Of Differing Worlds
2110 Words
2110 Words
Karl
Rob
Winter in Tokyo was cool but bearable. The mild climate moderated by warm ocean currents meant that most of the moisture that ended up on the ground was rain. Vivid memories of visiting his mother’s family in Finland came back to him and he was glad everything wasn’t buried under piles of snow as he strode down a quieter side street on his way towards an ancient and beautiful Buddhist temple. He felt a hush creeping over him as he took his first steps inside the grounds of the temple. A sense of peace began to rise up in him and wash over his mind. Even with the bad memories of his father, he always felt settled by being near a temple.
The ancient pines around the temple rustled softly in the breeze that drove a few stray drops of rain onto his skin as he walked softly down a pine-needle strewn path that lead around the outside of the temple. As he approached a beautiful lake surrounded by soft carpets of moss he noticed a young woman standing and looking somewhat forlornly into the water. She had strikingly purple hair and eyes that seemed lost. Zakki stood beside her at a reasonable distance and also stared into the water. The calm was so absolute that he started when she began to speak to him.
“Do you come here often?” Nana asked somewhat ironically considering she herself barely ever came to the world of the living, let alone Tokyo. It had been in a stroke of brilliance - read: not - that the blue-eyed Captain of the Third had decided to come to Earth to... well, take a break mostly.
She had been saving up on her days off and finally decided to take one now that the majority of her new responsibilities were settling in nicely. She had never really been that interested in the world of the living, but that was mostly because she simply had no real connection to it.
Plus, it might’ve had to partially do with the fact that last time she went to Earth for an extended period of time she was branded a deity. Amaterasu-ōmikami they had called her, the August God who Shines in the Heaven.
Yeah, that wasn’t exactly her shining moment when it came to making sure no one knew about what she really was. Though, to be fair, they never truly found out just what she really was... but the actual result wasn’t exactly what she had envisioned either.
By now the presence of the shinigami didn’t raise much surprise in Zakki. He was becoming increasingly comfortable with those who lived on the other side of the veil of life. This woman was nearly incandescent with spiritual energy but the lanky youth addressed her calmly, “I don’t get much of a chance for quiet contemplation these days. It truly is beautiful here.”
There was another pause as the velvet silence sank around them and Zakki added, “What brings you here today?”
His cool emerald eyes watched her. He wasn’t going to mention the fact that he could sense her spiritual energy quite yet.
“Same as you, I suppose,” she responded softly as she gazed upon the watery surface of the lake in front of them. Though beautiful indeed, for some reason the Captain felt that it didn’t really fit in too well with its surrounding.
It was definitely a carefree haven amidst a bustling city’s chaos, not unlike the ones seen in Soul Society, but this one just felt so... made. “I must say it’s quite the relief to be able to speak to one of your kind without being revered for once, though...
“Even if it means it’s now quite the opposite.”
The pale young man smiled and looked over at this Death God. It saved him the trouble of talking about ‘what’ she was now. He nodded, “I guess I lost my awe of your people a while ago now. That doesn’t mean I don’t respect your power but you’re more or less just people when you get right to the heart of it.”
He looked contemplatively out across the mirror of the water and spoke softly, “There’s been a lot of upheaval lately in both of our worlds. I was caught up in it. I imagine you must have been too?”
“Right at the heart of it, you could say,” was really all she felt the boy needed to know for now.
There was something final in what this woman said that made him avoid asking anything further. Turning his attention back to the lake he waited patiently as the slightly tense moment passed. The pale youth considered asking about Seiko but perhaps that wasn’t wise. Instead he said, “Do you ever wonder what’s going on when you’re down here? I have to live here and I can say that I regularly question what humans are up to.”
“You are an energetic bunch, that much is certain,” the blue-eyed captain replied with a soft chuckle as she met the man’s gaze. “But, I suppose my interest in your species isn’t really something I’d fret over for too long.
“You’re young, inexperienced. You find us to be meddlesome, I personally find you guys to be spoiled brats. It is a back and forth cycle we can’t seem to break out of no matter how hard and how often we try.
“I guess, if I had to be honest, though, that what happens here on Earth holds little to no interest to me whatsoever.”
A crooked smile crossed Zakki’s features. At one point in time he would have tried to argue with this woman but now he knew better. He nodded, “That’s a completely reasonable response. You’ve got bigger fish to fry. The irony is that what happens on your side of things is of huge interest to us humans. It has to be given what we’re up against.”
Shaking his head slowly the lanky youth added, “It seems odd that you’d be bothered to come down here at all if what you say is true.”
Looking down towards the ground for a bit she shook her head and smiled as she addressed the pale, young man. “Just because I hold no interest in what happens, that doesn’t mean it’s not a nice place to get away from the grand scheme of things from time to time.
“Besides,” she continued, looking back up towards Zakki, “I get to meet some interesting characters, such as yourself. You’re not exactly subtle, you know?”
Zakki shrugged, “At this point in time I haven’t really got any concern about subtlety. I’m just a guy making conversation. Besides we’re all alone here.”
There was a pause and the ghostly young man added, “I haven’t really let on about who I am, what I do or why I know so much about your kind either and I don’t intend to. You just seemed like someone who needed to talk. If you had intended me harm, you would have done it by now and I couldn’t have stopped you.”
He smiled, “Besides this is just who I am. Odd that I wear masks around humans but not around the Death Gods.”
“It’s not as odd as you may believe...” Nana began, but let her words trail off for a bit as she realized she hadn’t asked the man for his name yet. She wondered though, did she need to know it? And for that matter, did he need to know hers?
Probably not.
“You are no less a human as I am, so that you feel more at ease around those spiritually aware is not so strange. Even,” she continued, placing some extra emphasis on ‘even’, “if it means conversing with those you oftentimes hate more so than love.
“Wouldn’t you agree?”
Her smile was genuine and there was a warmth emanating from the woman’s body. A warmth it hadn’t released in a long, long time. A warmth of genuine compassion.
Zakki returned the smile with equal warmth. Sometimes he was terrified that his face would lose the ability to smile and freeze over into the alabaster mask that he kept over it while inside the confines of Cerberus. After all there was no other protection for him there than to push all emotion aside. He nodded and said, “Actually I would agree. I feel that I understand you better because of what I’ve experienced.”
There was a rueful expression that touched the pale young man’s features and he added, “Although perhaps in the recent past I’ve been a bit overzealous when it comes to my contact with the world of the shinigami. But we won’t speak of that here.”
He sighed and stared emptily across the water. The mistake he’d made still hung heavily over him and he couldn’t do anything about it. He tried to speak but all that came out was another strangled sigh.
“I won’t pretend to know what you’re going through.” She wanted to add ‘human’ to the end of her sentence, but opted against it for the sake of keeping this almost tranquil circumstance intact. “Or what it is you’re even going through, to be honest, but...”
Shaking her head softly she brought her gaze back to Zakki before continuing. “I am always a little surprised at this bleak outlook on life you humans have. It really can’t be half as bad as you guys seem to make it out to be, you’ve got a whole life ahead of you...
“And after that, you can do the whole thing all over again with a clean sheet. I honestly cannot fathom some of this severity you humans tend to have behind your ideas, ideals and thoughts. But--” She smiled softly at the young man, a chuckle escaping her lips. “--I guess because I’ve never had the pleasure of having a past life, I shouldn’t presume too much.”
Zakki shrugged, “I just made a stupid mistake and too many people got killed. I’ll accept the punishment for it. As for the bleak outlook -- I guess that human evolution primed us to feel that we only had one life to live. Even though I know there’s something across the other side of death now I still have the sense of mortality ingrained in my mind. It makes it complicated.”
The skinny youth was quiet and reflective, “It must be something else to have all those years of existence behind you. You’ve learned to take your time. I still rush around like all of the other humans out there despite holding the knowledge that I hold.”
“I wasn’t try to guilt you into anything.” She chuckled and shook her head softly as she kicked a few, small rocks into the pond in front of them. “In a sense,” she continued, “I think it’s a noble thing to try and keep a sense of mortality to your life.
“Knowing that whatever you do, however you try, you will never be able to go back to the way you were before becoming aware of this, of us, of me, I can understand wanting to have something to grab a hold of from your past life.
“Even if--” Realizing the sun was setting, the sighed softly and gazed upwards once more. “--even if it means rushing through your life like you used to. It is, after all, only human to do so.”
For a moment a sense of deep sadness struck Zakki as this enigmatic shinigami spoke to him. Maybe it was his imagination but he felt that in her own way his companion was wishing she, too, could hold onto something from a past that had slipped away. For a long moment there didn’t seem to be anything left to say but eventually the alabaster-skinned young man spoke, “Maybe someday I’ll learn to slow down. Well, I think perhaps this is where I’ll part ways with you. I have to get back to dealing with the messy details of my life again. I won’t say I’ll see you again but I will say ‘take care’.”
After staring into the waters of the lake for a few more moments Zakki bowed to the Death God and turned to walk from the part and back into the madness of the world.
As for Nana, she remained standing there for an undetermined amount of time. She almost felt... saddened by the man’s sudden departure, but she figured that he too had his fair share of duties to accomplish.
In the end, a day like this wasn’t half as bad as she thought it would be.