Unraveling

three:

Drifting. Drifting. He tries constantly to stay just where he is, stretching out shadow-arms into the not-sea of visions and fragments of unformed thought…

Nigredo's power is with his mind and with his words; he is a master storyteller when he chooses. And this, so far, has proven to be the cause of his undoing. For all the worlds he has built so carefully in the depths of his mind draw him, even as gravity draws all creatures to the earth, but he no longer wants to enter any of his former havens.

For when he enters any; when at last his struggles to stay afloat are not enough and he is drawn close and ­in, he always finds the same thing – flame, death and ruins of what was once as real to him as anything in the far reaches of the galaxy. An appropriate reflection of what has surely gripped him: he will never forget Militia (for the scientists unwittingly made it so he will forget nothing at all), and he knows the madness of it all is what keeps him trapped here, for it has permeated his being.

Almost worse than this total inside-and-out ruin of himself is the absolute, all-encompassing silence; and this is what he would rather die than live with forever. Since he has lost himself in this place-not-a-place he has been grimly aware of it, and to keep its insidious fingers from coming too near he constantly reaches out with all the mental force that is his gift, calling, calling, calling – so he can hear something, anything, and also for the chance that one of his brothers is still out there, somewhere…and finally, hoping to summon something new into his mind that is free of the taint of pain, fury, or betrayal.

Something like the lightning.

He hadn't understood it when it had happened (and when was that? Here there is no sense of night and day, minutes and hours; counted time to him is lost), so quickly it was gone almost before he'd realized its presence in the midst of his searching mental screams. A column of pure rainbow-white fire, dancing before him, close enough to touch yet as faraway as the stars, and he'd—heard? No, felt? No, drawn—the sense of wider something that it had offered in all its purity to him, but only for the barest flicker of his thoughts. Then it had been simply gone, and his outcries for some time had been tinged with utter frustration.

He has to believe that it was something alien and real. He has to believe that it will come for him again; because it is the only one that has, so far.

Besides, it was incredibly beautiful, compared to the darkness that now consumes him. For that alone, he will do anything he can to see it again, whether it may serve him as a bridge back to life or not.

He calls, and calls, and calls, and with infinite patience waits for it to answer.

- - - - - - -

As they draw within sight of the giant, imposing battleship-colony known as Dammerung - which, incidentally, houses the entirety of the Industries - Jin watches Rubedo's awestruck face reflected in the glass of the window framed on both sides by the narrow stretch of the bar. He allows himself a tiny smile, the expression hidden by the foaming rim of his mug.

He doesn't usually drink, (and when he does he keeps it light, owing to an incident two years back that still makes him blush beet-red when it is brought up) but after all that has transpired in the past few hours, and the feat that is distracting Rubedo enough to stop him worrying over his brother, who has been separated from him to be 'prepared for moving,' he feels entitled to nurse at least one beer. Most people need some sort of preparation to meet the head of the vast Industries face-to-face; this is his way of coping, too.

The Ephraim will be docking in one hour, thirty-five minutes. Taking a sip, he grimaces (no one ever said he liked the taste of alcohol much, either) and wished that it was still a hundred days away, or maybe a single second, so he can get the waiting and worrying over and done with.

- - - - - - -

"NIISAN! NIISAN!"

"Oof!"

Barely a moment after they have disembarked, Jin is knocked flat by a tiny whirlwind of flying orange hair and bright blue dress. Rubedo laughs in surprised hilarity at the look on the swordsman's face when he lifts his head to find that his attacker is in fact a little girl, wearing huge round-lensed glasses and a gigantic gap-toothed smile.

"Okaerinasai, niisan!"

"Aa...t-tadaima, Shion-chan." He sounds more than a little winded, and can hear Rubedo stifling snickers somewhere behind him. "I guess I might as well introduce you to this young man, since he'll probably be staying with us for awhile…" Sitting up, he puts a hand to his side; even with nanomachines working overtime, the half-healed wound aches gently underneath his ribs. "And really, you're getting a bit big to do that, aren't you? Where's Reki?"

The child's face falls. "He was here until you landed, then he took off again…"

"Whoa, whoa!" The siblings turn to behold the redhead wrestling with a shaggy gray dog almost as large as he is, having seized the animal around the middle and tugged it away from the transport-bed that is being carefully maneuvered down the Ephraim's exit ramp with a small familiar form tucked firmly upon it. Jin sighs – even with only his little sister, her guardian, and a few other bystanders who must be waiting for certain of the crew to greet them, must everything dissolve so into disorganization?

"Well, we've found him, I guess…call him off, will you, imouto?"

"Reki! Reki, come here! Stop that!"

The animal barks once – slightly tinny, his vocal wiring must be suffering a bug – and relents, leaving the panting redhead to stare. Jin clears his throat and beckons him over. He obeys, one hand on a bedrail to ensure that his brother is still more or less by his side.

Shion is kneeling with both arms around the dog's neck, scolding him softly in Japanese; she looks up when the blue of the redhead's uniform comes into her field of vision. "Sumimasen yo…I promise he won't do that again!" When he just looks blank, the elder Uzuki steps in smoothly to explain things to URTV, wide-eyed little girl, and even the errant canine (introduced as Animalia model RK-1F256, shortened to Reki, a slightly malfunctioning quadrumech programmed to be both guardian and intelligent, affectionate pet.)

They relax after that, and only then does Jin wonder just what Shion is doing upon the Dammerung, until he remembers that Vector had ships upon Militia that would have taken his family to safety. Their parents, though…the long-haired man glances around, sighs yet again, and decides to worry about it later, because Wilhelm is coming down the stairs leading to the dock, flanked by guards.

- - - - - - -

Amazingly, the CEO has decided to agree to his terms, and tells him so in his usual pleasantly direct way, waving off Jin's thanks with a blunt reminder that for that, as with everything else, there is a price to be paid. He disappears quietly the minute the swordsman's head is turned. Everyone in Vector has gotten used to it.

Jin is left wondering how on earth he will fit all these people into his modest apartments.

Nigredo fits quite easily into the smaller room, but the mass of monitoring equipment that comes with him nearly overwhelms what little furniture is already there, and Reki nearly wrecks half of them before his mistress and Rubedo drag him away.

"Will you be staying here too, imouto?" he asks.

She shakes her head solemnly. "Come visit 'Kaasan and 'Tousan and me!" is her answer. "You can, right? You have time, right? Bring Rubedo-san too! And Nigredo-san when he wakes up, okay?"

The canine mech breaks the awkward silence after her questions with a series of beeps completely unlike his usual tinny barks and howls, and she jumps up, waves goodbye, and is gone as quickly as she came.

"It must be pretty cool, having a little sister!" Rubedo's grin is wistful, but the haunted look is still in his eyes; he has stayed in the one free corner by his brother's bedside for the whole time. The swordsman waves it off and bustles about, rearranging everything more to his liking. Never has he been gladder for the existence of a pull-out in his sofa, though he always used to think that whoever mass-furnishes the living quarters on the Dammerung has a lousy sense of humor for including the creaky things.

Nitpicking complete, he approaches the bed again, scratching his head over all the monitors. Brain activity and heart rate he can understand, but some of the gear has him completely baffled. For the sake of all that is good, how lacking in a life was the inventor of a—a—toe-twitch counter! That's what one seems to be…he is willing to bet money that his little sister knows what it actuallydoes and how it does it. She has always been clever that way.

All of Rubedo's unexpected protestations at taking up so much of his space are ignored or parried with Jin's favorite enigmatic smile and obscure philosophical phrases, until at last, the redhead gives up and crawls into his new 'bed.' It has been arranged to be no farther than a door away…just in case.

- - - - - - -

Nigredo grows increasingly frustrated. He still does not know if the time that has passed is fleeting or if his body has grown and died while his mind is absent. The worlds are collapsing, collapsed, and he can feel his sanity as a thin, stretching crimson thread.

But the lightning is almost back, so close he can taste it underneath the ash that seems caked on his tongue. It flickers tantalizingly in the corner of his eye when he turns to survey another stretch ofdim and repetitive destruction, when he looks down at himself and sees nothing. He is a ghost and the lightning is his guide, but how will he use it when it will not come back within his reach?

Rubedo (br/other) come back. Hear me again bridge the gap come back. I need the lightning Rubedo-lightning return I need you soon soon soon before everything has crumbled and is lost dead dust (Albedo oh the song the song he struck me down) I'm spiraling help me show me the way I'm sorry I'm not as strong as you what makes me strong is what's killing me hear me (hear me) hear me (hear me) (help) (me) (wake.)

The cry is all he has now, the cry and the sparks of his pathway covered and blocked by his shadows.

- - - - - - -

Authoress-ramble: …well…bah. I wrote most of this before playing Xenosaga and XenoII, so now I can see where I've…eheh…made it a little more AU than it's intended to be. Got sidetracked a LOT but was jarred back into finishing, mostly because I got hold of The Dark Tower books and had this nagging little recollection of a certain work of The Tesseract Seraph's. Salutes to thee. And I was getting so many kind words on my little drabbles that it seemed unfair to leave the big work aside, so. Here you go. More filler…I'm just letting it write itself and seeing what happens.

Next: Helmer comes into the picture for the first time, Shion for the second. Wilhelm is subtle as always, and Jin and Rubedo wonder just what the heck is going on with Nigredo, while Nigredo wonders the same of the outside world…