"Ryu," Yua suddenly asked as the siblings stood alone on the shore, watching the waves that had carried their father crashed and break against the sand, "tell me a story."
Her brother was silent for a moment and then began, in a voice that seemed unaccustomed to tale-weaving, "Once, there were two siblings…." He stopped and cleared his throat. How long had it been since he told a story? Too long, he supposed. His composure regained, he began again, "Once, there were two siblings, devoted to one another, as the moon was devoted to the sun.
"One day, the curious little sister vanished, but the brother never stopped believing that they would meet again. Along the way, the brother made many friends, but none of them could replace his little sister. He even fell in love, twice actually, but still he wanted to see his little sister. So he never stopped hoping, even if he stopped looking.
"Then, many years after they were separated, the brother and sister were finally reunited, and it was a joyous occasion. They laughed, they embraced, they cried, and rejoiced. Their friends were just as happy, and shared in their joy. The brother hoped that they would all remain together, forever, for they were like a family.
"But it was not meant to be. Some friends died and the others mourned. The brother and sister survived it all, the sorrow and the hardship. But always, always, the brother prayed that the little sister could be spared such sadness. He always, always prayed that they, at least, could remain together…."
Ryu Bateson looked over the three most important women in his life, unable to shake the feeling of destiny swirling around them all. They slept in the saddle, so to speak, straddling the neck of the Great Bird as it brought them ever closer to the Bateson siblings' hometown of Gate.
The young ranger felt strange about that. For so long, Gate seemed more like a dream than a memory. More than once in his life did he wonder if Ganer and his mother, Valarie, were even real, or if he had always been alone. Such questions could drive a man mad, yet even if he could never see his parents again, he never once doubted that he had a sister.
For so very long, the memory of soft blue eyes kept him hoping, hoping against all reason and logic, that the past was real. And now, it was becoming…too real.
We could die today, he thought. All of us could die today. Whatever lies for us in Gate…that is destiny.
It disturbed him, to embrace destiny. He kept his perturbation hidden, buried beneath the confidence of the Dragon. But in a kernel—now a growing kernel—of his heart, he hated it. Always, before Mina and Suzy, before Augus and Katt and Nina and all the other troubles that dogged their every move, Ryu had forged his own so-called destiny. His life had been his own, his path paved by his own hands, his mistakes his own to make.
Fate was a cage.
But now it was one he locked himself in willingly, no matter how much it made him squirm in the deepest recesses of his heart.
As he watched the women slumber, he wondered why. Looking at Katt's winsome grin, hearing Nina's soft sighs, and beholding the calm across Yua's face, he found his answer. If fate meant that things were predetermined, then maybe—just maybe—some happiness was predetermined for them, at least.
"I am the Destined Child," he murmured into the wind, "and I can do anything."
The Great Bird, the only one to hear his musings, cawed in reply. Ryu let himself fall into slumber as well, for he would need his strength. He trusted in the Great Bird—in Mina—to see them safely.
The hours passed, but in dawn's young light, four youths appeared on the back of a giant eagle, eyes shining—every one—with determination. Below them, Gate. Beyond, their destiny. Minutes later, having landed and sent the Great Bird away, the four made their way through the town that was once a home.
But it was empty. The buildings, long since fallen into disrepair, seemed terrifying and haunted. Yua shuddered. Ryu ground his teeth. The sense of evil and sorrow was palpable in this forsaken place. What was once home was not even a memory anymore.
"Someone's going to pay for this," Ryu growled, the memories of his lost childhood—his happy, idyllic childhood—rising up like a ward against the mockery before him. Katt and Nina quietly took one of his arms each, squeezing their support. "Habaruku is heading for the Dragon," Ryu said. "He'll be at the mountains."
"Okasan," Yua murmured worriedly. Suddenly, there was a gout of fire spitting into the air, accompanied by an earthshaking explosion and a thunderous roar. The blue-haired girl's eyes widened. "Okasan!" She ran ahead, up an overgrown trail at the edge of town…a trail that was still all-too familiar. The others followed close behind.
They stumbled into the clearing before the slumbering white Dragon…or what had been the Dragon. Where the majestic creature once slept, covering the cave entrance of forgotten secrets, were only its shattered and bloody remnants.
Yua beheld this murder and shrieked, "OKASAN!" her blue eyes streaming with hot tears. She wailed and fell to her knees, burying her face in her hands. Nina went to her, futilely trying to soothe the heartbroken girl. Ryu's reaction was the exact opposite. His green eyes flashed hotly with outrage, and his fists became so hard that fingernails bit into palms hard enough to break the skin. Katt, her hand still on his arm, felt his muscles tense into rocks.
The siblings then saw the cause of their mother's destruction: a man in long robes, who could only be Habaruku, standing victoriously over the now-open cave. His laughter was one of success, of unstoppable success. He laughed and laughed, standing amidst the ichor and meat that had once been the white Dragon. That had once been a wife and mother.
"You killed her!" Yua shouted, her voice breaking. "You killed her! You killed her! I hate you, hate you! I hate you!" Her angry litany burned away her tears, so great and so hot was her rage.
"Yua-chan!" Nina tried to hold the girl, back, but anger lent her strength and she broke free of the slender Windian's grasp.
But she could not escape the Woren's. "Hold it, kid," Katt said sternly, grabbing the girl's wrist and pulling her back. Yua actually retaliated, trying to slap the taller woman. "Don't even try it," Katt warned severely. "That Habaruku just blew up a Dragon—he'll do the same to you if you're not careful."
"I don't care," Yua cried. "He killed my mother!"
"You might not care," Katt retorted, "but Ryu does."
That stopped her. Then Yua collapsed, weeping into the Woren's breast. "Okasan…okasan…." She murmured, again and again.
Meanwhile, Ryu stepped toward Habaruku, strangely silent. But one look into his eyes revealed all the screams he did not utter, all the violence he wanted to unleash. Habaruku saw him approach and grinned. "The Destined Child, I assume," he greeted. "Well, well. It's about time I met you. You can only be here if you killed Ray Braddoc, I assume?" Ryu said nothing. "Ah, it must be so," Habaruku continued on. "It is a shame, really. He was quite strong. I'd offer you his position," here, the grand priest gestured to the gore around him, "but I doubt you'd accept." Again, Ryu said nothing, but his teeth flashed as he ground his teeth together.
Habaruku saw this with an amused grin. "So, what will you do now, boy? Kill me? Revenge yourself on behalf of your slaughtered mother? I suggest against that. Right now, I'm the only one who can safely—safely, mind you—enter that cave and reach Deathevn, the true name of Saint Eva. If I don't go, then all the demons your mother held back with her Dragon body will come out and bring ruin and death to this world. Do you want that on your conscience, Destined Child? Could you live with yourself knowing that, if you killed me, you'll be responsible for the deaths of other people, of other mothers?"
Ryu glared at him hatefully. He replied in a deadly, chilling tone, "If you die, then I'll just have to go in there and kill Deathevn myself."
At this, Habaruku laughed uproariously. "Fool child! Fool Destined Child! You think you can kill a god? Ha, ha! Ha, ha, ha! Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha—urk!" His laughter was cut short as a flame of agony coursed up his belly, around the muscles of his back and sides, and finally up to his head. He stared down in absolute shock at the yard of steel sticking out of his belly. Ryu twisted the sword mercilessly, drawing a wail of pain from the dying priest. Finally, the Destined Child unceremoniously kicked Habaruku off the weapon.
"I'll," he began, then looked back at his friends, who watched the grand priest breathe his last with grim faces. Watching their stern, set features, he corrected, "We'll kill Deathevn. I refuse to let it end like this." He spoke to the corpse, for Habaruku was truly dead. "My mother gave up her humanity to protect this world. I won't let her sacrifice be in vain. None of us will."
He went to his sister and wrapped her in a tight hug. "We won't let mother die in vain," he whispered to her. She nodded into his chest. "We'll avenge her by stopping this once and for all." Again, she nodded.
"We'll help," Nina murmured, laying a hand on his shoulder.
Katt grinned at him strongly. "We've come this far with you, and we love you too much not to see it to the end. Besides," she added, "you'll need the help."
"Then let's not wait any longer," Ryu said quietly, staring into the darkness of the cave before them. Within that blackness, beyond that portal, lay something all the more darker, a god of shadows and vileness. Beyond, lay everything that they had sacrificed to confront. "It's time to end it all."
The four girded on their wits, steeled their hearts, and stepped into the darkness.
They walked into a realm of illogic and impossibility. Walls were floors, up was down, and black was white. Swirling images assaulted their senses, pushing and driving them to madness. Men without heads, women without arms, a myriad's myriad of senselessness and confusion, of vile terror and unspeakable unfeasibility.
But the four pressed on, planting one foot in front of the other, holding on to the only thing that made sense—their own camaraderie. They came together, clung together, finding safety and reality in simple touches and the sensation of a friend breathing down their necks. They were each other's anchor in a sea of chaos and change.
There were other images, scenes from memories not their own, yet revealing nonetheless. A beautiful, blue-haired woman with the wings of a dragon, emerging from the darkness of the cave, filled with purpose and duty. She came to the surface and sealed the cave with a door forged from her magic. She fell in love. She gave birth. When she saw the monsters leaking out of the cave, she let go of all she held dear and slept.
In her place was the Dragon, the slumbering guardian Dragon.
Though no names were spoken, though she was only a glimmer in memory, Ryu and Yua knew that they beheld their mother. Perhaps some part of her good spirit resided in this chaotic place, but those comforting images were another anchor, a guidepost that kept them sane and renewed their own purpose. Holding onto each other, the siblings, with Katt and Nina close behind, marched deeper into the infinite limbo.
And then, the chaos disappeared. As if it had never been.
And they beheld Deathevn. As if he had always been.
He was terrible indeed, as mighty as the greatest Dragon, as horrible and ugly as the most deforming pestilence. Every feature of every nightmare ever dreamt was a part of him: rows of gnashing teeth, unsightly slobber and drool, claws and fangs and every kind of scaly or leathery hide, eyes by the multitude, tentacles and wings by the dozen. The very sight of him froze the friends' hearts cold.
"And so the Destined Child comes," Deathevn greeted in a voice not-quite-human. It reverberated, though there was nothing to reverberate against, except the blackness itself. "Come to defy me, as prophecy has foreseen. But can you do it, Destined Child? The Dragon blocked me from victory once before, but failed to destroy me. Can you hope to do better?"
The friends could find no voice, so stunned were they by the god's very ugliness and power. Every one of them gripped their weapons in shaky hands that were slick with sweat. But they held their weapons still. Nina, her hands aglow with sorcery, was ashen and terrified, yet her eyes were as bright sapphires and as hard as steel. Katt, staff in hand, bristled with fear of her own, but stood firm and even growled in defiance. Yua, armed with knife and claw, trembled visibly, but drew strength and resolve from the brother and companions around her. And Ryu, body as hard and tense as rock, silently held his sword before him.
"Such bravery," Deathevn crooned. "But futile." The knifelike appendages came in, as quick as barracuda, as quick as lightning. In an instant, the four heroes lay on the ground, bleeding, defeated, dying.
Ryu, struggling desperately to breathe through pierced lungs, saw how still—deathly still—his friends were. "No…" he moaned, blood frothing at his lips. "No…NO!"
Something awoke inside him. It felt like the Dragon, but it was not the same. It was something…greater.
With a roar, light shattered the darkness.
The swirling, chaotic images returned, but they were no longer born from insanity and improbability. Now, the infinite limbo was filled with memories of happiness and friendship, of a brother searching endlessly for his sister, of two sisters closer than blood but unable to be together, of two women and their love for one man, of an old soldier who finally found some measure of peace, of a good friend who died without a care in the world….
Deathevn cried out as Ryu reappeared, sword in hand, a sword now impaled to the hilt in the enormous, monstrous body. Logic would claim that the weapon could not slay so large a beast. But logic had no place in a world made entirely from the strength of the heart. Deathevn let out another howl and screamed, "I'll sleep…I'll sleep again…defeated again…watch for me, Dragon—watch for me, Destined Child. As long as evil and darkness live in man's heart, I will awaken again…."
The four stumbled out of the cave, leaning against each other. They were wounded, they were exhausted. But they were alive.
Nina looked up into the sky. It seemed much bluer, more vibrant. "We did it," she whispered in disbelief. Then she smiled and said with more conviction, "We did it." Overcome with joy, she threw herself around Ryu's neck with a laugh, despite the aches of her own delicate body.
"Hey, don't hog him to yourself, Nina," Katt playfully growled, latching onto Ryu's arm and holding on for all it was worth.
Yua draped herself over her brother's other arm and grinned. "Okasan can rest now, Ryu-niisan. Deathevn is dead."
Ryu smiled back, smiled at the two women he held so close to his heart, and again at the sister he cherished. But it was a forced smile. Not dead, he thought, only asleep.
"Come on," Yua said, leading the way. "Mina will be waiting for us. Let's go home." Katt and Nina followed close behind. But Ryu stayed in the clearing, looking at the gaping entrance as if staring into his own soul.
Not dead, he reminded himself. Only asleep.
He knew of only one way to make sure that Deathevn never woke up again. I was wrong about Yggdrasil. The answer he gave me was not an answer at all. It was…it was a destiny. This is to be my answer. Ryu reached within himself once more and stroked awake the sleeping Dragon in his heart. He felt himself change, becoming majestically beautiful, a creature of myth, legend, and story.
When the girls came back to find him, all they found was a great Dragon, slumbering, a guardian spirit over the gates of hell. Perhaps it was a trick of the light, but it seemed that the wyrm had a sorrowful countenance, thoughthat could not beimpossible with its beautiful visage. There were tears, there were wails. There was mourning and sorrow. But one word cut through it all, spoken quietly on every tongue: "Good-bye."
The End