Keanu
July 2009. Tokyo, Japan.
The hotel room was quiet but for the fan chugging away overhead and the snores of his companions. Keanu laid on one of the beds, feeling a little guilty for taking it though Nick had insisted on camping out on the floor. “I’m used to it,” the boy had grunted, put his back to the wall, and gone unconscious before any protest could be made. Zoe and Jun had collapsed together on the other bed, back to back. Glancing at them, Keanu had to admit a twinge of jealousy for how close they were. Though there was a part of him who recognized his three companions, there was also a large portion which was hyper aware of the fact that he had run away from home, gone on the lamb, been drug through some ancient relic, and somehow come out on the other side of the planet only to end up in a damn-near-derelict hotel room with three total strangers.
Oh, and he’d been punched in the nose. Twice. He rubbed his sinuses with both hands and yawned.
“Sorry about that.”
Startled, Keanu jumped lightly and turned to see Zoe shift slightly. She gestured loosely to his face. “Your nose. It was a gut reaction.”
Keanu pursed his lips and then shook his head. “Nah. I guess I deserved it...kinda. Er, I mean...it isn’t...it’s just...”
Her laugh was soft, and a little raspy. “S’okay, I kinda get it.”
Wincing, Keanu watched as she rolled onto her back and tucked her hands under her neck. “It was still stupid of me. Are you--it’s not my place and all, but--”
“Am I okay with it?”
“Yeah.”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. I mean, I guess...” Zoe let it drift for so long that Keanu thought she might have gone back to sleep. Then she continued, “A few years ago, I started having these weird blackouts. I’d go past a mirror, or see my reflection on something, and then suddenly I’d be somewhere else, and it’d be hours later, and I couldn’t remember anything I’d said or done. For awhile I didn’t mention it to anybody, because it didn’t seem like anyone noticed. I kind of hoped they didn’t.
“Then one day I woke up in the bathroom and my hair had been bleached, and I’d bound up my chest, and bought a whole bunch of boy’s clothes. All on my dad’s credit card. How screwed up is that?” She laughed, faintly, and Keanu thought she might have been crying. “I blackout and give myself makeovers. If that isn’t some kind of special...We had a big fight, me and my mom and dad, and they didn’t want to hear that I didn’t remember it. They thought I was just trying to get out of trouble. Can’t blame them, really, it looked pretty bad.”
“The bleaching job or the bill?” Keanu tried to crack a smile. To his relief, she laughed.
“Both? I tried to do the bleaching myself, apparently...which makes some sense. It’s kind of hard to find a salon that deals with white hair around here. It still came out orange. I’m lucky my hair grows fast. But the fight...they didn’t trust me for awhile after that, and it wasn’t long after that I caught my mom starting to give me these weird looks. She’d reference some conversation we’d supposedly had, and I wouldn’t know what she was talking about, but then she’d shut down and refuse to discuss it.”
“Do you know what was going on?”
Zoe hesitated. “Some of it. I’ve had a...a lot of therapy, since then. I found conversations I didn’t know I’d had, relived things I didn’t realize I’d done. It’s weird. Even now, the memories don’t settle quite right. Like I was inside my head, watching through a window as someone else controlled me.
“My doctor said that the blackouts were a way of protecting myself. A part of me doesn’t want to admit to all of this, for whatever reason, so I disassociate myself. Like I can’t feel guilty over it, or it can’t hurt me, if I wasn’t the one that did it, yanno?”
Keanu nodded, though he wasn’t sure if she could see him. “I get it.”
“Do you.”
He turned onto his side and pooled his head against the crook of his elbow. “Not entirely. I haven’t done that. But I can think I can see why someone would want to, even if wasn’t intentional. You never figured out why?”
“No, but I’m pretty sure all of this...Not that she’d believe this, either.”
“She?”
“My doctor.” Zoe stretched and turned to face him in kind. They stared across the gap between the beds and Keanu gulped as their eyes met. The obstinate part of him wanted to remind him that this girl was a stranger, and the rest was content to cloud all of that over with what felt like eons of familiarity. This was a boy he’d grown up with, who had had his back in war, whom he had laughed with, and cried with, and whose death he had--No. Jerking himself back to the present, he ignored the ghost like whispers of the past and met her eyes now.
“You’re still in therapy?”
She shook her head just slightly, barely perceptible in the dark. “It’s a bit worse than that.” Zoe told him, briefly, of where she and Jun had spent the last two years and their recent escape. Never before had Keanu been annoyed that someone had actually sought help when they needed it. When he took a step back, Keanu knew that it wasn’t really that which bothered him, but the fact that their already complicated situation had just compounded before his eyes.
“You should try to get some sleep,” he said when she’d finished. “We’re all going to need our rest.”
“So should you.” Despite her reproach, the girl snuggled down a little further into the bed. Keanu thought she might have gone to sleep, but then she said: “Kunz--Keanu?”
“Yeah?”
“Do we really have to do this?”
For a long moment, Keanu stared into the darkness where he knew his friend’s face was. He pretended he could see Zoicite as he had been: those big blue eyes and tame, blond curls...
They vacated with the dawn; Jun took Nick with him to pay, and then two boys met Keanu and Zoe a block down the road. Breakfast was bought at a convenience store where an attendant gave them the eye as they milled about the shop. Jun and Zoe handled the selection, and then paid the clerk, who handed over their change. Keanu noticed Zoe giving Jun a sidelong glance, but she didn’t say anything.
Once they were outside again, the two blonds led them down the street over an intense conversation. Though he didn’t understand a word of it, Keanu didn’t like the sound of whatever they were discussing. He shared a look with Nick, who seemed to share his misgivings. Zoe stopped at an intersection, glanced about, then lead them down the street to a small park.
Already people were about, getting ready for their day: shopkeepers swept the sidewalk outside their shops; delivery men sped past on bicycles; and a few cars passed through mostly empty streets. They walked past a man putting fresh eggs into a vending machine, and Keanu stopped to stare a moment.
Zoe caught his wrist and tugged him along before the man noticed him. “Come on, we gotta talk.”
“What was the problem at the shop?” They found an area of grass near a playground and sat down. Jun began to pass around some large, white balls of rice and bottles of milk. Zoe took hers and bit into it before she answered.
“You know where we just came from”
“We do?” Nick swallowed his mouthful of food.
Zoe shook her head and, after a sip of her milk, related the same short story she’d told Keanu the night before. “So, obviously, we don’t have any money.”
“Uh...” Keanu and Nick stared at her a long moment, then Keanu leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. “Then exactly how...?”
Zoe turned to Jun, and, a short command later, he produced a slip of pink construction paper from his pocket. The boy turned it over a few times, letting them get a good look at it. Then it was a ten-thousand yen note, perfect in every way. He handed it to Nick, who looked it over before handing it on to Keanu. Jun said, and Zoe translated: “The illusion won’t last forever, but he doesn’t know how long. We haven’t had a chance to time it.”
Keanu frowned. “You got change at that store.”
Making a face, Zoe nodded. “Mm.”
Nick snickered. “That’s brilliant.”
“That’s stealing.” Keanu handed the construction paper money back to Jun and looked at his untouched breakfast. He took a bite, regardless of the unsettled feeling in the pit of his stomach. To his surprise the ball was filled with a meat of some kind. It wasn’t bad.
“All of it’s stealin’, if ya wanna get technical ‘bout it. Y’do what ya gotta do.” Nick shrugged and polished off his meal.
He hated that Nick had a point, but that was the reality of the situation. What else where they supposed to do? Zoe didn’t say anything more about it; Keanu took her silence for agreement. “We need a plan.”
“I dinnit wanna say anythin’ bout it afore, but what’s with this killin’ business? I don’t see any reason...”
Keanu shifted uncomfortably, and rubbed the back of his neck. He licked his lips and thought a moment before saying: “I don’t remember everything. If any of you do, please say so. But...we were given an order, by the last real king. So it’s not exactly…I don’t know where you got the idea that we have to save him. Endymion can’t have taken the throne, when there is no throne to take. God this sounds....”
Zoe lifted her eyebrows. “Insane?”
He winced. “Sorry, I didn’t--”
“No, it pretty well is.” She gave him a smirk and shrugged. “That’s kind of normal, anymore. If we’re going with all this being real--and the five of us falling under the same delusion mostly separate of one another suggests that it is--then we have to take what we know of the past seriously.”
There was a pause as Jun asked something, and Zoe spent a minute relaying what they were saying. What she’d said dawned on Keanu as he finished off his milk. When she’d finished with Jun, he frowned at the pair of them. “Five?”
The girl blinked at him, then looked down at her unfinished rice ball. “Beryl.”
Nick put his hand on his cheek, leaning forward a little. “The queen?”
“Look, that’s best not tampered with, OK?” Zoe scowled at the pair of them. Beside her, Jun had gone tense and was staring out into the park. Keanu followed his line of sight, but didn’t see anything that would set the boy on alert. Despite this, Jun’s hand clutched, white knuckled, at his legs, and his jaw had gone tight. “We really don’t need her.”
“But if she knows somethin’ we don’t--,” began Nick.
“She doesn’t!”
The pair glowered at one another, and Keanu raised both his hands before it could escalate further. “Alright! We’ll talk about that later. For right now, we need to figure out where we’re going. Hell, this is all moot as we don’t even know where Endymion is.”
Once again, Zoe looked as guilty as a fox in a chicken coop. Keanu sighed and waved her on with a flick of his wrist. When she’d gulped down the last of her breakfast, Zoe cast a glance at Jun, who hadn’t budged, and then she began to elaborate on their mutual stories.
Jun flinched every time Bachiko was mentioned. It was obvious that there was a history there which Zoe didn’t care to share, and Keanu wasn’t at all sure he wanted to go into it, either--doubly so by the time that she finished. He sat with his elbows on his knees, knuckles against his lips, and stared down into the grass. They were all looking at him, save for Jun, just as they always had.
Keanu scrubbed his hands over his face. “We either go to Tokyo and find this ‘Chiba Mamoru’...”
“Or?” Nick was munching on a blade of grass, his green eyes watching Keanu with a strange, demanding sort of patience.
“Or...we don’t.”
Zoe watched him a long moment, then nodded. She related this to Jun. “He wants to know--Omae nani itten da yo?”
Jun glanced at her a brief second before his attention focused once more without. He jerked his chin toward the park at large and gave a quick answer. The girl craned her neck to see about him, then gave him a confused look. “He...wants to know who the people following you are.”
Alarm shot through Keanu’s veins and Nick sat up straight. For a moment, his heart beating in his throat, Keanu looked wildly about but saw nothing suspicious. Zoe waved her hands at them. “Relax. I don’t know what he’s talking about.”
“Wha’d’you mean?” Nick glared at her, still tense as a guitar string. She sighed.
“Really, I don’t know. He said there are people standing over there, watching us, but…well, look.”
She’d gestured to a particular tree beside a basketball court. Sure enough, there was no one there at all; no one even in the vicinity. Keanu relaxed a little. “Does he often--”
“Sometimes, yeah.”
Nick was still staring, though, as was Jun. Since neither seemed inclined to say much of anything, Keanu shook his head and began to pick up their mess. “We should find some place less public.”
Zoe nodded and got up to help him. A short while later they’d pried the other two up and prompted them to walk. Without any real idea of what they were doing or where they were going, they continued on aimlessly until Zoe suddenly came to a halt. Nick ran into her and cursed, but she shushed him, snapped something at Jun, and, together, they shoved the two Americans into an alley.
“What the hell?”
“Shut up a minute.” Less than a second later, a police car went past on the road. Immediately, Zoe and Jun both relaxed.
Jun shook his head and muttered something to himself as he sat down on a random crate. Nick gave them both a weird look. “Aight, you don’t like the po-po, that it?”
“No, but that isn’t it.” Leaning against one of the buildings they were between, Zoe chewed her bottom lip as she looked up at the pair of them. “We better figure out what we’re doing soon, because this is going to get real difficult, real quick.”
“Especially if you keep goin’ around pushin’ people inta alleys like that.”
“Because you two are escapees?” Keanu lifted a brow.
Ignoring Nick, Zoe seemed to waver on the point. “Not...yes and no. Even without the two of you, we’d still be in a pretty poor position on our own, what with--”
Jun jumped to his feet and backed into Keanu. Stumbling, they looked to the head of the alley where the cop car was back. The man inside was staring out at them and talking into his radio. Zoe made a hissing sound, then turned and ran. The others followed soon behind, and the cop car door slammed.
A chain link fence backed the alley, but Zoe and Nicholas scaled it like cats in a tree. Nick perched at the stop to help Keanu and Jun up while Zoe went ahead on the other side. She paused at the other end of the alley, watching their exit as the others caught up to them. The fence put up a clamour as the officer mounted it behind them; they turned down the other street, much more crowded than the one they’d been on, and dipped and dodged through the crowd.
There was a siren ahead of them. Keanu looked up to see another police car--back up, probably--turn the corner they were running toward. Jun grabbed his shoulder and pulled him down another alley. This one lead into a smaller side street that was too thin for vehicles. Dodging mothers with shopping bags and bicycle traffic, the pair kept on running until the wails of sirens were far behind them.
Finally, they stopped in a high-walled residential area. Jun squatted in the alcove entrance to someone’s yard, and Keanu stood with him. After a few minutes, he peeked out into the road in hopes that the others might come around the corner. They didn’t, and he growled. “Dammit.”
Jun looked up at him, eyebrows raised. “We lost the others,” Keanu said, and Jun just stared. This, he thought, is just fucking perfect.
When the heat had died down, the pair returned to where they’d last seen their friends. It wasn’t crawling with cops, like Keanu had expected, but neither was there any sign of Zoe or Nick. The boy he was with seemed to be edgy, as well. His eyes kept darting this way and that, like a tiger in a cage, and he jumped even at cars that loosely resembled police vehicles.
Finally, a little after noon, they stopped by some of the weirdest vending machines Keanu had seen in his life. There were some with drinks, of course, but there was also hot and cold food, fresh eggs, underwear, movies, an assortment of toys, and umbrellas. It was, in a way, much like a mini shopping mall all down a short hill just outside of a fresh fish market.
Jun used some of the legal tender he’d gotten to buy them food, and they sat on an out-of-the-way curb to eat. With little else to do, Keanu said around his food: “Hal tatakallam al-lughah al-'arabīyah?”
The boy gave him a flat look and didn’t respond. After another bite of...it may have been octopus, Keanu tried: “¿Hablas español?”
That, at least, got a shake of Jun’s head. The boy sipped his soda, then offered: “English...small?...is know.”
“Ah...” Only a lifetime of working around languages he half-understood enabled Keanu to decode that automatically. At least, he figured, there was a possibility that Jun understood more than they thought.
A pair of boots stopped before them and they looked up at a police officer. Keanu’s heart skipped a beat, but Jun addressed him quickly. The man’s attention went straight to Jun, though Keanu noticed a twinge of surprise from the officer. After a few moments, Jun opened the backpack on his shoulder and took out two passports.
There was a long moment as the man examined them, turning them over several times and flipping through the pages. He held on to them so long that Keanu was sure there was something wrong with them.
Finally, the officer handed the papers back to him. He and jun exchanged a few more words, then Jun put the papers away and bowed to the officer. Unsure of what else to do, Keanu did the same, and the man left without another word.
Jun shrugged at him, then slowly he tried: “Police wa...we--us--OK is to be stop.”
“Why is...” Keanu frowned. He gestured for the bag and Jun handed it over. Looking inside, he found nothing but a pile of construction paper. Suddenly, Keanu understood why Zoe hadn’t wanted them to get stopped, even if Jun’s illusions had managed to hold up in the end.
They cleaned up their mess and went back to searching. This time there were no helpful gut-feelings, and Keanu noticed after a time that Jun had begun to glance over his shoulder every so often.
“What is it?”
There was a pause as Jun glanced behind them again. Keanu followed suit, but saw nothing out of the ordinary. Jun shook his head in a barely perceptible fashion, and continued to walk; this time he kept his eyes forward. Though the hairs on the back of Keanu’s neck began to rise, he let this go in hopes of finally running into their lost friends.
They were passing by some kind of shop when Jun stopped completely. Keanu continued a few steps more before he noticed, and when he looked back he found the boy watching a small TV on the front of yet another vending machine. He stepped closer to get out of the flow of pedestrian traffic.
The Japanese news seemed to be as flashy as the rest of the country, Keanu thought with some surprise. All around the anchor’s cheerful face were flashing white kanji and effect boxes in brilliant pinks, blues, and yellows. Small cartoon characters danced around the bottom of the screen as the ticker cycled through its messages. To the anchor’s left was a picture of a Japanese girl with chemically fried red hair. “Bachiko,” Jun muttered. “Beryl.” Keanu frowned at the TV, and wished he’d had the forethought to take the Japanese classes his school had offered. Spanish had just seemed more...relevant, somehow.
Pictures of Zoe and Jun followed in turn, and he felt, more than saw, the boy beside him tense. They turned as one and left, praying that no one in the vicinity had been paying too much attention to the news.
Moving back into the side streets, Keanu wasn’t at all sure what to do. Night was beginning to fall, and Yamaguchi-shii was proving much larger than he’d anticipated. They found the park again and another bank of vending machines. Carrying their prizes into the grass, they settled down not too far away from where a group of boys were playing a game of soccer. No one seemed particularly interested in them, and for that Keanu was glad.
Back in his Boy Scout days, they had always said that in the event you became lost you should pick a place and stay there until your party found you again. That concept was a good one in the wild, probably, but Keanu didn’t think it would pan out too well in this situation--if both groups tried the same thing, they’d just be stuck doing nothing. On the other hand, they had tried roaming about and hadn’t found their prey, so perhaps it was time to try staying put.
Keanu groaned and thumped his head back on the tree behind him. He stared up into its branches, watching a particular little song bird hop along the limb. It was a drab little thing for the most part, brown and grey, except for its chest--that was red as blood. Something about this nagged at the back of his head.
“Kunzite.”
Pulling his attention from the trees, Kunzite faced the man glowering down at him. Hematite looked every inch the bruiser that he was, from his wide muscled frame, to his gorilla-like arms, to the jagged network of scars that covered half his face. It was always strange, even to his own son, to see him in anything other than a work tunic and oft-mended leggings yet there he stood in full uniform and seeming ever inch out of place.
Kunzite scrambled to his feet and would have scraped a bow had Hematite not stopped him. The old warrior threw an arm about Kunzite’s shoulders and lead him down the path back toward the castle. “I thought I’d find you at that damned pavilion, again. What were you up to?”
“Thinking. I needed some fresh air.”
Hematite’s arm tightened about Kunzite, and the man’s voice dropped to a gravely whisper, “You needed to be away from him.”
“Sir, I--”
“Don’t, boy.” Giving his son a quick, warning glance, Hematite shook his head. “I know you better than that.”
Clasping his hands behind his back, Kunzite chewed upon his bottom lip a moment before he said: “He has grown distant of late.”
“Aye.” From the corner of his eye, Kunzite saw his father’s beard bob along with his head. They were both tall, but Kunzite had not yet reached his father’s height--he doubted, at this point, that he ever would, and secretly thanked Gaea for that. There was a fine line between tall and giant, and his father had crossed it long ago. “From many he used to call friend, and brother. It’s not gone unmarked.”
A tremble ran down his spine and Kunzite was certain that Hematite had felt it, but the general said nothing. Carefully, Kunzite shrugged and valiantly ignored the frantic beating of his heart. He felt that he should say something, that his father was waiting, but his mind reeled speechless.
They turned together up the path as the castle glimpsed into view above the treetops. The garden walls would soon be in sight, and with them the courtiers surely walking amongst the flowers. Hematite slowed his step, though he did not stop, as he said, “You’re a good lad, and a fine man, and I have always been proud to have a boy who so readily accepted his duty to his king. Even if I’d had my pick of sons, I couldn’t have done any better than you.”
Kunzite’s mouth bobbed for words he did not have, then he shut his jaw. He was aware of his cheeks heating, and he ducked his head as he had not since his boyhood. His father chuckled, but did not smile.
“But I wonder, sometimes, if you understand that there is another to whom your duty comes first?”
He raised his head at that strange thought, and his eyebrows furrowed. “Sir?”
Stopping in the middle of the path, Hematite fixed his son with a serious look, and squeezed the lad’s shoulder in one hand. “Her.” The warrior nodded to the forest about them. “Our home and, more importantly, the people who live upon her. Our duty is a sacred trust that cannot be broken. Not for any reason.”
“You mean Gaea,” Keanu said softly. “Our duty to Gaea.”
“Gaea?” Jun stared up at him, one blond eyebrow lifted. The night had fallen around them, and Keanu became suddenly aware that his butt was freezing. He’d fallen asleep, he guessed from the grit in his eyes and he rubbed them clean. Yawning, Keanu shook his head to ward off any questions.
The soccer players had gone, but there were still other people walking in the park: a couple strolling in the distance, a woman standing beneath a tree across the soccer field, a pair of children sitting on a monkey bar. Staring at them.
Keanu frowned at that, and Jun nudged his shoulder. There was a slight shake to the boy, now, and his eyes kept darting to the children. Try as he might, Keanu wasn’t sure what the problem was--the kids were staring, sure, but they were too young to be really aware of newscasts or what “dangerous escapees” might look like. Neither were they running to their parents to complain of foreigners in the park.
Come to think of it, Keanu wasn’t sure where their parents were. He looked about for any adult which might be connected to the pair, but there was no one else save the...the girl under the tree had moved closer, halfway across the soccer field. She was stock-still when Keanu noticed her, and staring blankly in their direction. Whoever she was, she didn’t look old enough to be a mother to the kids, though she could just be watching them. He raised his hand to wave, and Jun grabbed his wrist.
“What?”
The boy shook his head, eyes wide and lips tight. “Yurei.”
Keanu turned back, and came face-to-face with the woman. Jun’s hand squeezed about his wrist as the woman stared into Keanu’s face. Her skin was white as snow, and her eyes rimmed with dark circles. She grinned in a slow, methodical gesture which did not reach her eyes, and the inside of her mouth was as black as pitch.
If it weren’t for Jun he might have stuck to the spot, but the boy grabbed his arm and drug him until he stumbled to his feet and ran.
They were easier to spot, now. Each of these creatures--these ‘yurei’--were deathly pale, save where their eyes and mouths were blacked out. It was as though each of them had crawled from an old film, projected onto the earth by moonlight. They ran without plan or reason, Jun leading the way through the streets with Keanu close behind. So much for staying in place, he thought, just as they turned a corner and crashed into another set of fleeing children.
Tangled up on the sidewalk, it took a moment for each of the four to pull themselves up again. Nick swore under his breath, and helped Jun back up to his feet. Zoe panted with her hands on her knees, then looked back behind her. Keanu turned as well, back the way he and Jun had come, but there was no sign of the woman people who had been there only moments before.
Jun grabbed Zoe’s arm, and the pair dissolved quickly into a shouting match. Nick tried to step between them, but they didn’t stop until Keanu put his fingers into his mouth and blew a sharp whistle.
It was so quiet they could hear a dog barking madly within someone’s house.
“What the hell is going on?”
Zoe tore her eyes from Jun’s face. “Which part first?”
“Those things. Jun was saying something like--”
“Yurei. They’re a kind of ghost. Like--not a demon, but...very close.” She cast a nervous glance over her shoulder, but there was no one there.
“They were following us after we got split up,” Nick said. “I didn’t notice at first, then this guy grabbed me and...”
“My apologies. I hadn’t meant to startle you.”
They jumped and stared at the newcomer, and Keanu knew that if he hadn’t been insane before, he definitely was now. The boy talking to them had a glowing, golden horn growing out the top of his head.
Nick stepped back and put his arm out as though to shield Zoe, who gave him a sour look. “Who are you?”
“My name is Helios,” said the stranger, and he put his hand over his heart as he bowed to them. A smile touched at the corners of his lips when he righted himself, and gestured to the air beside him. “Please, come with me.”
A large oval window frame materialized in the middle of the street. No, not a window--a door. Keanu stared at the flowered field beyond it. “We don’t know you. Why would we--”
Helios had flinched, just faintly, and Keanu was stopped by an onslaught of conflicted emotions. Whoever this person was, he didn’t like hurting him--and he knew, somehow, that he just had. Jun touched his elbow, and they looked behind them to where a woman was standing a block away, beneath a lamppost. She didn’t have any feet.
“Get in the portal.”
“But--” said Nick.
“My presence won’t hold them off much longer,” Helios said with an apologetic smile.
Zoe ducked under Nick’s arm and was the first through the doorway. Jun followed suit, obviously not keen on leaving Zoe again. Keanu met Nick’s gaze for a long moment, then the other boy looked away and trudged in behind them. Nodding to Helios, Keanu was the last in before the portal closed behind them.
They stood waist deep in grass and wild flowers. The field was a familiar one, and a chill ran down Keanu’s spine.
“Where are we?”
He glanced at Jun, “I’m not sure, but--wait. You don’t speak English.”
“I’m not.” Jun glowered at him. Zoe looked perplexed, glancing between the pair of them.
“Language makes no difference here,” said Helios, appearing before them. Keanu didn’t even try to figure out where the boy had come from. He smiled as they faced him, and tipped his chin. “So long as the language is of Earth, anyway.”
“There are others?”
Turning, the boy began to walk out into the flowers. “Come. The shrine is being prepared for you.”
Zoe stood her ground, arms crossed over her chest. “Does that preparation involve any kind of virgin sacrifice? Because I might just have to pass.”
Nick thumped her shoulder as he passed. “Don’t ya worry, kiddo, this ain’t that kinda flick. Too many flowers.”
Shaking his head, Keanu stopped at Zoe’s side as Jun followed after the brunet. “He’s not going to hurt us, Zoe.”
“How do you know that?”
“...the same way I know you.”
She raised her eyes to his and studied him a moment. Then, Zoe shook her head a little and chewed on her bottom lip. “OK. If you say so.” Unsure of where the urge came from, or how he dared to be so bold, Kunzite slung his arm about her shoulders as they walked after the other three.
Like the time before, the field seemed to go on forever. The forest never got any closer, but as they passed over hill after hill, there came the rise of a tower in the distance. Finally, they came up to a crest and there, in the dip upon the other side, was the shrine. It was comprised mostly of arches and columns, with all four sides open to the wind. He knew, without having to enter, that the middle would have an open skylight as well, that the sun’s light--and the moon’s--might shine upon the crystal within.
Roses had spread all over the edifice, though his strange memory told him that these were new. There came a darkness at that thought, a deep seated disgust that those would grow here, and try as he might Keanu could not find the reason for it. Zoe made an annoyed sound and scowled at one of the blossoms as they passed.
Ahead of them, Helios glanced back at them and there was sadness in his eyes. “I hadn’t thought to see any of you again, but it seems that there are other ideas about.”
“Do you always speak in riddles?” Nick slowed to a stop at the stairs to the shrine. He gazed up into it, but seemed reluctant to go any further. Helios turned, already halfway up the steps.
“It is not my intention to confuse you, though I suppose that this must all be...rather perplexing. Please, come inside and I’ll explain.”
“Why not here?” Jun had stopped in kind with Nick, and the other two fell into place just behind them.
The boy descended the steps again, and sat near the bottom. “Very well. Please, make yourselves comfortable.”
Keanu, Zoe, and Jun found themselves seats on the ground, but Nick remained standing behind them. He leaned upon a column and plucked a rose from the vine. Petal by petal, he began to pluck it.
Zoe faced Helios squarely. “What is this place?”
“This is your home. Or it was, a very long time ago. It is called Elysion, the Golden Kingdom, and it is the cradle of all human civilization.”
Jun laughed. “That’s the Tigris-Euphrates valley.”
“The two rivers run through here, yes.” Helios nodded, and gestured to the distance. “The old palace sits near the crux of them. Of course, this is a different section than in the physical realm. I believe three of you have already been to the castle.”
The children stared at him a long moment, and even Nick stopped his plucking. Helios nodded, and pursed his lips. “I was asleep for a very long time, like the maidens of this shrine. When I woke, Elysion had been invaded by an evil sorceress known as Nehelenia. I thought that the nightmares were her doing, but--”
“An evil sorceress.” Keanu sat forward and fixed Helios with a stare. “You’re serious?”
“Ken, all respect man, but yer askin’ a guy with a horn on his head, who just saved us from a pack of angry ghosts, if he’s serious about some bitch that does magic. That ain’t the weirdest shit we’ve heard all year.”
Helios gave them both a surprised look, but Keanu nodded and sat back. “He’s right, I’m sorry.”
“As I was saying, I thought the nightmares were Nehelenia’s doing, and when she was defeated...things returned to normal for a time. The ruins were still there, of course, but I didn’t venture close enough to them on a daily basis to know that there was anything...else.”
“You mean the...” Jun frowned. “You mean the yurei.”
Helios nodded. “Yes, that’s a word for them. Though I believe the word we used to use was ‘youma.’”
Recognition shot through Keanu like a lightning bolt, and he saw Zoe startle as well. The other two merely looked resigned. Raising her hands, Zoe waved them, palms out, “Wait, wait, wait. Back up. What castle? Those were dreams!”
`“No they weren’t,” said Jun in a near whisper. “You were with me, weren’t you? When the king cast him out.”
Zoe stared at Jun, then looked to Keanu and Nick in turn. None could meet her eyes. “The castle still exists.”
“If this place does...” muttered Nick.
On the steps above them, Helios hung his head. “The castle exists, yes. As do the people who lived in it. They are the reason I brought you here.”
The sun was coming up when they agreed to retire into the shrine. Though Keanu did not like the idea of trying to sleep in this place, not when he knew the horrors that laid elsewhere in Elysion, he knew that there was less option for them in returning to the so-called ‘physical realm’.
Underneath the shrine proper, there was a network of rooms where once dozens of priests and priestesses had lived. Now there were only three: Helios, and the two shrine maidens who had survived with him. The maidens had cleaned out a room for each of them along the main corridor and left them with instructions on where to find the wash chambers.
The rooms weren’t much--barely enough space to turn around in, made of pure marble, and with nothing but a pallet and a brazier each--but they were enough. Keanu had barely laid his head down before he passed out.
It was cold and dark in the throne room, and not just from the tons of ice far over their head. Kunzite could feel the press of the spirits at his back, though he could never see them. They were tricky in that way, always lurking at the edge of one’s vision only to disappear when looked at directly. He ignored them as best he could in favour of the queen.
Beryl was still studying the orb before her, her crimson eyes locked upon its swirling depths. He was never quite sure what it was that she saw in it. Whatever it was, it seemed to satisfy her eventually for she let the crystal go and looked at him. “Lord Kunzite. What news have you?”
“I’m afraid there’s been little progress, my lady. The tunnels run far, but all the portals into Elysion proper are closed to us. We fear it didn’t survive.”
“Perhaps.” One claw traced slow circles upon the surface of the crystal as Beryl thought.
There had been a time, long distant now, when Beryl had been beautiful. A strong, vibrant woman, he’d admired her though he hadn’t liked her. These days, however...Kunzite staved off his rising annoyance before the ogress could catch a whiff of it. What had remained of Beryl in this life was a poor imitation of woman he’d known, and she seemed no closer to finding answers than any of the rest of them. “Perhaps not...”
“My lady?”
Beryl looked up again, her hand resting upon the crystal and still distracted. She wetted her lips and shook her head. “What did you need, Kunzite?”
He paused, then shook his head. “Nothing, my lady.”
“Then leave me. I am busy.”
He backed from the dais, turned, and strode out of the hall through the demons that gathered at her feet. Elysion, he thought, was not the problem here.
With no way to tell the time underground, Keanu got up as soon as he felt the need to do so. After washing himself briefly in the wash room, he went upstairs and into the crisp, morning air of Elysion. The sun was rising, it seemed, and he realized with a start that he must have slept the whole day away.
“The others are still down.”
Zoe was sitting on the steps with a breakfast on a napkin. She pointed to a small bowl of pastries someone had left near the stair door, and he retrieved a few before joining her. “I don’t think I’ve ever slept that long.”
“Me neither. I’m an insomniac, usually.”
“You didn’t use to be,” Keanu said automatically, and then winced.
Zoe frowned. She finished off the last of her breakfast, and then dusted her hands on her grubby jeans. “Jun tried to warn us in the park, about the yurei.”
“Yeah.” Unsure of what he was even eating--and, to be honest, he didn’t think he cared--Keanu swallowed one sawdust mouthful around the lump of guilt in his throat. “I figured that out, after we got chased. How long do you think he’s been seeing these things?”
“Longer than the rest of us, probably.” Zoe shifted in her seat and rubbed her hands together. “I never believed him before. I wish I had.”
“Don’t be so hard on yourself.” Keanu choked down the last of his pastry and stood up. “Come on, I want to try something.” He was half down the stair before he heard Zoe following, but she did, and he didn’t look back. She caught up to him when they were far out into the field, and glanced nervously behind them. “We won’t get lost.”
“You sure?”
Instead of answer that, Keanu trudged onward. Another moment later and suddenly, out of no where, they had reached the forest’s edge. Zoe came to a halt and turned in circles as she stared open mouthed at the change of scenery. “How the hell--?”
“I don’t think people were allowed at the shrine,” said Keanu. “There was a--”
“Spell on it,” they finished together.
Zoe nodded. “And the castle...it’s just a little ways from here, right? Through the woods.”
Keanu glanced at the trees in question and frowned. “Well...yes, but--”
“Lets go see.” Zoe started for the trees, and Keanu jogged after her.
“Wait.” He caught her arm, gently, and shook his head. “You really don’t want to do that.”
“Why not?”
Keanu looked again to the trees, and he wasn’t sure if he imagined the faces within it or not. Zoe followed his gaze and then took his hand from her elbow. “I’ll be okay, alright? I think there’s a ledge not too far from here. We can see it. We won’t go down there. I just...I need to see.”
Finally, Keanu nodded, and they went together to a little path not too far from where they stood. It didn’t seem to be the same one that he and Nick had traveled a few days before, and Keanu was glad of that. As Zoe had predicted, they soon came across a short cliff in the hillside, which overlooked a river and, further upstream, the backside of the castle. From here they could see the garden filled with overgrown rosebushes and hedges which had long since lost their shape. At some point a tree had fallen and broken the enclosure, and now the once carefully tended flora spilled out into the forest beyond.
A collection of broken columns rested where there had once been a pavilion by the river’s edge, where the queen and king had once taken their breakfast every morning. Further down the river, in similar shape and hidden by a bend from the castle, was another such pavilion. This one had been made of marble, much like Helios’s shrine, but it had served a much different purpose.
“Kunzite,” said Zoe, her voice hardly more than a whisper. Her eyes were centered upon the castle, and she rubbed her arms against the morning chill. “Why was this place sealed to us? When Beryl--”
Her chin lifted, suddenly, and she turned widened eyes to him. “Beryl!”
“Where?” Keanu looked about them and found no one. Zoe grabbed his arm.
“No, not here. I meant to tell you, in Yamaguchi-shi Nick and I saw the news while we were walking--”
“Yes, so did we.”
“--Then you know she’s escaped?”
Frowning, Keanu shook his head. “I couldn’t understand. How?”
“I don’t know. They think she’s with me and Jun, that we broke her out or something. Which is ridiculous, I don’t even know what facility they transferred her to. She’s definitely missing, though, and I think she might be after Endymion.” Zoe paused, her eyes searching his face, and then she let him go. Taking a step back, she frowned and narrowed her eyes. “You don’t care, do you?”
Swallowing thickly, Keanu found his gaze drug back to that ancient pavilion by the river. Though he knew, deep within his soul, that there was something wrong about it, he couldn’t seem to remember what it was. The thought nagged at him, as did many things. Everything. Half understood orders and information, two--no, three--lifetimes of information twisted upon one another and never making any sense.
He turned and paced, one hand swiping through his hair. “I don’t know!”
Her eyes were accusing when he looked back at her, and a very, very bright blue. His heart lurched, and he sat heavily upon a nearby log. “Don’t look at me like that.”
A silence passed between them as Zoe fidgeted. She glowered at the ground, at the trees, at the castle down the river...then she sighed and rubbed a palm over her face. In kind, Keanu felt the anger rushing out of him, and he put his palms together before his lips. His thumbs rubbed into his sinuses as he closed his eyes and let the words come. “We could run away. We could forget all this ever happened or is happening. Why should we have to? Why is it always us who must give up everything...”
He heard her move through the grass and settle upon the log beside him, thigh to thigh. “Forgive me,” whispered Zoe. “That wasn’t fair.”
“Life ain’t fair,” said Nick. He and Jun came in off the path, each looking rested, at the least, but no less haggard or confused than they had the day before. Nick was staring at the palace. “Everyone’s dead. Family, our friends. They dinnit ask for what happened to ‘em, it just did. That fair?”
“No but--”
“The yurei.” They all turned to look at Jun, who seemed stricken as he stared into the distance. He moved closer to the edge of the cliff, then turned to look at each of them in turn. “Who knows what happened here? Who knows exactly?”
None of them answered; could not answer. Jun, crestfallen, looked back to the castle. “Helios said he rescued us, but not all of them mean us harm. Zoe, didn’t one help you, back at the hospital? You said it did.”
“Yeah. The other I had to kill, though. It was trapping you--”
“Here. It trapped me here.”
“Souls ain’t supposed to linger,” said Nick with a thoughtful hum. He frowned. “Happens, sometimes, but mostly when they’re...”
Zoe raised her eyes to Jun’s. “When a spirit is wronged before death. When they have not had proper burial, or desire revenge against a great foul against them. That is a yurei.”
Keanu threw his hands up and rose from the log. “Whoah! Wait. We’re jumping to conclusions. None of us really know what even happened. Granted, I’ve seen the--the bodies. There were no burials performed here, so maybe you have a point, but we should ask Helios first--”
“Not me.”
They looked up as Helios joined them. He offered them a sad smile and clasped his hands behind his back. “You do not remember me at all, do you?”
Keanu shook his head. “I’m sorry, but I don’t.”
Though crestfallen, the horned boy nodded. “I’m afraid I don’t know, either. This is why I assumed it was Nehelania’s doing. At the time when all of this occurred, I was a young acolyte of Gaea--the youngest to have ever been taken into service. As you’ve remembered, the shrine is unavailable to all but certain persons--those who have given their sacred oaths to Gaea. Its spells can be weakened, as they were by several enemies past, but in that time they were strong and new. I knew nothing of the war, save the word, until my mentor bid me sleep within the crystal that I might be safe. When I awoke, it was to Nehelenia’s tampering.”
“What of Endymion?” Keanu’s fist closed and his jaw went taunt. “He lives yet. Has he done nothing?”
Helios pursed his lips. “I have not called for him, and he has not felt the trouble. I thought to, many times, but I tried first to correct the issue myself. However...”
“You know what they want.” Nick glared at the boy. “You know you can’t bring him here, to that.”
The boy bowed his head. “When I realized that you four were reborn, that they were already calling to you...I hoped that you could get them to listen to reason.”
“And what is reason?” Keanu tipped his head to one side. “What would you have us say: that they died for a just cause? That their anger is irrational? That they should allow Endymion back to the land he left forsaken?”
“You don’t know what those words mean,” said Helios, though he lacked all appropriate venom.
“And you don’t know why they exist any more than we do. Less.”
To that the boy said nothing, and after waiting several minutes, Keanu shook his head and turned. “There is one who may know. And I think I know where she is.”
“Kunzite--” started Zoe.
“We have to.” He met Jun’s eye, and the boy simply lifted his chin. “I’m sorry, but we have to know the truth. We have to know our duty.”
They found a small fishing boat which was still in tack and used that to follow the river along its course. For most of the day, the four took turns rowing as they rekindled their memories of a nearly forgotten childhood. There was the field where Zoicite had gotten his arm split open on a rock, which had left a scar for the rest of his days. There was the mudpatch where they’d fished bugs up with sticks. There was their favorite swimming hole, somehow with a twine rope still attached to an overhanging bough. Everywhere they looked was a memory, and also a sadness, for even the banks were not without corpses.
Faint glimpses of pale faces followed them along the river, though in the daylight they were hard to see. Once, Keanu thought he saw a large, scarred man standing beneath a tree and waving to them. He nearly waved back before the image disappeared.
It was toward the end of the day that they found the cave the river exited to. He heard, like a whisper of wind through the trees, a long forgotten voice telling him that the entrance was blocked. In another moment they had passed through it and into the pitch black darkness of the cave, without the slightest hesitation or problem.
“I thought...didn’t we have a hard time, before..?” Zoe looked behind them as, once again, the darkness seemed to recede from around them. Keanu figured he was doing his glow-bug impersonation again and felt his cheeks heat.
“Something was keeping us out,” he said. “Beryl was livid. It was then that she turned her thoughts to...some kind of crystal.”
“The Ginzushou.” Jun leaned against his oar. “It was the Ginzushou.”
Nick snorted. “And Endymion.”
They all shuddered, and Keanu turned his thoughts toward where the river was going. The water was beginning to pick up pace as they got further into the cavern and the chasm narrowed. Docking probably would be a good idea, but when Keanu turned to do so he realized he had no idea how.
“Pretty soon we’re going to hit that glacier,” said Nick.
“No, the river will ice over before that.”
Zoe gripped the side of the boat as it careened through the water. “And that’s a good thing?”
“Not really. Not at this speed.” Keany stumbled, then grabbed the help as the boat narrowly missed some rocks. He hadn’t really thought of that and the water was sloshing white around them.
“There's no earthly way of knowing which direction we are going,” Nick chanted over the water’s rumble, “There's no knowing where we're rowing or which way the river's flowing...”
“Not helping!” Zoe loosened her hand just long enough to hit him.
“Nick!” Keanu turned to the boy as he grabbed Zoe’s arm to keep her from flying off the back of the boat.
“I get it, not helping!”
Keanu grabbed an oar to push them away from another boulder. “Not that. We need to not be here.”
“What?”
Jun grabbed up the other oar and followed suit. He didn’t know if any of them had ever been white water rafting before, but he was sure he wouldn’t want to ever again. The worst part was not being able to see more than a few feet ahead of them. Nick pulled Zoe back up against him, and the pair clung to one another. “Like the car!”
“I’ve never done that intentionally.”
“Try!”
A great roar was building ahead of them and Keanu’s stomach bottomed out. Something told him that there weren’t any waterfalls on this river--they certainly hadn’t seen one before--and that whatever was making that sound, they didn’t want to know about it. “Nick!”
“I’M TRYING!”
Water sloshed up into the boat, knocking them all flat into the back of it. The noise was growing louder, and louder...
The boat skidded to a halt as a blast of frigid air chilled them instantly to the bone. They tumbled, end over end, into the snow and ice. Keanu pulled himself to his feet with a groan, and every inch of him was shaking. All around them the world was solid white, frozen and cold.
He looked about until he saw a frosted orange shirt peeking out of a snowbank, then hobbled over and dug Jun out of the mess. Together, the two boys found the boat upended not too far away. Nick and Zoe crawled out from underneath it, showing absolutely no sign of the cold.
“Your lips are blue,” said Zoe. She reached out and touched Keanu, and suddenly he was warm. He stared at her a moment, as her eyes widened in kind. “It’s a shield. I have a shield.”
Jun was staring off into the distance, and when Keanu looked, he had no idea what it was that boy thought so interesting. They’d seen that look before. “Ok,” he said. “Jun in the front, hold hands with Zoe, and the rest of will follow.”
Zoe nodded and grabbed Jun’s hand, who started. He babbled something in Japanese, and Nick groaned. “Not this again.”
“Yes, this,” said Keanu. He took Zoe’s other hand as she relayed his instructions to Jun. The blond boy seemed to understand what he meant, for he nodded and started off immediately. Keanu grabbed Nick’s hand before the boy turned blue, and they moved forward in a line.
They had to be in Antartica, he figured, and there was something surreal about being able to walk on top of the snowdrifts that covered the ice. Deep in the back of his mind he knew that this had something to do with Zoe--if she weren’t there, if her power weren’t extending to cover the whole of them, they’d have been dead of exposure by now. More and more these sudden gaps in his knowledge bothered him, like a wound at the top of his mouth he couldn’t stop picking at.
Jun didn’t falter, though. Whatever trail it was that he followed, he did so like a bloodhound after a fox. It wasn’t long before they found a single, dark hole upon the otherwise barren landscape. Like every other strange thing in his life, this was as familiar and right to him as breathing was to everyone else. Of course, there was a cavern beneath the ice. Of course, it connected with the glacier he and Nick had found days earlier. Of course, Jun knew exactly where it was, and, when they descended into it, they knew that they would not get lost within the caves.
They knew because, he realized with a start, they had done this before.
As they marched on through the darkness, whispers and giggles began to surround them. The yurei’s presence lifted the hair on his arms and neck, and he tried to ignore them. Only Jun seemed relatively unaffected by it; he kept his eyes forward and lead their way with every air of confidence. Perhaps, Keanu thought, it was the yurei Jun had followed in the first place.
Finally, there came a light ahead of them, faint and purple but real. Each slowed to a halt before they reached it, and they looked to each other. This was their last chance to turn back, he knew. Their last moment to run and try and forget that any of this had ever happened.
“It won’t change anything,” he said softly. “Running away. It won’t change anything.”
“We have to finish it,” Nick agreed, taking a step forward.
Jun nodded. “I’m tired of being lost.”
Zoe hesitated behind them, and she looked first to Jun, and then to Keanu. “I don’t...” Pursing her lips, the girl licked them. “You’re right,” she said eventually, “I just wish you weren’t.”
That said, she fell into step beside them. Together, the four marched forth into the queen’s audience chamber.
The girl upon the throne did not closely resemble the woman he’d known, though she’d tried. Bachiko’s hair was fried from chemicals and red as a crayon. Over her thin, curve-less body she wore nothing more than a dirty, long purple t-shirt with Mickey Mouse on the front. Her legs were covered in bruises and scratches, and she hadn’t clipped her fingernails in months, maybe years.
When they entered, she looked up and giggled. In her lap was a crystal ball, the exact replica of the one she’d always had before, and it swirled with a faint purple glow of her power. “I knew you’d come back,” she cooed, “My boys. My generals.”
If her eyes stayed a little longer upon Jun, he did not seem bothered, but for the faintest tremble in his chin. “Maybe,” said Keanu, “Maybe not. We’ve only come for answers, Beryl.”
At her old name, the girl twitched. Her eyes focused a little more than they had been, and she turned her attention to him. “Kunzite. Yes, you are Kunzite, aren’t you? The noble, pompous Kunzite. Come to take my throne, have you?”
His eyes narrowed. “I told you, we’ve come for answers. I have no interest in your throne.”
“It’s mine!” In a moment the girls’ face had transformed to that of a demon’s: fanged and wild, and filled with rage. “You can’t have it! I worked too long, too hard...”
As soon as the moment had come, it vanished. The girl settled back, a girl again, and sniffed. “He left me all alone, Kunzite, what was I supposed to do?”
Keanu took a step forward. Jun caught his elbow, but Keanu shook his head and the boy let him go. Kneeling before the throne, close enough that he might touch her knee were he to want to, Keanu looked up at the woman. “I stayed by your side, did I not, my Queen?”
“You were always loyal,” she mused.
“And I am still, to the rightful heir.”
Her eyes narrowed. Tapping her nails against the crystal ball, Beryl looked him over. Her eyes--dark, now, though he thought he caught a flash of crimson--darted to the other generals in turn, and then back to him. Wordlessly, she picked up her crystal and held it aloft. It began to glow.
A thousand men, a thousand swords, thousands of sets of armour, catapults and steeds, and supply chains, command tents and battle plans, maps--these were the instruments of war, which he had been trained to use from birth. Armies would meet in fields and find their answers in sweat and blood, where politics had failed.
War was never pretty, but this was not war.
Kunzite stood upon what had been a battlefield and gazed across yard after yard, mile after mile, of twisted, mutilated dead. No natural fire could have wasted so many at once; no natural lightning clipped at the heels of soldiers and blew them from where they stood. The army which had faced them had had been but a fraction of their numbers, and yet it was their silver banner which fluttered now upon its post.
His vision swam, and he stood in these very caves, facing down five young girls in uniforms. A rage filled him as he knew what they had done, what he had at stake to lose if they beat him, but he was weak. He had fought so long, and he was so very, very tired.
Another scene, another danger, another mistake. Two lives flooded within his mind at once, each like a punch to the gut. The world seemed to spin beneath his feet and he felt himself falling, falling, falling...
At last, his mind settled upon columns in a dull grey light, and a foreign palace stretched before him. He marched along the corridor, ignoring the shouts and clamour of battle from without. Ahead of him was the end of this, and he knew what he must do.
She stood upon the steps, her eyes focused not on him but the men and women locked in battle. Her silver hair flowed behind her, mingling with her dress and the white touches of her power. From her breast sprang forth a large, plain crystal.
Kunzite drew his sword and raced for the steps. Darkness jumped between them, and a blade blocked his own. Endymion met his eyes over their swords, and Kunzite knew as well as he knew his own soul that the prince’s choice had been his own.
