F-Infinity Saga Canto I

by James D.R. Smith

Chapter 12: It's a Wonderful World

  Calamity swirled in and out of black nothingness. The revolting smell of burnt hair polluted each and every painful breath as Seven struggled back to consciousness, pitifully fighting back the overwhelming urge to vomit everything he had ever eaten. Nothing remained of the fallen leaves; the bare earth faced the shrouded sky in accusatory protest; as though demanding long-withheld deliverance.

  The ringing in his ears dispelled all sound as Seven coughed up wet mud, wiping away the remainders that dribbled on his lips and leaving dirty smudges across his cheeks that highlighted his turquoise eyes as they burned with a range of intense emotions -- confusion sparred with disbelief whilst rage and fear glared at each other from across the battlefield of an otherwise empty soul.

  Something was keeping Seven pinned facedown to the ground, and he shifted it off with his free arm. As he turned to inspect the offending object, his eyes widened in realization. Smoke rolled off Mirai's body like ocean waves; the majority of her clothing had burned away revealing the delicate girl beneath, a chickadee clad in steel. Her eyes remained closed; forever, perhaps.

  Miraculously, he remained unscathed. Mirai had shielded him, paying for his safety with her own. Seven had to bite back a curse at the young woman's foolish sacrifice as his memory raced to piece things together.

  Two pinpricks of light leered through the obscuring haze, silver will-o-wisps that loomed like fireflies. A form coalesced in the haze, a grim reaper cloaked in nebulous periphery.

  Seven did not know exactly the instinct that prodded him forward, but it forced strength into his weakened legs -- flooded him with the singular desire to escape. He scooped Mirai from the ground as gingerly as he could, relieved when she groaned slightly in protest. One of her thick swords had fallen nearby, tossed there by whatever explosion had shook the ground so violently it had thrown up great clumps of dirt, leaving a foot-deep circular gouge exactly where they had fallen. He took up the weapon, shifting Mirai towards his back. With a second glance at the smoky apparition, he dashed in the other direction, leaping the new trench and hitting the ground running.

  In the background, a dulcet female voice laughed maniacally. Seven turned just in time to see the weird girl emerge from the smoke, her face a twisted mask of ecstasy and rage as she slowly pointed at them, continuing to raise her arm towards the heavens.

  His body reacted long before his mind could match; with a grunt he dove to the side just as a blinding flash of lightning crashed down exactly where he had been standing. Every hair on his body stood stock straight, and only the awkward leap had saved his eyes the trauma of being burned from his skull.

  Undaunted, he saw his opportunity and took off as fast as he could, sprinting as the thunder clap rolled over him like a shockwave. At the last moment, he twisted away, shielding Mirai and absorbing the rumbling energy into his own body, stumbling under the sheer force. He shook away the unnatural stars that floated in his vision, turned, and kept running.

  The branches and the trees passed like blurs as he dodged in between them; a hunted animal. He ducked and twisted and turned but did not dare to look back, knowing instinctively that the predator would not be far behind.

  Unfortunately, she also blocked the way down the mountain. To the east lay a boulder-strewn ravine that he could not navigate with the extra weight on his back -- not safely, anyway, and in the other direction the roots grew twisted and gnarly; they would trip him for sure. His only choice would be to go up and over, circling back towards town once he hit the highway.

  Ten minutes of awkward navigation went by before Seven's breath gave way into ragged gasps. He had used every trick he knew, a lifetime of accumulated experience growing up in the forest and the mountains that no outsider could hope to match and yet, he knew it would not be enough.

  He leaned down to gently rest Mirai against a tree, propping her head up against and outstretched branch as he considered his possibilities. Slipping off his padded winter jacket, he laid it over her like a blanket. Leaving her behind would, perhaps, at least slow down his pursuer but she seemed interested in him, specifically. Seven Kharaos, a name that carried far more mystery than substance -- for the owner, anyway; the last few days made it seem like everyone else in the world knew what significance the title carried. Leaving her behind, would guarantee that he would never learn the truth; and looking at her peaceful face as she slept, a slight smile playing across her dry and cracked lips, Seven knew that he could not simply abandon her to her fate.

  Instead, he scanned the area, looking for anything that could be used. His eyes lingered on the trees -- ancient and silent sentinels, untouched by the voracious paper mill that once fueled the tiny self-styled dragon below. Bringing destruction to such noble existences sickened his heart but would not stop him. He hefted the weight of Mirai's sword in his hand, the thick blade seemed perfect for cutting and the edge gleamed hungrily in the cold moonlight.

  He walked over toward one of the trees, and set himself as he had seen samurai in TV shows. The awkward posture lent itself to near-certain injury, and he shifted his stance once again, like he was about to swing a bat.

  Gritting his teeth so hard he feared one might give way, he struck as hard as he could.

  The jarring impact nearly did succeed in breaking his teeth, and sent resounding shockwaves through every nerve of his body. His shaking fingers abandoned the weapon and left it stuck there, barely a quarter of an inch buried into the wood; hardly a scratch in the mossy black bark.

  "Hand it to me," a weak voice said next to him. Seven bit his tongue to avoid a startled shout as he whirled about.

  Mirai was up, tattered and staggering, but with a dangerous look in her eyes that glowed far more dangerously than her thirsty weapon. Her raven hair fluttered in the reluctant breeze, drawn back like wings as she mustered her strength. She raised an outstretched hand -- not a request, a royal decree.

  When he hesitated, she snatched it from the tree, a fluid movement that he could barely read, pivoting on her left foot and spinning around to pull it free. She held the weapon outstretched, balanced perfectly in her palm, a natural extension of her body. In his life and travels, Seven had met many soldiers, many warriors -- grizzled veterans of a dozen wars, but none carried the sublime presence the girl wielded as she clutched the curved blade.

  "Are you okay?" Seven asked. Mirai had thrown his coat about her shoulders, draped with its arms tied around her neck to avoid restricting her movements -- a makeshift cape that shifted as she dropped into a guarded stance.

  She barely regarded him from the corner of an amber eye, fixing him with a cold stare. "I'll live," she said, "assuming we get out of this in one piece. We need to get moving." Motionless now, she turned her gaze ahead once again. Her breathing evened, in and out, as steady and peaceful as the rolling tides.

  Seven shook his head sadly, clutching a hand over his chest he nearly doubled over in pain as fuzzy black began to shrink his vision, his body finally losing the edge of adrenaline that brought it so far. "No can do," he gasped, trying desperately to stave off unconsciousness, "my lungs have had just about all they can take. Damned things. You go on ahead," he struggled to stand up straight.

  Frowning, Mirai pondered the lone sword in her hand, weighing the cool metal and leather-wrapped handle as though balancing it against the worth of Seven's life. "No," she said at last, "I won't let her have you; you see what they do to their prisoners, yes?" she asked.

  "Yeah..." Seven said as he spat out phlegm speckled with blood as he stood up straight at last. "Yeah, what the hell is going on?" he asked, "Who is that girl?" He cast about right and left, as though expecting assault from any direction at any moment.

  Mirai's voice grew low, a harsh whisper escaping her lips, "You should know. Why don't you?"

  Such an accusation made no sense to the accused, and he looked at her puzzled, arms outstretched in outraged confusion. He said nothing, unwilling to respond.

  "You can se
e them, can't you?" Mirai growled, obviously unhappy that Seven had failed to take the bait or apologize for apparently being too foolish to understand. "Angels," she finished, spitting the word out like an epithet.

  Seven uttered a long, lone groan, lowering his head to place his head in his hands. "So I'm not just crazy then?" he asked, his voice rising into a half-whine. "I really hoped that I was just crazy."

  "Hmm," Mirai shot back. "No. Well, maybe, but not in this case."

  "So what does it all mean? Why did she attack me? What about Alex?" he asked.

  A long sigh escaped Mirai's chest. "You really are like a child, aren't you?" she said. "Know nothing. Consider nothing. Abandon everything that either frustrates or perplexes you. Terradyn said you would be this way, but I can't believe it even though the truth is staring right at me with its silly expression."

  "You, me, her... Alyrin," she said. "We are the same."

  The long awaited answer to Seven's life quest loomed suddenly close, shocking him with its sudden appearance -- a white whale that rode the horizon like the setting sun; for he knew beyond that moment, somehow, loomed a world of deeper darkness. He licked his lips, unsure if he even wanted to hear the answer now, having already met two denizens of that midnight purgatory.

  "We are Ascended," Mirai declared firmly, her voice still barely more audible than a whisper or muttered curse, "souls doomed to wander this ethereal existence. Forged by Heaven, sculpted by Hell, abused and abandoned by both. Your friend Alex... he was a mistake, we thought he was you and they followed me to him."

  Though Seven could understand the words, the emphasized capitals and the implications, they made little sense. Not only had he chalked up angels to either hallucinations or PTSD, the very concept of a soul -- something unidentifiable by science or perception seemed little more than a fever dream once envisioned by a shaman hopped up on the good stuff. He opened his mouth to respond, but no sound came out; his voice failing uselessly, comically. Though his rational mind immediately rejected such an explanation, something deeper rose up to brush against the concept before her buried it even deeper, replacing the downwards spiral with thoughts of his friend.

  "So Alex..." he began, trailing off, unable to finish the sentence.

  Mirai didn't even nod, "Yes," she said, "to get to you." Her eyes flooded golden, growing deeper and more malevolent in their intent.

  "Why me? Is it something I did in the past? One of my operations?" Seven asked somberly. He silently added Alex McKinnon to a tragically growing list of those who had sacrificed for him before, and swore an oath to that memory -- stolen innocent would be repaid with unholy vengeance; his blood began to burn in his veins, yearning for the forbidden taste of sanguine fruit, an impulse long buried and brought to light in only the most dire of situations. Vengeance, though it would bring no peace to his heart, would at least carve a fleeting smile upon his lips -- the tired specter of justice satiated with its meager meal.

  To the question, though, Mirai only shook her head. "No," she answered, "it has nothing to do with what you have done, though perhaps you do deserve some of the revenge you meted out so very justly." Her voice, colored with the slightest bit of sarcasm, left Seven blinking and wondering if the petite swordswoman could read his mind.

  "Ascended exist outside the provinces of Heaven and Hell. We shift the flow of the world in ways that neither angels nor humans can. Born and reborn, our memories hunt us throughout the ages," Mirai's voice grew distant, as though seeking something long buried beneath the sands of time. "But even amongst us, you are special. Soon, you will come to learn how," her voice cut off abruptly into an angry hiss. "She's coming, we make our stand here," she whispered again, leaving Seven to worriedly ponder the prophetic pronouncement.

  He was ninety percent positive that she had lost her mind, but as their relentless enemy emerged from the thicket -- a girl wreathed in chaotic, spinning flames that did not quite touch the foliage above, leaving only a smoldering trail of blackened debris with each cautious step -- the remaining ten percent accepted it all with a strange calm that came balanced in perfect contrast to the bloodlust that still raged only slightly beneath the surface of his otherwise calm expression. In that moment, he came to understand Mirai, the way she faced a hated enemy with the same intense passivity with which one observed the dawn of a new day.

  The air about Alyrin's shoulders shimmered ominously, like heat rising off pavement on a hot summer day -- but through the mirage, Seven felt sure that he could distinguish a shape; a pair of tremendous wings spread wide enough to embrace the invisible horizon, fierce and terrible. His instincts warned him about those wings, screamed they were unnatural, demanded he escape at any cost -- and yet, something even more profound offered a deep twang of sympathy as he observed the girl, her eyes glowing silver orbs that expressed no emotion of their own and a face rapt in uncomfortable ecstasy. Despite this, his intuition could provide no further answers -- and so he watched, his mind long removed from the danger at hand.

  "She is not herself," he muttered, half to himself. His hands found a broken branch on the ground, and he snatched it up, a desperate weapon for a desperate time.

  "Doesn't matter anymore," Mirai shot back.

  She was eyeing him cautiously, clearly unable to see the shimmering wings as they thrust out. As he opened his mouth to shout warning, Alyrin struck. Before his startled eyes, the girl simply vanished in a lick of scarlet flame, the same deep color of her hair.

  In the next moment, she was mere inches away, a dagger clenched tightly in her hands already making its fatal arc as it swept towards Seven's unprotected throat. A single tear slid its way down the side of his attacker's cheek, as though a bitter admission of guilt. He could see his entire life slowly reflected in its clear prism; a reminder of all that he had abandoned and the truth he had long since avoided. Death would come; a welcome friend -- a relieving reprieve from the reality that had long since been laid bare. The world could carry on without him -- would be spared his existence; the shining weapon came as an angel's just mercy, passed down from somewhere above.

  Such things were unacceptable to Mirai Kishida -- the girl whose name could be read as either as "future" or "the beautiful lightning" both foresaw and forestalled Seven's welcomed end. She struck as fast as her namesake, a single two-handed strike that sliced through the thick oak as easily as paper -- for a moment, it hung there; unsure that it had even been cut. Mirai lashed out, quickly kicking the tree towards Alyrin, just as Seven had planned.

  It toppled with a thunderous crack as the branches gave way, falling like an over-handed swing, perfectly executed and aimed like an arrow at the storm-clad menace. Still, Mirai moved faster. Her blade caught Alyrin's, locking it into a stalemate as her right foot hooked into Seven, knocking him backwards just as the great tree slammed down.

  Alyrin reached out a slender hand as though to ward against destruction, but Seven knew better. Lightning cracked from the heavens with a triumphant roar. The tree burst into thousands of jagged pieces -- she leapt back from Mirai, breaking the lock as the splinters rained about them.

  The moment she hit the ground, her hands moved again, a dizzying blur. The forest uttered a low groan, as though protesting some fathomless pain, as a tempestuous burst of wind flooded the clearing with hurricane force.

  The sheer power pinned him to the ground, and the wooden shards rained about like flung daggers. Two embedded themselves in his club, reaching through towards his heart. More, tiny fragments, struck his legs and unprotected chest as he raised his meager defense to shield his eyes -- his body erupted in pain as blood spurted from a hundred different wounds; his screams lost to the callous wind.

  And still, it could have been worse. As the wind carried itself away, giddily dancing through the protesting grove, Seven found himself miraculously alive beneath a crimson shadow.

  It was Mirai Kishida. In the final moment she had shielded him as best she could -- large chunks of wood, stuck from the gr
ound like a circle of broken spears around the both where she had managed to deflect them with her lonesome blade. The sword itself had broken at least twice, gaping cracks had widened the metal and bent it awkwardly, and she still clutched the hilt in a trembling, blood-stained hand. Many more shards had found their way through her meager defenses -- they pierced her body in a dozen places Seven could make out from behind her, their teeth stained with lifeblood. He could not begin to count the minor injuries -- the tiny splinters that protruded from her like porcupine quills.

  She turned to him mechanically, the tiniest of smiles gracing her lips. The radiant gold had dissipated from her eyes, leaving them pieces of dull amber that struggled to remain conscious. "What are you doing, baka?" she asked, her voice almost impossible to catch over the burble of blood. "Run." She wavered on her feet as she turned back towards Alyrin, who strode forward slowly -- inching towards them like creeping death, sadistically savoring the pain like aged wine.

  The light again took shape in Alyrin's hands, a hilt-less blade not unlike the splintered remains of the once-mighty oak, a beautiful fragment wielded by the ugliest soul. She strode closer to Mirai, drawing within striking distance as Seven's valiant protector tried to force her useless arms to action, to bring her broken sword to bear in desperate futility.

  "I will seal your soul forever," Alyrin hissed, her voice an arctic glacier. "No Heaven, no Hell, no Rebirth. Farewell, First Ascended of Heaven."

  Indecipherable runes grew out of the ground, pulsing with a bronze radiance. The holy words crawled off the leaves like insects, racing up Mirai's bleeding legs, spreading across her torn clothing and dissolving through to reveal a body covered with more scars than skin. They spread up her neck, reaching around to her throat as she desperately raised her chin to keep them at bay. Finally, they grew still. Mirai still struggled to no effect -- somehow the mysterious letters managed to seal even her breath.

  Alyrin raised her weapon, her voice lilting in a language Seven had never heard before -- full of undulations and inflections; a chant not unlike he had once seen Shinto and Buddhist exorcists perform on journeys taken long before.

  Mirai's voice pierced the song with one single word, clear as the autumn sky. "Run!" A noble sacrifice offered with her final gasp of precious air; the sound crashed like waves in Seven's ears as Alyrin's cursed weapon fell.

  He offered a quick prayer to whatever God or Devil cared enough to listen; laying bare for the first time his soul upon the altar of divine sacrifice -- wishing only for the strength to move. His eyes squeezed shut with fervent effort.

  The next moment bleached Seven's world with holy light, and he opened his eyes at the sound of pierced flesh, blinking in shock at the stinging pain. He was looking into Mirai's startled eyes, free from the ropes that had bound her, anger and despair welling within. Seven did not understand, neither when he heard Alyrin curse nor when she slid the blade free, jerking it as she did so -- inflicting a whole new level of suffering as she opened the hole where Seven's heart had once been. Mirai's shattered weapon, too, had found its mark -- poised to strike her enemy in a defiant final blow, it instead managed to pierce one of Seven's lungs and there it remained, a rotten tooth broken off from the dirty maw of vengeance.

  Fresh blood spilled onto the ground, staining the Earth that he once feared he would destroy. Understanding came in the measured heartbeats that he no longer had; Mirai fell next to him, gently catching his body despite her own wounds. Alyrin's spell already began to take effect: he felt somehow less than whole; and though his rational mind declared it only illusion, he could have sworn that he was fading like a well-worn stain, disappearing into twilight. Warm tears fell on his cheeks, comforting yet unable to stave off the fingers of winter that now clutched his broken muscles. She asked over and over, "Why?"

  Though he did not say so, he knew the answer. It came expressed as a peaceful smile across his cloudy turquoise eyes; long ago he knew the terrible fate that awaited him -- the destiny he would be forced to embrace. He had traveled the world, inspired by childhood heroes, throwing himself into chaos in the vainglorious attempt to bring order, to make sense; to justify his own existence and in the end, the truth had been so simple: Seven Kharaos had lived a coward. Perhaps now, though, despite the wild machinations of meandering destiny, he could at least leave the world in peace. His hand raised a final time, flickering like a candle in the wind, a triumph in itself as he extended a single forefinger towards the sky -- letting his arm fall, it pointed towards safety, sanctuary -- the way out of the forest for his soul-shared friend. A single question forced its way from his lips, the only one he ever needed an answer to. "Did I change the world?" he asked the tear streaked face he no longer recognized.

  Night seemed darker, and most of the stars had disappeared beneath the haze. One, though, stuck out. It was poetic, Seven thought, that he should disappear beneath the jealous gaze of Algol, harbinger of misfortune; for despite it all, he remained grateful for his short stay upon the infinite and beautiful celestial gem his ancestors had dubbed Earth. He heaved a final shuddering sigh, the wind escaping peacefully from his lungs, bearing his ephemeral soul on dreams of better times as he slipped forever into the inky darkness; carried only by a few scattered motes of forsaken white light.

  "Yes, you damned fool," both Alyrin and Mirai cursed at the now-angry velvet midnight sky, churning ominously with newly-formed clouds rife with crackling orange lightning.

  "You ended it."