The water became shallower. When the sun escaped the grasp of the horizon and created blinding reflections on the waves dancing around Shulk's paddles, the boat ran aground and would not budge another millimetre. Metal hid under a film of water, a walkway of sorts that extended outwards. Only a couple hundred meters separated Shulk from the base of the tall construction, and the walkway led there.
He vaulted the railing; here the water only reached around his ankles. But a few steps to his right, the ground he stood on clipped away to reveal unfathomable depths. He thought he made out buildings and streets down there, remnants of a bygone civilisation that had been ancient before the Indoline had developed the first tool to shape this world.
Not a single breeze disturbed the water's surface, the ripples came from his feet when he set them forward. In the distance, the Telethia glid through the sea of clouds.
Shulk took nothing but the Monado replica with him. He wouldn't be needing anything else where he went.
The water mirrored the heavens and created the illusion of walking across the sky itself. Few sounds and fewer scents disturbed the quiet clinging to this place, and Shulk had the strange sensation of wandering into the centre of the world. There was a significance to the construction before him, a purpose he did not understand or could even guess. But when he had crossed the desert of lifeless water, his theory found confirmation: the construction was made out of metal. Plates of steel and other alloys completed the shell by the sound of Shulk's knuckles against the rusty surface. They had enjoyed no maintenance in many years, and plants had rooted in the small holes and crevices between the metal parts. Ivies wound around the tower and saplings that might one day become entire trees. Still the construction had lost nothing of its magic; its apex seemed to reach taller than the sky itself, and no matter how far Shulk craned his neck, he couldn't see the end of it.
This was a technological achievement on an entirely new level; he couldn't even begin to calculate the amount of time and manpower necessary to build a machine this large.
A slit in the metal in front of him caught his attention. A door, most likely. But although the walkway towards it still existed, wind, weather, and the handful centimetres of water washing against the base of the door had messed with the opening mechanism.
When he found no way to activate the hidden gears that had once granted people entrance into the tower, Shulk used the Monado to cut a hole into the door and climbed through. A chill ran through him when the cold air inside attacked his face. But a little uneasiness would not make him falter. Not now, when the end lay just ahead.
The simplistic metal design of the room was familiar, even if the bolts and their arrangement on the wall panels went against conventions found in both High Entia and Machina machinery. Shulk brushed the rusty remains of a handrail attached to the wall.
He knew a bridge above an abyss made in the same style.
A single door waited at the far side of the room. The control panel next to it showed early signs of malfunction, the light of the screen flickered, but the push of a button opened the door into a smaller, circular room. Its ceiling lost itself somewhere in the darkness above. An elevator, not unlike those on Mechonis.
Would it take him all the way to the top of the construction? Shulk was about to find out.
As soon as the door slid shut, the floor, or rather the elevator platform, zoomed upwards. Shulk attempted to measure the number of floors he passed on his way, but he soon had to give up. The plain walls rushed past at a dazzling speed, and the continuous war against gravity the elevator waged upset his inner balance until he retched.
Just when he thought this ride would never end, the platform slowed and spit him out into a room with solid ground. He couldn't have reached the top of the construction so soon; although the dizziness might upset his estimate, he guessed he had travelled to a point half-way up the tower. And the sight supported his theory. Daylight filtered through milky windows, and one side opened up to an outer platform, an outlook of sorts from where one could watch the roaming Telethia. In unparalleled grace, their flippers parted the clouds.
But Shulk barely noticed. His calves trembled and he choked, not because of the elevator ride or the taste of his sparse breakfast resurfacing. No, what he faced now was far, far worse than what he had left behind.
His head was spinning from the pure energy crackling in the room. The ether in his body, that is to say, all of his body trembled as invisible forces pressed against his chest, against his skull, against his spine, until he thought he would shatter, any moment, in the next heartbeat his skin would surrender to the pressure and it would tear him to pieces.
But Shulk's heart continued to flicker and the darkness at the edges of his vision retreated. The pressure on his skull diminished far enough to allow for logical thought. He had become so used to the slow decline of ether in his world that the pure concentration in this room had sent his body into a state of shock.
Because in the middle of the room, like a black, malicious eye, hovered the rift. The same rift that had birthed the Fogbeasts in Alcamoth. Its edges pulsated and, like countless greedy fingers, snatches of fog reached out from the blackness.
And in front of it sat Zanza.
Or half of him.
The rift seemed to have eaten into him, and the left side of his body flaked off into the nothingness. Zanza showed more resemblance to an aging man than the immortal god who had created the Bionis. Thought lines ran between his brows, a hint of wrinkles, impossible for a god. But it was him. Shulk could not have mistaken him for someone else if he had wanted, he knew these pale eyes and the worn-out cheeks better even than the people in his visions. Because the part not consumed by the rift was a mirror image of Shulk's own face.
"Zanza…" Shulk choked on the word, sickened to his core. Never had he imagined to face his demon, his creator, his puppet master, the bane of his existence another time.
Zanza examined Shulk through a sunken blue eye. "Not quite…"
The same voice had proclaimed the destruction of the Mechonis and the doom of the High Entia. His voice.
Shulk's first instinct was to run; flee as far away from this creature, this hellish rendition of Zanza as possible. But he had gone too far in his search for answers. The visions, the Telethia, the clues Alvis had left behind in the Indoline sanctum, all of it led here. Although the ether perversion of the rift burned his throat, Shulk stepped forward.
"Why are you here?" he shouted. "I killed you!"
"You did kill me. Or rather, a piece of me." Zanza motioned at the nothingness where his body used to be. "The simple truth remains that I am dying. Half a man cannot live, as much as I have tried. The process may very well last a millennium or two, but I will depart from this world. Is this not what you wished for?"
Nothing made sense. Was Zanza playing mind games? Or was there more Shulk did not understand, a part of the mystery not yet unveiled?
He shook his head. "I wished for a world with no gods. You shouldn't be here."
"And your wish came true. It is as I told you: I am dying. Like you are dying. Like your friends are dying. Like all living creatures are slowing dying with each day that they age until oblivion and dust is all that they are. That is not the fate a god should worry about."
"I didn't want it to be like this!"
"Then you regret the choices that have let you here?" Zanza asked. "That is… unfortunate."
"I don't understand what you want from me. The visions, the painting at the Indoline island – Did you use Alvis to lure me here?"
"You mean Ontos?" The ghost of a laugh escaped Zanza's throat. It sounded more like cough. "Hardly. The seer who showed the Indoline images of this place was me. In those days, I could still walk among them."
Shulk recoiled. The steel construction of this room offered no warmth and no place to hide. He had been so wrong…
"Why?" he croaked.
"It was my wish to see whether they would try to reach the top of the World Tree in search for the Divine as I once did. I believed they might yet prove me wrong. And now it is you who comes before me as the living error in my prediction. Or perhaps I merely refused to see what was fated to happen."
Shulk didn't understand. The questions he had dragged with him since Alcamoth burned on his lips, but with each word from Zanza, the answers were slipping further from his grasp. The rift lured, swallowed his gaze.
"Then it's all you," Shulk shouted. "You created the rift. You're the one behind the Fogbeasts, and you're using them just like you used the Telethia."
"You destroyed my world. Now I am destroying yours – is that what you believe is happening? Zanza might have followed that logic. I feel little pride thinking of what he, or rather, I did." Zanza – or the creature looking like Zanza – held out his hand. "Zanza was my other half. He became the god of your world, like I became the Architect of this one. But I was making no progress with my creation. The Indoline are a failed experiment, and the more time passes, the more I am certain that they will one day destroy themselves, like humanity did before – but that will mean little to you."
Shulk struggled to comprehend. Alvis had shown him images of the man Zanza used to be before he became a god. In these foggy snippets, Zanza had been a scientist of a different world – this world.
Of course. After Zanza's defeat, Alvis hadn't created a new universe. Instead, he had transported the survivors of Bionis and Mechonis into the old world where Zanza had come from. From where he had drawn the power necessary to accomplish such a feat, Shulk could only guess, but the overwhelming ether currents in this room that strengthened and tore at Shulk at the same time were little more than an echo of that force. The experiment Zanza had conducted must have worked on a scale far, far above Shulk's understanding. No, not Zanza. Klaus. And this same Klaus now sat in front of Shulk and claimed himself to be the Architect.
"If you created the Indoline of your own volition, it sounds to me like you are a god," Shulk said.
Zanza – no, Klaus – tilted his head, and a smile raised the corner of his lip. "An interesting point of view. And what does that make you?"
"Me?"
"I am not the one who created the Fogbeasts, Shulk. You did."
Shulk stumbled backwards as if distance could protect him from Klaus' words. The room tilted, and he felt like he was falling, falling through that black rift with nothing to hold onto, no air to breathe, and nothing but Klaus' words echoing through his head. He could never create such monstrosities. Never. He was not Zanza, he was a small, mortal Homs with a stupid wish. The Fogbeast he had fought at the Indoline capital came back to his mind, this disgusting, tortured amalgamation of rage and hunger. And he was supposed to have played a role in its creation? No. Anything but that.
"I would never…" Shulk couldn't finish. His hands trembled.
"Not intentionally," Klaus said. "But such is the nature of your wish. You wished for a world with no gods, but Zanza and the people of Bionis lived in symbiosis. The ether of those who died returned to the Bionis to exist within the great collective until it was their time to reincarnate. But you destroyed the Bionis. The dead can no longer hope to reincarnate. Thus, they are forced to move on to a different plain of existence they do not understand. Humans have always feared what they do not understand. And in some cases, this very fear leads them to perform unspeakable deeds."
"What happens to those who refuse to move on?" Shulk knew the answer. But he wanted to be wrong, never had he wished to be mistaken so desperately.
"They cling to this world. Not as Homs or High Entia. As Fogbeasts."
Shulk's knees gave in.
Not even a hint of empathy moved Klaus' voice. With scientific objectivity, he continued to lay down the facts – the truth behind this world. "They hunger for life, and they lose themselves in regret to the point where they abandon all sense of remorse about the destruction they sow among those who still possess the warmth of life. Humanity has learned nothing. History will run its course, and someone will repeat my mistake of reaching for divinity and eternal life. Maybe it won't be you. But someone will."
Shulk clawed at the floor, but the metal plates offered no support. Why? How had it come this far? Where had he taken a wrong turn, and where had he missed the opportunity to prevent all this? The Fogbeasts where people. People like Teelan.
People like Fiora.
Shulk might have killed one of them when he drove the Monado into the Fogbeast at the Indoline capital. In his efforts to help, he might have erased their last ties to this world. A person, maybe a person he had passed once on the street, someone he had shaken hands with, someone with whom he had gazed at the stars of an old world.
Shulk would never even know the truth.
"Why didn't you stop it?" he screamed, but it was the weak scream of the half-defeated. "You're the Architect of this world, why didn't you bend ether to close the rift?"
Klaus rose his remaining hand, studied it from all sides. "I ask you, is this the hand that should reshape the world? Have I not meddled enough with the power the Conduit grants me? The truth remains that you killed one half of me and so robbed me of most of my strength. I am little more than a tired husk. What do you expect a dying man to accomplish? Nevertheless, I need to thank you, Shulk."
"Why?"
"It is thanks to your wish that this world can continue. I faced an impasse with the Indoline, but you gave this world the ideal material to evolve. It has already begun. A last small involvement of mine before I lean back to die."
Shulk struggled back to his feet. No matter how disgusted he was, he refused to kneel in front of this god, no, this man for longer. "The Telethia… that was you."
"Yes. They may not be children of mine, but they can yet play a role. I merely gave them an incentive to change. From them, life will sprout once again, even without my input. Thanks to you, I know that this world will outlive me. I cannot say that is the outcome I strove for all that time ago, but I have made my peace with this future. What about you?"
"NO!" As foolish as the action might have been in the face of a former god, Shulk took the Monado from his back. He needed something to hold onto. "You told me that I'm responsible for the Fogbeasts, that I'm the one who brought this disaster over my friends. How am I supposed to make my peace with that?"
Klaus narrowed his remaining eye. "Accept the world you wished for. If you refuse—"
"I can't accept it! My visions brought me here to change the future."
"Did they? Or is the future you saw not worth protecting at all costs?"
"No! If I do nothing, the Shoulder will collapse. The boy and the girl will have to separate." Shulk forced air into his lungs. The images from his vision beat against the insides of his skull, each face another lightning bolt, each word another roaring of thunder. "She will die…"
"Maybe. Maybe not. No one knows the future for certain."
"But I used to! If I had known that my wish would create the Fogbeasts, if a vision had shown me this future earlier…"
"Would knowledge have changed your decision? To kill this world before it even had a chance to exist – is that your answer?"
Shulk fell silent. His fingers clutched the hilt of the Monado, ready to activate the stream of ether that would reawaken the blade. He could kill Klaus. A fast slash would finish what he had started when slaying Zanza. Shulk had no one else to blame for the Fogbeasts and no one else to take revenge against for Fiora's death.
Except himself.
He lowered the Monado. The trembling of his hand subsided.
"Let me face my demons," Shulk said.
A twitch ran across Klaus' face. Almost a display of actual emotions. "What do you mean?"
"You lured the Telethia here, didn't you? Do the same with the Fogbeasts. All of them."
"You do not know how many dead souls still cling to this world with regret."
"It doesn't matter. Teleport them here. I know you have the power to manipulate ether in such a way to make it work."
"If I do, you should know that I will afterwards not interfere no matter what happens."
"It doesn't matter. Bring them here."
Klaus regarded Shulk with a change in expression that could almost pose for fascination – respect, maybe. Shulk met his gaze. All the exhaustion and uncertainties had fallen off of him, and his hand held onto the Monado with the reliability of yearlong training. He might not hold the power to change the future. But he could face the black manifestations of his mistakes regardless. Let this be the last great thing for him to do.
Klaus closed his eye. A yellow glow spread from far, far above, the very top of this tall construction, and tainted the room in unnatural lights. Shulk gasped for air. But for a moment, there was no air, only ether in its purest form. The burst of energy almost tore him apart, his essence threatened to dissolve, but he stood his ground.
Then the light faded. Instead, shadows wafted on the left side of the room.
A roar from tens, maybe hundreds of throats made the windows rattle in their frames. The noise came from outside, from the observation deck. Fog smacked against the glass. Black fog with a density it should not possess. Its arms swirled and reached and clawed, strangling each other and fighting for a warmth none of them could feel.
Then they stopped. The individual consciousnesses retreated, wound around each other, and together formed a single monstrosity of black fog. Its featureless head stretched three times as high as the Fog King's. Greedy smog arms reached out for the nearest life form. Where they grazed the roots and tendrils of plants twisting along the tower's outside, the pure energy radiating from the creature set the leaves on fire. Soon the flames licked all across the platform.
The Fog King had been the amalgamation of people dying and refusing to move on within the first year since the fall of the Bionis. Since then, twelve years had passed. Twelve years' worth of regretful souls.
Shulk threw a last look at Klaus. Then he stepped outside to engage the enemy.
26/08/22: Well, well, well, what do you think? Either this chapter left you more confused than ever, or you are finally seeing what I've been building up to all this time with my mad ideas. I just hope it's the latter. I would have liked to give you this crucial chapter earlier, but I pretty much had to rewrite all of Klaus' lines because he was sounding too much like Zanza. He still does a little. Good thing he still has some time to turn into the Klaus we see in XC2.