Chapter 22: Mirror, Mirror

It was a long quiet walk back to the Aurora household. Mew spent that time thinking of what to say when he'd get there. He wasn't very good at serious talk, he knew and accepted that.

And everything Kairi had opened up to him, it was entirely by accident. He tried his best but she was a diary covered in pad locks. But now, having heard something he probably shouldn't have, he couldn't just laze around thinking about it. His heart told him to try and be an open ear, even if he'd mess it up.

Back at the house. Gabriel was still gone. He must have been busy with personal matters. It didn't matter. His priorities lied inside the house.

Mew pushed the door aside and Auris was waiting for him yet again by the stairs. Mew pointed up and she nodded her head. She then silently withdrew as though she was but a ghost.

Mew went to the stairs and took one step forward before sighing. Once he got to the top there'd be no turning back until he felt he said his piece.

"I'm really not ready for this..." Mew whispered with his left hand locked in a vice on the railing. He looked back expecting Auris to offer advice cause, y'know, she's Kairi's mother! But this was clearly meant to be a solo operation.

"I'm going in." Mew bucked up that little bit of determination he needed to finish the climb to the second floor. He'd been here once, the night before. There were four rooms. Three bedrooms, one bathroom at the end. Kairi's room was the middle one.

Even before he was at her door he heard a whimper that sounded like hiccups. Mew had only left her for twenty minutes but she was coming off as a person who had drained hours worth of tears from her eyes.

Painful memories were dredged up for her, and Bobby left little room for privacy. Again, Mew knew he couldn't take back what he heard, but he also couldn't let it go.

He gathered his thoughts and hoped they'd form a coherent idea eventually. Then, he raised his knuckles to the side of the door, and took the first step by knocking.

"G-Go away!" She yelled in a muffled voice. He head was under a pillow, and Mew could visualize pretty well that she held it down tight to better absorb her tears.

"You're going to suffocate if you keep that up." He successfully got the pillow off...by having her throw it out the door into his kneecaps.

"...Good start." Mew picked up the pillow and turned to sit his back to the door. He fluffed the pillow under his arms and against his chest. He then let her get a few more tears out before saying anything else.

"I really think we need to talk." He really had nothing better to say than that.

"Go! Away!" She doubled down on her stance but for every bit her anger grew that cry for help fought even harder to be recognized.

There was no greater weakness for Mew than a cry for help. Then, the clouds in his head started to part, and his body firmed up like solidified iron.

"I don't think it'd be possible for me to leave," Mew cracked a mild joke that was mostly serious, "I mean it. We need to talk."

"...W-What is there to talk about? I'm...I'm fine." No, she was not.

"You can't run away, plug your ears, and hope the problem vanishes," Mew turned his head back and said, "Talking things out is the best form of medicine."

After a minute of silence Kairi replied, "You don't know the first thing about what I'm going through! You think you know everything, b-but you don't!"

Mew closed his eyes and replied, "You're right. I'm very stupid. I've never seen the inside of a classroom until this week, and everything I learned was beamed into my brain via a 32 inch screen."

"...But I don't know what it is. What...makes me the way I am. Whenever I look at someone and hear them speak, I can tell what kind of person they are. If they're good or bad. Sad or happy. And I can't ignore these feelings. I...don't want to ignore them."

There was some more silence before Kairi could snap at him bitterly, "S-So what?! You don't understand my pain! You don't even care that you don't have a family!"

That hurt. A lot. But that's the thing about grief. Sometimes it drives people to say things they don't mean. Thus Mew couldn't feel angry at her for long. Especially seeing as what she said was the perfect bridge for Mew to cross and meet her on.

There was a slight sorrow weighing on Mew's mind as he responded, "I do have a family."

"But...you said-"

"I said my parents were dead. Lost them when I was five-years old, so I barely remember them. Guess I just...didn't get a chance to form enough of a connection to care."

Kairi didn't reply. Mew took that as a good sign. He rolled his shoulders back and sighed. Then he laughed, his tone dry.

"Its...really complicated to explain but, I have a twin brother. His name's Riku. He's got the same powers I do, same hairstyle, same body..." Mew looked up at the sky, "I know this is going to sound crazy but...I only knew him for a day, but I miss him. Like, a lot."

"It was the first time I had someone who was just like me. But...he had a job to do and...I had to let him go. Nowadays I imagine he's out there doing Elemental Overlord stuff while I..." Mew lightly scratched the side of his face, bit his lip, then swung his hand away.

"My point is that if I feel like this after knowing family for a day...I can't even begin to imagine how it feels to have lost someone you knew all your life. Especially since, from what I heard, you were really close to her..."

Mew started to stand, the pillow at his hip and one hand rested on the door, "Nobody's alone in their suffering. But you also can't hold it in forever. And if you don't want to talk about it with me, then there's always Gabriel and your mom."

He patted the door twice then slid the pillow into the room and finished with a smile, "But if you do need me, I'll be here."

She wasn't going to say anything else so long as he stuck around. So, having done what he set out to do, he went back down the stairs.

There he found Auris waiting for him at the same spot as before. As he passed her his eyes looked to her face. She was abnormally calm as she smiled at him.

Mew didn't even consider that Kairi wasn't the only one affected by Shina's disappearance. He stopped and turned to Auris with a downtrodden expression as he began to say, "Auris I-"

"Stop," She put her hand up and closed her eyes, "I don't need your sympathy, nor do I deserve it."

"But-"

"Has that demon still left you believe that I called you here to act as my tool of vengeance?" She wasn't going to let him get out a single word edgewise.

She put her hand down and strolled over to the drawers. She opened the middle one and pulled out a framed picture that she kept close to her chest.

"You do everything you can to give them a happy life. But a mother's love isn't some invincible shield keeping their children safe. There comes a time when they have to be entrusted with their own futures."

When she closed her eyes a single tear was forced down her cheek and onto the picture, which she then put away. She held her hand upon the lip of the drawer and spoke, "I trusted my daughter with her choice knowing full well where it'd lead and who it'd hurt."

She leaned her head back to look at Mew and asked him with an empty gaze in her eyes, "How does your heart judge me, Mew? Am I good, or evil?"

She was a difficult person to judge. She intentionally shrouded herself in a veil of mystery, and only seemed to open up her true self on rare occasions. But right now when Mew looked into her eyes her tiredness towards it all after two-thousand years finally caught up with her, and she could no longer hold onto her facade of a smile.

Mew closed his eyes, propped one hand against his right pocket, then gestured the other out as he slanted his body and sighed, "I don't think you're a bad person Auris."

"Hmm..." She propped herself upright and hooked her pointer finger against her smiling lips, "I guess even your heart can be fooled sometimes."

Denial appeared to be genetic in the Aurora family. Though perhaps in Auris' case it was something a little more than that. She closed her eyes and shook her head.

"It has been so hard to love my children. They are living proof of my failures as a person..." Auris gently opened her eyes and put her hand upon her chest, "But having difficulty expressing love is not the same as embracing hate. I still brought my children into this world. I have raised them, fed them, and loved them as much as I can."

She then hung her head slightly and her hand curled up into a fist, "But even then I'm powerless to be their sunshine on a stormy day."

Mew crossed his arms under his chest and remarked, "...Which is why you called me here. You thought I could help Kairi where you couldn't."

"Not quite." Auris swiftly replied as her hand darted for her robe's right pocket and reached in to pull out a glass orb. It was lit up with a bright neon fog inside and contained nothing else.

"I called you here...Because she did." She then tossed the orb at Mew and he caught them in his cupped hands. He looked at it and wiggled it around as he would a magic 8-ball but got no response.

"...I-I'm sorry this is...?" Mew held the orb aloft and tilted his head in utter confusion.

"...I-I'm sorry this is...?" He heard the sound repeated in his mind and jolted back in shock.

"What?!" He blurted.

"What?!" His mind blurted back.

Then it all snapped together in his head, just like that. He slowly put the orb down on the floor and once it was out of his grip kept his eyes on Auris, "So this is how you were able to contact me."

"Yes," Auris went and picked the orb up and balanced it before her chest, "Before my husband put his soul away we both agreed to put a tiny bit of his essence into this separate orb. That way, when his successor was found, I could use this orb to contact them in case of an emergency."

Mew put one hand on his chin for a bit then wagged it aside, "You must have hid it in a really good spot if Gravitus never found it."

"You're thinking too hard about it. It was as easy as finding the one spot where he'd never bother looking."

Mew only thought for a second before the lightbulb went off in his head and he snapped his fingers out, "Oh of COURSE! That temple we first met in must've belonged to the Ten Sages!"

Her smile was affirmation enough. But then there was another question that popped up that Mew needed answered, "But...wait. You're saying that you are not the reason I was called here?"

It didn't line up. Mew clearly recalls talking to her in his head the day he came to Sancturia. Her voice and personality was too distinctive.

"Hmmm, you really don't remember then?" Auris closed her eyes and with a mischievous smile waved her hand up to say, "Because the night before we spoke, it was my daughter who made first contact."

Her words were like the spark necessary to awaken the dormant memories buried in Mew's head. Though vague, he started to recall a girl in his dreams crying out for help of any sort. He widened his eyes, brushed his doubts aside, and gasped in surprise, "T-That was her?!"

Auris nodded, her mouth starting to open. Mew swung his hand up and demanded of her, "Say no more. Say no more."

When he put his hand down to his chest he felt his heart beating slowly. He turned away from Auris and looked up the stairs. Closing his eyes to think to himself for a bit, he quietly told Auris, "I...think you should give me some space."

"I agree. Today will be a long day...But tomorrow, shall feel even longer." With those lasting words she turned and made her way to the kitchen, even though it was painfully obvious that no one would have dinner this night.

Meanwhile, in Kairi's room...

In the darkness of her room Kairi laid atop her bed on her side, her pillow and legs cuddled up to her chest all firm and taut. She turned to her other side every few moments and let out a dry sniffle. She had exhausted all of her tears and drenched her face and her bedsheet.

Her tossing and turning eventually led to her laying on her back and staring up at the ceiling. Her eyes were swollen red and she could barely see a thing even discounting the darkness.

Mew's words kept replaying over and over again, a broken record that just wouldn't stop. She clenched her hands in fists of rage and pounded the sides of her bed twice.

"Stop it stop it stop!" She demanded, almost begged of the voices in her head. But she could scream at them until her throat was dry and hoarse and they'd still be there. Because she wanted to hear those words. She could sit comfortably on a throne of denial all she wanted but that boy's kind words would never go away.

In the solitude of her thoughts she admitted she was powerless now against Mew's kindness. She twisted her teeth into a scowl and punched the right side of her bed again then flipped onto her side, throwing her pillow off by accident.

"Its unfair...! Its unfair, I hate it hate it hate it!" She cursed her vulnerability in hopes that there'd be any takers to her anguish. She felt like she could even accept the embrace of a devil...At least they would be honest about preying on her tears.

"He's up to something...! Why would he care about what happens to anyone else, least of all me?!" She still played that card after all this time. Her mind had been tossed into a blender, of which there was only one hope of escape.

"Please! Tell me what to do..." Kairi scrambled to lay herself on her back and pull the headband around her neck up to her face. There her face was locked into a pale, silent gasp as she whispered in bitter confusion, "S-Shina...?"

The reflection upon the headband was of both the blonde-haired girl and Mew. Two halves, an illusion cast by her mind on the precipice of insanity. But also, a very telling sign that she desperately needed to see at this moment.

Kairi squeezed the headband to hide what she saw then forced it down to her chest. She reared her head back and bit down on her teeth, one more tear managing to force itself out of her swollen eyes. Her heart felt like it was being torn from her chest.

She finally succumbed to a lack of energy and flopped flat on her back, her arms and legs sprawled out atop the bed. She hung her head back and looked up at the ceiling some more.

"...Every time I look at him I think of you...And every time I think of you I-I feel like I'm losing you more and more..." Kairi sniffled and bit her teeth down, "I-Its been two years but...I-I just can't accept that you're gone!"

She threw one arm over her eyes and cried out in vain, "What...what am I supposed to do?!"

The next morning...

Mew was down in the basement dojo practicing some air boxing on one of the dummies. Gabriel was still nowhere to be found and Mew was starting to suspect that Auris had made him go away so he would have no part in this whole ordeal with Kairi.

Kairi herself hadn't been seen since yesterday, not even to have breakfast. In fact no one had breakfast that day. Mew couldn't ignore that all he was doing was distracting himself from what he really should be doing.

"I should go check on Kairi..." He pinched his lips down to suppress a very restrained groan, "Oooor maybe not. Gah, this is so difficult. A good therapist, I am not..."

His distractions would come to an end as he heard footsteps from behind. He turned around and saw Kairi slowly walking down the stairs. Her knees wobbled to keep her legs upright, and it was any wonder that she didn't trip and fall flat on her face.

Hitting the ground might have honestly been an improvement given how red her cheeks and dry her eyes were. Mew slowly turned to face her and flashed a pleasant smile as he told her "Good morning" like everything was normal.

She stopped on the final step and propped her head up. Her reddish eyes glared at Mew and her lips weakly lowered into a scowl. Mew could feel the aggression that beamed from her eyes and burned through his soul like pure rays of heat from the sun.

He held still for a moment and that was just enough for Kairi to dash forward and rush at him with her staff drawn. Mew planted his feet on the ground and clasped her staff between his hands, the rough orichalcum skidding the skin of his palms.

"H-Hey now!" He declared.

"Shut. UP! I've had it up to here with your...your bullshit!" She ripped her staff out of his hands and swung it again at his head.

Mew blocked it with the back of his right arm and was instantly starting to regret his decisions, "I give her time to herself and this is what it gets me?!"

He could tank the hits well enough but if he kept letting her go at it something was bound to break eventually. She kept swinging her staff at him hard and fast, refusing to let him switch up his defenses. She had him backing away, and Mew couldn't even fathom why she was this pissed off THIS time.

No. This was beyond her usual rage. Her anger was fueled by a genuine desire for vengeance against an atrocity Mew must've committed without knowing about it. Every bitter blow was swung with the intent to break him, hurt him, make him understand just how much rage she kept buried in her heart.

Mew glanced back then with a flick of the wrist threw the training dummy in Kairi's path and sped to where it once stood. Using his powers to strengthen the wood he held Kairi's staff at bay and watched as she bit her teeth into a furious scowl.

"Can't you at least take a moment and tell me what I did wrong?!" Mew yelled in a mild state of panic.

"NO!" She screamed as she threw her staff back as far as her body would allow them smashed the dummy down the center, throwing its splinters across the sides of the gym mat. She then resumed her rampage one pounding step at a time. Mew threw another dummy in her path and she slammed her staff against it. This time Mew made sure to make the dummy be coated in metal.

"You know, this isn't how you treat someone when they try to help you!"

"I never asked for your help!" Kairi banged her staff against the dummy twice and screamed, "And I don't need your pity!"

"Just go away! I don't want to see you or your stupid face ever again!" She bashed in the head of the dummy and started working her way down. Mew bit his teeth down and had to think of some way to weather out her rage without dying in the process.

He held his ground and exclaimed at the top of his lungs, "I'm not going anywhere! I made my promise to stop Gravitus and I intend to see it through!"

"You're. So. STUBBORN!" She was halfway down the dummy when she yelled, "Why do you care what happens to this city of assholes?! Why...why do you care so much what happens to me?!"

Tears bounced off her cheeks as she smashed through the last bits of the dummy with all her might, punctuated each finishing blow with a more ragged scream, "Why?! Why?! WHY?!"

When she split the dummy in two her body was exhausted and she collapsed onto her knees. She cried and gasp for air simultaneously, her face flushed for color and her heart beating out of her chest.

She swung her tear drenched head up and declared, "Y-You can't fill the emptiness in my heart! You...you are not my big sister!"

Mew stood there and looked at her pour her heart out and yet for him the answer was as simple as scoffing and telling her with a smile, "Don't be silly, of course I'm not! I never could be!"

Kairi's eyes widened into a blank stare as Mew plopped into a criss-cross sitting position and put his hands on his knees. He felt her anger but none of the energy necessary for her to put it to good use. Keeping his smile on he told her, "Are you ready to talk now?"

Kairi hung her head and murmured, "You'll just ridicule me..."

"Why would I do that?" Mew spat in disbelief.

"Because what makes you different from everyone else?!" She yelled back.

Mew froze up for a moment and wished he had something to say. But alas, he was at a loss for words. Kairi was the ringleader of this conversation now.

"...S-Shina was the only person I ever felt close to, and when she vanished I...I had no one left," Kairi squeezed her fists against her kneecaps and ushered out a cry of grief, "A-And I wish she took me with her!"

"Huh?" This came as a surprise to Mew. He had assumed that Shina had suddenly vanished without warning but now here Kairi was insinuating that she knew what happened to her sister.

"Took you with her?" He prodded to gather more info.

Kairi pulled her head aside and covered her eyes under the lip of her cap as she muttered, "I-It was a few days after my 14th birthday. Shina suddenly came up to me in the middle of the night and told me that she was going somewhere. I-I forgot where, but..."

She curled one of her fists up to the headband around her neck and remarked, "T-The next day, news circulated around Sancturia that Shina was last seen heading to the Pyramid. Everyone started spreading rumors that she tried to rebel against Gravitus and was k-killed."

This lined up with Bobby's story, Mew thought to himself.

"B-But I didn't believe it! The Shina I knew would never die like that!" Kairi swung her head towards Mew and bit her teeth into a scowl, "I tried to cling onto the hope that it was all a lie. I was scared! I was just a kid! What else was I supposed to do?!"

She ground her teeth together and pulled her head down in a huff of anger, "But nobody would see things the way I did! They looked at me and laughed at the 'sister of the traitor'! No matter where I went they laughed at me! Children, teenagers, even some adults! They laughed and laughed, like they wouldn't let me forget that I lost my sister!"

"A-And one day I just...snapped..." Her head raised and with a rather unhinged look in her eye she dryly laughed aloud, surrounded by the trickles of her tears, "I started attacking the people who ridiculed me. I was like a feral beast taken off their leash."

Her lips parted wide into a tingling smile as she pulled her head back and released a tiny bit of ecstasy in her voice, "And it felt soooo good."

Mew felt a little uneasy as Kairi continued her story, "For the first time...I felt strong. I didn't need my big sister to help me out. I could stand on my own two feet."

"And as I got older I got bigger and stronger, and eventually people stopped mocking me in front of my face. Not even the grown-ups could give me shit anymore. I felt invincible..." She stopped for a moment and glared up at Mew, only for her eyes to sink and her mood to turn melancholic.

"...But beating up every person in Sancturia didn't bring Shina back," She clutched her headband tightly around her fingers and murmured, "A-And it started to seem like...m-maybe they were right. Maybe...she did go to fight Gravitus."

"Stop for a moment," Mew forced himself into this one-way conversation, then crossed his arms up to his chest and closed his eyes, "Bobby's right you know. Risking your life against Gravitus isn't going to bring your sister back."

"So I should simply give up and grow old and ignorant?!" Kairi replied bitterly, "That bastard knows what happened! And he deserves to die regardless of what happened to Shina!"

"Its not that simple..." Mew whispered.

"D-Don't tell me you believe all that crap about him being an honest man!" She screamed in anguish.

"Of course not!" Mew widened his eyes and yelled out in fury, then clenched his teeth down and told her bluntly, "But I didn't spent all this time training you just so you could lord your power over everyone you hate!"

"W-What?" Kairi seemed oblivious to what Mew was saying and uttered out something truly asinine, "T-They deserve it!"

Mew wasn't having any of that.

"Humans can be stupid, ignorant, oblivious, whatever. And it seems that's just as true for Aurians. But all their hateful words are just that. Words. You're stronger than them the moment you stand tall against everything they say and show them that you aren't what they say you are. But every time you draw blood or toss insults you prove that everything they say about you is true. Be the best you that you can be, and let those assholes drown in their own filth."

When he was done Kairi looked at him dumbstruck and even Mew himself widened his eyes and wondered where all that came from. He quickly and sternly focused his gaze on her, coughed and remarked before she caught on, "Just ask yourself this. If your roles were reversed, do you think Shina would have beaten up all of Sancturia to stop them from sullying your name?"

Kairi squinted tiredly and looked towards the ground and she mumbled, "N-No..."

She then flailed her head around and exclaimed, "S-So what?! You can't seriously expect me to suddenly care! I don't give a FUCK about any of my people!"

"I'm not asking you to go prancin' about making friends with every Aurian you've hurt. Just..." Mew closed his eyes and let out a sigh, "Lay off them for a bit and let them show you their true colors. Then you can weed out the good guys from the undesirables."

He winked one eye open and grinned, "I think you'll see that there's a lot more kindness in people's hearts than what you see on the surface."

Kairi lowered her head and let out one long gasp of exasperation. She was completely giving up the fight the moment she asked Mew, "Just...w-what are you?"

Mew crossed his arms up to his chest, cracked a smile and told her, "I guess...I'm your friend Kairi."

She lifted her face up and dug her knuckles into the ground. Her cheeks turned a light shade of red and she averted her gaze, remarking in a meek tone of voice, "Maybe all my kindness disappeared with Shina."

Mew stood up, laughed and remarked, "Oh don't be so melodramatic."

He then extended his hand down towards her and said, "You think I didn't see the way you felt around Venus and Uranus? You haven't lost it. You just need to...reconnect with it, that's all!"

Kairi looked up at his face then laid her eyes upon his hand and laid her own upon it. He helped her stand on her wobbling legs, upon which she looked him in the eyes. Mew closed his eyes and creased out a smile and giggle.

"Now! Whaddya say we fit in a little more training today?" And faster than she could blink he was already guiding them along to a new topic as if this had just a normal part of their schedule.

Kairi giggled a little in turn, and glided her hand off of Mew's while twitching a little in embarrassment.

Before they could part for their training regimen the ground started to shake. It was a sensation that grew a little stronger over time but never to the point of threatening Sancturia. But any quaking is worth investigating in this floating city. Mew looked at Kairi for a moment and rushed for the stairs while remarking, "Wait here!"

Kairi, however, followed him along while wondering aloud, "What was that just now?!"

They would find their answers waiting for them outside the front door. High above where the Pyramid lied a chrome spaceship decloaked and floated in place. It was three times as big as the whole Pyramid and had a lot of fancy knick knacks courtesy of Saturn, no doubt.

"My people. I come to you bearing great news," A deep, grandiose voice reverberated out of the ship, "Today shall be the dawn of a new day. A day where all Aurians will take the next step towards evolution. I understand you may be confused, possibly frightened...But rest assured..."

A beam of light emerged from the bottom and deposited a person towards the top floor. It was obvious who it was by now, and despite leaving the ship their voice still echoed.

"If you have any questions, then by all means...Come and see me." Mew's skin was riddled with goosebumps and a shaky smile begun to form. That last remark felt almost like a personal call-out to him specifically. But as enticing as the challenge was, there was one problem...

"Auris said we had a few more days...!" He turned back into the house and saw the woman in question leaning up against the staircase railing, her hands thrown up by her face in a shrug. A knowing one at that.

Mew bit his lower lip and grumbled, "Its a little earlier than I expected but..."

"T-That was Gravitus...!" Kairi exclaimed, drowning out the sound of Mew's voice from her ears.

Her hands started trembling into fists by her hips. As the ship went back to being invisible and sped out of Sancturia, one last quake swept through the city. It was a show of power, one more call out to Mew, the one Gravitus must for certain know opposed him.

Mew tightened his hands into fists then firmly nodded his head. He turned to Kairi and looked her over. Every voice that told him not to drag her along was echoing in the corners of his mind...But after she bled her heart out to him Mew knew he'd feel like the biggest piece of shit if he told her to stay back.

Cause there'd be no rest for her weary mind until she heard from Gravitus' own mouth what happened to her sister.

Mew threw up his right arm and rolled it around, getting out that last bit of stiffness from Kairi beating on it minutes ago.

"Well?" He asked to drag her attention away from the Pyramid, "We still got one more Planetary Aurian to knock out, then its a straight walk to kickin' Gravitus' ass."

He then turned to her in a flash and told her, "You ready?"

She stood there in pause then curled her fingers into a pair of fists against her chest and firmly nodded her head, "I-I am!"

"Good!" Mew stared straight at the Pyramid and could feel raw power rippling from the top. Contact with this power made his smile quiver.

"Cause there's no turning back now..." He told himself as he and Kairi made a beeline right for the Pyramid. Auris slipped out of the house and leaned up against the side of the door. She crossed her arms under her chest and stared at the top of the Pyramid.

"So he came back now..." Her eyes slanted as a curious smile crossed her face, "Then, you wish to play now? Is that the message you are sending me?"

She closed her eyes all the way and her smile turned uneasy as she whispered to herself, "Fine. Then let this be the day that everything changes..."

Next Time: The Last Ruler