[30² Saint Seiya Themes] PG13 - Thirteen Years. (Fic)
Title: Thirteen Years. (fic)
Author: sagakure
Pairing: Saga and Kanon. (In this fic, as brothers and not pairing.)
List: A
Themes:
#3. Mirror / On the other side of the mirror.
#6. Sin / Crime.
#13. Cry / Tears.
#14. Thirteen years.
#17. Desire (ambitions) of conquest.
#24. Meditation.
Warnings: Just angst.
Disclaimer: Saint Seiya isn't mine. (Which is certainly better for us all as well as for the series. XD; *lol*)
Saint Seiya is (c) Masami Kurumada, Shueisha, Toei and some more people.
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FIC: Thirteen Years
Author: Sagakure
Fandom: Saint Seiya (聖闘士星矢, Knights of the Zodiac, Caballeros del Zodiaco, Cavaleiros do Zodiaco, Chevaliers du Zodiaque).
Pairing: None. Character POV.
Rating: PG13 for utter angst.
Disclaimer: I do not own Saint Seiya. Saint Seiya is (C) of Masami Kurumada, Toei, Shueisha, Akita Shoten and quite probably some more people. No copyright infringement or disrespect intended here. This is a work of fanfiction, done completely for fun. No profit is taken out of it.
Wordcount: 5102 words.
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I don’t know who I am.
It is dark, so very dark and confusing, inside my mind.
I can’t find myself in the dark, I can’t see.
When I do manage to see, I reel back in horror, afraid to look again for days.
I shun mirrors, and avoid them. And yet on same time, I can’t help but be attracted by them. Every time, I hope I’ll find my own face there, but I don’t. Those are not my eyes, staring back with that malevolent gleam.
I’ve taken a habit to bathe more and more often. Sometimes, I stay hours and hours in the water, long after it’s gone cold, hoping that if I can’t wash the filth from my mind, then perhaps I can prevent my body from being as tainted as it, if I clean it constantly.
Mirrors are too straightforward; they show me an exact reflection, something that horrifies me. The water is blurry; sometimes my hair almost looks its original color, when I look at the reflection in the pool. If it’s dark enough in the room, my eyes don’t seem as reddened. A bittersweet make-believe, for the voice in my mind is always so quick to crush those foolish hopes. Not even in the water he leaves me in peace.
In my desire to escape the growing horror within me, I started to blame him. After all, he was the other one, another me, so what better target?
“His fault.”
“He is the bad one.”
It’s always him. Not me. Never me.
And yet, I hate myself more every day, for I know well that this isn’t true. I know well how tainted I am inside. I know it was never his fault, despite the fact I claim it is, because if I blame it on him, it doesn’t frightens me as much. I fool myself into believing I’m not losing control. I don’t seem as hopelessly lost if it’s not all my fault. But I know deep inside that those are but lies. I try my best to convince myself that he started it.
Lies, just lies. Lying to myself, lying to him, lying to the whole world when I put up my mask of perfection and gentleness.
At least Kanon is sincere about things. He never accuses me, not even when I see the pain in his eyes when he is wrongly accused. For a brief moment, his gaze settles on my face, and I read shock and perhaps even anger in it, but it’s gone as fast as it came, and his eyes are now filled with love once again.
He is probably waiting for a gesture from me. A gesture that won’t come.
I’m too lost, and I’m too wrecked and too weak to give him what he expects from me.
There is more and more distance between us. I use the fact that he can’t come outside freely nor risk being seen when I’m among other people. I spend more and more time away from him.
Because I’m afraid of seeing it in his eyes.
I’m deadly afraid he’ll see how right he is, and how tangible the darkness inside my heart has become.
What I hate most isn’t even the voice in my mind, controlling me more and more and tearing me away from everything I have ever loved.
What I hate most is my own weakness, and the fact I don’t do anything to prevent it.
I can’t. And yet, I should.
I hate myself for my lies. I hate myself more with every dawn, every time I get up and ready myself for another day filled with lies. But I don’t do anything against it. There is nothing I can do, but I still feel I should try everything that is possible. I did, at first, but then it showed me how helpless I was. Nowadays, I don’t even try anymore, in my daily routine.
I have learned to accept that dominance as something that can’t be avoided.
But I tremble in fear that they will all find out that I’m not the perfect model of virtue they believe I am. I’m scared that they may hear the voice in my mind, or see the fear in my eyes. Scared of them finding out, and looking at me with disgust and perhaps even pity. Scared of so many things.
Deadly scared that one day, the voice will grow tired of merely exerting its power over me, and will move on for a more dangerous plan. I see glimpses of things in my mind that I can’t even accept to imagine for even a second. I cover my eyes and focus on anything else, trying to forget the ideas and images it gives me. Thinking has become something I fear too, and I grow more and more tired, trying to prevent my mind from slipping into those thoughts it whispers to me.
I have started to hate the image of my real self in the mirror as much as I hate that of the other one.
When I locked Kanon away this afternoon, he asked me if I would let him, my own twin, die.
I couldn’t answer. I wanted to tell him that no matter what I had to sacrifice, I would protect him. But the words just wouldn’t come. So I acted once again all self-righteous, despite knowing how much it would hurt him.
I had to. Locking him away from me now was the very only thing I could do for him. The only way I had to protect him.
If he dies there, it will be less bad than if he stayed by my side, all innocence that he doesn’t even know he still has left, abandoned to be corrupted by my horror. I sincerely hope that he will abandon his ambitions of power and that the gods will forgive him. Only then will he be able to get out of there. But I have faith. Kanon is a survivor. He’ll do much better than I could ever hope for myself.
Days have passed now. The goddess is gone, Shion is dead, by my very hand, and I’m lost in the dark more than ever before.
I still had some measure of control before, as thin as it might have been. Now, I’m like a prisoner bound and gagged constantly, my sparse moments of freedom closely watched, the shadow always lurking in my mind, ready to take over should I have a single thought of rebellion. Tearing away the meager hopes and strengths I still had.
I find myself daydreaming that when the goddess comes to finally punish me, Kanon will be among her new saints. For there will be new saints. After all, the Sagittarius cloth didn’t disappear for no reason. Sometimes, I check if the Gemini armor is still there, wondering how it hasn’t left my side yet.
It acts as if there was good left in me, and it remains loyal to my command. That alone saddens me even further.
I finally did what I didn’t dare to do for the longest time. I went down to the shore again and checked on the cave. It was still shut, exactly the way I left it. There are no signs of Kanon, but the tide is half full, so I can’t see well.
Forgetting about the robes and veils I was wearing, I get in the water, all the way to the entrance of the cave. The waves are cold around my waist, and the water engulfs itself into my tunics and licks my skin in a manner so strange that for a second, it almost makes me feel alive again.
Kanon isn’t there. The cave is rather dark, but it isn’t that big, and the cosmo doesn’t lie, even one as tainted as mine. It is as if he disappeared into thin air.
I never had peace from that day on.
If the gods had forgiven and freed him, the gates of the cave would have been open. The fact that they were still closed meant that rather than forgiving him, they wiped him out. And it was me who left him there, at the mercy of the tide and of their wrath.
Perhaps he would have had more chances of coming back to the right path if I didn’t lock him up?
I will never know.
But the regrets will eat away at me forever.
And when I thought I couldn’t fall any lower, I somehow manage to amaze myself even more. Part of me keeps reminding myself of the wrong things Kanon has done, of his plans and blasphemous ideas against the Kyoukou and the goddess.
A part of me, as horrible as it may sound, is trying its best to hate him, to soil his memory, so that it will hurt less. So that he’ll be less of a victim at my eyes.
That defiling of my twin even after his death finishes to convince me that I am utterly hopeless, corrupted so very thoroughly that nothing can ever redeem me now. I just wish I could stop dreaming of him, so that maybe it wouldn’t hurt as much.
In my better days, I know that this is what I deserve, and that it is part of my punishment, so I force myself to take it, and am grateful for those memories that wrench my heart apart.
I rummage through his few belongings, in search of his scent, his smile, memories to punish myself with. I wish we had taken pictures. There are a few of me, as Gemini, but none of Kanon. He was supposed to remain secret, after all. He wasn’t supposed to exist, so photographs would have been foolish. So many times, as I buried my face in his clothes to cry, I thought tears of blood would pour out of my eyes from too much pain.
Whatever meager solace I used to find in my daydreams is now gone.
The days have passed in the same monotonous way, half asleep and half awake. Even when the voice leaves me some moments of half-controlled freedom -- for I have not experienced full freedom from it for more than a few minutes in several years --, I don’t even try to enjoy it anymore.
I lose track of time and space. Sometimes I’m in the middle of an audience, and I find myself slipping away, reminded of reality only when the voice whispers the answers for me to say before I zone out once again.
I surrender, over and over. I don’t want it to take over completely, the idea horrifies me more than any other thing, but I don’t have enough forces to fight anymore.
Day and night it tortures me with the things I’ve done, when it’s not torturing me with the image of Kanon behind those bars, calling out my name and begging for my help, before the waves swallow him completely and he goes silent.
I don’t know anymore when I’m dreaming and when I’m awake.
This morning, I am warned that a small private-owned jet has landed in the outskirts of Sanctuary. I find myself surprised that 13 years have passed already. There are moments when it seems I’ve been locked inside myself for centuries and centuries, but there are also other times when it seems it all passed like a dream. A nightmare, to be more exact.
I am myself for a short-lived second, and I’m glad the mask I wear conceals my smile from the eyes of the guard informing me of the invasion.
Against my will, the other one orders the gold saints to be ready to repel the enemies. I wish he wouldn’t do it, that way it would be over faster. But it is just a matter of hours now.
I sit back on my throne, filled half with glee that it will soon be over, and half with dread.
I don’t fear my punishment. I yearn for it like nothing else in my whole life.
It is her eyes I fear.
How will they be, when she cast them on me? Will there be disgust? Contempt? Perhaps even hatred, if such a thing is possible for a goddess? So many questions, so many possible answers, and I fear every single one of them.
I find myself hoping I’ll die before I see her; a weak way of escaping that would be unbearable as I also wish more than anything to be able to apologize to her before I go.
No matter that my apologies would mean nothing at all at the face of all my crimes…I still have an unstoppable need to say them to her. Because I do mean them, even though I know I am utterly unforgivable.
I practice what I’ll say or what I’ll do, when she’s finally here. I fail, for the voice mocks me, disrupts my attempts and laughs with scorn at them.
It believes in our victory. No, its victory. It will only be my victory if I die, and that alone.
I fall back into my habitual drowsiness when it forces me to meditate. It uses my techniques against the young saints the goddess brought with her.
I feel robbed somehow.
It claims it hates all that I represent and am, and yet it never ceases to usurp every single one of those traits.
Or maybe it only likes the strength in me. If that’s the case, it will be sorely disappointed, for I hardly believe I have any. As a saint maybe, but not as a man. I despise myself, but I still find forces to ask it to stop, and I surprisingly manage to prevent it from killing two of them at Gemini.
It grants me that small concession, but it throws me back into my dormant state, pleased to show me how much its control over my body and mind is complete. I allow it to subjugate me once again, this time not merely because I know I have no other choice, but also because I’m biding my time. Hopefully I’ll muster enough strength to be myself for a few moments, later, when it matters.
It surprises me how I can manage to gather such ideas in a level so deeply unconscious that the voice doesn’t pick it up. In those moments, I no longer really think, I rely on instinct only, for my thoughts are not mine to begin with, and thus can’t be trusted.
I’m daydreaming again. Or maybe I’m sleeping and this is an actual dream. Aiolos is alive, once again, and he slams the doors of the Kyoukou’s chambers open for the goddess to enter. He stays by her side, as the true saint that he is, and they both look at me with eyes burning of accusations.
I want to fall on my knees in front of them, but my body doesn’t obey me. When did it ever obey me anyway? I can barely recall the last time.
My body commands the gold saints to attack them. But it is against me that they turn. Sweet bliss is once again one with the worst of the nightmares. It is always like that, in my mind. I never even know for sure what I like and what I abhor, what I wish for and what I truly fear.
I’m awake, once again.
And to my utter amazement, I am myself when Pegasus enters the room.
He reminds me of Aiolos, when he strides up to the throne. I get up and walk towards him, proud that he made it all the way here. Proud of remembering the day when he became a saint, and when I gave him his Cloth.
I want to tell him so many things, but I don’t have time.
He hits me, and I’m glad for it. I only wish his punches were stronger, for they don’t hurt me nearly as much as I wish they did. I try to explain, but there’s too much to say, and too few time.
I can’t help it, and I can’t hold the tears in anymore.
In his childish innocence, he worries for me when I start to pant, struggling for control as the voice is about to return. A true saint of hope and protector of what is good…he wants to help me, when I fall to my knees. I am truly amazed. But we have no time for this, and the very idea that he would want to help me irritates me. But my anger is directed at myself only, not at him. Because I don’t deserve that kindness.
He finally complies, and starts to head towards the main temple of Athena as I told him. But as he does, my last forces crumble, and it takes over my body once again. I could scream in horror when I see the boy’s innocent face turning back surprised, and the betrayed look in his eyes when I hit him. When it, hits him. But I don’t even have a voice, and powerless, I watch how my other self beats the boy up and nearly kills him.
I am amazed to find some remaining strength in myself. Probably because I am more despaired now than ever before in my life. I had believed from the start that it was just a matter of time. That the goddess would come and throw me down from my usurped position. But twelve hours have passed, the clock of fire is almost spent, and Athena will die soon, if that boy, our last hope, doesn’t take the shield out on time.
For the first time, I realize that things are far from being as simple as I believed. It awakens in me reserves of strengths that I had never imagined possible. For the first time in my life, I am strong enough to stop the other. Even though all I can do is cause him a headache, it is still better than all I have been able to do in the past. I feel acutely my weakness, and how powerless I am to do anything more. And while before this feeling just made me hopeless, now it tears at my heart in a rising panic.
The other toys with me once again, saying he’ll spare Pegasus’ life, and then strips him of his senses and beats him senseless. In my despair, I lose track of reality again, but the battle goes on. Phoenix has joined Pegasus, and fell protecting him. But he saved him enough time for the boy to get to the temple. I run after him, or better saying, my other self does. I try to stop it for as long as I can, creating illusions that are more a product of my own delusional fears and the despair that I constantly live in, rather than an actual manifestation of my cosmo or techniques. The gold Cloth speaks to him, but he quickly shrugs away the illusions, realizing they’re caused by me.
But perhaps it helped to weaken him?
When we exit the Kyoukou’s palace and run towards the temple, the crisis hits. Once again, it is triggered by the sight of the colossal Athena statue at the top of the hill, the ultimate symbol of the goddess on earth. Nothing has ever been as powerful to instill confusion into his mind, and to bring my wavering conscience back from the depths where it loses itself. I remember it now. When I fought Chronos, it happened the exact same way. In the end, where my own strength was never enough to help me fight my other self, the urge to protect the goddess overwhelmed everything else, lending me forces I didn’t know I had in me.
But I have spent too much energy to fight him off until now, and I’m doomed to fail just before the end, as the sight of the statue only stops him for a second. But that second is enough for Pegasus to reach the shield. Powerless, I watch as my body moves against my will once again, and my other self lunges towards the boy for the killing blow.
And then, Pegasus turns right when I, no, it is about to kill him. Sightless, he can’t even see his imminent demise, but all his will is concentrated on saving her. As a true saint. As I should have been.
A searing white light blinds me, and I feel it impact full blast with my body. The power of the shield of Athena has hit me at point blank range, and I scream, blinded both by the light and by the cosmo invading every single inch of my body, surging through me and going past me, towards her. After that, darkness engulfs me. I know I’m falling, but I can’t feel anything anymore, and the dark closes around me.
When I wake up, unsure of how many hours, minutes or seconds have passed, the moon is high on the sky, and Pegasus is fallen by my side on the ground.
I feel strange, half dizzy from the impact and half still under the shock. It takes me a moment to notice the immense silence in me. I don’t understand what it means at first, but then I realize.
He is gone.
I am free. Really free, like I never was before. Athena’s power, concentrated in her shield have purified me of what has ailed me for as long as I can remember.
So many thoughts cross my head, so many things come to my mind, but all I can do is sit back on the ground and cry. I feel like a child once again, so utterly free and clean like I never felt before. But I still bear all the guilt of everything I did until now. Having been under its control is no excuse. And even if it was, as a gold saint, I should still be held responsible for being weak enough to fall under said control in the first place. No. No matter that I have never wished for those things to happen, it was still my body, my orders, my acts. And I have to answer for what I did.
I bow gratefully to the unconscious Pegasus before I leave, and begin my descent of the stairs. It’s dark here on top of the hill, but at the very bottom, several lights are moving here and there. The saints must be readying themselves to gather around our goddess, as they should. This is good, for it will make my way down easier. Should I meet any of them now, they would most likely attack me, and I need to reach her before any other thing. I have to see her before it is over.
I thought that this would be the easiest part. Walking down the stairs to finally meet her.
I was wrong.
If my mind was already weakened enough from all that it suffered, and if my heart thought it couldn’t bleed anymore from the guilt, they were so very wrong. In every temple I crossed, I saw the desolation and signs of the battle and destruction. For every fallen saint I saw on my way down, I made sure to burn the image of their lifeless bodies into my memory, so that even in the afterlife, I would not forget.
I must be stronger than I thought, for I did not believe I would manage to go on after what I felt every time I saw one of them, be it the younger boys that came to protect the goddess, or the gold saints, thrown into the most unfair of all wars, by nothing other than my decision. My ambitions.
I made most of the way down leaning against the walls and columns, by fear that without support, I would fall to my knees.
I am so tired. So very tired.
This is it. I am almost at the bottom of the hill, when to my surprise, I hear light footsteps, hurrying in my direction.
And I understand.
It is nearly unbelievable that she should be climbing up those stairs alone, but nothing in the world could prevent me from recognizing that cosmo. And I can finally fall to my hands and knees, relieved that it’s almost over.
She is surprised when she sees me. For a moment, it is as if she was a normal person, and she asks me who I am.
I can’t help but smile at her, my eyes filled with love and guilt when I answer.
“I am Saga... The man who tried to murder you 13 years ago, my Lady…”
I have no more need for titles. I am just Saga, when I present myself to her.
She asks me what I came to do…
I have my words ready, as if this was the moment I have been waiting for my whole life.
And it is, after all.
“There was something I would like to do, as an apology to you, my Lady.”
There is surprise on her face. Even more so when my fist crashes through the gold armor and tears into my heart. For a moment, I was afraid I wouldn’t manage to break the Cloth, but I am glad I still could, despite its legendary strength. I have waited for this for so long.
To my utter amazement, she holds me as I fall. Her delicate fingers on the skin of my arms, just above the Cloth, are the most amazing feeling I have ever experienced. They feel burning in contact with the raw guilt that fills every inch of my being, and yet they are so soothing. I wish I could lose myself in that touch for all eternity. But there are still things for me to do. I can’t allow myself to rest before I tell her one last thing.
“I…I….my Lady… I don’t expect…to be forgiven…with this simple gesture…I know well I can’t be ever forgiven…I just had to…anyway…”
I didn’t want her to believe that I was foolish enough to have hoped she would forgive me with the mere sacrifice of my life, after all I’ve done.
I don’t want to be forgiven, because I don’t deserve to. How I wish it were possible. Only after an eternity of suffering in the other world, will I maybe deem myself ready for some measure of forgiveness. And maybe not even then.
In the history of the saints, never has someone done anything as horrible as what I’ve done. By my fault, the goddess was exiled of her own Sanctuary, and raised in the middle of the unknown, far away from her rightful protectors. Worse yet, I have turned them against her, making them believe they were protecting her by doing so. I’ve wronged not only our goddess, but every single one of her saints. I have turned those men, brave warriors, men filled with values and virtues, into the embodiment of what they would most hate. I am a traitor to her, to them, to myself, to everything that has ever lived. I couldn’t possibly hate myself anymore than I already do. I know that living with this guilt would only be worse, and I don’t think I could take it, to say the truth. But if this was the only reason, I wouldn’t allow myself to die. I would not allow myself to run away from the pain, as much as I may want to. But my death is necessary, so that they can all have a chance to pick up the broken pieces of their lives and perhaps patch them back together to try to go on. It is necessary, because it would be impossible for this earth to bear to continue carrying something as horrible as me.
There is still room for surprise in my tired heart, when I hear her scream my name, worried. Why does her voice sound so concerned for something like me?
For a moment, I worry that I might be soiling her dress with my blood, and the thought almost makes me get up to back off, but I have no more energy, and she holds me with so much care that I don’t dare trying to move.
“I just….I just wanted to ask….one thing…my Lady….Please, believe me…All I always wanted…was to live as one of your saints, and…to…live for…justice and peace…I wanted…to fight for you…to fight…for justice…I…”
I nearly don’t manage to finish, but I must. It’s the only thing I ever wanted to ask of her. The very only thing… My mind is spinning as I lose more and more blood. I must finish telling her, before…it’s too late.
“I swear…it is true…please…believe this…it…is…the only…thing…”
“I know, Saga. The real you is truly good. I believe you.”
Her voice is so suave and soothing at the same time that it feels like a dream. I never had a good dream in my life. Is that how it feels?
My face is drenched in sweat from the effort of holding back with my arms to avoid falling over her. Her words free me in a way that nothing before had ever done, not even the liberation from my other self minutes ago. In those thirteen years, never have I felt such joy to be alive, to be able to live a particular instant. Never have I truly felt so alive.
I whimper softly as I fall, knowing I can’t hold anymore and that the contact of my soiled body with her pristine dress and legs is inevitable.
“Thank…yo…u…”
Her voice calling my name once again….the softness of her dress, the delicate touch of her hands on my skin…I try to burn as much of it as I can into my memory. I know I don’t deserve any form of solace, and yet I can’t help but sink into the bliss as she holds me and my conscience slips away.
I can feel she is crying, her breath uneven as her body is agitated by the sobs. I don’t understand why, but it touches me immensely. If I still had any link with my body, I would be crying too.
I feel one of her tears fall on my face and roll down the skin of my cheek, refreshing me as if it could cleanse my soul and wash away my sins.
After that, I feel nothing more.
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Sagakure, July 22nd 2006
(I wrote it several months ago, in a sudden fit of inspiration, almost all in a single hit. But then, I wasn't quite content with some elements of the flow (mostly past/present issues, and it stayed for a while waiting to be edited. Today, my Muses has a fic-fit, and so I edited it to post. :D)
Comments are very welcome. \^__^/
I'm happy with the way the fic turned out, despite the utterly sad theme. :D;
Author: sagakure
Pairing: Saga and Kanon. (In this fic, as brothers and not pairing.)
List: A
Themes:
#3. Mirror / On the other side of the mirror.
#6. Sin / Crime.
#13. Cry / Tears.
#14. Thirteen years.
#17. Desire (ambitions) of conquest.
#24. Meditation.
Warnings: Just angst.
Disclaimer: Saint Seiya isn't mine. (Which is certainly better for us all as well as for the series. XD; *lol*)
Saint Seiya is (c) Masami Kurumada, Shueisha, Toei and some more people.
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FIC: Thirteen Years
Author: Sagakure
Fandom: Saint Seiya (聖闘士星矢, Knights of the Zodiac, Caballeros del Zodiaco, Cavaleiros do Zodiaco, Chevaliers du Zodiaque).
Pairing: None. Character POV.
Rating: PG13 for utter angst.
Disclaimer: I do not own Saint Seiya. Saint Seiya is (C) of Masami Kurumada, Toei, Shueisha, Akita Shoten and quite probably some more people. No copyright infringement or disrespect intended here. This is a work of fanfiction, done completely for fun. No profit is taken out of it.
Wordcount: 5102 words.
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I don’t know who I am.
It is dark, so very dark and confusing, inside my mind.
I can’t find myself in the dark, I can’t see.
When I do manage to see, I reel back in horror, afraid to look again for days.
I shun mirrors, and avoid them. And yet on same time, I can’t help but be attracted by them. Every time, I hope I’ll find my own face there, but I don’t. Those are not my eyes, staring back with that malevolent gleam.
I’ve taken a habit to bathe more and more often. Sometimes, I stay hours and hours in the water, long after it’s gone cold, hoping that if I can’t wash the filth from my mind, then perhaps I can prevent my body from being as tainted as it, if I clean it constantly.
Mirrors are too straightforward; they show me an exact reflection, something that horrifies me. The water is blurry; sometimes my hair almost looks its original color, when I look at the reflection in the pool. If it’s dark enough in the room, my eyes don’t seem as reddened. A bittersweet make-believe, for the voice in my mind is always so quick to crush those foolish hopes. Not even in the water he leaves me in peace.
In my desire to escape the growing horror within me, I started to blame him. After all, he was the other one, another me, so what better target?
“His fault.”
“He is the bad one.”
It’s always him. Not me. Never me.
And yet, I hate myself more every day, for I know well that this isn’t true. I know well how tainted I am inside. I know it was never his fault, despite the fact I claim it is, because if I blame it on him, it doesn’t frightens me as much. I fool myself into believing I’m not losing control. I don’t seem as hopelessly lost if it’s not all my fault. But I know deep inside that those are but lies. I try my best to convince myself that he started it.
Lies, just lies. Lying to myself, lying to him, lying to the whole world when I put up my mask of perfection and gentleness.
At least Kanon is sincere about things. He never accuses me, not even when I see the pain in his eyes when he is wrongly accused. For a brief moment, his gaze settles on my face, and I read shock and perhaps even anger in it, but it’s gone as fast as it came, and his eyes are now filled with love once again.
He is probably waiting for a gesture from me. A gesture that won’t come.
I’m too lost, and I’m too wrecked and too weak to give him what he expects from me.
There is more and more distance between us. I use the fact that he can’t come outside freely nor risk being seen when I’m among other people. I spend more and more time away from him.
Because I’m afraid of seeing it in his eyes.
I’m deadly afraid he’ll see how right he is, and how tangible the darkness inside my heart has become.
What I hate most isn’t even the voice in my mind, controlling me more and more and tearing me away from everything I have ever loved.
What I hate most is my own weakness, and the fact I don’t do anything to prevent it.
I can’t. And yet, I should.
I hate myself for my lies. I hate myself more with every dawn, every time I get up and ready myself for another day filled with lies. But I don’t do anything against it. There is nothing I can do, but I still feel I should try everything that is possible. I did, at first, but then it showed me how helpless I was. Nowadays, I don’t even try anymore, in my daily routine.
I have learned to accept that dominance as something that can’t be avoided.
But I tremble in fear that they will all find out that I’m not the perfect model of virtue they believe I am. I’m scared that they may hear the voice in my mind, or see the fear in my eyes. Scared of them finding out, and looking at me with disgust and perhaps even pity. Scared of so many things.
Deadly scared that one day, the voice will grow tired of merely exerting its power over me, and will move on for a more dangerous plan. I see glimpses of things in my mind that I can’t even accept to imagine for even a second. I cover my eyes and focus on anything else, trying to forget the ideas and images it gives me. Thinking has become something I fear too, and I grow more and more tired, trying to prevent my mind from slipping into those thoughts it whispers to me.
I have started to hate the image of my real self in the mirror as much as I hate that of the other one.
When I locked Kanon away this afternoon, he asked me if I would let him, my own twin, die.
I couldn’t answer. I wanted to tell him that no matter what I had to sacrifice, I would protect him. But the words just wouldn’t come. So I acted once again all self-righteous, despite knowing how much it would hurt him.
I had to. Locking him away from me now was the very only thing I could do for him. The only way I had to protect him.
If he dies there, it will be less bad than if he stayed by my side, all innocence that he doesn’t even know he still has left, abandoned to be corrupted by my horror. I sincerely hope that he will abandon his ambitions of power and that the gods will forgive him. Only then will he be able to get out of there. But I have faith. Kanon is a survivor. He’ll do much better than I could ever hope for myself.
Days have passed now. The goddess is gone, Shion is dead, by my very hand, and I’m lost in the dark more than ever before.
I still had some measure of control before, as thin as it might have been. Now, I’m like a prisoner bound and gagged constantly, my sparse moments of freedom closely watched, the shadow always lurking in my mind, ready to take over should I have a single thought of rebellion. Tearing away the meager hopes and strengths I still had.
I find myself daydreaming that when the goddess comes to finally punish me, Kanon will be among her new saints. For there will be new saints. After all, the Sagittarius cloth didn’t disappear for no reason. Sometimes, I check if the Gemini armor is still there, wondering how it hasn’t left my side yet.
It acts as if there was good left in me, and it remains loyal to my command. That alone saddens me even further.
I finally did what I didn’t dare to do for the longest time. I went down to the shore again and checked on the cave. It was still shut, exactly the way I left it. There are no signs of Kanon, but the tide is half full, so I can’t see well.
Forgetting about the robes and veils I was wearing, I get in the water, all the way to the entrance of the cave. The waves are cold around my waist, and the water engulfs itself into my tunics and licks my skin in a manner so strange that for a second, it almost makes me feel alive again.
Kanon isn’t there. The cave is rather dark, but it isn’t that big, and the cosmo doesn’t lie, even one as tainted as mine. It is as if he disappeared into thin air.
I never had peace from that day on.
If the gods had forgiven and freed him, the gates of the cave would have been open. The fact that they were still closed meant that rather than forgiving him, they wiped him out. And it was me who left him there, at the mercy of the tide and of their wrath.
Perhaps he would have had more chances of coming back to the right path if I didn’t lock him up?
I will never know.
But the regrets will eat away at me forever.
And when I thought I couldn’t fall any lower, I somehow manage to amaze myself even more. Part of me keeps reminding myself of the wrong things Kanon has done, of his plans and blasphemous ideas against the Kyoukou and the goddess.
A part of me, as horrible as it may sound, is trying its best to hate him, to soil his memory, so that it will hurt less. So that he’ll be less of a victim at my eyes.
That defiling of my twin even after his death finishes to convince me that I am utterly hopeless, corrupted so very thoroughly that nothing can ever redeem me now. I just wish I could stop dreaming of him, so that maybe it wouldn’t hurt as much.
In my better days, I know that this is what I deserve, and that it is part of my punishment, so I force myself to take it, and am grateful for those memories that wrench my heart apart.
I rummage through his few belongings, in search of his scent, his smile, memories to punish myself with. I wish we had taken pictures. There are a few of me, as Gemini, but none of Kanon. He was supposed to remain secret, after all. He wasn’t supposed to exist, so photographs would have been foolish. So many times, as I buried my face in his clothes to cry, I thought tears of blood would pour out of my eyes from too much pain.
Whatever meager solace I used to find in my daydreams is now gone.
The days have passed in the same monotonous way, half asleep and half awake. Even when the voice leaves me some moments of half-controlled freedom -- for I have not experienced full freedom from it for more than a few minutes in several years --, I don’t even try to enjoy it anymore.
I lose track of time and space. Sometimes I’m in the middle of an audience, and I find myself slipping away, reminded of reality only when the voice whispers the answers for me to say before I zone out once again.
I surrender, over and over. I don’t want it to take over completely, the idea horrifies me more than any other thing, but I don’t have enough forces to fight anymore.
Day and night it tortures me with the things I’ve done, when it’s not torturing me with the image of Kanon behind those bars, calling out my name and begging for my help, before the waves swallow him completely and he goes silent.
I don’t know anymore when I’m dreaming and when I’m awake.
This morning, I am warned that a small private-owned jet has landed in the outskirts of Sanctuary. I find myself surprised that 13 years have passed already. There are moments when it seems I’ve been locked inside myself for centuries and centuries, but there are also other times when it seems it all passed like a dream. A nightmare, to be more exact.
I am myself for a short-lived second, and I’m glad the mask I wear conceals my smile from the eyes of the guard informing me of the invasion.
Against my will, the other one orders the gold saints to be ready to repel the enemies. I wish he wouldn’t do it, that way it would be over faster. But it is just a matter of hours now.
I sit back on my throne, filled half with glee that it will soon be over, and half with dread.
I don’t fear my punishment. I yearn for it like nothing else in my whole life.
It is her eyes I fear.
How will they be, when she cast them on me? Will there be disgust? Contempt? Perhaps even hatred, if such a thing is possible for a goddess? So many questions, so many possible answers, and I fear every single one of them.
I find myself hoping I’ll die before I see her; a weak way of escaping that would be unbearable as I also wish more than anything to be able to apologize to her before I go.
No matter that my apologies would mean nothing at all at the face of all my crimes…I still have an unstoppable need to say them to her. Because I do mean them, even though I know I am utterly unforgivable.
I practice what I’ll say or what I’ll do, when she’s finally here. I fail, for the voice mocks me, disrupts my attempts and laughs with scorn at them.
It believes in our victory. No, its victory. It will only be my victory if I die, and that alone.
I fall back into my habitual drowsiness when it forces me to meditate. It uses my techniques against the young saints the goddess brought with her.
I feel robbed somehow.
It claims it hates all that I represent and am, and yet it never ceases to usurp every single one of those traits.
Or maybe it only likes the strength in me. If that’s the case, it will be sorely disappointed, for I hardly believe I have any. As a saint maybe, but not as a man. I despise myself, but I still find forces to ask it to stop, and I surprisingly manage to prevent it from killing two of them at Gemini.
It grants me that small concession, but it throws me back into my dormant state, pleased to show me how much its control over my body and mind is complete. I allow it to subjugate me once again, this time not merely because I know I have no other choice, but also because I’m biding my time. Hopefully I’ll muster enough strength to be myself for a few moments, later, when it matters.
It surprises me how I can manage to gather such ideas in a level so deeply unconscious that the voice doesn’t pick it up. In those moments, I no longer really think, I rely on instinct only, for my thoughts are not mine to begin with, and thus can’t be trusted.
I’m daydreaming again. Or maybe I’m sleeping and this is an actual dream. Aiolos is alive, once again, and he slams the doors of the Kyoukou’s chambers open for the goddess to enter. He stays by her side, as the true saint that he is, and they both look at me with eyes burning of accusations.
I want to fall on my knees in front of them, but my body doesn’t obey me. When did it ever obey me anyway? I can barely recall the last time.
My body commands the gold saints to attack them. But it is against me that they turn. Sweet bliss is once again one with the worst of the nightmares. It is always like that, in my mind. I never even know for sure what I like and what I abhor, what I wish for and what I truly fear.
I’m awake, once again.
And to my utter amazement, I am myself when Pegasus enters the room.
He reminds me of Aiolos, when he strides up to the throne. I get up and walk towards him, proud that he made it all the way here. Proud of remembering the day when he became a saint, and when I gave him his Cloth.
I want to tell him so many things, but I don’t have time.
He hits me, and I’m glad for it. I only wish his punches were stronger, for they don’t hurt me nearly as much as I wish they did. I try to explain, but there’s too much to say, and too few time.
I can’t help it, and I can’t hold the tears in anymore.
In his childish innocence, he worries for me when I start to pant, struggling for control as the voice is about to return. A true saint of hope and protector of what is good…he wants to help me, when I fall to my knees. I am truly amazed. But we have no time for this, and the very idea that he would want to help me irritates me. But my anger is directed at myself only, not at him. Because I don’t deserve that kindness.
He finally complies, and starts to head towards the main temple of Athena as I told him. But as he does, my last forces crumble, and it takes over my body once again. I could scream in horror when I see the boy’s innocent face turning back surprised, and the betrayed look in his eyes when I hit him. When it, hits him. But I don’t even have a voice, and powerless, I watch how my other self beats the boy up and nearly kills him.
I am amazed to find some remaining strength in myself. Probably because I am more despaired now than ever before in my life. I had believed from the start that it was just a matter of time. That the goddess would come and throw me down from my usurped position. But twelve hours have passed, the clock of fire is almost spent, and Athena will die soon, if that boy, our last hope, doesn’t take the shield out on time.
For the first time, I realize that things are far from being as simple as I believed. It awakens in me reserves of strengths that I had never imagined possible. For the first time in my life, I am strong enough to stop the other. Even though all I can do is cause him a headache, it is still better than all I have been able to do in the past. I feel acutely my weakness, and how powerless I am to do anything more. And while before this feeling just made me hopeless, now it tears at my heart in a rising panic.
The other toys with me once again, saying he’ll spare Pegasus’ life, and then strips him of his senses and beats him senseless. In my despair, I lose track of reality again, but the battle goes on. Phoenix has joined Pegasus, and fell protecting him. But he saved him enough time for the boy to get to the temple. I run after him, or better saying, my other self does. I try to stop it for as long as I can, creating illusions that are more a product of my own delusional fears and the despair that I constantly live in, rather than an actual manifestation of my cosmo or techniques. The gold Cloth speaks to him, but he quickly shrugs away the illusions, realizing they’re caused by me.
But perhaps it helped to weaken him?
When we exit the Kyoukou’s palace and run towards the temple, the crisis hits. Once again, it is triggered by the sight of the colossal Athena statue at the top of the hill, the ultimate symbol of the goddess on earth. Nothing has ever been as powerful to instill confusion into his mind, and to bring my wavering conscience back from the depths where it loses itself. I remember it now. When I fought Chronos, it happened the exact same way. In the end, where my own strength was never enough to help me fight my other self, the urge to protect the goddess overwhelmed everything else, lending me forces I didn’t know I had in me.
But I have spent too much energy to fight him off until now, and I’m doomed to fail just before the end, as the sight of the statue only stops him for a second. But that second is enough for Pegasus to reach the shield. Powerless, I watch as my body moves against my will once again, and my other self lunges towards the boy for the killing blow.
And then, Pegasus turns right when I, no, it is about to kill him. Sightless, he can’t even see his imminent demise, but all his will is concentrated on saving her. As a true saint. As I should have been.
A searing white light blinds me, and I feel it impact full blast with my body. The power of the shield of Athena has hit me at point blank range, and I scream, blinded both by the light and by the cosmo invading every single inch of my body, surging through me and going past me, towards her. After that, darkness engulfs me. I know I’m falling, but I can’t feel anything anymore, and the dark closes around me.
When I wake up, unsure of how many hours, minutes or seconds have passed, the moon is high on the sky, and Pegasus is fallen by my side on the ground.
I feel strange, half dizzy from the impact and half still under the shock. It takes me a moment to notice the immense silence in me. I don’t understand what it means at first, but then I realize.
He is gone.
I am free. Really free, like I never was before. Athena’s power, concentrated in her shield have purified me of what has ailed me for as long as I can remember.
So many thoughts cross my head, so many things come to my mind, but all I can do is sit back on the ground and cry. I feel like a child once again, so utterly free and clean like I never felt before. But I still bear all the guilt of everything I did until now. Having been under its control is no excuse. And even if it was, as a gold saint, I should still be held responsible for being weak enough to fall under said control in the first place. No. No matter that I have never wished for those things to happen, it was still my body, my orders, my acts. And I have to answer for what I did.
I bow gratefully to the unconscious Pegasus before I leave, and begin my descent of the stairs. It’s dark here on top of the hill, but at the very bottom, several lights are moving here and there. The saints must be readying themselves to gather around our goddess, as they should. This is good, for it will make my way down easier. Should I meet any of them now, they would most likely attack me, and I need to reach her before any other thing. I have to see her before it is over.
I thought that this would be the easiest part. Walking down the stairs to finally meet her.
I was wrong.
If my mind was already weakened enough from all that it suffered, and if my heart thought it couldn’t bleed anymore from the guilt, they were so very wrong. In every temple I crossed, I saw the desolation and signs of the battle and destruction. For every fallen saint I saw on my way down, I made sure to burn the image of their lifeless bodies into my memory, so that even in the afterlife, I would not forget.
I must be stronger than I thought, for I did not believe I would manage to go on after what I felt every time I saw one of them, be it the younger boys that came to protect the goddess, or the gold saints, thrown into the most unfair of all wars, by nothing other than my decision. My ambitions.
I made most of the way down leaning against the walls and columns, by fear that without support, I would fall to my knees.
I am so tired. So very tired.
This is it. I am almost at the bottom of the hill, when to my surprise, I hear light footsteps, hurrying in my direction.
And I understand.
It is nearly unbelievable that she should be climbing up those stairs alone, but nothing in the world could prevent me from recognizing that cosmo. And I can finally fall to my hands and knees, relieved that it’s almost over.
She is surprised when she sees me. For a moment, it is as if she was a normal person, and she asks me who I am.
I can’t help but smile at her, my eyes filled with love and guilt when I answer.
“I am Saga... The man who tried to murder you 13 years ago, my Lady…”
I have no more need for titles. I am just Saga, when I present myself to her.
She asks me what I came to do…
I have my words ready, as if this was the moment I have been waiting for my whole life.
And it is, after all.
“There was something I would like to do, as an apology to you, my Lady.”
There is surprise on her face. Even more so when my fist crashes through the gold armor and tears into my heart. For a moment, I was afraid I wouldn’t manage to break the Cloth, but I am glad I still could, despite its legendary strength. I have waited for this for so long.
To my utter amazement, she holds me as I fall. Her delicate fingers on the skin of my arms, just above the Cloth, are the most amazing feeling I have ever experienced. They feel burning in contact with the raw guilt that fills every inch of my being, and yet they are so soothing. I wish I could lose myself in that touch for all eternity. But there are still things for me to do. I can’t allow myself to rest before I tell her one last thing.
“I…I….my Lady… I don’t expect…to be forgiven…with this simple gesture…I know well I can’t be ever forgiven…I just had to…anyway…”
I didn’t want her to believe that I was foolish enough to have hoped she would forgive me with the mere sacrifice of my life, after all I’ve done.
I don’t want to be forgiven, because I don’t deserve to. How I wish it were possible. Only after an eternity of suffering in the other world, will I maybe deem myself ready for some measure of forgiveness. And maybe not even then.
In the history of the saints, never has someone done anything as horrible as what I’ve done. By my fault, the goddess was exiled of her own Sanctuary, and raised in the middle of the unknown, far away from her rightful protectors. Worse yet, I have turned them against her, making them believe they were protecting her by doing so. I’ve wronged not only our goddess, but every single one of her saints. I have turned those men, brave warriors, men filled with values and virtues, into the embodiment of what they would most hate. I am a traitor to her, to them, to myself, to everything that has ever lived. I couldn’t possibly hate myself anymore than I already do. I know that living with this guilt would only be worse, and I don’t think I could take it, to say the truth. But if this was the only reason, I wouldn’t allow myself to die. I would not allow myself to run away from the pain, as much as I may want to. But my death is necessary, so that they can all have a chance to pick up the broken pieces of their lives and perhaps patch them back together to try to go on. It is necessary, because it would be impossible for this earth to bear to continue carrying something as horrible as me.
There is still room for surprise in my tired heart, when I hear her scream my name, worried. Why does her voice sound so concerned for something like me?
For a moment, I worry that I might be soiling her dress with my blood, and the thought almost makes me get up to back off, but I have no more energy, and she holds me with so much care that I don’t dare trying to move.
“I just….I just wanted to ask….one thing…my Lady….Please, believe me…All I always wanted…was to live as one of your saints, and…to…live for…justice and peace…I wanted…to fight for you…to fight…for justice…I…”
I nearly don’t manage to finish, but I must. It’s the only thing I ever wanted to ask of her. The very only thing… My mind is spinning as I lose more and more blood. I must finish telling her, before…it’s too late.
“I swear…it is true…please…believe this…it…is…the only…thing…”
“I know, Saga. The real you is truly good. I believe you.”
Her voice is so suave and soothing at the same time that it feels like a dream. I never had a good dream in my life. Is that how it feels?
My face is drenched in sweat from the effort of holding back with my arms to avoid falling over her. Her words free me in a way that nothing before had ever done, not even the liberation from my other self minutes ago. In those thirteen years, never have I felt such joy to be alive, to be able to live a particular instant. Never have I truly felt so alive.
I whimper softly as I fall, knowing I can’t hold anymore and that the contact of my soiled body with her pristine dress and legs is inevitable.
“Thank…yo…u…”
Her voice calling my name once again….the softness of her dress, the delicate touch of her hands on my skin…I try to burn as much of it as I can into my memory. I know I don’t deserve any form of solace, and yet I can’t help but sink into the bliss as she holds me and my conscience slips away.
I can feel she is crying, her breath uneven as her body is agitated by the sobs. I don’t understand why, but it touches me immensely. If I still had any link with my body, I would be crying too.
I feel one of her tears fall on my face and roll down the skin of my cheek, refreshing me as if it could cleanse my soul and wash away my sins.
After that, I feel nothing more.
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Sagakure, July 22nd 2006
(I wrote it several months ago, in a sudden fit of inspiration, almost all in a single hit. But then, I wasn't quite content with some elements of the flow (mostly past/present issues, and it stayed for a while waiting to be edited. Today, my Muses has a fic-fit, and so I edited it to post. :D)
Comments are very welcome. \^__^/
I'm happy with the way the fic turned out, despite the utterly sad theme. :D;