Aftermath

The line at the end didn't quite turn otu the way I wanted, but it still worked. This is supposed to be the last chapter, but I'm contemplating writing an "afterward" type of thing. Just a couple of pages explaining a few things and having fun with characters from Partners and Sequel. So if you have a question for Aftermath, yes, ask, because the last chapter will be written to include whatever questions that you have that I can answer.

For me, when the ending came to me, I had a reaction much like Ayan's. Except. I didn't use the back of my hand...

Why oh why does the seal of the heavens and the pathway to the heaven keep coming up? I asked that again here but I think that's because I haven't actually played with these. No one has ever been to the heavens via the map that Illuva gave Rava and Ayato. A few have seen into heaven or "been there" (via Rel's powers) but I somehow doubt that that's what heaven is. Maybe it will come up as a new story, I don't know.

And yes, that is Mari.

Read, Review and Enjoy.

EDITED: for a typo I found and corrected. There is at least one more I saw but I can't see it now.




Durth hopped over a root and flew around a sapling. Or maybe that was a vine, he wasn’t certain and wasn’t stopping to check it out. Feet pounding over moss covered everything, leaf strewn ground, Durth huffed out, breathing hard as he skidded to a stop in a levelled area.

Raya leaned against a tree, one leg off the ground. Against the tree and beside him was a sword hilt. The young man looked weary.

“You-”

“I kind of thought you would have figured it out earlier,” Raya muttered, rubbing his scruffy chin. He hadn’t seemed to have shaved since they arrived. Looked like he hadn’t slept much either, “after all, my face was on all the television, in ads on park benches. Even the Aniege when I first joined kept asking ‘have I seen you somewhere before’ and the Tele corporation…”

“Why?”

“Why? Durth,” Raya huffed out a breath and smiled a sad sort of thing, “It cost more to buy fresh vegetables than it did to buy processed crap. The entire point of the market system was to get you into debt early so that they could exact more money from you. Money that has no damned value because it’s made out of paper and rags stolen from dead homeless people. Everyone lived in tall buildings and there were billions of people but everyone was alone at all times. You were more likely to die in your apartment, by your own hand, than a mass murderer. Or a freak accident.

“That world, Durth, that you hold in such high regard, was worth nothing more than the shit I dig off my boots when I walk through a whore district in a big city,” Raya pushed off the tree and pulled the sword along with him, dragging it out of the sheath as he did so. A silvered, thin blade with lines of black lacing over its surface. It was nothing like the blade that Durth had thought Raya carried in the wide, broadsword like sheath.

That didn’t mean that Durth just allowed Raya to advance on him with the blade. Any weapon in the Brother’s hands would be dangerous. Durth stepped back and Raya pulled to a stop, frowning for a moment before he looked down.

“Oh, this. It’s the seal of the heavens,” Raya sighed and flipped the blade up and over, presenting the handle to Durth, “take it, I bequeath it to you.”

“Bequeath it to me, why?”

“Because you’re going to kill me.”

“Who said that.”

“You said that, you said you would kill the person who ended the world,” Raya sounded desperate, “you said you would kill me. You have to kill me.”

Durth took the blade from Raya and shook his head, “no, I said that I would destroy the person who ended the world.” Raya’s jaw clenched. Durth watched the young man for a moment before he sighed out, “If I could take it back, I would. But what I wanted has likely already been set into motion.”

“You could kill me.”

“If you want to die so badly, there are dozens of men who want your job, just go out there and challenge someone you know you can lose to!”

“It doesn’t work like that!” Raya snapped back at him, “I can’t just be killed. They won’t. Let me die.”

“What…” The hairs on the back of Durth’s neck stood on end, “the nanobots still exist, don’t they? That’s what that Tanek fellow felt, that’s why he said you were cheating.”

“I’ve got no control over them without a control unit and they’re bonded to my genetic material,” Raya sounded frustrated, “you don’t think I haven’t tried? I slice my wrists and I heal, I leap off a cliff and I wake up two days later, perfectly fine. I get upset with someone and they just.

“That’s why I had to take you on. No one else would do, the first time I got upset or cranky, they would be killed. Tah is safe because of her innate ability to heal herself.”

“The Brother you killed. You didn’t actually take his head off, did you?”

“Not. Me. You thought I did that? No wonder you started sleeping with your blade near at hand,” Raya sighed out, “so you aren’t going to kill me?”

“No, I am not going to kill you. I don’t even think that I’m upset with you. I’m just. Shocked. If you wanted the world to end, why join the Aniege, why drag me all the way out here? The Aniege want you dead.”

“Where else could I hide and actually be hidden?” Raya asked, “I have over a hundred lifetimes of memories to draw on, it was the most logical action, the easiest way to keep myself alive long enough that I could find him and then when I did.”

“You were just another part of his plot.”

“I don’t mind that, I knew part of what he was planning before I agreed to it. But then he told me the price.”

“What price.”

“Talk, talk, talk,” Ayato dropped from overhead. The teen hit the ground and then stood, looking lazily at Durth, “and talk some more, is that all people do? Raya, your mouth is doing that thing that I don’t like.”

That was the way that Ayato- Durth’s thoughts stilled as the chilly realization dawned on him. Ayato did not speak to his mate that way. The dark haired young man hadn’t once snipped or snarled like that at Durth. It was something else. Something that sent a creeping fear up Durth’s spine.

“Now-”

“I’m not speaking to you,” Durth said, meaning to jab a finger at Ayato, but instead he lifted the blade off the ground and jabbed that at the young man. Much more threatening when one was armed, “you use people however you please and then just skitter off for days on end as if you’ve done nothing wrong at all.”

“I was getting things in order,” Ayato responded lazily.

“Don’t give me that. No more plots, no more plans.”

“But…” Ayato frowned just slightly, “the plot I have for you isn’t finished yet. There’s still another power that needs to get through the filter.”

“And what power is that? The gods aren’t related to you and thus don…” Durth came to a stop as Ayato gave him a look, “they are related to you, aren’t they?”

“They are, as I am related to Mother and they are related to Mother also. Thus, if the gods are to have power and you are to be completed, I need to add a final piece to the puzzle. I could leave them helpless, powerless. But they are. Necessary. And so-”

“Ayato,” Raya whispered.

“This is the end Durth. I enjoyed our time together, I did.”

“Why does that sound-” all Durth saw was white light and then the canopy overhead. Blinking, he glanced about and spotted Ayato, no, Ayan, and Una watching him from a little ways away, “ever get the feeling that you’ve just been fucked. Except. In your mind?”

“Mind fucked,” Ayan said expertly, “how are you feeling.”

“Fine, oddly. No out of body experience,” Durth sat up, body tingling from head to toe, “or anything like that. Hey Una?”

“Yes, Durth?”

“Do me a favour,” because if this ended up being permanent… if what Ayan thought was right…

“What Durth?”

“Don’t ever leave me.”

“I won’t.”

“For so long as I live?”

“I won’t, Durth, what’s gotten into you?”

“Good, because I might be immortal now-” Una made a choking sound as Durth stood and dragged his sword up with him, “and I don’t know how to work with that so. Yeah. Did Ayato and Ayan not tell you that part?”

“They said they were trying to get me Tyz back but I never imagined…” Una stood.

“Maybe immortal,” Ayan muttered, standing himself, “why have you go brother’s sword? The seal to the heavens is a very special sword.”

“Had it all along?” Una growled, “told me he didn’t have it. Durth, let me keep that.”

Durth handed over the sword as he looked around the little area they were in. There was no sign of Raya or Ayato. At all. Ayato never just left after putting a piece in place and Durth didn’t think he would even when Durth was upset with him.

“Where’s Ayato and Raya?” he asked, “And why are you-”

“With how often these two surprise me, it’s not actually much of a surprise,” Una murmured, inspecting the length of the blade, “that they would insist that you be immortal and returned to me wholly. Though. You look different than Tyz did. That’s good though. I like your looks. Anyway, they weren’t here when we arrived several hours ago.”

Durth turned to Ayan. The young man was frowning, eyes roving over the ground as if he was searching for something. Then Una turned towards Ayan and made a questioning sound at the back of his throat.

“He’s gone.”

“Who is?”

“Ayato, I can’t. I can’t find him,” Ayan bolted towards the village. Una motioned with his head and so Durth followed Ayan off.

In the village, Ayan pulled to a stop and did three circles before he rushed into a larger building. The inside of the building was dark, with only a small fire lighting it. Two rows of bed and several cabinets, the building was obviously an infirmary. There were three people in the infirmary. Ayato, Raya and a tall woman with dark hair who looked concerned even as she smoothed down her apron.

“Mother, what-” Ayan jerked to a stop as the woman gave him a desperate, pleading look.

“What’s going on?” Una asked a moment later.

Durth pulled Una and pushed Ayan the back corner of the infirmary and they stood watching. Ayato and Raya were in some kind of daze, didn’t even look up as they passed. Ayato came back to himself first. Sort of, the teen looked down at his hands and seemed utterly confused as to their purpose. Slowly, slower, Raya came to himself and stood.

The young man stretched and popped his back, looking around the infirmary. He made a small hand motion toward the woman Ayan had called mother.

“Am I alright?” he asked her, “I… don’t recall how I got here.”

“Sound of body.” came the weak response, as Ayato’s mother looked to her son, sitting on the edge of the bed. She walked up to him and said, “Ayato?”

Ayato looked at her, too slowly, “is. That my name?”

Raya watched this all, a confused expression on his face.

“No…” Una murmured to Durth, “they didn’t.”

“They look like they don’t remember each other,” Durth said quietly.

“He said it might happen,” Ayan responded, wringing his hands before him, “said. That. But I didn’t,” Ayan fell to tears as he said, “I didn’t actually think it would happen.”

“What. Didn’t think what would happen, Ayan?”

Ayan sniffled and wiped his nose on the back of his hand, “creating a filter uses a lot of energy. Making Durth a proper filter took even more. The resulting power use-”

“How much power?”

“I don’t know, all I saw were a couple of starter spells and they were talking in that language they created.”

Una muttered a curse, “the more power Ayato uses, the more shattered his memories become. Thus he doesn’t remember who he was. But why does that affect Raya as well?”

“Because it’s not just this lifetime that’s been affected. Ayato wanted to remove all that which the Aniege have twisted or used. Neither of them remembers who they are and they won’t ever remember.”

“Ever meaning…” Durth said.

“Ever,” Ayan stressed.

“We’ve lost the two lovers,” Una said sadly.

“And most of the world won’t even realise what they’ve lost,” Durth muttered, more from his own lack of appreciation over the fact. He didn’t know who they had been or what they were, besides what Una had told him. Most of the rest of the world would be like him. They wouldn’t understand what was going on or why and none of them would miss Ayato and Raya, because they didn’t know the pair.

Raya grumbled something under his breath and walked up to Ayan’s mother, “Do I have a name?”

“I believe they call you Raya,” the mother murmured quietly.

“That’s just stupid. Sounds like a girl’s name,” Raya muttered, glancing at Ayato. Then the young man turned his full attention to the teen. The dark haired teen was too young for the up and down look, but no one protested, “How are the gods doing?”

“Excuse me?” Ayato asked, shifting himself away from what he assumed was a strange male. Insult oozed from every syllable he spoke.

“Well, only a god could look so gorgeous,” Raya murmured, “did you. Fall from the heavens?”

“No.”

“Are you sure?” Raya asked, “I’ve never seen such gorgeous features on a mortal before.”

Ayato blushed and everyone in the infirmary relaxed.

“They’ll be fine,” Una said quietly, “they’ll be just fine.”



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