Pawn | By : Macx Category: Descendents of Darkness/Yami No Matsuei > General Views: 2478 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0 |
Disclaimer: I do not own Descendants of Darkness (Yami no Matsuei), nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story. |
Watari Yutaka gazed at the innocent looking door that was the gate into
a world no one knew about. It was a world where he had been introduced
to five very special people, five shinigami who only answered to Enma-Daiou,
who worked closely with the Lord of Hades, who were specialists brought
in for only one purpose – the creation of Mother.
Back then, Watari had been innocent. Truly innocent. He had just died,
had become a shinigami, but instead of being one of many to work in Meifu,
he had been selected to become one of few. Very few, very special.
The creators of Mother.
Touching the ancient door, Watari felt it thrum with power, Mother's
power, and it tickled his senses. It washed over him, checked him out,
scanned him, and it approved of him.
The door creaked open.
Yes, he had been young and idealistic, killed in a lab explosion, unaware
of what had led to that. Until recently, he hadn't known the truth. Today
he knew and today he was here...
Back where it had all started, five decades ago.
His steps were unnaturally loud as he passed through the silent, seemingly
endless and empty corridors. They were neither. They would end in the heart
of the Mother complex, and he knew there were eyes on him. He was being
scanned again and again, but he never felt it. He only sensed the presence
of the super computer as he drew nearer.
A child was coming home.
He was many things for Mother. A child, a father, a teacher, a creator.
He had done everything back then, everything in his considerable power,
and he had made something incredible, something impossible, come to life.
Watari finally stepped out of the corridor and into a large room. He
was already expected by four people.
They hadn't changed in the decades he had been gone. They were still
the same. But he was no longer who he had been. It wasn't working for the
Shokan Division that had changed him. It was everything else, everything
that had happened in the last years.
"You're back!" the young woman among the four breathed, smiling widely.
He wordlessly walked past them, heading straight for the heart. For
Mother.
"Watari!" a voice boomed.
He didn't stop.
Someone was running after him and his arm was grabbed. A strong hand
clamped down on it.
Amber eyes, cold as ice, met dark ones that blazed with emotions.
"You think you can just come back like that?" the man challenged.
Watari smiled emotionlessly. "I have, haven't I?"
"You left without a word, without a reason! You turned your back on
us, Yutaka!"
"I did what I had to do."
"You deserted us!"
Watari's aura was like frozen shards of water, harsh and cold and cutting
into everything. The other let go of his arm, gasping in surprise.
"I did what I had to do," Watari repeated. "You did the same."
"And you think you can just waltz back in here?" a third voice challenged
him.
He met the green eyes, smiling coolly. "Yes, I can. I am still one of
the Five, or has that changed? I am still the Chief Researcher."
The other four exchanged uneasy looks and Watari knew that ever since
he had left after the completion of the project, nothing had changed. The
Five Generals had become four, with one of them now working as a simple
angel of death for the Shokan Division, and no fifth member had ever been
added.
"Pathetic," he murmured.
The man's aura bristled. "How dare you..."
"I'm going to see Mother," Watari announced, nothing of his old self
remaining. "And don't even think about stopping me."
Only one could stop him, and that was Enma-Daiou. But Enma hadn't moved
a finger to prevent his approach or his access. Watari prayed softly that
it would stay that way.
As he strode past the stunned man, he felt the others make way, too.
The doors to the main chamber slid open without a sound and he never
stopped as he took the last steps into a place he had left so many years
ago.
"Hello, Mother," he whispered as he looked at his creation.
He was home.
° ° °
Enma had watched the ever-progressing proceedings with interest, but
he had allowed himself to become distracted. Some of his servants had frantically
reported that Watari had entered the lab, had reconnected to Mother, and
it had been too late for the Lord of Hades to intervene. The moment he
had gotten wind of the shinigami's plan, it had been too late. Of course,
none of the remaining Generals had tried to stop their former boss from
doing what he had come to do. They were too much in awe, held too much
respect for him, to do so.
Watari Yutaka was with Mother again. He would soon enter her realm.
Enma knew the game was almost up; he was running quickly out of time.
° ° °
Muraki looked at the unconscious shinigami at his feet, smiling to himself.
The clothes were ripped, singed and burned, there were spatters of blood,
but the boy was still alive.
"You have grown strong," he murmured appreciatively.
His fingers stroked over the pale skin, pushed back light brown hair
from the smooth cheeks, and his lips widened into a much larger smile.
"We're going to have so much fun," he promised darkly. "And then we'll
both watch as he comes to you rescue."
He picked up the limp form and called upon a power that had never been
human in origin. Nothing about him was human any more. Everything but his
soul had died already. He was a toy, a pet, a servant, but when he had
fulfilled his duties, he would be free.
Muraki gazed at the slack features and chuckled.
"Let's start this little game."
° ° °
He had never done something like this here in Meifu before.
There had never been any need.
And Tatsumi would never have thought that such a need would ever develop.
As it was, he stood just off the main plaza that stretched in front of
Enma-Daiou's palace, eyes closed, his shadows prowling and searching and
scouting ahead of him. They slithered across the ancient stone, into cracks,
underneath the perfect exterior and into the walls that beheld an eternal
power. They sought tiny openings and touched brittle stone here or there,
until they slithered over the very foundation of a place Tatsumi had only
entered a few times before. He was surprised that there were no barriers
that repelled him, but he didn't give it too much thought. And then he
struck gold, so to speak.
A door.
Set into the high wall at the east side.
Tatsumi approached it warily, looking out for any kind of opposition,
but there was none. His shadows slithered over the door, into the cracks,
found an opening mechanism on the inside and moment later it opened before
him.
The Shadow Master entered.
° ° °
Tatsumi had expected a lot more opposition than the pitiful security
he had beaten so far. It was like a last attempt to stop someone who, according
to whatever had preceded his arrival, would be allowed to enter anyway.
So when he walked into the chamber, he barely gave the unfamiliar surroundings
a second look.
Only when a young woman stepped into his way did he stop.
"Where is he?" Tatsumi demanded, the shadows dancing around him in preparation
to strike out at whoever posed a threat.
"You are Tatsumi Seiichiro," the woman addressed him.
Blue eyes narrowed into a frown. "And you are?"
"Call me Fuki."
She was barely tall enough to reach his shoulders, with long, straight
hair, huge eyes that were a deep, dark brown, and dressed in rather simple
but yet expensive clothes.
"You are one of the Five?" he asked coolly.
Fuki nodded.
"Where is Watari?"
"He has entered Mother."
Tatsumi looked around and found three more people looking at him. All
were men, they were of various age, and they had various expressions. The
tallest and broadest of them held a look of disgust, the round glasses
sliding down his nose, the golden chain attached to them glinting in the
artificial lighting. He was wearing a lab coat but looked more at home
in a wrestling arena than a lab. The other two were much younger, had longish
hair, one black, one brown, and were likewise wearing lab coats.
They were part of the Five Generals; they were the defense and the control
of the Mother computer.
"You cannot help him," one of the younger men told him, now coming closer.
"No one can."
"I want to see him," the Shadow Master said and the shadows twitched
a little.
Fuki gave him a sad smile. "Yashido is right. Yutaka has entered the
mind of his creation. Not even we could go where he is going. Only he knows
how to get inside and back out again without losing himself."
His creation? Watari had created... Mother?
His disbelief must have shown because Fuki nodded. "He was our Chief
Researcher before he left. Watari was one of us."
He had been a General, Tatsumi thought faintly. Enma's name...
He pushed those thoughts aside. Now wasn't the time to be influenced
by this. Now was not the time to think about possible connections, implications
or explanations. Now was the time to act.
"I want to see him!" he demanded.
The tall, broad-shouldered man chuckled derisively. "He might have let
you come here, deactivating the really big defenses, but there's still
us."
Watari had... deactivated the defenses... for him?
The shadows congealed more at the veiled threat of the other man. Tatsumi
pushed his glasses slowly up his nose.
"I wouldn't recommend angering me," he replied politely.
The bigger man grinned nastily. "Why? You think you can get past us?
Because that's what you have to do. Watari is one of us and he belongs
to us, whatever he came here for."
The expression in Tatsumi's eyes turned glacial at the words of ownership.
"Watari doesn't belong to anybody," he snarled.
"He sold himself to the project," the younger man only said with a slight
sneer. "He came back and that is enough for me. He is part of the system
and he won't ever be free of Mother. Neither of us. He is where he belongs
and you will leave now."
The shadows trembled with tension, about to be unleashed.
"I don't think so," Tatsumi whispered harshly.
"The Shadow Master has spoken," the other man mocked. "Well, Mr. Secretary
– and yes, we know who you are – let's see what you have."
Tatsumi's smile was feral.
It had been a while since he had truly fought with his shadows, the
last time against Muraki, and even that hadn't required much power. He
felt them twitch under his restraint, ready to be unleashed.
"Gladly," he murmured.
° ° °
In an instant, the world had changed.
First there had been nothing but blackness, then the lights came back,
rushing by like some kind of simulator game, streaks of blue, white and
red, merging, twisting, spiraling. Little yellow and green bubbles and
stars popped up, exploding, spraying grains of light, then dying again.
Images appeared around him. First nothing but space, unknown planets
rotating lazily beneath his feet, asteroids streaking by, the twin suns
blazing cold heat. The space image faded and Watari almost imagined setting
down with a little thud as the new landscape unfolded around him. It was
incredible, awe-inspiring.
Watari took an experimental step forward, his brain having not problem
working with this new environment. He was standing on some kind of platform,
a walkway just in front of him. There were similar walkways all around
him, as well as fantastic bridges that stretched over endless rows of buildings
or snaked between towering spires. The buildings were gigantic, larger
than life, and clearly made up from someone's imaging system. Nothing like
this could be real. Tiny windows dotted the structures, some illuminated,
but most of them dark. Nothing moved in this strange landscape.
In the distance, a mountain range rose to meet the orange-brown sky,
the peaks strangely greenish yellow. The colors here were completely off.
Watari walked over the first bridge. Underneath him, broad, watery bands
of light flowed. They had different colors and there seemed to be something
inside the water, but it was hard to determine what it was. All the rivers
flowed into the same direction, some faster, some slower.
I'm back, he thought with a faint, almost reminiscent smile.
Watari looked around a realm he hadn't seen in ages. It was a place
that was alien and home in one. It was a place he had shaped and which
had changed afterwards all on its own, but it had never changed completely.
He still saw the roots he had put in here, the place where everything had
begun.
<welcome>
It wasn't a voice. It was more like an emotion, with images, with a
sensation like a caress.
Watari smiled. "Hello, Mother."
Mother was more than a mere machine. She had been nothing but parts
before Watari Yutaka had been introduced into the Mother program, before
he had wrapped his mind around the complex problem of creating a machine
that could do what Enma needed to be done. With the growth of humanity,
things had changed in all realms. More souls were born every day, many
died through wars like the world had never seen before, through epidemics,
through new sicknesses, and while the realms had been able to handle the
workload for a while, they were under such pressure that things were
quickly falling apart. More and more souls were lost, never registered
or simply never died because of it, so Enma had made a giant step forward
by creating a super-computer.
Mother.
A machine to run Meifu, to protect it, to uphold the shields, to work
the defenses, to keep track of everything and everyone. A mere machine
couldn't handle this. Even all the Cray Computers in the world couldn't
manage this.
Watari had been the one to solve the problem. After his death he had
been whisked straight into the research labs. He had been promised unlimited
research equipment and supplies. He had gotten them, and his genius had
latched onto the problem like a dog onto a bone, ready to tear everything
apart to solve this matter. He had been young, idealistic, a true genius
with three doctorates and a bright mind that wouldn't stop until it reached
success.
He had done it.
He had given Mother Life.
It was his gift, his power as a shikigami, and when he had used it on
the super-computer, he had breathed life into the greatest of all inanimate
objects ever to exist.
Feeling the computer's touch in his mind, feeling that particular connection
come to life, Watari inhaled deeply. It had been too long. He wasn't really
used to the connection and something sizzled painfully along his nerves.
Part of him was glad that he had pocketed the special pills before attempting
this; he would need them later or risk a total breakdown. Right now, in
this virtual world, the pain was only an echo, a reflection, of what his
body would later go through.
Mother recognized him as one of her own, as a child, as an extension
of herself, and no security programs tried to attack him. Direct access.
Totally direct access.
Just him, his mind, and Mother.
Back when he had been in the Mother program, when he had been made the
Chief Researcher and with it one of the Five Generals, he had been offered
this chance to touch minds with his creation, but he had declined. He had
succeeded Kazei Reina, the Chief Researcher who had hired him, who had
snatched him away from the Shokan Division to be part of this.
It was then that he had left. He had turned his back on the research
program, on his prime project, and on the Five Generals. He had come to
be one of the shinigami of the Shokan Division. Watari had never looked
back, had never regretted it, but now he had returned.
And he regretted that.
It was necessary, but it was also painful.
Pushing those thoughts aside he let his mind drift through the subroutines,
the memory modules, the levels, the folders and files and programs.
Unlike in a real world, Watari seemed to cover great distances with
just a few steps and from one second to the next, he was standing in front
of a chasm. It was deep, completely black, and seemed to stretch endlessly
from left to right, cutting a deep wound into the otherwise smooth landscape.
The city was suddenly far behind him, nothing but a skyline against the
strange sky. There was a single bridge leading over the abyss.
"You have grown," he murmured.
Mother hovered next to him, awaiting his commands. Watari smiled a little.
"Well, let's begin."
And he crossed the bridge.
tbc...
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