Far Gone

See disclaimer in the Prologue

"...he seems to have fallen from Gaudium, Your Excellency."

The small child sitting in the hoverchair made a soft sound of dissatisfaction. "Now, Oscha, why did you have to do that? You could have just brought him to me and had done with it."

The smoky figure of the necromancer bowed low, bending almost double. "Forgive me, Your Excellency. He did not have the proper... attitude... for approaching you. Rebellion does not suit you."

"It would have been interesting to watch him try to fight," the embodiment of Chaos said with a cold smile. "If ever it happens againonce we reclaim him, of coursejust give him to me and watch."

"Of course, Your Excellency..."

"Kaze...?"

All this, Lisa thought to herself, and he's only just realized who it is standing in front of him...? He's not taking this well at all...

Kaze himself looked stunned, staring at his helpless rival as though he had quite forgotten why he was in the room in the first place.

"Kaze...? It is... really you, isn't it...?" Still pale and trembling, Makenshi had relaxed a fraction of a hair. A second tear chased the first down his cheek, then a third. "Please... Kaze...

"Please kill me!"

Both Kaze and Lisa stared, not quite able to believe what they were hearing.

"Kill me," Makenshi insisted. "I can't... I can't live with this anymore..." He crossed his arms over his chest as if to enfold himself in his own embrace. "I can't keep going anymore... it's all just too much... I can't...!" Slowly and painfully, he sat up. "Just look at me...! How am I supposed to protect you... protect anyone like this...? I can't do this anymore... I'm so tired... so tired of living hurt and afraid!... I'm not strong enough... I never was strong enough... it hurts... it hurts... it hurts so much... just... please... kill me before they find me... I can't go through this again... I don't want to die... from what they do to me..." He shook his head, letting his tears fly around his face in a haze of bright droplets. "Almost every day... I can't do this anymore, I can't! My brother is dead... and you hate me..." He reached out and gripped Kaze's left hand, which was currently clenched tightly on his shotgun, and lifted it to his chest, the gun with it. "All you have to do... is pull the trigger... please... I don't... I don't want to live anymore... please...!"

Kaze just stood there staring, quite incapacitated by Makenshi's sudden outburst. He looked slowly to Lisa, as if to ask what he was supposed to do, then back at his supposed rival as Makenshi's grip on his wrist slipped, letting hand and gun both fall.

"Please..." The swordsman's body was shaking again, but this time with sobs instead of fear. "Kaze... please...!" Giving in to tears, he collapsed against Kaze, who went rigid in shock, and broke down, crying so hard that it looked almost painful.

A brief fragment of memory filtered through the gunman's mind, unprompted.

"He's gone... he's gone...!"

He and Aura exchanged helpless looks, unsure as to what they were supposed to do.

"He's gone... he's gone... and it's all my fault... I wasn't there to help them... why couldn't I have been there to help them! Why...? WHY!"

"Kumo..." Aura began, slowly fitting her arms around the thin frail white form that convulsed in powerful sobs. "There was nothing we could do...nothing you could do! Don't blame yourself!" She looked up at Kaze and gave him a distressed look, trying to get him to help. "We've all lost our homes, and everything else with them! You've got to hang in there! Don't let what's happened kill you!"

"But I want to die," the swordsman sobbed into Aura's shoulder. "Without my brother... without Kiri... life isn't worth living anymore...! I loved him! I shouldn't have let this happen! It's all my fault... all my fault...!"

"You have to live." It was his own voice speaking; he'd gone over to his sister and the sobbing wreck of the man he'd thought was his enemy, kneeling beside them. "You have to help us pay Chaos back for everything it's done... you have to live..."

"You have to live," he said quietly and gently, his voice mingling with that in the fragment of his memory, looking down at Makenshi. As soon as he'd said the words, he wondered why he had. This was his nemesis... the one responsible for his sister's death... wasn't it...?

"Kaze..." Makenshi whispered, and lost consciousness.

"That was kind of you," Lisa said softly.

She and Kaze were still in the infirmary. Between the two of them, they'd managed to get Makenshi into a more comfortable position without waking him, replacing the two soft sheets that had covered his battered body. However, the young man had managed to catch hold of Kaze's hand again, and still had a death grip on it which Kaze seemed uneasy about breaking. And so, they sat up with the wounded swordsman, keeping vigil beside him through the small hours of the night.

"What you did for him, I mean," Lisa went on. She had long since realized that with Kaze, she'd have to do the majority of the talking, and didn't mind filling in his silences with speech so long as it didn't annoy him. "You didn't have to comfort him like that... I know you're angry with him."

Kaze said nothing, but looked down at his hand, which Makenshi's was still curled around. The sight of their intertwined fingers made him feel... strange. His own hands were rough and blunt, chafed by the explosions of countless gunshots, but his rival's was slender and fine-fingered, as well as soft except for the swordsman's calluses along the palm and fingertips.

"What's wrong with him?" he asked suddenly, his voice sounding almost harsh in the emptiness.

Lisa looked down at her nailbitten hands, folded neatly in her lap. "Kaze... he..." She shook her head. "We don't know for certain, but... I think he's been... abused." Shaking her head again, she covered her eyes with one hand, her voice bending. "Someone beat and raped him, Kaze... so that's why he's... like this."

Feeling the beginnings of protective anger stir in his core, Kaze looked back to Makenshi's face, taking in the look of melded youth and world-weariness.

"It seems to have been going on for some time," Lisa's voice went on in the background. "I guess he'd just had enough of it all... maybe he'd been trying to end it when he fell..."

Kaze, still watching Makenshi, could not get the image of the man in white clinging desperately to his sister, his body wracked with sobbing, as the two of them did their best to console him out of his head. It simply didn't fit with the other images he had seen of the sword-summoner in his fractured memoriesthe battle-hardened young warrior with the killing blade. The weeping child he'd seen could never have caused Aura to do what she did.

And yet... if it wasn't Makenshi's fault that Aura had died, then whose was it?

What could Kaze believe?

Lisa could not help but give a tired smile when she remembered the scene. Within an hour's time, Kaze had also wound up sleeping, and he'd collapsed against the side of the bed, out cold. Makenshi, oblivious to it all (thankfully), had kept on clinging to Kaze's hand.

There would be no trouble between them now, she was sure of it. Kaze had been unable even to make his so-called mortal enemy let go of his hand, let alone kill him when he'd begged to die. His actions had surprised her, but at least she no longer had to worry about bloodshed while she tried to pull Makenshi out of his deep depression.

What she couldn't understand was why she felt the quiet ache of old loss in her heart. Makenshi needed someone badly, and Kaze needed to break out of the cycle of revenge... so why... why couldn't she be happy for them...?

Warmth. Safety. It was so long since he had last felt these beautiful emotions.

The softness of the sheets around him, the plush mattress beneath him, the soft breathing beside him... all were as familiar as an old lullaby, assuring him that everything was alright and would turn out alright and would always be, and turn out, alright.

Had all of that, then, just been a dream... a dark nightmare sent from the sorrowed heart of Nallorn? If the patron spirit of haunted sleep had been responsible, then he would know that he should take it into account and learn from it, no matter how painful. He would talk to Kiri about it later, though the dream was shameful.

They had spoken long about the issue of their out-of-control feelings for each other. It wasn't exactly common for those of Mystaria to find their soul mate within their family, but it had happened before, and when it was true, it was accepted. The two of them couldn't think of anything but their emotions being true... they had loved each other since they were small children, and that was never going to change. So... they would let things happen as Fate dictated. If they were true soul mates, they would end up going to bed sooner or later, although the thought of it made nervous wings flutter in Kumo's belly. As custom strictly dictated, he was a virgin, and would remain so until he and his soul mate were life-bonded, by the law of word, heart, or ceremony. Until that fateful day in the equipment room of the practice courts, he'd never even considered the concept of sex, and the idea of making love to Kiri both excited and frightened him. Thinking about it made his heart race and his blood pound feverishly, but secretly he wasn't sure he would be able to make such a powerful commitment. The oath of a life-bond was one vow that it was unthinkable to break. Even the rare case of being forced upon was considered a stain on the purity of one's pact. It was part of the reason that those who had suffered sexual abuse during the long-ago wars between the people of the sky and the people of the earth even now had trouble forgiving themselves for the transgression, even if it wasn't their fault.

That was part of the reason Kumo was, for the first time, afraid to share a dream with his brother. For in that dream... he had been raped by a stranger with cold, cruel eyes. Over and over, until he bled and he thought his body would burst from the pain. Even now he felt shamed, nauseated, achy, swollen. Even now he felt as if he could cry.

As he felt the mattress he laid on shift beside him, he bit his lip and steeled himself to speak. Kiri would know there was something wrong; he'd need to tell. And what would come afterthe tears, the kisses, the cuddles, and hopefully the forgivenesswould be worth it. He turned, opened his eyes...

...and looked up into Kaze's shadowed face.

Realization came in a rush as he tried to fight off the madness threatening to drag him into the deepest of the nine hells. It hadn't been a dream. It had all been real...

"Kaze," he said in a tiny voice. What now? The gunner could barely remember anything... and hated him for reasons he kept to himself. What would he do now...?

But there was pain deep within those cerulean eyes, and though Kaze's expression was apathic as always, he felt a squeeze at his handand realized that his fingers and the gunner's were entwined. He blushed as he realized that he must have fallen asleep still clutching Kaze's hand, and dropped it as if it were a hot brick he'd grabbed by mistake.

"Kaze," he said again, trying to make his voice steady. What to do? The gun-summoner was obviously waiting for him to make the first move, but he was so tongue-tied that he wasn't sure he'd be able to manage speech. He swallowed hard and for the first time noticed the rusty, metallic taste in his mouth. Blood. Wonderful. Remembering, he grimaced and was grateful his voice wasn't entirely ruined by the screaming... and what had forced him into silence. He shuddered.

"Shiroi Kumo." The sound of his name, spoken by Kaze's hoarse baritone with that old note of affection, made him start, his heart skipping a beat. Sitting up painfully, he stared up into Kaze's eyes, watching them blur as his own filled with tears.

A strong, earth-firm arm fitted around him, pulling him to Kaze's black-cloaked shoulder. Surrounded by the warmth and concern of his old friend, he couldn't help it any longer. He broke down, crying in raw, broken wails that were just barely stifled by the dark fabric. "I'm sorry." Two little words that could not hope to cover everything he wanted to say. "I'm sorry." Sorry about what happened to your sister. Sorry for killing my brother, my soul mate. Sorry I couldn't help you. Sorry you hate me. Sorry they hurt me. Sorry sorry sorry.

And through it all, Kaze held him tightly, not seeming to mind that his cloak was getting soaked, or that Kumo's steel-cold spikes were pressed up against the rigid bone of his shoulder. Kaze held him and let him cry himself into exhaustion, his own heart seized with the pain of acknowledging that they were no longer enemies.

And when Lisa came in to give them something to drink, she found Kumo curled tightly beside Kaze, clinging to the fabric of his cloak, fast asleep with Kaze still holding him loosely, letting him have a moment of peace, looking about ready to take a nap himself.

For the first time since he'd awakened, his heart no longer felt quite so empty.

(TBC)