http://clampfix.fanworks.net/kenichi/rayfic13.txt </head><body><pre> "All is lost save honor." FRANCIS I OF FRANCE, letter Chapter Twelve: Truth I had no dreams that night. Zagato apparently was moved enough by Mira's death and decided not to prolong my agony. I awoke the next morning, no better after the sleep. The dark mists outside still jeered at the palace. Jeering, laughing at the lives it destroyed. There would be nothing left standing by tonight. A pain that was not hunger hit the bottom of my stomach. I had nothing left to lose, right? My hands flew to the pieces of armor on the able where I left them. =================================== "Ken, you are out of your mind!" The Pharle's indignation was as tinged with worry as it was with rage. But I wasn't in any mood to listen to her berate me. "You're not powerful or skilled enough to stop Dis!" I looked at Presea as I slapped one of the gauntlets on. The strange escude flowed around my arm for a perfect fit. "That's why I was brought here, Presea. To stop Dis. I don't care whatever shit is written on the walls downstairs. Cephiro dosen't have a damned thing to fear from me." Mother would blush if she heard me spit expletives like that. The other gauntlet slithered into place as I began to don the leggings. "...The only one who has to be afraid of anything is that cloudy bastard out THERE..." I pointed out the window. "Because when I'm done with him, there won't be enough of him to bury in a pet cemetary." The leggings clasped tightly as I brought the chestplate over my head. When the plate made its fit, I saw the Guru stride in, accompanied by his guard. "Can't I talk you out of this...?" My icy sarcasm cut the air like a blade. "Isn't it a bit late for regrets, Clef? After all, I'm already a killer. Might as well kill something that deserves my spite." Grabbing the headplate and Mira's pendant, I stalked past Clef, out of my room. The Guru's apology was all that I heard afterward. "...Ken, for all it's worth... I'm sorry." My feet stopped. After all that. Just 'Sorry'? Should I really still be talking to you, Clef...? "You've got one minute. Make it fast." The Guru's voice was filled with remorse. "I didn't want Gara and Chi to die. I didn't want Mira to die. It's just that..." Clef paused for what seemed an eternity. "Gara, Chi, and Zazu volunteered to protect the gems. They believed that if Kore was ever revived, she would destroy Cephiro. In the end, I... I told them to guard it with their lives, as I didn't want to risk just anyone awakening the earth spirit." There was no mirth but bitterness in his voice. "Hah. How was I to know that Dis would appear and suddenly leave us no other option?" I turned my head to Clef's hunched figure. "By then it was too late, right...?" Clef nodded. "...They were bound by honor to keep their word. Even had I told them to surrender the orbs, they would not have given them to me." The Guru's cloak slithered as he turned to face me. "I did it for what I believed was for the good of Cephiro. I wish that there was another way, but..." Coldness drifted off of my tongue as easily as sugar. "It's too late for regrets, Clef. I have to go and stop Dis." I turned my back to the Guru, donning my headpiece as I did. The pendant felt like an amulet in my hand. Mira... I swear that you'll be the last person to die for my sake. =================================== The walls of the palace opened widely as the Guru waved his staff. Outside, I could see the black mists churn. Calling. Begging. Screaming. Clef looked at me with his uninjured eye. "Ken...good luck and take care of yourself." For the first time in my stay, I did not mistrust the Guru's words. "Thanks, Clef." I looked outward. There, in the howling hell of the black mists, lay destiny. And possibly, the answers to everything. I held out Mira's pendant once again. Little Nar, you loved me enough to die for me. I wish I could do the same. Maybe I still can. The pendant's chain was slightly ajar, nothing I could not fix easily. I pulled the repaired chain over my head and around my neck. "I'm ready." =================================== A great blast of wind rushed into the opening. Clef and I were staggering backwards from the source. An FTO. Zazu. A loud booming voice came out of the FTO. "Hey, Earth kid. You don't mind if I join you, do you?" The FTO's fingers were giving me a thumbs-up. I grinned. Zazu was still annoying. Annoying, but welcome. At first, hesitation gripped me. What if he gets killed out there...? But Zazu isn't a kid. He damn well nearly beat me when I met up with him, and that was back when he still had that strange ailment. He can take care of himself. And I didn't want to feel lonely. I heaved my voice over the noise of the FTO's engines. "Thanks, Zazu!" I looked to Clef and smiled. "Tell Rafaga to get better, or else I'll kill him myself." The Guru knowingly returned my smirk. "I think that looking at my face will be warning enough." =================================== The lance seemed to have a life of its own. I called for Kore. Join me, mighty Mashin of the earth. I was engulfed in the light, searing with its purpose. Every joint in my body flexed. The magical steel of Kore's skin moved as I did. Once again, I and the great Mashin became one. <I will fight as one with you, Kenichi Kaeda.> Kore's timbre flowed through my mind. "As will I." Zagato... I let the energy of the earth carry me into the wind, into the mists. A flash racing behind me like a comet. Zazu was with me. Hands clasped around the pendant. Mira was with me, too... This time, I was not totally alone. =================================== The FTO maintained a close distance as we raced across the blackened mists. Zazu was eerily silent for the most part, speaking only to give me views of the land under Dis. The people below seemed to act normally at first glance from above. Zazu pointed out the difference, however. "Look closer, and you'll see that they're all acting as if the life was drained out of them..." I gazed upon the populace. Dull, pointless, unanimated people. Like zombies...without purpose, just wandering about. Zazu was right, the life... Not life. No, that didn't seem likely. "No, I think it's like..." Zagato's thoughts brought me to the conclusion. "...like they've lost all hope. As if nothing that happens or ever happened mattered anymore." Indifference to everything. Dis had made the people under his will completely catatonic to the state of events. Zazu's voice echoed my thoughts. "I'm going to kick his ass all the way into the next millenium, and we'll see how pointless he'll see life as, then." His voice was more mature now than it was when we first fought. "You have something against Dis, Zazu...?" The FTO's head swiveled in my direction as we glided along. "...Isn't that why you're here?" The head faced forward again, mimicking Zazu's motions. "Dis started with Autozam before he took over Cephiro." I met the remark with my own stunned silence. So that's his reason. As well as answering why none of the three neighboring planets aided Cephiro. They were probably attacked first, and without warning. Zazu continued on, rage swelling in his voice. "I found out as I returned home. The way blocked, and the planet... Autozam was completely drained of will." The FTO looked away from me. "I have nowhere else to go." Autozam, Fahren, Chizeta. And now that madman wants to add Cephiro to his wish list. <More than that, Ken.> Kore? <It is much my fault as anyone's that Dis exists.> I kept my voice as a whisper, so as to keep it from Zazu. "Why your fault...?" <Dis is the spirit of the Knight whom I slew. He posessed me long before you, Ken...> Dis...A Magic Knight...? But that's not possible... Clef said you slew him... <Yes. As Hikaru was before she had become the Pillar and changed all. Dis the Magic Knight, namesake of Sol Dis, the Father of Zagato...> A shifting in presence. Zagato. "My father was a strong magician who tried to perfect a spell to bring the dead to life... It was one of the gifts he wanted to give the people of Cephiro: Immortality..." The voice was deeply sorrowful. "...He only succeded in raising spirits. Eventually, he found one who took over his sanity. Ironic; he found a spirit whose name he shared. That little error eventually cost him everything." <The one I slew long before was but Dis the Pillar, the Knight. The one we face now is Dis the Spirit.> I could feel the regret within Zagato's soul chime in with Kore's own pain... "I confronted him. It was clear he had gone mad. He kept proclaiming of what would happen if and when..." Another pained pause. "...When I would fall in love and die for Emeraude. Years before it actually happened..." Dis a spirit...? <He is the spirit, who has taken both the mind and body of Zagato's own father for his needs.> "Because he was becoming too powerful, I had to entrap him. Sealing him... Dis the Spirit... within his own cave..." His voiced rang with shame. "...was the only way. I could not let him rave and destroy the balance of Cephiro. I thought my father to have been saved, but..." A flash as I saw Dis, Zagato's father Dis, tearing the world of Cephiro apart with his sheer madness. <And which point I was then brought to destroy Dis the Pillar.> I felt Zagato nod morosely. I sensed his voice hiding the truth. "That isn't the real reason, is it, Zagato..?" The dark timbre of the spirit's voice held sway over my words. "No...I was afraid..." Another long pause. "I was afraid he would hurt Emeraude, if only to prove that he was right. I could not foresee then what he saw..." <To see the future would drive all men mad.> Kore's observation rang true in all of us. Dis, Zagato's father, who had called upon the dead. Dis, the Spirit whose powers included the ability to see the future. Dis, who believed that he was beyond everything human. Dis was a lunatic. Plain and simple. Tell me something I haven't already figured out. <He believes himself to be the living embodiment of destiny.> Destiny. Dis kept on reiterating that there was no way to escape destiny, that whatever I would do, it would be pointless. Screw him. =================================== A bolt of light shot straight out of the clouds beneath us. Zazu's FTO dodged it easily, as Kore herself maneuvered away from the flash. Zazu's voice I heard, yealling to me as his FTO pointed downward with it's mechanical hands. "There! Under the clouds!" I looked below. There, under the depths of the hateful fog, stood Dis. He was proudly and arrogantly showing off his power to us. The dark mage's hands flowed about him in a strange yet malignant shadow play as lightning poured out of the clouds to strike us with their full electric fury. I let Kore tuck away instinctively from the blasts of power. In the conrer of my mind, I recalled that these were the same attacks that Zagato had once practiced... A flash of light snapped at the corner of my eye. "Zazu!" The FTO dove straight at Dis. A screeching sound told me that Zazu opened fire, with a large arm-mounted autocannon, no less. I could see the bullets, large as milk bottles, pour forth in a fiery stream straight toward the dark mage, exploding around him like fireworks. Indeed, Dis treated the shells as just that; fireworks. Zazu's howling rage could be heard everywhere as the FTO dove, tucked, and strafed the area where Dis stood. I quickly followed suit. Damn, if Dis was that cool under fire, Zazu's going to need all the help he can get. Kore and I tore into the cloud cover. =================================== The FTO had ceased its attack and now hovered warily over the unmoving figure of Dis. I pulled near. Had I not known better, I could have sworn that the FTO itself was panting in exhaustion. "Damned bastard..." Zazu's voice was markedly weary. The ground around Dis had been completely decimated by the utter force of the FTO's gun assault, but the mage himself was stood completely unscathed. He was actually smiling. "Did you really think that toys can stop me?" The confidence in his voice chilled the bone. "Even gods bow down to destiny. How can the two of you, ordinary children of men that you are, hope to turn the eternal hands of fate...?" Light surrounded Dis' image as he chanted arcana. "And that is exactly what you two are." A clap as the light lifted and hovered over the figure. "...children." Zazu and I stood stock-still as we viewed the light enlarge... ...And see something monstrous stride out. =================================== Out of the light strode a huge Mashin, taller than both Kore and the FTO. Like a giant in armor, the thing turned to us and gave us a frightening stare as it stood its ground. "Now, we shall really begin." From it's back, a pair of huge wings burst forth. My God... Dis' Mashin had wings... Angel's Wings... The images on the palace walls invaded my mind once again. Destruction of the blue sphere. Destruction of a planet. The Fourth Mashin destroying Cephiro. "Ken, You idiot!!!" Zazu...? The FTO barely shoved me out of the way as I saw a stream of pure energy raging out of the light. As I fell, I caught a glimpse of the FTO taking the full brunt of the blast. The machine's steel skin turned from a cream white to a glowing red before it peeled away like dried onion skins, blowing in the gale of the wind. When the light ended, as abruptly as it began, the FTO had become a withered, cherry- red parody of a man, crumbling even as it still floated. It was then that Zazu's proud mecha fell suddenly to the ground like a falling star. Instinctively, I put Kore into a mad dash to catch it, hoping beyond hope that Zazu had somehow survived the blast. The FTO crashed before I could save it. I never knew how fragile it was, as I saw the machine shatter into tiny red-black metal fragments all over the landscape. I could not see the battered pieces of Zazu's body. "Zazu...!!!" I knew he was dead. He could not have survived. All of the FTO's parts showered the dark land with its debris like the first falling of the snow. And a dark snow it was that hailed from the sky. I swore that no one else would die.... I shouldn't have let him join me. My fault. My responsibility. "You cannot escape destiny, Knight." Dis' Mashin looked at me with a flair of arrogance. Like a school bully who is proven right. "As I foresaw, the boy from Autozam would take the blast for you. That is good, Kore remains unscathed..." Malice like viper's venom dripped from his words. "...And I want -MY- Mashin back." "You can't have her.", I blurted from my dry throat. <I am not yours to own, Dis.> "Oh, but you will be mine, Kore. As is my son, and this child of a man that dares be called a Knight. Surrender to destiny. It was all foreordained." <I... I can't...> Kore's emotions were mixed as her thoughts passed in my mind. She couldn't bring herself to kill Dis again. Zagato was also in a dilemma. How could he bring himself to kill his own father...? And yet the Lance emerged from the Mashin's hands. Yet the pure bitter voice of a man older than I took the fore. Kore was guilt- ridden and Zagato as well. I, on the other hand, have no qualms about stopping Dis. At all cost. Destiny be damned. And the two who fought by my side linked their soul with mine. I mustered the rage. Cephiro's earth itself began to tremble as its energies flowed into me. The darkening skies above turned an even deeper shade of black as the energy of the earth itself glowed a visible white. I called upon Kore's strength. Zagato's experience. But though they were an essential part of this battle, I now knew for myself the reason why it had to be me, of all people, to become the Fourth. The greatest of all anger and rage is born from despair. Despair, and an unwillingness to simply bow and set it aside. I inhaled the stale air around me and spoke the words. A promise. An oath. A threat. The words of a man with nothing left to lose. "Dis... I'm going to kill you..."</pre><p><a href="./">Back</a></p><p><a href=http://www.dreamhost.com/donate.cgi?id=216><img border=0 alt="Donate towards our web hosting bill!" src=https://secure.newdream.net/donate1.gif></a></p></body></html>