Lost in Time: All Gods: Chapter 32

Chapter 32: Father and Daughter, Part 2

Sae cackled madly, her ceremonial sash flying toward Ryokan with the speed of a tempest. It was all he could do to leap awkwardly to the ground at his side as Sae brought it down across the floor where he had been standing, cleaving it in two and sending splintered shards flying. Ryokan grunted as a few struck him, but forced himself up quickly to counterattack. He was too late as Sae cast another swing of her rope, laughing wildly as it whistled through the air towards him. Again, he barely dodged, ducking under the rope as it sailed over him. One of the six pillars in the altar room took the hit instead, and with a deep thud, a slab of marble was sent flying in chunks against the wall, fortunately not in Ryokan's direction. The pure shock behind Sae's blows was deafening and rumbled up to the room's vaulted ceiling, shaking the torture harness suspended above them.

Groaning dizzily, Ryokan stood up and gazed at the pillar, now broken into two sections, that Sae had destroyed. Looking around, he didn't see her, even though she'd had him off balance. He wondered why she would disappear now, of all times, but in any case, it gave him a moment to think up a strategy.

Not that it mattered; Sae's ridiculous strength made strategy meaningless. The old man had known this would be a tough fight, but that noose of hers could extend almost twenty feet out and smash through stone. With something like that assaulting him, he would be dead soon, no question. There had to be a way around it, and he needed to find it before she came back.

Suddenly, Ryokan's senses picked up as he realized that he was being watched. Scouring each of the hexagonal room's six corners, he saw Sae peering out at him from the darkness. She reacted to his awareness and raised the cord to strike again, sending it flying straight at his face. The old man threw himself onto the ground as the rope passed him by, its looped end snagging around a jagged chunk of the broken pillar behind him. Sae had been ready for him to dodge this time and grinned devilishly. With a sharp tug of the crimson flail, the rope flew back toward Ryokan's exposed body from behind, carrying the ballistic stone with it. With no time to rise to his feet, Ryokan tried to use his legs to push himself along the ground, out of harm's way. It was too late this time, however, and the ballistic stone struck his waist, knocking him from one end of the altar to the other.

"Too bad your camera can't protect you from debris," Sae chided as she retracted her menacing armament, flinging the chunk of marble off its looped end.

Cringing in pain, Ryokan rubbed his hands along his waist, checking for permanent injuries that were fortunately not there. As he rose unsteadily onto his feet, the old man got an idea. The camera...if it could exorcise spirits, maybe it could eliminate their weapons too. Weapons such as Eichiro's sword, the staves of the veiled priests, or the red cord Sae was using.

"Die," Sae commanded as she initiated another vertical slash in her father's direction. Too sore to dodge again, Ryokan aimed the camera up at the descending cord and hit the flash. The portion of Sae's weapon exposed to the light dissolved into a cloud of red fumes that drifted toward the ground harmlessly, leaving the rope a mere five feet long. Seeing this gave Ryokan some hope; with a way to counter her weapon, he knew he could fight back now.

Frustrated, Sae disappeared from view again. It was the second time that she had left him alone for a moment, when she had no reason to. Ryokan wondered what might be driving her away and looked around for her again. He didn't notice that, right beneath his feet, the red mist from Sae's destroyed sash was drifting around in search of her as well.  

Theorizing that Sae was vulnerable right now, Ryokan took a leap of faith and ran from the room's more brightly lit center, into the darkness of its borders. He needed his eyes adjusted to the dark, if he was going to have a chance of finding Sae quickly. Thinking this was a good time to strike, Sae moved from the safety of her hiding place and tried to surprise Ryokan by attacking him through one of the walls. However, she didn't use her rope; instead, Sae simply lunged through the wall and tried to break his neck by hand.

Ryokan was ready for her. His reflexes had been honed with the practice of having fought dozens of other spirits to get this far, and as soon as he saw her, he dealt a fierce blow to her body with the camera, catching her mid-attack. Sae screamed and fell back through the wall, only to reappear immediately in the center of the room, glaring at him.

"So much for her reluctance to attack," Ryokan thought bitterly, but he realized that this was the first time Sae had tried to fight with her own hands. Around Sae's waist, the red sash was still useless, its shortened end tattered from contact with the camera's light.

"Now I understand," Ryokan said, a small smile appearing on his face. He walked back toward the center of the room to face her. "You can't use that rope of yours anymore, and you're afraid to fight me without it."

Sae continued to glare at him, but she didn't look worried. Ryokan's confident smile vanished as she started to walk slowly toward him. Then she disappeared in a cloud of black smoke, and reappeared a foot in front of him!

"Wrong."

Sae flailed her arms at her father, clawing at his neck, but missed and grabbed his shoulders instead. Impatient, Sae began constricting him anyway, and Ryokan gasped as the searing pain of ten white hot knives dug deep into his shoulders. His vision began to fade as she pulled the life from him. Recognizing the danger he was in, Ryokan lifted the camera with all his weakening strength. One shot and Sae recoiled, screaming more of anger than of pain as she disappeared. She didn't stay gone for long, though, and reappeared behind him. For a moment, she watched, enjoying the view as Ryokan twitched and grunted in agony. Underneath his kimono, ten black dots had formed where her fingers had held him, and he could feel every last one. It was back to business, though, and Sae grabbed her whipcord with both hands. Having been searching up until now, the red mist floating in the room flew toward her and swirled around her cord, re-solidifying until it had regained its full length.

Despite the intense pain, Ryokan turned to face Sae, and saw with horror that she was already in the process of charging toward him, whipping the cord left and right as she advanced. Panicked, Ryokan tried to stop her attack with a shot from the camera, only to find it still reloading after the last one. With no other choice, Ryokan retreated, sprinting across the room as fast as his tired legs would carry him. Sae had no intention of letting the camera reload and rocketed after him, flaying everything in her path. Before too long, Ryokan ran out of room to retreat. Backed up in one of the room's six corners, Ryokan looked on in terror as Sae cornered him, grinding a support column that stood between them into dust and sparks. Among the sounds of crumbling stone, Ryokan heard the whirring mechanisms of a readied camera. Reflexes alone saved him as he fired a beam of light into Sae's accelerating form, with her deadly rope inches away from decapitating him. Sae wailed in pain and collapsed to the ground. Stepping forward, Ryokan fired another shot, but Sae sank into the floor to avoid the blast.

This stops whenever you want, father...just find Yae and return her to me.

Ryokan looked around, but didn't see Sae anywhere. He couldn't tell where she was; the room was acting like an amphitheater, making her voice echo from several places at once.

"Listen to yourself – you're treating Yae like your property!" Ryokan shouted back. He aimed the camera at the floor, expecting her to pop through at any second. Maybe keeping her talking could lure her out. At the very least, this gave him a moment to rest, which he direly needed after the beating his old body had taken.

She's my sister. And she promised to be with me, forever. I won't let her break that promise.

"And I won't let you force her to keep it!" Ryokan shouted. Twitching anxiously, the old man turned to his right where he felt the biting cold of Sae emerging from the shadows, but he didn't have time to aim a shot. He ran to the left just as Sae's hellish flail cracked the floor where he had been standing. Growling irritably, he pushed himself up from the ground, but she was nowhere to be found when he looked through the camera's lens.

Exhausted, Ryokan fell to his knees, gasping for breath and resenting his lack of energy. His body was exhausted and couldn't keep this up, but somehow, he had to fight past it. There were no more clever strategies for him to make use of here. Locked in a single room with his daughter, all he could do was will himself to keep fighting, hoping to the gods that his resolve and stamina were somehow greater than her own.

Sae floated out of the darkness, casting a calm look on her father as she twirled a finger in her hair. There was something haunting about her refusal to take his mortality seriously, but as his former daughter, the weak sense of honor she still held for him was coming in handy. It was probably the only thing keeping her from ripping his head off while he was down.

"You know, father," Sae queried with a little smile, "why should you or Yae fear death? There's power to be found in it."

Ryokan looked her in the eyes and frowned dismissively. His limbs shook as he found his footing, and his strength, once more. "You're only saying that because you weren't strong enough to live, not like Yae!"

"Funny," Sae spoke without humor in her voice, "you're the one who encouraged me to go through with the sacrifice. Death made me strong, but you'll find that out for yourself soon enough."

Sae gripped her deadly weapon and tossed it at Ryokan like a fisherman casting a net. He tried to move out of the way, but the loop at the opposite end of the rope widened and landed around his waist, tightening as Sae pulled back.

"Just stay still for two seconds; I promise I'll make this quick!"

Sae flexed her arms and prepared to tug the rope with all her strength. Ryokan's blood froze; he remembered this from the night of the Repentance, when Sae had used it to shatter a man's neck. Now, with the same rope around his body, she was seconds away from breaking his spine if he didn't do something. Fear overriding caution, Ryokan shoved the camera into his robes, grabbed the rope with both hands and pulled before Sae could. Caught off guard by her father's brazen response, Sae stumbled forward awkwardly, yelling as the rope tugged at her. It stung like hot metal in Ryokan's hands, but he forced himself to hold onto it, dragging his daughter's rope-bound waist forward, getting her in range of the camera.

"I don't care how strong you are, Sae," Ryokan growled, gritting his teeth as he continued to pull the rope. "I won't let you win!"

As soon as Sae was within a couple of meters, Ryokan released the rope, drew the Camera Obscura, and hit the flash. Her body shimmered translucently as the light enveloped her. Panicking, Sae shrieked and jerked her sash to one side, carrying Ryokan with it. He skidded along the wood floor as Sae and her rope vanished again.

Sae watched from afar as her bruised father struggled to his feet. "Can't you even see how weak you're becoming?" Sae chided. "Give up. The uncertainty of life is nothing to fight for."

Ryokan pulled himself up and looked for Sae. She was nowhere to be found; resting out of his reach, no doubt.

"The uncertainty of life is what makes it worth living," Ryokan argued, taking his own opportunity to rest.

"Not for me, and not for Yae, either," Sae replied calmly, appearing before her father with a cloud of red mist surrounding her. Ryokan fumbled with the camera and fired it, but the mist obscured the camera's flash before it could reach her. It seemed she was set on chewing him out before their time was finished.

"A year ago, Yae, Itsuki, and I were all happy," Sae continued, slipping into her memories of the past. Her manic smile curled into a frown. "It wasn't until Yae got it in her head that we needed to run away and start over, that things started to go wrong."

"Sae, Yae was NOT going to leave you!" Ryokan pleaded, pitying that Sae's trust in her sister had gone so sour. "She loved you and would've stayed with you for the rest of your life. That's the truth."

Sae merely shook her head, an icy tear slipping down her cheek. "Then why did she leave me on the day of the ritual, without so much as coming back for me? Even if I had escaped with her, who knows what else could've come between us? The world has never been a kind place, you of all people would know that."

Ryokan readied the camera as Sae broke from her red mist to strike again. She lifted her weapon overhead and brought it down, but Ryokan avoided it with a hasty sidestep and retaliated with another shot. The blast staggered Sae. Spurned on by frustration, she recovered instantly and vanished into a cloud of black smoke. She appeared above him, diving down as she hurled the cord.

Ryokan's heart raced as he raised the camera in reaction and fired. Light surged from the lens, launching Sae through the altar room's ceiling.

"So let me get this straight," Ryokan shouted in a disapproving tone, "you think you and Yae would be better off if you simply stopped moving into the future, with nothing to change your relationship? Is that what your curse is really about?"

"Change is where all the misery in my life originated," Sae's somber voice echoed. "It was my greatest enemy and the village's greatest weakness. Fortunately, the Repentance got rid of it."

Ryokan tried to retort, but found himself unable to speak. A sharp pain was coursing through Ryokan's waistline, where Sae's sash had been wrapped around him. Exhausted from fighting, the old man fell to his knees, trying in vain to catch his breath.

Sae took advantage of Ryokan's momentary weakness and ghosted through the floor behind him. Startled, Ryokan tried to push himself away from her, but Sae was far too fast an grabbed him, wrapping her pale arms around his neck. Ryokan gasped for breath as Sae's icy chill coursed through his body, stirring every ache that he'd ever accumulated during his time in the village. She whispered in his ear as she choked the life out of him.

"There's no uncertainty with the Repentance's blessing, daddy. You know exactly where you'll go when you die, and for eternity you'll live the same day of your life over and over, blissfully unaware of your own mortality. The future will never come. The pain of losing your village will never come. Even death  can't threaten you, which is good, because you're minutes away from yours."

Ryokan ignored Sae's lecturing and fought with all his strength to break her hold. Losing any sense of aim, he pointed the Camera Obscura up and fired it randomly. The poorly aimed shot only angered Sae, who took Ryokan by the shoulders and slammed him into the ground, driving his stomach straight through a jagged floorboard that had been created earlier in the fight.  The old man screamed in pain one last time and struggled on the ground as Sae floated near him, wearing a wicked smile on her face. The injury was too much, and within a minute, the old man had blacked out.

xxXXxx

When Ryokan managed to awaken, half conscious and barely alive, the first thing he felt was his blood pouring out of his wound, seeping into the cracks between the floorboards around him. Sae came into view above him, gazing somberly at her dying father.

"Why?" Sae asked, her tone soft. "Why didn't you just listen to me? All you had to do was bring Yae back. We could've been a family again."

Not having the strength to get up or even reach for the camera, Ryokan struggled just to speak. "We stopped being a family the day I lost sight of what was important," he grieved, his frown deepening. "I used to think like you, Sae. I was single minded and obsessed with past traditions, and the Malice used this to poison my ability to lead this village safely."

Ryokan wasn't above begging and pleaded with Sae. "Please don't make the same mistakes I did. You deserve to be with Yae again, but this isn't the way. You won't be at peace here. People will venture into this village and be sucked into our pain. They'll try to break your curse before it consumes them, just as I did," Ryokan warned, thinking back to the two girls that had accidentally given Ryokan guidance in his own journey. "I don't know whether or not they will ever succeed, but are you really so lost that you can't see the misery that your curse will cause?"

Sae's pity turned to seething bitterness as she glared down at her father. She moved behind him and pulled him off the floorboard, with no regard for his painful injury, and moved him onto a relatively undamaged patch of floor.

"I'm sorry, father," she spoke, "but I can't risk anyone take advantage of me again. Not you, not the villagers, not fate itself. When Yae finally comes back for me, everything will be as it should. With you joining me in death, nothing is left to stop her from keeping her promise. We will all be together...forever."

Sae knelt at her father's side and clasped both hands around his throat. His rough skin and irregular pulse felt unnatural to her, but she ignored it out of courtesy.

"I'll relieve you of your pain, now. Do you have any last words?"

Ryokan stared up at Sae as a loud crack echoed through the room without warning. Startled, Sae looked around for the source of what sounded like glass breaking, but didn't find it. She turned back toward her father to see him smiling, as he reached into his robes with one hand. When he pulled it back out, the broken fragments of a glimmering stone that Itsuki had given to him after the Repentance rested in his palm.

"Only two," Ryokan replied to Sae, his voice steady and strong. "Stone mirror!"

Without warning, Ryokan rolled away from Sae, breaking her grasp on his throat. He rose off the floor with renewed energy, the pain in his body receding. Even his injury wasn't bleeding!

Stunned silent by Ryokan's improbable recovery, Sae didn't move as Ryokan all but shoved the camera into her face and fired. The young woman was thrown across the room, screaming in pain as her face dissolved into a cloud of purple smoke. Rising with a furious scream, Sae turned and lunged at her father with blinding speed, both hands reaching for his neck. The old man jumped back with uncanny dexterity and aimed one final, decisive shot as Sae's fingers grazed his neck again. An explosion of light filled the altar room as an overwhelmed Sae was sucked into the Camera Obscura. The light faded and the room fell dark, leaving a lone, battered Ceremony Master as the battle's close victor.

Ryokan collapsed back down into a sitting position, taking deep breaths, pondering his victory, and his own near death. By some divine grace, he had lived through Sae's wrath, with help from the stone mirror that Itsuki had given him. Smiling weakly, the old man re-examined its broken, dark purple shards, picking them up and allowing them to slide back out of his wrinkled hand. Unfortunately, the stone mirror couldn't heal physical injuries. It had seen to stopping the bleeding and the pain, but his chest wound was still there, and that meant it would eventually start bleeding again.

It also meant that he was still short of breath. Before he even knew it, Ryokan's eyes had slid closed as his weariness overtook him. He drifted in and out of consciousness, nearly slipping into a coma before the smell of smoke wafting toward his nose finally reawakened him. Struggling to his feet, Ryokan opened the door leading outside and looked to see the signature hues of a large fire heading toward the altar room. It was the signal fire that Ryokan had created to attract Sae to him; it had consumed all of Kurosawa house by this point, and was rapidly advancing to swallow the house's last room.

Ryokan stood defiant, oblivious to the danger. "Thank you, Itsuki," he muttered into the darkness. "Your stone mirror saved my life, and now I can uphold my promise to end this curse, once and for all."

Ryokan stared down at the camera in his hands, which housed Sae along with every other specter that Ryokan had conquered with it. "It's just one more walk to the Hellish Abyss now, where I'll be able to return you to where the curse originated. You, Itsuki, and I...together, we can do it," Ryokan stared at the battered, dented double doors which led to the Hellish Abyss.

"Easy," the old man reassured himself, hoping sincerely that no final surprises were waiting for him in the caverns below. Eager to see his journey finished, the old man left the room and set off for the Hellish Abyss, steeled for what would be either a simple walk, or a final fight for survival...

...and so did a single crimson butterfly, which fluttered in after him.