Final Chapter A Devil's Cry

The Rebellion is over...

The thought echoed in Sparda's mind as he emerged from the gate into the human world. The events that had transpired in the past few hours flashed before his eyes over and over. Even though he had just completed what he had accepted as his destiny, his heart remained heavy.

As he descended upon the Temen-Ni-Gru, he noticed that the entire tower had been shifting and did not pause for his arrival. Then he saw her; Anna's pale body became more and more apparent as he neared the apex of the tower. His wings snapped and he began the glide downward. The carved stonework of the Temen-Ni-Gru, daubed with the placid blood of Anna and himself, clicked underneath his cloven hooves as he gaze turned upward. As the citrine beam emanating from the Tower slowly shrank in circumference, clouds took their normal shapes and paths, no longer swirling around the gate. The normal patterns of weather were absolutely foreign to Sparda. As the beam finally dissipated, the sound of the gate closing, like a large vault being locked, boomed through the sky.

The darkness of Hell had been overcome, and for the first time in years, the stars could be seen peeking through the clouds of the night sky. The tension of humanity was finally resolved as the world breathed a collective sigh of relief. Humans began to emerge from the shadows, easing themselves back into reality, into a sense of comfort not experienced for years, and for some, never felt at all. Hatches opened and people emerged from their huts. Children looked up at the sky, mystified at the beauty of nature finally free of demonic influence.

The unmarred beauty of the human world overwhelmed Sparda; he had never seen the human world untainted by the devils' touch. The stars, nothing more than feeble pin-pricks in the black cloth of the night, almost blinded the vision of the devil's eyes. The pale light of the full moon caressing him was a scorching zephyr across his demonic skin. He felt drawn towards the Moon's soft visage, filled with a primal longing that he had never experienced, but he simply could not sustain the vision; the beatific glow of her milky blush was an empyreal womb of a thousand suns to Sparda's eyes.[1] He turned his head away from the sky, only to have his sight set on Anna. Instantly, he felt weak and sick. He struggled to move legs, arms, turn his head, anything. His nerves and senses were numbed. His lips curled inward and his eyes closed, but he did not know why.

His left leg finally shuffled forward. His body felt heavy against itself. His head dropped to face the blood-soaked stone latticework. Slowly, he moved himself toward her body. The process of moving one leg forward and having enough energy to move the other leg ahead of the first, and to repeat the process almost robbed Sparda of all his strength. Each step closer to her body, crumpled over like a rag-doll, grew harder as they weight of Sparda's sins bore down upon him; he knew that he had killed her and that he would never be forgiven, not by others and not by himself.

The last step towards her was the hardest. His cloven feet fell into place, engraving the stone floor, and the rest of his body followed. He fell to his knees, shins bent under his body, arms limp at his sides. When he touched the ground, the whole of the Tower began to shake slightly, barely a shiver, as if to bear witness to his repentance.[2] He looked at the corner of the Tower, and saw, against the backdrop of the villages beneath him, that the Tower was beginning to burrow back into the ground, rotating to his right, piercing the navel of Earth. [3]

The clouds closed, forming a dark blanket over the land and it began to rain, slowly at first, but then in a steady drizzle. Sparda struggled against himself to move his arms, finally lifting his hand to move Anna's hair from her face. Her skin still felt warm, and at first it startled Sparda, causing him to draw his hand back. He regained his composure, and let himself slide her hair across her forehead. When he saw her face, the full force of remorse hit him.

Some believe that when a person sleeps, you can see their true character. Others say that when a person dies, you cannot tell if it is really them anymore. But Sparda saw her clearly, her purity, her spirit, everything she stood for, everything that had made her who she was. And he knew that she had died not for her ideals, but because of his sins, and he despaired.

The rain hitting her face slid off as fast as it touched her. The rain beating down on Sparda pooled in the ridges of his armor. He rubbed his clawed thumb across her face, running it over her smooth cheeks. He saw some of her own dried blood streaked across her face and wiped it clear. He reached out toward where her pure heart had once been, tightly grasping the amulet which began to glow dimly. It was as if it comforted him, providing a refuge from turbid emotions coursing through him.

That is when he thought his eyes deceived him. Did her eyes just tremble?

Anna gasped for air, her first breath of life, as if awaking from a dreamless sleep. Could she possibly live on? he wondered... He looked down at her abdomen. No, her wound was fatal…but how... [4]

She opened her eyes slowly as they were gradually filled with the dim flicker of life, and was barely able to recognize him. "Is it over..." her words trailed off weakly.

"Yes, it is..." His words were laden with shame and sorrow. This was the last time he would ever talk with her and the last time the world would hear her voice.

She tried to say something else, but coughed up a large blood clot. Probably the only thing that kept her body alive this long, Sparda thought. Blood ran from her nose and corners of her mouth. Sparda lifted her close to his chest and ran his right hand over her face, wiping the blood off.

The Tower still shook ever so slightly and rotated, slowly sinking into the ground. Sparda stared deep into her eyes, as if searching for some lingering glimmer of hope or forgiveness that would make everything right again, but alas, he would fine nothing. He did not know what to say or do. There were no words in the world, no delicate verse of the poets in this life or gone beyond, that were worthy of the fragile sublimity of that moment; She was dying, and there was nothing he could do, nothing anyone could do. He had conquered countless millions in Hell and the Darkness within himself but he could not conquer death, no one could.

"Strange..." Anna muttered. Her soft voice, in such a hushed tone, still captured Sparda's awareness. She lifted her hand and ran it over Sparda's gruesome face. "Death comes for us all, but never at the time we expect Him..." She took so long to say the sentence, using so much energy to talk, that it drained her of life faster with each word.

"Humans can be so evil...so evil that none would have thought this would happen...so consumed with..." her sentence was cut off by another clot of blood in her throat, choking her, robbing her each precious second of her remaining life.

"You must not talk." Sparda tried to keep her alive as long as he could, hoping beyond hope that someone on the ground could help her.

The people gathering below watched as the Temen-Ni-Gru, the Tower of the Devil, the doorway to the gate to Hell, the very structure that made so many cry in fear, sank slowly into the ground. Large pieces of the chiseled stone that created its architecture cracked and crumbled, falling to the ground, revealing the huge gears inside. It glowed an evil red, slowly dimming to a yellow, and then finally disappeared beneath the stone again as it caved in on itself.

Anna coughed up more blood. Her skin turned paler as she continued to bleed out. Sparda stiffly held her close, letting her head lean against his rigid chestplate. She lifted her head, resting her chin on his shoulder. Sparda peered outward and saw that they were drawing closer to her world, to her people. He hoped that someone on the ground could heal her, though he knew that it was a false hope.

It still rained. Even on such a meek night, Anna thought the sky and the world were dazzling in their beauty. She giggled hoarsely, "I've...I've never seen the world this way. Ever since I was born, the demons were in my life. Then they were in everyone's lives..." She pushed away from his shoulder, still holding him, and looked in his eyes.

Suddenly, she felt cold, an extreme, burning cold like nothing she had ever felt before. It scared her, jolting her somewhat. Even through her clothes, Sparda could sense the bitter chill of death rush down her body. Panic hit Sparda; again, another new emotion. He did not know what to do with it. Then anger came. Adrenaline pumped madly through his veins. He looked around, all over, hoping that the Tower would sink faster, so that he could get her help, even though he knew it was too late. At least a hundred more feet were left before they were even at a considerable jumping height for her and Sparda was far too weak to use his wings. Sparda had to finally accept the truth: tonight, Anna would die.

A dead calm settled over Anna, a sort of tranquil state of being, accompanied by that ultimate knowledge, that feeling that everything would be alright, that things would work out no matter what. Recognizing her life being subsumed into the eternal ebb and flow of existence that stretched from the lowliest creatures to the highest heavens, Anna dwelt in the unsurpassed wisdom and serenity afforded only by the clarity of death.

"Sparda..." she called his attention.

"Yes..." He noticed something different about his voice, something...

She could no longer hear him. Nothing in her body responded to her mind anymore. No more pain, no emotions, no thoughts, nothing. Her eyes were lifelessly dull, her physical vision clouded by death's miasma, but her blank stare peered beyond Sparda into the ether, captivated by the quicksilver phantasms flitting in and out of the Moon's otherworldly splendor.[5] An empty shell of what she once was, she could not even feel herself speak. She struggled to finish her words. "They...they need someone to help them, a leader. A ray of hope, the light when....when the…darkness surrounds them...Forgive and....watch over them..."

Suddenly, in Sparda's arms, she felt light, too light even for his vast strength. Her eyes stared blindly into the distance and the raspy purr of a death rattle droned from her lips. He reached with his clawed hand, and pulled her eyelids down ever so delicately. His arms and legs trembled. His fingers shuddered wildly. He wished that he could reach into his chest and pull out the hot iron ball stifling him and forcing him deeper into the pit of his despair.

His eyes felt so strange, warm and cold at the same time. The feeling continued to grow, more and more, until he felt like it had reached its limit. But then it burst within him. It covered his face, under and behind his eyes, around his mouth. The nerves in his chin trembled uncontrollably. The pressure in his chest and abdomen was almost unbearable. The whole of his face felt heavy, so heavy he had to struggle to keep his head up.

Then suddenly, a little bit of that feeling was relieved, just enough to keep him from collapsing under his great burden.[6] Then, out of the corner of his eye, he caught a glint of something. Wait...he thought, ...that isn't from the sky...

It looked somehow crystalline, yet still liquid. Something else was in that droplet, something more salt and water; it contained a piece of Sparda's deepest being, a facet of his soul glimmering from within...

It seemed to fall in slow-motion, and he remembered, he had seen that kind of water before, on Anna's face. He remembered Anna's words from long ago...

"Cry? Why do I cry? It's part of an emotion called pain. It happens when you're hurt..."

His own words following hers drilled a hole in his mind...

"Devils never cry..."

The tear fell as if it weighed a ton. It hit Anna's face, and rolled quickly off of her smooth, round cheek; the face of a child, of absolute purity, taken by the horrible tyranny of Darkness.

Why do I cry? I am a devil....devils never....

His thoughts were frozen and a rush of cold hit him,[7] starting at his thumb where the tear had rolled and touched him. The dark armor on his fingers began to almost unravel, like tattered ribbons, thin purple ribbons of energy, blown in the wind. It traveled down his hand, slowly engulfing the rest of his arm up to the elbow. He managed to see his arm behind the ribbons. It looked the same, but...something about it...something...metallic.

Then without warning, blazing ardor consumed his upper body, sending searing pain through his face and torso. His legs and feet entered the same realm of searing frigidity as his hands had before. He could not see, but he knew they were unraveling in the same shredded purple ribbons as his arms. He glared up into the sky, welcoming to the cold rain, hoping it would cool his face though the droplets merely sizzled and evaporated on contact.

Then, time seemed to stop for him. Everything stopped, no more feelings, thoughts, nothing.[8]

Then, pain...an explosion of the sweltering iciness and loss of breath simultaneously erupted in him. He dropped Anna's body from the shock. He grabbed his face in reflex, but it felt different. His eyes were blinded by light pouring from his body, out of every single pore of his skin...

His face now had texture. He tried to cover his eyes with his hands, hoping to block some of the blinding light. His fingers hit something in the way however, something that had not been there before, right in the middle of his face.

A second wave of pain jolted him so hard that he fell back to his knees. A burst of white light engulfed his body, and the purple ribbons grew large and shattered outward, surrounding the apex of the sinking Tower with a mass of energy. He screamed horrifically due to a pain unknown to him, a pain so deep it touched the edges of his soul.[9]

The amulet dropped on Anna's belly. In the red stone shone a reflection of Sparda as he the light began to subside...

.

People watching the event atop the sinking Tower reared back in fear. Some were so close that they felt the wind rush outward and were almost knocked over by it as it passed them.

The flares of purple ribbons captivated the vision of all those present. They all wondered what was happening. No one among them was aware that their leader had died at the hands of the one responsible for such a display.

The Tower was almost completely submerged. People stood on their toes, and children on their parents' shoulders, hoping to catch a glimpse of the scene.

Sparda finally uncurled and stood erect. He felt different, both lighter more sluggish at the same time, almost as if his skin was now gelatinous. Trees could be seen creeping over the edge of the Tower. He leaned down and picked up Anna's body one last time. He did not notice that his armored scales had now become full metal armor, the kind a human could conceivably forge, but still too majestic and ornate for the skill of any metallurgist. Indeed, he did not notice his skin, his now human skin, rubbing against the chain mail.

The face plates on his helmet clanked as he stepped simply off the apex onto solid ground. His gaze was fixed on Anna's body, her arms hanging limp. His vision was unchanged in that his eyes still dimly glowed in flaming red.

He looked up and saw an amazing sight obscured slightly the horns adorning his new metallic helmet; hundreds of people, all staring at him with hope and expectation in their eyes. He quickly rebuked himself inwardly and hung his head low. In his mind, he was still a demon, and he feared the backlash of the humans against his unarmed, weak being. Wind whipped at his back, and as he turned, he saw a cape where his wings used to be. He examined the rest of his body and finally saw that it was not as it had once been, mere minutes before….

He knelt before the crowd, and gently laid out Anna's body, crossing her arms over her chest. He looked at her again, lingering over her closed eyes. He reached out to touch her, and finally saw his hand covered by a metal glove clicking together at the joints of the fingers.

He clasped his hands together, crossing his fingers over one another, and applied pressure with one hand to slide the other back. Then the realization dawned on him. He was shocked to see a human hand with five fingers and dirt crammed under the nails. With his freed hand, he pulled the other gauntlet off to find the same thing: five fingers, human skin…

In utter disbelief, he reached across his chest to his shoulder, frantically pulling the armor off his torso. The dark violet cape fell behind him. The beautifully polished metallic armor dropped into his lap, and he quickly tossed it aside.

The crowd watched, wondering who this man was; they looked on to see him reach up to his chin, undo a fastener on his helmet, and raise it by the horns. Sparda was caught off-guard by what fell from his helmet: hair….as pale as the Moon herself.[10]

A man from the crowd grew anxious and approached the stranger.

"Excuse me, sire..."

Sparda's head snapped up with the speed of a demon, and his eyes glared at the man intently. However, his view was obstructed by the hair that reached cheek level and rested on his shoulders and down his back. Wind swept the hair this way and that. The feeling of the hair grazing against Sparda's face agitated him, sending a new feeling through his recently tuned nerves.

The man continued, "Begging your pardon, sire, but who are you?" his question wasn't marked by anger, but by confusion and awe.

"I am..." Sparda's voice surprised him. No longer was it gruff and tinged with sinister, brooding undertones. The words flowed out of his mouth rhythmically and elegantly. His voice was still deep, but not unnaturally so for a human.

"I was…her friend..."

The tears began to fill his eyes again. He reached up and placed his fingers over his eyes, finding the new skin to be strangely absorbent. He pulled his hands away and the tears continued to form. A single drop slid down his cheek, and wrapped around to his mouth. The pungent, salty taste of it shocked Sparda slightly, but hardly enough for others to notice.

The wind whipped up again. Goosebumps formed over Sparda's back and chest as the wind hit him. His hair was whisked about, swerving back and forth. As he came to his feet, he reached up and placed a hand on his face, feeling his nose. As his hand grazed his eyes, the pain from before filled them, but only for a split second. He then ran his hand upwards over his face and through his hair soaked with sweat. It slid back easily, and lay slick against his head.

As his hand fell back to his side, he saw things differently; now, even more colors, more than he had ever seen as a demon, were present. The crowd was taken aback by the deep, vibrant blue color of his eyes.

Another person, a woman, stepped forward. With a look of incredulity, she held her arm out, motioning to his side. "You...fought them, with no weapon? All of them?"

Sparda remembered his sword, that he had thrusted it deep into the black stone in that strange, violet dimension, leaving his power behind in the Underworld...

"I had a sword...it is in their world now."

Whispers among the crowd ran rampant, whispers that echoed throughout history.

He must've been trained since birth...

...the greatest the world has ever seen...

…the Savior of the human world… shining knight among the darkness…

He will become a legend among our people...

"What is your name, lord?" a voice called out.

"My name…is unimportant. I am no longer worthy of it."[11]

"But what shall we call you? You defended our world, we could not speak of you in vanity. Please, we must know; for the sake of our children and our children's children, tell us."

Sparda raised his head and spoke his name quietly. He saw a man run from the crowd back to the village...

"You protected us, you saved us…" another voice said. Sparda stood still as the crowd gathered around him. Everyone rushed to place their hands on him. The feeling caused Sparda's skin to tremble.

One person picked up his dark violet cape and draped it over his shoulders. Two men carried Anna's body away, although Sparda quickly grabbed for her amulet. But before he could, it was taken by a hand and placed over his head.

"The Dark Knight, Sparda..." a voice called. The crowd affirmed the new title with whispers and nods.

Sparda recognized one man moving though the crowd, from many nights long since past; he was the one who made weapons for Anna, the alchemist. He held a large box in his hands and presented it to Sparda.

"I made these for her, to fight them. I think she would have wanted you to have them..." He opened the box and presented the contents to Sparda.

Sparda extended his hand and held one of the twin gifts. Ivan tapped the other with his finger, wearing an oddly inappropriate grin on his face, given the sombre occasion. "They will never need to be reloaded, you know..."

Sparda examined them again, and christened them aloud, "Luce and Ombra..."

Looking at the archaic twin pistols, he remembered Anna's last words...

Watch over them...

Sparda held his head high and a solemn, human smile stretched across his face:

"I will, Anna, I will..."

.

[1, 5, 10] Here we see reference again to the Moon/Mother Goddess, albeit in what appears to be her benevolent, nurturing aspect. Her traditional relation the soul, subtle energies, and death are preserved here. Further investigation is necessary to be certain of the significance and origin of this enigmatic Goddess, and explain her presence within a predominantly male-driven narrative. One thing that can be assumed is that she, along with "Anna" and "Marlene" represents precisely the counter-balance to the dark, cthonic principle represented by the masculine and the demonic. This is a classic example of Archetypal enantiodromia, according to Dr. Musa Ibn-Amir. ~Ed. with thanks, as always, to my friend and colleague Musa Ibn-Amir.

[2] My colleagues once again see here a parallelism to the life of the Budha, Siddartha Gautama. Upon attaining his awakening, the Budha was assailed by the forces of darkness in the guise of Mara. When Mara challenges the Budha's right to awaken and escape his subjugation, the Budha reaches down fro his seated position and touches the Earth/Gaia, who rumbles and testifies to his great deeds. This gesture is called the bhumisparsha mudra. ~Ed. with thanks to Eastern Religion Department.

[3] The Tower here is framed as a type of axis mundi, connecting the two worlds, not unlike the Mesopotamian E-temen-anki. It is implied furthermore that the Tower was built upon the center of the Earth, the omphalos or navel, as is a common claim for sacred sites, such as the Oracle at Delphi. ~Ed.

[4] The original manuscript includes the same ambiguous language here as in the "chapter" before last. It mentions again the "amulet's soul" and the fact that it "breathed for her." The implication here seems to be that the power of the amulet somehow preserved her soul for a short time. Many mystical sects believe that, upon death, the soul of the deceased leaves the body and remains near it for a short time following whereupon it begins to disintegrate, taking a maximum of 40 days to transmigrate the hollow worlds of death completely. It appears that the amulet may have acted as an anchor for the soul to remain in a coherent state for a short time, either within the amulet itself or in the supraphysical energy centers of the body. As the soul and qi are understood as the subtle breath of the supraphysical bodies, it is understandable that "Anna's" soul is allowed to re-inspirate her body for a short time, in the manner of an infant's "first breath of life." Despite this textual rationalization, it does strike one somewhat as a deus ex machina. ~Ed. with thanks to Dr. Musa Ibn-Amir

[6] One may recall the verse of Romans 8:22 to see the philosophical undertones at work here: "For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now." This "great burden" is not unique to Sparda or any group or individual, but is the nature of the fallen state of the world. Thus, to cry is to see clearly, and to lament in faith at the world of shells in which we must groan and travail unto death. ~Ed. with reference to Vatican commentary

[7, 8] This appears to be the description of a spontaneous samadhi state, one which obviously affects the physical body. This is a common theme, and indeed, a goal for the Qin Daoist alchemists, the transformation of the body into an incorruptible body through transmuting the subtle energies of the body. What Daoist mystics take decades, or even centuries, to achieve, however, is achieved by Sparda in an instant, which emphasizes his exceptional nature. ~Ed.

[9] There is an aphorism within the tradition of Western alchemy which is along the lines of: "It is in our deepest wounds that we find the hidden gold of the soul." Interested readers are encouraged to seek out the writings of Dennis Hauck and Adam McLean. ~Ed.

[11] Readers will recall the note on the "true name" in the last chapter, and will see that Sparda refusing to speak his name has tremendous symbolic meaning ~Ed.