I am a traveler. A wanderer. What home I had has long fallen into ruin and decay. All those I loved are dead. And yet I seek a way back. Back to those days of golden sun and cherry blossom petals. Back to those I love. Back to my home.
My wanderings have brought me here, to Nexus. To this place of Infinite Possibilities. They tell me that I may find what I seek here: A way home.
I walk down the streets of this Infinite City. I see many strange things and many strange people. I see an old gentleman on the street. His skin is deep blue, his long hair as green as spring grass. He walks with a young child with yellow skin, the boy's hand in his hand, leading him along. I think of my esteemed Grandfather, who led me over the Bridge of a Thousand Beginnings when I was a child, like this child. So young. So full of a future I believed would be full of wonders. Inside I feel the flutter of bird wings, beating against the bars of my heart, but I do not weep.
I approach the old man and bow with respect to his great age and wisdom. "Old Man," I say to him. "Please, can you tell me where I might find a portal to the past?"
He looks at me with confusion and wonder. I think at first that he has not understood me. But the child tugs at his hand and says, "Buppa, why does that man want to leave here?" The child looks at me more closely. He pulls back and hides himself behind the old man's robes. "Buppa," he says in a frightened voice, "he has many scars."
"I have fought many battles," I tell the child. I try to smile, but the memory of what I have done and what has been done to me robs me of all but sad smiles.
The child pulls back yet farther, and pulls at his grandfather's hand. "Let's go, Buppa!" he says in a child's attempt to whisper. "I'm scared!"
I see two creatures sitting beside a building. The building is so tall I cannot see the top. It is wreathed in clouds, like a great mountain made of steel that glints in the sun like the edge of my katana. The creatures watch me. They bow their heads closer together. Something passes between them, and they rise as one to face me. They are hideous in aspect, with great fangs and claws like swords upon their forefeet. They are covered in shaggy fur the color of grapes on a summer's afternoon. The fur is marked with blood red. I see their eyes, which glow green even in the full light of the sun.
"Excuse me," I say to them. "I seek a portal to the past. Do you know of such a thing?"
They turn their heads to each other. Their foreheads touch. They turn back to me, and leap.
Before they reach me, I have my katana in my hand. The blade rings against their claws. They are easily five times my size, and they move in tandem. I must move quickly to avoid their ripping fangs. One of them gets too close, and I will have another scar. One on either side of me, they move inward again. I slash. One of them is headless. The other screams in rage and leaps high into the air. It comes down upon the point of my sword, enveloping me in fur and suffocating death. I lunge upward and rend the creature in twain. Covered in purple blood, I gasp for air.
I have done nothing to deserve this fate. I seek only to correct the past. I cannot forget. I will never forget.
My life flows backward.
Time shifts and never is still.
Cranes across the moon.
She is weeping. I hear the sound from a distance. Having no other direction, I seek her out. She is sitting on the far side of a hill. She is hidden from me until I am nearly upon her. She holds a tattered doll in her lap and weeps. Her clothes are dirty. She is dirty. Everything around her is covered in filth. Aku has been here. Always he leaves devastation and misery behind.
She looks up as I crest the hill. She wails. It is a thin sound. Thin as her tiny arms. Thin as mother's milk when hope is gone. She tries to scuttle away, but I am on her too soon. She whimpers, clutching the rags with a face to her chest.
I squat down before her. "Child," I say, as gently as I can. "Where is your mother?"
Her cheeks are wet. Her eyes flow with tears. Her nose glistens with ooze that catches the ashes and filth around her. She does not answer.
I look about me. Everywhere the ground is blackened. Once there were trees here. Many trees. A forest of thick trunks, deep-canopied. Now I see only skeletons sticking out of the earth. Broken and tumbled like cast-off pieces of a child's game. Smoke scrapes the air, acrid and rank. I smell burnt flesh. Dried blood. Death. Where there were buildings I see rubble. Here and there, some part remains to suggest that once this was a great city. A sculpted turret. A wrought tracery of iron that points to the red sun. Half and archway that led to dreams of glory before the coming of Aku.
I turn back to the child. The only other living thing in all this blackened land. She shrinks back from my outstretched hand. "Do not be afraid," I tell her. But too late. She bolts and runs. Like a hare, she bolts to the only safety she remembers. But too late.
It must have been her home once. But the moment she enters it, it becomes a tumbling pile of rock. I pull back in horror, breath sucked from my body in outrage at yet another senseless death. Another death to lay at the feet of the Monster.
I see something on the ground at my feet. It is the rag doll. I pick it up and hold it before me. Then I hold it up to the sky. I release my rage.
"Akuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu!!!!!!!!"
All those who have died
Live on in my memory
As Time eats their souls.
I sleep. I dream. My dreams are haunted. I find no rest. When I wake, the cave is bright around me. It is filled with morning light. But there is more.
In the air above my head something hovers. At first I think it is a large insect. But it has the face and body of a human female. It has the wings of a hummingbird. It wears robes of blue the color of sapphires in the crown of the Emperor, long ago. Its robes sparkle like jewels. It darts and weaves above me, stopping here, stopping there. Looking. Always looking at me. From it comes the sound of tiny chiming bells.
I rise. It hovers before my face. It chimes incessantly. It beckons me to follow. I follow. It hovers just beyond the edge of the cliff. Beyond the mouth of the cave. I look out over the valley below. Fresh snow covers the valley floor. The snow glints in the sun like gems from the Heaven of Happiness.
The little being chimes. It darts behind my head, and my hair falls into my face. It appears again before me holding the band which held my top-knot. It chimes more. Then there are three more of these beings. I look, and two of them are holding the obi which bound my kimono. I must move quickly to catch my katana before it clatters to the ground.
Then there is a cloud of these beings around me. I cannot count them. They move too quickly. There may be five or five thousand. They are everywhere. I feel cold. I look down and see that I am naked. The chiming increases as I cover myself.
I look down again. I am dressed in clothing as pink as a baby's toes. From around my waist, clouds of pink fabric billow. The fabric is woven like tiny fishing nets. My legs are close-clad in fabric which clings. Upon my feet, pink shoes with heavy clods of wood in the toes. I feel something on my head. I pull it away. It is a little coronet covered in glass made to sparkle like jewels, yet not jewels. My katana has been replaced with a long stick with a twinkling cluster of glass beads on the end. The beings chime.
"Excuse me," I say to the cloud. "Please, if you will--"
I am warm. I look down and find I am covered in many robes of silk and fur. Upon my head, a crown covered in many jewels. It is the crown of a king or an emperor. The stick in my hand has become a golden sceptre with a large ruby at one end.
"Excuse me," I say again to the cloud. "I am not--"
The robes have been replaced. Instead, I wear a close-fitted garment patterned with black and red diamond shapes. They have placed a mask over my face. I can see it has a long, hooked nose. There is a hat upon my head. It has two horns, and each horn has a small bell which jingles when I take it from my head. In my hand I hold three bottles.
I tire of this game. "If you will please--"
The mask is gone. I wear trousers of a heavy blue fabric. Over this are flaps of leather. I wear a shirt of soft leather with many buttons. There is a scrap of red fabric around my neck patterned in white. On my head, a hat with a wide brim. In my hand, a coiled rope. Chiming filling my ears like raucous laughter.
"Please--"
I am now covered with feathers. Over my head, a hood and mask. The mask has a nose like the huge beak of a bird. The feathers are yellow and very large. My feet are encased in very large shoes shaped like the feet of a chicken. My hand holds a ball of some sort, elongated at each end to a point. It is brown, with two white stripes.
"Enough!" I tear at my clothing. "I tire of this!"
I stand alone on the lip of the cave. My katana is in my hand. My white kimono clothes me. Silver chiming floats away on the wind. I turn. Behind me inside the cave there is a fire. On a low table beside the fire sits much food. I kneel on one of the pillows beside the table. The tea is hot and fragrant. As I pour tea into a cup, one of the tiny beings flits into the cave. She covers my face with tiny kisses. I feel my face go red. And she is gone.
Laughter is Fate's food.
Savour the spices of Life,
Fool of Destiny.
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