Clive felt that Kuronegaiken held more mystery than he had originally anticipated inside of it's iced and enchanted blade. He walked down his path while not really paying much attention to his surroundings, staring into the amazingly beautiful metallic alloy of his blade. Clive inattentively wondered if he stared at it too much, and if he was beginning to obsess over it. But, his mind kept going over this fact again and again; did he really see Luceid herself emerge from the shape of Kuronegaiken, to appear in a physical form? The thought always seemed to make his heart skip a beat, a strange fluttery sensation that he hadn't felt so strongly for years, reminiscent of his youth.
"It was her, I am sure of it. I shall never forget her face again. I suppose it makes sense, Kuronegaiken is made from the Lust Jaw, the original Dark Desire Blade, and fragments of the original Clive Winslett's soul. Nevertheless, it is still a medium for Luceid herself. Luceid… I wonder if you can hear me even as I talk now?" He realised that this was a stupid question, because Guardian Lords bore an unlimited range of perspective. She most probably could hear him, and read the thoughts within his mind, too. Assuring himself of this, he began to worry over Kaitlyn and Catherine's whereabouts, and whether they were both safe or not. He knew that a person's memory could never harm anybody except for that person themselves, but a part of him that had been augmented by the recent lycanthrope curse, his parental instincts and the love for his mate, caused him to worry like crazy.
Pondering over Catherine caused a disturbing thought to strike his mind. I love Catherine, but I love Luceid as well. When this is all over, what then will happen? If Luceid shows herself to me again, if I finally find her, will I be forced to choose one over the other? No. Both Catherine and Luceid are too dear to me, how can I hope to choose between them? But I… Gods… I want to see Luceid again so much…
He had been walking as he thought, the sword in his hand glowing warmly and pleasantly every time his thoughts strayed back to the desire Guardian. So far, he had not reached the metallic corridor that he had seen from within the beginning of his path, he was still walking in the dark. However, Clive didn't mind this, it gave him a chance to think things through in his mind. It seemed that the two parts of him that had combined to make a whole both sought out their separate loves, yet no part of either Clive or Boomerang dominated the other, they were both balanced, of equal proportion. This conflicted Clive greatly, because now he loved to different people in two different ways, and if he loved one, he would have no choice but to abandon the other. Clive felt like his heart was gradually being ripped in two.
Catherine needs me now. I cannot give her up after I have fought so hard to stay with her, and she accepted me, she accepted me for who I was, not for what I was. She doesn't care if I am a monster or not, she loves me unconditionally, and we have Kaitlyn too, our daughter. But on the other hand, Luceid has waited for me to return for over two thousand years, she gave her essence to me for the soul of this sword, she even followed me to the pits of innermost Hell. She was willing to endure Hell for my sake, and I promised her that I would return…
If Gallows were here, he would tell me to flip a coin…
Clive chuckled, albeit a little nervously. It really wasn't a very appropriate thing to do, but Clive knew that he needed a laugh or he just might snap. The laugh was curt, it ended quickly. The swordsman was beginning to hate the inescapable darkness, the unending reality that wouldn't release him from it's clutches. Where was he going, what was he going to do? The emergence of Luceid from his sword seemed to have changed everything now, and not even Ravendor seemed that important anymore. The scary thing was, after the end of his mission to rescue Kaitlyn and stop the Dark Angel from destroying mankind, he didn't know where his life would lead him next. He had been so sure that he could continue on as his old self once more, with a few small changes, but what if he followed Boomerang's desire and left with Luceid instead? Would he ever see Catherine and Kaitlyn again?
I have no idea… I love them both…
Kuronegaiken all of a sudden sent a faint shock of electricity up his arm, causing his nerves to twang a little in very mild pain, more of an alarm system than an actual method to cause pain. The sword, and Luceid inside it, was warning him about something. Clive looked down at the weapon and noticed with a slight sinking feeling that faint lines were being drawn along the sword's blade, thin indentations that connected with each other and formed the depiction of Ka Dingel itself, the picture that was one branded into the body of the older and larger version of the sword. As Clive watched, the lines that made up the tower turned blood red and dissipated into smoke, rising away from the blue metal. Luceid had spoken.
He felt a rushed force slam him in the stomach, forcing him backward and knocking all the air out of his lungs, an invisible attack that had caught Clive completely off his guard. He heard the chittering and snarling of some wild rabid beast, so, in taking gasping breaths to gather air back into his lungs, he willed his weapon to generate light, feeding off his aura into illumination. It revealed to him what was lurking in the dark in a discernible physical form. This was not one of Ravendor's memories, otherwise it would have been unable to properly touch him, this was no less than one of his own, brought to life by his reminiscence. Clive stood tall and prepared himself for battle.
It was one of the small, black monkey-like demon drones that Boomerang had fought as his last living battle at the foot of Ka Dingel. The creatures that had swarmed over him, and with sharp little nails like daggers, they had torn him into thousands of tiny shreds. They had ripped him, like a pack of starving vultures, into a mess of bloody pieces. Clive couldn't help but feel a cold prickly sensation wash over his being as he recognised the creature sitting on it's scaly black haunches in front of him. It's milky-white eyes bore no pupils and it was difficult for Clive to tell if the beast was looking at him or some other area in the gloom. Drool dripped in gooey strings from it's pointed saw-like teeth, and it's rustling leathery bat wings were ratty and filled with holes, rips and tears. It chittered noisily, like a rodent, and looked at him eerily with a strange kind of smirk.
"Disgusting." Clive said with revulsion, "No better than the last time I tangled with the likes of you and your brethren. I will cut you down." It was easy, the beast didn't even put up a fight or move when Clive raised his sword and cut it cleanly in two, horizontally, separating it's torso from it's lower body. It fell apart in two great chunks and white pus spurted from the huge wound, like thin spills of milk with the occasional yellowish blob of congealed suppuration. It smelt sickening to Clive's advanced senses, and he held his nose in repugnance. The arms of the creature flailed weakly as it lost feeling in all of it's nerves, and like one final death cry, it let out a shrill, ear-piercing shriek, one that was quickly silenced by the end of Clive's blade. "There," The swordsman said as he pulled his weapon out of the still and silent corpse, his smile slightly frightening, "Rest in pieces, scum."
He was then suddenly trapped in a deadly circle. Clive stiffened and spun around, narrowing his eyes behind his cracked glasses. At least a dozen more demon drones had silently crept up on him while he was dispatching the first miscreant, using those precious moments of distraction to pre-empt and surround their quarry. Excited by the scent of their own pussy blood, they hopped up and down like screeching monkeys, their long arms with thin hooked fingers grasping eagerly at the air. Clive gritted his teeth and flicked his sword slightly in order to shake off all the white lesser-demon blood, taking a small step back and leaning down a little, getting ready to spring. "Fine. If you wish to die, then approach and let me grant you your wish, I will not allow myself to fall again to your accumulated power, there is far too much at stake." The next word he uttered sounded more like it was pronounced with Boomerang's voice, and not Clive's at all. "Come." He said with a tone like thunder, booming with authority.
The next ten seconds of his life was nothing more than an adrenaline-filled blur. The lesser-demons had dove upon him like flies onto a tasty meal, slashing at him, grabbing his clothing and trying to chew through it to the flesh underneath. The shining blue blade of Kuronegaiken lashed out at the demons like a viper in a mad rage, cutting off a limb here, creating a fatal gash there, Clive could have sworn that he saw for a split second the head of one of the drones rolling away as the body toppled over, totally decapitated. The stench of blood and pus was nearly overwhelming, in him was born an intense desire to get away from the invisible stink waves that assaulted his senses, but he could not hope to keep his life until every last monster was stone dead. It was like his vision had been coated with a thin layer of the colour red, warlust took him over, and before he knew it, he was the last one standing amongst a strewn pile of severed limbs and twitching bodies, breathing raggedly with sweat beading on his blood-splashed face.
Clive leant on his sword as he dug the end into the ground, sinking down to his knees with both his hands laced firmly over the hilt and grip of the weapon, pressing his cheek against the flat and harmless side of the pommel, trying to control his breaths. He was more or less unhurt, the drones small jagged teeth had been unable to get past the leather of his red coat, which thankfully covered up most of the vital parts of his body. He still ached though, from the physical exertion. "A long time ago I would have enjoyed that…" He whispered to his blade, to the dormant spirit of the desire Guardian lurking within, "But not anymore! I hate battle now, slaughter sickens me. I have changed, somehow. Human life has most definitely changed me, and you know, I do not ever want to go back. This is Boomerang's new wish."
He stayed there for a long time, many minutes, trying to gather his expelled strength back into his body. I cannot help but wonder, He told himself quietly, If no matter what, I am a sinner. I killed my own kind back then, humans, and now I kill my own kind again, the demons. They were only lesser drones, mere wretches… but still… are any kind of lesser demon sentient? We were all built from the same mold, the human mold…
The swordsman levered himself to his feet, faintly hearing something amidst the grotesque scene of massacre. A weak, whining noise, muffled by the piled bodies. Homing in on the sound, Clive rolled a few bodies aside and reluctantly picked up a severed head, tossing it away. The metal demon bit his lip, underneath the pile and quaking was a still living smallish demon drone, missing an entire leg while it's right wing was nothing more than a bloodied stump, oozing pus. It was curled up into the tightest ball it could form, claws over it's face, making the tiny, shuddery whining noise. It looked so pathetic, frightened, even. However, Clive knew with a stabbing pain in the pit of his stomach that perhaps this creature once had human ancestors, and apart from rank and birthright, they were no different from each other. Biologically, he was the same.
In a show of remarkably human emotion, it was crying.
"Yes. I know. So, even demons can cry…" Said Clive sadly, morosely, as he swiftly and painlessly ended it's life.
xxx
A short while later, at the threshold of the long metallic corridor, Clive was surprised to find Catherine standing outside of it, warily looking in. Clive wondered how she got there, because both their paths had become separate a little while ago. She looked a tad pale, and she held something in both hands that was indistinguishable from Clive's current point of view. He approached from behind and gently put his hand on her shoulder, accidentally startling her and knocking her out of her thoughts. She jumped and spun around, grabbing his arm by the wrist as if she feared that he had been somebody else. Discovering that it was only her husband, she visibly relaxed, putting the thing that she had in her hand back into the pocket of her dress. "Catherine! What are you doing here? Are you alright?" Clive asked, surprised. "Wait a moment," He said, coming to a realization, "Have you seen Kaitlyn? Is she safe?"
He sheathed his sword and took Catherine's other shoulder, quite worried about if she was okay. The ex-drifter nodded and leaned forward to hug him, the metal demon obligingly putting his arms around her. "I haven't seen her." Catherine replied unhappily. "I have only been here for a very short while. I'm not sure what happened, it felt like the path I was walking on dissolved and dropped me off here. I think I must have been upset, but I know I saw some truly terrible things." Like Clive, she thought of Kaitlyn and became even uneasier. "This is only the spectral backstage of Ravendor's memory. Nothing here can hurt her, right?" She asked.
"Right. We must trust in her ability to keep herself out of harm's way, for now, we cannot protect her ourselves. Come, Catherine." He looked down the metallic corridor, breaking their embrace and then taking her hand. "It is time for us to silence the monster that Ravendor has become. Once and for all. Will you stay with me? Will you fight with me, just like when we were younger?" Clive smiled and squeezed her hand, "The leader of the Black Shucks requests that his Aegis be ready to stand by his side. Is the order copied?"
"Whatever you say, Boss." Catherine answered, a tremendous feeling of excitement created by the thudding of her heart making her fingertips tingle indescribably. She had not called Clive 'Boss' for an untold amount of years. Unexpectedly, the air beneath her hands solidified and turned to metal and dragon fossil, the Gungnir ARM manifesting itself like it was called, in ready condition to be used. Shifting her grip, she slid her index finger in a waiting position over the trigger, activating the bolt with the other and then keeping a steady hold of the underside of the barrel. Clive unsheathed Kuronegaiken again, and together, they took their very first step into the sinister-looking metal hallway.
As soon as they set both their feet on the cold and corporeal floor, the darkness that they had been standing in faded quickly away like a light going out, the two drifters finding themselves sealed by three walls and a ceiling. They were in a very narrow cul-de-sac, their backs pressed up against the wall, and the only way to go on now was forwards. Catherine turned around and pressed down on the wall that had formed behind them, expecting for it to come away like a secret passageway. It was solid, palpable, but smooth and cold, as real as any real wall in true reality. It was an interesting colour though, green and black with small bits of yellow, swirled around into dizzy shapes and patterns, like a wild kind of wallpaper. It felt like marble in it's texture, but Clive moved on and Catherine followed him, leaving her mystery to rest without a solution.
Clive helped her to clear up one important query that bothered her mind, precisely where they were. "This looks a lot like the tower of Yggdrasil, the headquarters of the Prophets. I told you about this place, didn't I?" He asked. Catherine nodded in affirmation. "Yes. This is the place where the plot to rejuvenate the world was attempted, and warped into a sinister scheme to summon demons back into the world. The Prophets also managed to animate a sentient artificial life in the shell of a modified golem, mass produce common monsters to hinder the human population, and try and turn humans into demons. I suspect that Ravendor must have been their Kamikaze project, if all else fails, he was supposed to complete what they could not. Well, Catherine, this is their Tree of Life, where they forged their plans of death."
"The Tree of Death…" Catherine whispered, running one of her slender hands along the smoothness of the wall as she walked. There was a quiet sound in the air, a gentle humming, coupled with the feeling that the floor was slightly vibrating. It felt like the entire building itself was one great big generator, and if so, and Clive had told her about this before, then the top floor must accumulate all that power into one giant storage unit. According to her husband, it was the storage unit that the dream-demon used to create her own Filgaia. Was the energy in this tower that powerful?
The swordsman already knew where Ravendor was waiting for him. It was not at the top floor, as he would have originally guessed, but Malik's floor, the floor of cloning and genetic manipulation. The same place where the blonde-haired Prophet had woven his sickening plans to bring his mother back from the dead. Clive wouldn't have been surprised if Ravendor had been assigned to work on that project as well. In any case, he didn't really feel like thinking about it too much. Catherine tore her attention away from the wall and decided to look at the floor, holding onto Gungnir apprehensively. "…Clive?" She said unexpectedly, "There… um… there's something I need to tell you… About Ravendor…"
He looked at her, adjusting his glasses. "Yes?" He asked, smiling.
Catherine lost her nerve. "Oh… No, it's nothing. Don't worry about it, honey. It's nothing." She also tried to smile her unusual action away, mentally sighing on the inside. Clive nodded, trusting her completely and leading her up a small flight of stairs. The ex-drifter felt terrible. The one thing she needed to tell him and she couldn't say a word. If this was Ravendor's memory, then the topic would turn up eventually, but Catherine secretly hoped that she would never have to hear about it again. Catherine could still remember the promise she made nearly seventeen years ago, how she was sworn into an awkward silence that she really wished to break.
They were almost there, the pair finally reaching a perfectly chiseled door. He halted in his tracks, letting go of Catherine's hand and holding it out in front of her body, to prevent her from going any further. She stopped and turned to him, about to say something, when Clive put his fingers to his lips and shook his head. "Listen," He said very quietly, "We must not make any noise, once we go through this door, we will be at our destination. I do not want to go rushing blindly into battle, understand?"
"I understand." She whispered, tensely gripping the Gungnir. Clive pressed his hand against the door, over the spot where a doorknob was supposed to have been and where the intricate series of swirls seemed to converge into a tiny little circle. It lit up as it reacted to his touch and the door slid open silently, allowing them ingress. Both of them did not deny the fact that they were a little afraid, but throwing that emotion into the wind, they entered. The door slid closed behind them, and without any living being there to witness it's existence, the room disappeared forever, dissolving into bleak and absolute nothingness.
xxx
"So, this is the way that you have chosen to die."
Clive and Catherine both tensed as they initially believed the words that they had heard were directed at them, but they soon discovered otherwise. With complete and total silence, they moved over to one of the walls of the room, stepping lightly so that their feet would not give away their presence by the echoes of the metallic floor. Clive recognised the giant glass tank that had contained the empty shell of Malik's cloned mother with ease, there were a few of them there, and nearly all of them were empty. Ravendor was standing in front of the only occupied one in the room, his back to the two drifters and his arms folded, looking up at the thick glass tube. Clive noticed something strange, this Ravendor was lacking everything that had made him a demon, wings, claws, tail, dark evil aura and all. This Ravendor was completely and utterly human, untouched by the Prophets and their twisted experiments. "Yes." He replied, unwavering. "There is no salvation for me. I understand this now. There is nothing, just sin."
And behind this human variation, only a few paces away, was a small child. He was only wearing a white shirt and dark shorts, but one of his arms was broken and tied in a sling, bound across his front. In his uninjured hand, he was holding onto an unusually-shaped stuffed animal, looking like a cross between a bear and a cat. The boy had his head down, and he was staring at the floor. There was something about this boy that was just heart-shatteringly sad, but, the boy held a fake kind of quality about him, like he was not really real. It was like this boy was a puppet, a shade of a former self. It was this boy that had spoken, to the human Ravendor, actually, it seemed like they were arguing. The two drifters both decided at once to stay quiet and listen for as long as they possibly could, to see what was transpiring in front of them.
The boy flinched at the remark and squeezed the arm of his toy, looking up for the first time. He had not been crying, his green eyes were clear, though filled with vague sadness. He took one tiny, tentative step forward, and pressed one little fist against his chest, his toy leaning in the crook of his broken arm. "Clive and Catherine were only trying to help you. They want to help you. They don't want you to suffer anymore. Why won't you let them help you?"
Ravendor snorted and smiled crookedly, shaking his head slowly. "Perhaps I do not deserve to be helped." He said in a low voice, unfolding his arms and touching an ungloved hand to the surface of the glass tank. In it slept the modified demon, Project Dark Angel. Ravendor was watching it sleep quietly, and he added; "Besides, as soon as Project Dark Angel fully awakens, I will lose my body, and my memory will at last be erased for good. It will be a death without dying, an ultimate death. When that happens, I will no longer have to remember everything that happened, all the horrible, horrible things. The things I hated, the things I lost… I will forget everything, and the pain will finally go away…"
The child looked shocked and hurt, allowing a little bit of fear to emerge from his spirit. "But why?!" He cried bitterly, "How come you won't ever let anybody help me?! How come I never get to ask for help?! I'm so tired of you locking me away in the dark! I'm scared of the dark! You put me in a darkness that won't go away!" He ran up to and around Ravendor, so he could look up at his older self face-to-face. Dropping the stuffed toy, tears began to bead in the little boy's eyes, making him sniff faintly to hold the tears back.
"No!" Ravendor shouted, his stronger voice echoing around the metallic room. He balled both his hands into fists and forced his eyes shut, clenching his teeth. "I am never going to trust anybody ever again. Not in this world, not in the next, not ever. I am so sick and tired of being betrayed by those that I trust, it is just easier if I do not trust anybody at all. Mother left me, Kaitlyn died, Catherine found another, Melody decided to become somebody else, and even Clive decided to turn his back and walk away. Am I that worthless? Nobody ever comes to save me, no matter what I do, no matter how long I wait!"
"Nobody comes… because you never ask for help. If you just wait for salvation, nothing will ever change." The child started to cry, silent tears rolling down his cheeks. "Please… Please trust somebody… anybody… Ask them for help… Bring me out of this locked darkness… Please…?" Catherine again felt a huge urge to run up and console the poor boy, but Clive gently tightened his hand around her wrist and held her there, not taking his eyes off what he was seeing. His mahogany eyes were piercing, he was intently listening to every world that was being said, analyzing.
For a few moments, Ravendor lost the tone of his refined accent and spoke in a constricted, almost frightened voice. "I can't!" He yelled, "What if I ask for help and nobody answers?! What if I really am all alone?! What if… in all this darkness… this despair… there really is no way out?" He calmed down a little and knelt, firmly grabbing the little boy's shoulder. "No. I am so tired of this life, I am so sick of being me. Project Dark Angel can take my body, he can use my soul, as long as he completely erases my memory. There is just no salvation left, little one. No hope, either. Please understand."
The boy nodded dejectedly through his tears. Meekly, he reached his unburdened hand into his sling and pulled out something small and metallic, plain yet beautiful. He held up the shining silver cross and looked at his older self, swallowing hard so he could find the strength to speak. "And this? Do you wanna forget the owner of this cross too? Do you wanna forget Kaitlyn and everything that she meant to us? If we die, her memory dies too. I don't want her to die." Hesitantly, Ravendor reached down and picked up the cross from the boy's open palm, the silver shining even more beautifully in the most tragic of scenarios. It was, truthfully, the most precious thing that he owned. The child stopped crying and wiped his tears away with the back of his hand, finally giving a small, almost tired smile. Then, the holy power of the cross leaving his body, the small child crumbled away into dust.
Ravendor looked at it with a masked expression, neither positively nor negatively. Sighing, he released the charm and it fell into the little pile of dust, rejecting it and the offer of salvation it held. "God help me, I can never go back." He said with a wavering voice, slowly turning around to meet the two drifters observing them from the far wall. Ravendor's expression didn't change when he noticed them, he did not seem surprised at all. Clive noticed that although Ravendor appeared to be well-dressed and in physically good shape, his aura felt haggard, gaunt and worn out.
"So you found me. This is where I was reborn." He said to the two drifters, folding his arms again, "And where I shall be reborn again. However, this time, it will be without a soul. The perfect demon has no soul, it needs no soul, all it requires is the power and means to kill all that is alive." He laughed ironically, albeit a little forcedly. "You know, Catherine, Clive… eleven years ago I was terrified of the thought that I was no longer human, but admittedly, a part of me welcomed the chance to become a demon, a soulless demon, a being that does not experience pain, sadness," He paused, sighing out the last two words, "…Or loss."
"And yet that is not what you desire." Clive cut in, closing his eyes. "What you desire is what you have lost. You just want big sister Kaitlyn to come back, don't you? But Ravendor, you have to accept the fact that she is not coming back, understand? No matter how much you wish it to be otherwise, she is dead." He raised his voice a little. "Kaitlyn is dead! Your life with her is dead!" Catherine squeezed Clive's wrist as tightly as she possibly could, biting her lip hard and trying to make him stop. He just didn't understand the full extent of the loss, not just yet.
"I know that! Do you think I do not know that?!" He cried heatedly, "I have no choice but to keep on living! You forced me to live! All the time we knew each other you would not let me die! I would have destroyed myself the moment I became a demon if the gias bomb living inside of me did not react to my innermost thoughts! Instead… instead… all I can do is wait and hope and pray that maybe God might come down from Heaven someday and finally bring her back! I know this will never happen, but what else can I accredit seventeen years of unwanted life for?!"
"…You hate yourself, don't you?" Clive asked softly.
"Yes," Ravendor answered simply, "I do."
Catherine stood a little way off, having released her grip on Clive, she was holding a small black leather book, the Gungnir resting by her side, scribbling something down as quickly and as legibly as she could. It was the old Black Shuck diary, and there was room enough for one more entry, just one more. Catherine hoped that it would be the most important one, because it was time for her to have her say. In truth, Halle had told her a few extra things that she had not mentioned to anybody else, instructing her to reveal her secrets when she herself felt it was the best time. And, that time was now. Quietly, moving with an intrusive force that only a woman could bear, she stood between Clive and Ravendor and faced the latter, holding the book out to him calmly. "The last page holds an entry only for you," She said, "For everything important we have ever shared, please look at it."
For a few seconds, the dark-haired man seemed to think about what she said, but then, with great care, Ravendor took the book from Catherine's open hands and opened it, slowly flicking through each page yellowed with age and recognising each different style of handwriting as memories recorded by his friends and associates from years ago. Some entries were even written by he himself, but he ignored them, for they no longer held any significance or importance. He reached the last page somewhere in the back of the book, dated not over ten or twenty years ago, but the very same day that they all were living at that moment. It was in Catherine's handwriting, only being written minutes before. "Please read it," Catherine said imploringly, "Out loud, so we can all hear."
"…November the second, in the year eighteen seventy-four, anno domini." He began reading it meticulously but clearly, obeying Catherine's command. "Once upon a time, there lived a boy named Ravendor Begucci. He was born into a loveless and negligent family that did not offer him the care that a small child deserved. So, severing his family ties, he gained a new identity and purpose amongst a different class of people and thrived, living as Ravendor Begucci the larrikin, not Ravendor Begucci the son of the Duke. It was as this new person did he find the happiness that he had been searching for. However, circumstance caused him to lose the two most precious things he could ever love or desire in his entire lifetime, and defining himself and his self-value by that loss, he tried to throw his life away. The one who saved him, Clive Winslett, the Wolf spirit of the Martyr, bore the bullet that would have taken Ravendor Begucci's life and fulfilled the duty inherent within his animal spirit. Nonetheless, this boy still suffers through a cycle of guilt and blame, because the true meaning of the Raven spirit is the spirit of the Victim, the unwilling sacrifice. The one who is wounded in exchange for the happiness of others."
Ravendor dropped the book, it slid out of his hands without the dark-haired man making any move to stop it. His hands had gone limp. It landed on the cold metal floor, spine upward, pages bent as it pressed against the unyielding surface. Clive instinctively grabbed the hilt of his sword, a move he was constantly making each time Ravendor did something the swordsman did not expect. Ravendor seemed to become ever paler than he already was and he fell to his knees, squeezing the chain of his silver cross as tightly as he possibly could in his left hand as he picked it up out of the dust again. "…The victim?" He said in a dazed voice. "The one who suffers in place of others?"
"Yes," Said Catherine, "The true meaning of Baskarian wolf spirit and the Baskarian raven spirit are so closely similar that they are often mistaken to be the same idol. They both attract misfortune and deflect it from those they love, however, the only difference between the two is the presence of willpower. The wolf spirit assumes this role willfully, throwing himself in front of others to shield them from harm, while the raven spirit does not have a choice in his actions, a broken shell that has nobody left to protect. Ravendor, every time you lost something, Clive would always end up gaining something. This is because the ones Clive supported would also protect him in times when he was weak, while you withdrew into your own world and aided nobody, relied on nobody, so there was nobody left to aid you back."
"No. Untrue. There was somebody else I protected. There was somebody else I loved." Ravendor argued quietly with her. "Isabelle. I tried to protect Isabelle. It is my fault that she died, I could not protect her or Kaitlyn. I tried my best, but they still died. I failed, and that is my sin." He stood up again and looked at the silver cross back in his hand. It seemed to shine all the more brightly when only he held it. It felt… warm. There was warmth within it, though he did not know why. "Kaitlyn and I were going to give this to her when she was old enough, provided luck was on our side. We both planned ahead far too much…" He laughed falsely, it was horrible to hear.
"…Isabelle?" Clive echoed, confused.
The bandit-leader glanced at Catherine who had her head down and was biting the mid-joint of her index finger in anxiety. And so the emergence into this most horrible of memories had begun again. Ravendor did not allow Catherine to artfully dodge the issue, quite the opposite, he plunged her straight into the midst of it. "Catherine, you never told Clive about Isabelle?" He asked, "I suppose I must thank you for that, I did make you promise to never say a word about it. Why don't you enlighten him now? I would do it myself, except that I cannot speak about it without losing my voice or something similarly awful."
She shook her head in negativity and let out a shuddering breath before defeatedly giving in. She could only hope that Clive would be able to forgive her for not saying a word when she should. "It was a hidden secret that only the female members of the Black Shuck gang and Ravendor himself knew about, we each swore to keep the truth from you and the others unless Kaitlyn wanted you to know. Actually, Kaitlyn was quite afraid that if you found out, Clive, you'd get upset and beat Ravendor to an inch of his life. Yes, so, she swore us all to silence. She was like a big sister to you, to all of us younger children, wasn't she?" Clive nodded silently, taking his hand of the hilt of his sword. Kaitlyn, before she passed away, had been like the mother Clive never had. His confusion did not lessen. What was this reminiscence heading towards, and why couldn't Ravendor speak about it himself?
"Clive…" Catherine murmured, deciding to admit it just as bluntly as possible, "When Kaitlyn died, she was with child. Ravendor's child." There, she had said it. There was a very deep and long silence, Clive didn't move. It looked like he was mulling the information about in his head, going over it a few times as meticulously as possible. Ravendor, similarly, had completely masked his emotion as well.
"Yes…" Clive said at last. "I would have indeed beaten him to an inch of his life, friend or not." His reaction appeared to have been subdued by an inner force, perhaps some kind of intense mental willpower. "You know, I never noticed. It was probably because I was too stupid back then, or maybe you were both just extensively good at hiding things." Clive's words were a little sharp, almost hurt. Kaitlyn had been his adopted sister and mother, after all. "How far along was she?" He asked, directing his question at Ravendor.
"Long enough for us to know that it was going to be a girl, if you wish to know." He replied while turning away from them, looking once more at the glass tank that held the darker half of his soul. He wished that it would awaken soon, and cease this unwanted painful reminiscence. "Long enough for me to give her a name. It is quite ironic, actually. You have no idea, Clive, of how jealous I am of you. You so desperately wanted to be a real drifter and scour the wasteland all alone for treasure, to be a feared and dreaded outlaw, and I so desperately wanted what you have right now. It seems that we have lived each other's lives by mistake, does it not? Actually," He continued, "You must have wondered what I saw when I looked at your daughter for the first time, Clive. I saw Catherine first, which was understandable, and then I saw in her Kaitlyn too, but that is not who she resembles to me."
"Who did you see?" Questioned the swordsman, awaiting the answer.
"I suppose I saw Isabelle in her, I suppose that was the reason why I could never have hoped to kill her in the end. If Kaitlyn had not died, Isabelle would have been sixteen this year, she would have been almost an adult. I wonder what she would have looked like? But she is dead now with her mother, and now maybe I can die too and be with them again. In doing this," He tapped the glass of the tank, "I can erase both my sin and my memory at the very same time. How… convenient. I know I am taking the easy way out, but let me ask you Clive, what in the world is wrong with taking the easy way out?" He turned back around to face the two, Clive and Catherine both stood there with mixed expressions. The dark-haired man smiled bitterly. "There, so now you know everything about me. I have failed as a son, I have failed as a father, but I will not allow myself to fail as a murderer, that at least I can do. Yet, I need a little more time to prepare. Project Dark Angel has not woken up yet. Leave."
Upon saying this last word, Ravendor snapped his fingers and the patch of floor underneath the two drifter's feet changed from a solid into a liquid, suddenly losing to ability to keep them in their place. The sunk into the fluid like one would sink into a gooey mass of quicksand, only with far more haste and efficiency. They hardly had the time to take in a lungful of air before they went in over their heads, disappearing for the time being. Ravendor was left in silence. Opening his palm, he stared at the silver chain bearing the holy cross, like he was silently asking it for answers. Then, he voiced them out loud. "I deserve this, don't I?" He said.
Like a virus made solely for the tarnishing of alloy, a black taint consumed the shine of the metal, eating away at it like rust accelerated a thousand fold, turning the pure silver white into a dull greyish black. The warmth of the metal disappeared, becoming as cold as a simple piece of rusty iron.
And he had gotten his answer.
xxx
On the floor below, part of the ceiling turned to liquid for a split second, long enough to hurt Clive and Catherine out of it's depths and onto the hard cold floor underneath it, the metal demon painfully landing on his stomach with a grunt, while he suffered doubly as Catherine's fall had chosen him as it's landing point. She landed on top of him and his back protested loudly to the rest of his body, though he was rather grateful that she had managed a safer descent than himself. Groaning, because the butt of the Gungnir had hit him in the back of his ribs, he pulled himself out from under Catherine and lay on his back on the floor, overwhelmed by everything that had hit him like a wave that refused to break upon the shore. Looking up, the ceiling had shifted back into it's previous solid form. He sighed heavily, wondering once more where Kaitlyn was and if she was safe.
"Sometimes it feels like I know nothing." Clive admitted as he languidly laid the back of his hand over his eyes. "I didn't know. I thought he was mourning for Kaitlyn, but it turned out he was mourning something far worse. If I had know that, maybe I… maybe I would not have stopped him from…"
"No Clive." Catherine disagreed, leaning over and looking down at him. "Do not ever say that. You did the right thing. You saved his life, you acted like a true friend. How on Filgaia can that be counted as a bad thing?" Clive smiled a little, taking his hand away from his eyes. It brushed something lying beside his body, something small and old and made of leather. It was the old diary. When the floor had turned to liquid, the book must have fallen with them as well. The swordsman sat up, tiredly rubbing his neck. Catherine removed the leather strap that hung off her ARM, it was becoming a nuisance that she wanted to get rid of. Half-closing her eyes, she traced a small dent in the weapon's barrel, the indentation shallow but noticeable.
Clive said something Catherine did not expect to hear, surprising her a little bit. "I had never been so empty before, the moment I realised that I might never see you or Kaitlyn again, when I first remembered becoming a lycanthrope. It felt like a part of me had been destroyed, or surgically cut away, it did indeed feel like, I mean, there was a part of me that just wished to lay down and die. It did make me think, that without my family, what else did I have left to live for?" He traced the golden lettering on the cover of the book with his index finger, quietly contemplative. "I felt this pain for two long days, I thought it would eventually drive me mad."
And yet, Clive continued in his mind, Ravendor has felt this exact same pain for seventeen years without rest. No wonder he wishes to die. And I, like a fool, forced him to live. Did I even see… what kind of hell I was damming him to? His tracing finger reached the edge of the book, involuntarily flicking the cover open. He began to flick through the pages half-heartedly, paying more attention to his own thoughts than the words out in front of him.
"Nobody comes… because you never ask for help. If you just wait for salvation, nothing will ever change."
That small child had been right. In all the years that Clive could remember, he could never recall Ravendor asking him for help, not even once. In fact, Clive had avoided many people's personal problems because he didn't like the idea of becoming too involved himself, just in case he could not help the person he tried to aid. Helping Ravendor that night was one of the first times he had tried, and now he wasn't sure of he regretted it or not, because maybe it would have been better for them both to have just allowed him to die. That's wrong, He argued, It was the first time I decided to care, and after that, I kept on caring. If I didn't start to care back then, what kind of person would I be now? Some writing on one of the pages caught his eye, and like a twist of fate, he focussed himself enough to read it.
"Kaitlyn came back from the doctor today and she told me everything. Then, I suffered a blank period and I woke up about an hour later. Catherine told me that I had fainted. I suppose I was just in shock, but I cannot lie about this. I am so happy. So happy! Kaitlyn is ecstatic, I have never seen her smile so much, though we both admit that we are truly scared. Yet, this must be some kind of sign from God. I am not going to let the same thing that happened to me ever happen again. I will try and be the best father possible, I know I can do it. I know that I will help Kaitlyn every step of the way."
Clive closed the book and rubbed his chin thoughtfully, a strange sensation of familiarity making him itch at the very edge of his own recollection. He had not been insanely angry before at hearing about Isabelle… because… He wasn't sure how he knew, but he had heard about it somewhere before… a very long time ago…
The memory pierced his mind so quickly that the swordsman even physically flinched as a reaction. It had come back to him with the momentum of an express train in his mind. Another memory that Yggdrasil had robbed from him had finally returned.
xxx
It was the dead of night. The only illumination that guided travelers at that time of night was a full, nearly blue moon, hanging overhead like a shining rounded pearl, and the countless scattering of stars dotting the night sky, every so often obscured by a wayward cloud. He had trouble seeing in the darkness, trying to differentiate between the battered dirt path stretching in front of him and all the rest of the dirt that coated the semi-dry wasteland. Stiff grass was sometimes underfoot, and when he noticed this, he knew that he had strayed off the path. He was carrying with him a smaller boy, thinner and weedier, with grass-green hair and ratty, cheap looking clothes. The boy was flung over his back like a piggyback ride, blood from a bullet wound to his arm dripping down his side. He only seemed half-conscious of his surroundings, everything was thrown into a pain-filled haze. Clive groaned, his throat feeling like it was lined with dust and sandpaper.
"Thank the Guardians you're so light."
Clive tensed a little at the sudden intrusion of the voice into his hazy, wounded world, regretting the action instantly as it caused a muscle in his arm to tighten and feel the flecks of shrapnel embedded in his flesh, around the torn hole that still had a half-shattered bullet buried inside. Clive groaned again, and then shivered, the night was uncharacteristically cold tonight. He didn't remember what he was doing out here, where by all rights he should have been back in Little Twister and in his bed. He also wanted to know why his arm was hurting so very much. Did he get into a fight, or something? If so, why was he out here in the middle of nowhere, being carried around by his big brother like a baby? It didn't make any sense, though he had the feeling that he was supposed to know why.
"I would have had far too much trouble otherwise. Are you alright? I'm sorry, I could not find any help for your injury, even my horse seems to have wandered away. I shall have to try and find her again later. But, I am sure that once I get you back to Little Twister Catherine should be able to do something for you and your wound. Clive, can you hear me?" Ravendor asked, breathing a little labored from the strain of having to carry an extra person on his back. He had already lost far too much blood to be in good health, and a painful-looking wound to the side of his face leaked blood into his eye. His wrists had been cut up badly by self-inflicted causes, but the blood had already dried up completely. They both looked like two victims of violent physical abuse.
"…Swanky, how come my arm hurts so much…?" Clive slurred weakly, his hair ruffled by the midnight breeze. They passed under a tree for a few moments, and an intricate network of shadows was cast over both their bodies. It bore a thick set of drying, crispy leaves. If it were daylight, they would have seen that the leaves were a deep autumn orange and red. The boy tried to move his arm himself, but it was becoming numb by the gradual shutdown of his nerve endings in the affected area.
"Because I shot you." Ravendor explained. "Because you tried to stop me from killing myself. It is very strange, I do not feel like myself anymore. It feels like I am out of my body, if you know what I mean. I think I may have a concussion, I might not remember the rest of what happened tonight. But, do I even want to remember?" He sighed and attempted to kick at a rock that was lying in the middle of the weathered dirt path. "There is no one else of whom I can talk to, and I will not even remember my own words. Clive, I know you probably are too hurt to understand what I am saying, but please, will you listen to me?"
"…Nnnnhh…" Moaned the boy as a feeble answer.
Ravendor took that as an affirmative reply. Pausing and taking a short rest, he set Clive up against a large rock and took a seat beside him, fumbling around in his pocket for a spare cigarette. He found one, though a little crumpled, and lit it with his lighter, inhaling the smoke and hoping that it would take away some of his aching pain. The dark-haired teen then took Clive's pulse, found that it was a little low and that the boy was shivering from the cold, having neglected to bring with him a jacket or coat. All he was wearing was a thin brown shirt and patched pants, very dirty as it was. Sighing, Ravendor removed his jacket and put it on Clive, not touching the boy's wounded arm and leaving it out of one of the jacket sleeves. Afterwards, he begrudgingly took out Clive's small switchblade and cut a very long strip out of the white piece of attire, using the thick fabric as material for a temporary sling. Now Clive was warm and his wound no longer hurt as much. The boy smiled slightly, his ice-blue eyes clouded with disorientation. "…T-thanks." He said, his breath visible as a small cloud of fog in the chilly air.
The older boy was quiet for a very long time, listening to the crickets chirping from places that he could not see. From the way they made their own little individual noises, it almost sounded like a unique brand of music. The stars were exceptionally majestic that night, though unlike other nights, they offered him no comfort at all. The dark-haired teen somehow felt that the stars were trying to mock him for his loss, but then, he decided to ignore it and he spoke. His words were slow, like it took a tremendous effort for him to speak at all. "When Kaitlyn died… I lost everything that was ever important to me, everything that I always wanted. All I wanted was her, only her. Nothing else."
He let the ash on the end of his cigarette smolder for a while, the small burning red line of embers eating away the roll of paper and herbs within. "I never told you about Isabelle, did I? I was afraid to tell you, and so was Kaitlyn. She had often told me that you were like a son to her. But Clive, I think that discovering the possibility of Isabelle had so far been the best moment of my life. She was going to be beautiful. Just like her mother. I know what Kaitlyn and I did was wrong, but it gave us both an incentive to hang on, just in case, in the feeble hopes that, just maybe… maybe her illness might someday be gone for good, and she could lead a long healthy life. We had a goal, a tangible reason to hope, something to look forward to, no matter how slim the chances. For a long time, we all thought that she had beaten it, that she had finally won. But then… You don't know what it's like to lose a daughter and your beloved at the same time… do you?"
Clive did not answer. He had his eyes closed and his head had lolled to one side, though he still seemed to be awake. Ravendor didn't even know if Clive could hear him, but speaking about it was just enough to make him feel the tiniest bit better. It was like talking to a brick wall, but Ravendor continued to speak, vaguely scratching meaningless shapes in the dust. "If Kaitlyn had managed to survive, when we were old enough, I would have asked her to marry me. I know I am just a boy, but I would have done anything to keep her and Isabelle safe. I would have tried to be the best father and husband as possible and I would have gladly died for them. I don't know what I have left to look forward to anymore, you know? What more do I have left without them? In truth, you are the only reason I am living my life right now, you and Catherine. I cannot think of anybody else that I care about so, Clive, you must do something for me." He stubbed out his cigarette and pushed himself to his feet, absently rubbing silent tears out of his eyes.
"I need you and Catherine to help me," He smiled wearily, picking Clive up again and shifting him over his shoulders, taking hold of the younger boy's legs and continuing his tiring journey back towards Little Twister, "Because you are my last hope."
xxx
This was the truth that he had lost.
"Yes! I remember!" Clive announced, jumping to his feet in alarm. Taking Catherine's hand as she was pacing to and fro while worrying, he ran back up the steps towards the next floor while dragging her gently with him. "Catherine. He asked us to help, years ago, and yet, we did nothing. Now I feel it is time to fulfil that duty, we have to help him, whether he likes it or not. I owe it to the old Ravendor to bring him back." Catherine smiled as she kept up with him, coming to a halt as Clive stopped in front of the closed door. Pressing the button like he did before, this time it did not open. So, he unsheathed his sword. Kuronegaiken flashed, and the sealed door fell apart in two chunks, hissing and melting away into greenish clouds of steam. Clive comfortingly squeezed her hand. "If it is too scary, you do not have to go in." He said.
"I am not scared." She reassured him, leading him back inside. Clive allowed himself to be led, his thoughts still half with his body, the other half going over the past occurrences in his mind. One sentence stuck in his head, and it replayed over and over again, it's impact increasing each time.
"You don't know what it's like to lose a daughter and your beloved at the same time… do you?"
I do. Clive said solemnly in his mind. Now, I do. And because of this, I will save you.
Even if it kills me.