Crescent Moon Fan Fiction ❯ Sublunary ❯ Midnight Equilibrium ( Chapter 10 )

Disclaimer: see part one

A/N: Yeah... long time, no update. See my profile for why. ::eyes text:: Is it me, or is this chapter more like something out of Serial Experiments: Lain? Surreality abounds. But no cliffhanger. Mood Music (mostly repeats this time!): Paleozoic of the Flesh (J.A. Seazer), The Sacred Moon (Life Threads, OST), Path With a Heart (Sacred Spirit Drums) Sublunary: Midnight Equilibrium

In one of her literature electives, she'd come across the phrase, 'blasted heath.' While she still wasn't entirely sure what that meant, she thought the landscape around her now might be pretty close. The sky above her had the same leaden pall of a winter twilight, curving over a bleak husk of a land. No sun, no moon in that sky above, not even a single star. Mahiru drew her knees up to her chest. For some reason, she was wearing her school uniform, but her feet were bare.

Are these the Dark Lands? she wondered. Had she died trying to escape the Venusians? She couldn't remember crossing the Sanzu, but maybe the dead didn' remember their own passage.

Did it matter?

Mahiru crossed her wrists, hugging herself tighter, wriggled her bare toes, to see if she still could. Everything moved, from her limbs, to the thoughts whirling in her head. She just lacked the will to direct any of them anywhere.

She felt pretty solid for a dead person. Weren't the dead supposed to join the ancestors in watching over the rest of the family? If so, why was she alone? Was what she' done so terrible that her own ancestors had cast her out? She looked around. This didn' look like any depiction of a Buddhist hell that she' ever heard of--but she'd be the first to admit she didn't exactly pay much attention to those things. Maybe she'd gotten lost somewhere between the worlds. That sounded more like the way her luck would play out.

How long would it take for the memory of her body to fade, until she drifted away like smoke in an empty room? Did time even matter here -wherever here was? She caught herself humming that song again. It kept fluttering through her mind, a ragged, tattered banner of a lost war. 'Continuing to live, continuing to die/ the Paleozoic tells the story.'

IMahiru closed her eyes. Even she herself had no color here, painted in drab, faded blues and grays. All the colors of a midnight child, she thought. 'Midnight is a place.' She couldn't remember where she'd heard that, but if it was true, then this place was the home of the midnight children. She blended in perfectly here. Nothing about her stood out, drew attention, caused problems or fault.

Dead boring, too, but at least she wasn't hurting anyone.

Still, if this was all true... why did it feel... wrong, like a too-big shirt ? Keeping her eyes closed, Mahiru shook her head. No, no questions! Existing for a moment, questions didn't have a chance to cause pain. She just had to avoid questions until the moment passed, ignore the empty place where answers should be.

Something glinted in the distance. Mahiru blinked, sat up straighter. What was that? She rubbed her eyes, looked again.

Yes, that was a light on the blurred horizon, a single clean glimmer of light in a place of drabness. Like a star, she thought, then shivered. Venus shone on the horizon, the Morning Star. had they found her, followed her even here? She'd thought the deep sea had washed away all trace of her. The starless dark had swallowed her whole, hiding her even from Himura's gift of Sight.

Hadn't it?

The light began to move. Mahiru stood up. Bits of stone and brittle grass poked at her bare feet. This barren land offered no hiding places. She'd run right to the edge of the world. There was no place else to go.

The light grew brighter as it drew closer, steadying into an even glow. Mahiru could just make out the shape of the person holding it. The person appeared to be about Mahiru's height, but... wider, if she could be impolite, even in her own thoughts. As the distance closed, she saw the bulk actually came from layer upon layer of silk robes.

Mahiru stared. She' only seen pictures of clothing like that, or elaborately dressed dolls in glass cases. From the way the sleeves and mantle fluttered, she could see the material was actually quite thin, but layered in a myriad of colors and patterns that jolted her modern sense of color coordination. Kinda gaudy, actually. And walking in that... it's gotta be like trying walk in a stuffed sack!

The figure wore what looked like hakama about two sizes too big, the material bunched up around the ankles and over the instep. The layers of robes added considerable girth. The light welled up from the figure's cupped hands, but no matter how Mahiru squinted, she couldn't make out the shape of a lantern, or even a candle. The light itself was silvery-while, with the faintest shimmer of color at the edges, utterly unlike any lamplight she'd ever seen. What is that?

The figure stopped about an arm's length away from Mahiru. The light, as bright as a lighthouse beacon, dimmed and softened until she could see the face of her visitor.

"I wondered if you might come here," the visitor said to Mahiru. "I was hoping I was wrong."

Shocked, Mahiru looked up and met her own eyes. Mahiru's own face looked down at her. My hair's not that long, though she thought stupidly, noting how the other's hair streamed almost to her heels. And... do I really look that sad all the time? She looks like she's forgotten how to smile.

"Who- -what do you mean?" she stammered. "Who are you?"

"I'm you, of course," her ancient reflection replied. The light she carried reflected in her eyes, giving them an inhuman gleam. "I'm the part of you that's come down through the story."

Mahiru stared, even though the brilliant light made her eyes water and stream. Part of me? That makes no sense. I'm nobody. It's the Princess who moves from dream to dream, the first one, the daughter of the Minister of the Left...

Yume-hime had appeared in clothes similar, but not exactly like, the garments the figure before her wore. Yume-hime's appearance never changed. She never looked like Mahiru, or anyone else. Could this be another dream? Was she still alive after all? Or was she inside the dream, now? The prayer-song she'd used spoke of the era that told the story. When she'd called the secret sea, had it transported her away?

"Wait... If you're me, what're you doing over there?" she asked. "Shouldn't you be here?" Mahiru pointed at her own heart. "What's going on here?"

"Where I am and what happens next all depends on what you do."

Mahiru groaned, pressing a hand to her forehead. This was like trying to get a straight answer out of Misoka, or Master Oboro. That settles that... I have to be alive. Being dead can't possibly be this annoying!

"Don' any of you get it? I don' know what to do! Everyone- -the people at the shop, Keiko and all of them- -they all act like this is all stuff I should know, like I took some kind of elective on how to be a princess and save the world! And no-one tells me anything! 'Trust us,' they say. Then they go right around and start talking about my role and how important it is, but not what it is!"

Mahiru found herself gasping for breath, huge gulps of air just this side of sobs. She could feel her cheeks burning, the kind of splotchy heat that came after a long, jagged cry that left you feeling worse than before.

"I tried," she said in a quieter voice, "I tried so hard to fix things and all I did was make everything fall apart faster."

Her reflection knelt down before her, the layers of silk fanning out like a hand of cards. "Maybe you tried to fix the wrong things."

"Wrong? I know that stealing is wrong, and the lying, and hurting people- -but that's what I wanted to stop! I wanted to help get the Tears back, so people would stop getting sick and stop being angry and stop hating!"

"Mahiru." The voice cut across her own rising hysteria. "Those are all good intentions and motivations. The question is, what have you done?"

Mahiru stared, jaw slack. No air, no words, no answer. Dimly, she heard a faint choking sound, wondered if it came from herself. What had she done?

Mitsuru... would he have died that night if she hadn't made such a fuss? ("Stop making those pathetic faces!") Would Dawn's Venus have found the others if she hadn't been so stupidly careless around Himura? ("I went back and took a look at the books...") The suffering the others endured from the trap at the WPF, the fire, the destruction of property. ("Stop coddling her, Nozomu! You heard them, it's war!") The sculptor's widow, who had to endure the vandalization of her late husband's masterwork, the people from the dinner cruise, the cop who thought he' killed a kid.

She gave a choked sob and covered her face with her hands. This was how she tried to fix things? And she was the supposed storehouse of good luck? What a joke! What a sick, twisted, pitiful joke. And it was her life, and all her fault.

Descendant of the Princess. Descendant of the story. Mahiru folded herself to her knees, hugging herself tightly.

"What am I supposed to do? This isn't making any sense! How can you be me, how can I be what you say? There's only one princess and it isn't me!"

"If it isn't you--isn't us, it can't be anyone else."

"I don't sound like that," Mahiru said numbly. "I don't talk like that, who talks like that? You can't be me."

"The first Princess is dead. She has been lingering in the dark places between the worlds, waiting, praying for one of her descendants to finish the task she tried so hard to complete. For over a thousand years, she has been waiting- -and because he loves her, he has remained with her in that darkness. Neither of them can go further, to rest or new life, until this is done. And only the daughters of her line have the power to make her dream a reality."

Just what I needed. More pressure. But it's not my problem anymore.

"So that's it?" her other-self asked. "It all just ends here? We walk away, or fade away, and- -"

Mahiru started. She hadn' spoken that aloud, but the other reacted just as if she had. Reading her mind, like Misoka seemed to at times? Or... was this strange image really a part of her, already living somewhere inside Mahiru's mind?

The other's hands began to open. For the first time, Mahiru saw what gave off the strange light. She began to shake. She'd seen that crystal before, the round, iridescent sphere of translucent white, the glittering gem she'd seen smash against stone in a dream from a thousand years ago. The Tear of the Moon began to slip from the other's hands.

Mahiru lunged forward, reaching out. The gem dropped into her hand, surprisingly heavy for its size. It fit in her palm, the size of a tiny pear and roughly the same shape. At her touch, it began to shine again.

"Is this- - Is this it? The whole thing? Is it over?"

The other placed her hands over Mahiru's. She could feel the brush of the layered cuffs, the smoothness of the silk trim and the scratchy embroidery. Those robes must be as heavy as the Tear! Light glowed through their fingers.

"And if it was complete? What should be done with it?"

"Give it back to the Lunar Race!" Mahiru said promptly.

"Give it away? All this power?"

Mahiru froze. This... creature across from her couldn't be a part of her. She didn't think like that. She looked the other in the face, expecting to see something like the expression Mitsuru wore when he spoke of the power of the Tears. The other just looked back at her, eyes calm, even a little sad.

"It's not my power," Mahiru said. "It belongs to them. They'll die without it."

"Dying for power is what began all this. If this power, luck, blessing, whatever you want to call it, if it's not ours," her doppleganger said, touching the inside of Mahiru's wrist, "then why is it inside us? Why did Oboro ask for the power we possess? Why did he say it was ours? Why could we do the things we did, before we even knew the Tears existed?"

Mahiru shook her head at the barrage of questions. Was this another trick by Dawn's Venus, something on the other side of Koudokui's shadows? Wait, she used Master Oboro's name... I've never mentioned it at school, so there's no way Himura could have learned it and passed it on. The only name Dawn's Venus knows is mine.

"Why are you asking me these things? If you're the part of me from the story, you should know the truth."

The other smiled. "But I do know the truth. I do know the answer. I've always known. And because I am you, you know these things, too."

"I've tried to find an answer!" Mahiru tightened her grip on the crystal. It felt colder than ice, so cold the bones in her hands ached. "There's nothing! The song, the story, none of it fits!"

"One way or another, we are the end of the story. We are the answer, but people have forgotten the question."

The other's hands slipped out from under her own, leaving the crystal in Mahiru's hands. Her doppleganger stood, the layers of her robes rustling like wind-blown winds. "To get to where you want to go, you have to watch where you're going."

The light flared again. The silks and brocades the other wore reflected the light, until it seemed the light erased her. She vanished, without so much a stir of air to show where she'd been. The crystal shivered, then collapsed itself, like a giant water droplet losing cohesion. She smelled the heavy, briny scent of the sea.

Mahiru stared at her hands. The Tears weren't the power? Fixing the wrong things? Questions? She' had nothing but questions since this whole thing began! Mahiru felt dizzy, as if she'd been underwater too long. She wasn't smart like Misoka, or clever like Nozomu or Mitsuru, nor wise like Katsura or Master Oboro. How was she supposed to figure this out?

The powers of the Lunar Race... her own power. This so-called power had never worked for her, only for others. Except... when she'd called the secret sea, the deep sea that had hidden her away. The Lunar Race called her power 'luck,' as did the humans who took it. Misoka and Oboro also called a 'blessing.' What was the connection? What wasn't she seeing?

"Places like this used to be a gathering place between humans and the Lunar Race. Some even worshipped us, like gods or guardian spirits."

"A place of refreshment and joy."

Mahiru opened her eyes. And Nozomu...

"If you ever need anything, give a yell and I'll come running." His earlier kindness could have been a sham. All of their pretty words, could have been a lie. But, if Koudokui's hateful words had held some truth in their lies, couldn't theirs do the same?

A quick-fix, like the one she'd been trying, retrieving the Tears, talking to the Venusians like years of hatred were just an innocent misunderstanding, a simple miscommunication, never worked. They were like riptides, currents below the surface that brought danger, not restoration. Children of the Sun,' is what Master Oboro called the human race. Both the Sun and the Moon drew the tides, a constant measured push-pull that brought change- -but slowly, in a natural way.

Hope stirred inside her, a trembling flower raising its head- -

Sheet metal tore like thick paper, safety glass rattling down like hail. Blood and scorched rubber, acrid, throat-skinning smoke... Familiar figures in unfamiliar positions that never moved, no matter how she screamed and cried out to them, who never moved even after they lay neat and straight, their faces covered by white cloth. Shadows drew closer, sharks circling, smelling blood, shadows with razor-teeth and a sense of evil, cloying satisfaction...

Mahiru clutched her head, as if she could wring the images out. What have I done? I killed my parents! She wasn't unlucky, she realized. She was cursed

Everything had turned against her: her own kind, in the form of Himura and the Venusians. Her so-called power, that gave tiny amounts of good for gallons of bad. Her hands dropped into her lap. I don't deserve to leave this place.

"Mahiru!"

She looked up. There... in the space between herself and the not-horizon: a human-shaped figure... in color. Brilliant, eye-catching, jewel-plume color. She couldn't look away, wasn't sure she was breathing. Nozomu. -tbc-