Dying of the Light

Ginzai

He came out of it terrified and lost, not a clue as to his predicament or how he came to be in such straights. He was swimming through darkness, nearly lost in a thousand dreamlike worlds, each possessing more horrors than he ever thought possible, and more frightening because, somehow, he knew they all came from himself. The only thing that he could sense was that this was familiar, it had happened before, this sense of complete and utter helplessness, and that sensation was hated, loathed, and more than ever he struggled against the fog surrounding his mind to open his eyes and see...

Nothing.

He cried out with frustration, voice catching roughly in his throat and that was what caused him to pause and take notice. In all of his dreams, all the nightmare adventures he had undertaken since (since when? He didn't know) it had started, his voice had been his own, his senses left unbarred. Now though, now he couldn't speak, he could feel his throat being pressed backwards by something sharp and cold, his tongue too swollen to properly form words. And he couldn't hear anything, and the abrupt silence left him shaken. He blinked and felt his eyelashes brush against cloth, explaining away his sudden blindness.

He was awake then. His mind reeled, and he wasn't entirely certain if it was simply from the struggle to reach this point.

He closed his eyes, somehow the darkness seemed more bearable if it was self-imposed. He took several deep breaths, calming techniques taught by his grandfather coming to him. They didn't seem to be working. He used them anyway.

He hated this. After Arago he had sworn never to be placed in the same position again, but hated himself even more for bringing back the memory...swinging slowly, dangling from ropes tied around torn wrists, his shoulders and arms a burning mass of skin and muscle, and knowing that he wasn't the only one suffering, knowing that he couldn't give into to the cry burning in his throat because there were two others waiting beside him and they couldn't hear him loose faith and loose hope.

He had attended school before the war, likely would again if he didn't die in it. He could remember being forced to read a melodramatic sap tale of a wandering monk named Gendo Masutaki, and his misadventures in feudal Japan. Gendo had been caught by bandits one night while he was camping, and when they found he had no money they had strung him up from his wrists and whipped him until his back turned red with blood. They left him there for seven days and seven nights, until Gendo's prayers were answered and a hoard of oni slaughtered the lot of them, leaving Gendo be because they thought he was already dead. Gendo had escaped and continued his journey, aided by the beautiful, noble youkai princess who discovered that he was indeed alive and the story had proceeded to get a more interesting from there. They hadn't been allowed to read that part, much to the chagrin of the students. His teacher, a somewhat sadistic man, had grinned and told them that Gendo Masutaki wouldn't have survived anyway, as being suspended from the wrists induces a slow sort of suffocation, and he likely would have died from blood loss before that. The teacher had proceeded to give them all several rather gruesome details he was certain they could have done without.

He had always hated that teacher.

He could sympathize with Gendo though, now that he knew what it felt like. Well, not the demon youkai princess, unless one counted Kayura, and he certainly wasn't. But the ropes, sure, and the beatings, though he would prefer to know neither. He wasn't entirely certain how long he had been hanging there, but he knew that it had been an eternity. He caught himself railing silently at Ryou and Touma, for having left them there, days and nights gone unnoticed in this place of darkness. The only way to tell how much time had passed was to note the healing of the wounds the youma left on him, on Shuu, on Shin. When they were left to be together, that was.

He sometimes wondered why they weren't dead, and knew that the yoroi was to blame for it. He had wanted to die on occasion, when smirks and dead eyes got the better of him and the pain grew too great, but not unless the others were safe first.

He would die to save them, but not to save himself.

Not even to stop the burning in his arms.

But they weren't burning in the right places...His wrists didn't hurt at all, and though his shoulders were pained, they didn't reach the all consuming agony that they had before. He frowned in the darkness, reaching without hands for Shin, who had always seemed brighter and easier to reach than Shuu, who was always so earthy and mundane to arcane senses. Nothing, nothing more than a blanket across his mind, and that alone terrified him once more and he flailed, lost and wondering.

No Shin. He tried harder, reaching out for either of them, Shin or Shuu, and when that failed he resorted to colder methods, ones that he thought he wouldn't ever have to try, reaching out for the cruel darkness that was Anubisu, whom he had a cursed bond with and never seemed too far removed from the daily misery that was their lives. He tried for Rajura, whose own magical abilities made him a greater light to those looking without eyes, and he couldn't find either. He stretched, but even the eternal malice that usually bogged him down was gone.

It felt cold, sterile and untouched. He retreated back within the confines of his body and sighed harshly, then gasped, startled by the lack of sound.

He blinked in surprise and his eyelashes brushed against cloth and he remembered again.

Not Arago. Not that time.

This time.

And he wasn't even certain what this time was. He didn't even have the pain of healing to let him know how long he'd hung there, and was somewhat dismayed to note that he didn't really care.

He cleared his thoughts, determined not to let himself fall again, shoving memories better left repressed and forcefully forgotten back into his subconscious. He concentrated instead on the pain in his arms, supported at perpendiculars from his body. His muscles ached. He couldn't move; he was lashed too tightly. After a moment he twitched his fingers instead, but even that seemed slow and jerky, something that he hadn't entirely meant to do but was gladdened that he had.

It meant that he was alive after all. Even the pain hadn't been enough to convince him otherwise. He'd been imprisoned in darkness before after all, left senseless and unable to move and aching, and he'd thought that he'd been dead then. That Arago's unexpected, scattering maelstrom had destroyed him along with the others and that he was waiting in some unexpected limbo. He'd killed after all, and that was a sin, wasn't it? He had never been particularly religious, but it had worried him then. Did youma count? Did they have souls? He didn't know about that either, but he certainly had time to think it over.

He cursed then, as his surroundings blurred and he lost himself again in the tempest that was his memories.

Lost in darkness, trapped in a pillar of dead rock. Worse than dead because rock had never been alive. He'd never asked the others what they had felt being imprisoned, but they hadn't seemed particularly upset about it. Shuu had been encased in rock as well, Touma lost amidst the stars, and Ryou, well, Ryou had been thrown into a damn volcano for god's sake. It wasn't like he had anything to complain about.

Other than being left alone in the dark, the complete and utter antithesis of his own calling. Trapped in cold stone while he was of light and spirit and life had been miserable. Had been? Wasn't he still there?

No, no, no. Ryou. Ryou had saved him, calling him forth so that he could in turn save Ryou from Naaza, and he'd found that his captivity had bolstered his abilities until he could bring light into the darkness and defeat another demon. Even save the sight of his friend.

That was right, that was what had happened. Then he'd saved Shuu from his own earthen prison while Ryou went after Shin. And the other time, that had been Touma, hadn't it? He thought so. Yes, yes, Touma and his arrows make of ki and light that had breathed life into the statues they'd become. Touma and Ryou...  Huh. They were always off saving the others, weren't they? Well, not Touma so much, because Ryou had saved him from the stars, but Ryou... Ryou was still saving people. Maybe he'd save him again.

He hoped so. And then he forgot what he had been hoping for.

Gods, but his head hurt.

Where was he again? Oh yes. The darkness.

Fantastic.

He blinked again, before shutting his eyes once more so that his lashes would stop moving against the thrice-damned cloth. He let his head hang down, let his chin droop against his subarmor (why was he wearing that?) and felt its coolness against his skin.

Someone entered the room then, though he couldn't hear it, couldn't hear anything. He could sense him though, and in this time of complete sensory deprivation his usually latent psychic abilities were pulled to the forefront. Familiar, this man, with his calculating, analytical mind, and likewise the second darker sense that joined him. That one pulled at his mind, leaching it into itself, drawing him past some invisible, unknowable event horizon and he shuddered away from it, latching on to the first in desperation.

Words then, that he could hear and not hear, hiding as he was in the scientist's mind.

First the second crueler tone. /He's awake. I told you to up the dosage./

Then exasperated annoyance. /How was I supposed to know that wouldn't be enough? It should have dropped a horse, much less one underweight boy! Besides, you didn't want him dead, did you? Any more then and it would have killed him. We nearly lost him as it was./

/Ch. Fix the problem, mortal fool. We've work to be done./

Irritation, and silence, and then a rush of fire into his veins from myriad points, too many to name. He lost himself again in the flood of chemicals, driven back down into a sea of grey flames. He choked, unable to breathe, gasping in the void and straining against bonds. Too tight, too tight!

His eyes flew open from the pain and a handful of sakura floated across his vision. The sound of fighting filled his ears. Screams too, of a child he was certain. He'd heard the sound before. He could taste blood in his mouth, salty and metallic, and he wiped his left hand across cracked lips, the right still clutching his no datchi as though it was all he had left.

Grey, grey, grey...The scent of sweat was repugnant, but he knew it wasn't from himself. Seiji frowned down at the blood left trailed across his full armor, almost unnoticeable against the dark of the green. Something...wasn't right about that. He hadn't been bleeding had he? Seiji shook his head, trying to clear it, and for a moment felt something tight and cold across his throat, felt the whisper of indifferent wires across his cheeks and when he opened his eyes he saw only darkness.

And than the voice, syllibiant and silent, touching a part of his mind that couldn't process it.

/There is a demon in front of you. He is killing a small boy. Shouldn't you stop him?/

There was. Seiji ran forward, no datchi swinging, desperate to save a child likely already dead.

And the demons attacked.

Author's Notes

Updated author's notes, that is.  This story was originally released over a year ago, with the full intention that it be a one piece short fic, with no follow  up.  Thanks to a wonderful person, Shadow of Arashi, this is no longer the case.  Rather, a long multichapter fic has been planned regarding this universe, with this story intended to be the prologue for it.  Unfortunately, as it turned out, this fic doesn't work as a prologue for the other work, so it's now a side story of sorts.  If you are wondering about the name change, it's because that other long fic is now called "Darkness Bind Them," as it really was supposed to be a part of this.  *sweatdrop* 

Very little has been changed in this version, but hopefully it will turn out well.  Spelling and grammer, as well as a few OOC references that irked me while reading through it again have been removed or changed. 

Ah, and the bit where the scientist refers to Seiji as an underweight boy isn't quite true, but it is rather close to it.  Seiji winds up as being the lightest of the Troopers, with Ryo being only a couple of pounds heavier.  He's close to borderline for underweight, given that he winds up as, if I recall correctly, 136 pounds at 5'9".  It's close enough that I consider him to be skinny.  ^^

1 - 2 - 2003