▬▬ revelatory navigation: hiraeth for death
THE SPEED OF A SHINKANSEN was three hundred kilometers per hour and it was heading straight to Kyoto in two hours.
Two hours was a long time if sitting there beside the window while gazing at the vistas outside. It was fine view to witness that season of the year; it certainly was making a picture. Those cityscapes being swallowed by the trees and the warm-colored leaves of pullulating autumn under the sky as though there was a cleansing—a baptism washing over. . . Only be disregarded as a mere fragment of life; everything was passing as a blurry, as a single moment in time.
Waiting . . . And waiting. Waiting . . . Sounded easy. The concept of time inside this bullet train was different from the time you had in mind.
You looked at Nanami on your left. You purchased the first class seats for this trip. Since the expenses would be billed to the higher-up, you didn't withheld yourself luxuriating among plush leather seats, endless meal and beverage service, and plenty of extras to make you feel like an elite again. Although it was a little unfortunate to not be able to drink, while Nanami was able to drink. You could only wail in the inside.
Then, you switched your gaze to the Mori guy. He was unconscious again; you couldn't stand how much of a scaredy-cat he was so you smacked him again on his neck. You three reached the train in a very arduous way. He would whine like a spoiled brat he was while inside of a clothing store, saying that he would never ever wear cheap clothing. Good thing Nanami dealt with it, because you would just straight up punch him in the face.
He didn't say a word, nor did he meet your stares, although knowing for a fact that you were looking. Giving him a final glimpse, you saw him looking at his wrist watch.
Waiting . . .
Waiting.
He made waiting looked so easy for him.
Time is relative.
Time passed at different rates for different people.
Was it, really?
Or time was a concept the homo sapiens created? They invented devices to measure time, but what was they were actually measuring?
Your mind receded to the earliest time when the megalithic circle was constructed—the Stonehenge. Once in your lifetime, you visited the ancient site. Nothing was special, really, but you wanted to commemorate your life as the ancient site was all about the cycle of life, of death and rebirth.
The Stonehedge's celestial influence was linked to the sun and moon, because the ancient people used it as a gauge to tell the changing of the seasons. Alternatively, it was particularly identified as a megalithic calendar to predict astronomical events such as solar eclipses.
Similar to the purpose of the mystifying stone circle, sundial was invented—a horological device that tells the time of day, which indicated the time of day by the position of the shadow exposed to the sun's rays. As the planets were orbiting around the sun, the shadows of the object to move and specify the passage of time.
Soon, the mechanical clocks came to life.
But what kind of notion does those intelligent beings have regarding the fucktity of time?
Time was a very abstract concept—no one could ever comprehend if it was something that physically existed or it was just a conventional thoughts inside their thick skulls?
Your ability was time. It was yours and it became yours, and it was already too painful for you that it was notoriously hard to warp your head in it. You were living while cradling something so nonexistent, yet so existent, and you could never call the universe "universe" without it. In another sense, time was a fundamental property, existing as an emergent one. If imagining the air, each air molecule didn't possess a "gale", but the whole atmosphere did. The single air molecule didn't contain the passage of time, but it was a property that came out of how the pieces were weaved together.
Even a single living creature would desire death at some point of their life, right?
You scoffed. What could do you do, though? All you could do was to stay alive up to now.
Just as the Stonehedge and sundials, you were ancient. It was too hard to mingle with people who were in entirely different class from your own. Their fragility and ignorance had put you on the avoidance, and in the effort not to blend in to them, you had resorted to different types of addiction. Most especially drugs—it was as a last resort for staying sane after a thousand years of misery. Having no one to depend on, no one seemingly understood what you were going through.
You were so tired. So tired . . . Oh, so tired. You just wanted to give everything a rest. To put an end to your despair.
Daily living was already exhausting enough, and you only found yourself being swept by the waves of melatonin. It was against your will, yet you shut your eyes, your consciousness forced its way out of your eyelids . . . Lulling and being lulled, you let yourself be immersed into the oblivion as if you were rehearsing your death.
At first, the brainwaves on your head started to slow down a bit.
Secondly, your pulses reduced the tempo of its rhythm.
And lastly, off to the land of obscurity.
Unaware if you had a compelling journey in another level of sleep, but in your slumber, it was as if every damaged tissue in your body had been repaired, made anew.
With all the nuances of reality, you were able to fall asleep in the whole duration of the train travel. You didn't worry being defenseless for two hours or less, knowing that Nanami was there with you.
There was a light pat on your shoulder.
It was as if a little lightning had stricken you.
You opened your eyes with a slight jolt on your head.
Always and always . . .
It was same the experience of going back to consciousness.
Your eyes greeted a man in front, heart and lungs expanded as you inhaled and breathed out.
"Nanami, huh . . ?" you muttered groggily as you stretched a muscle on your neck.
"Sorry to wake you up, but we're almost there."
"I see, thank you . . ." Whispering, you closed your eyes again to have a moment of composure to shed of the remaining drowsiness on your head.
Nanami stayed standing in front of you for a little while. He was looking at your face, a hint of bewilderment was drawn on his. It was his turn to see you waking up, you responding to him with a voice having a quite new timbre, thus he thought you were a different person.
You tilted your head a little to the side, as if really in doubt, you aligned your gaze to the presence near you.
Nanami met your orbs straight in the eyes. In his eyes, there was neither expressivity nor pretense. Normally, if his eyes had connected yours, he would have backed away, but that one time, he held it. He couldn't describe it well, but he was impelled by your unworldly profile. You, as if you were hollowed out from a Gothic painting against the pale blueness of the distant sky.
"Why?" you asked, a faint smile of pleasantry was rendered on your lips.
He blinked, seemingly being awoken up from a momentary trance.
"Nothing," he responded right away. "Hope you're energized." With a little tune at the end of his word, he returned to his seat, because he was seated on the other row.
"Sure I am~," you replied equally to his tone. "Sorry if you had to look for us both." The Mori guy was still being blackout, and sooner, you must wake him up.
"Not a big deal," he said as he wore his sunglasses once again. He wasn't used in sleeping on a ride, thus he was willing to surveil you two. It also appeared to him you were in need of sleep, so he let you rest.
Kudos to your prediction, he commended you inwardly, no one was able to follow you all three in the shinkansen. He even speculated that you had an experience with guarding duties. Well, if not, maybe you were once an assassin yourself.
In order to arrive at the Kyoto Tech, an assistant director was already waiting on the station to chauffer you three to the isolation cube they pertained about. It still confused you. The mission was so bleak, moving forward to finish the mission having no clear image about what was it even for? It felt like the higher-ups were toying you and Nanami. You hated that idea; you were already working against your will, but in the end, you'd still be exploited. And oh gods, you called out, if that appeared to be true, you'd toy them in return.
"Don't you find it suspicious?" you said as you stood up and moved to the seat behind Nanami's.
"Of what?" he asked back, because he really did not know what to respond to that.
"C'mon now, I know you know what I mean."
"No," he replied with a hidden coy in his voice, teasing you even for a bit. "I don't know what you mean."
"Tch," you expressed your dismay while you turned your eyes to the landscapes of Kyoto and leaned your elbow to the windowsill. He deflected. Nanami surely had a moment of distrust regarding to the mission, but he wasn't just questioning it. "Have you ever considered switching to a different job, Nanami Kento-san?"
"Why do you ask?"
He returned that question again instead of answering. It was either he didn't like to talk about himself or he disliked talking to you.
"I just think that you're a very capable man, very capable to do anything."
Nonetheless, you pushed through the conversation.
"That certainly does seem to fit my character, doesn't it?" For once, Nanami made a sensible reply.
"Because you do," you mused truthfully—at least with your observations, he is a very capable man.
"A Jack-of-all-trades, a master of none." The words Nanami professed had no sharp lines of grief for his past or despair over his present. He indeed quitted jujutsu before, but rejected the businessman's lifestyle after he realized that the world of a sorcery was 'lesser evil' . . . Having experiencing the both spheres, thus he never regretted returning in saving people. "It appears you're implying that I'm a mediocre person, Murphy Ryusei-san."
He knew himself more that anyone, and no glint of sarcasm was heard as he expressed himself to you.
"That's not what I mean," you objected, rising to your seat to peer over Nanami from the backrest of the leather seat.
"I know, I know," he simply answered, gently breathing out his chaffed remarks to you. He had utilized his capabilities and abilities, whether it was for the jujutsu or society. Being good at everything sure had its merits—well adapted to everything and easily could conform to satisfy what was needed—but . . . "I'm not a genius like you, and from my standing point, you're more capable than I do."
"My case is entirely different from yours." You pursed your lips as you let yourself fell onto the seat again.
"Exactly," he noted.
"But I'd trade everything in this world just to live the life you have, Nanami."
It was a mindless declaration.
He was stunned by the complexity of your words.
Nevertheless, he retained his sense of objectiveness and assessed your trouble in full perspicacity.
"To be able to experience death?" he asked.
Nanami was a mortal—fragile in life, very susceptible to death—and it was something you wanted to achieve.
"Yes," you said without hesitation, "I have circled this life for so long, wandering quietly and bewildered for centuries after centuries . . . As I'm existing in isolated patterns, death is only my peace."
He could only sympathize. Even though his life was frail, he related himself to the "existing in isolated patterns" part. A cycle life was simply just being born, then a total oblivion next. The end. Nothing special about it, just scenarios finding himself in situations that were uncertain: how much it could take to tolerate and navigate uncertainty, it was as of the wilderness became his habitat.
"Turn north."
It was as if your ears heard a dainty bell ringing.
"Huh?" you uttered, hearing the most random thing Nanami could offer.
It was a significance for Nanami. Unless he figured what was his "true north", he would always be lost in life . . . He really wanted to quit his job in the jujutsu, move to another country, and live peacefully. He'd been saying that throughout his lifetime, but he never did. It wasn't that he was spineless, but he always had a backward personality—someone who would see the cosmos in the other end of the telescope—thus he had his present and future gambled as he steered south—staying to his old, true self.
"You've circled long enough, you said," he answered, looking at his watch, fidgeting on it, and an amiable and stealth grin stretched on his thin lips. "I know the feeling of loneliness inside you is real . . . Your situation may change if you'd navigate a little further north."
You chuckled, a bit genuine. "Turning north, huh?"
For one thousand and one hundred eleven years, you'd sleep, you'd get up, you'd try to make it through another day. You'd cope. You'd hide the wretchedness in you. You'd numb yourself, doing whatever you could do to get through it. If Nanami was telling you that, then he must have had a moment of self-realization. If his perspective had changed, so could yours. Yet honestly, it was still a vague concept: turning north, south, whatever orientation there was, but it was still a win because you'd learned something new about Nanami.
You got up from your seat again and invaded Nanami's personal space by planting your forearms on the top part of his headrest—head angled coquettishly—and your eyes were gazing over him. "Surprise, surprise~ I would have never thought that you have a romanticist side, huh, Nanami Kento-san?"
Incredulous shaking of head as a form of disagreement agonized the almond palette man.
"Quit it." He only deadpanned, raising his hand to push your face away from him. "We'll get to the station shortly. Wake the man up."
"All right," you softly laughed and touched the head of the mister.
Upon channeling the cursed energy for your RCT, he woke up instantly.
At first, his eyes were fixed in the wall, thinking of the things happened, as if he was struck a terrible blow in the head—inwhich you actually did. After recovering, he made the empty VIP train cabin roar with accusation.
"You insolent bitch!" he cried out as if a fine explosive powder was sucked in his nostrils and flared his anger out. "How dare you to do whatever you wish?! Don't you even know who I am, huh?! I'm going to make you pay for all the damages you've done, you stupid skank! You'll fucking pay!"
Shrugging nonchalantly, you replied, "I'll be looking forward into it."
Later that afternoon, the train ride was ought to reached its destination, experiencing a free cinema pass to a masterpiece of scenic landscapes. Kyoto was more of a countryside than a city—it showed how much they value culture and traditions while still being progressive.
The three of you exited the train, treading the platform area still cautious of the surrounding. No one would know, but you could predict that there would be an ambush coming from the kill-for-hire people. The station building provided varieties of ancillary services and was bustling with passengers—a good opportunity to mixed in the crowd.
Now, you only had to look for the chauffeur to drive you three to the Kyoto Tech. Normally, they'd be waiting at the queue area or welcome, although it put you in doubt that the chauffeur was still alive. Assassins were very sharp people, men of focus, they were probably here before you three arrived.
Still wandering on the arrival area of the station, there was this man who approached you all.
"Higane Shira," he introduced himself, cladded with standard sorcerer attire. "I'll be your assistant director for today."
Your eyes narrowed just hearing him.
"Do you know him?" you silently asked Nanami who was beside you.
"No," he replied flatly, but you could still discern his distrust.
"Hmmm . . ." You flashed the supposed-to-be assistant director a skeptical look. "Good thing that you found us here."
He gestured his hand to his chest, he whose expression remained as still as cold ash, and answered, "I know my job very well."
With the tone he used, you could detect an ill-intent.
"All right," you uttered, not letting you mistrust be spilled, "you can go. We'll take the cab."
Urging Nanami and Mori to come along with you, you passed Higane Shira by.
"You really seemed to not know your situation, do you?" he said.
Your eyes widened as soon as you heard him spoke
And really, this mission was never trivial.
Especially for you.
Suddenly, oh so unknowingly, you were gripped by a cold chill.
You felt something had cut through to your muscle below your rib area—where your stomach was.
Exhaling, you bared your teeth upon feeling the pain.
You saw how the knife reached to the hilt. Aligning your gaze to the person who stabbed you, unannounced, you found that it was Mori himself. You could have bore the pain for a short while, but there was a gunshot.
One.
Two.
Or even more.
You lost count.
You weren't sure who was the one who got shot because the sound was deafening.
And as if on cue, your sights began to fall as you realized that your body collapsed on its own. You spat out blood, coughing and groaning, only understanding by then that you were the one who was being shot and your lungs were compromised.
It started as a mild stomach ache, turning into one of the worst pains you had ever felt.
You might have received multiple gunshots, because you couldn't pinpoint where the pain was coming from.
Blinded by the pain, completely consumed by it, it was still quite a miracle that you were still conscious. And while you focus on the pain, you were trying to figure what was happening. You were cognizant enough to know that you were laying in the middle of the train station—in a broad daylight—just below the open area of the mezzanine floor.
Your whole body felt like it was on fire—it even hurt just to move your fingers. Now, you had to pick up yourself together while you were still conscious.
I can't die . . .
I'm not supposed to die yet.
Fuck the Binding Vow.
R
eversed Cursed Technique—your only way.
Although you doubt that it would work, but still kind of futile if they were showering you with bullets.
You had done it so, nonetheless.
In the space of a few seconds after you brought yourself back from its critical juncture, at some point, you—who had been unable grasp the current situation—slumped back on the cold floor. You were now wide awake, eyes stared upward and fixed themselves upon the famous jaded sorcerer in a ghastly, distressed gaze.
You angled your head up, figuring that Nanami was shielding you from all the gunshots—you were under, his weight was compressing you down and arms wrapped protectively around your head.
"Nanami . . !" you called out, worried, firmly grabbing the 7:3 sorcerer by the shoulder with both hands to push him up, but he wouldn't give a budge.¹
His only response was releasing a deep "Ah" from his throat.
The gunshots bombarded him at such an immense volume that his bones were almost shaken from their tendons. His body was covered with his cursed energy, but the bullets were still penetrating through. With flailing consciousness of his, he ascertained that those assassins had their ammunition blanketed with cursed energy as well.
He was a victim of another unfortunate mission.
A victim of another impending death.
He was like a chess piece, a sorcerer being treated as a pawn, whose fate was already decided by those at the top of the hierarchy.
Being a pawn was always a pain, and those barrage of bullets felt like he was being thrown to a cliff, whirled in a centrifugal pump, and once being discharged carelessly, he fell, and fell, and plummeted into emptiness.
On the while, you groaned in so much frustration.
Damn those shameless assassins, creating a freak show in that busy station. Also damn to the asshole Mori who stabbed you without feeling any bloodlust.
Things would be easier if you could die right on the spot, but you couldn't. And now, Nanami became the sacrificial lamb.
"Shit," you muttered, vexed.
Dry snaps of the bullets ripping through the air without a frontier.
Over and over.
Again and again.
Unbelievable wails rose from every direction, unifying and shattering into one scream here and another there.
The highness, you, gazed directly at Nanami's face—all the dry snaps of gunfire never ceased—his flushed cheeks had turned into a pallid hue.
It was like a red winter plum had fallen to the snow. You laid there, feeling a rapidly growing sea of red snow—the smooth, steaming crimson flowed down from his body and soaked you into it.
You only watched him falling asleep into an eternal dream. With a caress on his cheek, your gentle and beautiful colleague, Nanami, was rotting away within your grasp. It was something cruel and dark, and it was never meant to be.
Those people, every one of them, you were disgusted by them; they never changed.
It was true when they said that the real murderers were not cursed spirits, but the humans themselves—that was the most frightening thing about them, and they weren't even aware about it.
A familiar scenario, you remembered the old tales of before, on how degenerate people tried to overcome you with a one-sided war.
You had so much to feel—anger, frustration, revenge, rage—all being emulsified, piling up once again without a boundary. You were furiously quivering with madness, your curse energy would automatically set in motion. Vicious red and black energy swirled up. Your rationality must have left you, and thus blinded with entropic notions, you activated your cursed technique.
Two kilometer radius—the limit.
It was as if a nuclear weapon was detonated on that exact spot.
Time froze.
And in just a millisecond, an intense light washes over the city. At first, nothing was seemed wrong, but it already too late for the living creatures within the epicenter of your unforgiving and widespread stream of cursed energy. You were oh-so sovereign; if it was your will, you could command every unit of matter to grovel away from you and be erased without a trace and significance. You wiped out the living things very quickly, making the city pretty much a history—which was not great, but outside the perimeter, human life would continue thriving.
After things started to calmed down, it was as though everything on your path got vaporized, and so flattening the city within the range you set up. You left a notable devastation in the heart of Kyoto—the worst tragedy the planet had witnessed in a millennia.
At the center of the catastrophe, only you and Nanami remained. The distractions were finally gone, and you pushed Nanami over you, but gentle enough not to hurt him even more. As you successfully laid him beside you, you attempted to sit down, only to be interrupted by the sharp pain lining across your abdomen. The pain was too abrupt, rewarding you a cry of as if a huge iron rod went right through you and got gouged out. You then realized that even though Nanami had shielded you, there were still some stray bullets that went through him and had clean exit wounds.
Sighing, you healed yourself.
You cast your attention next to Nanami who was half dead at this point. His body was full of his blood—even your very self—and you couldn't even see even a speck of his skin. Your Reversed Cursed Technique would surely work, but you couldn't let Nanami to look like a horror when he had always been so prim and dashing.
Ever since you started working a jujutsu sorcerer, you always set a different record from the people you were with, and you called it "Construct". Every living thing had its own time, as long as there was space—a boundless, three-dimensional extent in which objects and events occur and have relative position and direction.
And so, you weaved a hand seal.
You rewinded the time you recorded for Nanami. Everything played backward: his blood rolling back to his body, bullets exiting one by one, and each fiber of his muscles were being weaved together.
Once you discerned that he looked okay, it was when you ceased your technique.
He gained back his consciousness right away. Opening his eyes, disoriented for a moment.
"Good morning," you teasingly said.
He sighed, slightly annoyed. Then he sat down, roaming his eyes around.
Nanami's brain must have failed his ears. There was no way that absolute silence existed, because in that briefest moment, he couldn't hear a thing. Then came something awful, wailing, sobbing, and disbelief that bubbled up all around him. Head lifted still, he looked around again and muttered, " "What . . ." He paused, trying to internalize what was he was seeing. ". . . happened?"
You ruefully made a face, then gesturing your hand in a quoting manner. "I, y'know, snapped?"
Today, Nanami had finally seen and known what truly a chaos is like. It was as if a fire of wrath poured out its splendor in the city and consumed everything . . . Although it wasn't reduced to ashes, but into dust. He couldn't believe his eyes. The city of Kyoto, who once was an epitome of perfect and timeless beauty, was now brought into her dishonor.
"Bring it back . . ?" Nanami commanded in a form of question; he knew you could restore this mess in a heartbeat.
"Hai," you replied and cast a hand sign right away.
Before switching your technique on, you built a Veil first. Surely, you'd be scolded—you grimaced at the thought.
Your ability could undo any seemingly irreversible sequence in physical reality, thus you rewinded time.
Through his eyes, Nanami reveled how the motions of all particles were reversing, sending everything back exactly in the direction they came from. A human mind—he and you, included—could never calculate that super intelligent universal law, but the particles perfectly retraced their steps all the to the point of time you activated your cursed technique.
You paused the sequence when Mori was about to stab you. You also saw how the Higane Shira pulled a gun and pointed it to you.
You smirked. Bastards. You all wouldn't like it if I go a little crazier, would you all?
Averting your gaze at Nanami. Upon the gun was aimed at you chest area, he was about to take an action to protect you. Those were just afterimages against your Construct, because the main bodies had moved from their original point.
Even though it was just an afterimages, you melted at the thought that Nanami was still willing to protect and save you when you were already the very definition of omnipotence.
Nanami, on the other hand, didn't understand the great concept beyond your cursed technique so he didn't question you.
You didn't understand, either, even if he asked you.
Standing up with a grunt, you went near the Mori asshole.
"You know," you started with a pleasant voice, with a little twinkle in your eyes, "I appreciate what you did just a while ago, but don't do that again."
"It's a force of habit," he simply answered.
It was true; he was so used in saving and protecting someone instead of his own.
You grinned demurely, "It's a different case for me, right?" Then you reached out your hand to the Mori guy, coursing your cursed energy to free him from the state of being frozen. He woke up, only to be punched in the face as a revenge—his body getting thrashed a few meters away then losing consciousness.
"You know that you're still under a vow."
"That I can't die," you mused while treading the direction where Mori was. "Yes, yes, I remember, but next time, use me as a shield instead."
Nanami only sighed loudly, "Kudarane."
"With all seriousness, Nanami Kento-san–" you an impression of concern with your voice– "don't do that again."
It wasn't that you dislike to be protected because it would hurt your pride, but you didn't want someone else's life be withered because of your insignificance.
You grabbed the hair of the asshole and prepared to drag him; you'd like to have a one hell of a discussion with that current matter. Why do they want me dead? It was never a guarding mission, to begin with; it was a scheme to put you in the corner. Things had gotten so messy just for that futile attempt, not you were responsible to bring everything back in the right order once you and Nanami had gone into safety.
"It's all right." It surprised you that Nanami was already beside you, gentlemanly to hold Mori by the collar for you.
"Hmn?" you questionably hummed, gazing at him.
"I don't mind it," he said.
His eyes held yours, while you were searching for a reason. You didn't found it, nonetheless. Even though he and you had talked so much in those last days, telling him so much of your life, Nanami already knew how to read you. It was the exact opposite for you; you still didn't know how to read him since he kept most of his stories unsaid.
"You don't mind?" you said, head tilted quizzically. "Why?"
"It's because . . ." He held his words there.
You found yourself so intrigued.
You made a face.
His features were angular, and he had a slight quirk to his mouth when he saw your expression, a subtle perfection that gave him an eccentric air.
You had it unexpectedly; Nanami reached his hand on you and caressed you hair in the process.
"It's because I know you'd rescue me, Your Highness."
You had found your idling away in time, stunned with his appreciative gesture.
You only stared at his back, at his thick, fair golden hair with coppery highlights in its depths. You had seen a thousand of realities and coincidence that had been formed in the same star million years in the past.
And it made you realize one thing.
He trusts you.
There was an affirmation to that, if looking so closely. It was a testament, a manifesto, as though a celestial being was getting closer to the great truth . . . As though reaching out to collide to the interstellar dust from the remnants of a dying star and then a new reality was born.
He trusts you.
YAAAYYY another
chapter done im
rlly gonna KEEL
myself 😭💀
the pacing is so
dragging even I
myself had grown
so bored to it
im such as a
failure as a
writer ;-;
- handtheirend -