Capítulo 34: Chapter 20.1 - Onto New Beginnings [1]
I wake up.
It wasn't slow or fast. I have no physical body to wake. I wake from nothing, and there isn't anything to wake to.
Distantly I can feel my memories returning from a world far away, like sand slowly dropping through an hourglass. Most come crumpled, mismatched, and all over the place, but they paint a picture clear enough for me to understand who I am, and what the hell I'm doing in this empty void.
Huh, feels kind of like the void before I came into the Nasuverse. Hmm…
That comparison can be saved for later. Right now, I have a mission to finish and I intend to follow it all the way through.
Slowly, without a body to move, I begin to move forward, following the thumping sounds I can distantly hear with my magical hearing, which is strange actually. I don't have a body right now, so how can I hear stuff? Does a magi's magical sense work even when their actual body part is damaged or gone?
'No, focus.'
I shake the thought off and continue onwards. As I trudge onwards, the void seems to stretch on forever, the emptiness growing. The trickle of my returning memories slow, and my direction begins to waver as my hearing begins to dull.
But it doesn't stop me.
I push forward, against the dense void of nothingness, everything growing duller. The memories' I had gained broke away, slowly chipped piece by piece by the stabs of a thousand needles. Pain returns, attacking me from every direction, but I don't stop. I've experienced worse, gone through pain of higher intensity.
Forward.
With every step my mind breaks, my memories breaking into a million shards. With every move forward my hearing dulls, pain ravaging through what remains of my mind. Every step onwards seemed to tear me down, burning away what remains of my identity as I trudged through the empty void.
Onwards.
I know nothing, I am nothing, but I don't stop. I let my instinct guide me forward, the remains of my soul as my strength to push on.
The distant thumping grows, a sign that I'm coming closer, and I hasten my movement. The void tries to push back, intent on forcing me away from whatever it is in the distance, but I grit on and charge. Pain blossoms through my being as I'm crushed under the weight of the world's curses, but I hear the thumping grow louder and my spirits burn.
FORWARD.
Something from inside me bursts forward, a light brighter than even the light from the sun. The curses burn away, forging a path, and I go forth. Lightning dances through the empty world, zapping through the empty world and leading me towards the distant sound.
ONWARD.
The void constricts around me, coiling around me like the devil's tail, but the roar of a dragon breaks through the darkness and I'm freed from my restraints. Free, I run, putting my all to follow through the path the light had paved, following the trail of electricity left behind by the shots of lightning.
The world twists, curving and collapsing onto itself as a final attempt to stop my momentum.
Even without sight, I can tell that I won't make it, not without the light burning through the wall of curses that the void is trying to form.
Hope begins to fizzle out, the spirits that had powered me dying down.
Then, I feel the touch of a gentle hand on my back.
'Go.'
I hear a soft voice say, before I'm suddenly pushed forward through the closing hole and out the other side. With a soft thud, I land on what seems to be a pane of glass that stretched on farther than could be seen. The black void is replaced by a gentle blue, and I can see what looks to be a setting sun in the night sky above.
"Eugh…" I groan out, rubbing the ache on my head from that fall,
Before stopping and looking down at my hand, and then to the rest of my body. I blink, rather surprised to see that my physical body is back, though with it comes the startling realisation that my memory is still shattered in many places. The body I'm inhabiting feels both familiar yet unfamiliar, and it's making me feel all weird.
And what's my name anyway? Hanami? Shirou? Gilgamesh?
Agh, thinking about it makes my head hurt.
That aside, my goal here hasn't changed. With my body back, I can clearly hear the sound of thumping, and it's close. I begin making my way, careful to not shatter the seemingly thin pane of glass under me.
Step by step I walk forward, using the distant sound to guide my way while I busy myself with trying to piece together the jumbled memories inside my head. It's almost like a puzzle, one that's incredibly frustrating and has some of the weirdest shit I've seen, but a puzzle nonetheless, and one I aim to complete.
Sadly, by the time I reach the source of that distant sound, I've made hardly any progress in my efforts and decide to shelve it for later. Shaking my head, I open my eyes.
And see a...boy?
No. Not just a boy.
It's a boy, but also a man, yet also a girl and a woman at the same time. The one there is young and old, with facial features constantly shifting from one to another.
Despite that, I know of its name.
Angra Mainyu. The bearer of the world's evils.
It's a name that brings a chill down my spine, reminding me of terrors I can't remember, and yet I can hardly feel threatened by the individual before me, sitting on the ground and crying under the curses thrown at him by the world.
All I feel is pity.
Carefully, I approach him and place a gentle hand on his shoulder. Angra stiffens up, before slowly turning to me, his shifting eyes wet with painful tears.
In those eyes I see hell.
I see the curses that'd been bearing into him, that'd been etched into every part of his body. I see how they've changed him, molded him into a pariah to take on the sins of humanity. From those eyes I can almost hear the cries he'd let out, the pleas for them to stop, to finally let death claim him and free him from the world.
How dare they?
How dare they condemn such an innocent child?
How dare they place the hammer their sins onto him?
How dare they twist him into a monster?
How dare they?
HOW DARE THEY?
The shouts and curses ring through my ears, filling my head with status, but my eyes don't move. They can't move.
How can they simply forget?
How can they leave him behind?
How can they find pleasure in his pain?
HOW DARE THEY?
Pain courses through my veins and I cry out. The curses from inside Angra surges out, turning his shifting body dark with black tribal tattoos stretching all over his exposed self, a representation of the curses those sinful humans had carved into his body. The tribal tattoos snake up Angra's body, and with a spike of pain, they begin crawling up the hand I'd placed on his back, coiling up my skin like a devious snake.
But I don't let go.
Weakness. Blindness. Confusion. Sickness. Hatred. Anger. Laziness. Forgetfulness. Indifference. Sadness. Deafness. Numbness. Corruption. Destruction. Isolation. Contempt. Unwillingness.
Because if I let go, then wouldn't I be the same as the others?
SORROW. REGRET. MISERY. WRETCH. DESOLATION. GRIEF. TRAGEDY. GRIEVING. AGONY. SHAME. DISGRACE. DESPAIR. HATRED. ABOMINATION. DISGUST.
I can't quite help but whimper as the curses continue to climb my arm, the tattoos slithering farther and farther onto my body. It makes me feel cold, lost, the curses slowly etching themselves into my heart.
GREED
LUST
ENVY
GLUTTONY
WRATH
SLOTH
PRIDE
I gasp, blood painfully boiling inside my heart as my body burns. The curses have situated itself within me, my skin now decorated by the swirling black tattoos that Angra has as well. They shine with malice and contempt, each point of color a different sin that was etched into Angra, and is now mine.
His pain is now mine. The curses he bears are mine to bear as well. The anger in his heart is now shared with me. The burden on his shoulders has become shared between us.
"Why?"
I hear him ask from inside my mind, his eyes confused at the strange suicidal act I'd pulled off. I can feel tears building in my eyes, my body ready to give in to the unbearable pain, but I'm not going to fall, not yet.
So, with the humanity left inside me, I smile the brightest smile I can.
"Because a burden is better shared with another."
Slowly, from within my soul a light begins to shine out, tearing through the curses. The light would've never been able to break through the curses alone, but the curses have been split, shared, and thinned out by another to allow the warmth of the light to break through the coldness of the settled curses.
No, it isn't simply that.
Infinity divided by half is still infinity. Had his soul had fully become the catalyst for all the world's evils, my light would've never been able to break the veil of all the world's evils on its own.
But just like Angra is now, my light isn't alone. The one emotion that remained in Angra Mainyu is hatred, anger, yet within that blackened heart lied a simple wish, a proof that his heart hadn't yet turned to stone.
A wish to be free.
So be it.
Angra's eyes widen, shocked. A light stronger than any he'd ever seen bursts out from the girl in waves. Every single curse within her is burnt away, the black tribal tattoos broken and cleansed. Angra quickly closes his eyes, afraid of the light's power, but the cleansing light doesn't hurt him.
"In the throes of the world you have suffered."
I don't know where the words are coming from, but I don't care. Even with me cutting apart some of the curses within him, the remaining ones are strong, hardened and strengthened by the passing of time. I double my efforts, cutting deeper into the wall of curses implanted deep into Angra with the cleansing light.
"An unwilling pariah of man, you were a boy never given a chance."
"In hatred you were born, in hatred you have found peace."
I begin to bleed as the darkness within him lashes out, fighting back with the curses humanity had carved into him. Distantly, I can hear him pleading to stop, pleading for me to just leave him so he could hate me like he does for all of humanity.
My light shines brighter.
"From the depths of your heart I heard your plea, a cry for salvation from the damned."
The curses increase in intensity, but so does my light. It tries to intercept me and curses seep into my hand, but my light burns it away. Blood continues to flow out of me as I fight back against this seemingly endless tide, and my vision begins to blur from the loss of blood.
But that matters not.
"And so I have come."
Angra looks at me, surprised and confused, and if I'd looked at a mirror then I would've seen my eyes shift from green to a burning gold, with wisps of blue flashing past it.
"Accursed you may be, condemned you may be, but it matters not."
"Be cleansed from the sins placed upon you."
"Break free from the chains humanity had placed around you."
Reach within. Isolate it. Then burn it, with the might of the northern star!
With a shout, I pour out all the energy I have left, pushing my cleansing light past the curses the darkness has been fighting with and into Angra's soul.
There, deep within the soul wrapped by hatred, I can hear that one plea for freedom, that cry for salvation. Gently, I wrap my light around it, almost like a warm blanket, and with a smile,
"Be freed."
My magic explodes outward and fills the world with bright light, cleansing every and all filth.
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