Belldandy couldn't hear anything but the screaming. It drowned everything out, and was shattering everything it touched.
Thought.
Resolve.
Understanding.
Fulfilment.
Love.
Hope.
Happiness.
Mind.
Joy.
And it was doing just that, to her.
"Uruz!" Belldandy was shouting over the screaming now. Uruz didn't care if she
heard Belldandy, she just kept screaming.
Belldandy
couldn't take it anymore. Black bile rose in her. She raised a palm.
*whook-*
*-PITSCH*
Belldandy slapped Uruz, hard. Its thunder rose above everything else.
The screaming stopped, the sound of the slap echoing replacing it.
Then the silence was worse than if Uruz had kept screaming. Not even the insects made a sound.
It was as if the Earth had just died.
"Uruz!" Belldandy hissed. She was more than angry, she
knew it. She couldn't stop herself.... she wouldn't, that seething black
bile was building up in her. Belldandy let it rise, she wouldn't suppress it
now. "Stop that now!" she demanded.
And up till now,
Belldandy had never demanded anything.
Urd and
Skuld stopped. Banpei was still digging single-mindedly. He had only batteries
left for another two minutes, he had to work at full power.
Urd stared.
Skuld stared.
There was a first time for everything.
It was nothing they would have dared to see, or ever
thought to see.
Belldandy was angry. Nothing had
come close to this or could describe her anger, nothing would ever again. A
breath away from vengeance, she had clearly crossed her threshold for patience,
which Urd and Skuld had thought was an invincible brick wall. Looked like Uruz
was the demolition crew for more than one thing.
Uruz
stared at Belldandy, both their eyes were wet.
Belldandy
wasn't so beautiful anymore. She was desperate. She looked like she could kill
Uruz. That would've meant annihilation by the Almighty, to murder in cold blood
was an unforgivable offence.
And for someone like the
Almighty, forgiveness was almost given freely.
* * *
Peorth's office shook. Actually, everything shook.
Yggdrasil, the Heavens, its inhabitants, computer terminals, bugs, Gods and
Goddesses alike. Sleipnir almost lost his footing.
Something was wrong. That wasn't going to be rumour, that was going to be fact.
Peorth knew that from the start. This wasn't Yggdrasil
acting up, it wasn't the bugs' fault this time. Something else had happened, and
if Peorth was right.....
"Yggdrasil! Priority override!
Peorth, First Class Goddess will be going to investigate!" Peorth yelled, and
disappeared even before Yggdrasil responded. Everywhere else, Gods and Goddesses
were picking themselves off the floor, and then whatever they were holding.
* * *
Uruz sat there, numbed. Her cheek throbbed abominably.
Belldandy had managed to control her anger, swallow hard,
and go back to digging for Keiichi while Urd had ignored her after that, digging
as well.
Banpei beeped, pointing to something in the
rubble before he shut down.
Belldandy had, without a
thought, lifted the entire pile of rubble off that area and dumped it callously
to one side.
Skuld looked first. Well, she recognized the
head, face down on the destroyed floor. And even though she wasn't a medical
whiz, she recognized that the head was connected to the rest of the body too. In
fact, the body was heaving. That was good.
What wasn't so
good was that that it was also a bloody body, and bent at unnatural angles here
and there. Skuld immediately grabbed a couple of spare power packs from
somewhere in her shirt and set them into Banpei. She ordered him to go find
medical supplies.
Belldandy ran over and turned Keiichi
onto his back.
Well, he had been a he a half hour
back.
Urd stared. She was sure she hadn't dumped any of
those expired medicines into Keiichi's food recently. At least, not the ones
that made hair grow. (She would've been rich selling that medicine, if only she
hadn't any need for money.) Urd reasoned Uruz's foulup had something to do with
this.
"What's going on here!?" Exclaimed a very surprised
voice from behind.
Urd turned. Peorth. Urd wondered if
Peorth had given Uruz any wrong tips?
"Peorth....?" Urd
muttered.
Uruz turned at the name. She looked like the
Almighty himself had come down to check on her welfare alone.
"One-sama!" Uruz exclaimed, in something between relief,
happiness, and self-abuse. She started flying up to Peorth, but Peorth stared at
Uruz disbelievingly.
"You did this?" Peorth asked,
gesturing to the rubble around her. Uruz stopped, dead in the air. Peorth looked
disapproving. That guilt was returning.
And to be asked
that question by the one person she had loved and admired as a teacher and
sister, that hit her hard.
"P...peorth....?" Uruz looked.
She took a deep breath.
Peorth looked at Belldandy,
cradling Keiichi in her lap, casting healing spell after healing spell on him.
Peorth walked past Uruz and knelt down besides Belldandy, casting her own spells
to mend Keiichi in whatever way they could.
Uruz felt her
world truly die around her.
Why did it have to be
Guilt?
Because it's always Guilt that gets to you.
And from the skies above, dark clouds gathered. Then a
laser beam shot down, red and angry. It burned a hole in the rubble and cleared
a pretty large area around it, the radius of destruction barely missing Uruz.
She looked at what was left in the middle of it. It was a message, glowing in
the cryptic language of the Heavens.
"Recalling Uruz,
Second Class Goddess, Third Category, License currently under indefinite
suspension, to the Heavens. You shall be put under escort and probation during
this time. An emergency recall gate shall be set up within the next three
hours.
And I shall see you when you get
back."
That message needed no signature, everyone
knew Who it came from.
Uruz just knelt in front of the
message, and cried.
* * *
Mara watched as a second laser graced the temple grounds,
but this time from the sky down. She knew something bad was going on, and it
wasn't anyone's definition of bad.
It was bad's
definition of bad.
But in his bottle, Senbee didn't
really care. He was as high on Happy as he could ever be, and more coming in
every second. He was doing some jig in his bottle.
"Yeah!
Senbee ha-appy happy high!"
Mara slapped
the bottle. Senbee shut up and stopped dancing.
"Shut up!
I need to think!" Mara hissed at him. She knew she had done some really bad
things in her life, but she didn't really want to go that far. Even demonesses
had to have their limits, since their primary goal was to achieve as many
demonic contracts as possible, not cause trouble, unless authorized and ordered
to by the Demon High Council to be really bad. They mostly left the bad
deeds to the Humans. Besides, Mara knew she didn't have a bone to pick with this
Uruz Goddess, whom Senbee had told her was granting Keiichi's wish. Well,
Mara thought. This is really fine and dandy. You've done it this time, Mara.
You've committed your year's worth of evil deeds in a few minutes.
At least Mara wouldn't have to cause trouble for the rest
of the year. She'd caused enough to last a lifetime.
* * *
When Keiichi finally woke up, there was this distinctly
uncomfortable pressure on his chest. His body ached like he'd been pounded by
Tamiya after a drinking marathon, and he felt weird. At least, that was the way
he'd put it.
But he wasn't dead, or crippled. He hoped.
"Keiichi-san?" It was Belldandy. Her face was looking
down at him. Keiichi realized that he was lying on her lap. He struggled to get
up, but she put a finger on his forehead.
"No, you need
to rest. You're badly hurt."
"Belldandy?" Keiichi's
throat felt raw, he must've breathed in too much dust when the world blew up
around him.
Yeah, he remembered that part. Uruz had
barely started to utter something before the laser beam from her head and
suddenly expaned outwards. With impressive pyrotechnical results, he noted.
Maybe that was why he felt so weird.
Looking around, he
saw Urd, Skuld and Peorth clustered around him. He reached up to feel his head.
It was bandaged. His hand felt crusty and sticky. He looked at it. What a lot of
blood.
Maybe that was what the weird feeling was.... he's
lost a lot of blood. But he wasn't dead.
He wondered if
the Ultimate Force had something to do with this. There had been that wish
granting part?
Oh yeah, the wish.
Then he heard someone sobbing, then wailing. It touched
something off in his heart, something very sympathetic and pained. The wailing
echoed into a distant cry, which carried for miles. It was ghostly.
"Who's crying?" Keiichi croaked, then coughed.
Belldandy looked up and behind her for a second, then
back at him.
"Uruz." Belldandy sounded strangled.
"What's wrong?"
"Nothing."
Belldandy replied, quickly. This wasn't characteristic of her, Keiichi noted.
"Belldandy." It wasn't a question.
"Yes, Keiichi-san?" Belldandy sounded as if she was tired. Maybe she just wanted
to sleep, but not before Keiichi was really OK.
"I'm
fine.... I just need to sit up. I could do with a little rest, but not now."
Keiichi wanted to see what was wrong with Uruz. Sad didn't describe the way she
sounded now. That ghostly echo of a wail was haunting, the wailing itself
horrible.
"But...." Belldandy tried to say. But she had
overexerted herself. Succumbing to sleep, she fell flat across Keiichi's chest,
asleep before she even fell halfway. Keiichi's arm went up in reflex to stop her
head from smacking into the ground.
Then Peorth's hand
appeared, a small glow in it, supporting Belldandy's head. There was an unusual
pressure against his chest, Keiichi noted. He was definitely embarrassed now
though. Belldandy's chest was pressing full force against his own.
Peorth slowly lifted Belldandy off of Keiichi, and laid
her down on a reasonably flat and stable stack of rubble. Keiichi sat up,
painfully. The weight was still there, on his chest.
It
felt familiar, somehow. A long time ago, in April, he had felt this. (Note :
Cherry Blossoms bloom sometime in April. Go figure.)
This???
His hand went up to his chest. And came up
against something round and soft. Not too comfortably too. And "he" finally knew
what that weird feeling was.
Oh great. This was
really going to spoil 'his' mood in the morning.
"Well, there goes the neighbourhood." Urd told Skuld as
Keiichi sat up and felt around. Peorth was looking after Belldandy as she slept,
and the crying went on unabated. Urd was beginning to get irritated by that
noise though. She turned towards the source of it. "Will somebody please
shut her up!? Skuld, a bomb please?"
Skuld looked at Urd.
Keiichi turned and looked at Urd. Urd noticed them looking at her.
"Urd! Have some compassion!" Skuld chided. Urd was
surprised at the girl's spunk. Keiichi said nothing, instead just picking
himself off the floor (Urd and Skuld had a hard time even thinking of Keiichi as
a 'her'.) and treaded gingerly over the sharp and twisted debris of the former
temple towards the crater in the rubble. Being a barefooted mortal had its
downside.
Uruz couldn't help herself, she just lay on the floor
besides the Almighty's message, limp, letting them flow. Her tears. She couldn't
stop it. Everything she'd worked for, shot on a one way ticket to Hell.
She was probably going to end up there too, considering
what she had done. Hurting clients wasn't the best way to get promoted.
It was your fault, Uruz told herself. You
bungled up because you were too excited and impatient to retry again later. She
mocked herself. See? This is what happens when you meet someone you admire and
lose your cool. You lose everything you worked for. She cursed herself,
abused herself verbally and condemned herself, among other things.
But most of all, she wouldn't forgive herself. Belldandy
might, the Almighty most likely would somehow, Keiichi could grudgingly, maybe
even Peorth by some stroke of miracle.
She kept on
crying, she couldn't do anything else. She dropped face up to the floor, still
crying.
Keiichi sat at the rim of the crater, watching Uruz. There
was nothing 'he' could do, to comfort her or to help her. 'He' shouldn't have
made that wish, then maybe this wouldn't have happened.
Maybe? 'He' asked him/herself. It was on Uruz's insistence I make that
wish, Keiichi reminded himself. But that isn't her fault, nor mine! Something
had to have gone wrong somewhere else! Keiichi thought, trying to ease his
guilty conscience. Yeah, tell that to her, you sad, sad little guy. Heck, you
ain't even a guy anymore. Keiichi winced. Being a half-girl wasn't to affect
him much for now, he had maybe two weeks left to find a solution. Unless someone
he knew (or, occasionally, the one he didn't) decided to drop by.
And they did, often.
And then
there was that added problem of Uruz. He knew she was on the verge of a nervous
breakdown and would probably do something stupid if he didn't try something.
Well, all he could do was try, he had nothing left
to hope for.
* * *
Megumi dialed Keiichi's number, to let him know she was
going over to his place in a couple of days' time after she and her girl-friends
had finished their stay at a beach resort down by the Tokyo Beachside resort.
The line wouldn't connect, and Megumi was tempted to try
again, but her friends were getting impatient.
"Megumi!
Can't you call your brother later!? We're going to miss the bus!" one of them
yelled.
Megumi looked at them, then at the phone, and
back at them. She nodded. She could alwys call later.
"Alright already! I'm coming!" And picked up her sack, hastily locking her door
on the way out. The Earth Spirit, now the local rat, watched as Megumi left. He
had felt some disruptions to his powerlines a while back, which had coincided
with the delayed explosion he heard a while back. He didn't have a good feeling
about tis. He decided to check in on Belldandy.
* * *
Belldandy regained consciousness two hours later, and sat
up. It was growing dark fast, and the sky was tinged with the dying light
of the sun. Dark, black clouds were beginning to gather, and these didn't have a
silver lining of any sort. Peorth, without having to be asked, pointed to where
Keiichi had been sitting the last two hours, looking into that crater. The
effect was surreal, the way the orange red sunset shone on everything from one
side and shadowed the other.
"Go find out why he's
sitting there." Was all Peorth said. Belldandy nodded and went over to Keiichi's
side. She still hadn't gotten over Keiichi's unusual transformation. Could it be
a relapse of Urd's medicine when that explosion had occured?
Not likely. It must've been Uruz.
Speaking of which, Uruz was in the center of the crater, silent now. Keiichi
turned to look at Belldandy as she sat down besides 'him'.
"Keiichi-san?" Belldandy asked, tentatively. She wasn't
sure how Keiichi would react to 'his' new status. "I'm sorry this happened."
Keiichi turned slowly to look at Belldandy. 'His' facial
features hadn't changed much, except maybe the skin was a lot smoother, 'his'
chin was a little more pointed, cheekbones higher. Actually, Keiichi looked
quite cute. But this wasn't the time to consider that! Belldandy chided herself.
"It's not your fault, Belldandy." Keiichi even sounded
cute. 'He' sighed. "And I'm hoping it's not her fault." Keiichi looked at Uruz,
flat on her back facing the sky, staring. She'd finally stopped crying, but only
because she ran out of tears. Belldandy followed 'his' gaze, and was immediately
sorry she had lost control of herself then.
Uruz,
Belldandy could feel, was a mass of turmoils and dejection. She had done
her best, had put her entire self into it. Belldandy always preached about the
importance of doing one's best, and about the rewards of such endeavours, and
Keiichi had always believed that because 'he' had a Goddess to back it up. But
now, he wasn't so sure anymore. He wasn't so sure about anything anymore.
That person lying on the floor in the center of that crater was proof.
She was a Goddess, she had done her best, and look at what it had done to her.
So now what? Keiichi asked 'himself'.
"Shall we go down there... Keiichi-san?" Belldandy asked.
"............yeah."
Uruz didn't notice, or care is she had, the two figures
slipping and sliding down the edge of the crater and towards her. She was just
waiting. The sky had grown dark, and her mood with it.
"Uruz?" It was an unfamiliar voice. Uruz swivelled her eyeballs. She thought she
saw Keiichi, battered, bruised, a little unfamiliar, but alive. She chuckled to
herself, sardonically. Keiichi didn't have a 'chest'. Not like that one.
"Yeah?" Uruz had nothing left to lose, so why not with
the attitude problem?
"You all right?" Uruz kept looking.
This person sounded strange, but looked familiar.
"It's
me, Keiichi."
Uruz just blinked. Then she turned her head
to the side, looking at the ground.
"Leave me be." All
trace of the life that used to be hers was gone.
"I just
want to let you know-" Keiichi continued. Uruz wouldn't let 'him' finish. She
sat up, stared straight at Keiichi, and hissed. Keiichi backed off, as if
the fine misted spittle flying through her clenched teeth was venom.
"Leave. Me. Be." She emphasized each syllable like a word
on its own. Belldandy had heard these words spoken a while back, but the way
Uruz said them made Belldandy wish she had never heard them at all. Belldandy
put a hand on Keiichi's shoulder. Keiichi shrugged it off.
"I just wanted you to know, I'm sorry." Keiichi said
before 'he' turned around and began to walk off. "Belldandy?"
Belldandy wasn't listening. She was reading the
still-glowing text in the ground.
"....emergency recall
gate.... three hours..... see you..... get back."
Belldandy turned around, eyes wide, just as Keiichi realized Uruz wasn't going
to be mellowing out down here on Earth. And from Belldandy's look, Keiichi knew
that Someone up there wanted answers, straight from Uruz.
Just as the gate opened.
* * *
Skuld, Urd and Peorth were holding conference as to how
best to rebuild the temple. Of course, each had their own idea as how it would
be like rebuilt.
"I want it to have a wine cellar, a mini
bar, and racks and racks of alcoholic imbibables!" Urd said.
"Is that all? You are so shallow, Urd!" Skuld retorted.
"It'll have garages.... and testing facilities.... and... and... a great huge
cycling track!" Skuld's eyes were shining and she let her daydreaming get the
better of her. Urd and Peorth exchanged worried looks.
"I
think we better ask Keiichi." Peorth wasn't going to describe her own private
ideas in detail to the two Goddesses. She had ideas, sure, but she'd wait until
everything else was ready first.
Then a maroon light
added to the setting, blood red sun and bathed them all in reddish light.
Everyone looked. It had finally opened, the gate. Peorth was the first one
there, looking. Uruz just let herself be lifted off the ground, limp, like the
'rag doll' Skuld had pulled out of the rubble earlier. Peorth went down to the
base of the crater, where Keiichi was staring up.
"Do
something!" Keiichi urged as Peorth came down. "She's your.... disciple!"
Peorth looked on helplessly. "I can't do
anything!" She wailed.
At the sound of Peorth's voice,
Uruz turned to look. The gate was bringing her up faster now. Peorth stared
straight at Uruz.
Peorth felt as if she had betrayed Uruz
just by standing there, watching.
Worse than seeing
betray, hurt or even anger at Peorth, Uruz had only one expression, which Peorth
saw.
"I failed you."
Peorth dropped to her knees.
{End of Chapter 9}
{Chapter
10 : Seeing the pain, feeling the words}