Blah blah blah, technicalities and crap.
Fujishima Kosuke owns AMG and its characters. I own Xerangref (previous statements about using him stand). Not sure who owns s-CRY-ed, but Kazuma, Kanami and Ryuho are the property of whoever does.
A/N: Certain events and plots are hinted and somewhat revealed in this work. If you haven't read at least up to or past volume 19, you may be confused at some points.
I honestly have no idea how long this fic will be, it depends on whether or not I believe it's finished.
I'm trying to figure out the best way to continue this. I have many many ideas in mind, but only one can be used.
Happiness' End
End of Chapter 21:
"Moi? What do you take me for Urd, I wouldn't attack a wounded man. It is not my style."
Urd raised her eyebrow again and muttered, "Yea right."
"If you wouldn't mind explaining what exactly happened, si vous ple?"
"I guess you deserve to know…since you sort of like Keiichi too," Urd motioned for Peorth to come into the kitchen and pushed Skuld along with her. It was going to get very interesting after Peorth learned of what happened.
Urd only hoped that Peorth would leave Keiichi alone for a while before trying to worm her way into his broken heart.
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Chapter 22: Trial, Sentence: Love?
Two days had passed since Peorth had arrived. That meant one more day till Belldandy's hearing with the Council of the Heavens and Kami-sama. Apparently, there was more to it than that, according to Peorth.
"I will be leaving demain to be present at Belldandy's hearing."
"Huh? I thought it was only the council and Kami-sama overseeing it?" Urd asked while looking at her with suspicion.
"Normally, yes it would be. But under these terrible circumstances, things have been altered. No goddess has broken a contract as revered as Belldandy's in all of Heaven's history. Thus, Kami-sama has asked that all goddesses under wish-granting duty attend to give input. It's tres mavais, non?"
Urd just stared at her while Skuld was fidgeting. If all of the personnel of both the Goddess Relief Office and the Earth Help Office were going to be there, it was bound to be a huge ordeal. Not only would those people witness all of what happened, rumors would soon spread about Belldandy.
Things could get out of hand after everything was said and done. Nasty and untrue rumors could be passed around about Belldandy. Belldandy was highly praised in the heavens as being one of their best, but how would that hold up after this? Not only against Belldandy, but against her sisters as well.
It was then that Skuld decided to exhaust all she could before fully giving in to letting Belldandy be publicly humiliated.
"Peorth, take me with you tomorrow! I want to run some scans and tests that cover the temple ground and onee-sama before the hearing. It might help if something else is found that everyone overlooked."
Now, Urd turned to stare at Skuld. Even though both of them had seen what Belldandy had done, Urd twice, Skuld still harbored hope that something must have been wrong with Belldandy at the time. That gave rise to certain questions Urd had locked away as well. Maybe something was wrong that day…maybe Belldandy was under the influence of something, like with Mara's last attempt to split them.
At least with that train of thought, things seemed to be more logical than with Belldandy just up and betraying Keiichi.
"Ah, oui le petie, I will take with me if you so desire. Something important is on your mind, non?"
Skuld nodded and looked at Keiichi. Even though she still disliked him to some degree, she hated seeing him like this. It was as if he lost any and all desire to live after he had seen Belldandy.
Urd nodded at Skuld, "Look kiddo, if you find anything, let me know too. I want to see this stupid thing resolved as quickly as possible."
Skuld looked at her sister and nodded again. She was going to at least try to make things right again.
For Belldandy's sake…and for Keiichi's sake.
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For the rest of the day, Skuld was still trying to gather information from her small console computer, which was her private link to Yggdrasil.
During this time, Urd was no where to be seen. However, a certain goddess was having the time of her life.
Peorth was ecstatic when she had found out that Keiichi would obey her every command and whim. She made him do various chores; cater to her needs and much, much more. She had stopped at the brink of getting sexual though, not wanting to take advantage of the state the young man was in.
That didn't include massages though. She had him work on her neck, back and even legs and feet while as the day progressed. Even if he was out of his mind, literally, he still had a gentle and caring touch, trying not to hurt Peorth while he was working.
Nothing any of the goddesses did would snap him out of his funk. He had showed small progress with each passing day, but it was very slight.
Peorth had called him off and was now resting in what was formerly the Tea Room. She also had to respect the privacy of Keiichi, even if she didn't want to.
Peorth sighed. Tomorrow was the last day she would see Keiichi in a while.
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Skuld hadn't slept a wink last night. She felt fine in the morning, urged to try to find a plausible explanation for Belldandy's actions. She couldn't find any information on her console, due to not being anywhere near Yggdrasil with her outrageous link-up.
Skuld walked around before making a small breakfast of eggs and toast, with a scoop of ice cream on the side.
Skuld was going to talk to both Urd and Peorth when she heard a low moan and thump come from Keiichi's room.
Fearing the worst, she ran into his room to check on him. What she saw disturbed her greatly.
"BIG SISTER URD!"
Urd came running into the room looking around suspiciously, she was about to say something when she noticed the panicked look on Skuld's face and where she was looking.
Urd followed her eyes to see Keiichi laying on his futon, as normal. Then only problem was that there was blood everywhere.
His pillow was soaked with blood that was slowly dripping and oozing out of his ears, nose and the corners of his mouth. In addition, he was crying what seemed to be tears of blood. His face was contorted in a look of anger, sadness and pain as he let loose another low moan.
Urd was immediately at his side.
"Skuld, get something to clean all this up, I'm going to try to figure out what's wrong."
Skuld nodded and ran out of the room to the kitchen looking for a cloth to wet down and clean Keiichi with.
Urd began her scan and check up of Keiichi and found something odd. She could sense part of Belldandy within him. An empathic link. He was feeling everything she was. Urd could also sense a strong feeling of adoration and love from within Keiichi.
The feelings radiating from the young man were the only good news she had. Looking past those, she could sense something happening within Keiichi. Something that many goddesses did not see in the past, or wished to witness at all.
A war with the mind, body and soul.
Keiichi was at his moment of 'Awakening.'
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Skuld left with Peorth on time at roughly 8 am, despite what she had seen in Keiichi's room. Urd had insisted that it was better for her to try to go to Yggdrasil and find a solution rather than sit at the temple and worry about Keiichi.
Urd had claimed she had experience with what Keiichi was suffering from, but Skuld doubted it. What she had called it… 'The Awakening' …had made Skuld doubtful. She had heard very little about the topic, but knew that it was quite dangerous to any being that went through it. It was a struggle between the mind, body, and soul after something had shocked the human body so badly that it threw it out of whack. Few survived the ending process, because the parts did not become the whole again. A person would lose his or her mind or soul in the process.
It was too late for any regrets now, as Skuld sat at her private console in her quarters typing away like a madwoman.
She had to find a cause, and the easiest way would be to look at Belldandy's overall profile from the last week. That would give her all her physical and mental patterns as well as magical and non-magical.
In there, somewhere, Skuld had a hunch that something would show itself.
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Peorth arrived at the Great Hall shortly after making sure Skuld was situated in to her search.
She sighed as she knew what was coming. Hearings and trials both tended to be very long winded, political and formal. It was an annoyance whenever a single god or goddess was called into one.
Now, with one standing on charges, both full staff listings of the GRO and EHO there, which was the most unheard of in history. Trials and hearings were supposed to be private and intricate matters.
Peorth took a seat and looked towards the center of the auditorium. Belldandy was already standing on the pedestal, waiting for things to get underway. Peorth could sense and see that Belldandy was both nervous and upset. Both were obvious emotions for her; nervous, because nothing like this had ever happened before; upset, because she had not been permitted to be near, touch or even to watch Keiichi while waiting for her hearing.
Peorth felt a twang of compassion and fear for Belldandy as the meeting was called to order.
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Black. Pitch Black.
That was all Keiichi could see as he came to. He felt odd, and then noticed he was floating. Looking around, he could also see two other figures in the darkness with him. Barely outlines in the vast realm of darkness.
He turned his head to one as it seemed to moan and shake its head. The figure also followed the steps Keiichi had taken when he first awoke in the odd place, then saw Keiichi and seemingly floated over to him.
Keiichi received the shock of his life as he saw himself. Both looked surprised. What was even odder about it was that the figure in front of him had a strange symbol on his forehead. 心 was clearly visible above the other Keiichi's eyebrows; the kanji script for 'mind.'
"What the hell is going on here, and why do you have the kanji script for 'body' on your forehead?"
Keiichi looked at the mirror image of himself, "That's what I would like to know, you have the same thing for 'mind' on yours."
Both of them looked at each other with confusing while the third figure seemed to stir and join them, "That's because you both are the embodiments of the mind and body. For what it's worth, I'm betting that I'm soul, right?"
Both of the other Keiichi figures turned to look at the newcomer, and nodded in assessment to his question.
"Well, we're all Keiichi, or he's all us. So why are we here? What purpose does this serve?" Keiichi's Soul spoke.
"Well, I'm sure we all remember what happened when he," Keiichi's Body pointed to his Mind, "seemingly shut down and left."
"Hey, what the hell was I supposed to do, eh! We all saw the woman we love almost getting it on with that dirt bag Aoshima, how else was I supposed to react?"
"Well, it's obvious that we're here to try to sort that out, don't you think? Can you feel Belldandy as well?" Both Mind and Body nodded, "I'm guessing she's pretty messed up right now, despite what happened."
"Yea, but what about her fear? I can feel that she's scared…really scared," Keiichi's Body noted.
"So what? You both saw along with me what happened, why should her feelings change anything? Of course she's going to be scared when we wake up and ask for an explanation—"
"If we wake up," Keiichi's Body noted.
"Yea, sure, whatever. All I know is that I feel pretty uncomfortable with what's been going on lately. And you," he pointed to Soul, "screwed things up when you took over and saw her off. What's she going to think now, that we're just a big push over? That we'll just completely forgive her?"
This soon sparked a rather heated debate between all three parts. Mind was dead set on trying to make everyone sweat it out while Body and Soul were both for stopping the foolishness that was going on and returning to Belldandy.
After what seemed like a long period of time, all three were just staring at each other. Mind refused to give in and change. He was always the most stubborn of the three.
Suddenly, a strange shadow appeared.
"Oi, what the hell are you doing, eh! Get off your ass and fight!"
All three figures turned to see a strange looking man with three horns on the right side of his head, and a strange looking device on his arm. His right eye was yellow while his left was an orange color. His auburn hair was up and spiked as he walked towards the three.
"I said, what the hell are you doing! Answer me, damnit! Are you just going to give up? Not going to fight at all, eh! What a waste of freaking time!"
"Uhhh…who the hell are you?" Mind spoke up for the three looking at the strange man oddly.
"What?" The strange figure looked at all three and then looked around, "Ah shit! Wrong freaking dream again! I have to get Kanami to be more accurate…or maybe she's stalling because she actually likes that bastard Ryuho."
All three looked at the man with confusion.
"Aye, sorry about this. I'm actually looking for someone else. Trying to get a friend of mine to transfer my feelings and thoughts to him via her dream links, but it seems she keeps screwing up. Either way, none of you back down from a fight! That isn't the way to live! Just giving up your desire and will is the cowardly and foolish way out. Later!"
As suddenly as he had appeared, the strange figure disappeared.
Both Body and Soul looked back at Mind, who had a thoughtful and strange expression on his face.
"You know what…he may be right…"
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Urd was suddenly pulled away from her program and thoughts as grunt came from behind her. She was watching TV in Keiichi's room, using his old black and white TV. It was some time around 10 pm, but she was determined to see it that he had company to see his trial through.
She turned and expected to see that Keiichi had just shifted slightly or had a pained look on his face.
However, she was shocked to see that Keiichi was sitting up, looking around his room. He heard the noises from the TV and turned to look at her.
For the first time in almost a week, Keiichi looked straight at Urd. She could see that things had obviously gone far better than hoped in his stage of 'Awakening.' His eyes were clear of any fog and completely focused on her with a look of determination.
"Urd, what's wrong? You look like you've seen a ghost."
Urd broke down and started to shed a few tears of happiness as she saw Keiichi back to the way he was. That, however, soon stopped with one simple question.
"Urd, where's Belldandy? I need to talk to her."
That simple line brought Urd back to reality. She was going to have to explain everything to the young man. And that meant even more pain.
He deserved to know, though. He needed to know. After all, his love was at risk.
A/N: I have no idea why I threw Kazuma in there at all…I just finished watching s-CRY-ed earlier today and the idea just came to me while I was eating dinner. What if an outside force unknowingly helped Keiichi? Well, there you have it.