Chapter 8
The silence was deafening. Broken only by the dripping of blood from his crouched form.
He pulled at the chains holding him on his knees, his eyes blind to the scene of carnage around him. The chamber still smelt of the blood of the dozens of bodies littering the floor and his own burned flesh.
His master, his teacher, his father stood above him, revulsion in his eyes.
“You are a blasphemy.”
The sword swung down.
Time froze. The sword, halfway to his head, glittered in the flames still burning around the room. Tears still glistened on his father’s face. The half-circle of Law-Bound stood rock-still, like sentinels guarding his soul from escaping.
Shiro blinked. His mind was blank. Already trying to process what was happening, this new phenomenon was almost too much for him. He glanced around frantically, pulling at his chains with renewed vigour in an attempt to escape the descending golden blade.
What was that sound? As his exhausted mind tried to sift through everything he realized that it was his own sobs escaping his chest. At once he felt the heaving of his chest as he cried tears of grief and helplessness. With a couple last half-hearted pulls on the chains, he slumped. His apathy complete he looked up into the enraged face of his father and realized just how badly he had failed.
“It hurts him more than you know.”
Shiro jumped. The silky voice came out of nowhere, shockingly close to him and strangely familiar.
A feminine figure walked past him, long robes covered most of her body and legs, but leaving her arms and neck free, with long dark hair flowing behind her. She walked alongside his father and scrutinised him closely. With her face in profile, Shiro could see the horns on her forehead, the white only serving to highlight the light red of her skin. And her eyes... Black orbs that seemed to sink back into forever.
She pursed her lips, pulling back and turning to face him. “In all his years as a Law-Bound Master, he has never faltered in his duty. Never faltered in the face of sacrifice for the greater good. His loss of control and hesitation over you torments him, makes him believe that he too could Fall. And you.” She stepped over to him, cupping his chin in a clawed hand her skin was unimaginably soft. “Sacrificing you is the hardest thing he has ever done.” Glancing back, she added “I should know, I was there for many of them and have heard from my kin of the rest.”
Shiro’s mind reeled. All the training and dogma about the daemonic and their ilk that he had received matched nothing in this calm demeanour. Trying to gather the frayed ends of his wits, he stammered “W-w-who are you?”
She smiled. “My name is Azaphor and I am your future, little one. Or the final witness to the end of your story.” She lithely folded to the ground and sat cross legged next to him, revealing again the sword frozen in it’s downward arc.
“What do you mean?”
“Is it not obvious? We are joined now. I am part of you. Until, as you humans say, death do us part.” Her lips quirked up on one side “Which I admit may be sooner that I was imagining.”
Shiro struggled to make sense of what was happening. Sitting calmly discussing his descent into darkness with a beautiful daemon, while a sword hung over his head while a silent, brooding audience looked on.
“You would just leave? I mean,” he swallowed hard, “if I die, surely you die?”
She waved a hand. “Oh, certainly it is not a pleasant experience for me but nonetheless fairly painless. For you... well, I have never died so I would not know.”
Her manner was calming, or he was finally reaching the final stage before death where acceptance is the only way forward. “What did you mean, you could be my future?”
She smiled again and stroked the side of his face. “I mean that I can grant you power, little one. Enough to escape this death and forge your own destiny.”
“You mean through chaos and mayhem?” Somehow Shiro found the strength to laugh bitterly. “I know of your kind, you want nothing but destruction and oblivion.”
She grasped his hair and pulled his head towards hers. Her black eyes smouldering red as small flames flickered out, her beautiful face transforming into a vision of rage. A beautifully, terrifying visage. Her words came out as a low hiss, “Listen to me, little one. You and your kind know NOTHING of me and mine. You Law-Bound are almost as bad as these cretins who forcibly summon me to this plane.” Her grip tightened, lifting his head up until his knees came off the floor. “Did you know that your Order”, spitting the last word out, “have hunted my kind for centuries? Did you know that THEY initiated the hunt? That the entire premise for their hunt is nothing more than their OWN desire for supremacy.”
Only Shiro’s feet were touching the floor now and only because she had lifted him until his chains reach their full extension. She brought her face close to his, her eyes narrowed to slits but the small flames around her eyes were huge. “You know nothing.” She gradually lowered him to the floor, the fires diminishing until her eyes were again black orbs.
“But I do not visit the sins of your anscestors upon you. After all, you were not there and I should not blame you.” She settled back into her relaxed cross-legged position.
Shiro didn’t know what to think or believe. A lifetime of dry education versus real life claims, but also data from people he trusted who had raised him against something he had just met. The being seemed to read something in his face and sighed deeply.
“In the end, my little Law-ling, it matters not if you believe me now. I know my efforts to persuade you to my side of the story would seem hollow and empty, especially given the circumstances where I seem to be invested in staying on this plane.”
She turned to look at his father, the gleaming sword still hanging immobile two feet away from his head. “The only question that matters is whether you chose to die now or embrace the power that I can grant you.”
Shiro turned his head back as well. His father’s grimace seemed so out of place in a gaze looking at him. In this moment of unreality, he wondered what was going through his mind and whether there was a possibility that what the being was saying was actually true. He had never met a daemon, nor seen carnage and destruction wrought by their hands. He had only heard the stories and listened to the tales. True, these had come from people who had protected him, raised him. He swallowed back a lump in his throat. Even his family.
Still looking into the face of his father, he finally asked himself the question: after everything, did he want to die?
For years afterwards, he found himself wondering about this moment. Had it been cowardice that made him choose as he did? Had he bought into the story of the daemon and thus it was bravery in the face of the unknown? Or had he simply justified all of his actions and it had really been a deep-seated sense of self-preservation. The question tormented him for the rest of his days.
Shiro spoke softly, without taking his eyes from his father.
“I do not want to die.”
For a minute there was no response. Stuck in this moment, Shiro relived all of his short life as he stared up into his father’s face. The first time he had watched his father fight. His mother holding him as he fell asleep. Losing her from the wasting sickness. The first time he had won in the arena and his father holding him high, a proud smile on his face.
Suddenly realizing there had been nothing but silence, he turned back to the being. Azaphor still sat where she was, but her expression had changed. She now wore a small, sad smile.
“So be it little one. Accept my embrace.”
Shiro sat up as much as he could with the chains as she came around in front of him. Leaning forwards she put her head on one of his shoulders and put her arms around him, almost affectionately. Up close she seemed to smell of ash and smoke, of distant bonfires burning in the night. She leaned her head against his and whispered to him.
“Be like the smoke, little one. And be free.”
-
Tengu’s sword swung true, the razor sharp blade flashed down like lightning towards his Son’s head. At the back of his mind, Tengu wailed in grief and loss.
And Shiro exploded.
It took a split second for Tengu to realize that instead of blood, smoke billowed out from his form. A cloud that rushed out in a perfect circle from where he had sat, leaving only the metallic ring of the manacles that dropped to the floor. The smoke dispersed out until nothing of this remained either.
Qui-Shu’s panicked voice rang out commandingly, “It has escaped! Spread out! We cannot allow it to leave the mine!” All of the Law-Bound flashed into action, golden glows appearing around them as they flickered away like lightning bolts. All except Tengu.
The master stood, breathing heavily, emotions warring in his mind. Loss, grief, anger all intertwined with a small joy that he would not have the blood of his son on his conscience. But deep within, something had broken within him. His steel resolve to do justice no matter the circumstance now had a deep fissure. Overriding all of it was a sadness: his son knew that he would have landed the mortal blow against him.
They searched for hours, but found nothing.
