Log; Complete

[manifestwill.livejournal.com]

When: April 10th.
Rating: R for violence.
Characters: chaos [manifestwill] & Albedo [theinfinite_667]
Summary: Alarmed by Albedo's growing instability in light of recent curse-inspired nightmares and the disappearance of Jr./Rubedo, a well-meaning chaos seeks him out.  Perhaps one of the only beings in this world or any other who would dare to act upon concern for Albedo's particular brand of insanity, whether chaos' good intentions will be enough remains to be seen. 

Log:

chaos:
Matters of late had drawn chaos' focus to the white-haired URTV sibling, and what he had seen there did not sit well with him.

MOMO was gone -- safe as she could be, with Jr., the both of them on a journey to find themselves, back home.  KOS-MOS had arrived and so too had the entity called U-DO, having wrapped the form of a boy, Abel, around that ineffable consciousness.  Without the Maiden, without Shion, there was no telling how KOS-MOS would adjust to the City.  Sakura Mizrahi, Mary Godwin, Elena... they too were coping in their own ways to recent developments.

None of them (save Elena, perhaps) had given chaos much reason to worry.  Albedo on the other hand...

That instability was dangerous, and Rubedo was not here to keep tabs on his brother.  Perhaps, in the absense of other options, chaos might be able to ease a measure of that pain, that turmoil.  Even 'enemies' -- more by circumstance than by personal malice -- were not beyond the scope of his concern for the wellbeing of others.

There were other things that needed to be done -- jury-rigging a maintenance station for KOS-MOS being one of them -- and once it had been completed, chaos set out into the City, searching.

Albedo:
The recent curses had done nothing to help him. First, the blood. All the blood. So much blood. It had begun dripping from his sharp fingernails at the stroke of midnight, but he had ignored it, assuming that he had scratched himself while attempting to untangle his sheets. When he awoke the next morning, his entire body was streaked with thick, hot streams of blood rising from non-wounds on his shoulders, his head, his neck, everywhere, soaking the sheets and blanket and spilling over onto the floor. And then the nightmares, Rubedo dying by the same scarlet hands...

His eyes had begun to wander, wide, starving. He hadn't eaten in several days; it didn't matter, because he couldn't starve to death, anyway. He would only regenerate any serious tissue that was lost. Cursed telomerase.

Pressing a strong hand against one of the building's crumbling pillars, he dragged his clawed nails across the stone, leaving little furrows in the weakened surface. This entire building was falling apart -- the best location to think for someone like him. When his hand fell away, he raised it and peered at it -- not even claws, just ragged, vaguely pointed shreds of fingernails that were nevertheless whittled into talons.

Rubedo had abandoned him. And now that dark-skinned little transcendent kept his mind running in circles -- that falsely innocent Abel ground his own pain into himself over and over again -- the Y-data had vanished at last, along with Rubedo -- Wilhelm was the paradigm of cool indifference, that which Albedo always wanted to be but never could become.

It was all so...

He brought the hand to his face now, clamping his fingers onto either cheekbone, covering his eyes, rough nails piercing little scarlet wells into the skin. His lips parted, as if he were to speak, but he only managed a toothed half-smile, a trail of breath that passed for a mirthless laugh.

The fourth floor window rattled behind him; he barely even heard it.


chaos:
The blood. chaos had been reminded of a certain plague, but the message writ in all the collected crimson -- the weight of accumulated karma, from lives lived, turned back, and revisited for countless repetitions -- was a sort of baptism. In it he had acknowledged what it meant to be the vehicle of U-DO's intended solution for the dispersal of the universe. What it meant to be Anima manifest.

He had come away from that 'curse' with a more positive, helpful message than ... pretty much everyone else in the City, in which case reactions had been split down the middle. At one side stood profound psychological torment and guilt, on the other, unholy glee.

Few took that middle path, that one where mindful thought had come to useful conclusions that did much more good than could be expected of such an event.

chaos didn't search long. Whether he was drawn here by coincidence (unlikely) or as if pulled in by a force of kismet (much more possible, if you know him well), it's a detail insignificant next to what calm gaze is witness to now, where the silver-haired youth stands in reserved silence by a closed window.

"...They're getting worse?"

Nightmares.


Albedo:
The hand snapped shut in front of his face; Albedo didn't even notice the five bleeding scratches across his skin as his nails raked until they curled into the fist. The hand lowered. He bared his teeth in a half-smile, half-snarl.

"What is worse?" He ran the words through his mind, jamming them between the bleeding gears like one might thrust an iron bar into an oncoming train's wheels to derail it. His eyes glinted eerie amethyst as he turned to face chaos. At a broad-shouldered six feet three inches, he seemed a giant standing opposite the window from the boy. "You came all the way out here to interrupt my thoughts, fool transcendent?"

His speech pattern had already devolved into the epithets he often used. Ma pêche. Little mirage. Transcendent. They kept the real people as far from him as possible. Far from the--

His throat locked up, forcing his mind to stop so that he could breathe. Good. All defenses at their highest. Far from the memories and the desires. With a barely audible rush of air, the breaths started up again, the barrel chest moving once more.


chaos:
"'For in that sleep of death, what dreams may come?' Dreams," replies chaos soberly, his tone carefully mild. To quote literature is more like Rubedo; the indirect allusion might have been intentional. It probably was. "Your rest, such as it is, has been uneasy." Furthermore, while physical sign of neglect might have shown on more normal beings, there is still some evidence even in Albedo's demeanor proving not all is right.

But then, for him, when is it ever?

Just the same, there is a wordless wince in an otherwise serene stare for scratches that nonetheless will heal momentarily. Some would call Albedo's regenerative abilities a gift. chaos supposes it doesn't help his unstable mental facilities very much at all.

There is something frightful about facing eternity with the possibility of being 'alone'.

He lifts a gloved hand in an indirect gesture. "I came here only to see you." That hand lowers, clasping the opposite wrist. "You need not suffer in solitude. Why seek it when doing so only makes your situation more bleak?"


Albedo:
Literature. Foolish pursuits. But his brother had always--

He cut himself off again, before the thoughts twisted the arrow already deep in his chest. A faint flare of silver-violet light, and the scratches across his face sealed up as if they had never existed. Slowly, the cold logic seeped back in, pulling out the arrow, numbing the wound.

"Dreams? Heh." The laugh was rough, grating, and forced; the resulting puff of air blew chaos' hair for a moment. "If you come here to find someone to pity, you're looking in the wrong place. Pain is for the small and weak. Dependence is for the cowardly. You misunderstand me entirely. There are no dreams, and there is no suffering. Who do you think I am?" His eyes narrowed; his lips finally closed over the furious smile, but still the corners angled up in a confident smirk.

"Now, get out. Don't you have kittens to save, weakling?" He leaned against the scratched pillar and crossed his arms, his cape fluttering once as he moved.


chaos:
A more sarcastic person might have quipped something about how kittens were both too easy and much more welcome company than an insane URTV. chaos is not one of these kinds of people, and this is hardly the sort of situation into which one injects that brand of humor.

Close proximity enough to have breath stirring hair is what most would call 'distressingly near', particularly when one is courting danger merely by being in the same acre as Albedo.

Nevertheless, chaos is, as usual, aggravatingly collected.

"Albedo--"

The white-haired man retreats to the pillar, and after a stretch of speculative silence chaos too departs the vicinity of the window, making a gradual circuit to the opposite side of the aged pillar. A gloved palm rests flat against that etched surface. Then a shoulder, hands cradling the elbow of opposite arms with his head canted against that surface.

"You're trying very hard. But you'll wear yourself out, before long. This City..." The next is conjecture. "...It'll consume you faster than even you can restore yourself. Don't underestimate it."

chaos tilts his head a little, glancing at the pillar as if he might see through it to the man at the other side, silver brows arching. "Is it truly dependence, when once you were connected by more than unseen bonds?"


Albedo:
"Oh, we were discussing Rubedo? I didn't notice that the topic had shifted." There was a distinct acid in his voice, a cruel sarcasm that bit at the air like a serpent. "Did you come to say I'm weak?" and put the arrow back where it had been? "I'll gladly show you otherwise. But, on second thought, perhaps I should reserve such demonstrations for those who have a cell in their brain. You just think you know anything. It's not my place to correct the ignorant."

That still left the question...how did that boy know?


chaos:
It shifted as conversations do.

The ones that matter, that is. The ones that meander where the heart and mind will, the sentiments and considerations unfettered by personal censorship. chaos is reserved, naturally, but in a manner that selects only the most significant use of breath and time.

It just also tends to eat up a lot of empty minutes in silence. It's no wonder Rubedo complained he was so slow. He was.

Though Albedo can't physically see it, on the other side of the pillar, chaos shakes his head to the soft rustle of hair against the surface to which it leans.

"No," he says softly. "Not weak. But in a precarious position, nonetheless..."

"Is it so difficult a question?" he inquires gently. "I'm sorry. But it's important. I think you know that, but it's hard for you, especially now."


Albedo:
Albedo swept to the opposite side of the pillar and thrust his arm in a hook; the single fluid motion moved him in front of chaos and slammed the boy against the pillar, holding him up by the shirt collar.

"Who are you? And what makes you think you know anything at all about me?" He stretched one of his fingers up, extending it so that it rested against the pit at the base of chaos' neck, claw-nail biting into the boy's skin, threatening to rend it open for an inch or two down to the collarbone. "Give me a straight answer, transcendent. Remember, I'm not a mere mortal, either." His ribs tensed as he hissed the breath from between his teeth, clamping them over the despair that fueled his rage. He couldn't break down here. Not now.

But chaos knew so much...he--

The nail stabbed farther, and Albedo curled his fingers tighter, drawing a bleeding line in the skin. A little bit of the pain drained out...but this wouldn't do. Let him speak a little more. He would show the boy what his kind of pain was like...


chaos:
Whether he had known it was coming or not, his reaction is still the same; there is not much one can do except dangle in relative passivity when one's back is pinned to something by a solid grip on one's collar. There is only a very short, aborted exhale, too soft to be a grunt -- a slight tension about the eyes that is almost a wince.

The expression is there, and gone again as quickly.

The first few questions are not answered, save for a somber stare that carried a trace element of something... indescribably melancholy. That, too, doesn't last very long, when claw-tip presses against the too-fragile skin of the throat.

"..."

It pressed further and now he could feel it, a line of warm blood and the hotter pain of that single rake of a claw-like fingernail. "Kh--"

"I've seen it."

"Your story, and his. A thousand times before." If not more. "What do you think you'd accomplish if I told you? Would it salve your pain?"


Albedo:
He couldn't help letting his eyes go wide for just a moment. A thousand times...

"Would it? What do you think, you wretched little spy?" He leaned closer until their noses nearly touched. "I don't care about him. I hate him. Let him perish with the other six hundred sixty-five he killed. Let the traitor feel psionic fire." His opposite hand snapped to chaos' neck, taking over the weight, and he flung the boy away from the pillar and toward the other side of the degraded wood floor. Yes, let fury take hold...beautiful, hot, and all-consuming. Wildfire. Exhilarating wildfire. Drown the shame, drown the pain, drown the knowledge of someone looking over his shoulder while he dug the graves for his brothers, while he struck his lesser siblings in the face until they stopped tormenting Rubedo, while he flung his arms around his brother and wept into his shirt, begging him never to leave, don't leave me, I want to die, too...

"I don't feel any pain. Who pities the betrayer? Who defends the murderer?" He couldn't stop a laugh; far from being the pained, mirthless sound it was before, it howled and echoed in the empty chamber. "Which makes me wonder, indeed. Why do you?" The eyes lit now, almost glowing; the hand that bore a drop of chaos' blood twirled the red droplet between two nails.


chaos:
It's debateable if chaos himself is sure of the exact number of Eternal Recurrences that Wilhelm had succeeded in pulling off before Shion and the others decided to fight back. ...And what had started it? What subtle change, what beat of the proverbial butterfly's wings set those events in motion?

Perhaps, despite being unaware of the rebirth of time, the soul never forgot, and eventually gained the power to rebel even against god-like forces greater than themselves.

It is perhaps to chaos' credit that he doesn't flinch from what would have terrified lesser men. The URTV's strength, even glimpsed before, was horrifying to behold. That it was being exercised so casually here and now did not bode well. And yet the silver-haired youth can't keep well enough alone.

"Hagh--" is another abortive sound cut short now by fingers around his throat.

It's a good thing he doesn't need to breathe, so long as he has power left to him. This fact aside, it's still uncomfortable. Not as much as being flung to the floor like a ragdoll. The force has him rolling twice before landing in a half-sprawl. A gloved hand strays to his own throat as he climbs back to palm and knees. That he continues to hear Albedo out is a sign found in that particular, aware cant to his head.

"Pity? I think you'll agree that pity is pointless. Let it instead be said that I acknowledge your pain," concludes the youth softly. He's back on his feet at last. "...You keep saying that. 'I feel nothing', but these things have a way of ... advertising themselves."

"I have no reason to think you are unworthy of understanding."


Albedo:
The furor boiled out through his mouth at last, but the sound of his voice still made it seem like some invisible hand were reaching in and ripping them out. "Very well." His tone inflected up and down, strained, carried on as little air as possible, but still the words were there. "You may acknowledge it, but you can't understand it, transcendent." His hands glowed reddish-violet as he took two steps foward and stopped.

"You're here for nothing. He's gone. And you can't change the past, not this past, not that of years ago. If there's any pain to be spoken of, your presence does no good. You should know that. You must be here just to twist the knife." Now his vision was growing eerily clear, and he could see those brilliant lines around chaos and around the edges of the pillars. Everything else was an enraged blur. Nothing else mattered. The target. Here was the target. Stop reminding me of him; stop speaking of him; stop making me remember that he's gone...

"Do you enjoy trying to puppeteer me, then? Are you going to take out your gun, just like Rubedo, point it at my feet, and tell me to dance?" He thrust a palm forward, and a burst of energy shot at chaos' shoes. "Well, I can take the shots and keep coming. The question is --" he laughed once, blood and light trailing from his other fist as he clenched his fingers too tightly, "can you?"


chaos:
"'Puppeteer'--" is whispered with an expression as close to quiet alarm as is possible for chaos, a mild sort of surprise etched through with concern. It's all the rest that has it turning to a wordless brand of awareness, his head tilted down and turned fractionally to the side, regarding Albedo through silver fringe.

There is, a mere moment before Albedo thrusts his palm forward, a quick, sweeping gesture of one gloved hand down at his side. Some invisible force meets the burst of energy only half a foot from its intended destination. The impact brings a brief flash of dim light, and a scattering of white, faintly glowing feathers. They swirl, caught up in a draft, and have vanished again before they pass by chaos' face.

It's a little like accepting the gauntlet thrown at one's feet.

"I didn't come here to fight you," firmly states the tanned youth, "Please..." The way he implores Albedo is part gesture and part stance, something in the way brows arch and his tone denotes a vague regret.

"If you could only acknowledge it, and not close yourself off--" You might, with time, heal. Or you might be beyond his help, but chaos needs to try. He has to try.

Giving up on someone simply because it's difficult... that sort of thing doesn't exist in the youth's worldview. Perhaps that is his own form of naivete.


Albedo:
With a wordless shout, Albedo threw his mind into the next strike, leaning into the force, both arms sweeping to the front, psychic energy blasting forward in a wave. Any damage he could do, mental or physical, would suffice. The boy was insufferably untouchable. While chaos was dealing with that, he used the momentary pause to halve the distance between them in a lunge.

"If you're not trying to be a little ventriloquist," he spat the lengthy word like a curse, as only Albedo could, "defend yourself, or I'll send you to the abyss." His eyes glimmered now, a faint aura of light trailing from them, and he gathered power for another blast. "Or, maybe not. Maybe I'll keep you here and wear you down slowly, watch your blood flow a little. Do you regenerate, like I do, transcendent?"

He focused the energy, and a small ray of burning light shone on the right side of chaos' chest, deliberately warning him of an impending strike, scorching a small line into the cloth but not through it.


chaos:
That first blast is broad enough that it can't be dodged; there's no escaping what comes at you with the force of an ocean wave in a storm. Gloved hands curl into fists, arms crossed in front of a bowed head as he visibly braces himself to meet that psychic assault.

Booted feet slide back against the floor a good foot or so before they find traction and manage to weather the rest of that force. When arms uncross and his head lifts, its with a mild start -- already Albedo has closed in.

chaos manages a quick, precise step back, one hand dropping behind him as he presents only one side to the URTV. "...Does it really have to come to this?!" breathes the youth in a moment's visible conflict.

He does not want to fight this man.

But it looks like there will be no choice.

His stance changes, facing forward properly with hands prepared for hand-to-hand combat, when heat and light draws his gaze down to where concentrated energy was scorching his vest. chaos snaps his glance back to the URTV and proceeds forward, first stepping sharply to the side before sprinting ahead.

His intention is clear only when he closes in; although his style of combat involves a 'soft' form of martial arts, he isn't intending on dealing damage more than just slapping his glowing hands away.

It's dangerous to come into close range, but... "That you might be beyond help--I refuse to believe it..!"


Albedo:
Albedo threw all his weight into a charge; chaos had maneuverability, but if he was going to come in close, he would suffer the consequences. If he could keep the boy in range...

His initial strike missed as chaos stepped to the side. Arcing his fist in a hook, he aimed for the side of chaos' head. Calling on his ether abilities, he summoned a web of lightning that coiled around his hand like an electric cobra, crackling and tainting the air with an ozone smell.

"If you don't want to fight me, then run like a coward. You can't win." The words dripped from his lips like venom. "Run like he did."

"That, or show me your power!"


chaos:
The blow hits home with a sharp crackle of discharging electricity and the next sound of impact is chaos hitting the floor. He's quick to shake it off, a gloved hand clasping the side of his head for a moment as he gets up again, at least on hands and knees.

It goes without saying that someone of his stature probably shouldn't have gotten back up from such a blow.

Run like he did. (Even now, Rubedo remains foremost in his thoughts--)

chaos' answer comes in the form of a booted foot aiming a snapped kick for the side of Albedo's leg at the joint of his knee with enough force behind it to cripple a weaker man.

Someone with Albedo's regenerative abilities? Little more than a momentary inconvenience, which is why it doesn't stop there. After that attempted kick he twists around, lashing out with a leg in a sweep to the backs of the URTV's feet.

He intends on rising to his own at that, and, should he have managed a few scant seconds of advantage, complete the combination with a blast of white energy from his extended hand.

If not...? This is about to hurt.


Albedo:
Despite being shorter and smaller than Albedo, chaos had surprising force; the first kick half-displaced his target's knee with an audible pop; as soon as that had repaired itself a moment later, both of Albedo's feet were out from beneath him. His back and head struck the ground first with a sickening crack, but he continued the motion, rolling backwards into a tumble that would take him back into a standing position.

A blast of searing energy interrupted that strategy...but no mind. He welcomed it -- the burning pain took his mind away from his own thoughts and to the physical reality. As he rolled away, although he managed to make it back to his knees, the brilliant white burst had scored a wide swath into his back and skull, burning away some of his hair, melting away the skin until it turned red, blisters rose, and then turned bloody.

A pale light flared over it and sealed it, though the pain still lingered. He ran his mind over every inch of it, holding onto it, keeping it there.

"It amuses me that you come here speaking peace and yet causing pain. I thought that was the opposite of why you came." On his feet now, he faced chaos with a wild grin, eyes tracking the boy's movements. He rushed forward again, determined to force chaos back toward the far wall. One degree of motion for the enemy was strongly preferable to two. This time, he lashed out with two strikes, one a burst of psionic energy at chaos' eyes, the other in the form of a thrusting uppercut aimed for the boy's throat.


chaos:
"No living being can override its natural instinct to survive," sounds a little ragged, a little worn, where words are spoken past the need to steady one's breathing against the sizzle of displeased nerves. He's backing, moving again, in a slow arc that is both away and around, seeking greater space in which to move.

Getting trapped near a wall could not only be merely disadvantageous--it could be lethal. His efforts come to naught when he only takes two steps to the side before Albedo recovers enough to press the attack.

chaos had miscalculated how fast his injuries knitted themselves back together.

It was a mistake he had to be certain he didn't make again.

There's a strangled, quiet cry -- always sotto voce, these utterances -- and psionic assault at first batters against some unseen barrier, the next is only a little off its mark, connecting with the side of his head where a concentrated effort to get free only dislodged him partially.

That, at least, brings him to stillness, if only because the blow has left him momentarily stunned.

"You sought him," gasps chaos, "Because you sought an end to it. An end to digging graves."


Albedo:
He bent forward in a sort of delayed wince, as if chaos had punched him again, this time in the solar plexus. His head hung for just a fraction of a second, but then he rose straight again, the muscles across his broad back visibly tensing behind the rips in his flight suit. His eyes, half-hidden behind his white hair, rose to meet chaos' again, but there was no one behind the gaze. No rationality; that had long been cast away.

"You're immortal, but you can die?" His voice was harsh and twisted. "How would you fare against him?" Somewhere in the back of his mind, the thought arose...

He seized his chance to take a few more steps toward chaos; the boy seemed to attack only when he did. His hands trembled as they curled, as if they were ready to gain lives of their own and tear chaos apart by themselves.


chaos:
Words can injure faster than bombshells. chaos doesn't mean to, but truth has a way of driving thorns deep in old, half-healed wounds.

Immortal. chaos shakes his head, but the words he speaks do not address the question of his immortality, but rather, the question of whether or not he can die. "The body does not comprise the entirety of the self, and it is fragile. Even yours."

There is always something that can kill a living being. Always.

This time, chaos doesn't wait to be attacked; he edges along the wall to the left in a feint, and bolts to the right in a sprint that reminds him that the fight so far has left distantly sore. It'll be worse later, but by then, there will be Medica and rest.

He needs to survive this, first, and right now the closest barrier is a pillar. "Please listen to me!" He'll carry on for that one last try, his tone desperate, from the other side of that pillar. "He'll return, so you shouldn't lose hope! Don't discard that last which is left to you!"


Albedo:
Albedo blasted the wall, but then realized that chaos had deceived him; the boy was already running to the right instead of the left; a huge hole formed in the decrepit wall, shattering a window and sending stones crashing to the ground. From far below, a few voices shouted in surprise. chaos chose the moment to dodge behind a pillar.

"There's nothing left for me. There never was. Yuriev was a fool. Rubedo is a traitor. I am a weapon with no purpose and no reprieve. I have no reason to listen to soft little fools like you."

From the opposite side, an inhuman howl shattered the air as a blast of energy blew the pillar into shrapnel, revealing chaos behind it.

"I know you can bring him back." The ceiling groaned as the remnants of the pillar's top pulled at the old structure; cracks formed around the heavy stones, and chips fell to the floor. "You know so much. You can do it. Do it!"

He kept one glowing hand aimed at chaos as he edged to the wall and glanced at the ground far below. If chaos wouldn't do it himself, Albedo could force him to bend. He couldn't stop a chuckle, then a burst of wild, uncontrolled hysteria; he had chaos, he had him where he wanted him. There was no way out of it this time. No escape. He would finally get what he wanted. And if chaos was truly as transcendent as he seemed...perhaps he could draw anything out of the boy.

After all, he would do anything for life. He had already proven that. But Albedo did nothing for life -- only for death.


chaos:
What could be done with hands designed only to give death? The only gift of life Albedo has is that which forces him to live on even through grevious injuries. That, in combination with other factors, only contributes rather than alleviates the mental turmoil he has been in since that day.

That day when he learned he would continue to live long after his brothers had died.

Long after that most important one -- Rubedo -- had gone.

The pillar's destruction sends pieces of debris scattering in all directions; chaos has his arms crossed before his face protectively when the last pieces fall. He spares the ceiling a wary glance as stone cracks. It won't last long. In these circumstances... If they continue like this, they could bring down the entire building.

"Bring him back..?" is again almost a whisper. Dust, chips from the ceiling are dislodged from silver hair as he shakes his head, "...No. I can't."

That's a fairly direct answer, coming from chaos.

"The power that controls this place and the fate that has pulled him away are both greater than ourselves. That journey is his, now. We can't interfere."


Albedo:
He had been waiting for that answer. chaos was intent upon not interfering. He said he couldn't. Well, let him try saying the same now...

Albedo turned and leaped from the gap in the wall, colliding with the building across the alley, sharp nails grinding themselves down to the skin as he tried to slow his descent. Fingers bleeding, four stories above the ground, he fell like a stone. Drawing an arm back, he punched a hole through a third floor window, glass raking through his gloves and into his flesh. He stopped, though, and let himself go until he stopped himself on a ledge, this time, at the second floor.

With another hop, he careened the final twenty feet to the ground, landing hard on both legs -- the bones cracked audibly, knees breaking, bloody white splinters stabbing through his suit as his limbs ground to a new equilibrium with joints completely detached. Never mind the pain. He barely felt it now anyway; it was nothing compared to the whirlwind in his mind. In a few seconds, though--

He would feel the burn. Agonizing, rending pain--

And then, in a long, winding spiral of energy, the bones shuddered back into place, the flow of blood stemmed and vanished, and the skin smoothed over as if nothing had happened. His arm had already healed from the glass wounds; now, he flicked a shard away and sent it skittering over the ground.

A few observers -- those who had shouted before, he assumed -- were pressed against the wall, watching him with wide eyes, one of them backing away and glancing every few seconds at the end of the alley.

He rushed forward and snatched one by a shock of blonde hair. Human or not, young or old, he didn't even notice.

And he bared his claw-nails and clamped his hand around the pale neck.

"Transcendent!" He narrowed his eyes and raised them to the hole in the fourth floor across the alley. "Perhaps now that the stakes are slightly different--" He cut himself off, waiting for the answer, nearly trembling from the anticipation and the sense of sheer power. His captive flailed and kicked, but it didn't matter; any damage done simply repaired instantly, and his grip was too strong to break.


chaos:
As if he had somehow guessed Albedo's intentions, chaos' gaze widens, just moments before the white-haired URTV dives out of the building.

"No!"

Albedo falls, his descent controlled by albeit painful means, and chaos can do little more at first but hang back at the crumbling hole in the side of the building, staring out from it in stunned silence. A gloved hand claps over his mouth in a visible wince as the man leaps the final twenty feet and even from up there, chaos can hear the splintering of bone.

Just because he can instantaneously heal his own injuries doesn't mean chaos lacks justification to feel concern. There is still pain, even in regeneration.

There's a sharp, if unheard gasp as a bystander is seized, gloved hand grasping the crumbling bit of wall to his right, a foot half off an edge that continues to drop powdery fragments to the ground below.

Don't do this.

Don't make him.

chaos' head drops, both in regret and in a way, surrender to perhaps the inevitable.

The next moment is light -- golden, warm, bright -- and in it the suggestion of wings numbering six unfolding, the whisper of feathers and blue eyes bright as the sky.

In a brightness that bursts open wider the wall, chaos tilts back his head with eyes lidded, arms lifting from his sides.

The ceiling is torn asunder as a beam thunders down from above, ripping through the floors above and below. The brilliance scatters like burning, golden mist when a faintly blue-glowing figure sweeps down on six wings. It's fast, in hardly the time it takes to blink, chaos is there, and there's a tiny chime as action halts. One gold-glowing palm is centimeters from Albedo's wrist.

Another chime, and action resumes, with something like a high-speed tackle separating Albedo from his victim, sending both flying for the nearest wall--and possibly through it.


Albedo:
"Ungh!" The tackle knocked all the breath from him, and he curled around the smaller form; his size advantage, for once, meant nothing as the boy threw him up and off the ground like a cannonball, clutching the white-gloved hand once wrapped about the captive's throat. The energy burned --

--but the range was gone. Albedo flung out his arm and held chaos close, pressing the boy's chest against his own, both of them flying for just a moment in a cruel parody of an embrace. He cut all restraint on his own energy, the red-violet glow flaring from his hands, his eyes, all around him, rushing against chaos' white aura, searing psychic energy slashing into the pale light, the white arm holding the boy inside the storm.

With a heavy clatter of stone chunks, Albedo and chaos smashed through the wall, the URTV's body shielding his attacker from the fierce impact. This time, there wasn't even any blood, just the sound of shattering bricks. Though Albedo took most of the force from the collision, chaos' more fragile body still scraped hard against the rough edges of the broken hole.

His arm still around chaos, Albedo fell limp, a giant ragdoll dressed in white. When they fell to the floor at last, his eyes were misty gray-purple, blank, empty, his skin cold and ashen.

Dead...at least for the moment. No human could withstand a direct spinal impact like that and survive; he hadn't even felt the pain this time. chaos almost had time to move the arm and get up. Just as the boy rose, the eyes flashed back to life, clear as amethyst crystal. The arm snatched chaos back, and Albedo leaned to the side and pinned him. He pounded the tanned face once, twice, three times, then held chaos by the shoulders.

"If you won't..." he paused to take a ragged breath, "I will." His opposite hand pressed against chaos' forehead, the palm glowing, the light seeping into the boy's skull.

He had almost gained the Y-data like this. Now, he would use it to pry out chaos' power, twist it to his objective, then tear down all the neurons and draw out their impulses, read the boy's memories into his mind. His hand felt numb, almost absent, and he let the expression on his face relax into wide-eyed blankness as he kept his eyes trained on chaos'. Soon, even the boy's face dissolved away in his view, and there were just those two blue eyes. As he tried to open chaos' mind, so did his own open as well.

Give up your secrets, chaos. The desperate mind-voice was different somehow, but only after a few seconds did chaos realize -- for the first time since the battle began, he hadn't called the boy "transcendent."


chaos:
Energy clashed, tore at opposing force and reduced all they touched to particles. chaos' head was bowed against it, teeth bared in a thin grimace, blue eyes winced near-shut. He shook his head as they blasted through a wall, crying out. It might have been in protest, in pain, or it might have been regret, apology.

Even after--

Even after all this time-- was a thought coursing fleeting though his mind. It seems I still hesitate to use this power.

Impact finds them both on the ground, and one gloved hand hefting a limp arm off in an attempt to roll away. He isn't so lucky; he wastes time by staring startled at Albedo's ashen face. With a startled yell that still falls short of truly vocal, he's dropped to his back as the URTV recovers, flinging an arm protectively before him. It's knocked away before he can make proper use of it.

In this state, with the power of Anima awake and alive, damage doesn't manifest in the way it should. He feels pain, heavy blows can stun as easily as before, but it doesn't break skin, bruise flesh or break bones; it batters at energy, which is a different sort of injury. One could claim it's more lasting, in a different way.

Just the same, three heavy blows are enough to leave him reeling, his head sagging against his shoulder with eyes unfocused. Only a soft groan slips past his teeth when hands seize him by the shoulders and set him upright again. A sluggish blink has him coming back around to alertness, and only in time to pull his head back against the ground, drawing in a sharp gasp. Widened eyes wince half-lidded, and squeeze closed.

It doesn't matter who or what you are, forced access to any mind is an exquisitely new definition of pain.

"Don't--" It isn't like him to writhe, it isn't like him to warn with a thready, distracted voice. Eyes reopened, wide, focused and all too alarmed. "--You'll--"

The warning goes incomplete, too late.

There is no mind that Albedo has encountered that approaches the quality, the staggering depth that exists there. A stillness barely rippled now by genuine concern and the urgency of combat, but in there lies countless ages, an untold, irresistible pull of experience.

Human minds cannot easily grasp eternity. Yet they seek truth, without knowing just how damaging facing the secrets of eternity can be on the psyche. It is this power, this knowledge that beckons and yet those depths exact a price akin to drowning in the cold depths of an ocean. Bottomless and unfathomable.


Albedo:
It felt like someone had tied a stone around his neck and thrown him into the sea. Once he had forced his way in, there was no way out. He couldn't close his mind; the images, the memories, the sheer amount of everything, it was all around him, smothering his thoughts, drowning him. He felt as if he were on the verge of fainting; he couldn't see, couldn't hear, couldn't feel himself breathing -- his remaining heartbeat had vanished -- he felt like a weight had dropped onto him, crushing him, from all directions. All at once. No events flashing by, no train of memories, nothing like a human mind.

Just...all of it. All there. There at once, simultaneously. He felt as if he were drifting away from his body now, vanishing in the deep--

Couldn't lose himself--

What are you? What are you?! He couldn't stop the words. He thrashed in the ocean, reaching for anything, drawing it in, but that only made it all the worse.

chaos' mind couldn't be divided. What was there, was everything. And what shifted, when Albedo pulled at it, was everything. That everything sent a stabbing pain through his mind as most of it appeared, couldn't remain, and faded. He caught flickers as he tried to take it all in; starships, planets, a large machine with two loops; faces, hundreds of thousands of millions of faces, nothing he knew, nothing he could discern, just all of it, burning the psychic link like a knife through his head.

This time, his scream was a fearful, agonized sound. His left hand rose to his face, clamping over his eyes; the light burned them now, and the sight of chaos' eyes; he couldn't pull back because he was so close but it was everywhere and everything and he tried to reach out but he only found himself lost again and it was something like a loop that replayed over and over and over and he could--

He wanted to cut the link and withdraw and get rid of this...this being now. He had chaos in a terrible place, where he could tear the boy's throat out as retribution for leaving him alone again, without his brother, for failing to do what could have been done, for not bringing him back. He hated chaos, dangling the memories before him, taunting him with them, claiming to help when he just wanted to watch the weak little coward who couldn't let go of his siblings.

But not yet. Never yet. He had to find the power. He had to find the knowledge. Somewhere here, chaos had to know how to bring him back. Had to. No other way. This was his last chance. Or some way to get out, get back home, anywhere but here, anywhere there, just give me back my brother!

He threw open the link as he would throw open a floodgate.

The pressure of the macrocosm of all, the despair, the psychic pain, the sense of depth and being lost and falling forever and losing yourself and the universe itself trying to collapse into him--

A faint cracking sound, perhaps not even in the physical realm. Albedo's mind gave way at last, and the link severed without its support.

chaos had been telling the truth.


chaos:
chaos himself was no bio-engineered psychic. Once the barrier of his consciousness had been breached, there was nothing he could do to stop Albedo, nothing he could do to shield him from what lay behind his eyes; the URTV was left to experience, unfettered, the collective being amassed from thousands of years and countless repetitions of history. Through it all, chaos remained aware of himself, of his place in the world, of his purpose -- and while he never understood until the end of Zarathustra how he must use his power...

He understood enough to remain tied to the moment, so bound to the present that he could never be swallowed up by the weight of those years. Other minds were not so lucky, whether or not they were designed for immortality, as Albedo was.

It was all too much.

What a terrible sound-- was a horrified flicker of a thought that skirted across the surface of his mind as Albedo screamed. There was nothing he could do, not as long as that link remained. He could have tried to reverse that spiritual link, but to do so would... it would...

He couldn't do it. Even if it might've been merciful, he couldn't bring himself to do what perhaps should've been done with his own hands. chaos was spared the necessity by the sudden shattering of the link along with what remained of Albedo's sanity; chaos found he could move again.

It would've been more prudent to make his escape right then.

Damn that compassion for his fellow man. "Albedo!" Sure, he could kill a man in various messy fashions, but chaos is used to those sorts of risks.


Albedo:
Albedo lurched back, hands pressed to his forehead. It felt like someone had emptied a machine gun into his skull, and he staggered a few steps away from chaos before leaning forward and taking a long, shaky breath.

It devolved into voiceless puffs, then into laughter. All those things...whatever he could remember kept cycling through his mind, and he couldn't interpret them, but he could feel their weight. Where was he in all that? He had seen a snatch, somewhere...a boy on his knees on the grated catwalks of the Song of Nephilim, staring up into the endless darkness, smiling, speaking--

"I am the perfect chain!" He lowered his hands slowly, dragging his fingers across his face, an eerie violet glow surrouding first his arms, then extending to his shoulders and then his entire body. "The power of mind and the power of will..."

The glow expanded to a sphere not unlike one chaos had seen before; Rubedo's Red Dragon, at times, had taken the same shape, only one of a different color.

"It's wonderful to die for a little while like that, you know. All-consuming darkness. But you...you of the light...mirror, mirror, on the wall, show me, define me!" He laughed twice and paused to draw another breath. His eyes glittered eerily, but there was nothing behind them, only fury within them. He took a step forward, the energy around him rippling as it shifted alongside him. "You who speaks with the dragon, tell me why..."

The sphere rushed outward, ripping up the floor in its wake, the sharp scent of ozone behind it as ionized the air, the crackling blast heading for chaos like a tsunami.


chaos:
Such mental damage had been unintentional, but for all that chaos meant so well, intentions mattered little in the face of cold fact. Albedo staggered back and chaos rose to his own feet, gloved hand lifting in a gesture that denoted a desire to give aid, in vain.

The laughter began and that hand dropped. Then there were words, words he hadn't heard for a long time, but just the same the memory of where and when they had originated arrived urgent as a clanging bell. Just those first five, and all the rest were as good as warning as he would get. chaos recognizes that glow, knows the power it represents, and so he meets the next few moments marginally better prepared than most would otherwise be.

It still hit like an electrified sledgehammer, hammered against hastily summoned power on gold-bathed palms he had thrust forward to ward off the energy. The wall at his back was blown apart regardless, the silver-haired 'transcendant' pushed back by that same force.

"...Define--? You mean...! Rubedo," exhales the youth.

Mirror. Defining Albedo was a job best left to he and his other red-haired half, but the question of 'why' met with no answer, only a soft grunt of continued effort; again came that blue luminescence over his form, and the energy that met Albedo's no longer formed a barrier to block but cut through it, allowed it to pass around like water courses around a stone.

This is not to say the effort didn't cost chaos much.

What does one do about this? To flee would be as good as unleashing a violent madman on innocent people. To stand and fight invited destruction of one so that the other might survive -- and that was a choice chaos refused to make outright. Or he could resist long enough to wear the URTV out, but Albedo? That would require an enormous amount of power. Meanwhile, chaos had been forced down to one knee, maintaining that small sanctuary with great effort.

"I won't destroy you," cries the youth above the crackle of clashing energies, "Even if I could," he adds, shaking his head, "I couldn't do that to you or to Jr.!"


Albedo:
"You can't? A pity. I'll tell Rubedo how well you fought." Hovering about two feet off the ground, he bared his teeth in a fierce smile and laughed once. "I'm quite the storyteller, you know. I'm sure he'll take such delight in the way you'll scream...ah, there's nothing like watching the mighty fall." Hovering forward, he kept the pressure against chaos, his voice grating in the panting breaths he took.

He gathered another aura, as if to send out another wave, and feinted forward at chaos. At the last moment, his arms flew wide, and two bursts rippled off his shoulders, his fingers, and into two pillars behind chaos. The ceiling above chaos came down in a hailstorm of chunks and a shower of dust, crashing down around chaos, shrouding all view of the fighters save their two glows, the hulk of the building itself grinding to one side, bricks chipping and falling, beams groaning, the entire structure settling into a precarious lean.

"Imagine it, transcendent. Maybe I'll carry your shell back to him. That's it; I'll lay it at his feet and see what he says. What he does. The look on his face...the death in his voice...it's all so beautiful." He spotted the small form amidst the haze; dropping from the sky, letting all his weight fall, he blazed down toward chaos, arcs crackling through the air around him.


chaos:
Arms were brought up, crossed before his bowed head as he flinched at Albedo's feinted approach. He peered past one gloved fist as the ceiling began to fall in deadly pieces, sought to protect himself from being crushed beneath them with periodic bursts of white light that shot up from the ground around him. It spared him serious injury, but pelted him with smaller fragments nonetheless.

In that thunderous din, in the rain of dust and debris, chaos' glowing form took to his feet again, straightening.

The cloud of dust settled enough to showed him turn his gaze with regret -- and that same maddening calm, like he'd been expecting this, or something like it all along -- upwards, as Albedo descended.

Motes of light ascended from the floor as he lifted his arms, eyes lidded with his head tipped back; they collected behind him and the luminescence shattered, leaving in their wake those same brilliant wings.

They too dissolved into a whirling storm of feathers, going then from white to burning golden as they rose in a flurry. Energy met energy and on contact, there was a breathless moment of stillness. chaos' eyes reopened in that moment in shock, but could utter no warning before the resultant backlash utterly obliterated every stone and beam left to the building, sending pieces scattering in all directions amidst a growing sphere of roiling power.

A great force threw both combatants in opposite directions like a pair of comets screaming through atmosphere, limned in the remnants of their own power.

It seemed it would end in an unsatisfactory draw.


(Scene end.)