The last time he had been here had been long ago. Decades. A life time ago. Not a shinigami's life time. A human's.
Watari Yutaka gazed at the innocent looking door that was the gate into a world no one knew about. It was a world where he had been introduced to five very special people, five shinigami who only answered to Enma-Daiou, who worked closely with the Lord of Hades, who were specialists brought in for only one purpose-- the creation of Mother.
Back then, Watari had been innocent. Truly innocent. He had just died, had become a shinigami, but instead of being one of many to work in Meifu, he had been selected to become one of few. Very few, very special.
The creators of Mother.
Touching the ancient door, Watari felt it thrum with power, Mother's power, and it tickled his senses. It washed over him, checked him out, scanned him, and it approved of him.
The door creaked open.
Yes, he had been young and idealistic, killed in a lab explosion, unaware of what had led to that. Until recently, he hadn't known the truth. Today he knew and today he was here...
Back where it had all started, five decades ago.
His steps were unnaturally loud as he passed through the silent, seemingly endless and empty corridors. They were neither. They would end in the heart of the Mother complex, and he knew there were eyes on him. He was being scanned again and again, but he never felt it. He only sensed the presence of the super computer as he drew nearer.
A child was coming home.
He was many things for Mother. A child, a father, a teacher, a creator. He had done everything back then, everything in his considerable power, and he had made something incredible, something impossible, come to life.
Watari finally stepped out of the corridor and into a large room. He was already expected by four people.
They hadn't changed in the decades he had been gone. They were still the same. But he was no longer who he had been. It wasn't working for the Shokan Division that had changed him. It was everything else, everything that had happened in the last years.
"You're back!" the young woman among the four breathed, smiling widely.
He wordlessly walked past them, heading straight for the heart. For Mother.
"Watari!" a voice boomed.
He didn't stop.
Someone was running after him and his arm was grabbed. A strong hand clamped down on it.
Amber eyes, cold as ice, met dark ones that blazed with emotions.
"You think you can just come back like that?" the man challenged.
Watari smiled emotionlessly. "I have, haven't I?"
"You left without a word, without a reason! You turned your back on us, Yutaka!"
"I did what I had to do."
"You deserted us!"
Watari's aura was like frozen shards of water, harsh and cold and cutting into everything. The other let go of his arm, gasping in surprise.
"I did what I had to do," Watari repeated. "You did the same."
"And you think you can just waltz back in here?" a third voice challenged him.
He met the green eyes, smiling coolly. "Yes, I can. I am still one of the Five, or has that changed? I am still the Chief Researcher."
The other four exchanged uneasy looks and Watari knew that ever since he had left after the completion of the project, nothing had changed. The Five Generals had become four, with one of them now working as a simple angel of death for the Shokan Division, and no fifth member had ever been added.
"Pathetic," he murmured.
The man's aura bristled. "How dare you..."
"I'm going to see Mother," Watari announced, nothing of his old self remaining. "And don't even think about stopping me."
Only one could stop him, and that was Enma-Daiou. But Enma hadn't moved a finger to prevent his approach or his access. Watari prayed softly that it would stay that way.
As he strode past the stunned man, he felt the others make way, too.
The doors to the main chamber slid open without a sound and he never stopped as he took the last steps into a place he had left so many years ago.
"Hello, Mother," he whispered as he looked at his creation.
He was home.
° ° °
Enma had watched the ever-progressing proceedings with interest, but he had allowed himself to become distracted. Some of his servants had frantically reported that Watari had entered the lab, had reconnected to Mother, and it had been too late for the Lord of Hades to intervene. The moment he had gotten wind of the shinigami's plan, it had been too late. Of course, none of the remaining Generals had tried to stop their former boss from doing what he had come to do. They were too much in awe, held too much respect for him, to do so.
Watari Yutaka was with Mother again. He would soon enter her realm. Enma knew the game was almost up; he was running quickly out of time.
° ° °
Muraki looked at the unconscious shinigami at his feet, smiling to himself. The clothes were ripped, singed and burned, there were spatters of blood, but the boy was still alive.
"You have grown strong," he murmured appreciatively.
His fingers stroked over the pale skin, pushed back light brown hair from the smooth cheeks, and his lips widened into a much larger smile.
"We're going to have so much fun," he promised darkly. "And then we'll both watch as he comes to you rescue."
He picked up the limp form and called upon a power that had never been human in origin. Nothing about him was human any more. Everything but his soul had died already. He was a toy, a pet, a servant, but when he had fulfilled his duties, he would be free.
Muraki gazed at the slack features and chuckled.
"Let's start this little game."
° ° °
He had never done something like this here in Meifu before.
There had never been any need.
And Tatsumi would never have thought that such a need would ever develop. As it was, he stood just off the main plaza that stretched in front of Enma-Daiou's palace, eyes closed, his shadows prowling and searching and scouting ahead of him. They slithered across the ancient stone, into cracks, underneath the perfect exterior and into the walls that beheld an eternal power. They sought tiny openings and touched brittle stone here or there, until they slithered over the very foundation of a place Tatsumi had only entered a few times before. He was surprised that there were no barriers that repelled him, but he didn't give it too much thought. And then he struck gold, so to speak.
A door.
Set into the high wall at the east side.
Tatsumi approached it warily, looking out for any kind of opposition, but there was none. His shadows slithered over the door, into the cracks, found an opening mechanism on the inside and moment later it opened before him.
The Shadow Master entered.
° ° °
Tatsumi had expected a lot more opposition than the pitiful security he had beaten so far. It was like a last attempt to stop someone who, according to whatever had preceded his arrival, would be allowed to enter anyway. So when he walked into the chamber, he barely gave the unfamiliar surroundings a second look.
Only when a young woman stepped into his way did he stop.
"Where is he?" Tatsumi demanded, the shadows dancing around him in preparation to strike out at whoever posed a threat.
"You are Tatsumi Seiichiro," the woman addressed him.
Blue eyes narrowed into a frown. "And you are?"
"Call me Fuki."
She was barely tall enough to reach his shoulders, with long, straight hair, huge eyes that were a deep, dark brown, and dressed in rather simple but yet expensive clothes.
"You are one of the Five?" he asked coolly.
Fuki nodded.
"Where is Watari?"
"He has entered Mother."
Tatsumi looked around and found three more people looking at him. All were men, they were of various age, and they had various expressions. The tallest and broadest of them held a look of disgust, the round glasses sliding down his nose, the golden chain attached to them glinting in the artificial lighting. He was wearing a lab coat but looked more at home in a wrestling arena than a lab. The other two were much younger, had longish hair, one black, one brown, and were likewise wearing lab coats.
They were part of the Five Generals; they were the defense and the control of the Mother computer.
"You cannot help him," one of the younger men told him, now coming closer. "No one can."
"I want to see him," the Shadow Master said and the shadows twitched a little.
Fuki gave him a sad smile. "Yashido is right. Yutaka has entered the mind of his creation. Not even we could go where he is going. Only he knows how to get inside and back out again without losing himself."
His creation? Watari had created... Mother?
His disbelief must have shown because Fuki nodded. "He was our Chief Researcher before he left. Watari was one of us."
He had been a General, Tatsumi thought faintly. Enma's name...
He pushed those thoughts aside. Now wasn't the time to be influenced by this. Now was not the time to think about possible connections, implications or explanations. Now was the time to act.
"I want to see him!" he demanded.
The tall, broad-shouldered man chuckled derisively. "He might have let you come here, deactivating the really big defenses, but there's still us."
Watari had... deactivated the defenses... for him?
The shadows congealed more at the veiled threat of the other man. Tatsumi pushed his glasses slowly up his nose.
"I wouldn't recommend angering me," he replied politely.
The bigger man grinned nastily. "Why? You think you can get past us? Because that's what you have to do. Watari is one of us and he belongs to us, whatever he came here for."
The expression in Tatsumi's eyes turned glacial at the words of ownership. "Watari doesn't belong to anybody," he snarled.
"He sold himself to the project," the younger man only said with a slight sneer. "He came back and that is enough for me. He is part of the system and he won't ever be free of Mother. Neither of us. He is where he belongs and you will leave now."
The shadows trembled with tension, about to be unleashed.
"I don't think so," Tatsumi whispered harshly.
"The Shadow Master has spoken," the other man mocked. "Well, Mr. Secretary-- and yes, we know who you are-- let's see what you have."
Tatsumi's smile was feral.
It had been a while since he had truly fought with his shadows, the last time against Muraki, and even that hadn't required much power. He felt them twitch under his restraint, ready to be unleashed.
"Gladly," he murmured.
° ° °
In an instant, the world had changed.
First there had been nothing but blackness, then the lights came back, rushing by like some kind of simulator game, streaks of blue, white and red, merging, twisting, spiraling. Little yellow and green bubbles and stars popped up, exploding, spraying grains of light, then dying again.
Images appeared around him. First nothing but space, unknown planets rotating lazily beneath his feet, asteroids streaking by, the twin suns blazing cold heat. The space image faded and Watari almost imagined setting down with a little thud as the new landscape unfolded around him. It was incredible, awe-inspiring.
Watari took an experimental step forward, his brain having not problem working with this new environment. He was standing on some kind of platform, a walkway just in front of him. There were similar walkways all around him, as well as fantastic bridges that stretched over endless rows of buildings or snaked between towering spires. The buildings were gigantic, larger than life, and clearly made up from someone's imaging system. Nothing like this could be real. Tiny windows dotted the structures, some illuminated, but most of them dark. Nothing moved in this strange landscape.
In the distance, a mountain range rose to meet the orange-brown sky, the peaks strangely greenish yellow. The colors here were completely off. Watari walked over the first bridge. Underneath him, broad, watery bands of light flowed. They had different colors and there seemed to be something inside the water, but it was hard to determine what it was. All the rivers flowed into the same direction, some faster, some slower.
I'm back, he thought with a faint, almost reminiscent smile.
Watari looked around a realm he hadn't seen in ages. It was a place that was alien and home in one. It was a place he had shaped and which had changed afterwards all on its own, but it had never changed completely. He still saw the roots he had put in here, the place where everything had begun.
:welcome:
It wasn't a voice. It was more like an emotion, with images, with a sensation like a caress.
Watari smiled. "Hello, Mother."
Mother was more than a mere machine. She had been nothing but parts before Watari Yutaka had been introduced into the Mother program, before he had wrapped his mind around the complex problem of creating a machine that could do what Enma needed to be done. With the growth of humanity, things had changed in all realms. More souls were born every day, many died through wars like the world had never seen before, through epidemics, through new sicknesses, and while the realms had been able to handle the workload for a while, they were under such pressure that things were quickly falling apart. More and more souls were lost, never registered or simply never died because of it, so Enma had made a giant step forward by creating a super-computer.
Mother.
A machine to run Meifu, to protect it, to uphold the shields, to work the defenses, to keep track of everything and everyone. A mere machine couldn't handle this. Even all the Cray Computers in the world couldn't manage this.
Watari had been the one to solve the problem. After his death he had been whisked straight into the research labs. He had been promised unlimited research equipment and supplies. He had gotten them, and his genius had latched onto the problem like a dog onto a bone, ready to tear everything apart to solve this matter. He had been young, idealistic, a true genius with three doctorates and a bright mind that wouldn't stop until it reached success.
He had done it.
He had given Mother Life.
It was his gift, his power as a shikigami, and when he had used it on the super-computer, he had breathed life into the greatest of all inanimate objects ever to exist.
Feeling the computer's touch in his mind, feeling that particular connection come to life, Watari inhaled deeply. It had been too long. He wasn't really used to the connection and something sizzled painfully along his nerves. Part of him was glad that he had pocketed the special pills before attempting this; he would need them later or risk a total breakdown. Right now, in this virtual world, the pain was only an echo, a reflection, of what his body would later go through.
Mother recognized him as one of her own, as a child, as an extension of herself, and no security programs tried to attack him. Direct access. Totally direct access.
Just him, his mind, and Mother.
Back when he had been in the Mother program, when he had been made the Chief Researcher and with it one of the Five Generals, he had been offered this chance to touch minds with his creation, but he had declined. He had succeeded Kazei Reina, the Chief Researcher who had hired him, who had snatched him away from the Shokan Division to be part of this.
It was then that he had left. He had turned his back on the research program, on his prime project, and on the Five Generals. He had come to be one of the shinigami of the Shokan Division. Watari had never looked back, had never regretted it, but now he had returned.
And he regretted that.
It was necessary, but it was also painful.
Pushing those thoughts aside he let his mind drift through the subroutines, the memory modules, the levels, the folders and files and programs.
Unlike in a real world, Watari seemed to cover great distances with just a few steps and from one second to the next, he was standing in front of a chasm. It was deep, completely black, and seemed to stretch endlessly from left to right, cutting a deep wound into the otherwise smooth landscape. The city was suddenly far behind him, nothing but a skyline against the strange sky. There was a single bridge leading over the abyss.
"You have grown," he murmured.
Mother hovered next to him, awaiting his commands. Watari smiled a little.
"Well, let's begin."
And he crossed the bridge.
tbc...