12 / 25 / 2015
Outside my house. On the porch out the front door. Cat's by my side.
Night air is cold. But my heart's beating so quick that the weather doesn't even matter to me all that much.
"What made you change your mind?"
"I'm still intent on trying to help her in the here and now. But..." It takes me everything I have to admit, "...from what I can tell, she has no confidence that I can help her. And maybe rightfully so."
"Did you try anything today?"
"No. But…you were right to doubt me. I was running on fear and adrenaline, walking like a man in a dream. I thought maybe…"
"You thought…?"
I see my breath bloom into mist out my mouth. "I thought maybe if I just tried hard enough I could think of something, anything to say. But that would mean completely ignoring what she'd told me yesterday. She thinks me being near her will kill me."
"She said that to you?"
"Just before I entered her Palace. I didn't think about it too much. But after I spoke with Dad, it…kinda cleared my head."
"I see. Very sorry to hear that."
"Doesn't matter anymore," I groan. "She's arranged to leave my house by next week. At least, that's what my Dad tells me. And he doesn't lie."
"You're sure about that?"
"In this case, he doesn't have a reason to lie. Either she'll leave by next week, or she won't. What I'm curious about is whether she was forced into this, or she decided this of her own will."
Cat sighs, "To be blunt, your dad's a real piece of work."
"Always has been. But he's—" I grip my shoulder, which has stopped aching, "—never raised a hand against me before…"
"That's messed up of him, to do that to you in the first place."
"Prolly real stressed out. Been ruining my future more and more recently. Guess he's just pissed I ain't being a good boy anymore."
"Wonder what his Palace is like…"
I scoff, "Probably full of tall Cybers buildings populating every single country. Dunno. Doesn't matter right now."
"Right."
"She'll be gone in a week, I'll be gone in a few months. My future's all gone to hell. Not gonna let hers follow mine. No matter what Dad says."
Cat smiles, "That's it, follow your heart! I'm sure we'll be able to fix things!"
Sounds weird to refer to all this as fixing things, but whatever.
"Why did you want my help in the first place?" I ask the cat. "Even yesterday you were suggesting I help you."
"I mean, don't you want to help your girlfriend?"
"Course I do. Just saying, I'm green as hell to all this. Won't I just slow you down?"
"Had multiple attempts to steal different people's Treasures before. All failed miserably. But I've a feeling this situation might tip into my favor, so long as I'm with you."
"Why?"
"Because you're her boyfriend. You've definitely affected her psyche somehow. You might help me get through certain roadblocks along the way. It's a one-in-a-million chance. But it's better than zero."
I don't like those odds at all. But I'm willing to take whatever chance I can get, so long as I can help free Kana of this nightmare she's stuck in.
But it's still pretty fubar, all things considered. "I don't like any of this at all."
"I get it. I mean, she's your girlfriend—"
"Not just that. I mean. She's—" I groan. "This feels like something she ought to settle herself, you know? It's one thing if I was, like, requested to do this, but…"
"But it's to help her. Prolly gonna save her life."
"I know. I can't even imagine feeling the kind of agony she's got brewing inside her. But still."
"If you were feeling the same pain she is now, wouldn't it be great if she could help you out of it?"
"It would, because I trust her enough with that kinda pain. But I never even caught wind of just everything going on with her, I only scratched the surface. She hasn't told me anything so far. Other than how she wants me gone, and is afraid she'll kill me if she stays with. And besides…"
"Besides, what?"
I rub the back of my neck. "Kana's depression is above and beyond anything I could ever feel. If at any point I fell into that kind of dark place…it'd be cheap for me to be pulled out of it without any input on my end."
Cat tilts its head. "Oh come on…"
"It's a pride thing," I exclaim. "If someone extends a hand to me, I'd like it to be my choice to take it."
"She can't make that decision properly! Her heart's distorted! Probably any attempt to help her she'll look at with scorn! Get a grip, you can't help her the way you want to!"
"You really, really wanna go for this whole Steal the Treasure thing?"
"Your other option is to wait for her to talk to you about it, which is unlikely. But she won't last that long, I'm sure."
"What do you mean, you're sure?"
"I've been in Palaces with some very depressed people. Some were students like her, some were divorcees who had a nasty breakup, some were drunks and junkies who drove away all their friends. Seven times outta ten they just killed themselves eventually. The other three ended up having to live with all that burden. Some of 'em got their act together. Others had their Palaces evolve, and started being a drain on everyone they once loved."
"Evolve into Kingdoms, right?"
"Yeah! The app told you about Kingdoms, too?"
"Saw that word passed around in the app. Never really thought to open up the folder that explained everything…"
"Well, anyway…those people I mentioned? Their distorted desires coloured their perceptions of the whole world around them, just like this Kana girl's. In that respect, they're similar. So if you're gonna bank on—"
"Ideally I'd like to trust her to recover on her own power."
"I don't think she has that luxury. And you don't think so either. After all, you wouldn't have even considered goin' into the Palace if you did. And honestly maybe you're right to think that way."
I run my hands along my hair briskly over and over again, "I feel so uncomfortable about all this."
"I get it. But going into her Palace might be the only way to help her."
I narrow my eyes, "Or kill her, right?"
Cat says, "I'm not gonna lie to you. This is a delicate situation. Her Treasure's likely going haywire."
My eyes widen. "What do you mean?"
"Considering what you told me about her, her Treasure was indeed likely related to her family, namely her daughter. Considering what happened to her, I think it's safe to say her Treasure's been…affected. Badly."
"Can it still be stolen?"
"I mean, probably. I think. Ideally it should be, but…now that I think about it, her real-world experiences may have done something to it…
"So there's probably a huge margin of error anyway. Probably even bigger than normal."
"Er—y-yeah. Yes, I suppose so…," the cat murmurs, trying to think up a way out of all this. "And the Palace is gonna be full of things trying to kill us, and I'm not talking about the big monster thing. You'll see what I mean, when we get there."
"Then why even attempt it at all?"
The cat shouts, "We've been over this! If her Palace is as screwed up as I know it is, then literally anything you do here won't work!"
I look up at the dark sky, and as the moon glares upon the earth a lightbulb shines in my head.
"Her Shadow…" I murmur. "That thing on the monster…"
Cat exhales, "Yeah?"
"I wanna talk to her."
It cries out, "What!?"
"That thing is a part of Kana. If I can reach it, I might better understand it. Might give us an edge. Hell, if I can get enough info out of it, I might be able to help Kana even in this world. At least get something of a foothold."
Cat shakes its head. "I don't know about that. The beast she rode on nearly fried you alive. I think she's hostile, all things considered."
"Maybe so. But if she is...I need to figure out why. I need to figure out if everything we'd been through together was a lie."
"…oh."
"What could go wrong? Not a rhetorical question. What reason might her Shadow have to not speak to me?"
"Well...frankly, there's always the possibility that you didn't really know her as well as you thought."
I slink further down the steps of the porch, letting all the air outta my lungs. "And why would she speak to someone who doesn't know her...?"
"There's also the possibility that, since her Treasure's gone all crazy, her Shadow prolly won't listen to reason in general."
I put a hand to my face, "Damn it all."
It puts its paws on my head, looking down at me directly, "Can't hurt to give it a try, though! Never say never."
"I don't want her to suffer a mental break or anything," I shake my head. "I just want to see if there's anything I'm missing…anything I can use."
Cat raises its brow. "In that case, you'd be using events in the Palace to make things work for yourself in the real world."
"I suppose so."
It smirks cheekily then, "Can you really say it's her choice if she takes your hand, then? If you used what you got from her Shadow to get the response you wanted?"
I sigh, "I'm running out of options, and time."
Cat lays a paw on my leg, eyes almost sympathetic. "It can't hurt to give it a try."
I find it in myself to run a hand along the fur off its head and back. "Alright, Cat. Let's do it tonight."
"My name is Morgana—wait, tonight?"
"My name's Kazuya. And yes, tonight. Sooner the better."
"You sure you're ready to go back there?"
"Absolutely."
"What about your phone?"
Oh yeah, phone. Damn it.
I grab the cat and carry it under my arm, "Comin' with me to Akihabara!"
"H-hey! Don't be so rough with me!"
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.
.
The smartphone I end up getting is outdated and plain black, with a screen that wears my fingerprints like clothes. Apps and programs look like they belong in 2012.
The cat speaks up on the train ride back home. Luckily we're in an empty train car, and I was able to pay the fare for pets.
"You're sure that just getting a new phone will give you the app?"
"Probably."
"How?"
"If that specific app was something you could find on every phone, then literally every single news outlet in the world would be talking about its ability to traverse different planes of existence. There's also the fact that the man in my dreams spoke of a Navigator and its importance in saving Kana's heart. With everything I've experienced up to this point, I can assume it has unfathomable supernatural origins."
Cat just blinks, "Okay..."
"Whoever or whatever gave me the app intends for me to use it. Probably the man in my dreams. And considering its supernatural nature, I'm pretty certain that me losing a cellphone won't stop them from pushing me towards going into that world, what did you call it?"
"Vortex World."
"Right. So hopefully if I buy a new phone, the app will just magically reappear."
"And if it doesn't?"
"Then either you teleport me into that world using the dimension-jumping powers you've got--"
"Which has like a 60% chance of splitting your atoms into multiple layers of existence--"
"--or I just have to hope and pray Kana recovers from her depression."
"Which is unlikely."
I shake my head. "Either way she and I are screwed so I might as well give it a try."
"Has it appeared yet?"
"No...not yet."
"Maybe you shoulda gotten a newer model."
"I doubt that whatever put the Nav in my phone cares about the model."
"You never know. Maybe it's a capitalist."
"Don't be stupid--" pprrring "--it's in."
"What?"
"It's in--the app's in my phone. I just got it."
"Lemme see!"
A red, bloated, digital eye kept captive in a square with round edges.
"That's the app?" the cat asks.
"Yes."
"You sure?"
"I remember it clearly."
"Hm," it narrows its eyes. "So no matter what happens to your phone, as long as you get a new one, you can safely enter the Vortex World no prob."
"Sooner or later you'll have to explain what Vortex World means clearly, or else I'm gonna be so lost when we dive into Kana's Palace."
"The Vortex World is what I call the realm where all Palaces and Kingdoms reside," it says quickly, eloquently, as though it's practiced this before. "It's a realm constructed entirely of negative human cognitions."
"You said you...took an hour to put me back together, whatever that means."
"Yes. Something happened to my human form that turned me into a cat and gave me the ability to jump into Palaces without needing that app. But with you, since your body's a regular ol' human body, it had...issues going from one layer of reality to the next. It got messy, to say the least. You're lucky I was able to put you back together and get us back out to the real world."
Guess I'm gonna have to get used to all this weird nonsense. "Has this Vortex World always existed, or...did it just appear out of nowhere one day?"
"I'd say it's always existed, in some form or another. But I'd likely be amiss to say it's made itself manifest in these kinds of ways before."
Likely? Oh, right. It's lost its memories. "You think there's something behind it?"
"Honestly, I don't know. It's all so...hazy."
"Figured."
"You're right to say it's a stretch for me to think jumping 'round Palaces might get my memories back. But I woke up only with the knowledge that the Vortex World is acting in ways it shouldn't. That Palaces and Kingdoms contain things called Treasure that are reflective of human desire. And considering that's all I know about any of this, I've gotta take what I can get."
"I suppose I understand," I sigh.
"You're taking this all so well. It's strange."
"What do you mean?"
"You should be freaking out at the idea of a whole other world. But you're just absorbing all this without a care."
I face the window, face the city passing the train by, "Because once Kana's dealt with, I won't ever have to touch the app ever again."
Cat wags its tail, "Well, hopefully."
"Just one question."
"Yeah?"
"What if her Palace turns into a Kingdom?"
"Well...what about it?"
"You said that if it evolves, her distorted desires...can't be changed anymore. Could you elaborate?"
It scratches its left ear. "A Palace is founded on everything a person doesn't want to acknowledge about themselves. Once they do get a foothold on those unacknowledged, distorted desires, they could either work to correct themselves or indulge in the distortion. If they choose to indulge, they develop a Kingdom. At that point, the only one who can possibly change their heart is themselves. No way around it."
"The Treasure can no longer be stolen?"
Cat lets out a breath. "It can be. But...if it's stolen, it'll likely kill the Kingdom Ruler."
What? "Why?"
"Steal a person's unconscious desires and they'll get their heads set straight. Steal the desires a person has completely internalized as a part of their identity? That's bound to cause problems."
Good God. "So it's not too different from Palaces, then."
"Okay, look: I haven't stolen a Treasure from a Palace nor a Kingdom. But I do know that stealing from a Palace has a chance it could result in someone dying. A slim chance, but still a chance. Stealing from a Kingdom, on the other hand? It's a certainty. At that point, when a person's got a Kingdom, they're already dead. Either their desires get stolen, or they destroy themselves trying to obtain them."
"You think Kana's gonna develop a Kingdom anytime soon?"
"Honestly?" Cat sinks into my bag, "We're lucky she hasn't already. For all she's expressed to you already, she's still trying to keep down all these dark emotions."
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.
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The instant my foot lands on the front porch of my house, I pull open my phone and tap away at the app again.
True to its nature, it keeps a log of the last Palace I'd been to, in its search history.
A search history it shouldn't have, considering it's in a completely new phone I just so happened to buy today.
「 PALACE LOG 」
I. 12 / 24 / 2015 - PR: Kana Kohaku | PL: The World | PD: Hell
I'm gonna have a word with that man in the purple suit one of these days.
But first.
Tap.
Palace Confirmed
Would You Like to Enter?
Y/N
"You ready to talk to that monster?"
"I'll have to be."
"Okay."
I tap Y.
For a few moments the world dyes itself in blood-red and vantablack.
When I find the courage to finally open my eyes, I'm taken back to history books.
In junior high they taught us World War II. My school in particular didn't do justice to the subject. Readings from the book we'd been handed. A powerpoint here and there. They emphasized the bombs but they didn't emphasize them enough.
There was no talk about how many victims of Fat Man and Little Boy were left wandering irradiated wastelands with their skin sloughing off their bodies like shredded clothes. No talk about how the force of the bombs caused glass shards to spear through and into people's bodies. No talk about how burn victims were so blackened and charred and cindered that even throwing themselves into bodies of water didn't soothe the heat or the pain. No talk of the eternally disfigured Ant-Walking Alligators who once looked like men, and now looked like flesh creatures covered in keloid scars.
I'd never thought Kana had paid much attention to history whenever I spoke about this sort of stuff.
Seeing the people wandering her world, seeing the walking burning rotting carcasses, I could not have been more wrong.
Dozens, maybe hundreds of people pass us by, me and the cat. They pay us no heed whatsoever, all their faces obscured by complete darkness. I daren't look any further, but I do manage to see what's about a hundred yards ahead of us.
Of course, even from this distance, you'd be able to see the seven-headed monstrosity clearly.
"You okay?" the cat asks me.
I turn to it. Bulbous head. Yellow neckerchief. Small cartoon body. Golden saucer-eyes.
"No."
"You wanna go back?"
"...no."
"Okay then." It leaps up into the air, and when it comes back down it's a bus again. Hit none of the wandering half-monsters when it came crashing down. Didn't hit me either. "You ready? It'll take us a while to get there."
I get into the front seat and for a second I don't know what I'm doing. But I pull a lever and it seems to get the engine going.
"ETA ten minutes!"
Silently, I pray, something I never thought I'd ever do seriously. "Alright."
.
.
.
When we get there...
When we get there.
If you have to ask, you'll never know.
I get out of the front seat. "Kana!!"
Lucky that the large monster would move at such a lumbering pace. Allowed us to catch up to it in even less time than anticipated.
But because I've called her it's now turning to me. The seven-headed monstrosity shifts its gazes upon me, and though each of its faces are obscured by the long and thick strands of black hair I can still see their maws which are so large they can each fit fifty men. The creature's seven breaths expel a noxious gas that in any other situation would have made me want to stab the part of my brain that allows me to smell. Its building sized legs shift and cause fissures and imprints into the concrete ground. As it lumbers it makes a groaning, bellowing noise that causes my spine to vibrate and my bones to tremble, and I'm surprised I'm not suffering from shock just by remaining in proximity to it--
"Stay calm, Kazuya...!" cries the cat but I barely hear it.
Because out of all the seven heads, it's the fourth one that lowers itself. And I see her leap down from the top of that head, I see her and she sees me and it takes me everything in my power to not just crumple down and be somewhere else, watching this happen like a dream.
Her face is impassive and her robes flow in the nuclear winds. Her body and all the muscle and gristle are exposed before me; her eyes gleam gold, gold like the cat's eyes, and in her arms is a figure small enough to be a baby--wrapped in red linen.
"Who are you...?"
Her voice alone causes the back of my neck to seize up, for it sounds like a thousand different pitches of her voice all combined into one. "K-Kana..."
"You look just like Kazuya."
"Wh-what...?"
"I don't intend to cause you any harm. But I will, should you stay here any longer."
I make myself strong as steel, or close enough, to ask, "Why?"
"It is in my nature. All things I come into contact with are corrupted irreparably."
So much for prayer. "Kana. Can you...?"
"You may look and sound just like Kazuya. But you are not him. You do not have the right to speak my name so casually."
"Then please just listen. Give me a minute. I beg you."
It eyes me carefully, cautiously. "Very well."
"The whole world...is being consumed by this...fire. What caused this?"
"I did. Fool that I was. I believed my evil could only be restricted to my homestead, and that it could not affect anyone or anywhere in the rest of the world. However...that was a lie I told myself."
"I...I am Kazuya. I came from--"
Cat tugs on my pant leg, "She won't get it."
"What?"
"She's a Shadow. J-just...ask her if there's anything you can do to help."
"Can I...," I force all the fear back down, facing Kana's Shadow. "Is there anything Kazuya can do to help?"
"I am afraid not," she snarls. "The boy's been bending over backwards for me these past few days. He's cried more times these past few days than I have. There's nothing in him that would save me, as much as he hopes there could be."
"What?"
She whirls around to face the giant creature, running her free hand along its massive strands of hair. "He thinks he loves me, and he thinks I love him. But he's not got a clue what love means, nor do I. And despite his harshness, despite his narrow views of the world, there is beauty in him. Or at least there was."
I lose all instinct to keep standing, "Kana..."
Cat tries to keep me steady, "Kazuya, calm down--"
"Who are you, really?" she faces me again. "Are you my savior?"
I glare at her, and I growl out, "I am the one that you've been talking about for--"
"No. Not a savior. Not Kazuya. A thief."
"What?"
"A thief that has come here to plunder what little Treasure I've left."
"I-I'm not a thief, I'm--I'm trying to help you--!"
"Once there was a parasite that lay in my arms."
What in God's name are you-- "A parasite?"
"A hideous little thing that sucked at my teats and screamed all night, every night, tears gushing down her eyes. Constantly getting sick. Constantly trying to win me over with her black doll's eyes and her little mewling. She clung to my arms and rested upon my chest so often I'd feel like she was a hole my body was being drained into."
No, please. "Stop it."
"Feces and piss ran down her legs every night and she'd bawl endlessly to get me to change her trousers and she wouldn't shut the hell up. Some nights I'd consider throttling her, shaking her up and down until she'd stop, just stop. But she never would stop and I'd never gain the courage to do what I'd yearned for."
"Kazuya--"
"Stop it."
"When I had her I told myself I wanted her. I told myself I could try. More times than not I would leave her in a garbage can and hope someone, out there would just take her. But I'd hear her crying a few seconds later, and my fool self would drag myself over to her. Pry her from the trash and tend to her again. As time passed the parasite fused itself more and more to myself--not just to my body but to my soul. Such that if anything were to happen to her, it would wound me just as badly."
Dear God, Kana. "Why wouldn't you...?"
Because she didn't need me to know.
Because she didn't want me to know.
Because what the hell am I, other than the guy who tutored her?
What the hell did any of those times we shared actually--?
"I longed to keep her safe. Safe from those who would abuse her as others have to myself. Therefore I sought a man who could sustain us both. One who was intelligent and strong and loved her and loved to teach. I knew not that his parents had endured the same ordeal. I knew not that he would've been stupid and crazy enough to go for someone like me. But he was. And he was arrogant and quiet and harsh and sometimes cruel but he was also kind and he was gentle and the way he spoke to me, the things he did for me--I thought that he loved me more than anyone else ever had, and I was willing to believe the lie that I was coming to care for him too. The lie that someone like myself was capable of feeling that sort of truth. But all lies bubble up to the surface sooner or later. And the lie that I believed in, the lie that there could be a future with the parasite and with the stupid boy--"
And she unwraps a layer off the linen cloth.
"--revealed it was just that, and nothing more."
The skull is bifurcated and cracked and the jaw is hanging limply from one joint. The baby's bones are practically held together only by the barest strands of fiber and muscle, completely desiccated and hollow and sparkling gold--
"Treasure..." I turned to the little black creature standing next to me. Its golden eyes burn with lust and fury as clouds of air heave out its mouth in gusts. "T-Treasure...!"
Oh no. "Cat, wait--"
"TRRREASURE!!!"
Suddenly it leaps at the bones and in the dash its fangs grow thrice their size--like a blur it abounds and slashes through the air, Kana's Shadow clutches the red linen close to her chest as her robe is sliced up by the blade, and I see for a second, I'm able to see for only a second--
It leaps to try and get at the red linen again, only for Kana's Shadow to sink into the ground in a flurry of dark shades.
"Treasure--Treasure...!"
The cat's eyes bulge furiously, veins in them popping as its mouth stretches wide, wide enough such that it exceeds its face like the Cheshire cat--its hair stands on end like a porcupine's quills more than a cat's fur, its maw drips black sludge and drool and white fog keeps hissing forward from its mouth like steam, its arms and legs have grown thinner and ganglier and longer like it's emaciated, its once bulbous face has turned sharp and thorny and narrow, its saucer eyes growing black slits for pupils--and it seethes and hisses and screeches in rage over not being able to get those bones in its hands--
And I blink, and the cat's reverted to its cartoonish, ridiculously-proportioned self.
"Foolish thieves. Cannot even control yourselves at the pieces of my Treasure."
Kana's Shadow has re-emerged at the top of the fourth head, her eyes full of fury and almost disappointment.
"No. Wait, Kana--!!"
"My daughter is dead and gone. Her body is in pieces. And the future I had longed for, gone to the wind. Yet even as she lies broken in my arms, I will ensure her death is not meaningless. No less than her mother deserves--I shall die with her, on my own terms."
Oh my God. "What...!?"
"The corrosion of my soul has tainted her, as it will every other person I shall come to know and love, for I am a curse. In order to protect the rest of this world from my poison, I shall end my own life. If only Masako hadn't died to teach me such a lesson. But before I commit this grand act...I must be rid of these Thieves. My child dies with me--none other may steal her. Kazuya. Destroy them."
And the seven heads rear upward to the darkened skies, as the whole world shakes and trembles. An earthquake that would devour entire continents spreads across the wasteland as the beasts bellow a noise that should burst my lungs and eardrums but doesn't, a noise so loud it ought to be heard from the other side of the planet--
Their thousand-foot long strands of hair part and I see my face on each and every one of those seven heads, I see my eyes, I see my nose, I see everything, their rotted mouths start to burn with an everlasting flame and they direct them at me and the cat and they burn and as they burn I hear them laughing, I hear them laughing the same laugh I made when I bashed Shido's brains into the sidewalk--
Exit the Palace From Entryway?
Y/N
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NoRoleModelz Chapter Notes: Sooo yeah.
Morgana's gonna be a lot creepier in this fic for plot reasons to be revealed later. Real keen on Treasure this time around, more than ever.
Also, if anyone's not played Nocturne yet and is curious as to what the hell the Vortex World is, let's just say that I prefer the name Vortex World to Metaverse any day, and thought it'd be fun to transplant it in its place. Especially considering I'm gonna make the Nocturne allusions a lot more apparent later on.