Fanfiction by Azusa
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By Azusa, AzusaEris@aol.com
Author's Notes:
The following piece of fiction means absolutely nothing. It isn't supposed to take
place at any definite point before, during, or after the Xenogears storyline. It's not
necessarily supposed to have even happened at all, although you can intepret it however you
like. It can be an allegory, a dream I had during waking hours, an actual part of the
Xenogears world, or anything at all you want. But I'm not saying it means anything.
Any persons attempting to find a moral will be stepped on by Siebzehn.
"Advent"
Some had renowned the mountain, in days gone past, as the
dwelling
place of God. Some had venereated it as a source of enlightenment and divine influence. Many
had journeyed here in search of revelation. Some had come for artistic inspiration. Some had
come to meet God.
Kahran Ramsus had come here to die.
A tiny flake of snow alit on the edge of his long eyelash; he flicked it off with a
quick blink and wrapped a tattered sheath of brown tightly around his body, pressing on into
the white maelstrom. In the vortex of the crying winds, snow rose and swirled with liquid
grace.
Ramsus's hands had long since gone quite numb; his withered fingers stubbornly
clutched at the clasp of his flapping robe, too frozen to move from the position they had
assumed. The wind lifted his feathery spray of grey-dappled hair and breathed a whirling gust
of life into it, so that just for a moment, it danced with its own soul. And then the drift
was gone, and a lock of hair fell down sadly before Ramsus's eyes, obscuring his view of the
barren snowscape-- however little he might have been able to see.
..."The stability of your body is breaking down on a molecular level." Hyuga's
eyes had been so heavy and sorrowful as he spoke the words to his old friend. "I wish I
hadn't been I who had to break this news to you..."
"So what does it mean for me?
Hyuga paused, inscrutable, and gently rubbed at his eye before continuing. "It means
you haven't much more than a month before your vital organs begin to cease to function, less
if you put your body through unnecessary travail." And here his eyes, brown and watery, had
filled up with tears. "I'm so sorry, Kahr. There's nothing our technology can do for you.
I've tried so hard, but I can't stop it. I'm sorry, old friend..."
Here, on the mountain, the same numbness that had overtaken his hands earlier began to
encroach on his booted feet, and distantly Ramsus wondered if even his muscles, his nerves
were beginning to fail him.
With a soft groan, he heaved his foot forward, sinking it into a knee-deep sea of icy
white, and pressed on into the tempest.
"If only..." He recalled the words with a strange wistful longing he couldn't
quite put a name to. "If only you'd been allowed to stay in that Nanoreactor longer,
instead of being taken out before your development was complete..."
The tattered edge of his coat snagged a thorny branch jutting from the surface of the
snow and tore as he pulled away, leaving a frayed scrap of cloth dangling from the bare brush.
The worn folds of the cloak swept a soft path in his wake as he pushed through the stifling
whiteness.
"If we put you on life support, we may be able to extend the duration of your life
for as much as two months, Kahr. But once your brain starts to give out... I'm afraid it
won't matter what any of us do."
"Life support...?
"Now, I can't guarantee anything; please don't hope for too much. But if you stay in
bed without putting yourself through any kind of physical duress..."
"Hyuga. No. That's not me. I can't live that way... and I won't die that way,
either."
His old friend gently tugged his glasses off his aging face, letting a lock of
white-streaked brown dangle before his eyes. "Kahr..."
"To hell with that, Hyuga. To hell with all of that. If I must die, I'll do it
alone, in my own way. That's how I've always wanted it to be. Please understand
me..."
And Hyuga had reached for him and tears had flowed like a river.
It was said that once hypothermia set in, a feeling of enveloping, quite pleasant
warmth would overcome the body. Ramsus shrugged the folds of his cloak tightly around his
neck, and mused with a quiet wonderment that his own body, for all that it stood poised on the
brink of collapse, was certainly taking its time in delivering him to that state of warm
inebriation.
His eyes stung like fire, burned by the thrall of the white glare. Deep within his
padded boots, his toes began to flare with the fiery pain of a deep chill. With a cry Ramsus
stumbled, fell to his knees in the suffocating ocean of snow, and slowly let a whimper of pain
escape his lips, mist rolling out with it in dense clouds. He couldn't go on this way...
For a time, he lay in the midst of the storm quivering, pain overtaken by exhaustion;
and then, with a heave of fanatical determination, staggered to his feet and began marching
through the snow, eyes blazing with a willpower that trod the line between humanly possible
and unreal.
I will not give up now. Not when it's almost over.
His thoughts raged around a single idea as he began his stumbling journey towards the
heart of the maelstrom. Not time yet. Not time yet. Not time...
Fueled into motion by these three words, he made it a good deal further into the storm
than even he had imagined to be within the capabilities of his dying body.
He had no notion of how far or how long he had traveled before he found himself before
the junction of two fallen rocks forming a crevice, their little shelter already half-immersed
by the falling snow. He knew only the need to rest; and with a half-delirious moan of
exhaustion and bliss, Ramsus delivered himself into the grasp of the tiny inlet of rock and
flung himself, haplessly, to the ground, then lay curled up within its confines as if embraced
by the folds of the womb he had never known.
The ice-cold burning of his extremities had faded, replaced by a numb and restful
warmth. Is this what it feels like, then? he wondered distantly, and nuzzled his head
against the feathery cushion of snow.
"Almost... time... now..." he murmured aloud, before the motion of his chilled lips
failed him.
All in all, he mused, it hadn't been such a bad life after all. Not when one
considered the dismality of its beginnings. Worse lives have surely been lived, Ramsus
thought with an inexplicable bit of good cheer. Never a dull moment, to be sure, and a little
internal chuckle resonated somewhere in the depths of his dwindling consciousness as he
thought this.
And yet... he regarded the thought with caution, taking care not to let it sully his
dying contentment... there are just a few things I could've wished for.
He snuggled his chest up against his knees. Just once, just once... it might've
been... interesting to talk to... ...him. Ask him a few things. After everything that
happened in the end... is it possible that he too felt emotions somewhere in that dark and
ancient heart of his?
Just once... ah, yes, just once would've satisfied him. But it little mattered now.
He felt a dark and restful sleep coming on, accompanied by the inevitable knowledge that if he
delivered himself into its warm and peaceful grasp, he would never again awaken. At one time
this thought would've chilled him, terrified him. Now he looked upon it with a gentle sort of
relief.
To sleep, Ramsus mused, perchance to dream. And his eyes began to close.
"Not yet."
His eyes flickered open with just the remotest bit of astonishment.
"Stay in this world, just a bit longer. Ramses, my precious child..."
Of all the times I should've wanted to face him... this certainly never ranked
among them.
"You called to me..."
The crevice of rock began to illuminate with brightness, a gentle and suffusing glow
that made Ramsus shiver slightly as his skin returned to life in the warm bath of light. At
once he became aware of the icy bitter chill that cradled his weary arms and legs, and sat up
with a twitch, muscles weak and trembling.
Through a shimmering veneer of light, Krelian's eyes glittered wistfully at him; in a
corona of brightness the man become god stood bare to the wind and cold. His feet touched the
downy surface of the snow without causing the slightest whisper of an impresion. Wreathed in
a twining curtain of hair, enshrouded by radiant golden wings, he gave the impression of a
weary king dissatisfied amidst the wonders of the world. His gaze, so ancient and heavy,
flickered across the crevice and alit upon Ramsus.
"Have you come to laugh at me as I die?" More than a bit surprised to find his voice
functional, Ramsus nonetheless coughed the words out with a strong dose of bitterness.
Krelian was silent, his radiance dancing with shadows across the walls of the
rock.
"Is it... is this what you wanted? To see me lose at last?" Ramsus inquired, his voice
growing weak and tremulous.
"Lose?" Krelian's voice was scarcely audible at first. "Lose?" At this, he smiled,
and his eyes filled with a hazy pain. "Hardly. To be one with God is to understand the
enormity of human suffering, of histories that cannot be cured. To presume myself worthy of
looking upon your face again is, I fear, supreme arrogance on my part." His wings quivered
slightly as he spoke the words, and Ramsus regarded him with an odd and intoxicating mixture
of envy, pity, and awe.
"A thousand years for every drop of blood shed by my actions... by this measure,
Ramses, I have exiled myself to the ends of existence."
Ramsus tugged at his sadly frayed coat, feeling himself shudder within its thin folds.
"Why are you doing this? Why do you come to see me in my hour of death?"
"My child." And with this Krelian knelt upon the face of the snow, his hand extending
to Ramsus in a gesture of peace but never quite touching. "Yes... I was never so enthralled
with any life I brought about as I was with you. In so many ways you were mine, and in so
many ways, in the end... you were what I ought to have been. And yet, what kind of parent was
I?" His eyes began to glisten wetly as he spoke the words; Ramsus nervously averted his gaze.
"I never gave you anything but pain and suffering, your whole life long. That such a
beautiful soul had to be housed in such a poor broken body as the one I made for you is only
the first of my wrongs."
"I..." Ramsus found his own voice imploring and hesitant. "I... am no longer bitter
about it. I found my way beyond that many years ago."
"And even so, it pains the depths of my soul, however much can be said to remain of
it, that I should have given you nothing in return for the measure of joy you brought to
me."
Ramsus tilted his head to the side in curiosity. "Why do you tell me this?"
"Ramses. I cannot ask for your forgiveness." A tiny tear, radiant with its own
internal energy, slipped down Krelian's face and vanished into the depths of the snow. "But
my heart aches to give you something, something other than misery and loss, some remembrance
of me which is not so terrible and painful."
Beyond reason Ramsus felt his heart begin to stir in his chest, and he sighed wearily.
"What could you give me now... Krelian?" His arms quivered weakly as he raised them, and the
tattered cloak fell from his shoulders and landed in a disheveled heap in the snow. "See how
old I've become. My body is at the end of its existence, and I do not fear death. I prepared
myself for this inevitability long ago. There is nothing more I wish to see or do in this
world." Limply, he allowed his frail limbs to lower. "I can't find it in me to reject you,
and yet... there is nothing you could give me."
"Ramses." Krelian's gaze lowered and he let out a sigh as gentle as a breeze. "You
and your kind are children yet. Must you think in terms only of this world?"
"I..." Ramsus felt his heart give a little flutter, and a sudden weakness surged
through his veins. Through something deeper than mere knowledge he understood that his body
was giving way. The shadow of death was upon him, and he felt not the slightest inclination
to resist its calling.
"My child. My dear, precious child... the end is near for that poor weak body of
yours. Stand and face me, Ramses..."
"Why?"
"So that I might give you the only thing I can ever hope to give..."
Ramsus sharply drew a cold breath into his lungs. His body was tired, so tired and
frail...
And yet, he was curious in a distant childlike sort of way. What difference would it
make, in the end, if death came now or a bit later?
Gathering together the last dregs of his will, that will everyone had always found so
extraordinary in its sheer burning intensity, he let out a soft groan as his heart flooded his
body with its last measure of available energy and he stood before Krelian in humbled shame at
the angel's magnificence, he the impoverished mortal with his sad shabby clothes and
bewildered eyes and exhausted face.
"My precious child..." He stared in awed incomprehension as silent tears spilled from
Krelian's pained eyes. "This is all I can ever hope to give you. If only it was
enough."
Gently, his eyes full of something that might in some world have been called love, he
raised a single radiant hand with one finger extended and touched Ramsus softly upon the
forehead.
Ramsus's eyes snapped open.
"A--ah... aaahhhh!" He managed a muted cry of ecstasy in that instant as something no
less than light made tangible exploded into his body and surged through his blood, pouring
into every fiber of his being and he felt himself trembling with a bliss no words had ever
been concocted to describe as the light embraced him, absorbed him, became him, leaving its
vessel something very different from that which had existed before.
His heart pounded, pounded, and time beyond reckoning passed by in a second as the
light pulled him gently into a womb without flesh and he was growing, growing through those
long months of watery dreaming, held tight in the embrace of a living being beyond physical
existence, all within the span of a heartbeat. And when he felt himself gently pushed out of
that little world it was with a burning certaintly that he was quite ready to go. The child
drew in a breath of cold air, and cried out, and that immaterial womb faded away gradually and
left him standing there in the snow before Krelian, trembling with pleasure and astonishment
as the light settled itself comfortably within his body.
Ever so softly, the touch of Krelian's hand left him.
"W... what..." His voice, suddenly strong and healthy, left his lips in a bewildered
gasp as he felt a thoroughly pleasant tingling trace the length of his back, where something
soft and just a bit damp unfolded in a spill of silver feathers. "What have you done to me?"
Ramsus stared down at his body, as nude as Krelian's now and unfettered by any trace of age,
his wings quivering as he drew his arms to his chest.
The world seemed bigger, now, just a little bigger, and filled with such wonder and
mystery that somehow, some tiny corner of his mind was certain, he just might be able to come
to understand at last...
"What am I?" He desperately searched the depths of Krelian's wet eyes for an
answer.
"Welcome to the world, little one." Krelian's voice was a whisper of aching joy as he
wrapped his arms around Ramsus, cradling the newborn angel into his embrace without
encountering so much as a trace of resistance. "I only hope I've given you a more proper
birth than you had the last time around."
Still a bit lost in his own wonderment, Ramsus clasped his hands together and nestled
his head against Krelian's chest.
"Where are we going?" he murmered drowsily as Krelian spread his wings and the two
began to rise from the surface of the earth.
"Home..." And, after a heartbeat, "Not my home. My crimes are too many for me to
consider myself worthy of dwelling there. But your home..."
"But... where is that?"
"The place where all of our souls are born..."
"You mean... the Wave Existence?"
A subdued chuckle. "Of course we don't call it that..."
"What do you call it, then?"
"Anything. We have no need of words there..."
"No?"
There was a sweet, long, and comforting silence as the world flew away so far beneath
them.
"You shall see, little one. You shall see..."
Hyuga stumbled frantically through blinding waves of snow, squinting to see, his eyes
all but useless amidst the tumbling white flecks. "Kahr!" Arms flailing madly, he struggled
through a frozen ocean, snow falling into his boots and chilling his flesh. "KAHR!"
"He couldn't have done it... he couldn't have..." he gasped out, knowing somehow
beyond all logic that the footsteps he had been following were indeed Ramsus's. "Never...
even... got a chance... to say goodbye." A bit of black against the screaming glare of the
snow caught his eye; at the very edge of his field of vision a thorny branch protruded from
the snow. Snagged on the end of it was a torn bit of brown cloth.
"Kahr's coat..." Hyuga murmured aloud, and shook his head, his shoulders sagging under
the weight of the undeniable reality.
He pushed on through the snow. The cold tore into his skin like a thousand
knives.
Somewhere beyond that bush bearing its scrap of ill omen, the thick, shambling trail
of footsteps, already half-obscured by fallen snow, led into a narrow gap between two
rocks.
Calling out Kahr's name, Hyuga staggered through the trail's wake, the warmth of tears
already beginning their courses down his cheeks before he had reached the entrance. "Oh,
God... Kahr..." He flung himself into the narrow gap and instantly sunk to his knees, his
mouth opening in a silent gape of agony at the sight of the tattered cloak lying in a sad
curled heap.
With a tiny sob he extended a hand to touch the body of his old friend. And felt
nothing at all beneath that ragged pile of cloth.
"Kahr...?" he murmured, uncomprehending; and glanced outside at the entrance to the
crevice. The trail certainly stopped here; the junction of rock held no means of escape at
all, small and tight as it was. The snow in here was scarcely deep enough yet to cover a
body.
Hand quivering, he gently tugged at the folded cloak, and abruptly stopped, stilled
with shock.
Tucked within those tattered folds of cloth was a single silver feather.
For a long time he stared at it wide-eyed, a picture of open-mouthed wonder, knowing
somehow that it portended a miracle beyond any words in any language yet devised by the human
race, or perhaps by any race. At long last he clasped it to his chest and held it there, held
it close against his beating heart, head bowed gently in awed reverence and tears growing cold
on his face. Tears of pure and unfettered joy.
~Fin.~
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