure.
"How, you primadonna dope!? You don't have any sisters, Peorth! Sooo...what would you know about treating Belldandy and Skuld as if they're your own sisters?" Urd said quietly. Peorth was relieved that she had finally reached the Norn of the Past.
The words of insult were a really good sign.
"You know, it's totally funny. Completely weird, actually! The one that I'm worried about the most...is Keiichi," Urd admitted with a sigh.
"Huh?"
"He's going to be left to his own counsel when this is all over. I know Mom and Dad can take care of themselves. But Keiichi? I'm really scared for him. In the past, I wouldn't ever want you anywhere near him when there was a crisis going on, Peorth. But now I think it might be good for him if you were there for him, to give him some sense of continuity. After all, he's going to lose the most precious substance of his heart...someone he had planned to share his love with for the rest of his life. He'll need to be looked after, by someone from Yggdrasil that he knows and respects..." Urd added, surprising Peorth.
"And don't you ever tell anyone I said that!" Urd amended with a menacing look.
"Remember that debacle with the truth serum?" Peorth prompted. Not wanting Urd to get all maudlin again, she applied humor into their conversation to lighten things up.
"Yeah. Skuld was hilarious, wasn't she? I've often been tempted to inject her again, just to hear what foolishness she's been up to. Do you remember that time you challenged Velpser...and what he did to you? You were this high," Urd said as she held a shaky hand about three feet off the floor of the gazebo.
"Aw c'mon! Maybe just a little taller, you think? C'mon, give me a break!" Peorth said, playing around the indignance she felt at the hands of that Demon-brat. Serves him right to be changed into a cat...he was a little churlish pussy!
"Peorth, can I ask you to do something really special for me? I know that we haven't seen eye-to-eye for millennia, but I want to...see your Angel before we go back to the Earthrealm. Please?" Urd pleaded. Peorth was taken aback at Urd's odd request...then she remembered that Urd's own Angel was deathly ill; a shadowqueen rather than a being of LightDark.
"S..sure! How could I say 'no' to that?" Peorth said. She held her hands crossed high above her head and summoned Gorgeous Rose. Her Angel pounced out from behind her, light pink hair fluttering in the breeze.
Urd stood up, walked over and held onto Gorgeous Rose with a desperate hug...
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
Two Goddesses lingered at the torii entryway to the temple grounds.
Urd kept looking at Peorth, shaking her head "no". Her whole body kept saying "I can't go through with this!" She knew that this was going to be the most difficult moment of her life. She had to bear tidings of mortality and tragedy to her sisters: to tell her sisters that she was going to die soon and that they were going to die as well. It had been only a few weeks since...that horrible, wretched day when the fortress of Urd's will had been torched to the ground.
"'Life really sucks...'" she heard Peorth whisper under her breath.
"'...And then you die!', isn't that what the mortals say? Let's just get this over with," Urd grumbled with angry resignation as she started walking towards the sunroom door.
It was a beautiful spring afternoon; the clothes were hanging out on the line drying while avian mating calls breezed through the mountain-fresh air. Urd expected Belldandy to be relaxing in the sunroom; enjoying the verdant sensorium of seasonal distinctiveness that marked the period of Haru-Ichiban in Japan.
With a heave, Urd opened the door to the sunroom and walked down the short hallway past Bell's Tea Room. Her blood pressure rose as she noticed the living room was empty.
She turned around the corner into the dining room...and saw Mother and Father seated with everyone else...
"URD!!" the voices of a half dozen of the closest people in her life shouted in various shocked tones...
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Keiichi didn't say a word. What could he say? Urd looked horrible...her bearing possessed an emptiness. Like death warmed over. When she had left the temple, she had appeared withered like beat grain. But now she was much worse.
Drained. Everybody felt drained by the sight of her. Keiichi gasped his breath out as he saw mercurial disbelief register on everyone's face. A silence dragged on uncomfortably. The most high-spirited of the three sisters now stood in the doorway, a shadow of herself; dull when she should be glittering.
Urd looked around the room and tried to tune into a smile.
"Mom...Dad...Belldandy...Skuld, I'm going to die. I went to the Clinic; they told me there is nothing they can do," Urd said slowly, patiently, each word crushing her down, edging her towards breaking down. She didn't want to waste time hedging on preliminaries; she already felt tortured by what she had to say.
Then she fainted...
Words rebounding off the wall of an indifferent Multiverse.
While her family attempted to revive Urd, Keiichi wished that he could deliberately blur his memory into a fog that would conceal what he had just heard. He felt a sour reprehension clinging to his soul like a musk-odor. Why did he have to be here...and witness this? This powerful cloak of emotional pain seemed to attune his memory to itself with crystalline clarity. His mind was intractably whispering lemur voices that resounded their dismal and cold dissent. He just wanted it to stop.
Looking at Urd's mother Freiija and seeing the runnels of tears on her face...he knew that joy had become a casualty.
"Why did her parents have to hear this?" his mind cried.
When she emerged out of emotional grogginess a few minutes later, Urd surveyed the room, watching her own inner chaos reflected in the eyes of her beloved family. Which now included Keiichi. For all intents and purposes, Keiichi was family; he would be as close to a brother-in-law as Urd would ever get to experience. He had an almost electrical tension to his red-sun aura...a stew of anxiety that was only going to get worse once she told him about Belldandy.
With detachment shifting into numbness, Keiichi watched Belldandy listen to everything without batting a lash. The words of undoing came fast and harsh as Urd revealed that Bell-chan and Skuld were going to die too, of the same disease that was ravaging her.
Acrid woes creasing havoc upon the velvet of his heart.
Urd felt utterly shitty. Not just woe-weakened in body, but maladroit in spirit. She gagged and coughed helplessly as Mother fell to pieces on the spot, while Father swore an oath of vengeance on Cevn. Skuld appeared to take the horrible news with utter impassivity, but Urd knew better. She could tell that her youngest sister's mind had fused itself, like a billow of metal alloy, into a mental paralysis midway through her explanation. Even Peorth was crying, knuckles rubbing her night brown eyes.
Urd looked at Keiichi, trying to muster the little strength that remained into an expression of compassion. Keiichi averted his pain stricken eyes from her gaze.
Both parents looked at their oldest daughter, trying to conceal their heavyheartedness. For the first time, they were no longer parents...and their daughters were no longer children. Their children were now boon-friends. This scourge had leveled everything. The more parental affection towards their daughters Odeyn and Freiija felt in their hearts, the more agonizing it was to behold the three girls. Their three girls. Three souls whose grace-glowing light would be snuffed out soon by an inexplicable agent of doom. Parents...a God and a Goddess...beholding the fading life of three Norns; this was all there was. The couple's malaise convoluted love into a funereal expectancy...a daunt which pulled any pretenses of hope away; grinding their optimism ruthlessly into the mud.
Urd...felt like she was bearing the weight of the universe; a female Atlas who couldn't shrug off the drowning burden of the inevitable. She heard a male voice casting words like stones...
"Belldandy...is...going...to...die."
Keiichi just wanted to run away like his sister had done; but he reminded himself that he needed to be here for Bell-chan. Urd's announcement had been like a brick thrown to the side of the head. Keiichi looked at Belldandy with vision rendered anew; suddenly realizing that, from now on, every second would assume a precocity of its own. Each moment from herewards would be too precious to waste. No matter how his courage would be eroded by the coming events, he promised himself in his heart that he would remain by her side…
…until…the…very…end.
The wooden hues of the dining room clutched the scene; a mascaraed brow that plucked at the emotional freakishness which threatened to overwhelm the group. Keiichi imagined that the temple was crying pine-scented tears along with him.
The family.
And then there was dead silence between the five of them...
Until Belldandy got up and rushed to the bathroom, holding her hand over her mouth as she choked deep in her throat.
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
Midway through Urd's revelation, Megumi had suddenly stood up and ran to her room, sobbing uncontrollably. It was just too much to handle.
All three Goddesses were going to die.
The look on her brother's face was a pestle that crushed her heart.
She sat on her futon and gasped for air, squeezing her pillow...for she was crying so hard.
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
A week later, Keiichi found himself at Sayoko's house talking to Cevn. Somehow, he had breezed through the last of his finals...the last finals of his undergrad years. He was going to take "The Walk" this Saturday, March 24th, 20XX.
Which didn't mean shit anymore.
The long-desired graduation from N.I.T., a summation of six years of work, papers, hands-on projects and late-night bouts of studying held little relevance to his life. A beautiful raspberry-cloud sunset was just a taint on the horizon; only amplifying the fleck of his loneliness by its augury of the passage of time.
The past week had been Hell for everybody in the house.
Cevn didn't know about Urd. Keiichi knew that the unwonted task fell to him to tell Cevn, as Megumi was far too upset to speak to anyone right at the moment. He was very conflicted about telling him about Urd, because Bell-chan and her sisters kept insisting that he was the perpetrator of the wretched acts of violence upon Urd.
Belldandy had two or three months to live...
Several days ago, Bell-chan had informed him that Urd had sent the Ninjas and Ninjettes on a mission to kill Cevn while he was sleeping. They had tried to poison him...he was immune. They had tried swords...he was uninjured. They planted traps...which he seemed to avoid with an almost uncanny forevision. They were mixing a variety of bamboo-trunketed incendiary devices when Belldandy found out about their 'assignment' and told them to cut it out.
Megumi had broken down into tears during her final in Cevn's Philosophy of Technological Sciences class. She couldn't even tell Cevn-sensei why.
The next day, Odeyn had gotten into a shouting match with him when Keiichi had tried to explain his belief that Cevn didn't assault his daughter. Odeyn accused Keiichi of branding Urd a liar, then stormed off in a huff. The fact that Bell-chan took her Father's side against him didn't help matters one bit. His girlfriend comforted Keiichi's profound disappointment and confusion, promising to try and talk some sense to her father...and mend the breach. Once again, Bell-chan said that she wished Cevn would just die, so that everyone would feel vindicated. Keiichi couldn't believe that his girlfriend had been poisoned by such strong resentments. Then again, she was the one facing death, and it was her sister who had been violated. If something like that had happened to Megumi, Keiichi knew that there was a silent killer in him that would awaken with a thirst for vengeance. In 14th Century Kyushu, he had killed many men for lesser acts.
No matter what Bell-chan tried, Odeyn only regarded him with baleful glares whenever they were in the same room.
Belldandy had two or three months to live...
Last Friday, Chihiro asked Keiichi why Belldandy hadn't accompanied him while he worked at Whirlwind. She was shocked and angry when Keiichi informed her that he wasn't going to race in the Le Mans trials next month in France. Thoroughly nettled, she threatened to fire him from Whirlwind. Keiichi swore her to confidence, and then explained to her that Belldandy's was very ill.
Chihiro's face blanched with turn-a-torn guilt.
Feeling bitter because of the Club's loss of Keiichi as a driver and the fact that his girlfriend was sick, Chihiro tearfully started throwing wrenches and other tools against the wall...and then closed Whirlwind for the day ten minutes later. She told Keiichi that he could take an indefinite leave of absence from his small engine mechanics job at Whirlwind until Belldandy got better.
Keiichi couldn't bring himself to tell her that Belldandy wasn't going to get better. Yet, he expected that repairing and restoring motorbikes would be a necessary escape from the comfortless situation at home. So he put in the occasional shift at Whirlwind.
Belldandy had two or three months to live...
Last weekend was even worse. Skuld had put an ad in the newspaper for somebody to adopt Banpei, Sigel and mini-Banpei. Crazy Dr. Morrow was the first to call. Bell-chan thoroughly chastising her for being too fatalistic.
Also last weekend, his sister had broken up with Genji. That night, she had a long talk with Keiichi, explaining that her breakup had nothing to do with Genji. She had come to an understanding with herself that she just couldn't handle being in a relationship with a guy right now. For the past several days, a distraught Genji was calling every night, trying desperately to hang on to his girlfriend.
Two days ago, Belldandy and her mother got into a massive screaming match when Freiija insisted that the sisters return to Yggdrasil. Belldandy said she wouldn't leave Keiichi...and then the fireworks started. Keiichi almost wanted her to go with her parents; anything to avoid seeing Freiija so upset. He ended up spending the night in retreat at the N.I.T. library, cramming for his finals.
Yesterday, Urd was so sick that she needed a bedpan. Keiichi read a book on home nursing to prepare for the worst. It was obvious that the disease was wasting Urd much more rapidly than anyone could have predicted.
Belldandy had two or three months to live...
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
"Cevn, back when I was in fifth grade, I wrote a story called "Goro and Pirates", which won first prize that year at my school. It was about this mentally retarded boy, Goro, who lived in an island fishing village long ago.
"Goro was given a girl's name because he was so small and frail when he was born. As he became older, it was apparent to all that he was a little 'off'...a little different than the other kids. To his parents, he wasn't "different". He was "special". The other children always teased him, especially while the men were out combing the ocean to net their share of fish. Because he was slower at games, none of the kids ever wanted to play with him. So Goro often walked along the beach by himself. His mother and father loved him dearly, but raising a child like Goro tried their patience from time to time.
"At the time, there was a band of pirates would sail from the north, traveling from village to village. They would anchor off an abandoned stretch of oceanside and send spies to observe the coming and goings of the fishermen. Once they determined the movements of the villagers, the pirates would storm the village and abduct all of the children. Then they would sail back north to a fortress where an evil oni lived. They would trade the children in exchange for chests of gold. The children would spend the rest of their lives as slaves of the oni, working in the mines. And once in a while, the oni would stew one of the children for his dinner.
"With the passage of time, the pirates eventually reached Goro's village. As it happened to be, the advance sentries of the pirate ship observed Goro while they were reconnoitering possible offensive routes to attack the village. So they abducted Goro. The leader of the pirates examined Goro and found out that he was so stupid that he would be useless as a slave. For some reason, the pirate king resolved to believe that all the children of Goro's village were idiots of an ilk, so they decided to bypass the village and sail on. Once they set out to sea, they bound Goro with hempen ropes and threw him overboard to drown.
"At that very moment, a princess of the Dragon Realm was swimming back to her father's undersea castle. She saw Goro drowning; and taking pity upon him, she decided to rescue him. Despite Goro's inability to articulate his thoughts, the princess saw past his clumsiness and decided to grant him a boon, since she could clearly see that he had a heart of gold.
"Goro could only look at her thankfully as the Dragon Princess returned him a beach nearby his village. The villagers had presumed that Goro had been killed by mountain tigers; needless to say, his mother and father cried tears of relief when he unexpectedly washed up on the shore.
"Despite his imbecility, Goro was an honest worker and a filial son. In his early teens, he was able to join his father in the fishing expeditions as an oarsman. Yet he still lived with his parents, because he wasn't able to take care of himself. Of course, none of the village maidens were interested in Goro in the slightest, because of his condition. As he approached manhood, his parents resigned themselves to the fact that they would have to care for Goro as an adult.
"One day, a mysterious woman appeared in the village. She was stunning...like a princess from faraway Kyoto. She was so beautiful that all the young men of the village wooed her in turn. But she would have nothing to do with them; telling each youth that she was ill-used by their suits because they failed to practice kindness towards unfortunates. After a week in the village, she visited Goro's parents. To their astonishment, she offered to become his bride and take care of him. The parents gratefully agreed, and the next day she brought them a tremendous chest of gold for a dowry. The young men of the village were overwhelmed with jealousy, so they drove Goro and his new wife out of town.
"So Goro and his new bride bought a nearby farm and settled into a household, and there they raised a family. After being blessed with three children, his wife revealed to him that she was the Dragon Princess who had saved his from drowning years earlier. She gravely instructed him to never reveal her identity to anyone, nor let her touch the waters of the ocean, lest she be forced to return to her underwater castle home.
"Several years passed, and the pirates sailed south again to conduct their raiding parties. When they attacked Goro's village, they learned the strange tale of the mysterious woman and the chest of gold. They searched the woods and nearby farms until they found Goro. Then one day while he was working in the field, they abducted Goro's wife.
"The pirates took her aboard their ship, and the king of the pirates decided to torture her to find out how she had come to possess so much gold. But she would not reveal where she got the gold. They mistreated her, and then the pirate king threw her overboard. As soon as she fell into the ocean, she reverted back into her true form. The pirates were frightened to befuddlement at this, and in her wrath, she destroyed the pirate's sailing fleet, rescued all of the abducted children from the evil oni's island fortress, and conducted them all safely to shore.
"But Goro never saw her again. Out of concern, his parents came to visit him after the raid and found him gone; his children seemingly abandoned. They thought that the pirates must have killed him, so they took their three grandchildren back to the village to raise them.
"The tragedy of all this...is how Goro would sit at the beach every day..snff..waiting for the return of..snff..his wife. After the passage of many years, Goro's grieving figure transformed into a rock outcropping on the seaside, so constant was his sadness.
"And you..snff..know what? He had never told anyone the truth about his..snff..wife. In his mind, it was so unfair...she had no reason to disappear out of his life! Deep in his heart, he struggled with the fear that he had..snff..done something wrong; an action or words that had driven his wife away. And yet..snff..he sat there on the beach awaiting her return. No one knew that he had saved the children of the village...no one..snff..knew that his wife was a princess of the Dragon Realm. But that didn't make a difference to Goro...because the love of his life..snff..is going to die and..sob..leave him..."
"Keiichi, what are you trying to say?" Cevn asked him, noticing Keiichi's rapid deterioration of composure. The tale he was unraveling reminded Cevn of the folk tale of the husband-and-wife rocks at Futamigaura, a popular honeymoon destination for Japanese newlyweds, whose cultural notoriety was similar to the enchantment of Niagara Falls for Americans.
"I..I wrote that story a couple of years after I first met Belldandy, back when we were both kids. I..I guess I was in love with her then, all the way back when I was 10 years old. I wrote it because I missed her smile...a smile that I would never forget. And now it's coming true! B..Belldandy is going to die! She's going to be gone, and there's nothing I did to deserve it! There's nothing I can do to stop it!" Keiichi admitted with mounting despair before his grief overtook him.
"Oh...my...God!" Cevn said, his face ashen with shock.
"Nothing matters anymore!" Keiichi shouted out his frustration. A few minutes later, Cevn was echoing Keiichi's shout of regret.
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
I couldn't believe what Keiichi had told me. Belldandy was going to die! Then he stated that Urd was dying!
I knew something was up when the Ninjettes and their boyfriends had attacked me on several occasions. I knew that I had given them no motive to sway them towards ninjitsu attempts on my life. I also knew that their bushido wouldn't allow for them to disclose the reason why they had suddenly turned towards an assassinative bent.
But this news...
I felt like there was a living paper mobile inside of me, around me; its piece de virtu precariously balanced by all the persons in my life here in Makuhari. As long as everybody was leveling in his or her place, this mobile possessed a delicate swing of beauty. A wisdom chain of souls orbiting around me, within me as part of my life. But take away the three Goddesses...and it became completely entangled in chaos. A discord of confused beings.
This news was like a knife stirring in my gut, carving away at any emotional fortitude I had developed over the years. My new friends in Japan had literally carried me as I rebuilt my life from a depressed shambles. Now, I felt a swooping sense of loss. I had lost my wife years ago, and now I was going to endure another dose of death.
Urd...was going to take the breath that cannot be drawn...
"No matter what, I have to go see her," I decided.
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
Belldandy saw Father sitting on a rock near the koi pond, looking utterly exhausted. Suddenly worried, she and Keiichi ran up to him, only to find themselves listening in astonishment as Father narrated what had happened earlier in the day.
An hour after they had left to take a stroll in the park along the canal, Cevn showed up out-of-the-blue at the temple. Father immediately recognized Cevn from Urd's description and instantly knew that Cevn intended to harm Urd or Skuld. Despite his rage, he tried to warn Cevn off. But Cevn refused to leave, and had insisted on seeing Urd. This capped him off...Father's anger flew into a height, so he employed his Divine Powers, intent on killing the mortal who had hurt his daughter so dearly. Forming a Lightningcrystal sword in his hands, Father discharged a full power annihilation spell at the mortal. Belldandy felt a foreboding...
All it did was stagger Cevn slightly.
Father said that Cevn simply shrugged it off. Incredulous and vexed, his wrath increased as Cevn tried to explain that he wasn't the one that assaulted Urd. That he was here to help because he had feelings for Urd. This tragic mockery of his daughter incensed the head of the Yggdrasil Energy Guild to the core.
Convinced that this was just an underhanded deception to buy time for a renewed attack on his daughters, Father broke open his seal, swearing that he would protect Skuld and Urd with his life if necessary.
Then Father said he had hit Cevn with a full discharge of arcane energy! Stunned, Belldandy caught herself looking for a scorched crater somewhere on the temple grounds. But Father said that the mortal simply absorbed the burst of divine pyrotechnics. A full energy strike from an unsealed God with a Senior First Class, Unrestricted, Unlimited License!
Her Father said that all it did was knock Cevn on his butt!
Belldandy looked at Keiichi with a wide-eyed expression as Father explained that his powers were tapped out by the all-out energy strike.
"I was now concerned that he was going to try and kill me. Instead, he stood up and dusted himself off. Shrugging his shoulders, he approached me calmly and helped me to my feet. Then he assisted me over to a rock by the koi pond. 'So you can rest,'" he told me. He kept trying to convince me that he didn't hurt Urd. That he loves your sister, and that he desperately wants to help her regain her health. I told him that he was full of deceit...but I was too exhausted to fight anymore," Father said, his face saying "yes, I know it sounds insane, but..."
"Daddy! Are you okay?" Belldandy inquired with tender concern. Father looked at her, his single eye showing that he was clearly touched by her solicitude. For all the heartsickness he felt towards his daughter's situation, it was a freshening breeze for someone to feel worried about him for a change...
"Yes...I'm all right! And a little embarrassed, as well," he said gruffly. "Strangely, he didn't try to resist my attack, nor did he try to harm me. Because of this, I'm beginning to wonder...if what he claims...is true. I noticed that his aura was a gentle seablue, indicating that he harbored no ambitions of doing violence to me. Then, this 'Cevn' clasps me on each temple and replayed the scene when you attacked him at his studio apartment. Via a thoughtcast! Can you imagine...a mere mortal being able to thoughtcast?" Belldandy and Keiichi exchanged a knowing glance.
"Yes, Father...I know for a fact that Earthrealm mortals can thoughtcast," she answered, holding tighter onto Keiichi's arm. Still, she was very troubled by this whole incident. Once again, Cevn had
survived a full-out attack by a God. Father's descriptions seemed to indicate that Cevn's mysterious self-protection abilities were on the increase. If this was true, then Cevn could return and perpetrate more evil on she and her sisters. Belldandy knelt next to Father and held his hand as he continued his story.
"As I watched him go in to see your sister, I somehow realized that he wasn't the one that hurt her. And I think...that he loves Urd almost as much as this one loves you, my dear," he remarked, pulling Keiichi's sleeve and smiling unexpectedly. Belldandy sighed as she realized that the breach between Father and Keiichi had been bridged. Once more, Cevn-san had been a healing force in their lives, whether he knew it or not.
"Yet, I could swear that, somehow, he is a half-God, half-Demon...in the body of an Earthrealm mortal! I would bet my life on this; having raised your sister Urd these past 270,000 years, I should know. How this can be...I cannot explain. For all practical purposes, he's just another Earthrealm mortal," Father told her.
"Yet...he is unusual," Belldandy said with a hint of confusion. She was feeling sick again. Sometimes, just the simple smells of the outdoors or certain foods were enough to get her stomach churning.
Father told her that he watched as Cevn entered the house...and then he somehow realized that Urd had been attacked by a Demon, not by Cevn. Belldandy wanted to argue with her Father; he was obviously in denial because of his exhaustion. Or could it be true that Cevn was innocent? Her Father was a fountain and a shrine of authority and wisdom to her; he wouldn't challenge his beliefs without very good cause. He even sensed that Cevn loved her sister.
"Oh my! Urd!" Belldandy shouted, extremely worried. If her older sister had seen Cevn...
"What's the matter, dear?" Father asked her.
"Urd still thinks that it was Cevn who...assaulted her!" Belldandy answered in a flush panic, and then she dashed into the house, leaving Keiichi behind.
She found her older sister in her "Urd's Castle" room. Urd was crouched spider-like in a corner, next to one of her many medicine cabinets. She had blockaded herself using her circular runic table as a protective shield. Her forehead and eyes emerged cautiously above the curve of the table edge.
Belldandy could see bolts of terror in her emerald eyes. She quickly knelt next to Urd and held her closely, feeling her sister's whole body shivering with fear and anger.
"H..he came here! To see me! The...bastard! He told me that he loved me, and that he would do anything in his power to make me...to make us well. I told him that I hated him to the very core of my being! W..why would he come here? After...what he did to me! How dare he say to my face that he still loves me!" Belldandy listened as Urd exhausted every epithet in the book venting her resentments against her former mortal boyfriend. Then unexpectedly, Urd suddenly switched tracks and began to laugh hysterically as Belldandy held her.
"Whyyyy!?" Urd shrieked amidst her lunatic laughter. Belldandy knew that Urd had been exhausted this week, but for a few brief moments she was her old energetic self. Unfortunately, her strength was powered by hate. Tragic hate towards someone who cared deeply for her.
"You promised, Belldandy! You promised that you wouldn't let him come here!" Urd said, accusing her. Belldandy decided that it would be best to have a talk with Cevn as soon as possible.
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
"Death is a process," Urd thought to herself. Her body was failing her by stages. She could no longer float about the house, so she resigned herself to walking. She woke up one day to discover that her wobbly legs no longer could support her. Simple tasks like lifting a cup of tea taxed her strength considerably. She no longer could keep down any sake; Keiichi, bless him, had crafted a large number of moonstone bracelets for her use.
Now she couldn't eat any solid food. She felt agonizing pain, which often brought her awake in the middle of the night, breathless and tearful. Mother had moved in to her room...sleeping every night with Urd in her medicine lab room. During these waking spells of pain, Mother would hold her until the agonies passed. This illness had brought her closer to Mother than ever before in her adult life.
Too bad this intimacy had to end.
She confessed to Mother about all the mistakes she made, all the times she acted impulsively and caused her parents worry. Gradually, her Mother released the maternal facade...and granted a long-held wish.
She had finally become Urd's friend.
Urd reflected that everything was a role, and that each role was a facade. Being a daughter, a sister, a Norn, a temptress...these were all nothing more than conceits. Requisites due a society that demanded more structure out of its individuals than was necessary. In actuality, she was Urd. Just Urd. No fragments of 'self-ness'...just herself.
Mother would cradle her head in her lap and gently clean her ears with a long ear brush while singing Yggdrasilian lullabies. This simple action transported Urd back pleasurably to her childhood. Despite the ever-present excruciating pain, Urd was happy that she received the experience of being a child again. Dependant on those around her to help her simply survive. Alongside this renewed youth, Urd felt an innocence snugly holding her in its embrace.
Breathing and talking were becoming difficult. She found that she labored out of breath often. The pain that was streaming through her arms and legs; this pain was like sharp needles being inserted under her skin. The pain that was deep inside of her; this pain possessed the dullness of fire.
Urd wished that she could see Cevn suffering just a fraction of the pain she endured. Especially after he had the audacity to come and visit her.
Urd had resolved herself to accept this death. She was hoping that the stage would come soon where the pain would be lifted. The pain was as undignified as the loss of privacy. At any time, anyone around her could be witness to a dissolving, gasping spell of pure discomfort. Or of unexpected disability...and the ensuing mental anguish.
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
When I came home, I asked Sayoko if I could use one of the mansion's carports to set up a makeshift music studio. She looked at me askance, clearly curious...but then agreed to my request. Over the next two days, I laboriously set up all my keyboards, sequencers, samplers, mixers, computers...late until the night.
Hundreds of patch cords swarmed the floor like treeroots...
The second day, I dropped one of the keyboards, a Synclavier III. The hard plastic casing cracked open...and inside I saw what were undeniably Yggdrasilian mecha components. I paused, trying to remember when some of the sound processors from my keyboard system started becoming unusual. A recollection emerged...it must have been soon after Mara had possessed me in her attempt to injure Keiichi and the others; right before the Solar Car Race.
Several keyboards allowed me to morph sounds without losing just intonation and timbre...while retaining polyphonic integrity. Sound morphing had only become a viable audio technology last year; current computing power only allowed for morphed sounds to be synthesized as monophonic single notes. Thus, to craft a polyphonic harmony, one had to layer overdubs, hand-tuning the variant atonal scales note-by-note. By slowing or speeding the sampled morphed monophonic time clips, a surrounding effect could be attained. Yet, this meticulous process resulted in a digital mess, as far as sequencing goes.
But now, one of my Yamaha synthis could do this...with an almost intuitive keenness.
Like it was reading my thoughts.
Then there was the matter of the 'silent notes'. I thought I was imagining things when I realized that one bank of settings on an old Moog seemed to create different silences. By experimenting with different settings, I found that I could create different 'moods' of silences, such as a tense silence in contrast to a comforting silence. How could an analogue keyboard do this? It was almost 30 years old...a synthesizer that relied mostly on voltage regulators to create its 'effects'.
All this time, I had thought it was all in my head.
Obviously, Skuld had tweaked my keyboards...
"So, this is the reason why I could play the God's Music. It has nothing to do with any unique creative faculty I possess...it's only because the instrumentation hybrided Earthrealm and Yggdrasilian technologies," I thought with a mixture of relief and remorse.
The 'magic' in the music had nothing to do with me! Yet, I still wanted to finish the God's Music Symphony before Urd died. But now, I was blunted by doubts about my own muse.
--Shadow--
I spun around...and a shadow-form was slinking into the corner of the garage; literally disappearing into the crease where the walls met.
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
"Sayoko, where is Cevn? It's important that I speak to him right away," Belldandy asked. Sayoko regarded her, curious as to why Belldandy was being so formal all of a sudden. She could simply blast open a section of wall, just like did to Cevn's apartment. Yet, the Goddess seemed to have a sense of mission, a sense of urgency...which was all the more unusual because this Belldandy always seemed so coolly collected, except when something threatened Keiichi or her sisters. She still remembered her last encounter with Belldandy; who was possessed of murderous intent.
"He's locked himself away in the garage for the past week. I don't know if he's eating or sleeping...but I do know that I've had some wonderful dreams recently," Sayoko answered, flipping her hair with her hand. Belldandy nodded her head weakly. Sayoko noticed that her face seemed a little pale and that her long auburn hair was put up.
"Are you all right, Belldandy? You look really sick," Sayoko inquired with concern.
"I..I'm okay. Thanks for your concern, Sayoko. May I see him?" she answered evasively. Belldandy had started experiencing visible hair loss of her own, so she was wearing a flop-hat beret to try and conceal it.
Belldandy walked down the stairs to the garage and tried the door. Since it was locked, she shifted herself to float through the door. Cevn was seated on a carpet in the middle of the garage, surrounded by banks of keyboards.
"Cevn?" she asked before she realized that he was wearing earphones. She walked over and tapped him on the shoulder; he jerked with surprise.
Belldandy wanted to get her point across without seeming to be accusatory. Yet, she was firm in her resolve to prohibit any more visits to Urd.
"I don't want you to come visit Urd anymore. I don't how you managed to fool my Father, or how powerful you may be...any further visits to our house are now prohibited," Belldandy demanded bluntly. "She was completely out of sorts for the next two days after she saw you during your last visit."
Cevn looked down at the floor, obviously feeling ashamed.
"Belldandy, I love her! How could you expect me to do otherwise? I have to see her!" Cevn responded with a challenge to his voice. Glancing around the garage, Belldandy saw the Enigma Book, saw how Cevn had rings under his eyes, saw piles of papers with jottings on them.
The place was taking on the appearance of a mad scientist's lab.
"I know that there is a way to save Urd, and that I won't be able to do it alone...and that I can find the answer if I convert everything in this book into music," Cevn said. Then he started jabbering, not even paying attention to see if she was listening to him. He had a far-away gaze to his eyes...
Belldandy wanted to withdraw from this place immediately...she could recognize the look of insanity in his expression.
"I repeat, I don't want you coming to see Urd! Do you understand?" Belldandy near shouted.
"And what are you going to do if I do come to see her?"
Belldandy stared into his eyes for a long time, and then angrily shook her head. A moment later, she placeshifted through a rearview mirror of one the cars.
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
I went over to the temple house the next day, only to find Belldandy sitting alone in the dining room. I could see bags of carryout food peeking out from under the trash...evidence that Belldandy's own illness was increasing in severity. She wasn't even able to maintain her household chores. Because I was nervous, I wordlessly took out the trash.
When I came back, Belldandy looked at me with a resigned expression.
"Despite what I asked of you, you've come back! I could prevent you from coming any closer to our house, Cevn...but I'm ill, and it would be too much of a drain on my Goddess powers. Don't you know what it did to Urd when you came last time? She was crazy with fear and rage for the next several days! I thought you cared about her, Cevn, but it's now obvious that you care about your selfish needs even more! Can't you stop for a moment to think that it might do more harm than good for you to visit here? Her Soul is in a very fragile state...and your coming here can only make her condition worse! I already have reason to hate you, and your actions are only proving that I am right. That you did do that…horrible…to my sister," she said, fixing me with a stern gaze.
"Belldandy...nothing is as it seems. I didn't do anything to harm Urd, and yet she is certain that I did. You are almost certain I did, as well; by treating me with culpability...even contempt. As if I did hurt her. And even though I broke off from her...I still love her," I answered.
"Don't bother yourself with charming words to try and change my mind. I do not believe you."
"I miss her even more now...now that I realize she isn't going to be here much longer. Surely you can have some empathy for my feelings?" I added, trying to blink away my guilt and fear.
"Well, it's a little too late for that, isn't it, you sick pervert!" Skuld said angrily.
"Skuld!" Belldandy half-warned, half-scolded.
"I should kill you where you stand! You took advantage of all of us...and then you did t..that unspeakable thing to my sister. You're the lowest, to even go as far as show your face here! Now, because of your cruelty, I'm going to die! I hope you're happy with what you've done! If I were anything less than a Goddess, I would kill you. But, since I am the Norn of the Future...I am not allowed to kill any being, because it could potentially disrupt the future TimeStreams," Skuld shouted, barely controlling her rage.
"I have to ask you to leave. You're upsetting my younger sister," Belldandy said curtly. Her tone of dismissal only cloaked me deeping into a victim's rage.
"This...is a bunch of idiocy! I didn't do it! You know it in your heart! A..and your father knows it! B..but yet, because someone obviously tried very hard to cast the impression that I was the one who did such a perverted, fucked up treacherous act to your sister…my former girlfriend who I still love…I
have to live as if I was the one who hurt her! Don't you think that if I found out who did this...that I wouldn't do anything in my power to kill them? Don't you think that I would have done everything I could to prevent this from happening" I said desperately. Skuld's flinch of anger made me immediately regret the implied threat in my shoutout of words.
"You liar! If Urd meant so much to you, you would have never left her!! And if you really love her, then why don't you let my elder sister kill you, since I can't!" Skuld said. Belldandy started at this, fixing an astonished gaze on her younger sister.
I paused, trying to grapple with the flights of conflicting emotions bleeding through my fingers. Here I was, swallowing bitter pills of righteousness while the two Goddesses I was arguing with...were counting days until their impending deaths.
I'm such an insensitive jerk, to put them through this! And yet...
"Skuld...I know you don't understand! When you don't comprehend the events happening around you, you often resort to creating tests for others. Like how you tested Keiichi when you thought he didn't really love Belldandy with all of his heart. He told me about that. If there was a means where I could prove to you that I didn't hurt Urd, I would gladly submit to it. If only you could see it in my mind...but you're too young..."
"I AM NOT A KID!" Skuld screamed. Words to that effect formed on the wall, Bell's dress and my shirt. Only this time, it wasn't cute...wasn't funny.
"I know what you did to my precious Older Sister! I know everything! And I know that you're far worse than the most disgusting criminal scums on the Earthrealm!"
This enraged me. It wasn't enough that Urd had been harmed, or that I had been the recipient of blame for the harm. My situation was a nothingness alongside everyone else's. Urd was already dying. Belldandy and Skuld were going to die. Keiichi was going to lose his soulmate. Megumi was going to lose her brother, not to death but the killing of his heart. Keiichi loved Belldandy so much, her death would never be healed. This reality was robbing all of us of the germ and pulse of our lives, replacing these with withered, shrunken manifestos of gloom.
Skuld was going to carry a lie to her grave.
"That does it! I'm going in her room and I'm going to let her yell, scream and hit me as much as she needs to. Then I'll come back again tomorrow and let her go at me again. I'll let you yell and scream at me, if you need to. You can throw all the Skuld-bombs you want at me! But I want you to know...that I AM SICK OF THIS! I'm sick of being accused of something I didn't do. Don't you think this makes me angry?" I shouted.
Belldandy and Skuld looked at me with expressions filled with anger, hurt...and empathy?
"You would really let Big Sister yell at you? You would really let me blast you with a bomb?" Skuld said with finessed irritation. A second later, she reached into her "Virgin Heatwave" denim jacket and pulled out a bomb. She punched a series of buttons on it, and then handed it to Belldandy. Then she poked Belldandy in the ribs, hard.
Belldandy instinctively reacted...by tossing it towards me. And I instinctively reacted...by catching it!
"It's set on maximum yield. It will definitely kill you. And since my sister threw it to you...I can't be held responsible for your death! And neither can she, because it was an accident!" Skuld said, her voice filled with dispassionate dismissal.
What a time for Skuld's genius mind to craft a perfectly logical workaround to the prohibition on Goddesses killing mortals! I looked down at the bomb, with the typical "Skuld Bomb" painted in large white romanji letters.
The clock was ticking...
"All you have to do is hold onto it for one minute. Then...kachpow! If you really mean what you said about not hurting Urd...you'll hang onto it for dear life!" Skuld instructed me, the gravity of ambition etched all over her delicate face.
"At least she isn't losing her hair yet," I thought turgidly as I looked down at the bomb in my hands. There was a digital display ticking off the seconds.
"How convenient! Just like in the movies," my mind observed. The countdown was more than enough to add more tension to the scene.
50 seconds.
Besides, if Urd died...then what would I have to live for? Suddenly, my desire to live became remote and unimportant...
"Okay! You're on! I don't care what happens to me anymore! You can go tell your Big Sister that she can rest easy...that you blew me up! She's already suffered enough. Just know in your hearts that I'm doing this because I love her! Because my life is nothing!" I screamed, jostling the bomb for dramatic effect.
"You're a bigger idiot than I thought!" Skuld said ruefully.
20 seconds.
"And because I love you both too," I added in a quiet voice as the timer slipped below 15 seconds. I closed my eyes at five seconds. At least, it would be a quick and painless death.
I felt a 'click' in my hands.
Looking down, the timer said "0:01."
Skuld looked at me with tears in her eyes and an angry scowl on her lips. Belldandy had that look of worry that she obtains to: hands clasped in front of her breast, shoulders hunched forwards, anxiety shining in her blue eyes.
"I still don't know if I can trust you!" Skuld said. I motioned her to come closer, and I held her small head in my hands.
"It's time to grow up a little more, Skuld," I whispered to her. Much as I wanted to avoid this, there was only one way that I could surely convince her of my innocence.
I tried to project a span of my activities the day Urd had been attacked, from the moment I woke up until the evening at my apartment talking graduation with Sayoko, when Belldandy had blasted open the wall of my apartment and tried to ray me to death with some kind of Goddess energy discharge. I didn't even know how I was doing this, but Keiichi had told me about something the Goddesses call 'thoughtcasting' and I sensed that the Enigma Book or the metallectual abilities I seemed to derive from it would allow me to do something far beyond my ken. The thoughtcast came much easier than with Odeyn; perhaps because Skuld and I had shared minds back when we were both abducted by Mara and trapped in her lair.
I just hoped against hope that Skuld would perceive my innocence, because this was my only chance. The sole argument I could offer in my defense; the life I had led that horrible day.
As I gently released her head, I felt Skuld grab me tight around the waist, crying into my chest.
"Fool!! I told you that I can't kill any living thing because I'm the Norn of the Future! So don't go around acting like you were brave or something!" she said, washing out her former blindness towards me with a river of recognition.
I looked towards Belldandy, seeing her face unlabor its tense mien. Somehow, she had 'heard' my efforts to reach Skuld. The anger had drained from her face, and I touched on a sense that she felt relieved that she was no longer suffering under the illusion that I had raped Urd.
"I..I think I may be able to help you to be able to look in on Urd undetected, as long as you keep your big mouth shut!" Skuld offered.
"Are you sure that's safe?" Belldandy asked. My heart was pulled tight, too tight…painfully tight, as if a rope had constricted it to a bleed-depth…because I could see how weakened she was by illness. Belldandy looked at me sadly, perhaps recognizing my discouragement towards the disease that was wasting her.
Twenty minutes later, I was wearing a Stealth Videmeode-Diffusion Belt, Mk. III. Which, due to the properties of holophotics, rendered me invisible to the eye.
Moments later, to my horror, Skuld rushed off to the bathroom, retching.
A reluctant witness to this horror, I couldn't even say a word of comfort when Belldandy's blue eyes glistened as she said in a hushed voice "it wasn't supposed to happen so soon."
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
"What do I do?" Megumi said in voice dramatic with woefulness. "Keiichi is graduating tomorrow...and I'm an emotional wreck!"
"Hey, remember when we formed that baseball team after the men's school team challenged us? We got beat...but we kept on practicing. We didn't give up," Sora suggested in a level voice.
Megumi looked at her diminutive friend. Sora was so waifish, she sometimes looked as harmless as a small minnow. But once in a while, this calm, withdrawn demeanor was misleading. Especially with Sora Hasegawa.
The two girls were enroute to a mall in Ishikawa, a 15-kilometer straight shot along National Highway 14 from Makuhari. As they passed the storm-damaged oceanside industrial parks on the left, Megumi wore even more fretfulness on her face about tomorrow's ceremony.
Sora knew why she was apprehensive, even if Megumi wouldn't admit it.
Genji would be there. Cevn would be there. Urd wouldn't be there...she was too sick.
"About Urd...it's getting to be like being a hospice worker at my house. She's really gotten sick; she can barely get out of the house. She's stuck in her human manifestation. And what really drives me nuts is how everyone is acting all optimistic...like she's gonna get well or something! But it's only an act. Because underneath it all, there's so much gloom. It's pervasive, everywhere in the house!"
"What are you going to do about Genji?" Sora asked point-blank.
"I dunno! I still love him so much, Sora! But something inside of me just wants to be alone right now. But he keeps calling me, checking up on me. I know that he's concerned about me. I can't really keep telling him to keep his distance. How am I supposed to do that?" Megumi said with a frustrated grimace.
"What would you do if Genji dumped you all of a sudden? Wouldn't you get all caught up in your head? Wouldn't you reach the conclusion that there was something wrong with you, Megs?" Sora asked. Megumi nodded her head.
"At least he's not thinking that you're having an affair or something!"
"Sora!!"
The traffic was getting heavier up ahead; the packed lanes of vehicles suggested the image of a snake of crawling shoji pieces cluttering all over the highway. Megumi turned on the radio...and Sora promptly shut it off.
"Talk, Morisato!" Sora commanded.
"About what?" Megumi asked, with a feigned air of sweetness.
"Y'know, about why you're looking for a dress to wear to Keiichi's graduation the day before the ceremony! Why you've been avoiding Chihiro and the Club. Why you're so worried about everyone...except yourself!"
Megumi felt a snap of severance from her fluid melancholy. Since Urd had returned, the presence of the severely-ill Goddess was a constant visual proof that Megumi's world was slowly falling apart. For days, she felt like she had been furtively living in the mouth of madness. She had tended Urd, bringing her soft food, changing her bedpans and vomit pans. Now, Belldandy was starting to get sick daily, and Skuld wasn't far behind. So Megumi had to take on almost half of Bell's household chores, in addition to her own chores. She had no idea how smoothly Belldandy had been orchestrating the routines needed to create a comfortable home life for all of the temple's occupants...nor how much work it required.
Sora was probably the most thoughtful, adept friend a girl could have; she had zeroed in on the matter at hand with a surgeon's precision.
Megumi smiled a lopsided sheepish grin at Sora.
"I..I just don't know what to do! What should I do? First off, there's Genji. Also the upcoming trials in Le Mans. Realistically, Keiichi is in no shape to drive...and he's decided not to drive in the finals either. So that leaves you or me to be the driver for the short trials. And I'm torn between going to France with the Club, or staying at home and being a support for my brother. And what if Urd were to die while I was away in France? I would never forgive myself if that happened!" Megumi said, her voice tinged with panic brought on by that last, stale sweep of her mind.
"Whoa, whoa girl! You're putting the cake before the cake mix! If I were you, I would try and get honest with myself about Genji. And, you might think this is crazy, but I would go to France with the Club if I were in your shoes!"
"What!!" Megumi exclaimed.
"I know you, girlfriend!" Sora said, jabbing a finger in the middle of Megumi's chest. "I know that you'll feel incomplete if you don't go with us! You cannot stay out of harm's way, in terms of what is going to happen to the Goddesses. It's going to hurt. It's going to really wear down your resolve. But I know what it's like, being stuck in harm's way. Take it from me...how long did I pine away for Toshi? Years! But nothing could've changed until I took direct action. Now, Toshiyuki and I are kindasorta dating...and he isn't even seeing other women!"
"I didn't know that!" Megumi remarked cheerfully. Sora adjusted her glasses and stuck her tongue out at Megumi with a sweet expression.
"Yeah. He even said I would look prettier with contacts. Hmmm, I think I have an idea about my birthday present next month..."
"Cool!" Megumi agreed.
"And that is why you need to get back with Genji!" Sora said bluntly, bringing the conversation back to where it should be.
"Translate for me, Sora," Megumi asked, bored with the 20kph traffic flow, confused by Sora's cryptic shifts of thought.
"I mean, you can't do this alone! You're just like your own brother sometimes...trying to take care of everyone around you while you buckle in your own feelings. Keep this up and you'll wind up a chain-smoker!"
"You're silly, Sora! Me, a smoker?" Megumi said, rolling her eyes.
"Yep! How's this for something to think about. Canya tell me...what can't Genji give you right now?"
"I could think of a dozen things right at the moment. I mean, we still haven't 'done it', if you know what I mean," Megumi said with a blush.
"You're kidding! You've been going out with him for how long...and you still haven't had a 'summer experience'! I'm amazed at you! Hee heeh, maybe I should tell Keiichi..."
"Don't you dare, Sora!" Megumi replied angrily, even though she knew that her best friend was only teasing her.
"Funny how that was the first thing that came to your mind, huh, girlfriend? Well, sex is only one thing you can do differently once you're in a relationship with a guy!" Sora shot back with a giggle, watching Megumi squirm nervously behind the wheel.
"There's a drugstore a half a block from my folk's ramen shop that sells all sorts of condoms. Especially the ones that are supposed to tickle," Sora continued, trying to hold back a girlish giggle.
Megumi's blush deepened. She remembered a couple of years ago when Keiichi and Belldandy were going to have the temple all to themselves... She had deliberately embarrassed her older brother by suggesting that he should get a box of condoms. It made sense, she reasoned, half-hoping that he and Bell would take advantage of the extra privacy.
Now it was her turn to be embarrassed.
"Ahem!! My point being...you're focusing on all the things Genji can't give you, Megumi! But what about the affection he does give you? You know what I think? I think that you're so caught up looking at what he isn't doing...that you're missing out on seeing all the ways he can care for you. Unique ways of expressing affection, ways that you can't even begin to expect to happen. It's easy to play it safe and predictable by relying only on what you know about the two of you. That way, you don't have to stress on the unexpected. But isn't that kinda chickenshit, Megumi? Why don't you just try to be open to letting Genji care for you any way he can?"
"Did he put you up to this, Ms. Sophomore Psychologist?"
Sora thought for a moment, then nodded her head slowly.
"And Cevn-sensei spent some time with me doing this thing called 'role-playing', to get me ready to talk to you."
"Damned conspirators!" Megumi sighed with humorous resignation.
"So I decided to come with you, so you could pick out a great dress...that would help things along with Genji," Sora said energetically. Megumi rolled her eyes and frowned.
"Sora, my brother is so down in the dumps about Belldandy that I can't even think about Genji at the moment! And what about my folks? When they see Keiichi all bummed out when he graduates from N.I.T., Mom and Dad are going to be filled with suspicions. They've invested several million yen in their son's education...and he's been so mopey lately. As sad as a monkey without a tree!"
"Don't worry about that! A bunch of us are going to throw him a surprise party tonight for him! All you need to do is make sure Keiichi-sempai gets out of the house," Sora said assuringly.
"Easier said than done. He and Belldandy are practically glued together. Especially now that she's sick. But..." Megumi said, smiled in the rearview mirror thoughtfully.
"I think I know a way..."
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I felt an itch on my neck, mostly likely due to the washtag on the back of my ceremonial robe. I had often imagined what it was like to wear a faculty robe, with the single stripe on the sleeve denoting that I was an instructor. I just never imagined that it would be in Japan.
But today was a "summer preview" day, as Tamiya had called it. The last thing I wanted to do was fumble with my overrobe in front of a couple thousand students, graduates and relatives. The ceremony was being held right on the N.I.T. grounds, in the large open square that divided the Old Campus from the New Campus.
The choice had been deliberate. Many of the campus buildings were enframed in bamboo and metal scaffolding, reminding everyone assembled here today about last year's supertyphoon...
I couldn't help it...I was chewing my tongue while Dr. Kintaro delivered the opening address, touching on themes about "reconstruction" and "engineering civilly vs. civic engineering." I had to admit that he looked resplendent in his academic robes of office; as President of N.I.T., he seemed to be eating up the attention.
Before the ceremony, I had been targeted by a number of reporters who wanted to know more about the private life of the man who wrote "Magnum Organum: First Consciousness". I was getting sick of all the attention that damned book was thrusting upon me! Each day, I fielded dozens of emails and calls from people who wanted to translate my book, and I hadn't even shopped it out to any publishers yet! I ended up telling the whole lot of them to talk to my agent.
Which was amusing...because I didn't have an agent.
I tried to look officious as the keynote speaker was introduced by Dr. Kintaro. We had some keynote speaker who was a Dietman from the House of Councilors. He prattled on about the bright future in Japanese technology, the reconstruction efforts following Akira, the ever-present need to improve Japan's economy. He didn't fail to put in a plug for the Liberal Democratic Party, either. At least he remembered to praise the school for the Solar Car Race victory.
I didn't expect any less.
They were all here. In the third row of the spectator's section, I saw Reiko and Osamu, Keiichi's parents. They were absolutely beaming with pride and joy. Megumi was seated on their right, dressed in a knockout summer dress. Fortunately for her, the late March weather was unseasonably warm, otherwise she'd have been freezing. Seated next to Megumi was Sora, dressed to the pins in a cute jacket and skirt outfit; she looked like a mini-OL of the chibi variety. On the other side of the parents were Belldandy and Skuld. Skuld was busy behind a video camera. I humorously expected Peorth to pop out of it and strike a pose...but I knew that had she stayed back at the temple to tend to Urd.
I saw two persons dressed in what appeared to be smartly European-style clothes, seated in the front row. Probably Sayoko's parents, since Genji was seated next to them. Every so often, Genji would turn his head back to glance at Megumi. Ootaki and Tamiya and the other Club members were about twenty rows back, looking very hungover and slaphappy.
I felt a mixture of relief and concern regarding Urd's absence from the solemn ceremonies. Keiichi had been accepted to the N.I.T. Graduate Engineering Program, or "the Academy" as Ootaki nicknamed it. We broke the news to him last night at his impromptu graduation party, which cheered him up a bit. One of the prerogatives of being on the N.I.T. faculty was my keyword access to the Institute's computer system...which I used to hack in and locate the list of accepted Grad School applicants. Today, I was going to beat the notification letter procedure and tell Sayoko that she had been admitted into grad school too. I smiled to myself as I tried to imagine her surprised joy.
My surreptitious midnight rifling of files in the Graduate Admissions Office had paid off well...as I had snatched the congratulations letters for Keiichi and Sayoko to present personally.
"I have to stop daydreaming..." I confronted myself as the first few strains of "Pomp and Circumstances" billowed into my ears. The Dean of Students started calling forth the graduates.
"Ah luuuvv you!" I heard a basso voice roar above the applause when Sayoko received her degree. Genji looked at his older sister with an expression of pride, while her dad and mom both filmed her with videocams. I privately winked at her as she walked past me, sharing my respect for her recovery...which allowed her to finish college instead of becoming a washed out dropout caught in a drug-fuzzed daydream. I was so moved, I fought back tears as I saw how happy she was in this moment.
Morisato was right after Mishima in the program.
"You the man, Keiichi!" I heard several guys yell right before the Dean called his name. Watching him walk up to the stage, I blinked back a tear when Keiichi received his certificate. Ootaki and Tamiya were whooping it up...full blast. The audience giggled with delight at their volume scaling enthusiastic yells. Then Chihiro let out a siren-loud long whistle. I couldn't believe the lungpower it must have taken; she must have sustained it for almost 10 seconds!
This brought back memories of when I graduated college. They handed me an empty degree holder and a rolled up blank piece of paper. Here in Japan, however, graduates receive the real thing; ornate gilded degree certificates freshly inked by the faculty.
Keiichi's parents and Belldandy were overcome with elation and vicarious pleasure. I wanted to break rank with my fellow faculty and give him a reassuring hug. But that would have to wait. I saw Genji sitting with his parents...he was giving Megumi the eye during most of the ceremony. Megumi seemed relaxed with herself for the first time in weeks.
After a brief pause, they continued with the graduate student portion of the program. I watched idly as they handed out advanced degrees in a number of engineering fields.
Then Dr. Kintaro took the podium and called me forward. I looked at him blankly, not knowing what this was about. He smiled benignly at me...but his eyes said "get the hell up here, now!" So I walked up to the front, where Dr. Kintaro announced that I had facilitated the student exchange program between Beijing University and N.I.T. Then he produced a large red silk degree holder with Chinese and Japanese lettering.
I was blown away. Dr. Kintaro explained that BeiDa and N.I.T. had jointly awarded me a Ph.D. in Conscience Studies...the first doctorate ever awarded by N.I.T! Dr. Kintaro went on to outline my groundbreaking book, mentioning that the school had received almost 700 emails a day from academicians all around the world concerning "Magnum Organum: First Consciousness".
I was momentarily paralyzed by this unexpected event, standing there in sheep-like paralysis...until Dr. Kintaro whispered "Sit down!" and gestured towards the faculty chairs.
Then the N.I.T. president presented several awards to various faculty and students. On behalf of the N.I.T. M.C.C., Keiichi accepted the Engineering Excellence Award for Undergraduates.
It dragged on...and on. Finally, they finished by awarding the Faculty of the Year recognition to Dr. Tanaka of the Physics Dept. I was glad for him, because this probably meant that they were going to promote him to Associate Professor. He looked as surprised as I must have when Dr. Kintaro presented him with the framed award.
Finally, it was over. People piled out of the ranks of steel folding chairs. I got to give Keiichi that hug before he beat a hasty retreat.
Belldandy was really sick.
This 'disease' that the sisters had...was progressing much more rapidly than what I had been told.
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