Ch. 22
Luna Mountain, Past the Fourth Challenge: Heart/Void/Chaos
"There's nothing to thank me for. I almost didn't stop myself." Gaga shook his head seriously, and began tucking his shirt back in.
"But you did, and that's what counts."
"I'm not sure I could have, if I hadn't known you were under a love spell."
"Gaga…" Onua caught his arm, stopping him from putting his jacket back on. "…that wasn't a love spell."
"What? But it had to be, that's not something you would have done normally!"
"True, but it wasn't a love spell. A love spell can't be broken by a confession of love; that would be silly!"
"But…what was it
then?"
"A spell of release."
"Release?"
"That's right. Release from restraint."
"From…restraint?"
"Are you going to repeat everything I say?"
"What? Oh, no, my apologies, Onua-san."
"Good. Now then. Restraint is what keeps us from doing whatever pops into our heads at any given time. It prevents us from offending others, and from embarrassing ourselves. When you lack restraint, there's nothing holding you back from attacking your most immediate desire. A spell for releasing restraint doesn't create false emotions or desires; it merely causes you to act on them."
"So, when you were…"
"When I was coming onto you, I really did want that." She released his arm.
"But, but…"
"But that's not all. The reason you could break the spell was because you gave me something that I desired even more, though I didn't realize it at the time. You told me you loved me."
"But if you wanted to hear me say that…"
"It means that I was in love with you too? Absolutely. I love you, and I'm in love with you, Gaga-san."
"What's the difference? Between loving and being in love with, I mean."
Well, it's quite possible to love someone, yet not be in love with them. Like siblings or friends. Romance is the only time you do both." She stood and got ready to go.
"Oh."
"So that's why the spell broke. Now, let's continue this quest. After this, we've got nothing to worry about."
"What do you mean, Onua-san? There's still one challenge left." Gaga stood as well and finished getting fixed up.
"We've had four challenges so far. Fire, Earth, Wind, and this one, Heart (or void or chaos). That leaves Water as the only remaining challenge. And after all…"
She smiled back at him over her shoulder. "'Many waters cannot quench love, nor can floods drown it.'"
Gaga just stared at her for a second, and then, when she moved towards the door again, he darted forward to stop her. "Wait, Onua-san!"
"Why? What's wrong?"
"If you touch the door again, won't you become respelled?"
"I don't think so; it was probably a one-shot spell. Now that you broke it, it won't happen again. Also, it's probably safer for me to do it anyway."
"But…"
"Because even if it does get me, we know you can handle me when I'm like that, so there's no problem. But what would have happened if it had been you?"
Gaga thought about it, and decided that he didn't want to think about it. "Go ahead, Onua-san."
She smiled, and opened the door. "See? Nothing happened."
Gaga breathed a sigh of relief, and followed her through. They continued walking, and the tunnel continued wandering, for another half hour. The whole time, Gaga fought with himself, trying not to pay attention to Onua, to the feelings and sensations and desires that their ordeal had awakened in him. Over and over he caught his mind wandering back to the incident, and to how much he'd wanted to just let it go on. He knew he'd done the right thing, and he had no doubts about how much he'd have hated himself if he'd let it continue. But at the same time that he recognized this, he also realized he hadn't wanted it to stop, and he disliked himself for that.
Then they reached an intersection. The tunnel they were in ended where another tunnel crossed it; they could go either left or right, and there were no indications of which way was best. Gaga moved forward to stand beside Onua, looking down each half of the way. "Which direction should we go Onua-san, left or right?"
"Let me see…we're probably at about the same level as the Mére, so…the tunnel to the right slopes downward. If we want to get back to ground level, we should go that way."
"That makes sense. It would be a good idea to get as close to the ground as possible before exiting the mountain." They began walking, and as they did, Gaga slowly began to relax again. Onua looked at him and said, "Have you noticed that you always seem to agree with my decisions?
"Probably because your decisions always seem to be the right ones."
"Not always, but mostly, yes. I'm not trying to brag, you know."
"I know. You're not the bragging type. With how much you hate flattery, you're not likely to flatter yourself."
"True. Though really, it's not that I hate compliments, I just hate it when compliments are given to the undeserving, even if it's me."
"It's hard to think of a compliment that you wouldn't deserve, especially a compliment to your looks. When I first met you, I thought that you were the most beautiful woman I'd ever seen." He smiled at her, and then caught himself, grinning awkwardly. "Oh, sorry, looks like I'm making the mistake of flattering you!"
"And how about now?"
"Huh?"
"What do you think of me now?"
"I…" Gaga wasn't sure of how to answer that. He decided to simply state his thoughts honestly, and hope that she wouldn't be angry with him. "I still think that you're the most beautiful woman I've ever seen. And not just on the outside. You're intelligent, clever, honest, discerning, kind, practical, and sincere; you're the perfect mixture of pragmatism and spontaneity. If I could describe you in just a few words, I would say that, to me anyway, you're the ideal woman. You delight me with your very presence. When I'm with you, I think that…I wouldn't mind staying human forever, if I could just stay with you. I think…" He paused, "…I'm glad to know you. I'm better for having known you, I want to always know you, I want to never say goodbye."
He turned away, blushing furiously. Onua stared at him for a few seconds, and then spoke softly. "Wow…Gaga-san… that has to be the sweetest, most wonderful thing that anyone's ever said to me." The back of his neck flushed red. "And you know…for an over-1000-yer-old demon in human form, you're incredibly romantic. I do believe that you meant it."
He spun around immediately to face her. "Of course I meant it! You aren't the only one who dislikes false praise!"
Onua smiled up at him. "Then we're well suited for each other, don't you think?" She didn't give him a chance to answer, instead turning and half walking, half skipping down the passage. Gaga followed immediately.
NOTES: I know…weak ending to this chapter, and no new challenge. Get over it. I will now tell you about the last challenge. I got the idea for a restraint release spell from a monster from xxxHolic. The lack of restraint accounts for the 'void' in the challenge. The resulting confusion was the 'chaos.' And it was obviously quite testing to the heart. Originally, I was going to get into it a bit more, but I like how it turned out, much more and it woulda been hentai, which I refuse ever to do. This is about as close as I'll ever get. This chapter was a really good one to, I think. Gaga finally stopped dodging around his feelings for Onua and explored them. Oh, and about his oh-so-incredibly-romantic lines…I mooched them. I read this webcomic called Lint, which is just awesome, and those were like, the coolest romance lines I have EVER read, so I had to use them. Sorry, Lint!
