Description: When someone loses something important, it's common to search for it high and low. Where could it have gone? Over time, unfound, the search turns to a process of grief. Why was I abandoned? However, there are also those lucky few who instead stop looking, and start rebuilding. And, in the right situation -- and with the right support -- that can sometimes result in the most miraculous outcome of all: realizing that it wasn't a 'thing' that was lost, but rather... the person.
Looked at from a great distance, history moves in carefully-maintained cycles. The reasons why are varied, argued by many. Certainly, the phrase "ignore history and you are doomed to repeat it" is one take on that. Is it because human nature inevitably causes people to act in similar ways, across history and across culture? Is there simply a hand of fate guiding all and sundry along pre-existing paths that cannot be broken? Or is there a simple and beautiful synchronicity in the chaos of existence, where despite the clashing and fragmenting effects of free will, paths inevitably draw people together into patterns, stories and narratives, that are familiar across space and time?
Here at the Temple of the Silver Pavillion -- Ginkaku-ji -- winter has been kind to the already lovely and well-kept grounds, though at this hour of the evening and in the February cold, most people are gone. Layers of perfect white snow sit on top of ponds, paths, and pagodas like clouds in a child's picture book, blanketing everything, embodying the spirit of the season as a time when life is suppressed and lies in wait in order to emerge again in the spring. Above, the moon is bright despite being on the recede from being full; a dark crescent has been cut away as the formerly full moon wanes gibbous, but the light it shines on this serene setting is still bright and silver. This far away from the city of Kyoto proper, at least, the stars shine white in a sky of velvety dark blue.
The silence of the winter night is broken by a sound somewhere between a metallic *shnk!* and the sound of something wooden being tapped. It's the sound of a metal blade being cracked free from a scabbard, and as the lens pulls back for us to see, the blade in question is dull and blunt, not even a 'blade' anymore. The scabbard, on the other hand, is a work of art: a deep blue reminiscent of tropical seas, decorated with a pattern of silver chrystanthemums, a flower usually associated with the samurai caste. A hand grips the hilt, wrapped in blue cloth, and draws the entire thing in a shining, silver arc, cutting the air with a whistling noise, before being turned and slowly pushed back into place.
Over and over and over.
The repetition is giving Frei peace; if this were more hardcore practice, bundles of straw on poles would be in front of him, waiting to be sliced in a low diagonal arc with one slice of his weapon. Now he is content with merely causing the low whistle of a heavy object through the air at high speed, over and over and over. There is a dullness to the emerald green of his eyes, perhaps as he stays in some sort of trance, lulled into it by the constant, rote, repetitive motion. He's come here to think, and reflect... and heal.
Bandages mark his body from cuts, bruises, and scrapes; Rugal's secretaries had a message to deliver and, through Frei, deliver it they did. Normally he wouldn't be able to leave the YFCC during such a time, but just this once, he said, he needed to focus on himself first and the world second. What he didn't tell anyone was that he's heard the voices of the gods, and now despite their favor, he remains lost and confused.
The sword is reliable, and real, and solid.
*whum* *whum* *whum*
He feels as though he's been here before.
A moment's reflection upon the threshold is required to recall that, in fact, he /has/ been here before, visited the temples of Kyoto and been soothed by the tranquil pace and antiquated charm of the old capital. Yet, strangely, his deja vu is made all the more disconcerting by the quick enough realization that the memory is his own. The experience of a vague memory -- that itching of the brain -- is distinct from the eerie sensation of having experienced a situation, a place /and/ a time, before, yet not truly having lived it. Perhaps it is because Ginkaku-ji is so different in the winter. Perhaps it is because he has come after hours, pursuing an all-too familiar aura -- ever a detective for the already-known -- and the absence of people fails to resonate with hazy past images. Or perhaps it is the man standing there, his sword cutting the night, his eyes looking at something no darkness can obscure. Perhaps it is because that man has made this place is own, and in stepping into the temple our stranger intrudes not upon an unfamiliar place but an unfamiliar story.
Alma Towazu has been here before--
"...Frei."
--but never seen through these eyes.
He didn't mean to interrupt. The name of his friend escaped almost as a sigh-- of affection, of regret, of nostalgia, of relief. But much of Alma's expression arises unsolicited by his conscious self, and he is used to taking responsibility for his heart's reaching out. Now that he has spoken, he steps forward, onto a snow-strewn pathway, the cold that had bit him through his fitted jacket seeming to melt away.
"I... saw and heard of what occurred at the Center."
One hand brushes aside a pale, ruby-tinged lock of hair obscuring his hazel eye, but the usual gesture disguises a weary rubbing of his brow and temple, a weak attempt to purge stress.
"Once again, you've suffered the consequences of my actions."
But when he removes his hand, he is smiling gently, with a warmth unmitigated by the winter chill.
"...Thank you, as always."
One final time, the weapon cuts the air and then finds its way back into the scabbard. At close range, it's easy to tell that it's lacquered wood in a very old style, probably so much that it shouldn't even be used for this purpose anymore. Not that Frei cares much about that; believe it or not, the object is his by birthright anyway. For a moment, he drinks in all that Alma has said, and more to the point, the sense of presence that Alma brings with him. Even with his slowly-returning abilities lessened, and in fact even without them, Frei is a natural at reading situations. Somehow, a person just standing there still exudes... a feeling, somehow. A tenor of the air, like the mood of the moment were a series of harpstrings that Alma, merely by arriving, has chosen from to pluck a single, reverberating note.
And there's a lot of complex emotions going on here. For starters, this is the first time Frei has seen his friend since the events of the Southtown siege. The last time these two saw each other, it was standing outside the rubble of the Artemis Engine's home, with both Jiro and twenty-six clones of Frei sitting under it, lost to the world. So much has happened since and yet, so much of what went on that day has gone unaddressed. He can't help but think of Alma's fury, his genuine-seeming desire to quite literally kill someone. He recalls the look of blank terror on Kula Diamond's face. He remembers many images, all of them sleeting through his consciousness with a dizzying rapidity. Fighting Mizuki. Hearing voices. Seeing the gods. Jiro giving his life to save Kula, who Alma had just 'killed'. Thinking of the full implications of the Artemis Engine and what that meant not just for the clones, but for Frei himself.
The scent of blood, and fire, and explosions, and fear.
But something in him knows he has to be glib, and if he wants to be glib he has to turn away. He can't let Alma see his face, not just yet. Maintaining control of his emotions should be obvious, but he doesn't need to let that hurt his friend unnecessarily. Instead he uses the motion of sheathing his sword to turn away and tilt his head up toward the sky. Eventually, he turns his face slightly toward Alma, as if regarding him out of the corner of his eye.
"So..." he asks conversationally. "Did you save the kitten from the burning building?"
Shoulders slumping slightly, the Radiant Angel resignedly sighs.
"You don't know the half of it."
His hand reaches up in an unconscious gesture, fingering lightly at where the massive wound in his chest only recently healed over, thanks purely to supernatural vitality.
"I could've used a kitten or two," he adds as he straightens, recovering himself, his smile returning, a faint upturning of his lips that touches more his eyes than face. "But the building was definitely burning."
Pausing to allow a moment of silence, Alma reflects upon the ambiance. He does not feel distance between them. Part of what makes him a bad friend is precisely the visceral manner in which he experiences friendship, the fact that once a bond has solidified, has been burnt into his mind, bound into his heart, and engraved upon his spirit, he never ceases to feel it. Never -- with his faith, with his passion, with his overriding mission, and with the power of the relationships he and his fellows have forged -- does Alma feel alone. But loneliness is a powerful motive-- and it brings friends together more often than Alma is reunited with his.
Feeling too deeply can make you unfeeling, make the world center around you even as it expands to encompass others. Neither empathy nor respect are cures for that; and mastery of an overwhelming presence can make it less oppressive, but it does not dissolve the difference between oneself and others, a difference that must be accounted for in a purely human way.
This is something Alma knows he has yet to learn.
It was something...
"Jiro..."
...was the first to tell him.
"I've heard his condition has been stable for a while."
Silence, and snow.
"When I pay my respects to Adelheid... I intend on visiting him. I'd forgotten... how long it's been." Forget eternal bonds-- when a man comes to you in your dreams, it's perhaps understandable that you wouldn't seek out his body. "I'd forgotten... how long it's been since we'd had time together."
He pauses, and for once, Alma is unsure how to continue.
What now? 'I know that we have our differences, but'?
He reaches up, a little awkwardly, to rub the back of his head.
'Our separate convictions are no obstacle to our friendship'?
They both already know these things. And Alma won't preach or lecture.
Not to him.
Not here.
"..."
This is Frei's temple.
He can't help but look a little uneasy not taking the initiative, but--
Alma says nothing more, and waits.
"Adelheid..."
Just the name conjures up many images. The Einherjar Initiative... Adelheid Bernstein's attempt to make some sort of stand to the many forces out in the world which have little to no regard for human life. As he's reflected many times, Frei feels... well. To think of its members is to find, in diverse ways, a common purpose. Ichiro Oe, deeply in need of something to believe in after all that he's suffered in his relatively short life so far. Kula Diamond, trying to find if not penance, then at least a sort of peace that can only be found through righting was once was wrong. Jiro's fervent desire to do good, even if he grumbles about it all the while. Shurui's empathy for others born from her own suffering. Alma's irresitable urge to put his ideals forth in the world. So many expressions of the same thing.
And what am I doing here?
It's the question that's haunted Frei since he first stepped foot on the Sky Noah, battle-scarred and weary. What was his reason for saying yes? Merely to stay by Jiro and Alma's side? That couldn't have really been it. He could do that through the Center. No title needed to get in the way. So why? What does he have to offer, especially as he is now?
Alma's presence is in its own way a reminder of that insecurity. These two have taken divergent paths in life, but Alma's feeling is true; their philosophical diversion has never necessarily stood in the way of their ability to connect to each other. Until that moment. It's the elephant in the room, the ten-ton gorilla that can't be ignored, and the need to broach the subject is gnawing at Frei's attention like a cancer, even as he turns to face Alma, the emotional struggle clear on his face. How to respond? Confirm Jiro's state? Attack Alma for leaving Frei high and dry? He's already decided that the former is silly and the latter is pointless. Things happen because of causes and consequences that extend beyond a simple action. That's the flow of time that Frei knows to be true.
Instead he turns and, without meaning to, lets his eyes get heavy-lidded. He's going to jump right in. That's just how Frei operates. "I..." He can't help but pause, stumbling over the words, but at least it gives him time to notice he's looking more at the ground than at Alma, and to change that. "I think what I want to hear most is your explanation," is all he says, adjusting his weight onto one foot, pressing the toe of his shoe on the other into the ground. "Before I say anything. You do things without hesitating, but you don't do things... in a purposeless way."
Alma lowers his head, in acknowledgement.
Six months divide them from that day, yet the past is far from ancient history. It is with them here, intertwined undeniably with this moment, and so it is that Alma's feelings rush back as though the deed had only just been done. His memories of Ginkaku-ji may be indistinct, and his heart open to its possibilities. But he remembers the final battle at the Artemis Machine complex as though it were yesterday, and his certainty has too not faded.
"...Yes."
It never does.
"We value life."
He states it matter-of-factly, as though he had read Frei's mind and experienced too the flood of memories, the torrent of feeling, of that which formed the foundation for the Einherjar Initiative. 'We'-- all of them. Their different stories, their distinct characters, their different beliefs, distinguish them, but do not divide them. The same is true of Adelheid, Shurui, Jiro, and the others that is true of Frei and Alma: given the opportunity to choose otherwise -- no, demanded, called upon to choose -- they chose to value human life. Frei's attunement to the flows of nature might tend toward making of him an impartial observer, and Alma's corresponding intensity with which he experiences human emotion may drive his ideals to the fever pitch of a would-be messiah, but their inherent resistance to the other's natural way of life -- once a real division between them -- they have both transcended in their friendship, trusting in the basic affirmation they share.
This world is good, and people deserve to live.
The strength of that bond was tested to the limit in the battle they fought -- by the profundity of the circumstances, and how that summoned forth the greatest of their differences -- and it nevertheless endured. This proves, if nothing else, that their friendship is the envy of anyone. But--
Even the best friendships cannot -- should not, even -- erase the basic division between individuals.
And even sages and saviors make mistakes.
"Given that... for a moment, my decision confused even myself."
Never before had Alma even alluded to a killing intent within him.
"I must confess also that, when I first declared my intent, I felt with every fiber of my being the certainty that I must end her life. I did not intentionally deceive you or anyone. I thought... thought that I... was actually going to... do it."
Alma is forced to look away himself, this time, emotion rising momentarily in his eyes and voice. He composes himself and continues, but does not return his gaze to Frei.
"But one who sees hearts knows the power of a metaphor, even when, it appears, he does not know he is participating in one."
A brief but weighty pause.
"When my mother told me I would never be the man my father was," he begins slowly, "when she confirmed that I had failed to sustain her as he had, to absolve his betrayal in never telling us of his illness... I did not watch as she died. I turned and walked away. And I think... I think that if I had stayed, and watched powerlessly, I would have died myself. Or a part of me would have died, forever... and I would not... have the fire that I possess."
The fire of an incandescent passion, an eternal soul, a light to outshine the darkness of a vast and infinite space that would make of humanity a meaningless mote.
"At first, I thought I had run away. But I had taken a stand. I chose to live, and accept responsibility. Not for a child's failure-- but for the world, and the circumstances, that would give birth to an adult."
A leader, for all his youth and inexperience.
"Kula Diamond... needed to walk away."
His body visibly shudders, a tear tracing a path down one smooth cheek, but his voice does not for a moment falter now, though he pauses occasionally.
"I saw that, clearer than anything else. Within her, I saw myself, standing beside a mission that had made of me a monster, uncertain how to be of worth at all in the face of... losing everything. She, too, had been betrayed. But she was not going to walk away. She was going to go on, as I might have-- and she never would have come back. I couldn't allow that. I couldn't. Even if it meant taking it upon myself to destroy her mission myself-- even if it meant condemning everything, so that she did not have to-- even if it meant dragging her out the door-- terrible crimes against a person's dignity and autonomy, a responsibility no one man can truly bear. But I knew that I must. I had to destroy everything that she was, as everything that I had been was destroyed that day-- and pick up the pieces."
His arms are trembling.
"Frei... perhaps this cannot be understood..."
Only now does he look up.
"...But by killing Kula Diamond..."
His tears reflect the moon.
"I sought to prevent her suicide."
A fundamental law of the universe: for something to be gained, a price must be paid. Nothing comes free. This does not mean that all things are tainted in a... transactional way. Far from it. But even great happiness comes at some sort of cost. And Frei, upset as he was at Alma's actions, understands the burden that the psychic chose to take on himself. Both Frei and Alma, that day, were harbingers of death. Part of the natural cycle, but still an eternal and irreversible end.
He listens, Frei does; a hand comes up and runs through his hair, and the action makes it clear that, against all logic, shocks of his normal dark red are starting to reappear under the white-silver that seems to be a visual metaphor for his sudden disconnection from the world around him. In the end, Alma says the things that Frei wanted to hear, or at least the things Alma could have said that drain the venom from the sage's spirit. Because he feels true venom, somehow, and the depth of it surprises him. Certainly, Alma's ability to read people -- mundane or otherwise -- must make some of the logic apparent. A feeling of betrayal that his friend would leap headlong into such an act with, to all appearances, no real forethought. As if the notion appeared in his head and some divine will told him to do it, some echo in his heart that made it apparent this was the right decision in the face of all prevailing evidence against. Part of it was Frei's sudden realization that Alma, contrary to Frei's previous belief, felt that there were things on Earth that unquestionably deserved death.
It's not a belief Frei shares.
And this might be why, as the sword-wielding sage walks toward his friend and glances at his tear-stained face, that he does not smile, nor express a comforting visage, but instead nods with... if not satisfaction, then at least contentment that things are as they should be. "I'm glad you can cry," Frei says at last, letting his hand drop to his side and finger the hilt of the aforementioned sword. Ayame had visited Frei and made her point clear: a sword is a tool for killing. Frei claimed otherwise, or rather, that he would find a way that turned the sword into something else. Alma, for all his good intents, did something of the same. He wielded a sword, even if that blade was formed of ideology and hope rather than steel and iron, and with it he cut Kula Diamond down. It's not what Frei would have done, but he can only control himself.
Shaking his head to clear his thoughts, he continues. "If you can cry then you can understand the weight of what was lost. That's important to me. You know? Because you took something very precious away from Kula and that thing is free will." A pause, and Frei shuts his eyes as he finishes his thought. "That will may have led her on a path of destruction. You might be asking me, what evil would she have wrought before she came around, if she ever did? I don't have an answer, honestly. She might have killed many. But... what I saw..."
And here, Frei doesn't bother keeping distance. He doesn't bother trying to pretend that even the air itself is a wall; he steps forward, eyes blazing, and grips Alma's arm, the heat of his breath fogging the air between him at the intensity of the movement. "You walk a dangerous road, Alma. Whatever it is inside you that propels you forward to share your ideals... is a scary thing. I don't think you'd hurt me, unless it were necessary," and for some reason, the tightness in Frei's tone suggests, such a day is not an impossibility, "but when I watched you, and Kula, I couldn't help but think: what if it's me, someday? Or Jiro? Or Mimiru, or Hotaru... not because I don't trust you, or believe in you, but because you showed me something scary."
Briefly, he simply lets that syllable fall through the air, his fingers still digging into Alma's arm for a moment (provided Alma hasn't yanked it away) before he lets go and steps back. "I don't... I don't want to tell you your path is wrong. I don't think it is and what you've said proved it. You doubted, that you did the right then... as a child, and as a man. If you were a fool, you wouldn't doubt and you wouldn't worry and you wouldn't cry. You'd know in your heart that there was never any possibility that you were wrong, but that's not how you operate. I think that you pursue your ideals so relentlessly in spite of that is a sign of strength."
After that, he's silent. He wants to say more, but in spite of himself he doesn't; a hand comes up and presses palm down over his sternum, and he can feel it. A tightness in his chest, as if he wants to cry but can't, as if he wants to scream but can't... an acknowledgment that the world has changed and he might not like it. But the world is, as always, the world. He has to live in it, and so does Alma. The fury, at least, dies away, as he knew it must. Frei couldn't stay mad as long as he had the opportunity to interrogate his friend. To make him understand that Frei himself will eternally remind him of the opposite view... the foundation of their friendship rather than the wedge that would drive it forever apart.
Alma does not pull away.
Still-tearful eyes meet those full of fire and intensity.
And he listens.
"...Thank you."
When all is said and done, more than anything, he is grateful. That Frei is different. That Frei accepts him. That Frei will stand by his side. That Frei understands. And that he is his own man--
"That... means a lot to me."
With his own story.
"I'm... scared too."
This relentless conviction that he possesses--
"In Taizhou, I..." His voice is still slightly broken, and begins to mend only now, at last descending from that emotional peak. "...I came to terms with why I consider Seishirou Ryouhara my enemy-- no, why I genuinely loathe him." He does not sound proud to admit it. "He reminds me of myself, of the part of myself that I fear. I had to face my own despair, back then, and take a stand against it, or else be destroyed-- and I, too, might have taken others with me, had I become a monster. But the promise of salvation... the need to remake the world, taking responsibility for the lives of others purely as an extension of taking responsibility for one's own self... more than any other adversary I've encountered, even more powerful foes, he shares conviction. He values life-- but his view of humanity, of what is worthy /in/ life, is twisted beyond recognition."
Alma glances aside once more, to where his tears have melted the snow.
"I too am driven by need. I am not... above such a fate."
His eyes drift up, back to his friend.
"And I... if given the chance... I may truly destroy that man."
He swallows, unable to say that, for all his certainty, without shivering in a manner no worldly chill can provoke.
"If only because I see in my own heart what it means to be a monster."
Between man and the gods: only angels and beasts.
"Frei, if the madness of my passion becomes the frenzy of hatred, and in my fury against the darkness that besets the world, I forget the light of its people, and their hearts..."
Again, that slight, gentle smile.
"I cannot ask you to destroy me, but..."
His chin lifts once more, and at last, his gaze is steady.
"Please always stay by my side-- if only to bar my path."
"I..."
As is human nature, the mention of Seishirou's name sends Frei's memory hurtling backwards, trying to find an encounter, a mention, something to latch on to. He remembers the man in the haori -- old Japanese clothing, a bit like someone in the United States walking into a store dressed like a renfaire actor -- appearing. Asking for Alma. Casually incapacitating a small child simply to remove an annoyance. Someone of calm, casual confidence. If anything, an example in his own way of Frei's description of Alma's opposite number: someone who has such conviction, such certainty, that they can never doubt, nor waver. Someone who will act with unflinching and unfailing certainty in any situation regardless because they know they cannot be wrong. It's not inherently wrong, no more than Frei thinks any one ideological tenet is inherently wrong. But it leads to what the sage thinks of as a lack of perspective. Alma faces such a crisis, such a trial, because he has perspective. Because he has empathy. An ability to get into someone else's skin and feel what they feel. And it's not anything to do with Soul Power; this, Frei knows. It's a result of living in the world, of arising to hold life dear out of the face of tragedy and death. A resolve to continue living in a world that seems poised to destroy you and all you care for.
Briefly, he has to wonder: could Seishirou be understood in such a way?
Again, Frei feels that feeling of tightness in his chest, and his fingers clench, digging the fabric under them together in his grip, his eyes shut and his brow beginning to furrow. A sense of... dread? Sorrow? It could be so many different things. And perhaps it is his moment of emotional turmoil that makes the words that come out afterwards a jumble. "I'm lost! I don't... I'm not..."
A clenching of teeth, a taking in of breath. For a moment, there's a look of surprise on Frei's face, as if this intense psychosomatic reaction has blindsided him. Is it proximity to Alma, perhaps? Or something greater... facing thoughts he has been too scared to verbalize until now. His eyes are open and he looks at Alma with an almost wild expression. "I want to promise you that. As a friend. But all of this... I'm not..." He swallows hard before continuing, his head turning to the side. "Crime syndicates and ideologues and... and flying battleships. People ready to kill just to 'deliver a message.' So many innocents in danger. I've tried my best to rise to the level of what's in front of me but... but I don't think I can anymore, Alma. I don't want to make a promise to you I can't keep."
He reaches down to his side, uncoiling the silver cord that keeps the scabbard on his belt, and then holds the entire affair up for Alma's perusal. "It hasn't been all bad. Some good things have happened. But I'm not a hero, and I'm not a savior. I was just... someone. I could do things that let me help people, so I chose to do it. But now... I don't--"
~ Did you lie to us? ~
Frei's words stop, cut off abruptly. His eyes, as has happened in the past in this sort of scenario, widen with surprise, and the ache in his chest hits a fever pitch. The voice is the deep growl he associated with the White Tiger, fighting Mizuki, observing her determination to continue on in life regardless of what may come. ~ Do you plan now to show weakness instead of determination? ~
The sound of the Phoenix, like a crackling flame. ~ Will you exchange sorrow for joy? ~
The voice of the Black Tortoise, a sound like a rushing river. ~ Would you rather lay down and die than live up to this promise? ~
Finally, like rumbling thunder, the voice of the Blue Dragon, the sound of an oncoming storm. ~ Should justice go undone because you are afraid? ~
Over the long months, these voices -- these 'gods' -- have spoken to Frei. Lent him their power. Showed him the way. And only he has heard their voices, only he has seen their forms.
Until now.
Their words echo in Alma's head, though Frei hasn't spoken them. Though he is no psychic, they are a marker of something profound happening in the young sage's soul... an area where Alma's power can uniquely listen. Perhaps they were shouting all this time, but only in a way that Frei could hear.
Alma stares transfixed at the sword before him.
Sweat has beaded upon his brow, impossibly, a cold sweat that threatens to freeze upon him in his clime. Frei's words are banished from his mind: any reaction to them will never be seen.
It was too much for one man to ask of another.
But the gods--
~ What... ~
--like the truest passions--
~ What in the world... ~
--cannot be denied.
~ ...are these voices? ~
This is Frei's world.
Having crossed the threshold, Alma, for this shining moment, is part of it.
He hears the roar of the Tiger, the cry of the Phoenix, the resonant ripple of the Black Tortoise's appeal. The voice of the Blue Dragon thunders through his psyche, and Alma's legs tremble with its fulminating force. Are these truly the spirits of the heavens, descended upon mortal man? Have we transcended at last the world of mere mythology and archetype, of beliefs given weight by need and faith, and come at last to the realm where gods have their own form?
Alma cannot know from voices in his head.
But he knows what is important: that this is what Frei is experiencing.
This is Frei's world.
And a story yet to be concluded.
The lacquered scabbard before him gleams in the moonlight, yet to be drawn.
The Radiant Angel raises his eyes--
"Frei..."
--and addresses the man, not his gods.
"Don't be afraid."
The young man's voice is soft, and sure, and without doubt.
"I'll always be by your side."
Always.
"No matter what."
Whatever the acts of monster-- or of god.
"I promise."
Considering his already precarious state, the voices are not helping the situation for Frei at all. In truth, it was Alma who was finally able to get out of him the real source of Frei's doubt and fear all along: that he is just a simple individual, powerless, and adrift in a sea of those more capable than he, lost in a tide of events over which he can never exert any real control. And so much comes with that beyond simply feeling a lack of agency. The members of the Initiative, and beyond... friends like Hotaru and Mizuki, even Howard Rust with his own moment of heroic defiance... increasingly, the sage felt as if he moved away from the people he knew with each passing day. They had the courage and the will to leap into problems far larger than themselves, to uphold justice and truth. But Frei, so focused on the individual, on the simple level of the everyday, felt increasingly distanced.
When S.I.N. used him for their experimental drug, he was in the right state of mind. Jiro and Kentou had been tortured, only just barely rescued by Frei and Hotaru working together, only for him to fail to protect Ichiro... or himself for that matter. Even the most calm, the most self-assured individual, has moments where they doubt that they can accomplish their desires. The drug, the prototype BLECE, gave him that: power, and the will to use it. But without a moral center, that power went wild... until it was Kentou and Alma who reached out to Frei, woke him from the rage built on grief and despair. In the process, he was saved from terrible loss, but at a price. Lost in a world that felt beyond his control, Frei drew inward. For what happened after to follow was too much. A voice he had heard for many years had gone quiet.
But now...
Nothing in Alma's words suggests the conclusion that Frei leaps to. In fact, taken solely on their face value they're consoling, reassuring that his fears are groundless. But after a moment, he looks at the fighting model with an expression somewhere between fear and surprise. "You..."
Always by your side.
~ You know it to be true, ~ says a voice. A new voice, but rather than a single tone, it is a chorus. Of all the people mentioned to date in Frei's thoughts, and more. Alma's reassuring tone mingles with Jiro's brassy bravado... his mother's glacial calm with Rust's self-deprecating bittersweet resignation. So many voices speaking as one. ~ He has never left you. We have never left you. ~ Now even the 'divine' voices Alma heard meld into the mix.
In a curious way, Frei's posture is much like it was when he joined powers with Alma and Jiro to seal away the Artemis Engine forever. At that point Frei was so determined, he was able to turn his very life force into strength... just enough to do what must be done. Not because it was right or wrong, but because it was in front of him and it needed doing.
Was that the start? Was that where things turned around?
"You..." Frei repeats, looking at Alma, before letting his eyes get heavy-lidded again, speaking almost like he's in a trance. "They started once I picked this up," he says, moving the sword in his hand about as he turns his gaze to Alma's eyes. "I don't know what they are, but you can hear them... can't you? Nobody has but me until now..."
"Yes, I can."
His eyes shine, reflecting the determination in Frei's own.
"Whatever they may be-- I can hear them."
The modern monk's eyes unfocus, and Alma steps back slightly, as though to give his friend the room to confront these illusory allies. Yet his heart cannot but swell, for he too hears the chorus, the voices speaking all at once in unison, some of them he does not recognize but all of them feeling as though they belong--
One of them, his own.
Those elemental spirits join the chorus, and for a moment the world seems afire, the snow radiating the heat of a million striving souls. Alma inhales deeply, eyes widening, and a man sensitive only to what humanity makes of the world feels the weight of the world itself crashing down upon him, a universe vast, but not empty-- full of energy, of earth and fire and water and air, of the tree that blossoms verdant from the soil and the lightning that thunders down to consume it, of the constant movement of the heavens. For a moment, here, amidst the silver of the temple and the snow, Alma hears the voices that Frei hears, feels what calls him.
Life.
Whether angel or mere man...
Life calls, in all its forms.
One need not be a hero to be stirred.
But perhaps, in the face of a reality that overwhelms us--
"Frei..."
To be stirred is to be hero enough.
"The..."
He seems almost short of breath.
"The choice is yours."
He is no mother on her deathbed, no girl plunging into darkness.
"No matter what you decide..."
This is his friend, and his will is his own.
"We are together."
Fates, and hearts, intertwined.
"And this story... will go on."
Forever.
High above this tableau is the moon. In fact, the word for 'moon' is part of Frei's family name. Tsukitomi, roughly translated, means 'treasure of the moon.' The grammar of it is actually terrible, yet for some reason the clan kept it for many generations. If one were to ask Frei's mother Isis, she would say that the name represents ephemerality. In the long view, the moon is here one moment and gone the next. The treasure is not the object itself, but the regular cycle of its appearance and disappearance. It's an exhortation to take the long view on things, something she understand very well.
Under the moonlight, two men stand at a crossroads. One is a champion, filled with virtue and passion, a paragon. The need to express himself has led him to take up the cause of righteousness because, to him, doing otherwise is unthinkable. But because he is righteous, in his heart he fears that in the process he has done wrong, that he WILL do wrong... and not that he would do it, for he must be righteous, but that it would be done and escape his notice. His nemesis now stands before him precisely because he sees in that man his own fears about himself. Ultimately, the conflict Alma has done his best to describe to Frei is not external; indeed, his clashes with Seishirou instead highlight how internal a conflict it is.
By contrast, Frei is not by nature a paragon. He is a thinker, an examiner of phenomena... a scientist, if you will, of the soul. Because of that he has perspective that many find difficult to attain, but in the process, he has lost something to hold on to. Why he flounders now is not for lack of power, nor lack of empathy, but lack of focus. He has nothing to highlight his own internal conflict, as Alma has; no nemesis, no crusade, to externalize the self.
Or has he?
~ Yes, ~ says the chorus of voices. ~ Now you see. You who stand between heaven and earth, the gods named you 'man'. You are neither angel nor demon, neither light nor dark. ~ Finally, the voice takes on a visual behind Frei's glassy stare, and perhaps in the recesses of his mind, Alma can see it too: a beautiful steed like a unicorn with a mane of gold, and iridescent, scale-like fur, a single branching antler extending from its forehead. ~ The kirin is the guardian of the people. He gives benevolence to others, for it is his nature, is it not? ~
"All the things that people have given me," Frei says quietly, looking at Alma sidelong, but with his eyes darting to the side furtively, as if he really is staring at the divine guardian nearby, a third person. "I'm very lucky. I've met so many amazing people, seen so many amazing things. If I shy away from them now, then... I'm denying all the things others haven given to me, you know?" Finally, the beginnings of a wan smile make their way across Frei's face, and he seems to physically relax for the first time since the conversation started. "I was afraid when I lost my abilities that..."
~ That God had forsaken you? ~
A blink at the interruption, but Frei looks at Alma, and then finally really does turn and address empty air, looking where the kirin SHOULD be standing. Where the four other animal 'gods' SHOULD be hovering. Interestingly enough, where he ends up looking...
...is a pond. Staring at his own reflection, with the gibbous moon behind him.
For a long moment Frei stares into the water, and then he shakes his head and turns to Alma, looking at him. "It's not about God, or gods. It's about... me. Being true to me, and to hell with... everything else."
He takes a step closer, and nods at Alma. But there is more to it than that. There's a... difference. It really is as if something is flowing up from the ground, starting at the toes, moving up Frei's body to the very top of his head, flowing behind his eyes. He extends his hands, fingers splayed, and... then nods at Alma.
"Alright. I promise. Because... because that's me. I stand between the light and the dark. I'm neither one thing, nor another. I'm... a little bit country, a little bit rock and roll," he finally adds, grinning a little bit. "I was a fool to think anybody but me could take that away from me."
The guardian of the people.
Alma beholds a sight he would never otherwise have seen, and will likely never seen again: a majestic kirin, that glittering mythical creature, before them both. Even if he had words to offer, he could not speak. The young man's eyes are wide; he watches in silence.
Thus does Frei come to his decision.
Haven't they both come so far?
Alma follows Frei's gaze to the pond. There, reflected in its shining depths, are Frei and the moon. And there, in the corner, just off the tip of the shore, a bit of Alma, standing alongside them both, the flash of his blond hair like the radiant sun.
The sun and the moon-- and man, looking upon himself.
Paragon of virtue or keeper of the balance-- were they not once a child and a wanderer? When did the stuttering youth become a champion? When did the sage pick up a sword? Yet here they are, their reflections revealing what they have become. It may not have been the will of heaven. But in choosing to grow, accepting what they have been given, and in flourishing--
It was their will.
To live. To go on.
The images and voices fade. His friend's soul at long last coming to rest, the raw psychic link between them -- like two open wounds pressed together -- closes with the healing. Alma's grasp of Frei's emotions slackens-- for it is drowned out by a new power, a new intensity to the aura before him, a rising light, a dawn come early.
The gate that closed when the rocks crashed down upon the Artemis Engine--
"Frei."
--has opened anew.
Alma smiles widely, with unrestrained warmth.
"It's good to have you back."
Log created on 20:15:49 02/11/2010 by Frei, and last modified on 12:16:46 02/12/2010.