Chapter 19
A/N Lots of confusion here folks, and I'm sorry about that. But it will make sense in the end, trust me. I don't own Shadow Hearts, or Koudelka, but I've played the daylights out of the Director's Cut of SH2 and ooolalaa! ducks from in-coming thrown objects (Hey! Be grateful you don't have to be killed 30 times by the 7-headed God of Doom!)
Yuri slept late the next morning, finally climbing out of his tumbled bed and joining Roger in his daily hunt for books and items about mid-day. When they broke for lunch, Roger fixed left-over stew and Yuri finally realized someone was missing.
"Hey Rog, where's Koudelka?"
Roger was squatting on the stool in front of the kitchen fireplace, stirring the pot, and ignored the question until Yuri insisted and shoved his shoulder.
"I asked, where's Koudelka," he said.
Roger sighed. "She left early this morning. She said her work here was done and she had places to go... people to see," the old hermit replied, not looking at Yuri. The fighter squatted down next to Roger and looked at him, his amber eyes burning.
"Why," he asked softly. "Did I do something to frighten her away?"
Roger moved the pot away from the fire and turned his wide eyes onto Yuri. "Yes and no," he replied. "We had a little chat yesterday after you went to sleep. She – " Roger sighed. "You did give her some frightening moments Yuri and she said... she said she needed to be away from here. This place still disturbs her, as do you."
Yuri, sitting on his heels, looked at Roger like he'd been hit in the gut. "I- I didn't realize... I'm sorry," he said quietly. "I've been confused about a lotta stuff, an' I didn't mean..."
Roger turned toward Yuri and patted his hand with his own boney brown fingers. "Let it rest, boy. You seem to have come back from a long journey."
Yuri did not respond, instead he sat staring into the fire while Roger returned to heating the stew. After they ate, he picked up the dishes and cleaned them silently, his thoughts prodding painfully at what he should do now. He hadn't thought about it. Hadn't dreamed he'd be stuck here, in Nemeton, with only Roger. He remembered that last day, the day he had said goodbye to Koudelka and his twins. A sudden pain shot through him at the thought of his two beautiful babies, now nothing more than memories, dreams on the wind. As he scraped the bowls clean and set them on the table, he felt tears well up in his eyes, splashing down his cheeks to splatter on the table and he suddenly closed his eyes, hands gripping the table edge tightly, as the last memories filled his mind: sitting around the fire, holding little Halley and baby Katie; the night they first suckled and Yuri holding one while Koudelka gave her breast to the other, greedy Halley sucking and slurping while Katie fussed softly in her father's strong arms; the night they were born and he was all panic and fear over what was nature's way – thank God for old Roger. Each backward thought, each memory, nestled into a corner of his mind, for though it happened for him, to him, he knew now that it had never happened for Koudelka and never would – not with him. And his jaw clenched to hold back the anguished tears that threatened to overwhelm him.
When Roger realized Yuri had stopped moving he came up to him, hearing the soft sobs that escaped the fighter and he cleared his throat.
"Ah- Yuri..." he said, "I know you have feelings for the girl."
Yuri sniffed and wiped his face, rubbing away tears with a dirty sleeve.
"No, no, it's all right, Rog," Yuri said, taking a deep breath. "I – I had it in my head we'd go back to being together only..." he sniffed again and didn't finish, instead putting away the cleaned dishes.
"You lived together?" Roger asked, "when you were in this time before?"
Yuri nodded. "Yeah; an' we had kids – twins. I really liked bein' a dad an' all."
Roger's eyes widened and he felt a trembling in his limbs for this young man. He knew, from his own youth, what it meant to love a woman. And he knew the calling of wanting to be a father in fact more than name. He could understand what feelings were struggling within the breast of this stranger out of time.
"I'll help you get back, if that's what you want," he offered quietly.
Yuri shook his head without thinking. "No, but thanks. I've – I've already fucked things up twice now. If I go back again… 'sides, I have Alice," and he paused, a strange look on his face for a moment, as if the memories were settling in amidst the jumble that had become his brain. "If she's still there; if she waited for me."
Roger blinked, one hand covering his chin in thought. "Well, I don't know why she wouldn't wait for you. You said you were married?"
Yuri nodded. "An' we were having our first kid," he replied, then a big grin burst forth and his eyes lit up. He took a deep breath and sighed, a big breathy release that sent the stress of the past days into some breathy nether region. "If I did everything right, then she's alive, at home, waiting for me." And he didn't pursue that thought, merely holding his mind on the idea that Alice, his beloved wife, was waiting at home with their baby-to-be, and Roger refrained from commenting.
If I did everything right. Roger knew that God's universe was never so simple. But how to be sure that this young madman had indeed set the wheels of the stars right in their courses? "Yuri," he began and tapped the younger man's elbow. "As best you can, tell me what happened."
Yuri looked down at the little old man and chuckled. "You don't wanna hear all that. 'Sides, I'm not sure I could."
"And why not?"
Yuri rubbed the back of his head with one hand, his eyelids sliding down, narrowing his eyes. He looked to Roger like he was hiding something and the monk was about to say so when Yuri sighed.
"Cuz mostly I can't," he answered. How do I explain what I don't understand, he wondered. That it's all a jumble, confused, an' I don't know what's real and what ain't. "Mostly it's a mess in here," he said and tapped his head. "I got zapped by your machine and ended up here," and he pointed at the floor, indicating the monastery, "An' I fucked things up. I had to fix 'em cuz, if I didn't, then the world would all change, ya know? You helped me get back to do that. An' now it should be all right."
"And how can you be sure of that if, as you say, your mind is confused?"
Yuri laughed. "Cuz Koudelka's alive, Edward's alive, an' James isn't," he replied. "It may not be exactly what was, but at least Koudelka will have Halley now an' not by me. An' all I gotta do is figure out how to return to my own time."
"Go forward in time?" Roger asked, and then shook his head. "I don't know..."
Yuri chuckled. "It's all right old man. I think I know what I gotta do. I won't like it, an' I may go mad in the doin'... but it'll be all right in the end."
"You say that as if that doesn't bother you," Roger said, frowning up at the fusionist.
"Well, I don't mean that," Yuri said and his eyes lit up with a devil-may-care expression that had Roger's knees trembling beneath his robes. "But it'll be one hell of a ride."
Yuri spent the rest of the day helping Roger set up his books and equipment in the caretaker's quarters. Yuri had asked if Roger needed help laying the foundation for his new home but the old man, to Yuri's immense relief, refused. Roger told him he could get cheap labor from the nearby town of Aberystwyth and Yuri nodded, grateful for the reprieve. They shared a quiet supper and Yuri spooned his stew mindlessly, hand to bowl to mouth, without appearing to know what he was doing. Roger watched him for a bit, before finally patting him on the shoulder and going to bed. Yuri sat alone, watching the fire banked in the pit, the occasional pop and hiss of the coal the only sound in the kitchen. He hadn't told Roger or Koudelka the whole truth, he didn't know what that was himself. He knew in his heart how to return to his proper place – with Alice – mostly because of his disjointed dreams and memories. He found himself remembering more things from before, images flashing in his mind that made him blink and his heart race. Like the waking dream he had of the battle at Shanghai.
That fight haunted him long after it's conclusion, first in the very battle itself, his striving to put paid to Dehuai and the summoned god, Seraphic Radiance, and again, months later, when his soul had been washed clean by the sacrifice of his beloved Alice. The nearness of the thing, the near failure, and the near death that dogged his footsteps through Europe, still sent shivers down his spine, and Yuri rubbed his hands together over the fire, trying to warm them.
I know you're listening, he thought. I know as sure as I'm sittin' here. He felt a tingle in his mind, a fluttering of dark wings and his vision blurred ever so slightly as he felt the fusion moving within his soul. This one was strong, it had personality, strength and will, and it was only his own will, his own strength of personality, which kept it in check. And now he contemplated the very thing that made his soul quake in fear, made his mind gibber like a mewling infant. With a sigh he rose, looking once more around the dark kitchen, as if sealing the picture in his mind, of this place and time. Then he took the stairs out to the hallway and left, making his way out to the main gates.
He paused on the dirt road, looking down over the dark valley. The wind from off the sea blew cold, whipping his coat around his legs, and he sniffed, smelling the tang of salt on the wind and, looking up, he saw dark clouds forming on the horizon. It would rain again before sunup, but now it was cold and clear. Overhead, the stars winked at him, their pinpricks of light a dazzle of crystals in the velvet black of the sky, and Yuri hoped he'd see them again. With one last look around, he called on his fusion, letting the power and might of Seraphic Radiance join with him as his black wings opened and he took flight.
The cold wind of November lashed over his naked body as Seraphic Radiance flew out over the Irish Sea; below him was the grey boil of the ocean, while above was the black basalt of the night sky. The waning moon was a sliver in the east, and the pregnant storm clouds moving in from off shore were a bank of black cotton. Unconcerned, he turned into the wind, feathers fluttering as the wind tore past him. Higher he climbed, losing the clouds and ocean in the fog of distance; the world was beneath him, the puny lives of man and beast, playing out their mundane stories, was beneath him as well. Gone were the ties that bound him to this world, as was the warmth and caress of human flesh. Now, space beckoned, the cold blink of icy stars, the path to his journey.
Finally, he leveled off, the air nearly gone in the thinness of the mesosphere; the crackle and fire of the aurora danced over his head, a greeting to the God out of Shanghai, and Seraphic Radiance let a smile play across his face as he looked down on the earth, slowly spinning beneath him. In the east, still in darkness, lay Shanghai, the very place he had been drawn to this world. And the very place he would return to it.
With the flip of one ebony-feathered wing, the Seraphic Radiance moved eastward, the atmosphere burning past him in his flight. Light and dark and light again whipped past him, the stars in their heavens streaked past as well, and the land was a blur of motion until finally, finally far below, was Shanghai. And for a brief moment, a fleeting heartbeat, the Seraphic Radiance and Yuri hovered above the Asian continent before plunging down into the darkness of China.
His world exploded, the light and dark of their passage, the thrill of flying without thought, became an enticement, a candy for his delight; and when he reached the upper layers high above the earth, he let it go... he let control loose on his most powerful fusion. And he knew a moment of total elation at his near infinite power before he knew a matching moment of total fear. What had he done?
Darkness - all around him like a soft blanket. Yuri opened his eyes and saw the true darkness that was within as well, and shuddered. He'd let the Seraphic go, just like that. And it took them somewhere, some when... What had possessed him? What thought had pierced his stupid brain to let the Seraphic Radiance control them both? And now, now look at him! He kicked out with one booted foot only to feel... what, nothing? Ah, shit.
But there was substance beneath his boots, and he could walk and he did, stomping his booted feet on the dark nothingness that was his ground. He stomped and stomped until his feet stung, tingling in their boots and he snorted at himself for being such a fool.
"Okay, where the hell am I?" he asked the darkness and the darkness replied with silence. "Fuck me," he muttered and the darkness responded with images of madness.
Blurry, insubstantial, yet solid images, that when he reached out with his fingers, bruised his hand, his arm, his mind. Startled, he blinked and the vision changed – suns, moons, stars, all circling around in perfect orbits, like drawings in a notebook – and he frowned, wondering where he would ever have seen such a thing to know what they look like, then remembered, he'd had some schooling with the village kids back in China. But this, this was more along the lines of what he'd seen in the notebooks of Roger Bacon and suddenly the visions changed again, and he felt an answering pressure. Confusion, anger, awareness, and a sudden wrenching as he was flung upward, the darkness of before now a scream of flashing lights and senses-shattering color, exploding, merging, blending into sickening forms before exploding again and again. Sick to his stomach, Yuri fell to his knees and retched.
The child was ill; he could not take the visions of the world, the world as seen by the eyes of God. Poor pathetic thing... rolling on the ground like a toy. A thought, and the boy rolled to one side, his arms and legs flung out in confused abandon; another thought, and the child now flew into space, his body a mere speck. How amusing. The boy was here now… he had always been here now… but the now was changing. Voices spoke God's name, magic's called God forth and wrenched open the skies, pulling God out to stand judgment on the summoners.
Yuri was tossed and tumbled in the darkness; he had vague memories of having done this before… wasn't he swallowed up by the god in Shanghai? The memory of that great city, engulfed in the rosy red flowers of flame, suddenly replaced the darkness that had seeped into his mind. Now he saw the great city, laid out below him with its inhabitants in their hundreds of thousands. Small, insignificant little things, why did they have to bother him now? He was trying to get his world in order, to settle things down to one image, one memory, one damned soul instead of eighteen. Wait, why so many?
Oh, damn, he thought, there's that boy again. He's there. Waiting. I'll just go have a look-see. Yuri went to the gate and stood by the posts, watching as the young boy came to the fence, trying desperately to squeeze through the bars of the gate. Behind him, his form swirling in darkness, the first fusion pursued. Yes, yes, nightmares were always pursuing him. Now however, it would catch him. Yuri watched as Death's God grabbed up the child and swallowed him, opening his mouth to breathe out black breath that stank of graves and cinders; it enveloped the screaming ten year old, and Yuri looked down at him and laughed silently. He reached up and adjusted the mask on his face, a feeling of self-satisfaction replacing the confusion of earlier… wait, when had he been confused… oh, right, when his mother had been killed and his father had left him and he –
He felt the pull of magic and turned toward the gate; its once black solidity now wrapped in white mist. Curious, he stepped through the bars, not feeling the cold metal at all, and made his way to the main gates of the graveyard. Yes, there is something just on the other side, he thought. If I step through…
The fields were wrapped in the same white mist as the graveyard, the sky a diamond-speckled coverlet, but the earth was cold and damp with mist. He looked around and saw the derelict building and a glance behind him revealed the sluice gates gurgling in the dark. He looked down, and saw a shadow rise from a nearby fire and he grinned.
"Heh, at last we meet."
The shadowy figure resolved into the boy, a little older than before, but still younger, less experienced, ripe for picking.
"Father?" he asked. "W-what are you doing here?" and the boy reeked of fear.
He gestured at the sleeping girl next to the now smoking ruin of the fire.
"You should thank her; it's because of her power that I am even here." He gazed down at the sleeping girl. "So beautiful; you don't deserve her."
"What are you talking about? Stay away!"
The boy was filled with fear and Yuri could smell it; like blood, like sex, it was intoxicating, and he leapt at the boy, summoning his own dark fusion and sending the child to the ground, bloody and whimpering.
"You're pathetic," he said and came over to use the toe of his boot to flip the young man over onto his back. Looking down, he could see the unshed tears on the lashes, the pain held in the chest like a talisman, the fear oozing from every pore. "How the hell did you ever make it this far? You better get yer shit together or I'll kick yer ass again."
The younger man rose from the smoke of the front gate, his eyes wide and vacant. He smelled of fear again, and he stumbled to the gate, past the mausoleum, Yuri watching him. The inner gates swung back and he stumbled in, falling to his knees on the grassy knoll. With his fingers, he began to dig at the ground, pulling handfuls of dirt and grass back with every rake of his fingers. After a few times the gloves shredded and he used his fingernails to gouge the soil. Disgusted, Yuri joined him, squatting at his side and watching in silence.
Finally, he rose and offered a hoe to the silently digging young man.
"Here, dig," he commanded and then leaned back against the old gnarled oak, his arms folded across his chest, the warmth of the autumnal setting sun glowing orange against his green army coat.
Time passed, he knew that, but how long was long, how much time was time... he grew bored. He began teasing the hapless idiot forever digging his grave. Gods but he was slow! One time he took the hoe and broke it in twain offering just the stub back to watch the younger man struggle with just the bits. Stupidly, stubbornly, idiotically, he continued to dig, and Yuri noticed the subtle points of tears on the idiot's lashes.
"What? You crying, stupid? You did this to yourself! You've only got yourself to blame!" and he took the opportunity to deal some painful judgement on himself, leaving the younger man to bleed it over. "Stupid fuck."
The last thing he expected was the girl. Oh god, she is so beautiful. Now why he'd forgotten she had come here... She paused at each of the graves on her way to the mausoleum, gently touching each cold and dreary stone as if reading the souls locked within. Finally, she moved on, stopping at the mausoleum, speaking with those damned cursed masks; he could hear her soft voice and the cruel, vicious laughter of the masks – curious, he approached the gate, leaning closer to the posts, and half-invisible in the green coat.
"You wish to sacrifice your body, your heart, your very life over to the lad?" one of the masks asked, that floating ego that was the Staff Mask. Alice looked around, confused.
"The boy's soul is seeking death... retreating to the memories of his childhood; a place with no suffering, where no one can hurt him," the mask replied, this one a sword and shield. Yuri hated that one the most and at its words, turned back up the hill to his plaything.
"You hear that? She's coming to help you, you bastard," he said and aimed a vicious kick at the younger man's ribs. "You don't deserve her you fuck! You mess up everything you touch – she'll sacrifice her soul for you and you – you! – will you have the brains to figure out how to stop that? Will you? Will you?" that last was punctuated with another kick and then, in disgust, he went down the hill behind the tree, waiting for the inevitable. He knew what was coming and dreaded it. He didn't mind fighting his own soul, relished it as it gave him payback for his years of stupid suffering. But he'd have to face Alice again, and that hurt. He loved her; he missed her – and he wanted nothing more than to be home with her now... but they weren't married now, they weren't a couple now... now he was a stupid idiot groveling on the ground, praying for death because he was an egotistical fool and tried to save Shanghai from a god.
He heard her footsteps and her soft voice behind him, and listened as she tried to reach him. No, he wasn't trying to save Shanghai. That was the problem. He was half trying to show off to the girl and half trying to die – to be with his father. Well, in a way, he succeeded. He almost died. But the god spat him out again like a bit of rotten meat, left him deaf, dumb and blind to the world while his soul retreated into the oblivion of memory.
Reaching down, he pulled up a blade of grass, twirled it around in his fingers, remembering those past dreams. The thing that kept him going all those years alone – the idea that he'd find his father... he knew damned well his father was dead, had hoped otherwise even until Zhuzhen confirmed it. How else could his soul fusion have begun? His mother's blood running over his fingers as he tried to push her guts back in where the zombies had disemboweled her... The fire of his blood awakening, the first fusion exploding out of his mind and heart like a demon of vengeance and he wished, he prayed, his father would come home. But of course, he hadn't and so he'd begun his years of traveling; fighting, working in gangs, being a thief... taking the hard road more than the easy one. Where had it said his life had to be hell? Where had it been written that he'd have to pay for the sins of the whole fucking world? Was he supposed to be the sacrifice? His life, the crucible?
Yuri shook his head, the sudden cry of "Stop it right now!" in Alice's raised voice catching his attention. She was there, now, trying to get that stupid boy's attention. Well, enough of this! He climbed to his feet and stepped out from behind the tree. His younger self was wiping the sweat from his brow, looking in bewildered pride at Alice.
"Heh heh, aren't I a good boy? I've got to help dad any way I can," he said and Yuri wanted to put his fist right through that stupid face.
"This is not a garden," Alice cried, her voice full of anguish over Yuri's condition. "You're digging your own grave!"
"And do you think he's worth all that?" he said as he came around the tree, and then stopped, looking down at Alice. His heart leapt into his throat, he had trouble breathing for a moment, and he almost missed her shouted comment.
"You, you put Yuri under a spell, didn't you," she said and her ice blue eyes looked up at him accusingly.
"Now wait a second here. He chose to dig his own grave," and Yuri laughed softly. "I only helped a little." Yuri came down the hill to stand in front of the beguiling young woman who had saved his soul so long ago. "He's a failure, he failed to protect his mother, he failed to match his father, he failed in Shanghai… What's left of him just wants to crawl in a hole and die. I'm only helping him, see?"
Alice gestured at him, her arms encompassing both Yuri digging his grave and the Fox Faced man. "You're his father! Why do you make him suffer so?"
Yuri snorted and walked down to the digging youth, his arms folded on his chest. "I'm not making him suffer. He's a frightened little weakling. He thinks all the monsters he has fused with will devour his soul. What an idiot! 'I don't want to turn into a monster!' he screams every time he fuses. He'd piss his pants if I let him. He can't bear the dark fate of a harmonixer," he said with scorn.
At his feet, the younger man stopped digging, wiping his sweating brow once more before looking up at him. "Dad, how much do I have to do? Should I keep digging?"
"Deeper, idiot. Dig deeper!" The younger man began to dig again and Alice moved in, hesitantly. "You are responsible for everyone's misery! So much regret – so many lies-" Yuri raised his fist to smash the boy again but Alice intervened.
"Yuri is not weak!" she cried. "There's still hope and courage left in him; he's a fighter," she said just as Yuri's fist came down and smashed into her cheek. Yuri felt instant horror at his actions, the anger he was feeling toward himself, the truth of his own words coming back to wrench his heart and soul… how could he hit her, he thought, his mind screaming deprecations at himself.
The Yuri digging his grave looked up suddenly as Alice hit the ground hard. Her words, mixed with her sobs, were garbled, but they came clear when she looked up at the masked man.
"You wouldn't understand! You can't believe in anything!" she exclaimed and Yuri shook his head, puzzled.
"You – you cry for him?" Yuri said, still warring inside from hitting Alice, and wanting to punish the young harmonixer for being such as ass. To his surprise, the young man tossed aside his hoe and climbed out of the grave, scrambling to Alice's side. "What do you think you're doing?" he asked. "Keep digging!"
But the youth ignored him, offering a hand to the beautiful woman at his knees, dabbing at the blood that seeped ever so slowly from her cut cheek. And Yuri, watching this, suddenly wanted to kill the stupid boy; a jealous rage filled him and he leapt at the younger man, flattening him to the ground, punching him in the face before pushing off and giving him a kick to the ribs.
"Damn it!" he yelled. "You touch her? You turning against me now, you fucking idiot?" Yuri was angry and not caring anymore if what he said made sense. He wanted to flatten his younger self, teach him the errors of his ways, how the stupidity that he had lived with his whole life was a lie, and all his fault! But the younger man climbed slowly to his feet, wiping blood from his lips with a dirty arm.
"You," he said through gritted teeth. "You're not my dad…"
Yuri watched in amazement as the younger man suddenly stood straighter, his shoulders pulled back, a look in his eyes of both life and hope. Hope. The one thing he'd lost and never thought to find – and Alice gave it to him, freely, with her love, with her kindness and with her soul. Suddenly he looked up at his younger self and laughed bitterly, just as the younger man's fist met his face, cracking the mask in two.
"Yup. No problem! No matter how many times I lose, or collapse, or spit blood… As long as I have my life, and as long as I don't give up… I can always stand up and fight again!" the younger man said and the graveyard spun around them, and they faded from view.
Yuri, lying on his back in the graveyard, merely laughed as the graveyard blurred, shifted and finally faded away.
A/N: Well here it is, the next to last chapter. We finally got here. Stay tuned, the few of you braving this long piece.
I want to thank those who have read and reviewed; it's been a kindness for a strange story. I also want to thank AriesCelestial, whose initial idea spawned this mother in the dark recesses of Miko's mind. Gods help us all!