Chapter Five: Envoy of the Afterlife (I1B0C4)

 Chapter Five: Envoy of the Afterlife

 

            “I’ve always thought that the northern ocean is the most beautiful place in Agrideī,” whispered the voice in the tempest.

Though his back still ached, Hatasuko twisted his head to the right and stared at the ocean as he sailed on by. The flatland of Agrideī’s northern coast was bumpy enough to amplify the pain every few seconds, but the sail-rana still worked better than walking. As he dealt with the pain, he looked over the starlit sea and watched the weak waves crash into the sand. With every wave that fell, a small cloud of steam lifted into the air.

“Even with all the waves and steam, the water reflects the stars in the sky. You’re right, Sokaido; this is beautiful,” Hatasuko answered back.

“It’s a harsh world out there. We need to see beauty everywhere we can find it. It’s like a single piscileo hidden in the ocean. You just have to fish for it!”

“Sometimes I feel like my whole life’s a campaign to find the light in the darkness. I have been touched by the darkness and cursed with infinite agony, but I’ve somehow sustained my sanity. I guess that could be called beautiful,” Hatasuko said to Sokaido.

With her hands on the steering wheel, Vaida tiredly checked to see if Hatasuko was awake in the backseat. When her good eye fell upon him, she closed her eyes and smiled. As the sail-rana rolled with the wind, he gazed at his quiet friend and realized that she epitomized Sokaido’s words. She was stained with scars and anguish, but she was still more beautiful than anyone he had ever seen. He reached out with his bruised right hand and gently ran his fingers through her hair. Vaida flinched when he touched her; her eyes flew open, but then she smiled when he pulled his fingers through her damp hair.

The sail-rana veered slightly off course, and this slight deviation alarmed Vaida; Hatasuko took his hand out of her hair so that she could straighten the vehicle. The sail-rana shuddered as she straightened it out, but once this was done, she turned her head and gazed at him again. A nervousness blazed in her eyes. Both her blue eye and her dead eye glanced down as she spoke.

She asked, “Could you touch my hair a little more?”

            Hatasuko smiled and lifted his hand. Though his stomach rumbled and his back ached, he combed his fingers through her dark hair. He then glanced beside her and saw that Lazaro sailed only a short distance ahead, though he looked fast asleep. She kept her eyes closed as he gently massaged her scalp. A faint redness enlivened her cheeks.

            “There’s something even more beautiful about your condition, Hatasuko. I have lost the power to speak, but that does not mean I’ve gone silent. That said, could I ask you for a favor?” Sokaido asked from the threshold of the tempest.

            “What do you have in mind?”

            “My old home actually isn’t too far from here. I was a fisherman, so I was away from my beautiful wife for a lot longer than I wanted. We were apart when an Interfectus took my life; I was on Catena Island Four when it happened. I don’t know for sure that she still lives in the same home, but it’s worth a shot. Could I ask you to speak to her for me?” Sokaido asked.

            Hatasuko initially wanted to refuse due to exhaustion, but then Vaida opened her bright eyes. She opened her little mouth like she wanted to say something, but after a couple seconds, she closed it again and smiled. She turned her head back around, straightened out the sail-rana, and then handed Hatasuko an albapomus.

            “Thank you so much. I don’t think anyone’s pet my hair before! It feels a little funny, but I like it a lot. Thank you,” she said with her quiet voice.

            “You’re welcome. Your hair is very pretty,” he answered as he took the albapomus.

            Vaida turned her head slightly and watched the starlit waves. The starlight shone upon the deep burn scars on the right side of her face. Hatasuko wondered if they still hurt, but she had a big smile on the other side of the scars. He suspected that Vaida intended to hide her smile from him, but she could not see him with her blind right eye.

            “Sokaido, I will visit your wife for you. I don’t know if I can speak for you when I see her, but if nothing else, I can tell her that she still means the world to you. Where does she live?” Hatasuko asked into the tempest of lost souls.

            “I lived in a house by the tip of a small peninsula. If you keep following the northern coast, it won’t be long until you find her. The wind looks pretty fast today. It’s about halfway from Catena Island One to the villages of Ore. Thank you for doing this for me,” Sokaido said.

            “I’m happy to help. I know this may sound overdramatic, but… I’ve been twisted by scarring memories, cursed with a tempest that drives men into insanity. There’s no beauty to be found in something as hopeless as this, so I have to create the beauty instead. That’s why I want to help. Let me know when we get there.”

            With a quick and juicy bite, Hatasuko sank his teeth into the white flesh of the albapomus. The sweet nectar splashed into his mouth and dripped onto his pants. He then glanced up and saw that Vaida only had her scarred right hand on the steering wheel; her left hand held a half-eaten viridipomus. A small drop of juice fell from the bottom of the green fruit every time the sail-rana rolled over a bump. Lazaro was awake now, though he scowled as he stared at the pulsing stars in the sky. The handle of his warhammer stuck out over the sail-rana’s edge. It was still splattered with the blood of the young man who was touched by the darkness.

            “Lazaro! Hey, Lazaro! There should be a small peninsula somewhere up ahead. I want to stop there for a little while,” Hatasuko yelled out over the gusting wind.

            “That’s fine. I need to replenish the rocks, anyway. You two must have just dumped your bags on the goddamn ground; I don’t know how else you could have lost that many,” Lazaro yelled without turning around.

            “That’s weird. I don’t remember using any more than I had to,” Hatasuko whispered.

            “Yeah, um, that’s actually my fault. I emptied my bag of rocks on the boat and kinda took some of yours so I didn’t look wasteful. I know I messed up. I’m sorry,” Vaida confessed.

            “Ha, it’s okay! I don’t mind at all, I just thought I had done something wrong!”

            Hatasuko let out a quiet laugh as he spoke, but his laughter faded when he noticed the fear that plagued her apology. His heart sank just from the idea that Vaida feared him on any level, but then he realized that it was a side-effect of Lazaro’s treatment.

            “It doesn’t bother me at all! You can use my weapons for anything you want. It’s fine, I promise,” Hatasuko said as he set his hand on her shoulder.

            Vaida flinched when he touched her, but she calmed herself quickly. As she sat in the front seat of the sail-rana with her small hands on the wheel, she lifted her warm shoulder and pressed back on his hand for comfort.

            “I’m sorry for being scared. I, um, haven’t really talked to anyone but Lazaro in two years. I’m too afraid to talk to anyone, and I’m too hideous for anyone to want to talk to me. Lazaro’s not the type to take any screw-up lightly,” she murmured with a slow and quiet voice.

            “I don’t care that he’s a legendary fighter. I believe that someone can be both a hero and a monster at the same time. I hate the way he treats you, Vaida. I don’t ever want to see him hit you again.”

            “Hey! Hatasuko, I see your peninsula up there! You two might want to fold the sail,” Lazaro yelled back as he pulled down the mast.

            Though she said nothing, Vaida grabbed the mast and fought to fold it down. She struggled to pull it against the wind, but she overcame the sail in the end. She pulled down the mast, folded the sail, and waited for the sail-rana to roll to a stop. Hatasuko could not directly see the peninsula, though a narrow strip of darkness jutted out over the glistening water. Both sail-ranae slowly decelerated as they approached the strip of darkness; the strong wind pulled them even without the sails.

When Lazaro reached the foot of the peninsula, he jumped out of his sail-rana and grabbed it before it rolled away. Hatasuko decided that this was probably the best course of action, so he did the same thing. Once the vehicles fell motionless, he and Vaida turned the sail-ranae so that their wheels were perpendicular to the wind.

            “I don’t know how long this will take,” Hatasuko admitted as he stretched his aching legs.

            “Don’t take all day. Hey, Vaida, I think there’s a grove just south of here. Should be a lot of aterpomus trees,” Lazaro said.

            Joy sparked on her face. Lazaro quickly walked away from the sail-ranae while staring intently at the ground, looking for more of the right-sized rocks. Hatasuko glanced away from his friends and stared at the small house near the end of the narrow peninsula. A faint flicker of candlelight pierced the darkness, though it barely overcame the glow of the stars shining on the ocean. He let out a tired sigh and started walking toward the home.

            “Thank you for doing this, Hatasuko. I am an optimist, or at the very least, an artificial optimist. But the same’s not true for her. My darling Hayana has trouble finding beauty when the world is harsh. She’s miserable. Our children have grown up and moved away, so I was the only thing she had left,” Sokaido explained.

            “Do you know how long you’ve been dead? A lot can change over time.”

            “I died in an attack over five years ago. No one expected it, since Interfecti struck less frequently back then. Besides, the Catena Islands had just been attacked in the year before that. I was trying to sell a boatload of piscileo when the monster appeared. There were very few survivors. When islands are attacked, there isn’t really a way to escape, so… everyone dies.”

            “I know. Even when my friends tried to save people on Catena Island One, hundreds still died. How is there any beauty in that?” Hatasuko asked.

            “Every time the Interfectus attacks, we learn a little more. Every time we learn, we quietly come closer to finding a way out. That’s what I tell myself, anyway.”

            Though there was some truth to this, Hatasuko knew he still had a long way to go before he could fight back. In all available history, Lazaro was the only person who had ever inflicted a wound on the shadow demon, and it was a wound that easily regenerated. He sighed from the hopelessness of his campaign, but he tried to clear his mind. He let out a quiet sigh as he walked up to the front door of the candlelit house. Sokaido’s soul stood at the edge of the screaming vortex.

            “Hello! Is anyone there?” Hatasuko asked as he banged his fist against the door.

            As Hatasuko back his hand, strong winds howled and waves crashed in the distance. A quiet patter of footsteps sounded inside the house. The footsteps came closer at first, but then they stopped altogether. The sound then slowly started moving away.

            “Hayana, please open the door! I have a message from your husband.”

            The footsteps stopped once again. Hatasuko smiled as the footsteps approached, but when she opened the door, she looked miserable. Her brown eyes were wet with tears. Her blond hair was shuffled into a mess. Though a candle and starlight illuminated the house, it still stood as a shrine to heartbreak.

            “Why would you say that? I know my husband is dead,” Hayana whispered.

            Hatasuko dove into the abyss inside his head, but he could not summon Sokaido’s soul into his own body. He could not channel his fallen friend; he could only serve as a messenger.

            “Sokaido may be dead, but I am an envoy of the afterlife. I can hear his voice whisper in my head! I can hear every whisper of the damned. He said that he is a fisherman who finds the beauty in everything. Does that sound like your husband?” Hatasuko asked.

            Hayana closed her eyes in a way that squeezed out two small streams of tears. They rolled down her face and fell from her chin. Her tears reflected the candlelight until they hit the floor with a tiny splash. She then turned and walked toward the window on the left side of the house. The outside of the window was covered with the steam that lifted off the water, distorting the starlight it reflected. She pressed her hand onto the warm window and sighed.

            “This isn’t fair. I prayed every night that Sokaido would return. I begged God to let him visit in my sleep. He couldn’t even give me that much. Why do you get to hear him? Where is the justice in that? Where is the beauty in that?” she asked as she suppressed a breathy sob.

            “There’s nothing just or beautiful about this. I am a victim of the Interfectus; I was touched by the darkness and cursed with an endless chorus of anguished voices. I’ll never escape them, but they’re the only reason I can speak now on his behalf,” he explained.

            Hayana glanced away from Hatasuko to hide her face. She slowly dropped to her knees; her fingertips dragged across the glass window. The ocean and the starlight shone through the window, though the steam partially concealed them. Hayana pressed her hand upon the dusty floor and balled it into a fist.

            “I haven’t spoken to my children since the day he died. I want to see them, but whenever I think about them, I can only see his face. They look just like him. And whenever I think about him, the pain comes flooding back. I know it’s selfish, I know it’s not their fault, but I don’t think I could take it if I relived that loss every time I saw them,” she admitted.

            With an icy sense of sorrow, Hatasuko realized that this visit was a mistake. If Hayana was too heartbroken to see her children, then this would certainly overwhelm her. He sensed that Sokaido thought the same thing, but it was too late now.

            With her teary eyes facing the dusty floor, she said, “Please just leave. I don’t want to see his face, and I don’t want to hear his name. I know I’m just going to squander my life in sorrow, but at least I’ll be alive.”

            “I never expected it to hurt this much. There’s no beauty in something like this,” Sokaido whispered from the tempest.

            “I’m so sorry, Hayana. I should have thought this through. I don’t know what I was thinking,” Hatasuko muttered.

            With a soul-crushing emptiness, Hatasuko turned and walked toward the wooden door. He opened it, stepped out into the steamy starlight, and took a deep breath. As he slowly closed the door, he stared through the narrowing crack and saw Hayana on her knees with her eyes slammed shut.

            “He’s gone, and nothing will ever change that. Nothing can ever rewrite the reality,” she whispered into the dusty air.

            Hayana glanced up at the window on the other side of the room. The steam on the glass condensed from the coolness of the inside air; streams of starlit water rolled down the window. An oily mark stained the place on the wall where a portrait had been hung, but now the frame was face-down on the floor.

            “I’ll be alone from now until the end of time,” she said.

            Hayana climbed onto her feet and glared at the face-down picture, though her glance of anger quickly faded. She told herself that she was not angry at Sokaido or Hatasuko or anyone else; she simply felt irreversibly empty. She glanced over and watched the door for several seconds in silence. With every second that passed, she felt sadder and emptier than before. This went on for another minute until the door suddenly swung wide open.

            “Don’t ever forget how special you are!” Hatasuko exclaimed as the door flew open.

            With his golden eyes open wide and his hands trembling from emotion, he said, “Sokaido pieced himself together in a giant storm of screaming souls! Do you have any idea how hard that is?! I asked him why he did it, and he said it was for you! Even when his memories were taken, even when his mind and soul got ripped apart from each other, he knew more than anything that he had to say goodbye. He loves you so much that he reassembled himself in a tempest of agony! And do you know why he did that? Do you know why the optimist dove headfirst into the abyss? Because he was searching for something beautiful, and that something is you! You were his light in the darkness. You were the beauty hidden in emptiness. It’s no coincidence that he was the first one to string himself together in the tempest! He loves you so much that even in death, even without a body, he had to say goodbye. He had to see your beautiful smile just one more time!”

            Hayana’s eyes opened wide. Tears stained her red cheeks, but these tears were different than before. Hatasuko couldn’t tell if she was happy or paralyzed by what he had said. She covered her face with her hands as she quietly sobbed.

            “So please, please just smile,” Hatasuko whispered as he turned to the door.

            Hayana jumped forward and wrapped her arms around him. She buried her wet face in his shoulder and rocked her head gently as her whole body trembled from emotion. Though it felt like she was falling apart, happiness pervaded her powerful sobs. Hatasuko wiped his tears and wrapped his arms around her. She cried in his arms for almost two minutes until she finally stepped back away.

            “Thank you. Thank you so much. You’ll never know how much this means to me.”

            Hayana turned away so that she could not see his face. Hatasuko stepped into the doorway and looked out over the starlit peninsula. The tempest of screams in his mind had fallen quiet, so at last he could enjoy the silence all around him.

            “Your happiness is all the thanks I need,” he said, and then he started walking away.

            “Hatasuko, you know you’ve just given me eternal peace, don’t you?” Sokaido spoke warmly from the edge of the abyss.

            Hatasuko glanced up to the pulsing stars in the sky as he walked back to the sail-ranae. One galaxy looked completely blue, but several stars pulsed with a crimson glare every few seconds. The nearest star shone brightly and stained the landscape with a purplish shade. Every wave reflected the color before breaking against the shoreline. The strong wind blew his golden hair behind his head as he walked away from the house on the peninsula.

            “I just like knowing that I might have helped someone. I don’t seem to get the opportunity very often. I hope she can make it on her own,” Hatasuko answered.

            “She was never alone. Even in death, I will always be with her.”

            Hatasuko smiled as he approached the base of the peninsula. Both sail-ranae rocked lightly from the gusts, but they did not roll in any direction. He felt confused because he could not find his friends, but then Lazaro’s yells echoed faintly in the distance. Because the wind carried his voice, Hatasuko paused to listen for more information. Unsure if the yells were of anger or terror, he cleared his mind and pushed himself into motion. As he raced toward his friends, he looked away from the sky and let his eyes readjust to darkness.

            “You’re unbelievable, Vaida! You follow me around like a goddamn stray for years, yet you still don’t respect me enough to do what I ask? Never disobey me during an attack. We’ve talked about this!” Lazaro shouted.

            Vaida stood with her arms clenched to her chest. She gazed at him in paralytic silence, and her body trembled violently. While Hatasuko had thought he was running at full speed, he became even faster when he saw this.

            “Please don’t hit me again. I know I deserve it, but please…” she whispered.

            “It’s the only way to make you listen.”

            Hatasuko ran up and slammed into Lazaro so quickly that the large man did not see him coming. Both men stumbled forward from the force of impact, but they did not fall. As Hatasuko fought to control his motion, Lazaro charged at him with his fist. Hatasuko dodged the first punch, ducked beneath a second, and staggered away before Lazaro could attack again.

            “Do you really want to fight me, boy?” Lazaro yelled.

            Hatasuko glanced at Vaida and saw that she was stunned. Her one working eye intently watched him, though it was also wide with fear. He then faced Lazaro and answered, “If that’s the only way to make you stop hurting Vaida, then yeah, I’ll fight you. I’m sick of trying to end all misery when you’re hell-bent on creating it! I’m tired of looking away when you hurt her.”

            “You’re being unreasonable. I’ll have to beat you back on track,” Lazaro retorted.

            Lazaro took off his bag of rocks and tossed it to the ground at his side. His Interfectus shield was hooked onto his back, so he took a moment to detach it and set it on the grassy flatland beside them. Once this was done, he pulled his fists upright. Hatasuko pushed off the ground with a mighty kick and rushed at his mentor with incredible speed. He jumped into the air and twisted his hips to unleash a flying kick, but Lazaro lunged out of the way and tried to grab his foot. Hatasuko twirled his feet in midair, dodged Lazaro’s hands, and kicked him in the elbow.

When Hatasuko landed on the ground, he stumbled beneath his own weight, but then Lazaro counterattacked with a swift right punch. Lazaro’s fist struck him in the chest and knocked him backward. Lazaro then attacked again with a lunge and an elbow strike. His elbow hit Hatasuko in the stomach with enormous pain, but then he swung his right knee up since Lazaro was close. Lazaro caught the knee with both hands, but this left him defenseless; Hatasuko slammed his forehead into his mentor’s face.

            Lazaro let go of his knee and stumbled backward from the pain. Hatasuko was surprised that he had dealt damage at all, but he seized the opportunity to attack again. He lunged forward and swung his right fist, but Lazaro struck faster with a swift right punch. His fist struck Hatasuko in the chest with enough force to halt him, and then Lazaro attacked again with a forward kick. His shoe struck Hatasuko’s stomach and slammed him onto the hard ground. He rolled when he landed and fought to pull himself upright, but Lazaro ran up and dealt a swift right kick. Hatasuko barely blocked the kick with his arms, but the impact knocked him back upright.

Although pain shot through his body, Hatasuko his right fist with a high-speed uppercut, but Lazaro dodged by stepping backward. After he missed, he lunged and tried again, but Lazaro was simply too fast. Lazaro threw his left fist and slammed it against Hatasuko’s chest; he hit with enough force to throw his opponent into the air. Lazaro then grabbed him, swung him around, and slammed him onto his back with a heavy crash.

            “Hatasuko, please stop! You shouldn’t fight each other! I don’t want to watch this,” Vaida said from a short distance.

            “No… someone has to teach him… how to treat people…. He’s so obsessed with… his rules and his survival… that he can’t see anyone else’s value,” Hatasuko groaned.

            With a sneer, Lazaro said, “You can say what you want and think what you want, but the narrative in your head is a poor shadow of reality. I may be heartless and I may be objective, but I don’t act this way just for my own self-interest. How the fuck would that even make sense? You’re both a couple of idiots. I expected this from the girl with half her face burned off, but I didn’t realize that you were this stupid.

“If I only cared about myself and my own life, then why would I run toward an Interfectus? If I had any sense, I would run away at full speed. But I don’t. I stay and save the helpless, and I’ll sacrifice anything for that. If I have to sacrifice her happiness, then I can accept that. If I have to sacrifice my own humanity, then I can accept that. If I have to sacrifice my own beating heart, then I knew what was at stake since the day I stepped foot on this path.”

            Since Hatasuko struggled to stay upright, Lazaro leaned down and picked up his shield. He swung his warhammer over his shoulder and walked downwind toward the sail-ranae. As he walked away, he said, “If there is anything that you couldn’t sacrifice, then you are not cut out for this. I’m headed back to the road. If you take too long, I’m leaving without you.”

            Hatasuko sighed as he lay on his back in the grass. He stared at the starry sky as his body ached. Vaida ran up to his side and stared at him with a quiver in her deep blue eye.

            She quietly asked, “Why would you do that? You had to know he would win.”

            “I’ve always hated seeing people in pain.”

            “Lazaro doesn’t act this way for no reason. I deserve everything he does to me.”

            Hatasuko shook his head as he stared at the stars and muttered, “I don’t know how, but someday I’ll change your mind. You don’t deserve any of that. I just wish I was strong enough to stop him. I will have to keep training.”

            Vaida offered her hand to help him stand. Hatasuko smiled, grabbed her hand, and then climbed onto his knees. As they worked together to pull him off the ground, he saw the impressive strength in her arms.

            “I’m not strong enough to stop his actions, but at least I can fight his words. He wants you to think that you’re a burden—that you’re stupid and helpless and ugly, but that’s not true at all. We couldn’t even reach the monsters without the vehicle you built. You’re brilliant, you’re strong, and you’re a thousand times prettier than you realize,” he said.

            A rosy hue overtook Vaida’s face as he said this. She shyly looked away and faced the sea with her dead eye, but she still wore a grimace on her face. She hid her scars with her left hand and said, “I still don’t believe you.”