“What can we do to help her?” Aryu asked as he looked at her lying on the ground.
“Don’t ya worry about 'er, Aryu,” Nixon replied. “She can get through it just fine without us. It'll just take some time.”
“Time we don’t have,” Sho said, stepping in. “If that thing spoke the truth, we can’t have long before we receive visitors.”
Nixon was up to his full height instantly, fire again in his eyes. “Yes, my old friend, about tha’; what the hell were ya thinkin’ leading tha' thing here?”
Sho became passive again. “It attacked without warning. I was hit before I even knew it was coming. The voices couldn’t warn me of it in time because it’s lifeless. Without the command of the Power, I had to run. I needed to make it here. It was just too fast and attacked me again when I was close. You don’t understand, Nixon; it wasn’t what it said, it was how it said it. It was important enough that I had to find my mother. I was sure you two could stop it. I didn’t know at that point how it did what it did. I wasn’t scared of the gun when it threatened me, but that it would de-power you two the same as me. I had to choose to trust it. I needed to tell you about the voice.”
Nixon waited, seeking the punchline. “You likely wouldn’t know it, never having met him,” finished Sho, “but I would know it anywhere. The voice that thing was using was my brother’s.”
Chapter 15
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The Army of the Old
Nixon and Sho took turns carrying Crystal away from the empty field and into the higher mountains to the east, the last natural border before the expanse of the eastern ocean.
With the proper means of travel, one could go south, past the shores of this land to a small island called Kume, where the one known as Tokugawa Ryu was born. Even closer at hand to where this band began to flee were places littered with stories about the Ryuujins and Adragons of the world.
No one knew these stories like Crystal Kokuou. No one even came close. Sho knew many, Nixon the same. Others could add a tale or two, but no one could compare to the wellspring of knowledge and stories tucked behind her flowing white hair.
These were the stories she was immersed in now, locked away by some old, arcane influence used by the phoenix and the god that created him. A god far wiser than all that came after.
Deep inside her head, a war raged between the power she held, now lost by some nefarious means, and the strength she possessed as a person that was clear from the influence of the Power.
So far, the battle was a draw.
She knew in her deepest heart of hearts that she was one of the most powerful humans to ever live, with or without the Power. Her worldly experiences, love of learning, and abilities both mentally and physically were unparalleled. Two things prevented her from emerging. The first was the memory of the Omnis. The loss of the ability to tap that flow of galaxy-spanning wholeness was destructive to someone’s soul. The other was the memory of the void of Est Vacuus. Left to the simple memory of a Power-less human, even the slightest inkling of the Est Vacuus risked driving one mad.
Couple the two things together, and you get someone in Crystal Kokuou’s unenviable position.
She remembered the feeling of the Power. She remembered meeting Ryu for the first time, ragged and disheveled at the gates of her old home, begging for a place to stay and a warm meal. She marveled with great humor at the juxtaposition of that image versus the one that came years later, when his godliness was all but assured in the eyes of the world and he hugged her close for the first time in years and the last time ever, before he left for the confrontation that would lead to his loss, madness, and most unspeakable of all acts: the destruction of all within his reach who possessed the Power, guilty or innocent. If only she had known.
The faces of her father and mother were everywhere in the muddle of her mind. Never before or after had the world seen two as honorable as them.
The face of Sho, her precious son, and the day he came to the world. Before the gears of fate had rallied against him to cause him the pain he felt now. When his innocence cleansed her of her indiscretions. He was still her most loved son, and would be forever.
The face of her daughter Emerald; her spirit and vibrancy lost years ago to that most blessed of all things: age. Emerald had chosen a life of peace, away from the Power. As such, hers was a life without the pain of all the memories carried by her older brother.
The training. The losses. The joys. The love. The hate. The light of the world. Everything that made her human fought against the emptiness left by everything that made her powerful.
“Truth,” her father’s voice said in her mind, a constant in her darkest hour (but for how long? Was it the Power that kept his memory so fresh?),“ is what makes us powerful. Not guns or wars, governments, or rulers. Truth will always be at the core of what we are. Always remember the truth of who you are, and you will never lose your way.”
Yes, the truth. She could still remember the truth. It was fleeting, but it was there. A solid rock of herself, locked away like a precious gem. She was Crystal, trained
