Luka didn't mind being admired.
In a world where luxuries are scarce, she brought a simple form of entertainment. A talent of hers she discovered, trying to make her friends cheer up.
She learned how to dance. Swift, graceful twirls, gentle arcs, a picture of beauty. She felt blessed to be able to spin herself with such poise that it drew attention. She felt special, dancing for her friends and herself. Chose to pursue it at the pressure from her family, saying she would do well to do what she loved.
(In a world surrounded in shadow, a little beauty goes quite a ways.)
It became her place to fit in. While Ia and Mayu had cooking, or Rin and Len were shepherds, or Miku a seamstress, she became what she adored most. Someone worthy of being seen.
Her place in the group was as a big sister, however. She took over as the mature, intelligent one. Her knowledge saved them many times, protected them in her own way. Luka was simply happy being able to contribute in her own way. They were her family; the ones who mattered most in her world. They were everything.
After losing everything to war, she was alone. Meeting everyone- Gakupo, Kaito, Gumi, those who also felt her pain- she didn't feel the yawning loneliness of not having a place to belong. She always felt at home with them. She was allowed her own share of joy along with the aching thrum of sadness.
Until one day… Her home was ripped out from underneath her, encasing everything she'd known in sorrow.
Miku became the Messiah. This came as a shock to everyone, a ripple effect running them all through with individual shards of pain. Yet they all shared the same thoughts.
She doesn't know.
No one had the will to tell her, and later that became important. Her enthusiasm kept up the team's morale, and gradually they realized that this was how it should be. The only way it could be. No amount of talk would change the tealette's mind once she was dead set on fulfilling her destiny, and they knew it.
So the remaining nine made a pact. Vowed to protect her from God's masked atonements, no matter the cost.
Luka, however, refused to simply accept their new fate.
In the short days that followed, she scoured her large collection of books for information on the prophecy, finding legends, stories, tidbits of facts, poems from Gumi. Anything she could find to prepare herself and her friends, a loophole in the fabric of the prophecy.
Most tales of the previous Messiahs were unfinished. Some were self written by the chosen ones themselves, whereas others were of those who stood by and watched them submit themselves to nine punishments.
Such greed, she felt, thumbing through the pages. This world is full of so much greed and selfishness.
She learned truly little, but there was one bit of information that caught her eye and stayed with her. The only real find she had caught during her hours of perusing books; a dust-laden tome telling the story of the Messiah right before Miku, written by the girl herself and somehow preserved after being found thrown from the top of the tower.
Her name was Lily. She was once an author of fantasy novels, and was gaining quite a lot of popularity. She was bright, cheerful in her entries, up until the end. Her dreams were coming true, until the day she received the message stating she was the Messiah. Having no one but herself to travel alongside, she instead vowed to document her journey, to inform others of what she faced.
Luka spent an entire night reading the fading pages. The journey took a week to complete, and was full of strenuous bumps along the road, cold nights, limited food. Yet this girl, alone, persevered. Determined to finish and find peace at the top of the Tower of Ai, no matter what that entailed. The reason for my existence, she wrote.
As she faced the blessings, her entries became less and less positive. She went through the definition of hell. The things she wrote horrified the pinkette, stunned her into silence. The girl undertook the blessings, and died. Over and over, in various, gruesome ways- then she was revived because of her role as Messiah to continue on. Her state of mind declined, and by the last blessing she had nothing left remaining of the girl she was, erratic and fearful and wrecked. She was broken, a shadow of herself. Her last paragraph sealed Luka's resolve, the last shred of her sanity left to color the pages in stark black.
"I've done it. I've accepted each of those damned atonements, and there's the altar, my last stop- yet why don't I feel happy? Shouldn't I feel triumphant, having faced the biggest obstacles in my path and given the world another fifteen years to thrive? I'm the savior, yet I feel like I've saved nothing. I've only fed the fire that will keep this cycle going. I'm not me anymore. I'll fade into the furthest reaches of time, and someone else will always come to do what I've done, over and over. They'll all suffer like me. They'll all be crushed by God's will. I don't want that. I don't want to know that there will be others who will face this path.
"Please, don't let them. Make the cycle end. Save them from facing the wrath of our angered deity. Don't let them suffer alone."
Those words, written by someone who knew exactly what lay ahead, forced Luka to go through with what they had agreed on. Surely they all knew what kind of atonements they faced, but this was real, and she couldn't see past the fact that they were so much worse than she had expected. Without the others, Miku would end up the same way as Lily- a shell of her former self, on the brink of psychosis, with nothing left. There was no way any of them would want her to lose herself that way. Even if, because they weren't Messiahs themselves, they lost their lives taking the brunt of the punishments for her.
That was what family meant to them. That was what she meant to them, what they meant to one another. If it were any of them, they would still repeat it. Over and over, they would repeat the betrayal, in order to protect their beloved family.
That resolve didn't stop their actions from stinging them long after they did them.
Luka watched as one by one, her friends were sealed within rooms filled with the divine blessings. Each of them left with such steeled, willful expressions, as if they had planned this from the very start, as if they were selfish enough to accept them for their own gain. Yet she knew the truth. She watched carefully as they dragged their feet, pushed themselves to keep going, as their hearts broke apart.
They didn't want this.
They loved each other- and here they were, betraying one another. God's wrath truly stood no match to the pain of hurting the only people they trusted. But they had to, fate predicted; this was the only way.
To protect Miku, to save her. To fulfill their own duties.
To bring peace.
None of them knew if this would really change anything. The end of this journey, when they were all trapped with their decisions and all that was left was for Miku to finish it, was unclear. Whether she would still suffer then, they wouldn't be allowed to know. A price for saving her.
But really, what were they saving her from? What have they done instead? Broken her in their own ways, slowly chipped away at her soul. Both seemed too cruel.
When Gumi accepted the Rumble of Thunder, Luka pressed on, determining she go next. She searched the eyes of the final people left behind- Len, Rin, and Miku. That's all that remained of the strong group of ten who set out on the journey in the first place.
Rin stared back at her, her pretty blue eyes desperately hiding tears she wished to shed. Len's mouth set in a grim line, and he said nothing at all- but she could see the pain in his soulful gaze. And Miku…
The fight from before was gone. Any ounce of resistance she had drained away when she watched her best friend walk selfishly into the sixth blessing, her words still echoing the emptying tower. Her teal eyes were very dim, lifeless; cold.
She was irreparably damaged. With every step they took further into the betrayal, the less she knew how to react. She offered nothing; her voice was long since drawn hoarse from screaming at them, from pleading. Her hands were clenched white into her skirt, and her skin was icy pale.
In that moment, Luka wished she could hug her and tell her things would be alright- but that time had already passed, and those words would be nothing but more lies. She couldn't bring herself to add to Miku's current pain.
So she did the only thing she knew to do- finish what the others had started.
The pinkette approached the next blessing, the doors opening to her and blasting a gust of cool, powerful air in her direction as it revealed the bluish-green emblem embossed with a wind sign within. Like the others, it shone brightly, innocent in appearance but deadly to touch.
Her fate; the Rondo of Whirlwind.
Inhaling sharply, she spun around, her grace aiding her as she danced within, to the pedestal the blessing sat upon. Her eyes found the three waiting outside.
Such sadness written there. Her heart felt cut apart.
"...I'll be waiting," she murmured, nearly inaudible, and flashed her best smile at them as she was closed within the dark room. The air was chilly, foreign, foreboding.
She longed for the times she spent in the warmth of her friend's presences.
If only there had been another way.
Yet, she'd somehow made peace with herself. This was the one option they had. At least she had all the memories from before to look back on, when death came for her.
Lightly grazing the blessing, she felt it immediately respond, growing brighter and beginning to spin. Faster and faster, creating such a strong wind that she backed up to create space- but trapped in such a tiny room, she had nowhere to go. She could only face the growing hurricane before her, the air stinging every part of her exposed to it, cutting, biting into her skin like she was nothing but paper.
A fitting atonement for her own betrayal, perhaps.
Everything became painful, and she felt herself being sucked into it, into the spinning cyclone of death. She realized that this inner fear, the pain and suffering- so many others must have faced this on their own. There was no one for them, no help, no support. They were forced to endure this kind of agony over and over, alone.
For her, she knew she wasn't alone. She had the souls of every single one of her friends by her side.
We share in joy and pain, she echoed within, stepping into the calling blessing that whispered her name as she allowed herself to be swept away. Even as sharp, angry wind cut through her like knives, she felt no remorse.
I hope that we are reborn one day. To be a family, in a world that needs no sacrifice to be happy.
Until then, I will protect you all until my soul finds rest.
A/N: This is unbeta'd.
I wrote this thinking 'let's put some nice background into it', and that's where the previous Messiah bit comes in. I wanted to fill in some plot there, as I just- i dunno. Felt the need, I guess. Felt like it would seem fitting if there were some sorts of documentation on previous Messiahs. All of it is my background/made up by me, since I'm writing this solely with the PV and the lyrics. I'm not particularly sure about the canonical bits, but I do hope it's a worthy enough tidbit.
(As to why Miku was absolutely oblivious to the truth about Messiahs all this time? We're gonna go with old adage 'ignorance is bliss'.)
Anyway, three more chapters left to go, everyone. Sorry my updates are extremely sporadic, but I hope they're worth the wait!
I wrote this listening to 'BMATTOA', 'Night of Passing', 'Pinko Stick Luv', annnd Donut Hole.
Thanks so much for reading, and I'll see you in the next chapter.
Read on~.
~Disclaimer~ I own only tragic demises and a love of fantasy novels, nothing more.