Chapter Fifteen: The Hatred Born From Love
Shards of reflective glass fell like snowflakes to the ground, giving a thousand windows to the innards of the temple and the single Scion standing before the broken mirror. Acrolyth Kage stared at the stony wall behind the mirror, his fist still residing where the mirror once dared to question his resolve. Some darkness had no reluctance or lack of purpose. There were those that needed to convince their darker halves of the task that lay ahead. Then there was Kage, who endured the game only until his greatest sorrow was avenged. It could be seen in his eyes.
He lowered his hand to his side and looked down at the dust on the ground, scowling darkly at the very idea of being questioned by himself. As a testament to his heart, both darkened and strong, Kage commanded his other side with resounding authority – never speaking in tones and never referring to their community.
Kage would be dominated by no one.
"I won't fall for any tricks. Senso's going to die. I'm going to use this power to do it and then we'll just fade away into sweet nothing. Then, even if it's only a short glance before I go to hell, I want to see her one last time," he said sternly down to the thousand reflections looking back up at him. The Scion had no great revelation that unified the forces within him. The human factor had enough fury to control the Scion factor completely, though the reason for such a prowess was something of a black hole for them both. Without even the smallest hint of curiosity, he turned and headed straight for the place in the temple which stunk with the presence of Senso. His path was clear and he never wavered.
However, at the last room before his goal, he found something else.
Makoto was there, sitting timidly against a column of marble and stone and staring into the room. The dankness of the room reflected in her green eyes and she was lost in herself. She was stripped of her ability to transform, being dressed in her street clothes and cast into a place where she had no idea what was going on. She only remembered that a person she thought was Kage had lured her into a sense of chaos, then promptly took her to this place of darkness. She knew it had not really been him because Kage would have never shown such interest in her. She already assumed it was Senso, but the lie hurt her more than she cared to admit.
Suddenly, she found a familiar feeling trickling down her neck and she sat straight, letting two helpless eyes fall upon a figure she had never seen before, but knew exactly who it was. Knowing that this shade was not a lie, her heart skipped a beat and she rose against the stone support, though her hand would not leave its firm skin. Seeing his new form made her gasp and speak in her usual nervous tone, "Yamamori-san? Is that you?"
What lingered before her was a darker figure than the Kage she knew, if such a thing was possible. He stood at the other side of the room with his sword touching the ground and his head slung at a low angle, offering no light into his eyes. Seeing him jumped her spirits, but something made her feel uneasy. She felt she could not approach him.
"I am an Acrolyth Scion," he replied with a voice that vibrated in the very air, numbing her ears in its pure viciousness.
It was a new level of frustration for her. She had always felt far away from Kage, like he was constantly keeping her at a distance out of some embedded fear. From the beginning, she had watched every one of her friends grow closer to their counterpart, even Rei and Yamito. However, she felt like she had not even scratched the surface of this bitter wall he had built around himself and she desperately wanted to be like the others – to be connected with the tragic Scion of a broken world. "What's going on? What is this place?" she dared to ask and took a few steps towards him.
He did not move. "This is the temple of Anubis," he responded in a voice that stopped her advance, "Your friends are here. You should go find them." Then, much to her surprise, he started towards the ominous door at the end of the room, a door she had been unable to open. He was somehow even farther from her now, hopelessly drowning a sea of his own sorrow and silent malcontent. Her heart ached for him but her feet would not move. There was this great tear inside of her as her instincts told her to stay away from this person, but her soul cried out for her to stop him. His was the greatest sorrow and the dream of filling his tragic life with something special made her yearn to defy the fear in her heart.
In the end, she bit her lip and obeyed her soul.
He suddenly found a human girl standing before him, blocking his way to the door and forbidding him to simply brush her away like this. It was a very passionate thing, the fire that burned in her eyes and she finally willing to put aside her fears and push through to his studded heart. With her arms outstretched widely, she glared intently through the walls that he placed around himself. "Tell me what's really going on, Yama…no, Kage-kun. You keep pushing me away from you! Why won't you tell me what's wrong?" she cried, throwing aside formality in the fear this would be the last time she ever saw him.
He winced at hearing her using his name so intimately, but he said nothing at first. On some level, he admired her loyalty and love. Some part of him hoped that she would truly find someone to inherit her love, but he knew that it would not be him. There was no point in even trying. His fate was sealed. "Get out of my way, Kino. This doesn't concern you," he warned. There was an edge to his tone, but it was nothing that would daunt her. She stood her ground and refused to let him just push away this time. This would be the doorway to a very shaking event.
Within the time it took to inhale, a cold tongue sent shivers down her spine. Her eyes had not even been able to catch the first movement of his shoulder, but the sword which he carried was now lying across her collar and touching the soft skin of her neck. It was a very surreal sensation and her eyes bulged lightly. Even as her chest seized with fear, her body did not move for him, but stayed in his path and caused him to narrow his eyes. "Do you want to die?" he snarled at her.
To his question, she simply lifted her chin and tightened her jaw, giving him no room for escape from her fierce, green eyes. "No, I don't want to die. But I can't keep ignoring that you're in such pain. Whether you care or not, I care about you, Kage-kun. I won't move until you talk to me or you kill me," she declared, knowing that he was the kind of person that could very well do the latter. Pulling all of the courage she had, she was tempting the fates with her decision. She had never known Kage to compromise for anyone, but she knew, somewhere deep inside, that he would not harm her. This was not the real Kage. She felt that somewhere inside of this shell of cynicism, the real Kage was trapped.
While his blood boiled at being confronted so close to his goal, it was the looming sense of fatality that made him take a moment and give in. The moments before death were crafted for confession. "Senso's in there. I'm going to go in there and I'm going to gut him like a mackerel. Since he's my copy, Senso's energy will come back to me and kill me. That's what's going on, Sailor Jupiter. Now move," he said candidly, despite how morbid the subject was.
The serenity in his explanation chilled her bones, causing her to let out a slow breath which shrunk her chest. This had unlocked a new look on her face and she could not control the wild resentment of that fate and her voice suddenly began to stutter with anger. "You'll die too? W-why?! If that's right then you can't kill him! There has to be another way to stop him without you dying, Kage! We can stop him and keep him from hurting anyone else! You don't have to die!" she cried passionately.
As the fates loved reflections, anger soon brewed on his face as well. She became bolder and bolder in every passing moment and now she spoke as if they were close. The intimacy enraged him as much as it made him afraid. Impressively, his sword did not move in the fury he soon wore. "Can't you see I want to die?!" he hurled back, making her wince at his resolve and ranting. She stared at him breathlessly, finally understanding what it was inside of him that truly made her scared. His eyes were flashing the singular desire for his own end, but it was a sad end and she could see that it was only an end to escape some terrible pain. "I want it! That bastard will choke on his own blood and drown in a pool of his own entrails before I finally cut him into pieces I can feed to every dog in Tokyo for killing my Mika!" screamed the unbridled Scion. He was seething, stinking of a hatred that caused his eyes to flare with darkness. She had not even been as afraid of Yamito as she was of him at that moment. There was no mercy left in him and his voice was as pitiful as it was broken.
She had finally passed his invincible shell. "Mika? Who is Mika?" she asked tenderly, though her voice was shaking a bit at the sheer desire he had to end his own life. She imagined a lost lover that had turned Kage into his bitter, solitary self. With that looming over her, she felt his golem heart was in a place that she could never find, let alone touch.
With the name being spoken, the Scion clenched his teeth and turned his head slightly, his free hand nearly breaking itself as a fist at his side. Memories bubbled to the surface and he breathed through his teeth a moment, deciding that it was his last moments alive, so he would tell her of things which had long since defined him. He thought maybe it was ample reward for her desire to befriend him. "Mika…was my younger sister – all I had in the world. Two years ago, when my world was being consumed by Anubis, that bastard Senso and two others lured my sister out, making her think that he was me. Then, because I'm a Scion, they beat her, making her suffer until I could feel her crying in my blood," he explained, drawing her sympathy with every wretched word, "When I found her, she was like a broken doll, barely breathing and unable to speak." Looking at his free hand, his voice shuddered and his lips pressed to fight back the raging emotions that came when he thought back on it. This was his hollowing nexus. "She died in my arms, smiling weakly at me. Even this form could not save her and now I'm all alone. All alone…" His voice trailed away and he closed his eyes tightly, trying to fight the welling of emotions in him. Nothing broke through to his core faster than reflection and not even his wildest glare could drown out the reality of how empty he was inside.
She stared at him, finally understanding why he was the Kage that caused her so much pain. This was the fear he warranted as reason to push everyone away – the fear of losing one you love. Something so tragic could literally change a person and she finally understood who Kage really was. Her heart ached for him even more. "Kage…" she whispered.
It did not take long for him to compose himself again, the thought of Senso so close by making his blood boil. Suddenly, his fist clenched and he shifted his dark eyes upon her, feeling his purpose renewed. "Don't put your pity on me, Sailor senshi. I would burn the world down myself if it meant getting revenge on those who killed my sister. Every person on your world could die and I wouldn't give a shit. All I want is to kill Senso. I want is to be with my sister again," he said and pulled the sword from her neck, laying it at his side once more, "I'll never stop until I get my revenge."
Now she was frightened again as he looked to her with dark eyes, rivaling those of Yamito. He spoke every threat devoutly and she could not deny the fact that he could very well make good on them. The world turned slower in the fact that broken hearts had their hammers and revenge was a focused evil.
Weakly, she suddenly could not stop him anymore, but rather she could only stand there and look at the ground. He was falling into the void of evil and she could not help him. This was his signal to pass and he started around her, not even looking at her but only to the door that led to the one thing he longed for in the expanse of two years. Knowing no one could deny him of justified revenge, he wet his lips in anticipation for death. Inwardly, he was relieved that he took none but his own heart to the grave.
However, he was stopped again. Makoto stood in his path and stared at him with eyes no less than spectacular in resolve. Despite the fact that he had never given her a moment of tenderness, a kind word or even a warm glance, she felt the same connection that the others were taking for granted. Most girls would have abandoned such a cold, distant soul and moved on, but Makoto felt the pain inside of him and longed to help him with it. This was her burden, the lust for helping people who did not even know they needed it. With no regard for heart or tears, she stood tall in the way of this storm. Even as she watched the fury inside of him flaring up and consuming him in a strained growl, she stood her ground. "I know how you're hurt over losing your sister, but I can't believe you really feel that way about the world. You're supposed to protect the innocent and the weak against evil, not use your powers for revenge. Now your revenge is going to kill you, Kage-kun. Do you think Mika-chan would have wanted that?" she said defiantly and gave this soldier the only true kind of conversation which mattered to him.
Though he had threatened her and forsaken her, she had still stood against him on his path to death and destruction. It was that reason that he did not go right through her. But for a pressed moment, he looked at her with soft eyes. He felt moved that she cared about him enough to risk his violent temper and, if only for a second, his heart beat louder in his ears.
Only a moment later did his utter hatred burn in his eyes again. "Keep your damn morals and Westernized sentiments. Mika will never again tell me what she wants, so nothing you have to say means shit to me," he replied in a voice which shook her.
All she saw was the odium in his eyes. No matter how hard she tried to open them to the larger picture, he had contained himself into a small box with no chance of getting out. There was an archaic sense of nobility in his stance, but she could not simply dismiss how wrong she felt about his desire for revenge above everyone else. She felt there was something worth living for.
Kage's stance tensed slightly and sent her on the defensive, but he only had one last thing to say to her. In a voice which splintered the heavens, he let her exist reflected in his eyes for one last moment. "Since you're being such a pain in the ass, I'm going to move you with a special technique passed on to me by my master. It's called the Ten-Thousand Lepers Screaming Death. I think you'll find that it's very unpleasant," he warned and raised his free hand up, his index and middle fingers pressed tightly together and his skin turned white from the strain. The name struck her with potent fear, mostly because the expression he wore was a languid mask that changed and formed around her every dark thought. Knowing that he used techniques she had never seen before, she assumed that he could very well make good on this threat. So she was not kidding around as she defied him with a defensive stance of her own.
His attack on her was faster than she ever imagined. Without warning, he was upon her. His hand bolted through the air like a blur and she was unable to defend herself from the critical attack that followed. She did not even get a chance to evade. A metallic shiver ran through her body and her breathing froze, making her back arch towards him in pain. She could feel those two fingers pressing into her neck and the numbness that grew from them. It was a strange feeling.
The last thing she saw was his face, still focused in revenge and looking at her. She would never forget his eyes. An unconscious Makoto fell to the ground at his feet and settled stubbornly into sleep. Her face was furrowed, as if still protesting him but he just looked to the door, firm in resolve and unwilling to part from his fate. As far as he had gone in his quest for madness, he would not take a hero from the world. The fettered part of him that was still kind and gentle and his eyes betrayed his true nature for just a moment.
"The name's kind of misleading," he remarked dryly.
He then stepped over her and left her there, not glancing back for even the slightest moment. The door she was unable to open was shattered with a single slash from his sword – a slash fueled by the hatred he held tight. Senso stood in the middle of the barren room, his face grasped by loathing and fear. He was not happy to see the Scion make it past the girl and come after him, though he never truly expected anything to stop the relentless Scion.
"So you've come, Kage…or should I say Acrolyth Kage?" he lulled and loosened his stance a bit.
Kage stepped into the room and held his sword at his side, his peat green eyes burning holes through the mirror image of himself. There was no humor in the encounter, no moments of regret. His voice became deep and throaty once more as Kage spoke like a man possessed, "You've been on borrowed time for a long time now, shitbag. I've come to pay you back for what you've done."
He began to approach once more, but Senso was not able to simply die. Knowing that Kage's Acrolyth form with his lethal sword and obsessive determination was too much for him to handle, the Priest had little hope in conquering the beast. Despite Kage's fierce fighting nature brimming inside, Senso tried to defend himself in the only way he thought possible. He had things to say to the wild Scion. "Don't tell me that you're still bent on getting revenge for that silly little girl's death? Talk about holding a grudge. What makes you think that when we die, you'll end up seeing her again? You aren't exactly an angel's poster boy, you know?" he scoffed and took a step back from the approaching Scion.
Kage stopped and growled, feeling outraged the pale copy would even dare speak of it. There was nothing anyone could say that would pull him from this task, but there were also things that he had to say to Senso – things that were bottled in him and threatening to burst out of his chest. "Don't you even speak of her," he snarled in a tone that made Senso wince. The emotions welling inside Kage made his hands shake, causing the blade of his sword to sing from the vibrations. "There's none of me in you, you heartless fuck. No part of me could have done what you did to her!" he howled, his voice breaking with the strain of his heart. Senso was still trying to fish out the words that would stay his fate, but Kage was determined to finish his quest. "I'll take my chances on seeing Mika after I die, but you're going to die no matter what!" he roared and a sea of lightning ignited across his sword. Senso winced at this and shakily took the distinct fighting stance unique to them both, finding that there was nothing he could do but try and weather the Scion raging vengeance. Kage wasted no time. The crescent sword attack he used ripped across the room and tore a chasm in an entire section of the palace, exposing the moaning winds on the outside to the room. Senso evaded the attack but looked upon it and gasped, unable to conceive of the power behind this assault.
His distraction became his dirge. The next thing he felt was a foot smashing into his face due to his lack of attention. He slid back on his feet, but only opened his eyes fast enough to bulge when a knee impaled his stomach. Blood spurted from his mouth and stained his cloak, yet he had little time to more than wheeze before the clash continued. Every counterattack he offered was slapped away and brought back to him twice as hard. Even the razor edge of Kage's magnificent sword was tearing through him, though only enough to cause him great pain. The assault drove him against a wall and the only thing keeping him up was the force of Kage's attack against him. Soon the cold wall was blood-soaked against his back. Kage was ruthless in his attack, not even letting the Priest fall before him. The air was a mixture of groaning, blood-mist and tears. It was pure hatred put into fist and breath.
Finally, Senso howled out as the sword was impaled through his shoulder, pinning him to the wall cruelly. He tried to breathe, holding the blade and trying to see out through the blood and the sweat but all he saw was the figure of a blurry devil before him. Kage stood there, sweat and blood also staining him. The outburst of his repressed sorrow had torn apart his hands and feet and left him weak and exhausted. But he was basking in the sensation. Senso's black blood was like a fresh rain on him and his eyes flashed with lust.
This was what he wanted. This was what he thirsted for. "Now you know how it feels, you son of a bitch! Now we're exact copies again!" he roared and ripped open the top part of his uniform. His body was glistening with sweat, his muscle pumping thick with blood and his joints aching with use. There, burned into the same shoulder as Senso's new wound was a scar that was the perfect shape of the same sword stuck impaling him. He spit harshly at the Priest and grabbed Senso by the throat, leaning in close to just smell the blood on him. His eyes were flashing and his arm pulsed with the urge to snap the beaten shadow's neck. Kage was finally suckling his revenge. "That was for stabbing me with my own sword!" he snarled, but his eyes took a distinctly fearsome color as Senso tried to plead his way out of his fate.
Kage's wrath only blossomed. "And this is for killing Mika!" he screamed, his free hand grabbing the sword hilt and lightning quickly began to envelop them both. Senso was screaming in pain and death and clawed at Kage to try and stop him, but Kage just stared, not willing to let any of the suffering escape his sight. He had no fear of dying, but rather regretted that he would never get the chance to pay back the other two involved in the tragedy. But in the end, as he felt his powers ripping apart both him and Senso, his eyes closed and let go of whatever life he had left. The last thing he managed to say was a single name – the name of is his forlorn love. Then they were no more. The power of Jupiter took them both in a fantastic explosion that rocked the palace and tore a gaping hole in the tattered room.
Only one thing remained of Yamamori Kage, holding the one part of him that remained human through it all and the object came to a resonating stop, swaying back and forth in the dust-filled air as it dangled from the last piece of his Scion self, now embedded in the rubble-strewn ground.
Makoto awoke long after the fight had ended, groggily making herself stand and face the spinning room. There was a hollow void in her chest – the feeling that something terrible had happened. Even though she was baffled by the name of that attack compared to its benign nature, she found the strength to stumble through the shattered door in hopes she would find him still there. What she found was emptiness. The room was now open to the swirling masses of dark energy outside of the palace and the cries of a thousand lost souls called out to her. Her mind was too blurry to heed them. As she stumbled across the room, she rubbed her neck softly and tried to speak. It was hard and her voice was strangled, but soon she heard herself calling into the darkness, "Kage-kun? Where are you!? Can you hear me?"
The silence laughed in her face. With the state of the room being so poor, she knew that they had already fought and that the Priest had no chance of withstanding the onslaught which she saw trapped in his eyes. If what he had told her was true, it meant Kage had died as well. This made her knees feel weak and she wavered on her feet, but something caught her eyes before she could compensate the fall. Acrolyth Kage's sword was stuck in the ground, waning slightly but protecting something very dear. A silver object shimmered slightly and caused her to half-run to it, as if it held a brighter answer for her.
The shimmering object was a locket hanging on a chain which she had seen around Kage's neck. She never knew what it was but only that she had never seen him without it. Now she took the locket into her hand and fell to her knees, her lips quivering in anticipation.
The metallic heart was broken open and inside was a picture of two people, the first being a younger Kage and the second being an even younger girl sitting on his shoulders – a girl that shared his glowing eyes and terrific smile. She could only guess the young girl was Mika, but what drew the breath from Makoto was the fact Kage seemed so different, smiling happily and keeping his younger sister safely atop his shoulders. They were beautiful together. There was so much love in this single picture that Makoto could see how he had become so lost after she died. It was as if this Kage was an entirely different person than the one she knew.
As soon as she pulled the locket from the sword, the silent blade dissolved into a flash of lightning, following in its master's fate. Now she was alone, holding the locket in her hands as she stared down at it hopelessly, her mind working only as quickly as her heart. Love and safety were a temporal as the winds; subject to the change of the heart or the whisper of goodbye. He had reviled her, hurt her and thought only of how death would release him. Yet Makoto wept for Kage as if they had been lovers, for his was the broken heart that she longed to mend and his death took a piece of her – a piece that had long desired to be the one thing that could have filled the great hole in the heart of another.