Fic: Iteration (7/8) (Berserk)
Title: Iteration
Author: Akshi
Fandom: Berserk
Warnings: Alternate universe, violence (kind of a given with this series, eh?), het sex, character death
Archive: Please ask me first
Disclaimers: Berserk belongs to Kentarou Miura and Hakusensha. Warm thanks go to my patient and long-suffering beta readers, Jeanne and Priya, for beating this story into the shape it is now. I would also like to thank Tsubaki and Sahari for their feedback. Any mistakes are, of course, entirely mine. Feedback appreciated at pharcical@yahoo.com
Part Seven
Nanatsu, Namida mo kare hate te
(Seven, my tears run out)
Gatts props his hip against a wall, finally alone with Griffith after the shock of the morning’s announcement. ‘You couldn’t possibly have warned me about this last night?’ he asks.
Griffith is unrepentant. ‘What would have been the fun in that?’ he replies, smiling maddeningly at Gatts. ‘You should have seen your face.’
‘I suppose this means we won’t be leaving the city anytime soon?’
‘You suppose right. I could hardly miss the celebrations for my own wedding, now could I?’ The King had announced that a whole month of feasts and merrymaking would lead up to the wedding itself, when he would formally proclaim Griffith his heir. Gatts privately thinks that feasts and fireworks are the last thing needed when most of Midland is facing a drought, but he has the sense to keep silent on the subject.
The celebrations begin the next day, with public feasts each day in every square of Garima, and silver coins being thrown to eager crowds. News of the wedding has resulted in a festival atmosphere, leaving people giddy with anticipation for the next parade or play or fireworks display. Men and women dance in streets strung with flower garlands at all hours of the day, disregarding the blazing sun overhead, and continue on into the night. The feverish preparations for the wedding are enough to distract attention from the decreasing supply of foodstuffs into the capital and the diminishing reserves of water, but Gatts wonders how long it will last.
>
The answer comes only too soon. The monsoon has passed Midland by and reports of drought and famine in remote parts of the kingdom begin trickling in. Even the Durai delta regions, the fertile heart of agriculture in Midland, are parched and unable to send their tithe to the King this year. The farmers’ green fields of wheat and rice have withered and died in the heat and they are forced to fall back on the previous year’s reserves. The King, eager to celebrate his daughter’s wedding in the most ostentatious manner possible, has ignored the warnings of his advisors to moderate expenses. Gambling as he has been on a prosperous year to ensure the health of the royal treasury, the sudden poverty of the farmlands comes as a serious blow.
Even the city, normally cushioned from the vagaries of nature, is beginning to feel the effects of the drought. The price of bread goes up, as does the price of rice. Matters are made worse by the Midlanders flooding into the city from ravaged areas, until finally the guards are told to turn away all refugees. Every back alley seems filled with emaciated humanity, their faces gaunt and hungry, their hands perpetually outstretched. Gatts grows used to the sight of royal soldiers dragging corpses away every morning when he makes his rounds. Only the cremation grounds are prospering; smoke rises high into the sweltering air from the fires, fed by the dead wood all around the city.
Whispers begin circulating: that the royal coffers are almost empty, that the extravagant celebrations have drained the exchequer too far for food to be supplied to starving Midlanders. But the wedding celebrations continue and, in a masterpiece of insensitivity, the King appears with Griffith to announce that taxes on the citizens of Garima will be doubled to compensate for the dearth of income from the rural areas. The same evening, Gatts goes to the Temple of Desire to make his daily report to Griffith and finds him sublimely indifferent to the political consequences of the taxes.
‘Certainly, they have to pinch and squeeze a bit this year, Gatts, but what of it? It is their duty as King’s citizens.’
Gatts is appalled. Griffith has always been arrogant, but never to the extent of delusion. Never at the expense of other people. ‘Griffith, you know as well as I do that this year most of them can’t afford to pay their taxes, let alone twice the usual amount. You can’t suddenly be so far removed from the rest of Midland, just because you’re engaged to the Princess!’
Griffith shrugs bored shoulders. ‘A few of them will starve. It’s not so important, surely?’ His attention drifts to the revelry behind them. One woman, drunk and half-naked, pretends to flog her neighbour with a long string of pearls.
‘Do you really want to become the heir at a time when your people are dying in the streets? Your popularity will not carry you safely through this, I warn you!’
‘Very soon, the approval of the people will matter not at all, not to me and not to my allies. A few days, Gatts, we have only to wait a few days.’ The necklace breaks, to the shrieks of its owner and the cheers of the other guests, and hundreds of glistening pearls scatter across the floor.
>
Even besieged by the twin fears of drought and famine, the city is willing to believe in their leaders. Cheers in the streets still greet Griffith, though they grow weaker by the day. Gatts thinks it would not take much for their faith to be restored in the King and his heir, just a little less pomp and a little more care for the people. No gestures are made, token or otherwise, and the temperature of the city begins to rise. Patrolling the streets in Hawk insignia, Gatts feels the skin on the back of his neck crawl. He recognises the smell of suppressed anger. It will take very little provocation for the city to explode.
In the end, a mundane bread shortage begins the final collapse. One raised voice becomes a cacophony of protest, running through the city like fire, inciting panic and rage. Looters begin breaking into provision stores and wine shops, blocking the streets with barrels and broken glass. Even as the army is deployed to control it, rioting spreads rapidly, heading inevitably to the source of the city’s discontent.
Gatts, caught unawares and on foot, is unable to get back in time to warn Griffith. He stands helplessly at the edge of the crowd in front of the palace. So recently filled with rejoicing faces, the square now swarms with gesticulating arms and voices raised in anger. They cry for bread, for rice, for water. For the royal family and the nobles to stop dining on peacock’s tongues cheek by jowl with people who haven’t eaten in a week. Come out, they say to the King, come out!
But it is Griffith who comes out of the palace gates, riding on his white stallion, his face calm and unafraid. Hawks follow him out of the gates, lining up outside the walls of the palace. The clamour dies down, as the protestors strain to hear the White Hawk, their great war hero.
‘People of Garima, go home. I understand that you are afraid, but there is no need to be. The situation is under control. You must trust in your leaders to judge what is best for the city.’
Where are the promises of free food and water, the expressions of concern? Gatts can hear the thoughts of the crowd as clearly as if they are written above their heads. He waits with bated breath for Griffith to make some kind of concession, only to see him turn his horse toward the gates of the palace.
With a roar, the infuriated crowd surges forward. A raised hand flings something at Griffith, hitting him on the cheek and stopping him in his tracks. ‘Whore!’ another voice yells, as the mob shouts its approval of the action. Griffith wipes the dirt off his cheek with slow fingers. Gatts tenses: there is something terrible about Griffith’s face. He gestures with one hand and Gatts, unbelieving, watches as the Hawks, his Hawks, draw their bows and shoot repeatedly into the unarmed crowd. In what seems like moments, more than a hundred bodies lie dead in the square and the rest of the protestors flee, shrieking with fear and outrage.
>
Waiting to see Griffith that afternoon, Gatts is not sure what to say. Months ago, he would not have had to say anything, for Griffith had always known what he felt. Now, though, there is very little of the old Griffith that remains and Gatts doesn’t think he wants to wait while it disappears completely. He says it as quickly as possible, wanting only to get the whole thing over with.
‘I’m leaving, Griffith. I’ve already told the others.’
Griffith looks at him as though he has lost his mind. ‘Why? Not because of this morning?’ His reaction is so calm that it seems unreal, disjoint from anything a human being would display.
‘Yes,’ Gatts says, desperate to leave.
Griffith laughs incredulously. ‘You can’t be shaken by a few ruffians rioting in the streets, Gatts!’
‘Griffith! Do you understand what you’ve done? This isn’t collateral damage on the battlefield - this is butchery, pure and simple!’ Desperate to get through to him, Gatts grabs his shoulders and shakes him, only to have his hands removed with a strength his friend had not previously possessed.
Griffith looks at him coldly. ‘You will never touch me without my permission again. I took what action was necessary to control the situation and I do not expect to be questioned by my subordinates.’
There is nothing in Griffith’s eyes of the friend Gatts remembers. ‘I’m leaving, Griffith. I can’t take this anymore. Find someone else to do your dirty work for you.’
Griffith looks at him, seemingly bored. ‘I’m afraid that’s impossible, Gatts. Much as I would have preferred you to stay with me for loyalty and friendship,’ his voice flicks the words at him like blades, ‘I am quite prepared to use force to detain you.’
Gatts turns to leave, only to find Griffith’s personal guards facing him, their swords bared. He half-turns and something slams into his head. Falling to the floor, he hears a voice telling them to take him away, then nothing more.
>
Gatts wakes to hear voices raised in anger. They all seem rather far away. This is, he realises, as the sleep clears from his head, because he is in some sort of cell, in a line with other identical cells, and the yelling is coming from outside the entire block.
‘What do you mean you can’t let us in? Do you know who we are?’ That’s Casca, he thinks, with a warm rush of relief. Good old Casca, come to save the day!
Pippin’s low rumble sounds next, though Gatts can’t make out what he is saying. He can’t hear the guards’ replies either, but he is certain his friends will get him out.
The arguing continues, at varying volumes, and, incredulously, he realises that the guards are winning. ‘But Griffith can’t possibly have said that,’ Casca says, sounding lost under her bluster. Eventually, they leave and Gatts is left staring at his hands, suddenly bereft.
The days pass slowly after that. Each day, one or another of his Hawks comes to try and see him, retreating in defeat from Griffith’s absolute authority over the guards. Food and drink are sent in to him at regular intervals, but he can extract no news from the stony-faced guards. Nor are there any other prisoners in the cells in his block, deep in the lower levels of the Temple of Void. What can Griffith mean to do with him, if he no longer trusts him? Or is Gatts simply meant to rot in his cell forever, as a warning to the other Hawks?
The thought sets him hunting furiously for a way to escape, scrabbling with his fingers at the walls in search of flaws and cracks, but the walls are unrelentingly smooth. He takes to watching the guards covertly, but knows he can’t overpower five of them at once in his unarmed state.
There is a tiny window set high on one wall of Gatts’ cell, through which he can track the movement of the sun as it burns lower in the sky. And then the moon, round initially, but waning, its increasingly feeble light reminding Gatts each night of the coming new moon, when he will have no light at all. Irrationally, he fears that night, though he tells himself that it will be no different from any other.
Every night, he wakes shaking at some point, sweating and dry-mouthed from dreams that he cannot remember. It seems to him that he has reached the end of a long parabola, where he is so far removed from his childhood existence, and yet equally wretched, equally disturbed. Soon, no doubt, he will be completely demented. His cracked laughter breaks the silence, and is absorbed by the black stone walls around him.
>
Gatts takes to lying pressed against the wall with the window for most of the day. It allows the sun to fall on his chilled body and with his eyes closed he can hear the rhythms of life in the streets below. Even shut up in the Temple, he recognises the sounds of panic and rage, sounding increasingly frequently as the days pass. Sometimes, he sleeps, and his dreams slide back over him, enveloping him completely, though they vanish from memory by the time he wakes.
‘Wake up, Gatts!’ He opens his eyes one day to find Judeau looking at him through the thick metal bars, frantic and running nervous hands through his blond hair.
‘Judeau! Get me out of here!’ he says, more animated than he has been in days.
‘I can’t, but I’ve come to help,’ Judeau says, displaying a metal file hidden between his fingers. ‘Listen, you have to listen to me, this is important.’
Gatts raises a mental eyebrow. He has never seen the man in such a state. Though, of course, the current state of affairs would tend to alarm anyone. He wonders why he himself is so calm while Garima is rushing into anarchy outside his window and his best friend and leader falls headlong into insanity, but he’s too numb to pursue that train of thought for long.
‘What?’
Judeau is pacing in front of the cell as he talks: he can’t seem to keep still. ‘Ever since I was young, I’ve had flashes, visions you could call them, I guess, of things that would happen. Sometimes they happened exactly the way things happened in real life, sometimes a little different. I never knew if I could trust them to be accurate. Do you remember I told you my dreams have been really bad lately?’ He looks at Gatts and his eyes are frightened. ‘I think I’ve figured out what’s going on with Griffith and the priests.’
‘So tell me!’
‘I can’t explain it to you!’
‘Why the hell not?’
‘Because you have to stop them, and if I tell you what it’s about, you won’t be able to do it.’
Gatts’ head begins to ache fiercely. Judeau, who has always been the Hawks’ voice of reason, is acting like a raving madman. It seems to be the order of the day.
‘Will you help me?’ Gatts says, humouring him.
‘It is for you alone to do.’ With sudden fierceness: ‘ Think, Gatts! Think! Remember. This…it has all happened before, many, many times!’
‘What do you mean? Why can’t you just tell me?’ Gatts snarls, equally frustrated and beginning to be frightened by Judeau’s intensity.
‘I can’t! It has to come from within you.’
‘Why won’t you help me?’
Judeau looks sad, suddenly. ‘My presence would affect nothing. It never has. And, besides, there is someone I intend to take with me, this very day, out of this damned city.’ He looks at Gatts, silently asking for understanding. ‘I’m sorry, Gatts.’
Gatts knows who Judeau wants to persuade to leave with him. With a sudden access of gentleness, he tells him: ‘She won’t go, Judeau. You know what Griffith means to her. Even in his current state.’
Judeau’s lips twist. ‘Yes, I know exactly how she feels about him. But I have to try.’
Gatts looks at him silently, and then nods, tacitly accepting his decision. He raises his open hand to the bars. Judeau lifts his own hand to press against his, passing him the file and clasping his fingers warmly around Gatts’ for a long moment. He walks back through the corridor, turning at the end to look at Gatts again. ‘Good luck, my friend.’
‘Good luck, Judeau.’
>
Gatts waits until the guards deliver his evening rations before he begins work on the bars. There is a reddish tinge to the metal as he begins sawing away at it, the bars and his hands lit by the setting sun. With sudden fear, he counts back the days to when he was captured and knows that tonight there will be no moon.
Hours later, two of the prison bars are filed through. Gatts is working on the third, sweat dripping down his face and chest. He works blindly, his head and hands throbbing with pain. He has racked his brains for what seems like aeons, finally entering a trance-like state, where random scraps of memory drift across his mind. Always keep your sword clean, my boy, Madik Roose tells him, while the midwife barks, A dead whore’s child has no business living! Judeau sits next to him on the rooftop. I’ve got a sure-fire way to make Casca go out with me, he says, and next to him, Rickert and Pippin are playing cards. Cheater! You cheater, Pippin! You had the ace up your sleeve! Gennon flicks him a silver coin, Thanks for taking care of my boy, while in front of him, Griffith…no, not Griffith, and not shorter than Gennon after all. But Gennon is gone. There is only the strange man now, as Gatts blinks his mind’s eye in confusion. Where are the rest?
Another blink and he is standing on a red field of blood, as a massive hand erupts from the ground. Within it, he knows, is his best friend. He has to save him. Around him, his men are panicking, even as Casca tries to control them. The scene plays on and on in his mind, as a part of him watches silently. Finally, he remembers. He remembers everything.
Waking with a jolt, his heart skips a beat to find his cell in complete darkness. No! It can’t have started already! With the frenzy of the possessed, he rips the third bar out, squeezing himself out of his cell. In what feels like a single heartbeat, he has rushed out of the prisons to find the entire wing unguarded. He has stepped into a nightmare.
Fire licks at the walls, flames eating away at the building, shadows and tongues of unnatural flame everywhere. Where are they? He runs through abandoned corridors, deeper and deeper into the temple. There is a shudder as the foundations shake, then a keening wail. The walls melt and there are faces everywhere, moaning with wide-open mouths. Shrieked names, hysterical screams issue from Gatts’ open mouth: Pippin, Rickert, Casca, Griffith, Griffith, Griffith! He continues stumbling down empty hallways. No one here, no one here, his mind screams. It needs blood, the ritual offerings, Griffith’s pendant. Where?
Flash of memory - a cavernous underground chamber stretching on forever. He knows now. Lower, he needs to get lower. Sparks flying as he runs. His clothes are on fire and he slaps at them to beat out the flames. Down, quick, down the spiral staircase. Cooler here, the fire hasn’t reached here yet.
Lower, lower, lower to a closed door reaching above Gatts’ head. He opens the door into a tunnel, heavy with the smell of incense. And something else? Drugs, a narcotic to soothe them. Walking faster, heels on stone floor: click, click, click. Stone gives way to dirt. The air’s heavier here. Chanting, low hum of voices. Tunnel turns right and then into the vast chamber he remembers from before.
Instead of the hazy illumination he remembers, the cavern is lit by red light, emanating from an unknown source. Here, everywhere, are the Hawks, swaying, slack-jawed, their minds fogged and dazed, pupils dilated to black holes, mumbling their litany: ‘Welcome, fifth son, child of the God Hand, reborn in thine old image. The hour is at hand, make the sacrifice once more. Welcome, welcome, lord.’
Lithe inhuman forms twine around the soldiers; slender arms caress unseeing faces. The demons’ mouths, red and swollen, sound a low hum as they suck at the Hawks’ throats. Naked forms flit from Hawk to Hawk, like insects sampling the pollen of different flowers. One by one, men fall from their arms, drained and quiet, to be replaced by others. He pushes into the crowd and arms reach for him, eager to feed on him. One succubus pushes her way in front of him, beckoning with a delicate clawed hand. Impatient, he brushes off her insinuating fingers and moves past, only to stop when he hears a whispered ‘Gatts…’
He looks back into a face now familiar to him. ‘Lida!’ She smiles, exposing sharp teeth, but it is not the smile he remembers. The tattoo on her forehead is glowing a deep, bloody red. ‘Come to me, Gatts.’
‘What’s happened to you?’
‘Why, nothing…this is my true form,’ she says, drawing her hands down her sides. ‘Did you never wonder why so many kept coming back to the temple whorehouses? So compulsively, as if they were addicted?’
‘I did hope it wouldn’t come to this,’ she continues, advancing towards him. ‘I tried to warn you, didn’t I? But you didn’t listen and neither did he. It’s nothing personal, Gatts.’ She smiles at him, suddenly lunging to bite his throat. Gatts grabs her arms and throws her bodily away from him.
He turns again, making his way to the front of the crowd with increased urgency. Endless bodies are pressed together, clothes haphazard and smeared with dirt. Endless words, endless chanting. Where is the altar? Where are the Priests? Figures show black around a dim central light glowing an unnatural red. He pushes forward past familiar faces grown strange, blank faces offering no recognition. Gaston! He shakes him roughly. Nothing. A looping thought, playing again and again in his mind: ‘Please let him not have started yet’. He keeps going, ignoring all his men, or trying to, as trails of saliva creep down their chins. All these friends, who have fought beside him countless times, with whom he has laughed and eaten. Don’t think! Don’t see! Sour smell of sweat from the mindless, familiar bodies all around him, and bile rises in his throat.
He keeps going forward, pushing through the last row to see Griffith facing a stone slab in front of flames roaring from a pit, his hair unbound around his shoulders and his face smeared with blood from shallow symmetrical cuts on his cheeks. The Behelit pulses around his neck, swinging on its cord like an obscene lump of flesh. One hand holds a stone knife, and the Priests of the God Hand flank him.
Griffith beckons with one hand and Casca steps forward slowly. Her eyes are wide and unfocused and she seems bewildered. ‘Griffith?’ she says, her voice uncertain. ‘Griffith, what are we doing?’
Griffith cocks his head in a vaguely reptilian way. He beckons again and Casca moves to stand in front of him. Griffith draws the back of his hand down her cheek, caressingly, and Casca turns her face into his hand, her face soft. Griffith shifts the knife in his hand, as if testing it.
Gatts’ stomach lurches sickeningly. He runs forward, grabbing Casca away from Griffith and pushing her protectively behind him. ‘No, please, Griffith!’
Behind Griffith, the Priestess lifts satisfied eyes to look at Gatts. ‘Ah,’ she says in a pleased voice, ‘it’s your second, my love. And we didn’t even have to go and fetch him.’
She raises her arms behind her, stretching languorously, expanding and distorting, till black wings arc upwards behind her. Around her, the other Priests are undergoing similar transformations, their bodies twisting and tearing to expose their true forms. They tower above the assembly, as large as the temple idols made in their images.
Slan laughs. ‘I think it’s time to begin, Griffith.’
Behind the Hawks, the creatures of the God Hand have multiplied in number, standing expressionlessly behind the men, waiting silently.
Griffith looks around him slowly, dreamily, and sweeps his hand down in a replica of the gesture Gatts has seen before every battle. A sigh goes through the room, as though some great tension has been released and the monsters fall upon the men, breaking the silence, mangling and tearing human flesh as screams sound throughout the cavern.
Slan contracts and expands her wings, enjoyment evident in her closed-eyed expression. A rapturous shudder goes through the other deities; they seem to be sucking in the pain of the dying Hawks, feeding on it as the succubi fed on the sexual energy of the soldiers.
Gatts stands frozen as two succubi approach him, each grasping one of his hands to pull him forward to stand before Griffith. Behind him, Casca gives a choked cry. Griffith raises his head to look at him. His eyes are dilated to black circles ringed with blue and he moves as though he is sleepwalking. Void’s gaunt hand comes to rest on Griffith’s shoulder and he looks at the entity behind him, who nods approvingly. The hand holding the knife lifts slowly, until it is poised in the air, aimed directly at Gatts’ chest. Then it stays there as moments go by.
Gatts stands very still, looking silently into Griffith’s unreadable face. So, he thinks, it ends once more. No choice, none at all…
‘You know what you have to do, Griffith,’ Void rumbles. ‘There is no room for compassion among the Hand.’ Griffith’s hand begins to shake.
‘No!’ Griffith, trembling, throws the knife away and leans forward to press his hands to Gatts’ chest. The room whirls around them and disappears, to the accompaniment of laughter from unknown throats.
>
It is the Dream again. But this time the flying man turns around and his mask is gone. The face is Griffith’s. It is not even a surprise; somewhere, at the back of his mind, he has always known. The childhood companion of his dreams and the best friend of his adolescent years: one and the same, joined to him by unbreakable bonds. The carmine mouth curves in a familiar smile, but looking at his eyes - Griffith’s eyes - he sees what he could not see before: a depthless horror, welling out of those blue eyes and down unmasked cheeks in silver trails. This, he understands, is what Griffith has been terrified of these last few desperate months; this is the unspoken fear in his eyes: that he would turn into this creature, unrestrained by any concept of human morality or compassion.
‘Help me,’ the mouth says and then shifts into a predatory snarl, as Griffith’s beast fights for possession of the man. The tools of the grisly task the flying man always performs on Gatts flicker around him: knives and whips and serrated tools appearing and disappearing in the murky air. Webbed hands attached to wings stretch and grasp futilely at the air, unable to decide between implements, as conflicted as the entity’s mind.
Visions flash in the air between them: Midlanders dying of famine and plague and misery; corpses lying thick in withered fields; the capital ruled by fear and torture; half its population with rotting bodies from lack of food and the other half with rotting minds from excess in every indulgence; corrupt rule spreading its fingers throughout Midland and into Chuda, spreading disease and sorrow, and sucking happiness from the provinces into the gaping maw of the capital; unnatural creatures preying on men on the land and the sea, sanctioned by rulers who are themselves inhuman; all of it watched and relished by the dark winged figure at the centre of the web. Gatts recoils mentally in horror.
Instinctively, he knows what he has to do. A willing sacrifice, not a life taken without consent. He takes a step of his own volition, not bound by any force - another first for the Dream, but he knows now that this is the Dream, the only one that will ever make a difference. He walks forward until he is directly in front of Griffith and spreads his arms, offering himself. The stone knife appears, cleansed of blood, in the air to Griffith’s side. A webbed hand clasps the side of Gatts’ face as he looks into Griffith’s anguished expression and nods. I accept. I make the offering. Clawed fingers hold the stone knife securely as Griffith pushes the knife between his ribs and both of them scream.
In that endless instant, Gatts has the impression of immense wheels grinding to a stop and moving backwards, of infinite circles reforming into different shapes. Griffith’s wings and claws have disappeared and his face is young and untroubled as it was on that long ago day when they first met. But his eyes are infinitely sad, infinitely remorseful, and Gatts cannot find it within him to push him away.
He ignores the pain to clasp his monster closer and Griffith puts his own arms around him, leaving the knife imbedded in Gatts. It is much too late to ask for mercy, he thinks, with a sudden memory of Adonis’ young face in the moment after his sword went through him. He closes his eyes momentarily in pain. He has failed his Hawks, him and Griffith both. Will any of their men survive in the nightmare they have left behind them? Griffith and he are both damned and deservedly so.
Gatts remembers running down a riverbank with Griffith, on a day not long after he had first joined the Hawks. They had both been laughing, racing each other, finally falling to the grass, breathless and panting. Gatts had turned his head to look at Griffith and they had lain there for a long time, content in each other’s company.
Now, at the end of so much blood and pain, foolishly, irrationally, that feeling of peace returns to Gatts. Around them, the field of red disappears and they float in a void for what seems like hours, but might only be moments. Slowly, pinpoints of lights appear in the blackness and grow larger, coalescing into a single door-shaped slab of brightness. Spinning slowly around each other, as in a dance, Gatts and Griffith drift towards the door. The movement is not of their own volition. Undoubtedly, judgment awaits them beyond the door. Will it be the God Hand? Or some other more powerful group of supernatural forces? Or perhaps, they are already tried and sentenced, and simply moving on to the next phase of their punishment?
Gatts finds he does not much care. Within him, a long-forgotten feeling is surging: that of an adventure begun, with a friend for whom he would give his life. He laughs, suddenly, and looks into Griffith’s eyes to see the same expression there. Together, they go through the door.
Part Six is here.
Author: Akshi
Fandom: Berserk
Warnings: Alternate universe, violence (kind of a given with this series, eh?), het sex, character death
Archive: Please ask me first
Disclaimers: Berserk belongs to Kentarou Miura and Hakusensha. Warm thanks go to my patient and long-suffering beta readers, Jeanne and Priya, for beating this story into the shape it is now. I would also like to thank Tsubaki and Sahari for their feedback. Any mistakes are, of course, entirely mine. Feedback appreciated at pharcical@yahoo.com
Part Seven
Nanatsu, Namida mo kare hate te
(Seven, my tears run out)
Gatts props his hip against a wall, finally alone with Griffith after the shock of the morning’s announcement. ‘You couldn’t possibly have warned me about this last night?’ he asks.
Griffith is unrepentant. ‘What would have been the fun in that?’ he replies, smiling maddeningly at Gatts. ‘You should have seen your face.’
‘I suppose this means we won’t be leaving the city anytime soon?’
‘You suppose right. I could hardly miss the celebrations for my own wedding, now could I?’ The King had announced that a whole month of feasts and merrymaking would lead up to the wedding itself, when he would formally proclaim Griffith his heir. Gatts privately thinks that feasts and fireworks are the last thing needed when most of Midland is facing a drought, but he has the sense to keep silent on the subject.
The celebrations begin the next day, with public feasts each day in every square of Garima, and silver coins being thrown to eager crowds. News of the wedding has resulted in a festival atmosphere, leaving people giddy with anticipation for the next parade or play or fireworks display. Men and women dance in streets strung with flower garlands at all hours of the day, disregarding the blazing sun overhead, and continue on into the night. The feverish preparations for the wedding are enough to distract attention from the decreasing supply of foodstuffs into the capital and the diminishing reserves of water, but Gatts wonders how long it will last.
>
The answer comes only too soon. The monsoon has passed Midland by and reports of drought and famine in remote parts of the kingdom begin trickling in. Even the Durai delta regions, the fertile heart of agriculture in Midland, are parched and unable to send their tithe to the King this year. The farmers’ green fields of wheat and rice have withered and died in the heat and they are forced to fall back on the previous year’s reserves. The King, eager to celebrate his daughter’s wedding in the most ostentatious manner possible, has ignored the warnings of his advisors to moderate expenses. Gambling as he has been on a prosperous year to ensure the health of the royal treasury, the sudden poverty of the farmlands comes as a serious blow.
Even the city, normally cushioned from the vagaries of nature, is beginning to feel the effects of the drought. The price of bread goes up, as does the price of rice. Matters are made worse by the Midlanders flooding into the city from ravaged areas, until finally the guards are told to turn away all refugees. Every back alley seems filled with emaciated humanity, their faces gaunt and hungry, their hands perpetually outstretched. Gatts grows used to the sight of royal soldiers dragging corpses away every morning when he makes his rounds. Only the cremation grounds are prospering; smoke rises high into the sweltering air from the fires, fed by the dead wood all around the city.
Whispers begin circulating: that the royal coffers are almost empty, that the extravagant celebrations have drained the exchequer too far for food to be supplied to starving Midlanders. But the wedding celebrations continue and, in a masterpiece of insensitivity, the King appears with Griffith to announce that taxes on the citizens of Garima will be doubled to compensate for the dearth of income from the rural areas. The same evening, Gatts goes to the Temple of Desire to make his daily report to Griffith and finds him sublimely indifferent to the political consequences of the taxes.
‘Certainly, they have to pinch and squeeze a bit this year, Gatts, but what of it? It is their duty as King’s citizens.’
Gatts is appalled. Griffith has always been arrogant, but never to the extent of delusion. Never at the expense of other people. ‘Griffith, you know as well as I do that this year most of them can’t afford to pay their taxes, let alone twice the usual amount. You can’t suddenly be so far removed from the rest of Midland, just because you’re engaged to the Princess!’
Griffith shrugs bored shoulders. ‘A few of them will starve. It’s not so important, surely?’ His attention drifts to the revelry behind them. One woman, drunk and half-naked, pretends to flog her neighbour with a long string of pearls.
‘Do you really want to become the heir at a time when your people are dying in the streets? Your popularity will not carry you safely through this, I warn you!’
‘Very soon, the approval of the people will matter not at all, not to me and not to my allies. A few days, Gatts, we have only to wait a few days.’ The necklace breaks, to the shrieks of its owner and the cheers of the other guests, and hundreds of glistening pearls scatter across the floor.
>
Even besieged by the twin fears of drought and famine, the city is willing to believe in their leaders. Cheers in the streets still greet Griffith, though they grow weaker by the day. Gatts thinks it would not take much for their faith to be restored in the King and his heir, just a little less pomp and a little more care for the people. No gestures are made, token or otherwise, and the temperature of the city begins to rise. Patrolling the streets in Hawk insignia, Gatts feels the skin on the back of his neck crawl. He recognises the smell of suppressed anger. It will take very little provocation for the city to explode.
In the end, a mundane bread shortage begins the final collapse. One raised voice becomes a cacophony of protest, running through the city like fire, inciting panic and rage. Looters begin breaking into provision stores and wine shops, blocking the streets with barrels and broken glass. Even as the army is deployed to control it, rioting spreads rapidly, heading inevitably to the source of the city’s discontent.
Gatts, caught unawares and on foot, is unable to get back in time to warn Griffith. He stands helplessly at the edge of the crowd in front of the palace. So recently filled with rejoicing faces, the square now swarms with gesticulating arms and voices raised in anger. They cry for bread, for rice, for water. For the royal family and the nobles to stop dining on peacock’s tongues cheek by jowl with people who haven’t eaten in a week. Come out, they say to the King, come out!
But it is Griffith who comes out of the palace gates, riding on his white stallion, his face calm and unafraid. Hawks follow him out of the gates, lining up outside the walls of the palace. The clamour dies down, as the protestors strain to hear the White Hawk, their great war hero.
‘People of Garima, go home. I understand that you are afraid, but there is no need to be. The situation is under control. You must trust in your leaders to judge what is best for the city.’
Where are the promises of free food and water, the expressions of concern? Gatts can hear the thoughts of the crowd as clearly as if they are written above their heads. He waits with bated breath for Griffith to make some kind of concession, only to see him turn his horse toward the gates of the palace.
With a roar, the infuriated crowd surges forward. A raised hand flings something at Griffith, hitting him on the cheek and stopping him in his tracks. ‘Whore!’ another voice yells, as the mob shouts its approval of the action. Griffith wipes the dirt off his cheek with slow fingers. Gatts tenses: there is something terrible about Griffith’s face. He gestures with one hand and Gatts, unbelieving, watches as the Hawks, his Hawks, draw their bows and shoot repeatedly into the unarmed crowd. In what seems like moments, more than a hundred bodies lie dead in the square and the rest of the protestors flee, shrieking with fear and outrage.
>
Waiting to see Griffith that afternoon, Gatts is not sure what to say. Months ago, he would not have had to say anything, for Griffith had always known what he felt. Now, though, there is very little of the old Griffith that remains and Gatts doesn’t think he wants to wait while it disappears completely. He says it as quickly as possible, wanting only to get the whole thing over with.
‘I’m leaving, Griffith. I’ve already told the others.’
Griffith looks at him as though he has lost his mind. ‘Why? Not because of this morning?’ His reaction is so calm that it seems unreal, disjoint from anything a human being would display.
‘Yes,’ Gatts says, desperate to leave.
Griffith laughs incredulously. ‘You can’t be shaken by a few ruffians rioting in the streets, Gatts!’
‘Griffith! Do you understand what you’ve done? This isn’t collateral damage on the battlefield - this is butchery, pure and simple!’ Desperate to get through to him, Gatts grabs his shoulders and shakes him, only to have his hands removed with a strength his friend had not previously possessed.
Griffith looks at him coldly. ‘You will never touch me without my permission again. I took what action was necessary to control the situation and I do not expect to be questioned by my subordinates.’
There is nothing in Griffith’s eyes of the friend Gatts remembers. ‘I’m leaving, Griffith. I can’t take this anymore. Find someone else to do your dirty work for you.’
Griffith looks at him, seemingly bored. ‘I’m afraid that’s impossible, Gatts. Much as I would have preferred you to stay with me for loyalty and friendship,’ his voice flicks the words at him like blades, ‘I am quite prepared to use force to detain you.’
Gatts turns to leave, only to find Griffith’s personal guards facing him, their swords bared. He half-turns and something slams into his head. Falling to the floor, he hears a voice telling them to take him away, then nothing more.
>
Gatts wakes to hear voices raised in anger. They all seem rather far away. This is, he realises, as the sleep clears from his head, because he is in some sort of cell, in a line with other identical cells, and the yelling is coming from outside the entire block.
‘What do you mean you can’t let us in? Do you know who we are?’ That’s Casca, he thinks, with a warm rush of relief. Good old Casca, come to save the day!
Pippin’s low rumble sounds next, though Gatts can’t make out what he is saying. He can’t hear the guards’ replies either, but he is certain his friends will get him out.
The arguing continues, at varying volumes, and, incredulously, he realises that the guards are winning. ‘But Griffith can’t possibly have said that,’ Casca says, sounding lost under her bluster. Eventually, they leave and Gatts is left staring at his hands, suddenly bereft.
The days pass slowly after that. Each day, one or another of his Hawks comes to try and see him, retreating in defeat from Griffith’s absolute authority over the guards. Food and drink are sent in to him at regular intervals, but he can extract no news from the stony-faced guards. Nor are there any other prisoners in the cells in his block, deep in the lower levels of the Temple of Void. What can Griffith mean to do with him, if he no longer trusts him? Or is Gatts simply meant to rot in his cell forever, as a warning to the other Hawks?
The thought sets him hunting furiously for a way to escape, scrabbling with his fingers at the walls in search of flaws and cracks, but the walls are unrelentingly smooth. He takes to watching the guards covertly, but knows he can’t overpower five of them at once in his unarmed state.
There is a tiny window set high on one wall of Gatts’ cell, through which he can track the movement of the sun as it burns lower in the sky. And then the moon, round initially, but waning, its increasingly feeble light reminding Gatts each night of the coming new moon, when he will have no light at all. Irrationally, he fears that night, though he tells himself that it will be no different from any other.
Every night, he wakes shaking at some point, sweating and dry-mouthed from dreams that he cannot remember. It seems to him that he has reached the end of a long parabola, where he is so far removed from his childhood existence, and yet equally wretched, equally disturbed. Soon, no doubt, he will be completely demented. His cracked laughter breaks the silence, and is absorbed by the black stone walls around him.
>
Gatts takes to lying pressed against the wall with the window for most of the day. It allows the sun to fall on his chilled body and with his eyes closed he can hear the rhythms of life in the streets below. Even shut up in the Temple, he recognises the sounds of panic and rage, sounding increasingly frequently as the days pass. Sometimes, he sleeps, and his dreams slide back over him, enveloping him completely, though they vanish from memory by the time he wakes.
‘Wake up, Gatts!’ He opens his eyes one day to find Judeau looking at him through the thick metal bars, frantic and running nervous hands through his blond hair.
‘Judeau! Get me out of here!’ he says, more animated than he has been in days.
‘I can’t, but I’ve come to help,’ Judeau says, displaying a metal file hidden between his fingers. ‘Listen, you have to listen to me, this is important.’
Gatts raises a mental eyebrow. He has never seen the man in such a state. Though, of course, the current state of affairs would tend to alarm anyone. He wonders why he himself is so calm while Garima is rushing into anarchy outside his window and his best friend and leader falls headlong into insanity, but he’s too numb to pursue that train of thought for long.
‘What?’
Judeau is pacing in front of the cell as he talks: he can’t seem to keep still. ‘Ever since I was young, I’ve had flashes, visions you could call them, I guess, of things that would happen. Sometimes they happened exactly the way things happened in real life, sometimes a little different. I never knew if I could trust them to be accurate. Do you remember I told you my dreams have been really bad lately?’ He looks at Gatts and his eyes are frightened. ‘I think I’ve figured out what’s going on with Griffith and the priests.’
‘So tell me!’
‘I can’t explain it to you!’
‘Why the hell not?’
‘Because you have to stop them, and if I tell you what it’s about, you won’t be able to do it.’
Gatts’ head begins to ache fiercely. Judeau, who has always been the Hawks’ voice of reason, is acting like a raving madman. It seems to be the order of the day.
‘Will you help me?’ Gatts says, humouring him.
‘It is for you alone to do.’ With sudden fierceness: ‘ Think, Gatts! Think! Remember. This…it has all happened before, many, many times!’
‘What do you mean? Why can’t you just tell me?’ Gatts snarls, equally frustrated and beginning to be frightened by Judeau’s intensity.
‘I can’t! It has to come from within you.’
‘Why won’t you help me?’
Judeau looks sad, suddenly. ‘My presence would affect nothing. It never has. And, besides, there is someone I intend to take with me, this very day, out of this damned city.’ He looks at Gatts, silently asking for understanding. ‘I’m sorry, Gatts.’
Gatts knows who Judeau wants to persuade to leave with him. With a sudden access of gentleness, he tells him: ‘She won’t go, Judeau. You know what Griffith means to her. Even in his current state.’
Judeau’s lips twist. ‘Yes, I know exactly how she feels about him. But I have to try.’
Gatts looks at him silently, and then nods, tacitly accepting his decision. He raises his open hand to the bars. Judeau lifts his own hand to press against his, passing him the file and clasping his fingers warmly around Gatts’ for a long moment. He walks back through the corridor, turning at the end to look at Gatts again. ‘Good luck, my friend.’
‘Good luck, Judeau.’
>
Gatts waits until the guards deliver his evening rations before he begins work on the bars. There is a reddish tinge to the metal as he begins sawing away at it, the bars and his hands lit by the setting sun. With sudden fear, he counts back the days to when he was captured and knows that tonight there will be no moon.
Hours later, two of the prison bars are filed through. Gatts is working on the third, sweat dripping down his face and chest. He works blindly, his head and hands throbbing with pain. He has racked his brains for what seems like aeons, finally entering a trance-like state, where random scraps of memory drift across his mind. Always keep your sword clean, my boy, Madik Roose tells him, while the midwife barks, A dead whore’s child has no business living! Judeau sits next to him on the rooftop. I’ve got a sure-fire way to make Casca go out with me, he says, and next to him, Rickert and Pippin are playing cards. Cheater! You cheater, Pippin! You had the ace up your sleeve! Gennon flicks him a silver coin, Thanks for taking care of my boy, while in front of him, Griffith…no, not Griffith, and not shorter than Gennon after all. But Gennon is gone. There is only the strange man now, as Gatts blinks his mind’s eye in confusion. Where are the rest?
Another blink and he is standing on a red field of blood, as a massive hand erupts from the ground. Within it, he knows, is his best friend. He has to save him. Around him, his men are panicking, even as Casca tries to control them. The scene plays on and on in his mind, as a part of him watches silently. Finally, he remembers. He remembers everything.
Waking with a jolt, his heart skips a beat to find his cell in complete darkness. No! It can’t have started already! With the frenzy of the possessed, he rips the third bar out, squeezing himself out of his cell. In what feels like a single heartbeat, he has rushed out of the prisons to find the entire wing unguarded. He has stepped into a nightmare.
Fire licks at the walls, flames eating away at the building, shadows and tongues of unnatural flame everywhere. Where are they? He runs through abandoned corridors, deeper and deeper into the temple. There is a shudder as the foundations shake, then a keening wail. The walls melt and there are faces everywhere, moaning with wide-open mouths. Shrieked names, hysterical screams issue from Gatts’ open mouth: Pippin, Rickert, Casca, Griffith, Griffith, Griffith! He continues stumbling down empty hallways. No one here, no one here, his mind screams. It needs blood, the ritual offerings, Griffith’s pendant. Where?
Flash of memory - a cavernous underground chamber stretching on forever. He knows now. Lower, he needs to get lower. Sparks flying as he runs. His clothes are on fire and he slaps at them to beat out the flames. Down, quick, down the spiral staircase. Cooler here, the fire hasn’t reached here yet.
Lower, lower, lower to a closed door reaching above Gatts’ head. He opens the door into a tunnel, heavy with the smell of incense. And something else? Drugs, a narcotic to soothe them. Walking faster, heels on stone floor: click, click, click. Stone gives way to dirt. The air’s heavier here. Chanting, low hum of voices. Tunnel turns right and then into the vast chamber he remembers from before.
Instead of the hazy illumination he remembers, the cavern is lit by red light, emanating from an unknown source. Here, everywhere, are the Hawks, swaying, slack-jawed, their minds fogged and dazed, pupils dilated to black holes, mumbling their litany: ‘Welcome, fifth son, child of the God Hand, reborn in thine old image. The hour is at hand, make the sacrifice once more. Welcome, welcome, lord.’
Lithe inhuman forms twine around the soldiers; slender arms caress unseeing faces. The demons’ mouths, red and swollen, sound a low hum as they suck at the Hawks’ throats. Naked forms flit from Hawk to Hawk, like insects sampling the pollen of different flowers. One by one, men fall from their arms, drained and quiet, to be replaced by others. He pushes into the crowd and arms reach for him, eager to feed on him. One succubus pushes her way in front of him, beckoning with a delicate clawed hand. Impatient, he brushes off her insinuating fingers and moves past, only to stop when he hears a whispered ‘Gatts…’
He looks back into a face now familiar to him. ‘Lida!’ She smiles, exposing sharp teeth, but it is not the smile he remembers. The tattoo on her forehead is glowing a deep, bloody red. ‘Come to me, Gatts.’
‘What’s happened to you?’
‘Why, nothing…this is my true form,’ she says, drawing her hands down her sides. ‘Did you never wonder why so many kept coming back to the temple whorehouses? So compulsively, as if they were addicted?’
‘I did hope it wouldn’t come to this,’ she continues, advancing towards him. ‘I tried to warn you, didn’t I? But you didn’t listen and neither did he. It’s nothing personal, Gatts.’ She smiles at him, suddenly lunging to bite his throat. Gatts grabs her arms and throws her bodily away from him.
He turns again, making his way to the front of the crowd with increased urgency. Endless bodies are pressed together, clothes haphazard and smeared with dirt. Endless words, endless chanting. Where is the altar? Where are the Priests? Figures show black around a dim central light glowing an unnatural red. He pushes forward past familiar faces grown strange, blank faces offering no recognition. Gaston! He shakes him roughly. Nothing. A looping thought, playing again and again in his mind: ‘Please let him not have started yet’. He keeps going, ignoring all his men, or trying to, as trails of saliva creep down their chins. All these friends, who have fought beside him countless times, with whom he has laughed and eaten. Don’t think! Don’t see! Sour smell of sweat from the mindless, familiar bodies all around him, and bile rises in his throat.
He keeps going forward, pushing through the last row to see Griffith facing a stone slab in front of flames roaring from a pit, his hair unbound around his shoulders and his face smeared with blood from shallow symmetrical cuts on his cheeks. The Behelit pulses around his neck, swinging on its cord like an obscene lump of flesh. One hand holds a stone knife, and the Priests of the God Hand flank him.
Griffith beckons with one hand and Casca steps forward slowly. Her eyes are wide and unfocused and she seems bewildered. ‘Griffith?’ she says, her voice uncertain. ‘Griffith, what are we doing?’
Griffith cocks his head in a vaguely reptilian way. He beckons again and Casca moves to stand in front of him. Griffith draws the back of his hand down her cheek, caressingly, and Casca turns her face into his hand, her face soft. Griffith shifts the knife in his hand, as if testing it.
Gatts’ stomach lurches sickeningly. He runs forward, grabbing Casca away from Griffith and pushing her protectively behind him. ‘No, please, Griffith!’
Behind Griffith, the Priestess lifts satisfied eyes to look at Gatts. ‘Ah,’ she says in a pleased voice, ‘it’s your second, my love. And we didn’t even have to go and fetch him.’
She raises her arms behind her, stretching languorously, expanding and distorting, till black wings arc upwards behind her. Around her, the other Priests are undergoing similar transformations, their bodies twisting and tearing to expose their true forms. They tower above the assembly, as large as the temple idols made in their images.
Slan laughs. ‘I think it’s time to begin, Griffith.’
Behind the Hawks, the creatures of the God Hand have multiplied in number, standing expressionlessly behind the men, waiting silently.
Griffith looks around him slowly, dreamily, and sweeps his hand down in a replica of the gesture Gatts has seen before every battle. A sigh goes through the room, as though some great tension has been released and the monsters fall upon the men, breaking the silence, mangling and tearing human flesh as screams sound throughout the cavern.
Slan contracts and expands her wings, enjoyment evident in her closed-eyed expression. A rapturous shudder goes through the other deities; they seem to be sucking in the pain of the dying Hawks, feeding on it as the succubi fed on the sexual energy of the soldiers.
Gatts stands frozen as two succubi approach him, each grasping one of his hands to pull him forward to stand before Griffith. Behind him, Casca gives a choked cry. Griffith raises his head to look at him. His eyes are dilated to black circles ringed with blue and he moves as though he is sleepwalking. Void’s gaunt hand comes to rest on Griffith’s shoulder and he looks at the entity behind him, who nods approvingly. The hand holding the knife lifts slowly, until it is poised in the air, aimed directly at Gatts’ chest. Then it stays there as moments go by.
Gatts stands very still, looking silently into Griffith’s unreadable face. So, he thinks, it ends once more. No choice, none at all…
‘You know what you have to do, Griffith,’ Void rumbles. ‘There is no room for compassion among the Hand.’ Griffith’s hand begins to shake.
‘No!’ Griffith, trembling, throws the knife away and leans forward to press his hands to Gatts’ chest. The room whirls around them and disappears, to the accompaniment of laughter from unknown throats.
>
It is the Dream again. But this time the flying man turns around and his mask is gone. The face is Griffith’s. It is not even a surprise; somewhere, at the back of his mind, he has always known. The childhood companion of his dreams and the best friend of his adolescent years: one and the same, joined to him by unbreakable bonds. The carmine mouth curves in a familiar smile, but looking at his eyes - Griffith’s eyes - he sees what he could not see before: a depthless horror, welling out of those blue eyes and down unmasked cheeks in silver trails. This, he understands, is what Griffith has been terrified of these last few desperate months; this is the unspoken fear in his eyes: that he would turn into this creature, unrestrained by any concept of human morality or compassion.
‘Help me,’ the mouth says and then shifts into a predatory snarl, as Griffith’s beast fights for possession of the man. The tools of the grisly task the flying man always performs on Gatts flicker around him: knives and whips and serrated tools appearing and disappearing in the murky air. Webbed hands attached to wings stretch and grasp futilely at the air, unable to decide between implements, as conflicted as the entity’s mind.
Visions flash in the air between them: Midlanders dying of famine and plague and misery; corpses lying thick in withered fields; the capital ruled by fear and torture; half its population with rotting bodies from lack of food and the other half with rotting minds from excess in every indulgence; corrupt rule spreading its fingers throughout Midland and into Chuda, spreading disease and sorrow, and sucking happiness from the provinces into the gaping maw of the capital; unnatural creatures preying on men on the land and the sea, sanctioned by rulers who are themselves inhuman; all of it watched and relished by the dark winged figure at the centre of the web. Gatts recoils mentally in horror.
Instinctively, he knows what he has to do. A willing sacrifice, not a life taken without consent. He takes a step of his own volition, not bound by any force - another first for the Dream, but he knows now that this is the Dream, the only one that will ever make a difference. He walks forward until he is directly in front of Griffith and spreads his arms, offering himself. The stone knife appears, cleansed of blood, in the air to Griffith’s side. A webbed hand clasps the side of Gatts’ face as he looks into Griffith’s anguished expression and nods. I accept. I make the offering. Clawed fingers hold the stone knife securely as Griffith pushes the knife between his ribs and both of them scream.
In that endless instant, Gatts has the impression of immense wheels grinding to a stop and moving backwards, of infinite circles reforming into different shapes. Griffith’s wings and claws have disappeared and his face is young and untroubled as it was on that long ago day when they first met. But his eyes are infinitely sad, infinitely remorseful, and Gatts cannot find it within him to push him away.
He ignores the pain to clasp his monster closer and Griffith puts his own arms around him, leaving the knife imbedded in Gatts. It is much too late to ask for mercy, he thinks, with a sudden memory of Adonis’ young face in the moment after his sword went through him. He closes his eyes momentarily in pain. He has failed his Hawks, him and Griffith both. Will any of their men survive in the nightmare they have left behind them? Griffith and he are both damned and deservedly so.
Gatts remembers running down a riverbank with Griffith, on a day not long after he had first joined the Hawks. They had both been laughing, racing each other, finally falling to the grass, breathless and panting. Gatts had turned his head to look at Griffith and they had lain there for a long time, content in each other’s company.
Now, at the end of so much blood and pain, foolishly, irrationally, that feeling of peace returns to Gatts. Around them, the field of red disappears and they float in a void for what seems like hours, but might only be moments. Slowly, pinpoints of lights appear in the blackness and grow larger, coalescing into a single door-shaped slab of brightness. Spinning slowly around each other, as in a dance, Gatts and Griffith drift towards the door. The movement is not of their own volition. Undoubtedly, judgment awaits them beyond the door. Will it be the God Hand? Or some other more powerful group of supernatural forces? Or perhaps, they are already tried and sentenced, and simply moving on to the next phase of their punishment?
Gatts finds he does not much care. Within him, a long-forgotten feeling is surging: that of an adventure begun, with a friend for whom he would give his life. He laughs, suddenly, and looks into Griffith’s eyes to see the same expression there. Together, they go through the door.
Part Six is here.