[[ dream ]]
DREAM:
He sat in a room.
The room was delicate, really, small - an office, of sorts. He opened the door to the office and was greeted by an enormous town of white. His office was part of a set of towers, and the highest one sat near a monstrous hanging ledge. On that ledge was a crystal he needed. It had not been his, at first, but he had to have it.
Waiting on the walkway was a woman. She was pretty, by any standards, with dark hair threaded with cherry blossoms and eyes that he could see himself in. Her skin was pale, with a strange blue tint, but it didn’t matter. She was beautiful, and she smiled at him, and he felt comfort. She reached out with a delicate hand for his, and he took it. He walked with her, towards the monstrous ledge, because he had to go there, and she had to come with him.
When he arrived, in just two steps, he looked at the woman. She nodded her beautiful head and waved the hand he was not holding.
On the ledge with him were shady figures. He had a strong hunch that they, in fact, could not see him, but could hardly make them out himself. They were haze and mist, like a mirage, barely real. The figures blinked, and he saw himself - another illusion, a mirage like them - talk to the figures. They smiled and laughed at his and they thought he was their friend. They thought he was their friend, but he was only a friend of the purple crystal glowing on one figure’s heart. The woman kissed his palm and whispered in his ear, and he felt the words skitter across his skin, and burn themselves into his heart, soul, and mind.
“Shatter, Kyoka Suigetsu.”
The image of him faded away, and they looked upon the real him for the first time. Quite suddenly, they watched him, and their misty forms filled with hatred, and he decided he liked the way the hatred thickened the air.
There were some did not hate. A fox, silver, darted through the mirages effortlessly, nipping at their heels and avoiding their airy hands. The fox wore an enormous smile and circled around his feet, and did not seem concerned by the seething fury that surrounded them. He noticed a panther with no face, as well, standing at a distance. Had it had eyes, they would have been expressionless. It walked towards him, uncaring of the fox or the faces of the figures.
He was not concerned, either. They were fake, merely a trick of his mind. They could not hurt him; he was too powerful, too confident, and had planned too far ahead for any of this.
He had planned this?
Yes, yes he had. His plan had led him here, as it should have, and the very air was trying to stop him. The air and images of people who didn't matter objected to his plan, but it meant nothing to him. They were worthless and he knew it, and they might not have known it but they were. They were laughable and both him and the fox and the panther knew it.
He saw his gem in the soul of one image, and he wanted it, and so he needed it. He needed it and images might have tried to stop them, but they were air, and he was solid. He simply walked up to the one who held his crystal within her heart, and blew her away like the air she was. He pet the fox, feeling quite satisfied with his new treasure. The treasure had really always been his, but now he held it, and the fox grinned up at him and nuzzled his knee.
There was something inside the gem. It swirled at him, and he pulled it closer and looked inside. It looked like diamonds inside, swirling in the mist in the center of the gem. This gem was powerful, he knew. And it was his. He knew this, more than anything else. But he could not see what was inside of it, and as he felt drawn into it, his world faded. His world faded into the gem, and when he could pull his eyes away, it was night.
It was night; he got the feeling it was never day. The white buildings, the long town, the hanging, monstrous shelf - gone. Nothing was here, only scattered trees and sand, and something far, far off. Something white. Something solid.
That was his.
The sand under his feet glistened like he was walking in diamonds. He tucked his hands into his hakama, watching as the sand gleamed in the folds of black cloth. It was beautiful. He pushed his glasses up his nose.
He walked.
He did not know where he was walking too, only that it was the right way - he did not know if he should run, yet his heart was unburdened, as if he had no hurry. Something about the winter, but he didn't know what. Something about the winter, and the purple gem.
He felt no fear.
He felt the gem.
It was in his pocket.
He took it out, and he looked at it. He knew it was important.
Around him, the diamond sand kicked up. At first it merely ruffled his hair, but it increased, attacking him the fury of a thousand little pebbles, until he had to throw up his hands to protect his face from the little bullets. The wind and sand blew his hair back and eroded his glasses till bits and pieces of plastic fell away from his face and the glass melted away. He squeezed his eyes shut behind his hands and dug his feet into the desert.
The sandstorm ended.
He tugged his hand away and shook sand that was no longer there from his hakama. Sand was not the only thing that had suddenly disappeared: the black dye had been stripped from his robe, the very cloth reworked by the fury of the sandstorm. It was white with a thin black strip, now, and he arched a curious eyebrow at the red belt. He glanced to his hand, where the crystal lingered, and put it back in his pocket.
He looked around, and found himself in what must have been a room. A room inside a cavern, for the walls were of some sort of dark, rough stone with multiple large ledges, and the ledges were carved with big black numbers, one through ten. In the middle, in the back, an enormous throne of green marble sat. The fox from before next to throne, a sad-looking creature with silver fur. He could somehow see the panther, invisible against the darkness of the room, his non-face still impassive. It stood on a numberless ledge, higher than any of the numbered ones.
The fox looked at him and smiled again, that same enormously thin smile that stretched across its silver face, and he knew instantly that fox was his, and the throne was his, and the ledges were his. He took only one step but the throne was suddenly in front of him.
He sat down and felt at home. The chair was his. The room was his. The diamond sand was his. The fox was his. The gem was his.
She was not his. She sat next to him, on the other side of his throne, in a chair made of the reflections. It reminded him of a pond, and she, dark-haired and mirror-eyed, reminded him of the utterly perfect surface of a still lake.. She touched his hand gingerly, and set a cherry blossom in his new hakama; he smiled at it. She was not his, he realized, but she was so close to his soul that he could feel her presence inside him. She was not his, and she was the only thing he was content not owning. She submitted to him willingly.
He let his other hand drop and felt a warm nose nuzzle it. Scratching behind the fox's ears affectionately with one hand, he slipped his hand from hers and tugged the gem from his pocket, looking at it.
There was something inside of the gem. Something strange. Pulling it closer, he narrowed his eyes and looked in and he saw masks, whole and only bits and pieces.
Some felt startlingly familiar, aged and antique. Others felt familiar but alien, and some felt brand new. The bits and pieces, a jawbone, the side of a skull, teeth - they felt like his. The pieces formed in front of him, linking together like a shield. The full masks stared hatefully at him through the pieces.
And behind the masks...
Behind the masks something glowed. He peered at it and watched the glow intensify, and he squinted to stare at it. A golden triangle, with movement at the tips. He couldn't see what the movement was, but the triangle was moving towards him, and the masks faded into it, and the pieces pressed together as a shield in front of him.
It overwhelmed his shield. It overwhelmed him...