Annastasia

23.

Interlude: Lengthening Shadows

"Annastasia, are you all right?"

"Yes." She adjusted herself more comfortably on the concrete block she was sitting on. "I'm all right." Her demeanor spoke volumes to the contrary, but Conon didn't know what to say, and it would be difficult to work her out of it. She was probably trying to console herself and repair her shell to avoid showing any weakness in the wake of her assertion, and she wouldn't be the only one. Forefront on his mind was her vowed vendetta against the Skullheart and something in him felt exhausted just thinking about it. Next year, she had said, she would go hunt down the Skullheart to destroy it. She'd do it again seven years later, a century, even a thousand years down the line.

A year could pass quickly. A few haircuts, the humdrum of work, maybe the achievement of a personal goal or a passing tragedy. Seven years? Conon felt that was insurmountable all on its own, no matter how old he was. At his age – a ripe sixty-five, unless one counted his unfortunate mishap when touching the Something – the years came too quick, yet somehow felt like they could drag on and on. There was a little dull fatigue starting to build in his legs, an occurrence he had taken notice of very recently. Looking around for something he could sit on, he couldn't find anything nearby that was either suitable or close enough amid the wrecked worksite. He stood for a while in silence next to his daughter before finally saying embarrassedly, "Could you make a chair for your old man?"

Without a word, Annie banged the Something against the concrete block she was sitting on, and a perfect replica procreated next to it out of thin air. After she casually set it to stand upright next to her with only one hand, Conon gratefully seated himself on the second concrete block and nudged her. "Thank you. I mean, you could make anything you want but decided to settle for what is essentially a big chunk of rock–"

"Don't put on airs, it doesn't suit you. Besides," she said as she nodded at the gathering refugees and assorted townspeople, some out of curiosity and others who were inspecting the damage down to the work progress. "Might be a bit too late to be inconspicuous, but a perfect mahogany rocking chair in the middle of a warzone would be suspicious."

Conon laughed at what she said, believing that it was a joke, though she was only being sarcastic; she wasn't in any mood for humor. "Rocking chair? Funny! But isn't this a rocking chair?" He shifted on the block, and it moved back and forth. "See? A rock-ing chair?" She didn't laugh, and he only became more awkward, wondering if she got his jest. "Because… It's a chair. But because it's concrete, it's also a rock… And I was rocking it…" He trailed off into silence as she stared at him blankly, the man becoming more self-conscious by the minute. "Good goddesses, it's started. I turned into an old father."

"So that's where your sense of humor went," she said dryly. "I only meant that the chair would be out of place."

"Yes, I took it too far," he added quickly. "You know, I've never worried about senility, but now I'm starting to worry that it's already shown up. If I became senile, would you tell me?"

"I did tell you. You just don't remember."

"When did you… Ah, there it is!" he nudged her again, and she allowed him a tiny grin. "Mean, but that's more your sense of humor." Getting her to smile was a difficult feat in a time like this, and he would accept any positivity that he could get. It was when he stretched his legs and heard his knees pop that he realized that he primarily should not have done so. "Well, I'm not a grandpa. I'm not. Never will, but that's fine. You give me so trouble that I've already grown all the gray hairs I need already." She wasn't smiling anymore, but he didn't need to look at her to notice that; he knew he was moving into somber waters. "Growing up is hard to do, Annastasia. I'm sitting here, trying to figure out this mess, my bald spot's getting bigger, my knees want to go on strike, and now my daughter's declared war on the Skullheart for an eternity."

"It's not your mess." She said annoyedly, "It's not your life, it's mine. Don't worry about me, I can take care of myself."

"You've been doing so much of that," he stated. "It's been twenty years. What are you? Thirteen? Fourteen? Or thirty-three or thirty-four years old? What do I call you? How do I treat you? Pick your age, and I'll talk to you that way."

"I'm fourtee–" She paused. "I don't need you to be nice. If you want to lay into me, then tell me how you really feel about all this."

"Annastasia," he said grimly, "that was the most goddess-awful you've ever done since trying to wish your life away, but this is at least a hundred times worse. Has handling that meteorite addled your brain? I hope so because you wouldn't have a single excuse how you could do and say something that unbelievably stupid!" The girl looked away, badly appearing as if she wanted to get up and when she shifted, he grabbed her hand. "Sit down! Don't you dare try to run from this!"

His grasp was something she could throw off easily, but she stayed, and although Conon would cite parental veto authority as the reason, he was sure that it was something else but didn't know what specifically.

"This isn't a playground. This isn't some fight for a turn on the swings and throwing a fit when you don't get your way. This isn't so trivial and passing: you could cry, you could fight, you could throw dust and stones, yell at the boys that you'll hate them forever because they didn't give you a turn and muddied the seat out of malice, but you'd still go back the following week as if nothing happened, and completely forgetting about it by the next month."

She didn't reply and continued to wait on her prompt. So he's talking to me as is, and I'm getting my ear chewed off as a child.

"Warring with the Skullheart? It could be as old as the world! Why would you challenge it like that? Why fly into its face?"

She had that answer ready, having followed the setup. "Since it won't leave me alone, I won't allow it an inch to relax. And as far as I'm concerned, It can die with the world when I'm ready," she said heatedly. "And it's about time someone challenged it. I can't be the only one tired of all the Skullgirls and dead ones who keep running amok every seven years."

"Just being alive is challenge enough to its evil. If you're going to keep the Rock, then you have a duty to not only protect your life but also the Rock from the Heart, not wave around and show off ultimate power in its face! It's planned this far – who's to say that we're not still in some elaborate plan? What if it sends someone else who CAN hold it? Why should you think that just because you can hold it, you're the only one? That there couldn't be anyone else? At any time, it could grant another wish like your mother's own, and send that person after it."

He raised good points, but she refused to concede them. "It defeats the purpose of putting so much investment in me. If there could've been someone else, then I wouldn't be the one sitting here with the Rock, and that monster wouldn't have been the one I fought, or at least not the only one. Speaking of that, you just saw me! I can handle myself. I could do better than that! Stronger than that! If I had more time to think and prepare, I might even find a way to get rid of the Heart once and for all. I thought you'd encourage this! You hate the Skullheart as much as I do."

"Well, I'm one who's all for dying in peace –" She gaped at him, but he wasn't finished, "– don't give that look, it's not as uncommon as you think! Everyone's afraid of dying. Maybe their soul isn't right with the Goddesses. Maybe they don't have all their debts paid, and it'll pressure their loved ones. Or they're just afraid of eventually getting turned into the Skullgirl's minions. Me? I have constantly worried about your safety for twenty years, and you know how I'll die? I'll die worrying that you'll never be safe for the rest of your life, and once that closes, the entire world will be doomed because of your carelessness. To think that I fretted less when you were a hemophiliac before your mother's wish!"

"It's pointless," she said matter of factly, a stubborn reminder that was prolonged by the spherical smoothness of the Something. "Have you forgotten? Everything came from Nothing. Besides, what in life is guaranteed, anyway? Shouldn't you just make the most of it?"

"That's for people who say life's short. That's for people who intend to live fast and die young. That's for people who aren't immortal–" Shifting on the concrete block, she turned her back to him, "–Look at me when I'm talking to you! Do any of those sound like you?"

"But it is pointless," she reaffirmed, "so now I'm biding myself for the Skullheart. That's what I'll do. I haven't got anything else. I don't have anything else! Or are you just going to tell me to 'keep myself occupied, just keep trying'? You're vague!" she shouted. "Because you know I don't have anything else to do. Goddesses," she breathed tiredly, "this is just the interview all over again…"

"If only I had enough foresight so that I could have warned you about wishes: you just might get what you want. You wanted to find out your purpose, and here you are. You're sadder than ever," he said stoically. "So you made a new one for yourself, and set yourself up for an eternity of hurt."

"And you're so smart!" she said rudely. "Always predicting something bad will happen, and what, are you so much better because you're always right? Look at you! The smartest man I know! You get so much done! Just look around the worksite: everything moves because of you. Our house here that they're getting ready to build on the hill? All you had to do was point! You're always right, always so perfect." She folded her arms. "Never missed a guess, good at inventing, you're always busy. You have it all figured out, and I envied that. I wanted to be like you. But how could I be like you, how could I fill your shoes? How could I measure up to you? You've always had your purpose right there in the palm of your hand." She was angry and gesticulated the Rock towards him. "If only you could be supportive now that I've got mine."

"No one ever really knows their purpose. It's an existential question," he replied. "They just do what they want."

She folded her arms. "Then let me do what I want."

He shook his head. "But you don't approve of what I do. And you won't let me do what I want." She gave him a perplexed stare, but didn't ask; he continued regardless. "Your mother told me to take care of you."

Instantly like a shock of cold water, Annastasia recalled the night when her mother was killed by the firing squad, gunned down just outside the bedroom where she had been lying on her deathbed. She hadn't seen it but had heard everything so clearly that she might as well have. "She did say that, and you have taken care of me as best you could, I won't deny it. But haven't I already proven that I don't need you looking down over my shoulder all the time? This isn't homeschool, and this is isn't you checking my arithmetic."

"But–"

"It's my world out here," she interrupted, furthering her point. "I'm still younger than you, but I've seen more than you, I've gone through more. I've met more people, been to more places, and I've fought more than my share of fights." It was a Venn diagram of sorts, and Annie was certain that her experiences trumped his. "You don't fight for me. I protect you. I even help put food on the table–"

"I watch," he said quietly. "I held you as a baby. I have watched when you finally started to wean off your mother's breast, and I cooked your first porridge – your mother was worn out, and tired of the incessant nipple biting. I watched your first steps, taught you your name, your first word. You were five, and confused. You thought you had two names and wanted to learn 'Annie' instead because it was easier. I heard you pick up your first swear at your bedroom window, muttering that you wanted to play like everyone else but couldn't because of your blood. I watched you walk right out the door and get yourself maimed before ending up on Gregory's bed. I watched you dying. None of the medicines and tonics were working." He was stating facts and driving home a point, and Annie couldn't ignore it however hard she tried.

"Yes, you watched. You didn't feel it."

"I didn't nearly bleed to death. You were. You were feeling it. You were bleeding to death, and I was losing my daughter." His tone was cracking, words getting harder to let go. He swallowed everything down; he wasn't going to get overly emotional with his daughter. She'd gotten too many reprieves from him because he was too soft on her. She was spoiled: she easily ruined her few relationships, jumped to condemn others, and hated when others rebuked her even when she knew she was wrong. She was self-driven by her goals, which in itself wasn't terrible, but it made her self-serving and selfishly ignore how other people were affected by her actions. He'd thought that she had changed in the aftermath of District 15, but it was a temporary one that was as passing as a mood. She had to be chastised, but no matter what, all he could see was his daughter, who hadn't aged a day above being his little girl.

"You were dying, Annastasia, but all you said was that I shouldn't worry, that everything was all right. You weren't. It wasn't even a brave show. It was just…Hollow. You were dying, and I just watched, as you said. But don't worry. Why don't you make me a knife, let me slit my own throat right here. But don't worry, it's not your pain, is it? You can just watch."

The girl saw his point but didn't want to try to call his bluff or admit that he was right. "Don't be foolish. It's unbecoming."

"Your mother said to take care of you," he replied, echoing what he'd said earlier. "You put yourself in danger over and over again, and all I could do was watch. It's not my pain, is it? Just kill yourself. And me? I'm old, I haven't got many years left. Make a gun or something, or that knife like I just said. End it all here, get it out of the way. It's not your pain, is it? You won't care. Just watch."

Annie snapped, "Of course I care!"

He shook his head. "It's all you talk about, but you don't care. If it's not suicide now, it's some form of self-destruction otherwise and all I can do is watch! If only you weren't so selfish! Not even 'hello daddy, I'm going out to fight a monster, I might declare war on the Skullheart, goodbye'. You just do whatever you want. I know you come first in your own agenda, and you've always been like this. Lying, keeping things to yourself. The manipulation! You even used your best friend just for a stupid wish that you knew that he wouldn't approve of, running off multiple times during your house arrest – don't you think I didn't know! I thought you'd grown since then! But you still insist on getting caught up in situations that you could've just as well escaped or avoided instead of worsening things. "

She said bitterly, "I'm just a terrible person, aren't I?"

"And all I do is watch," he repeated, his logic coming full circle now that she had seen how things stood from his point of view. "Your mother said I should take care of you. I've never had a purpose, either. It's always troubled me, building a weapon that massacred nearly near a third of the nation–" She grabbed his hand suddenly, silencing him momentarily as she looked around. Both the Satori sisters were distant and milling around the power plant entrance with the refugees, trying to get things under control, the controller of the two massaging some torsal ache. "–What is it?"

She didn't say, wasn't sure if he should be cautioned or not about Amara's hatred for perpetuators of the Amalgamation war. Regardless, it reminded her that she did care about whatever should happen to her father, and it only reinforced his point. "Nothing. I do understand what you're saying, daddy. You're worried for me, daddy. But I'm not about to let that Heart go in peace after all that it's done to me."

"Then you don't understand. As I've said, I helped kill so many just to pay for your medicine, to keep you fed and well taken care of. That was all still before your mother's wish. And then she says I should take care of you. Up until then, I never once wondered what to do with my life, but I used what Annaliese said as my purpose. My purpose became what she wanted, and it became what I wanted too. To take care of you. It's been twenty years. You've been miserable, but so have I. And as much as I want to take care of you and try, I have to watch as you put yourself in danger over and over again. It just doesn't STOP!" His yell was sudden and provoking, and it startled her. "First few years, I thought everything was fine. You'd grow up, you'd get a job or you would work with me or Gregory, move out, marry and settle down. That was all I had to do, take care of you throughout childhood until you matured into an adult who could look after yourself. Instead, you remained young, and I keep getting older, and things keep getting worse. I'm going to die without ever really seeing you taken care of, and safe. So tell me, do you think I don't feel anything just by watching you suffer?"

"No," she said quietly. "As long as I suffer, you suffer right there with me, every step of the way, and I've always known how it made you feel. I'm sorry, daddy. I don't mean for you to worry, and I don't want you to feel bad about what I do and the choices I make. I reacted in anger, but I'm not going to take back what I said or how I feel. It's setting myself up for a lot of pain and danger, you think I'm not ready for it – maybe I really am not – but I at least promise to be careful." She looked down at the Something in her hand. "If anything should happen and it looks like the Heart might get the Something, I'll imagine the explosion of creation, and destroy the Rock."

He looked at her as if she was insane. "That'll kill everyone. It'll wipe out the universe to how it was to recreate it from scratch."

She knew that and didn't need to be told. However, she was willing to compromise to coerce him to agree with her."How about I don't make a move against the Skullheart as long as you're able to tell me not to?"

"So long as I'm alive, you won't fight the Heart?" It was the closest guarantee he could get that she'd keep herself out of harm's way so long as he was alive, and once he died, he wouldn't be able to worry anymore about what she would be doing. "But killing everyone on Earth isn't fair. Annihilating the universe isn't fair just because you willingly put yourself at risk in the first place."

He was right. Her proposal was as selfish as she was, and she always had been. "I think of it as a win. When everything's gone, the universe can have a fresh start without that damned Skullheart. I fight it, I win. If it should ever beat me and I destroy the Rock and everything, I still win. The Skullheart can't win, and that's all I want. That's my purpose, and I decided it for myself. I won't die for the Skullheart to use, and it'll never get to use the Rock's power."

He'd only gotten her to see things from his perspective, but she hadn't changed her mind. "Just look around at all these people, the community! This country, even the Canopy Kingdom and the Gigans. Everyone there, laughing, playing, working, socializing. They're going about their lives. You're going to kill them? The entire continent? The world? All worlds, who knows if there're lives on them–"

" –There's sure to be life on other planets in the universe–"

She'd only supported his point. "–But you're going to kill them too? Unrelated to ours, you're going to wipe the entire slate clean just because of a single mistake that you intend to make? And what if destroying everything is what the Heart wants? What if it wants to start over in a universe from scratch? Why can't you be reasonable?"

The more he argued, the more he started to convince her and she didn't want to let him. She tried to tune him out and when he realized this, he petered out into something that sounded pitiful. "I'm well aware that when I die, I won't be able to advise you, take care of you, warn you of the madness you're throwing yourself into. I'll be dead, turning into dust," he said pointing at the powder that the monster that his daughter had killed had been reduced to. "Just like this thing here. So long as I'm alive, I keep the world turning? What kind of responsibility – no, what kind of a threat is that? I so much as choke to death on my food, or one wrong shortcut and bump into a cutthroat, maybe even slipping and cracking my head on a table and that's it? As soon as I'm in the ground, the entire world's going to start circling the drain?"

It sounded terrible when he phrased it like that, but she wouldn't be dissuaded. "It's not a threat. I just want you to know that I'm safe. I'll never be used by the Heart again. Isn't that enough?"

"I only didn't want you to become the Skullgirl and destroy the world. Now you're telling me that you'll skip the process and make the ending a thousand times worse."

Her annoyance easily multiplied, as the girl had no desire to dwell on the morbid topic. "So don't destroy the rock and everything else? Fine. What if I promised that I would just settle down instead somewhere to hide from the Skullheart, live with some disguise for the rest of my undying life in an uninhabited corner of the world? I'll sleep with one eye open. I don't make friends that could talk about me, and I avoid the neighbors. How do I make money? Maybe I'll steal, and I'll live in abandoned houses. I could make some food. Just empty, tasteless fruits and veggies without nutrients while I waste away. Is that what you want?"

He looked down, unable to answer. It was true. She was an immortal child, and she would be unable to evade notice for long without her mentioned drastic measures. She'd likely live on her own in terrible places and have to fend for herself, probably ending up stealing like an orphan street urchin – She would be an orphan street urchin, he thought – despite having the Rock as her ultimate resource. He didn't have any rejoinder, and she settled. She was going with her first prerogative, and there was nothing he could do to convince or stop her. All she'd done was serve to shake up his priorities and aims with her dismal outlook, but he felt that he could still do some good. He had to try.

"So you'll stay safe as long as I'm alive?" he muttered. "Because you acknowledge that it worries me? But it's not enough to keep you from fighting the Skullheart because you know that it will come after you and the Rock?" She didn't respond to the rhetorical. All he could do was either allow her to do what she wanted or sentence her to live in dereliction, and both would be mutually inclusive if she wasn't careful. That had never changed. He would die worrying if she would ever be safe, worrying if she was eating properly, wearing warm clothes, and had a roof over her head. The task that his wife had left him had become his purpose, but he would fail. He might've already completely failed from the start, fate or not.

How could he keep her safe after he died? How could he take care of her needs when he was gone? He'd just lie in his grave, silent and sleeping as he waited for the world to come to an end, whether achieved by the Skullheart's doing, or the utter destruction of the universe by his own daughter as she sent it hurtling back to reset.

Annaliese, how can I take care of our daughter? What can I do? She won't listen to me, and I can't tell her to do otherwise, that's no life for her.

The sunlight was bright but not too glaring as it reached mid-afternoon. He got up off the concrete block and once more stood beside her to repeat what he'd said in the beginning, "Annastasia, are you all right?"

"Yes," she lied again, "I'm all right."

"Good. That's good." He didn't believe her and had no reason to. It was his purpose, he thought, to fix that. He had very little time to waste. With that, he ambled off, watching his lengthening shadow crawl before him through the ashes and dust of the worksite. He looked at it intently, thinking of how much it resembled him. It had started out crawling; once a man, twice a child. It'd had an entire day to look forward to. After its beginning, it would grow less dim and sharper with a tight concentric. At the peak of the day, it was at its most controlled with no loose and languid movements, light bright all around it. After that, it was all winding down from there, slow and indolent. The shadow would be content to move at its own pace as if it had all the time in the world when the exact opposite was true. Finally, at the end of the day when it was at its longest, the shadow would simply fade into nothing as the light vanished, gone without a trace to suggest that it had even existed.

For now, the shadow was still here, fleeting as the sun started to set, wanted to set, but not quite yet. The shadow was long and close to the evening whereupon nighttime would follow, but it was still here. Suddenly, it stopped walking and turned to look at its sun before continuing on, staying in the light as much as it could and wondering how to keep it shining.