Author's note: This fic is written for the albummix community; the title 'Punkywhitenoisething' is off Lunatic Calm's Metropol album. SMT: Nocturne, the characters © Atlus; Dante © Capcom. Fic contains spoilers for the events at the Tower and for one of the endings.
Punkywhitenoisething
He was the only one who heard it.
He had asked his demon friends if they could hear it too, but all he got were puzzled looks and a polite shaking of their heads from the more reserved members of his 'posse.' (At the time, the amusing thought that his English teacher would have deducted points if the man knew he used the word occurred to him; not that the man was even alive anymore in this new world of demons, but the idea somewhat amused him.) The less reserved -- all right, he admitted, the downright rude -- simply gave him funny looks and wanted to know if he thinks he's going crazy, if yes, please let them know in advance when insanity hits him so they can go find new masters who don't hear weird things in their heads.
The really enthusiastic ones demanded to know if he knew who was responsible for it, so they could go kill him. Can't let anyone bother the master, they said.
He thought it was even kind of sweet, in a twisted way. But then again, this new world was twisted.
--
At first he thought that the only reason he can hear it was because he's still somewhat human -- what was it some of the other demons said about him? The body of a demon, but the heart of a human being? -- but he was forced to revise this theory when he asked Dante if the man heard it too. Dante just stared at him for a long, uncomfortable moment before the man spoke.
"Heard what?"
"You know what, just forget about it."
"Naoki, you okay? Did that Yata-crow-thing--"
"Yatagarasu."
"--Yata-whatever we ran into earlier smack you too hard on the head with his beak or something?"
"No, stupid bird didn't even touch me."
"You sure? I could've sworn I had to push you aside when that crazy bird just rushed us."
"Then don't bother swearing to that, since he was the one who had to knock you down to the ground because you were too dumb to duck," Cú Chulainn mumbled.
The argument that quickly ensued between the two was rather spectacular and was only resolved when Okuninushi dragged them apart. He was surprised that Okuninushi was actually capable of doing that, since from what he remembered from the old stories his grandmother told him, Okuninushi was the youngest of eighty brothers and was bullied a lot. He thought then -- and boy, was he proven wrong -- that Okuninushi was, for lack of a better word, a wuss.
A wuss couldn't have broken up an 'extremely spirited argument' between a demon hunter and the Hound of Ulster without so much as a single hair out of place.
Then again, a wuss couldn't have ended up achieving godhood either.
And he would have helped Okuninushi with Dante and Cú Chulainn, honest, but he was too busy laughing.
--
It was a day before the thought occurred to him: was Dante even human to begin with?
--
It was two days later when Dante brought up the subject again. "You sure you're not imagining things?"
He rolled his eyes.
"'Cause I sure as hell don't hear anything other than these guys rumbling," Dante said, jerking his thumb towards the rest of the party.
"Just forget I ever asked, okay?"
Okuninushi must have sensed something that could lead to yet another 'engaging theoretical discussion', for he looked at them intently before he walked over to join them. "I take it there might be another engaging theoretical discussion soon?"
Dante shrugged. "Naah, not bored enough."
Okuninushi looked at him instead, questioning.
He repeated what he had said before; that faint, annoying buzzing sound he sometimes heard when he was alone, and how if he really concentrated, he could almost hear that it was not a single sound per se, but rather layers and layers of cacophonies, all of different notes, different frequencies, all tightly meshed into an unruly symphony with no crescendo, but rather played on loop, like a hopelessly corrupted MP3 file.
"MP3?"
"Never mind."
Since Okuninushi was looking more intently at him, and without that 'oh no, our Demi-Fiend master has gone nuts' expression present on some of the other demons' faces when he tried to discuss it with them, he goes on with his description. How that unruly sound was only a very faint, almost unnoticeable whimper when he changed to this -- he lifted his hand, showing off the bright, blue lines of his tattoos -- but has been, bit by bit, growing louder lately.
And if he really concentrated, he thought he could actually hear voices in that muddled symphony. But most of the time, it was just a faint, unruly noise.
"Something like white noise?" Dante said.
"Yeah."
Seeing Okuninushi's puzzled look, he explained that white noise was a term used for noise that contained many frequencies, all with equal intensities.
"Whoa, the kid here scores A's in science class?"
"Asshole."
--
The white noise has grown louder lately. At times he even hears it when he is in the company of his demon comrades, which caused a minor ruckus on one occasion. He had grumbled about how noisy it was and Sarutahiko immediately brightened and punched Orthrus in the face -- well, one of its faces, he wasn't too sure which -- and told the feral two-headed demon to quit his incessant growling.
The scuffle that followed next was not quite as spectacular as the one between Dante and Cú Chulainn some weeks ago, but it came quite close, since Cerberus had joined in to defend his brother, and Ame-no-Uzume joined in to -- well, he was not quite sure what the female deity really wanted to accomplish, but she kicked Sarutahiko in the head a few times, telling him to behave less like a boor and yanked the two other demons' tails a lot.
Again, he would have helped, but he was too busy laughing.
--
It was at least three weeks before they reached the Tower of Kagutsuchi. Dante asked him how could he even tell, since there was no night in this new world, only the relentless light of Kagutsuchi itself.
"I just do." His reply strangely enough, seemed to satisfy Dante.
Dante looked up, shielding his eyes from the glare of Kagutsuchi and the eerie, pulsing blood-red streams of Magatsuhi flowing towards the tower. "It's gonna be a bitch to get to the top of that thing. You ready?"
He doesn't answer Dante just yet; instead, he closed his eyes and the white noise grew louder and louder and louder, and in it, the voices hidden in the mad jumble of frequencies screaming for his attention.
This time, he heard them clearly. And this time, he understands why.
He opened his eyes. "Let's go."
--
Baal Avatar --no, Chiaki -- lay at his feet, the golden bringer of glory's body broken into a thousand pieces. Before Baal Avatar, there was Noah -- or rather, Isamu -- and before him, there was Ahriman and his chosen, Hikawa.
He knew them all before the Conception and the creation of this new world of demons. His friends, his enemy. All of them cursed him in their dying breaths, wondering why he would not join any of them, why was he a fool, what a waste of all that Magatama, all that glorious power running in his demonic veins, his human heart.
He wished he had the time to explain, but wishes were for little human boys, not for Demi-Fiends.
"Regrets?" Dante asked him, when he seemed to linger a little bit longer than necessary over Baal Avatar's ruined remains.
He shook his head and made a weak smile. "Not really."
"Why?"
The smile grew bigger, just a bit. "You'll see."
--
Kagutsuchi was the next to fall; like the others, it cursed him in its final breath, calling him a fool before the light and the power to make worlds, the very power of Creation itself, was released from its shattered form.
And then there was nothing, and yet there was everything, all in one moment of burst of bright, pure energy as his chosen world was summoned into existence.
His last thoughts before he lost consciousness was that he hoped his demon friends would be all right and he wondered if he would see Dante again.
--
It was a bit amusing when he realised the amount of time he took to finally figure out what that white noise was; the voices of all the worlds that were, all the worlds that could have been, all the worlds that had not yet existed -- all of them screaming at once, all of them vying for his attention, all of them trying plead its own case for existence.
He had wondered why the white noise pestered him; it was because he had yet to make his decision as to which world will be created. The worlds knew that it would not be a demon, Hikawa, Isamu, nor Chiaki to decide the next step in Creation, but him; that was why the others never heard the white noise.
It was only after he made his decision before he entered the Tower that the white noise stopped, since the new world has been decided upon.
He did not want a world of Shijima's utter stillness, as Hikawa did. Hikawa called it a world of harmony, but he thought it sounded more like a prison. There was no violence, no pain, no anger, no flaws, no chaos, true -- but there was no joy, no desire, nothing whatsoever that made someone truly human either.
For in silence, there was no right to choose.
Isamu wanted a world made according to Musubi; a world where no one bothered anyone, a world where only the individual mattered. He thought it was a joke; Isamu wanted a world for himself, but his friend has always sought others, whether Chiaki, himself, or even Ms. Takao. He wondered if Isamu ever realised the contradictions in his beliefs.
More importantly, he could not imagine being alone.
Chiaki's world of Yosuga never appealed to him. Chiaki wanted power and control over everything; it was just like her, being haughty, being demanding, used to getting her own way. She wanted a world where she cannot be hurt or rendered helpless, and she can pass judgement on whomever she chooses. She would be the one to decide the fate of everyone and everything, simply because she is the most powerful. And since he defeated her and Kagutsuchi, he would be the one doing the same if he had chosen her Reason and created a new world of Yosuga.
Who was he to decide the fate of everyone, everything?
Kagutsuchi cursed him for creating another world of suffering, but he did not see it that way. It may be a world of suffering, but at least it was a world that had joy as well. It was not a perfect world like the world the rest wanted, but it was the imperfection that mattered. It was a world where everyone could choose for themselves, whether they wanted solitude, harmony, or chaos. He would not make that decision for them.
When he landed his deathblow on Kagutsuchi, he could feel, rather than hear, the demand to know what his choice for the world's rebirth. He remembered smiling before he announced his decision:
"I want everything the way it was."
--
"Hey, Naoki!"
He blinked, startled.
"Quit daydreaming, man. You've been like that ever since you got that e-mail from Ms. Takao," Isamu grumbled. "Now hurry up, or Chiaki will be really pissed."
"Sorry."
"Whatever." Isamu looked curiously at him. "What did she say in that e-mail anyway? Anything about me?"
He could have said that Yuko Takao's e-mail thanked him for saving her and for letting everyone to have a fair chance to live in this world. He could have said that he was surprised that she remembered everything, but he did not. Instead, he replied, "Nothing much. She's just happy for our company, that's all."
Isamu brightened a little, whlie he curbed the urge to grin. His friend's crush on their teacher was so obvious it was kind of amusing. "What were you thinking about anyway?" Isamu asked.
He grinned. "White noise."