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Ch.61: The Final Showdown in the Hall of Mirrors
The clanging of metal echoed piercingly on the mirrors as our images crashed together. I retreated almost immediately and took a big leap back. It was about that time I realized that I have no idea how to use a sword! Yes, you swing it hard as you can, but I have no clue about the technics and forms (which are a lot more important than they sound!)
And I can tell from his easy stride and movements that Alistair was probably trained in this kind of thing. I'm officially f*****!
The blade sent a weird…jolt up through my arm, and in raised itself to block Alistair on its own accord! And suddenly, I knew how to use the blade. No whispered advise, no vision, just there. As though I'd always known.
I countered Alistair's strike and parried, sending his arm out and I slashed at his legs. He jumped away, bringing his sword up for another whack. I slid the base of my sword against it as he brought it down, skidding and sending sparks to the reflective surface.
Parry, strike, through and through, one and two, matching move for move as we made our way across the smooth, silver lined glass. A thousand and one mirror images matched us, copying our deadly dance to the beat, no matter how diluted the reflection was. The strength behind his blows sent jolts down my arm, but I kept my grip and returned the favor. My boots skidded on the floor and I gulped.
Alistair had about three inches on me, and no doubt several pounds. This floor was so slick, if he got me on the defensive; I'd lose my footing and literally slip to his mercy! There was no way I could win like this!
The Vorpal blade tingled in my hand and, my movement as though in a dream but with my senses sharper than ever, I flicked my wrist and sent a wave of my aura at him. The orange energy had taken the shape of a crest and went at him like a gale. His frown deepened as he stepped aside.
"I see Yuri taught you that trick." I growled and didn't bother to acknowledge him on that comment. Yuri's warning about the aura eating sword rang in my head. Honestly, I didn't feel TOO different. But surely if I used that too much, I would.
Alistair came at me again, "Why do you protect them?!" His sword met mine and sparks flashed, the sight somehow matching the ping and sliding sound that followed. "They're all murdering whelps! If you didn't have a heart, they would treat you like they do all the faceless!" He shoved me away, "LIKE TRASH!" He lunged at me, "So why?! I thought you were supposed to catch the people who did that?!"
I blinked, somewhat off put by the question. I gave a little and, seeing Alistair about to take advantage of that, pressed back harder. I glared into his mad eyes, "I help them because…because they're my friends!" He jumped away and held back this time and took the opportunity to hop back. "Friends?! You think they care about you, little foreigner?! That, my dear, is precisely why they pay any attention to you! Simply because of that fragile little thing that beats in your chest."
I glared at him, "That's not true Alistair. It's not." He laughed, "You sound so sure of yourself! What about how they treat life, hmm? They'd just as soon kill their best friend as they would their enemy; it makes no difference to them!" I swallowed the hard nob in my throat, "They don't know better. They CAN'T know better."
He came at me and met I him in the middle, slashing my sword to try and land a blow and defend myself. Parry, guard, dodge, fake left, slash, thrust, retreat, repeat. The hundreds of images copied us.
"C.J, can you not see the evil of this world?! It gives you something to love, something you think will last forever, and then it rips it away! Some carless fool blowing away the most precious thing to you like it was no more important than a dead leaf! This world is rotted and decayed to the very core!" I stared at him, "So the answer is doomsday?!"
This time, I came at him. He dodged and went for my wrist, hoping to knock the blade out of my hand. I twisted my grip and blocked him, shoving him out of range again.
He sneered, "Just what is so precious about hearts anyway? That I could never figure out." He lunged at me, "Such fragile things! So easy to break and destroy!" I blocked the edge of his blade with my own, "You're…you're right." I broke away again, "The heart is weak. It wants and it breaks. It grieves and, sometimes, it gives up." I stared at him as he circled me, "But even though a heart never really heals, that's what makes them special." I lunged at him, "They can change and grow, they can love and go as far as someone's willing to take them!"
I stared into those eyes, nose to nose, "And my heart belongs to ME. Even if I die, it will ALWAYS belong to me."
He growled and shoved me away, hard enough to knock the wind out of me. I stumbled and he advanced, bringing his sword down on my head mercilessly. I raised my blade and deflected it, the skidding bouncing like a deaf bat as I jumped away and regained my footing.
He was on me again, unrelenting. I backed away, unsure of how far the wall was, if it even existed. I parried and blocked him as best I could, trying to keep up with the assault of rapid attacks. There was a distinctive shlink! as his blade slid on mine in the wrong angle. I flicked my wrist and sent his weapon sailing.
I shoved him away from me. He stumbled and jumped away before I could move. His eyes were like a storm as he raised his palm, strange glyphs looking like they were burned into his palms. He hissed in a strange tongue I'm not even going to bother writing so I won't torture yourself as you all try to say it. (and I know just about every one of you would)
As the last of his sentence or phrase left his lips, the mirror beneath his feet cracked. The cracks spider webbed out, like watching a disease spread in time lapse. The pieces they encircled tinted to a dark and ominous wine color. I backed up as the cracks spread to me, but there was no way I could out run it.
Soon, I was standing in the cracks, the ground still shaking. I looked down and squeaked, jumping away just in time to avoid being speared by a large, amethyst crystal with an evil light emanating from its imperfect insides. More and more sprang up, ranging in height and width. Before I know it, I was in a field.
I looked to see a dark figure standing atop one of them. Alistair had somehow regained his sword and was rearing back at me. I watched as his swing let loose a blade of blackness, dark as the shadow creatures. I ducked under it and returned fire, my Aura Cutter (for that is what I have named this move) slashed into the violet crystals below him and sent him sliding down.
He grabbed onto another one and I sent another bolt at him, trying to make him come down. I glared as he once again saved himself from the ground and I pointed the blade at him with the tip…and let loose an Aura Bolt (For that is what I've name this.)
The orange bolt caught him in the back and spread to the rest of him, sending him jerking to the ground. I ran to him as he struggled to get up, retaliating with several Shadow Blades. I dodged the first two and canceled the last one with one of my own.
As the smoke cleared from the Blades, I saw a black copycat of the Aura Bolt arching towards me. I aimed and sent one of my own, meeting Alistair's dead center. The two beams fought each other for a moment before flashing, knocking both of us back.
I stood as quickly as I could, only to suck in a breath and heave, looking down at my hand. I had cut on something, but it hurt a whole lot more than a shallow cut such as this one was supposed to. It was like the very air's sting had a higher potency. I hissed, am I running out of aura already?!
I pulled myself to my feet and readjusted my grip on my blade. Alistair was directly twenty yards in front of me. It seems he actually got knocked into some of the crystals! He got out of his deep fissure, glaring at me and limping a bit from his wounded leg. Aside from that, his bleeding head, and his out of breath state, he seemed unharmed. But I could see he was tiring. Is his aura running dry to?
He gulped and raised his sword to me, "No idea…you have no idea! Every day, I saw people, people I knew for Dealers sake, get replaced. After they got replaced, they were never the same! They don't remember their favorites; they don't remember their families, or their friends! They become strangers!"
I stared at him from across the twisted landscape, "No idea? I have no idea? That isn't death bub. That's a cheap imitation of real death. In my world, we call that amnesia. In my world, to die means that you'll never see that person again."
I ran at him, the tears stinging my eyes, "Death means you'll never hear their voice, or see them smile again! It means they won't be around to hug you when you cry, or pick you up when you fall, or tuck you in at night and stay up with you until the monsters go away." I beat a hasty retreat, my blown having failed. I almost stumbled over a shard of the amethyst, regained my balance, and tuned to stare at him, "Death means they're gone, Alistair. They're gone forever and nothing can bring them back."
Held me gaze, "…Charlie's gone to. What happened to her was real death. She's was here, and now she's not." He charged, "SHUT UP!" I backed up and caught the blow, my arms shaking as he kept adding more pressure to the blow. All around us, the glittering and glowing crystals reflected one another, the wine red floor reflecting the ceiling, and the untainted roof high above refracting the battle below.
"THIS ISN'T GOING TO BRING HER BACK! NOTHING CAN!" "SHUT UP!" I felt something wet gently hit my face. I blinked and looked up to see tears. Tears were spilling from his eyes and softly plinking s they hit the glass below our feet. "…She wouldn't want this Alistair. She would have wanted you to move on."
He was shaking. I saw it all in his eyes. He was tired. He was so, so tired. His grief and pain had thrown him into depression, and the role he was given added madness to that. And in all that I saw hate; self-hatred. Deep down, he hated himself for what he did. The man that Charlie had fallen in love with and Elda, Yuri and Alister had been friends with was in there, loathing what he had become.
"You now, she's still waiting for you." He blinked. "She's still waiting for all of you. I guess Alister's joined her by now…. And Elda's still alive. She's a little old lady now, but she didn't die back then…on that day. And…they're waiting for Alistair, not the Dark Master."
His expression was unreadable. The pressure on the blade loosened. I stared at him, thinking of the grief he had suffered, in a world where grief of the dead was non-existent. "…Alistair…I think you were born in the wrong world." His head came up. "You're different than most of the other here. You already understood death, as best you could. In a world where death just doesn't happen, you were grief stricken when the person you loved ACTUALLY died. I drove you crazy. …I think that's why you were picked." He frowned. "You and all the roleholders were given your roles, right? So, the one who gave you your role knew you were…different."
His pressure let up, but I didn't move, "…What do you really want Alistair?" He was trembling in exhaustion and fatigue. "What I want… want to be with Charlie again."
His sword fell to the ground with a clank. "I want to see her. I want to see Alister. I want to tell him I'm sorry. I want to tell ALL of them I'm sorry." He laughed a nervous bark and held his head in his hands, "But they'd never forgive me. The things I did, the things I put you and Alister and Yuri through. They'd never-" "They already have forgiven you."
He looked up, and fell to his knees, too tired to stand anymore. I sat down cross legged in front of him, when I really just wanted to curl up in a soft bed. "Alistair, I learned when I was young that it's never too late to turn it around. At least, as long as you're alive. As long as you're alive, you can make the change."
He stared at the cracks in the ruby floor and, without looking up, murmured, "…ill me." "Hm?" He looked up, "C.J, I want you to kill me." I raised my eyebrows. "Please." His eyes were desperate, "I'm tired. So tired of this." True, I saw. He looked almost twice his age right now, the lines of his young face haggard and worn. "And if they're waiting for me, I should go. So please, in this moment of sanity, end it."
Maybe I should have argued. Maybe I should have refused. But in all honesty, I just nodded and stood up. There comes a time when something like this MUST be done.
I stood up and stuck the Vorpal blade through his clock. He didn't fight or make a sound. The only real sound was the sound of the blade plunging through delicate gears and springs, destroying the mechanic for good. When I pulled it out of him, he shivered, as though cold, and laid back. I remembered that a clock death was a slow one, and that he'd lay there bleeding for some time. He didn't deserve to spend it alone.
Sat down next to him and waited. "…Alistair, why did you go through all that trouble before? With me?" He laughed, a little more blood coming from his chest. "You…you reminded me of Charlie. If I was, then perhaps she was…born in the wrong world as well." He looked up at the mirrored sky, now becoming hazy. "It's…rather funny. Back then, she made me feel…like I was special. Like had a heart. And now you…make me feel the same way…." He choked and coughed.
I frowned and swiped his hair off his chilling forehead. Unable to think of anything else to do, I started humming. I hummed the same song that Ni-san once hummed to me as he tucked me in. If the song had ever had words, he never taught them to me, and he never sang them. (Perhaps because Ni-san, despite his many talents, couldn't have carried a tune in a bucket.)
Alistair smiled and closed his eyes. He didn't open them again and, after a while, he stopped breathing.
I felt a hand on my shoulder drag me up, and then I was on my feet, being hugged from both sides and inspected for wounds by Yuri and White. White was shaking me, trying to get me to respond. I couldn't register what he was saying. I turned my head and saw the mirror. It was shattered, the fragments like blood.
I shuddered; Alistair's body was nowhere to be seen. I started to shake as the realization finally came to me-it's finally over. I did it. A tear slipped out of my eye. Why did I feel so sad then?
NO P.O.V IN PARTICULR:
All around the town, structures collapsed. The beacon that had previously hung over the town vanished, and the low gray clouds that hung over the Badlands thinned, later to disperse entirely.
The creatures that Boris, Peirce, and Ace had been fighting disappeared. At first they were all confused. Then they all grinned and turned to run to the tower as fast as they could.
C.J:
I leaned heavily on White as he helped me out of the door of the clock tower. Already, the deserted village seemed…happier. As though ghosts had finally departed after so long.
As the three of us started down the path back, the other three appeared, well and alive. They all came up to me and hugged me, clapped me on the shoulder, and expressed their relief. This all passed like a dream. I couldn't focus. It was like some kind of fog had settled over my mind.
The men were all smileys and heading on, ready to get on the road back home. I watched as White started after them and I tried to follow. My feet felt like lead and, very suddenly, I was very sleepy. I felt an irregular weight in my hat press against my skull.
I reached up and took out the item in question, just as White was approaching me to ask what was wrong. I stared at it my hand, the only thing I could see with real clarity.
My vial was full. I won. Game Over.
And then I closed my eyes….
….
And opened them to see blue skies covered by leaves. I blinked a few times, only to realize I was leaning up against a tree in the middle of a grove. MY grove.
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