There are places where the darkness never fades and the difference between midday and midnight is enough light to understand that your body does exist and that you are not just floating consciousness in a void. This is Death. Purgatory. This is ground completely neutral to all sources. Good and Evil mingle here freely, but unlike in the worlds of the living, there is no judgment. Actions simply are.
Who could say how long Seiji Hirai existed in purgatory. He had been an inmate for eternity, or maybe mere seconds. Time works strangely in this place. He spent his time thinking of his past and of his possible futures. He thought of all the ways he could have avoided Death. Seiji learned that there were many branches of action. Each branch would lead to a different outcome. Some were better, some were worse. He examined his life through the eyes of a tactician. Which outcome was best?
Something was stirring amongst the wandering souls, however, something so dark that Purgatory’s unusual realm couldn’t make sense of. It seemed to be beyond the influence of the peaceful stupor that held the dead, and it moved among them with a keen sense of awareness. It had a goal. It had a single and bloody-minded purpose. There was someone here of interest to its master, and it had been ordered to complete a special task.
Seiji’s thoughts drifted to his comrades, as they so often did. He wondered if Brosh Amber’s soul still lay in Purgatory like his own? If only he could sense something…
But he could. Seiji’s fighter’s instinct sharpened in a moment. Something was hunting through the nothingness, reaching out and touching here and there what Seiji assumed were other souls suspended and lost like his own. He concentrated and felt the creature’s path. It wove here and there, testing half-heartedly as it passed a nearby soul. It was moving steadily closer to Seiji.
The Lapis knight felt more alive than he had since he’d been dumped into this darkness. He felt the burning curiosity that danger often bred. It wasn’t until the thing stopped right next to him that he began to fear what his future could be. Was it going to harvest his soul? Take him to some unknown hell designed specifically for a sinner such as himself? Seiji didn’t think of the alternative. A place such as heaven was not an option, he knew.
A long low laugh crackling with thunder and electricity seemed to pierce whatever Seiji’s body had become. He was surprised to realize that he could actually see his body, and that the creature was now emanating a fiery glow. The flames were definitely not anything Seiji had seen before. They boiled around the creature’s dark flesh like the corona of the sun. It’s acrid smell filled Seiji’s nose and made him cough violently.
“Wake princeling, Knight of a lesser stone.”
Seiji had his eyes shut tightly against the burning skin. Now, they were forced open by the command. He could not speak, could not move. He was held fast in place by the will of the thing that bound him.
“My master will have you service, but you will not remember my coming to you. You will return, Lapis Knight, and live as you did before. You will be called. You will answer with war.”
A tendril of the creature’s flame-flesh leaped from its body and drove itself down Seiji’s throat. It seared a path downward into his heart, making him cry out in pain and anger and defiance. The Master’s will held him strongly.
Seiji felt himself being pulled somewhere. Visions passed his sight. They were things that had been, that would be, that could be. He couldn’t remember anything of what he saw, but he knew he had seen things that no oracle could have. The burning in his heart and throat spread outward through his body. It concentrated in his hands, his face, and his knees.
When he could open his eyes, he realized that the burning came from the asphalt scrapes to those parts of his body. He saw cherry blossoms falling like rain on the shrine’s grounds. One lazily drifted over his hair and landed on his cheek, rolling down and landing in his bloodied palm.
( Written by Sailor Garnet )
((Come RP with me. Think you have what it takes to find the Lapis Knight?))
