Part 52: NoirWorld
Just like that, the world had been upended once again...
I was stunned by the announcement over the intercom...my whole being felt nauseous, like it was being sucked into a black hole of disbelief. In the space of a few seconds, everything seemed to refocus into an altered state of suspension; the prolonged dumbfounded daze in our classroom defined an unfurling emotional pause great enough to bound through 26 centuries of Japanese culture. Dr. Kintaro explained that all classes were dismissed until further notice.
In the hallway, I shuffled towards my office, feeling an arctic blast of opprobrium as I observed students and faculty walking through the halls with the tears of the trauma afresh in their eyes. Outside of the Student Center in the central plaza, I chance encountered Keiichi. His lean face wore the same dispirited expression reflected on the faces of so many others. Even here, I could see people walking around in a daze...as if some part of their cultural psyche had been ripped out and trampled unfoot. There was nothing in my experience that could make sense of this atrocity and its impact on Japanese society...the only basis of comparison I could draw upon was the 9-11 terrorist attacks and how everything in the United States came to a standstill that day. But I felt the same today that I felt during the attacks. Amazing how short the distance is between "Oh…fuck!" and "You fucking bastards, you're going to pay for this!"
Sometimes, culture casts people into a house of mirrors...
I offered Keiichi a hug, sensing that his melancholy candor was edge rough. Surprisingly, he accepted and cried unabashed on my shoulder for a moment. His t-shirt smelled of sour sake, confirming Belldandy's voiced suspicions from last night. The immediacy of his distress only served to drive home the fact that I was truly gaijin...that my heart was exempted from hearing the disturbed syncopation of echoes that beat so strongly in the Japanese kokoro. I didn't expect Keiichi to be so emotionally taxed by the news of the Emperor's assassination. In reply to my unspoken question, he explained the deeper transits sourcing his sadness.
Yesterday, the N.I.T. Motor Club had disbanded!
Reeling from this further bit of demi-news, a dim recess of my mind burst, ushering an uneasy sourness...reminding me of a thought-vision in my office: an acrid awareness that Hell had decided to violate the Earth...
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
With a heavy heart, Megumi curled up on the couch with a hot cocoa as she watched the TV broadcasts at Sayoko's apartment. N.I.T. was closed until further notice in observance of the Emperor's passing.
Passing...was just too euphemistic a term to describe the heinous circumstances of what had just happened.
"His poor family!" Megumi thought. The Emperor was far more than a cultural icon...he had a family! Megumi could remember a time when she was in high school; rumors were abounding that Imperial Princess Sayako was pregnant. Reporters interviewed everybody in sight: the housekeepers, her grandfather, and her coworkers. They even chased down the family dogs with cameras and microphones, thinking the family pets would disclose the pregnancy by some subtle change in their behavior. Back then, Megumi regarded that as borderline silly...but with the maturity of adulthood, she realized that this incident of 'dog obsession' was ostensibly demonstrative of the need to affirm the profound importance of the Imperial Family to everyday Japan. Now, Princess Sayoko's child would grow up without a grandfather.
The news droned on...
After meeting with members of the Ministry of International Trade and Industry, the Emperor had retired to the inner chambers of the Homeiden Hall for a noontime meal. He had left the lunchroom for a moment to visit the WC. After waiting 15 minutes, his security agents checked on him. He had been beheaded, his severed head placed on a marble urinal like a trophy from a bygone samurai era.
Incredibly, whoever had committed this horrible political crime...had escaped!
The news anchor was fighting back tears as she assured the public that every branch of the military and police were on full alert, employing the most sophisticated technologies of detection in an attempt to locate the vile killers. However, none of the cameras, sensors, or other security equipment had detected anything that could serve as a lead to the identity of the killer or group of assassins.
The fact that the Emperor was dead was nerve-numbing enough...but when Megumi considered the fact that the assassins escaped completely undetected...this feeling of loss was shaded with a strong sense of being violated.
It was absolutely horrific. Life in Japan had ground to a halt at 1:35 pm, May 17th, 20XX.
The Emperor was a leftover symbol from a bygone era...a constitutional figurehead. Not a God, or a powerful politician, nor a religious leader. His presence was remote; the occasional special on "Soko Ga Shiritai" or an evening news clip of a perfunctory meeting with a foreign dignitary at the Imperial Palace. Each time she saw him on TV, Megumi sensed that he was a kind old man who just happened to be royalty. In a sense, he was harmless.
"So why was he killed? And why does his assassination affect me so strongly?" she wondered. She and Sayoko had both admitted to each other that something special had been swallowed up at the moment his violent death was made public...an indefinable quality that linked them with hundreds of generations of Japanese ancestors.
Now it was a time for families to huddle together and share in their mystification and grief over this senseless, abhorrent killing.
Megumi wanted to call her family...to call Keiichi, Belldandy and the rest...but resigned herself to the fact that she couldn't. Going to the temple house and being welcomed with open arms by her brother was as likely as the assassin walking in the apartment right now and giving a full confession of their crimes.
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
"Belldandy, what's happening to us? Something is very wrong here! First our Emperor, then the American President, then the Chinese Premier, and finally the Prime Minister of the Russian Federation. All within a week!" Keiichi said in a weary voice. His emotional exhaustion belied the fact that his nerves were piccolo sharp from several bouts of anxiety.
He was stunned by yet another heavy headline in today's Chiba Nippo newspaper. The Emperor was only a day fresh in his grave when Himeji Castle, long a symbol of Japanese historical sovereignty...had been burned to the ground by extremists who believed that the Emperor was assassinated by the government.
The leaders of four of the most powerful nations had been killed, one-by-one. Not only were their deaths shocking...the methods of assassination were spectacular in the inhumane essence of their cruelty. The American President had been nailed, crucifix style, to the wall of Oval Office. The Chinese Premier had been set on fire in his sleep, and then his burnt corpse was suspended in front of the portrait of Chairman Mao at Tien'anmen Square. Yesterday, the Russian Minister had been garroted and left hanging from a ceiling beam inside the Russian Parliament chambers in the Kremlin.
His greatest fear was that these atrocities, these assassinations, were instigated by powers beyond those found on the Earthrealm. His mind's eye took him to a hellish version of the Earthrealm where the Demons had free sway of havoc. But from everything Bell-chan had told him, the Demons couldn't…wouldn't…take such extreme actions on a mortal species. The murders of the four heads of state had noticeably gathered the planet-wide tension of humanity and thrust it into a higher knit of panic.
Belldandy looked at Keiichi, totally at a loss for words of counsel. It seemed as though the Earthrealm was self-destructing on a psychic plane, she vaguely sensed. Yet, the sheer enigmaticity of these crimes...could only affix a deep suspicion in her mind. She momentarily considered returning to Yggdrasil, in order to employ the Yggdrasil Mainframe towards determining the source of this apparent new force of Evil had been unleashed on the Earthrealm. But she couldn't leave Keiichi to his fears. They might consume him.
"No...they are consuming him!" she had to concede. As she watched consternation play over the face of her beloved, Belldandy's unspoken concerns focused around the Earthrealm's 'probation'. If a war broke out now...the mortals would surely be adjudged as failing the century of probation.
This series of assassinations were too improbable to be accomplished by mortal hands. After all, the victims were all heads of state...and weren't the heads of state closely guarded at all times? Especially officials of the larger nation-tribes of the Earthrealm.
Then there was the matter of Keiichi. After he had slapped Megumi, Belldandy had avoided him for a season of a few days. Shunning her boyfriend had been supremely difficult for her, but she didn't want to offer the impression that she approved of his immature and violent outburst against his younger sister. So she gave him the 'silent treatment', a tactic recommended by "Cool Girls" magazine as an effective means for training future husbands. "Cool Girls" must be right; after all, several million Japanese women read it every month, she had reasoned.
And now...these daily outbreaks of violence.
Were the assassinations and Keiichi's uncharacteristic outburst linked somehow?
She could see the colors of stress flittering within Keiichi's aura. Almost every Earthrealm mortal she had encountered in the past few days projected an aura of heightened distress. It was as if the whole species had suddenly become more...anxious.
Looking at Keiichi's unease, Belldandy's mind drifted into a flight of reflection.
"I know that this has to be the work of a Demon. Perhaps Mara? Possibly, but I doubt it. These recent actions are beyond the scope of the Demon Grief Office rules and regs. There must be some new pattern of Evil behind this, quite possibly the same force that assaulted my older sister. In any respect, the entire human race is being drawn into a quagmire of insecurity, if my Keiichi-san is any indication."
She sighed, belaboring her inability to mark the source of the roaring insanities that spilled out of the TV and newspapers.
"And...I can't believe that they disbanded the Motor Club! Tamiya, Ootaki, Chihiro, Sora...they all love racing so much! How could they just give up on the Club...and on each other? And Megumi...I just wish that Keiichi and Megumi could rise above their disagreement and accord each other some sort of peace! Keiichi would be much more relaxed if he discarded his resentment against her. It's obvious that my darling Kei-san misses his sister, even if he's too stubborn to admit it to himself," she thought silently, wishing that Keiichi could hear her thoughts and heed them.
"I can be many things for my love...but I can't be Megumi..."
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
"Cevn, do you love me?" Urd asked out of the blue. This was an occasional question that we had sometimes used just to remind each other that we were a 'we'. But as I regarded her sunlime eyes with their piercing brilliance, I realized that this wasn't just the routine 'check in' sort of question.
"Urd, there's only one sane answer I can offer to your question. Yes. I do love you. I love you as best as I can. And the love inside of me for you...is much more than the love that will ever be between us," I replied, trying to be forthright but not harsh.
"I hope she understands what I'm trying to say," I asked myself as I watched her reaction.
She looked off into space, and then returned her attention to me.
"My sister has said several times that Keiichi may live to regret his wish to have her in his life forever. In view of this, sometimes I wonder about us...and I find myself asking myself if you'll regret being my boyfriend. That you'll regret ever that day when I was summoned to grant that strange wish you made last year. Or that someday, I'll not be with you...or our love will fade..."
"Urd-chan..." I said with a comforting voice. I started to wonder about what was bringing this very un-Urd-like bloom of insecurity.
"You're probably wondering why I'm so caught up in worried about 'us' right now, my love. I...sense...that something terrible is going to happen. Something humongous! And I'm afraid that it will sink all of our dreamboats. My insecurities are getting the best of me, and I need to really know that you're with me. That you love me," she explained.
Once again, I felt daunted by the fact that this was a Goddess looking to me to demonstrate my love to her so that she could be affirmed that she is so very lovable. It was all so confusing. I wished for a moment that Mara could recapture me; only this time, my mind would share a moment with Urd's...so she could feel how much she meant to me.
Our relationship had been very quirky these past weeks since her near-death experience. On one level, nearly losing Urd this early in our relationship brought home the fact that what I knew about her was bathed in inadequacy. I really didn't know a lot about her. How could I, when she had lived over 5000 human lifetimes? That was so frightening for me to consider, I tried to dismiss it whenever my mind alighted on this truth.
On another level, a renewed attribute of friendship had been introduced into our relationship. For my part, I experienced it as a warm feeling of comfort in the fact that Urd was becoming a friend. A confidant. I found myself looking forward to those times where we could talk, just the two of us. Finally, I found myself trusting in the process, trusting that her upcoming visit to the Yggdrasil Proctors would result in a 'cure' for whatever was ailing her. I somehow suspected that her addictive patterns weren't akin to those of a mortal. Something far different was going on with her; and it just happened to manifest as drunkenness. It would be really great if they could somehow shift her powerup source to something other than sake. But would that be fair? The people in the Science Lab were getting tired of Keiichi's repeated use of their equipment to create near-moonstone bracelets.
Strange how things work. Early on, Urd had wanted me to be an open book to her. To accomplish this, she had pried me open by subterfuge, posing as my therapist Dr. Ogawa. Now, nearly a year later, she was getting what she wanted. Unfortunately, she nearly had to die along the way to make it happen...
Her near-death had to wake me up from my fears.
"Urd, is there something missing between us? Am I in denial about something you need?" I asked, feeling a sandy insecurity myself. Urd gathered herself and sat even closer to me, face to face.
"Yes and no. Sometimes I bait myself by wishing that you were a God, because then I would be able to do everything with you. There's so much that I'm giving up, because of your mortality. To be honest, I sometimes really regret the fact that you're a mortal. If I want to go to Yggdrasil, I can't take you! If I want to Share myself with you...I can't! And I question whether I can live with these things..."
I felt like my affections towards her were being encoffined by thorny sprigs of lilac and wormwood; hopeless winds slowly eroding my resolve and confidence. No matter how hot the sun of my soul burned for her, even when it could melt away the frost-ice of the uneasiness in her thoughts…I didn't know if it was enough to warm her heart.
"Hey waitaminute! I'm not saying that I don't want to be here with you, or I love you any less!" she added, clearly noticing that I was hangheaded with my feelings of gross inadequacy.
I looked up at her with a hint of fear.
"But there's more...much more. My Father has called a War Council in reaction to my recent...illness. I'm filled with foreboding. I have a very bad feeling...that things are going to get completely crazy really soon. I don't know how I can really make you understand this, Cevn honey, but I'm grasping at air. I've gone this far, to live here, to actually fall in love with you...and yet my life here...is closing around me. I'm suddenly feeling very small. With all Yggdrasil in an uproar, I don't know if I can really be touched by us. Not that I don't want to be touched," she said with a grin, poking fun of my 'female queasiness'.
That had diminished greatly over the months, thank heavens. Now, we could joke about it a little bit...a joking that arose out of two friend's shared awareness of each other's privy faults. But sometimes, the levity went too far when Urd started getting coy to the point of being sexually aggressive. Then my fears would rush back in full vitality and I would cringe away.
"If the damned Ultimate Force wasn't in place, I'd be all over you, boy!" she added with a demure wink. "But, we can't do anything about that! My frustration seems to be coming from the fact that every mortal thing...seems so mortal. So pithy in the schema of Time. And yet, I know in my heart that life here on the Earthrealm isn't just empty rainbows and clouds. There's an abundance of emotion and love in my life here with my sisters, Keiichi and you. So I really have to question what you can do to love me...not in a greedy way, but as an absolute reality. As an absolute certainty," she explained.
I nodded my head to signify that I understood. Urd was softly letting me know that, with all the grave matters going on in Yggdrasil, she felt that her 'mortal" life...our love for each other...was becoming dramatically overshadowed. I didn't understand it the way she did, but I could grasp the essence of the concept.
"You know Urd, I've learned something during the time we've been together," I offered. Urd looked at me, frowning with a sarcastic expression, then her face mellowed as she seemed to realize that I was reaching deep within myself for something.
"Our relationship is beginning to lose its seriousness. Rather than being serious, we're becoming sincere...being open, really open. Do you think you could've told me what you just said, Urd, just a few months ago? You wouldn't have; you would have withheld it out of fear that I would interpret it as a 'you're worthless' sort of statement. But I've grown beyond that. And so have you. So we're designing our lives around being more secure with being honest with each other. Yet, I'm beginning to foresee a future in my life, with you. A future that does not mistake the fact that we will make mistakes...but that we'll mature out of the disappointments by developing even greater respect for each other. In a sense, I matured during the time I withdrew myself from you. Absence really does make the heart grow fonder. And your willingness to seek help for your addiction stuff had bonded me to a faith that things are going to work out in the end, despite my struggles with the route we're taking to get there."
I could see a softness emerge over Urd's face. Urd had so many faces...the mischievous face, the sexy face, the taunting face, the sarcastic face, the iresome face, the somber face...but rarely had I seen her face this soft. It was as if my words had melted a veneer of harshness.
Then Urd smiled at me, her face exquisitely radiant with elegance and beauty. I found myself transported to visual ecstasies by the strength of the love in her eyes. It was cosmic, all-consuming, all-absorbing, sublime...once again, Urd was weaving rainbows in my heart.
"Thanks," she said, drawing an invisible heart with her fingers on the tatami. I wrote the kanji for 'heart' in response…one way we could touch each other without touching. Another one of her ideas to help us along.
"And one more thing," I added. Urd raised a cautious eyebrow, warning me that I might possibly spoil the mood if I said anything else. In 'movieland', this would be the moment for a wordless kiss. I just hoped I wouldn't screw it up.
"Can we go on a date?" I asked. Urd looked at me for a long moment, then wheezed a sigh of relief...and started giggling.
"What's so funny?" I asked. Something had struck her into giddiness.
"Oh, I thought you were going to ask me to marry you."
And with that, I clumsily tipped my glass of water over...
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
Odeyn surveyed the masses of Gods and Goddesses assembled before him. The huge throng stretched kilometers in the distance, rimming the horizon in all degrees. Countless beings from every sphere and zone of Yggdrasil were here. The Place of Assembly near Urd's Well was packed with several billion Gods. Several hundred million holographic spheres hovered in the air...holoproxies for Yggdrasil citizens who couldn't attend directly. To the left of The Well of Urd, a massive military of WarGods was precisely arranged into ranked battalions, as if they were on formal parade review for the Almighty. On the right, a battalion of Valkyrie hovered in the air, dressed in parade review Goddess battlesuits.
Slowly mounting the hovering dais, Odeyn flipped his azure silk and ermine cloak back over his shoulders with practiced dignity. He ignored the fleeting impulse to gloat over the fact that this huge crowd was assembled here at his bequest. This Assembly wasn't about power or personal prestige. He had requested their presence here because he was deeply concerned about the survival of Yggdrasil.
Summoning a holopyramid, Odeyn projected Urd's image into it...the vision of his daughter on her deathbed. As much as it pained him to have to witness his oldest girl's emaciation anew, Odeyn realized that he had to employ the most powerful means available to influence his peers. Hopefully, seeing Urd in such disconstitution would cast an immediate impact upon the Assembly...one that could preface his initial persuasive speech by leveling a deep shock upon the very Souls of his audience.
What Odeyn planned to propose...was unprecedented in the extreme.
In almost all cases, Assemblies were convened at the whim of the August One, usually to elicit the substance of dialogue in order to affirm a decision He was planning to announce. In a few cases, such as the matter of the Earthrealm's Probation, the Lord observed the debate process prior to announcing His decision. Much more uncommon was an Assembly that was congressed to actually vote on a matter of Yggdrasilian policy. In these instances, a two-thirds majority was required to create a Conscience of Assembly; at least a Conscience that the Almighty couldn't reasonably veto. Being the Lord, He could veto every decision the Assembly arrived at...but His general pattern was to accord with a Conscience of two-thirds majority. A lesser plurality was subject to dismissal by the Almighty if He were so inclined. Often, Odeyn wondered if the Assemblies were just Kami-sama's means to provide a dialectic tool that could help the Gods teach themselves what He already knew.
In this moment, Odeyn had convened a War Council...the first in over 300 millennia. In this million-year Cycle, there had only been one War; a War which had been instigated by the Lord Himself because of the encroaching AncienGiants which threatened the survival of Yggdrasil itself. The outcome of that conflict was a truce between Gods and Demons and the establishment of the Doublet System.
Because this was a War Council, Odeyn knew that the Assembly would be razed to oblivion by an atmosphere of excessive apprehension. There would be no silted shallows of debate here...the discourse would test the very soul of the Gods. The roaring susurration filling his ears validated his assumptions. The heightened fear of his fellows was almost palpable to him.
He would need a 90 percent majority to Seal the Declaration of War.
"Behold my daughter, Urd, Norn of the Past!" his wife Freiija shouted loud and clear, her voice volleying the air with poised indignant rage.
A swell of shock shuffled through the Assembly.
"Fellow Gods and Goddesses. I address you as Odeyn, Head of the Energy Guild, Father of the Norns, and Retired Marshall of the WarGods. I also address you as a Father whose eldest child was shadowed by the Reaper...her Soul nearly snatched away by a new and dire form of Demonic attack.
"According to my eldest daughter, this assault upon her Godhood was perpetrated by a Demon disguised as an Earthrealm mortal. This Demon's concealment was utterly complete; my daughter is not the ductile type, yet even she was unable to penetrate the deception and learn the identity of her attacker. The fact that a Demon can confound a God to this extreme...is sore trialsome and very disturbing!" he argued. The Assembly seemed to agree with his initial presentation of concern.
Odeyn then summoned a number of Gods and Goddesses to bear testimony to the atrocity that befell his daughters.
When it came to his wife's turn to speak, his heart seemed to rend itself to pieces once he saw her pained expression mingled with a solemn determination. Within the 300 millennia that he had known Freiija, Odeyn had never seen his wife in such an emotional despair as she had been gripped with during the horrible wasting disease that afflicted Urd, Belldandy and Skuld. During her speech, Freiija offered a lump-in-the-throat brutally honest description of how her daughters had nearly experienced the Real Death. He could see how deeply wounded she was...and yet she spoke eloquently, if not passionately. He was consoled by the fact that his life partner shared every bit of his pain...and that their joined suffering was teamed towards the goal of resolving any threats against their daughters...and all of Yggdrasil.
Freiija finished her speech, then turned to him and nearly collapsed against his chest from exhaustion. She had given her all to try and convince the Assembly.
Odeyn comforted his wife as he remounted the dais and announced his final speaker. The subdued, sober aspect of the crowd made him feel proud of his wife...her stark personal appeal had enfranchised everyone with a sense of cautious dread.
Now it was time to argue to their intellects...
"But there are deeper dangers underlying this incident! I call upon Sifu, wife of Thord to witness to you. In her capacity as Head Proctor of the Academy of Clinics, she is much more able than I to elaborate on the catastrophic potential represented by this heinously foul deed."
Sifu rose up to a separate dais. Odeyn watched as she explained Urd's near-fatal illness in great detail, projecting images and representations on a huge holocloud. According to Sifu, the Proctors had concluded that the insidious nature of this virus was dangerous in its complexity. Its etiology was enigmatic insofar as no point of origin could be determined; its epidemiology was pervasive, as it was communicated through all channels of TimeSpace; its pathology was resilient and universally premorbid; and its endemiology was very specific...it was restricted only to Gods.
Sifu's elaborate presentation, coupled with her status as High Proctor, the head of both the Ethiopsylogic Clinic and the Holibiolonics Clinic, would definitely lend the probity of authority to the premise of a Demon-created virus. She mentioned that, had the disease claimed the lives of all three Norns, then all of the Gods could have been instantly infected! Without any Norns to moderate Time, the entire TimeWeb itself would potentially have become a 'carrier' of the virus.
Sifu was visibly shaking as she concluded her presentation. She stated that, had the virus been crafted in Yggdrasil, there would have been no need to convene a War Council...because it was a very realistic outcome that all the Gods would have been dead!
That conclusion left Odeyn with a blemished sense of security. He tried to mute his staccato soulbreath as he felt a frigid surmount of fear. The Demons had come very close to an annihilative depopulation of all the Gods of Yggdrasil.
The faces of every God and Goddess in the Assembly were drawn into deep apprehension as Odeyn summed up the gravity of this situation by means of an impassioned peroration.
Sifu had offered no explanation as to the means by which his three daughters had been cured...and Odeyn couldn't disclose what he had witnessed firsthand on the Earthrealm. The Earthrealm mortal had learned something which was able to arrest and reverse the progress of the wasting disease. But the hypothetical basis for his reasoning...was completely heretical. Odeyn knew that Cevn's theoretical implication of the existence of another Multiverse would instantly discredit the well-crafted arguments favoring War with the Demons. Consequently, he couldn't reveal the methodology employed to eliminate the virus. Besides, what may have worked for the three Norns...might be ineffective in treating other Gods.
Now was the time for debate. Odeyn was hoping that the Lord was taking this as seriously as he was...
It was against the Rules for a Demon to directly cause the death of a God.
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
My dreams were dissolving without a sound. I wanted to talk to Urd...but she had been suddenly summoned back to Yggdrasil. Despite her denials, I sensed that she was being called upon to offer a personal testimony at the War Council happening there.
We never had a chance to go on the date I had been planning.
I had asked her to attempt to devise a means whereby I could go to Yggdrasil and address the Assembly of Gods. Despite her insistent stance that it was impossible for me to go there, I knew there was a way. After all, hadn't Chihiro traversed the Multiverse when she rode Sleipnir? If there were a chance, I would take it. Last year, I had told off the Almighty when He suspended Skuld's license. A lot of good that had done, I reflected sourly. Skuld's Goddess powers remained at a minim; ebbing barely above the sufficience needed to manifest her physicality on the Earthrealm.
But I had told Him off...and got away with it.
The TV seemed to pitch fevered darkrealms of violence during the daily news broadcasts. After the killings of the Big Four, as the press labeled the assassinations, riots had erupted in a number of countries. The level of street gang activity had increased in Tokyo to a level unheard of in modern Japanese history. Someone in Los Angeles had burned down a maternity ward in a burst of religious fervor. Riots in Berlin had resulted in the partial destruction of the Pergamon Museum.
Just enough to make us edgy...
Right before Urd left, I had an intuitive impression that some Evil was toying with us. Every one of us knew that an Evil force was involved in these designs, but we couldn't put a finger on why.
I carefully explained my premises to Urd, noting that if an Evil presence wanted to bestir total chaotic havoc, they would have killed each world leader while pointing a finger at a rival superpower. But they had stopped short of this. I tried to imagine how the Chinese would have felt if their Chairman would have been hung from the ramparts of Tien'anmen draped in a Japanese flag.
The killings were vile, heinous to the extreme...but not ignoble enough to push humanity over the edge. The suspense was agonizing. Every time I went outside, I was enveloped in a crimson sensation of suspense. As if something even more tragic was just waiting around a figurative corner of moments.
I remembered how Urd reacted to my suggestion. She looked at me with an expression of total empathy and comprehension...and then blinked it back with disbelief! Then she launched into an explanation about how the Goddess Relief Office was supposed to prevent such wanton acts of "destabilization". Despite their role in creating grief in mortal lives, the Demoness Grief Office was tasked with the same principles; no acts that could profoundly disrupt the continuity of mortal evolution.
But occasionally, unintended results occurred. Urd explained that even when Goddesses grant wishes, the results can be significant. She narrated how Belldandy was assigned to grant the wish of a mother in 12th Century Japan. The mother's wish was that her sons would be exiled rather than be executed by an opposing lord. So Belldandy cast her wish into the realm of reality, and the lord spared her two sons. The result was the Genpei War of 1180-5 and the ascendance of the Ashikaga, which had an everlasting impact on Japanese history and culture, instituting the office of military rulers call Shogun. All because Belldandy had saved two lives: Minamoto Yoshitsune and Minamoto Yoritomo. She cited a more recent example, involving the Demons this time. Early in the last century, the Demons were able to create an overwhelming curse of grief in a mortal called Gavrilo Princip, who had become increasingly disaffected with the Austria-Hungary nation-state and the lot of Serbian peasantry. Refusing any desire to contract a wish with the GRO Goddess assigned to him, Gavrilo took matters into his own hands; and was responsible for the killing of Archduke Ferdinand, a seemingly minor event that ushered in World War I. Even the Demons were embarrassed by the result of the curse their DGO Demoness had applied to a single mortal. Striking a mortal with a curse wasn't supposed to create such repercussions. There were safeguards for that. Despite these safeguards, mortal sentient species were so unstable that even innocent wishes or superficial curse strikes could result in totally cultural disruption.
She finally concluded that my theory was too categorical in its implications, in the sense that it assumed that a complete power shift had occurred in the balance between Gods and Demons. It also assumed that the safeguards imposed on the Goddess Relief and Demoness Grief offices had somehow been abolished.
I almost wanted to clue her by reminding her of the ordeal she had just recovered from, but my heart wouldn't let me. Urd was still very sensitive about the rape...and I wasn't about to mention it to her. I was still pretty horrified and repulsed by the thought that something had assaulted her in such a sickening manner. She had already been through enough horror. Besides, Urd occasionally suffered relapses of memory. Several times in the past week...she became distraught to the point where I had to avoid her presence because she had somehow forgotten that I wasn't the one who assaulted her.
This strained our relationship like someone turning a water hose upon a hurricane lamp.
Belldandy was fraught with anxiety as well. Her meal preparation had just a touch of edginess, judging from how she was over-spicing her cooking. Beyond this, she was doing the equivalent of "Goddess pacing"; floating up and down the hallway silently. Skuld had holed herself up in her lab for most of the week, upgrading Banpei RX's defense systems with an almost paranoid ambition. When she emerged from her work at mealtimes, her eyes belied a feverish intensity that I had only witnessed once before...when she and I had been encaptured by Mara.
Keiichi was stircrazy too.
"Too," I thought...because I was also going nuts with all this free time on my hands. N.I.T. was to be closed for 21 days in mourning for the Emperor and the other world leaders. I imagined myself to be traveling camelback in an arabesque caravansary...crossing an ocean of desert without the guidance of the glassy sea of stellar constants. Lost in a lost world. The desert of reality seemed to suffuse me, roughly bringing home the fact that I thirsted desperately for serenity.
Everything was drawing upon itself, a convexant synergy of dark emotional angst. It was horrible...
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
Ring ring pip!
Skuld twitched her spoonful of cherry vanilla ice cream as she heard the dining room phone ring nearby. She motioned for her sister to answer it with a wave of her hands. Her senses rounded forth--this had to be the Almighty calling them! Every fiber of her being knew this.
"Hello?" Belldandy answered, and then mouthed "Father" to Skuld.
"Whew!" Skuld gasped in relief, her stiffened backbone relaxing in reaction to this as she fingercombed her long black tresses. Then Belldandy set the phone down on the table and knelt tailor-style on her heels in front of it.
In a flash, Skuld was kneeling next to her sister. Her elder sister's reaction could only mean one thing...
"Belldandy...Skuld. It is I. I am calling to notify you that you both are herewith summoned to Assembly at Urd's Well to explain the nature of the mysterious malady that..."
"The Lord The Lord The Lord!" Skuld thought with drumrolling discease, suddenly very afraid. "This totally hurls! I'm just a kid. I've never been to an Assembly! I'm not even supposed to go; assemblies are for adult Gods and Goddesses...like Big Sister and Belldandy. I've still got another sixty millennia before I'm old enough to participate! A..and they want me to speak there? I..I'm just a kid! What can I say that will make a difference! And why...why would He personally ask for Elder Sister and I to leave the Earthrealm and..."
"Skuld! Are you listening?" His voice boomed over the phone, interrupting her gusts of uncertainty. Skuld cowered for a moment, realizing that she had just been busted for inattentiveness by the Almighty. Belldandy shot her a sidelong glance, warning her not to daydream any further.
"I need all three Norns to be at the Assembly," the voice continued.
"«The Presence –needs- us? What an unusual choice of words! »" Skuld heard Belldandy's thoughtcast in her mind. "«Normally, the Lord would just say it...and 'it' would be so. But He is actually –asking- us to attend instead of commanding our presence! »"
"Why, my Lord?" her Elder Sister asked.
"Because I intend...to briefly recreate the condition that afflicted you and your sisters, Belldandy. By revisiting the process of your illness, I will then opportune Myself to effect its removal by employing My own divine capacities. This demonstration will forsooth serve to disprove any nonsense about 'a Demon-created virus'."
"Ehhh? You mean we have to get sick again?" Skuld found herself blurting out before she could check her tongue.
"Yes. It is your duty. A very important one, My young Skuld. Consider this your gimu chu...your dutiful obligation to Me and all your fellow Gods and Goddesses here in Yggdrasil. I will not allow your father to sway My subjects with this foolish discussion of War against the Demons."
"B..but my Lord! That virus...nearly killed my older sister! I..I got very sick as well. I know that Your will must be made manifest, but...I have reservations about having to experience such throes of pain again, even for the briefest of moments. I beg You to reconsider! Please forgive me, but I am experiencing a great dread in light of Your request," her sister protested, speaking Skuld's own thoughts perfectly.
Despite the kind, almost seductive quality of Kami-sama's voice, Skuld was filled with reticence in reaction to His summons. Normally, she would trust the Lord with almost anything...but a spinning voice inside of her heart kept repeating "don't go!" like an alarm klaxon.
"Fear not, My precious Daughter. I will not let you come to harm. You must understand that I have already decided that this must be so!" the Almighty shouted through the phone. Skuld felt a sickness grip her...a shallow fear borne on the wings of apprehension. She would have to experience being ill all over again!
"And what if...what if the Lord can't cure us! What if Keiichi and Cevn and Chihiro and the others aren't able to do whatever they did before to make it all go away!" Skuld thought with an air of panic, looking to Belldandy for support. But her older sister was visibly shaking as the line passed silent as a windless late autumn evening.
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
Peorth had been called upon to testify before the Assembly about how she had found Urd that day at her parent's retreat house. At the summoning, she could feel the mental probes of her fellow deities as she explained why she had chosen to remain on the Earthrealm to support Belldandy's charge, Keiichi, during Urd's illness. Unlike Odeyn or Freiija, she didn't have suffice of experience to prevent deep such probing by her more experienced peers. Thus, the 'secret' of her love for Keiichi was brought out in the open.
This was embarrassing enough.
But her thoughts failed to conceal the nature of Belldandy's unusual 'relationship' with Keiichi. Her heart plumed with guilt as the depths of Belldandy's love for Keiichi was inadvertently revealed through her thoughts. This gave pause for a ripple of surprise in the Assembly. A green-orange aura shifted over the massed gathering as their sacred senses absorbed and felt the revelation that a Goddess had actually fallen in love with a mortal!
Peorth looked at Odeyn, who was resigned to the fact that the truth was out...
Freiija looked like she was going to meltdown from embarrassment.
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
"What!! You have to go back to Yggdrasil...and get sick all over again! That's nuts! I won't stand for it!" Keiichi shouted angrily.
"But my dear, we cannot refuse. The request came directly from the Presence," Belldandy protested gently.
"Screw Him! Get His Almighty Pompousness on the phone and I'll tell Him to shove it up His divine..."
"Keiichi!!" Skuld shouted fearfully, hoping that the Lord wasn't listening in.
"No!! Stopit right this instant!!" Belldandy yelled at him, stifling his verbal outsledding.
"The Almighty spared one mortal already, when Cevn told Him off. I highly doubt that His Majesty will oblige us with another act of sufferance. Believe me...you don't want to tick Him off!" Skuld explained.
"Keiichi...I need you to be here when I return. I need you to keep our house ready, so when I come back, you can love me in the special way that you always do. This travel to Yggdrasil will no doubt be taxing for Skuld and I...not to mention Urd. When I get back, I just want the two of us to rest. I want you to take me to the sea so we can watch the waves break over the shore under the moonlight. I..I really miss the ocean. Remember that time in the small boat? When the waves pitched the boat over and you fell on me and..." Belldandy said in sweet entreaty.
Keiichi closed his eyes at the memory, and then blinked them open to see Skuld scowling at him. Once more, the young Goddess's jealousy circuit had been reactivated! Then again, Keiichi wondered for the hundredth time if Skuld's anger was just a display of adolescent tension; the seesaw of attitudes which battled between "all boys are gross" and "I've gotta have a boyfriend who's cute!" Almost every young girl went through this in her early teens. Megumi was especially crazy when she was in her first two years of middle school...she was always pumping him for inside information about any number of his male classmates.
"Keiichi, are you listening! We have to leave early tomorrow morning. Be prepared for anything. Mara may choose to attack while we're gone. Ohhh, I wish there was something more that I could do..." Belldandy exclaimed. Skuld suddenly looked very confident.
"Don't worry, sis, I've got it handled already. I totally upgraded Banpei RX...he's almost a Mk. II in terms of redesign! His Demon detection circuitry has been engineered for triple redundancy! I've added three new weapons, including a stasis spell sphere which should render any First Class Demon powerless to escape for a couple of days..."
"Skuld!" Belldandy interjected, surprised and proud.
"Remember after the slotcar race against Ugly Tyyr? When I went back home, Daddy let me pick through a whole bunch of spare parts in his Energy Guild office so that I could bring some back here to play with. Well, I hacked past the security protocols and snuck into a Defense ZoneCube R & D lab...and snagged a few experimental components designed for the possibility of warfare against the Demons..."
"SKULD!" Belldandy interrupted, upset and worried.
"Since you're the only one of us with any real Goddess powers, I had to do something, Elder Sister! Remember what you told me about 'everyone having to do her share'? Well, I'm doing my share to make the house safer! Don't worry! I'm a genius...remember?" Skuld replied, and then she capered and bowed in the imitation of a little princess. Belldandy could only smile to herself at her younger sister's burst of confidence.
"Skuld," Belldandy praised, reassured and grateful.
"Great! You're leaving me with a souped-up Banpei! What if he gets rained on and confuses me for Mara again..." Keiichi remarked.
--Paa..pop!--
Keiichi felt a small knot on his head forming when Skuld had 'tapped' him with Mjolnir. Belldandy could only shake her head at Skuld's rash act of reprisal for Keiichi's remark. Skuld always seemed to forget that her mechas only worked some of the time!
Then again, Keiichi knew better than make such blunt criticisms towards her works of genius...
"I fixed Banpei up to protect you mortals while we're gone...and this is the appreciation I get?" Skuld said, angry and ego-wounded as she fretfully twirled Mjolnir like a baton. Keiichi backshuffled a couple meters, worried that he would get bopped again by Skuld.
"Well, since Skuld seems to have given you a bump on the head, I'll just have to take extra care of you for the night before we leave in the morning, my dear Keiichi..." Belldandy said, reaching under Keiichi's arm and steering him to his feet.
Skuld stood stiffly, arms rigid at her sides as her sister walked arm-in-arm with Keiichi down the hallway.
Towards his bedroom.
Right before they turned walked in his room, Belldandy looked over her shoulder, grinned, and stuck her tongue out at Skuld.
"Gotchya" was written all over Elder Sister's face...
"You guys!" Skuld wailed down the empty hall, gripping Mjolnir locknut tight with frustration.
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
Odeyn loathed the idea that the Lord was going to use all three of his daughters as part of a rebutting demonstration.
"He's going to make all three of my babies sick again, just to prove that the virus wasn't created in Vanagdrasil and that He can cure any God afflicted with it. I just hope He's right, for all of our sakes. If He can prove that He can stop the virus from affecting us...then my daughter's sufferings will not be in vain!" he thought, bristling with uncomfortability.
Despite the beastcries of his Soul to vengeance for what the Demons did to his family, Odeyn also harbored a healthy amount of reservations towards the possibility of a War with the Demons. There would be untold casualties.
In his distant memories, he recalled the last War Council...
Fully one third of the Gods and Goddesses who repaired to the War Council Assembly that day...never returned to Urd's Well again. The toll of freedom fighting against the honorless had been dear.
Looking over the throngs of Gods and Goddesses, Odeyn imagined that he could see multitudes of spectres...
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
"My Children. I have decided to personally intervene in this matter of consideration of War by the Assembly. Despite the excellent information and passionate arguments presented by Odeyn and his supporters, it is My belief that War is an unnecessary course of action in this instance.
"To cast the verity of My opinion beyond a doubt, I am going to recreate the illness that afflicted the three Norns...and then remove it. When I conclude, you all may rest easy in your anxieties, knowing full well that you are under My protection, My Loved Ones.
"There is no Demon plague that will decimate our numbers, My tender Souls. As Kami-sama...I will not allow it! And I will stay the course of War!" He finished, spreading his arms out in a grandly benedictory gesture.
Freiija felt a warm glow of ardor for her Lord as He spoke with His most majestic voice. The dulcet tones of that voice soothed her, making her feel tenderly secure in the midst of her anxiety. The Lord had promised that her three daughters would only suffer momentarily before He removed the source of their pain.
Still, she was immersed in apprehensions. Freiija didn't want to witness the Lord's 'demonstration', so she turned to her beloved husband and rested her head against his stocky chest. Feeling his gentle hand stroking her hair and jawline, she heard the Lord announce Urd, Belldandy and Skuld to the Assembly.
A moment later, she heard three shrill screams of agony...and her tears waterfalled down her face as she grabbed her husband even tighter...
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
I watched Keiichi as he paced to and fro across the living room carpet. We had this beautiful blue Persian carpet in the middle of our room, fit for a royal palace. In fact, according to Belldandy, it was a restoration of a carpet that remained for centuries in the throne room of the Umayyad palace in Cordoba, Spain...back when Cordoba was the intellectual center of Western Civilization. The way Keiichi was pacing, I wondered if he would wear a track in it.
Strange, how different people handle stress. For myself, I was sitting on the couch in a semi-lotus position, anxiously rocking back and forth with my arms clutching my chest tightly.
Nervous as hell.
"Where are they?? Bell-chan said it would only take an hour or two!" Keiichi shouted to no one in particular.
"I wish I knew, Keiichi. I'm really afraid for them. This is no lilywalk...and I suspect that the Almighty has gone for more in the bargain than He expected."
"Tell me about it! I've had bad feelings about this from the start!" I added.
"Me too, my friend! Thinking about lilywalks, this is another one of those 'love with a Goddess' trials. Once again, I find myself on the clouds of tension…and yet, I wonder..." Keiichi said. I nodded in confirmation, affirming that I also felt bewildered and threatened by the absence of the three Goddesses. Once again, I thanked the good winds of fortune for Keiichi being in my life; he was the only other person on the planet who could understand what it meant to be in love with a Goddess.
"Keiichi, what's going to happen? Not just with Belldandy and Urd and Skuld...but with us? You're still pissed at Megumi. I don't know if Urd and I can get along...because suddenly everything that is here for her on the Earthrealm simply isn't enough. Mara is on the loose, and all this crazy shit is going down all over the world..." I asked, flurrying questions.
"Look, if Megumi had any shred of decency in her, she wouldn't have gone to France! I've been telling you this since the mastodons roamed the Earth, Cevn! Will you leave it alone?"
"No, I won't! I'm not saying that I think you're wrong for feeling how you feel, Keiichi. What I'm saying is that you'll eventually need to let it pass. It's in the past, and it cannot be undone. Whether it turns out to be a mistake, or the right thing to do...that's beside the point. What are you going to do...hate her for the rest of your life?"
"I dunno! Isn't that a little beyond the moment, Cevn? I mean, I don't plan to feel this way forever. But I've got my pride..."
"Keiichi, can I tell you a story about pride?" I asked.
"Now?" he replied in an irritated voice...then seemed to check himself. I looked at him, feeling troubled.
"Well, you told me your story about Goro when we all thought the Goddesses were ill, and then you told me that Urd was going to die. That they all were going to die. If you hadn't have told me that story first, I would have probably been so upset, I would have acted on my grief by jumping off one of the Tokyo Metro Government buildings," I replied. Keiichi's use of a story to introduce the bad news was just enough to keep me from going crazy that day.
"Well, if anything, it'll make this wait pass quicker," he acquiesced as he sat down on other end of the couch. I started...
"Once upon a time, there was a professor of psychology at a famous college in the US. He was in his early 50s, childless, never married. His specialization was in adjustment studies, and his theories served as a forerunner of Archetypal Psychology...a movement that was popular in the US during the 90s. But by that time, he was already dead. Besides, his theory of iconic cultural symbolism in esteem training was twenty years too early to be recognized as a breakthrough. He conceptualized culture as a skin, a surface that was stretched over the commonwealth of human experience. Thus, he was inclined to speculate as to why certain populations developed certain cultures...and then he tried to deconstruct the elements of culture towards an awareness of how it represented and impacted the psyche of an individual.
"Anyway, like most people, he had his light and dark sides. On his light side, he was well respected by the academic community, despite the fact that some of his theories were regarded as eccentric at times. His students liked him, his books and papers were published to moderate acclaim, and he was a mentor to many professors. In a sense, he was an 'intellectual athlete': writer, concert violinist, painter, and marathon runner.
"But within his dark side...he was addicted to sex. He had engaged in many affairs with his female students, and was arrested more than once for frequenting hookers downtown in the community he lived in. The University was hard-pressed to cover up his indiscretions. He owned a bar which was a cover for a BDSM 'club', and he also financed the production of porno movies...remember, this was back before there was videos.
"One day, a transferring grad student in one of his classes caught his eyes...so he tried to whip up on her. He was able to captivate her with his sophistication and fatherly manner, and so they began an affair. She was a promising graduate student, who just happened to be studying societal interpretations of tacit sexual paradigms. Then, during his regular visit 'downtown', he encountered her. She was standing in a line of hookers.
"It turns out that her parents died when she was 14, and that she had resorted to prostitution to survive. Realizing that education offered a way out of poverty, she whored herself in order to finance her way through university. She had no brothers or sisters to support her, and her grandparents had disowned her long ago. So the tables were turned on our professor, who had been engaging in loveless sex for most of his life. Imagine his surprise when he found that the student he was attracted to...was not as innocent as he believed. Instead of just being a student, she was a whore!
"This situation led to an unparalleled self-examination of his life, especially his obsession with sex. One of the contributing factors to his addiction to sex was the fact that he was impotent; thus, he didn't have to worry about conceiving children during his many trysts. Perhaps this fact appealed to his sexual partners as well. In any sense, his introspections awakened an awareness that he had been cheating himself of love by his pursuit of sex.
"To his surprise, he found himself becoming emotionally vulnerable for the first time in his life...emotionally available because he decided to trade up from flings to relationships. Soon, he was -really- in love with this beautiful student/strumpet.
"As fate would allow, his past caught up with him. A former student brought him up on charges of trying to pressure her into sex for a better grade, and he was suspended from his tenure. His defenses and denials were meaningless, since it was common knowledge that he was currently involved with one of the top graduate students in the department. She was suspended, of course.
"So they relocated to another part of the country. While he sought out another position at a college, she supported them by prostitution. This strained their relationship for a while, but what else could they do? Eventually he was hired by a small college that was willing to overlook his scandalous reputation and give him a second chance. Once he was able to support her, she stopped hooking. In fact, she was hired as a graduate assistant at another college in the same community. So their lives became somewhat stable again...possibly even idyllic.
"Then, out of the blue, she became pregnant. An impossible pregnancy for sure, since he had been impotent for all of his adult life. Her pregnancy infused a disastrous amount of distrust into the relationship. But when the couple resorted to medical tests, it turned out that he wasn't impotent, he just had an extremely low sperm count. En vivo testing confirmed that the child was his.
"When she was seven months pregnant with their 'miracle baby', she was bitten by a brown recluse spider. Becoming gravely ill due to the venom, she was hospitalized. After several days in the hospital, she began to experience premature labor. The doctors informed him that they could either save her, or the baby. He had to choose between the love of his life...and a new life. By this time, she had fallen into a coma, and the doctors were doubtful that she might fully recover.
"The doctors urgently pressed him for an answer, stating that, with rapid surgery, they might be able to save the baby. So he told them to save the child...the child he thought he would never have. They wheeled her off into surgery and delivered the child...but she drew the breath that couldn't be drawn while on the surgery table.
"Devastated with grief, he left the hospital, went to his office, and put a gun to his head. He never got a chance to see the son he had fathered. They found him there the next day in a pool of blood."
"How sad!" Keiichi commented, looking at me with a troubled expression. Obviously, my story had affected him deeply.
"What about the child?" he asked.
"The child was eventually adopted. But the family that never was, could never be replaced in his heart," I answered. "Keiichi, things aren't always what they seem to be. That child in the story I just told you...was me."
He regarded me with a stricken expression. Neither one of us could manage a single word over the next few minutes; Keiichi was too shocked by my disclosure and I was too upset to marshal my thoughts.
"Keiichi, I have never told this to anyone, not even Urd. I can only hope that the story of my birth parents has illustrated in some way that the realm of love is sometimes fleeting and fragile. The need for family solidarity that is bred into all of us remains unlabored by some. You now have a chance to save yourself and Megumi. Please take it..." I implored him, fighting back tears.
"But how? How can I talk to Megumi now, after all that has been said and done?" Keiichi wondered aloud. The fact that he was even asking this question brought a sense of satisfaction and a play of hope to me.
"My guess is that you start with the words 'Megumi, I'm sorry'," I said, trying to conceal the incline towards sarcasm in my voice. I noticed Keiichi's face 'flash' slightly, the kind of sensation one notices when a lightning bolt lights up the sky behind their back, casting an instant glare upon all whatever they were looking at.
We both turned around to see Peorth...and Sleipnir.
"Something's gone terribly wrong!" Peorth announced.
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
Keiichi looked at Sleipnir as if the giant eight-legged horse was the manifestation of his worse black studies of dream. Peorth had explained how the Almighty had reinfected Urd, Belldandy and Skuld with the so-called "Demon Virus" by doing something with Time, going into the Past to recreate the illness. Following this, He had been unable to remove it! He restored the three Norns to the Present and Time itself didn't remove the infection. He attempted to remove it once more, without success. In her kiosk at the GRO complex, Peorth was stunned by the August One's inability to create a curative for symptoms of the virus. Struggling against the fugue of her disbelief, Peorth realized immediately that she needed to travel to the Earthrealm to try and prevent any further damage.
Then she informed Keiichi and Cevn that the virus had struck all the Gods! Somehow, it didn't simply attack the three Norns this time. None of the Gods were manifesting symptoms as yet, but Sifu had scanned a large number of those present at the Assembly.
All were 'infected'...including the Almighty!
Every God in Yggdrasil had the "Demon Virus".
And Keiichi had to ride Sleipnir once again to save Urd, Belldandy and Skuld. He didn't have to pause to consider the prospects of danger twice. Keiichi knew he would do anything to save Bell-chan, even if it meant facing his deepest fears. As Peorth caught her breath, winded because of her panic, Keiichi clambered on the back of Sleipnir.
As Peorth finished her breathless explanation, Banpei wheeled into the living room.
"Demonic intruders identified!" he said in a new robotic voice...and fired a missile at Peorth.
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
As Keiichi disappeared on Sleipnir, Peorth was screaming at Banpei.
"What the hell is the matter with you, Mr. Watchman? I'm a Goddess, you stupid misguided mechanical sentry! Why are you firing charms and missiles at me, you half-tinned idiot?"
I was grateful that Peorth was capable of defending herself (and me) against the armillary that Banpei was launching. Sigel was trying to persuade Banpei to stop the attack, calling him every version of "idiot" that she could think of. Then she shot both of her retrievable Rocket Fists in an attempt to stop him. With a faster-than-the-eye-can-follow reaction, Banpei grabbed one fist, then the other. Swiftly enknotting the thin metal lines that bound them to Sigel's 'wrists', he released them. When Sigel's fists recoiled back, they were unable to reconnect to her arms. Tangled against her chest, Sigel couldn't untie them either; it would be like a human trying to untie a pair of handcuffs.
Her verbal chastisements of Banpei shifted into a plethora of swearing at this point. Banpei RX ignored her completely.
"Initial defense posture failed to neutralize Demonic intruder. Transferring to primary energy mode, upgrading defense posture to code Skuld-1. Exercising extreme prejudice..." his robotic voice boomed.
He was beginning to sound like prayerless demented version of Robocop.
A set of metallic 'wings' unfolded from Banpei's back; jets of smoke sprang from his undercarriage as he hovered into the air on strands of rocket exhaust. Circling around the living room, the bulky robot was haphazardly knocking lamps and lights over. He paused, and then his chest opened up to reveal a lens-like turret that looked like one of those funky lasers from an old Godzilla movie.
I almost wanted to laugh...if only this wasn't so serious.
With a loud hum, a sphere appeared out of nowhere, imprisoning Peorth. I could only watch in amazement as Peorth looked at Banpei with an expression of utter shock...before starting to pound the inner surface with her fists. The sphere reminded me of the enclosures Mara had cast around Skuld and I when she had abducted us shortly after I arrived in Japan. Peorth was having no luck in breaching the barrier around her.
I decided at this point to try and deactivate Banpei in order to free Peorth. Crouching low, I studied his frame for anything that looked like an 'off' switch. Knowing Skuld, she had probably concealed it. His powerpack used to be in the back, but Skuld had microconstructed it some time ago after the incident when Dr. Morrow kidnapped Sigel...so that Banpei couldn't be deactivated so easily.
"Prevention isn't always the best prescription," I grumbled to myself. A moment later, I noticed a small inset with a slider, right below the seam where his neck joined his back. That must be it! I jumped towards the Quixotic "Mr. Watchman"...and with an expert turn, Banpei wheeled around and struck me vehemently in the chest with his mechanical arm, the fingers curled into a fist. I felt several ribs crack as I was thrown across the room by the force of the blow.
Banpei turned his attention to his left wrist.
"Secondary target rendered immobile. Primary target rendered captive. Deploying tactical nuclear weapons..." he announced as he punched a series of lighted keys that had appeared on his wrist.
A moment later, Banpei went limp...and I felt myself passing out.
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
Keiichi struggled to hold his breath at he and Sleipnir passed through the water universe. He realized that he didn't need to; because whatever environment had plenished him with breathable air in the 'space universe' was probably active in this universe too.
"Good boy, Sleipnir...just get me out of here as fast as you can!" he whispered to the steed with nervous polity. In response, Sleipnir accelerated while Keiichi grit his eyes shut, his patent fear of water casting him in an illusory chokehold...
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
As suddenly as it started, the excruciating pain vanished.
"Thank God it's over!" Urd thought, pausing to catch her breath. She rotated in midair to study her two younger sisters. Both Belldandy and Skuld were breathless and dazed, their expressions suggesting to Urd the image of half-awake sleepwalkers.
It was over.
Then again, maybe it wasn't...
The Lord was peering at her with an expression of confusion. Then He pointed His finger towards she and her sisters and flicked the air.
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
Odeyn and Freiija huddled together in front of the Assembly. The question now wasn't so much about going to War. Every God and Goddess's convictions had been wrestled to the core with the Almighty's inability to remove the "Demon Virus" from the Norns. The Lord had withdrawn from the Assembly to parts unknown. At least his three girls were safe and well, standing on the dais with he and his wife. That was the sole source of consolation for Odeyn.
During the Almighty's 'experiment', every being in Yggdrasil had been exposed to the "Demon Virus". In spite of the Lord's omnipotence, the Demon Virus had infected every God and Goddess at Urd's Well! Those who weren't present at the War Council were being hastily rushed into quarantine by the few remaining Proctors and Adepts who weren't present during the Assembly and thus weren't exposed to the viral agents. According to Sifu, every God who was infected would begin to suffer the initial effects within fifteen rotations of the Earth planet.
The question of survival was moot at this point. Freiija realized that the curative method the young mortal had discovered...had only applied to her three daughters! Otherwise, all of the Gods would have been freed of the virus.
The enormity of their situation intimidated Freiija as she held little Skuld to her bosom. It was simple overwhelming...soulboggling.
Odeyn recovered himself and rose to the dais to address the Assembly.
"Fellow Gods, I..I really don't know what to say to you. But I know in my heart that this leaves us with one recourse. Because we are all foredoomed by this virus, the Multiverse itself is at risk. With no Gods to balance the Demons, the Demons will be able to subject the Multiverse unopposed..."
--BOOOM!!--
In the air above them, a sunhillow of light flashed accompanied by a loud explosion. As the illumination faded, the Assembly gasped with a single tidal breath.
The Lord was hovering above the multitude, manifesting Himself in a planet-sized form of spirit. He was arrayed in a full battle robe, His golden armor shining brightly as it cracked with arcane energy. His long white hair was tied in back and braided in the front, the large braids extending out from the ornate helmet He was wearing. The dazzling kabuto helmet was dominated by a diamond-studded platinum hachi crownpiece. Intricate wire designs of precious metals and studs of rare gems laced the hachi. In the front, about where the 'forehead' of the helmet would be, a pearl kuwagata was mounted, its milkmetal decorative gleam sweeping upwards into two 'horns', each with the symbol for Yggdrasil carved upon it.
None of the Gods had ever seen the Lord in anything other than His ceremonial attire as leader of Yggdrasil...the vision of Him in His glorious battle regalia was terrifying.
None of the Gods had ever seen Him cry.
Odeyn shuddered, feeling a deep humility as he saw the tears flowing down the face of the August One. The Lord had never been this sad before. He had no reason to be overwrought with sorrow...until now. Odeyn realized that all of Kami-sama's children, save Urd, Belldandy, Skuld and those who were fortunate enough to be absent from the Assembly...were going to die.
Kami-sama's immense aspect filled Odeyn and Freiija with love, fear and awe. His impossible sadness was overwhelming; all the Gods and Goddesses in the Assembly were witnessing a proof of the absolute extent of His love for them.
Slowly, the Lord's sad visage turned into orange-red rage.
"-WASTE THEM!!- Waste all the Demons! Herewith, I annul the Doublet System so that we may chasten them for their perfidy! Don't stop, My Children, until -every one of them is dead-! This is My sole command to you. This isn't War...this is a sure course of righteous vengeance for the genocide the Demons have wreaked upon us!"
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The moment she saw Keiichi rematerializing with Sleipnir, the force bubble confining Peorth disappeared. Tumbling awkwardly to the ground, she heard a second thump! as Keiichi slid off the mechasaddle, sprawling onto the floor with his eyes roofed. Momentarily disoriented, Peorth floated over to where Keiichi had fallen.
He had ridden Sleipnir...but did his mind survive?
"C'mon Keiichi! Se reveiller! Se reveiller!" Peorth pleaded, lightly slapping him on the cheek. Irrespective of what was happening up in Yggdrasil, her single concern at the moment was that Keiichi would recover from the trauma of his ride.
"Please don't let dear Keiichi be insane!" Peorth pleaded, casting her supplicating attention upwards. He had been on Sleipnir a long time!
A moment later, his chest heaved...and his eyes fluttered open.
"Keiichi, mon amour! You're safe!" Peorth blurted as she pulled him to her chest, hugging him tightly. She realized that she was ignoring her promise to Belldandy, that she was deliberately bridging a forbidden distance between her and Keiichi.
But she didn't care.
"P..Peormph. Am I glaph to see youmph," Keiichi said weakly.
"Oh, my heroic Keiichi!" Peorth praised him, hugging him tighter.
"Youmph can letmph me go nowmph..." she heard a muffled voice vibrate against her skin.
"Did you..." Peorth started to ask, pausing as she felt Keiichi's hot breath tingling her cleavage. Looking down, she saw his face turning crimson red as he realized that his face was nestled snugly between her...
Reluctantly, she released him, easing him back into a seated position. Well, at least she had a moment with him.
"Yes. I rode Sleipnir all the way there and back. I can't even begin to describe the sights that I experienced along the way."
"I always knew you were brave!" she acknowledged.
Keiichi let that one pass. Peorth was clearly love-dazed...he could see the telltale glaze to her eyes. She might as well have had heartshapes for pupils. He paused to survey the living room, observing that, once again, the furniture was trashed. He saw Cevn slumped against the wall. Turning around, he saw Banpei standing very still in the middle of the room, Sigel standing over the robotic watchman with a worried expression.
"What happened here?"
"Skuld's little robot 'pal' went crazy! He attacked me, thinking I was a Demon! Can you believe it? Moi...a Demon? Then he imprisoned me in some kind of stasis sphere and punched Cevn really hard... Oh my, I forgot! You better check on Cevn!"
Keiichi caught a little fear at Peorth's express of concern and quickly ran over to Cevn, Peorth floating right behind him. Bracing Cevn up against the wall with a strong hand, he watched as his friend coughed up some blood.
"Shit!" Keiichi thought, realizing that Cevn was really hurt. It was a good thing that Peorth was here. She could probably administer some divine first aid!
Recognizing Keiichi, Cevn strained to say something. Leaning in closer, Keiichi assured him that Belldandy and the others would be returning soon. They had to, since he had ridden Sleipnir to infinity and back.
"Banpei...nukes..cough cough...firing nukes..."
"Huh? What?" Keiichi asked, not believing what he was hearing. At that moment, Belldandy and her sisters flashed into existence in the living room, riding a beam of light that pierced the roof.
"Bell-chan! You're back!" he shouted happily as she floated over to where he was standing. He sprung to his feet, almost knocking her over as he tackled her with an embrace.
"Cevn!!" Urd shouted as she floated over to his side, bullet-fast.
"He tried to jump Banpei...and Banpei hit him. Hard!" Peorth explained as she waved her hands in a healing gesture over his chest. Cevn looked thankfully at her and Urd as she mended his ribcage and lungs. A strange, soft rippling sensation filled his chest as Peorth clasped her hands over his heart and encanted a healing. A minute later, he sat up and coughed. Urd realized that he was going to be okay.
Feeling an almanac of rage, Urd wheeled on Skuld.
"This had gone too far!! Your stupid robot tried to hurt Cevn! I'm going to trash him!" she announced, and then stormed out to the repair garage in clench fisted rage, so angry she didn't even notice Banpei was in the living room.
"Don't you dare hurt Banpei, Big Sister, or I'll..."
"Urd...wait!" both Belldandy and Peorth chorused.
At the mention of his name, Banpei snapped into back into mechanized life, filling the room with a startup sequence of cacophonous beeps. Skuld hugged him protectively, not wanting to believe what Peorth had said.
"What happened, Banpei-kun?" she asked him frantically.
"Circuits malfunctioning...delimited programming loopcycle purge...detection program compromised...additional nonlegacy components unrecognized..."
What seemed like robotic technobabble to everyone else...made perfect sense to Skuld. Nodding her head at the ailing mecha, she reached behind the back of his head and lifted up Banpei's metallic cap a few centimeters. Everyone watched as she seemed to search for something by fingertip...
"Whew!" she smiled as she pulled out a transparent wafer the size of an Arare cracker. Banpei immediately shuddered into immobility.
Running to her "Skuld's Lab" room, she rifled through a box of programming chips and found the spare component. As she returned to the living room, she saw Urd in the doorway, huffing in rage as she hoisted a large sledgehammer.
"Wait!" Skuld screamed. "Someone's tampered with his programming!"
"Wait my ass! I'm gonna..."
"Urd!" Belldandy and Keiichi shouted.
"Settle down, Urd!" Peorth confronted the irate Goddess, physically blocking her away from Banpei.
"This makes no sense! Skuld's mecha thought I was a Demon and attacked a mortal! You can't just bust him up before we find out why! At least let your little sister reprogram him, so we can obtain an explanation. If he's defective, I'll gladly join you in pounding him into a pile of slag!"
Skuld ignored the threats and locked the circuits up to Banpei-kun's memory architecture. As the arcaneware chip molded itself to the other components of his A.I., the robot stirred back into sentience.
"Recall of Demonic Assault prevention tactics, May 29th, 20XX, 11:14am," he announced crisply.
"See! He's okay! He remembers!" Skuld exclaimed defiantly, her voice a redemption song of words.
"Appearance of Demonic intruder coincided with manifestation of Sleipnir Prime. Sleipnir Prime and Master Keiichi consequently flee to safety, leaving Banpei-san to contain threat. Primary threat identified: Demon First Class, Unlimited, Unrestricted license. Secondary threat identified: Mortal, manifesting partial Demonic aura.
"Engagement protocols activated...initial countermeasures taken. Short range missiles deployed, arcane-charged binding charms, anti Demonic strobe charges, laser field repression fire. Initial defense posture ineffective, situation upgraded to Skuld-1. Containment stasis spell successfully applied, neutralizing primary threat. Secondary threat rendered inactive with physical reprisal. Tactical nuclear weapons engaged..."
"B..B..B..BANPEI! T..T..TACTICAL N..N..NUCLEAR W..W..WEAPONS!" Skuld screamed in shock.
"Tactical nuclear reprisal as programmed standard offensive posture during engagement with Demonic incursions, per condition Skuld-1. Four American missiles launched at Chinese targets...two strikes registered against targets Chieh Mo and Kuei Lin. Four Chinese missiles launched at American targets...one strike registered against target Lincoln, Nebraska. Two Pakistani missiles launched against Indian targets...two strikes registered against targets Gaya and Raipur. Two Indian missiles launched at Pakistani targets, two strikes registered at..."
"Tell me this is some kind of a sick joke!" Keiichi shouted as Banpei continued listing targets and strikes like a newscaster reporting J-League soccer scores.
Skuld fell to the floor in a dead faint as the room filled with a poise of dread that approached somnific proportions.
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