blood red moon
~ a Shadow of Destiny fanfiction
Chapter Six
It shouldn’t have frightened him, even with the wind and rain and lightning, the pain in his wrist and side and all over - he shouldn’t have been so afraid. Eike knew what she was, the truth all too clear as Dopple stepped out of the shadows, lightning illuminating shattered features - and in that flicker of nature’s outrage, her eyes glowed red, no longer smiling. If it hadn’t been so cold, he would have sworn he had returned to his nightmare.
He couldn’t stop looking at her, a part of him fascinated even as the rest of his thoughts were shrieking that there was no way out of this, that there was no way past her to the door and even if, she wasn’t unarmed, wasn’t helpless. He watched her hands flex slightly in the air, pale and perfect like two doves, empty, but a promise of power swelled in the air behind her, infinitely worse than the storm still roaring around them.
Eike couldn’t stop looking, because Homunculus had broken her - the djinn hadn’t been lying then, about his own physical fragility. The right side of her face had been smashed away, her ear missing completely, the jagged edges that remained sharp like a broken plate. He heard a hollow, soft gasping even over the wind, her breathing, perhaps - did Homunculus breathe? He couldn’t remember. The girl didn’t speak, Eike doubted she was still able to.
//No blood, she’s not bleeding...// He knew she wasn’t human, knew that already, but it didn’t make the lack of blood seem any less bizarre.
A smaller fracture spread across her pale neck like a bruise, tiny mosaic-sized flecks of crystalline skin falling here and there - and she was hollow underneath, empty. It was somehow even more frightening, as if those burning crimson eyes had eaten everything away inside... but Eike knew that was stupid, there was nothing for her to lose, never had been...
//The pure stone, and I summoned life, fully formed and so beautiful, my destruction, and his... I would make it his.//
The thoughts, the sudden swell of memories threatened to take him down - not him, they weren’t /his/ thoughts, and at the same time they were, his memories from lifetimes alone. He had lived through that, hadn’t he? Countless centuries in silence, clawing out a space to live, a place for that growing madness and fury to swell...
Eike felt feverish, and shook beneath the wind and rain, still watching her, gasping slightly as his hand reached the edge of the wall, roughly scraping against the stone. Nothing remained beyond but empty air, for three stories straight down.
//So, what happens now?//
It would have been easier to see her angry, it would have made more sense if there had been fury in her face instead of hurt. Instead, it was betrayal.
//Impossible.//
Dopple was watching him in shock, as if she couldn’t believe he could have hurt her, or perhaps that she was able to feel pain, not as invincible as she had been led to believe.
He wasn’t at all surprised, the way time finally froze, raindrops slowing to a halt in midair, a snap of lightning poised overhead, illuminating them both in a strange, phantom light. The girl lifted her hand, palm out toward him, and Eike heard something creak, a rusted metal gate, not around him or even part of the tower but from somewhere high above, in the sky, in eternity...
//Time, if she can’t kill me, if she’s out of weapons, then she’ll just pull this entire time apart.//
Eike didn’t dare to look, catching glimpses of the growing destruction from the corner of his eye, the border between ground and sky twisting strangely, perhaps only a trick of the shadows though he knew that it wasn’t. He felt the backs of his thighs digging into the back of the wall, his jacket pulling as he leaned back. The blonde tipped his head to the side, just far enough to see over the side. The ground seemed very far away, wet grass like broken bottles shining as a final bolt of lightning snapped past.
Homunculus had only appeared when things had been at their worst, hadn’t he?
... and there was only one way Eike could think of to make this any worse.
The blonde swallowed hard, feeling a single drop of rain splash against the bridge of his nose, nearly in his eye, slowly trailing down the side of his face and warming against his skin - and he closed his eyes, and leaned back, feeling the embrace of empty space, weightless as he let himself fall.
The world went white. Eike thought he heard Dopple scream, it filled the air as the lightning cracked down in a monster’s roar - count the time between the two for distance, the bolt must have nearly been on top of him - and he was still falling backward, bracing for the deadly impact, for that split second of intense pain, the bones in his back and shoulders being crushed, before oblivion.
Eike dimly realized, his heart marking out a few beats in which he was afraid to think, that it was taking too long. He didn’t even feel as if he were falling anymore, not really - and the air was warming, it was warmer here, as if he had been caught by some divine hand... but was that hand from the light, or the darkness?
//... and if it’s the light that wants to destroy me? What then?//
It was too much to even try to finish the thought.
---------------------------
“Eike?”
He frowned slightly, the soft voice familiar, hovering somewhere overhead. Why was he lying down? Hadn’t he just been falling, so where? ... and no, the voice wasn’t right, too normal... it echoed, it usually echoed here, should have...
“Eike?”
Red eyes, and for a moment the blonde was locked in the memory of icy fingers tight around his throat and memories like knives stabbing through everything he thought was real, that he needed to be real. He heard himself whimper, weakly trying to push those eyes away, felt a moment of satisfaction at the sound of a muttered curse, and he was left staring into a ceiling that just seemed to go on forever, an unending darkness. He thought it should have scared him more than it did.
Green eyes skimmed the edge of the room, just enough to catch sight of a very familiar door - and immediately, he knew where he was.
//If I’m dead again, so help me...//
He’d become so attuned to listening for Dopple’s footsteps that the sound of someone else nearby, even though the movement was nearly silent, instantly caught his attention. Of course, even before he turned he knew who it was.
Eike nearly laughed at how normal the smaller man looked, not a hair out of place, black clothes completely spotless. Eike felt as if he’d been in a fight with a pack of junkyard dogs, and figured he probably looked twice as bad. Homunculus was staring at him as if that were the case, blood red eyes glinting with self-satisfaction as usual - or were they? It was too hard to read the djinn’s expression, one slim eyebrow raised in something that could have been disdain, disappointment or... he really couldn’t tell. Eike really didn’t care, except that Homunculus had always been the one to speak first, to lead the conversation, and hesitance did not suit him at all.
“Are you all right?”
Eike opened his mouth to speak, almost immediately had his good hand to his throat, grimacing against the lancing agony that shot straight up to his temples. He swallowed, forcing the words out just to make sure he could still manage it.
“... hurts to talk.” It was marginally less painful once he’d gotten started, though his pulse had somehow gotten tangled up with the pain as well, ears pounding in a steady, incredibly uncomfortable rhythm.
“... and I thought it was bad the /last/ time we met. I think this must easily be the worst day... century... year... whatever.”
It hurt to talk, it hurt even worse to think. Eike figured he must have been going into some sort of shock, but let it all blur in his mind anyway, losing all those so-important questions for the moment. It just wasn’t worth it, it couldn’t possibly be worth the effort.
“Are you all right?”
Laughing was the worst of all, but he croaked out a whispery chuckle anyway - why in the world would Homunculus be so concerned anyway? Why was any of this happening?
“I’m surprised you keep asking that. I can’t even tell anymore.” He looked down at his badly wounded arm, careful not to shift it from where it was propped against his leg, the dried blood a solid dark swath down the sleeve of his jacket. “Okay... so you saved me from dying but you couldn’t-”
Homunculus made a small, disdainful sound, Eike didn’t bother to look up, already knew he’d be looking down on him with the same proud, too-proud-to-be-truly-amused smile, knew the word was coming even before the djinn spoke. “Humans... really, Eike, I can’t even get a thank-you after all I’ve-”
The very first moment he’d saw the dark-clad man, Eike had wondered how Homunculus had managed not to use up all his energy attacking Dopple as he had. He had his answer - the smaller man had used up his strength, he just had been employing an amazing balancing act until now to keep his feet. The blonde barely had time to blink before he found himself with a djinn in his lap.
Eike could only stare, red eyes wide with surprise absolutely mesmerizing this close up, wondering if Homunculus still had enough power to destroy him if he dared to laugh. The djinn gazed down slowly at the limbs that had betrayed him, lifting one pale, delicate hand as if it were made of lead.
“A burden, this silly, fragile form - and you can /stop laughing now Eike/.”
The blonde couldn’t, even though it hurt, trying to keep the giggles firmly wedged in his chest, turning away as he felt tears of mirth streaming down his face. Thankfully, Homunculus let him go, seemed to realize it was either laugh or scream at this point. It helped, by the time Eike got control of himself he no longer felt as if he were a body with a ticking time bomb perched on top.
“Are you quite finished?” Eike couldn’t help another smile at the djinn’s cool tone, couldn’t help but think that underneath his expressionless mask, the smaller man might be smiling too.
“Really, you humans...”
“Oh, leave me alone. It’s been a hell of a day.” Eike leaned his head against the wall behind him, closing his eyes. He had neither cause nor incentive to move, not even to push the djinn off of him, and Homunculus was surprisingly /warm/, unless he was just going into shock...
//A creature of fire, that’s what Dopple said...//
He froze, surprised he had the strength left in him, opened his eyes at the lightest touch against his broken wrist. Amazing, that it didn’t hurt. The djinn’s fingertips were remarkably pale against his own skin, when he had always considered himself painfully fair.
“I barely was able to catch you, after the car hit you. Somehow, that little bitch...” The sharp edge in the djinn’s tone was unmistakable, a rare break in his usual composure. “It shouldn’t be possible, to break your death off into separate events, to make the fracture and the death different... but she did.”
“You won’t hold it against me if I’m too tired to follow you.”
The djinn glanced down, where he was sitting on Eike’s legs.
“I think I’m out of things to hold against you, actually.”
It took Eike several beats to realize Homunculus had actually told a joke, and several more to scramble for a response, only to realize he didn’t have one. Instead, he quietly glanced around the corners of the room, like a child searching out bedtime monsters.
“... she can’t get in here, can she?”
“No. I’ve put up wards, protections, things I would have done a thousand years ago, had I ever thought there would be a need. I’ve never met something like her, I never thought I would have to protect my own realm so.” He cocked an eyebrow as Eike snorted. “What?”
“You. Humility. This must be serious.”
“You...” The impossibilities were starting to pile up dangerously high, Eike realized, as the djinn just sort of... spluttered. Homunculus lost for words? Impossible.
“Hard to stare down your nose at me when we’re sharing the same floor, hm?”
“Oh, shut up.”
“Sorry, sorry. So, you don’t know who she is?”
“No. I don’t.”
The pause between the words was too long, the red eyes did not look his way as the djinn spoke. Eike knew Homunculus was probably lying, knew he had about a thousand more questions that desperately needed answers, but behind his eyes there was only a dull, flat ache, which threatened to become a massive headache at the slightest provocation.
He should ask the questions as they came then, as he could remember to ask them. Ask, and see how long his luck would hold out, how long the djinn would talk to him when there was nowhere else for him to go.
“Any reason to keep me in town through all that... jumping?”
“Just a variable I didn’t want to worry about. Why, did you see something that troubled you?”
It was a tease, Eike opened his eyes just enough to shoot the smirking man a look.
“... now what would the odds of /that/ be?” He sighed. “So, why did you save me?”
“You were the first one I could reach before she did.”
Toneless, carefully so, and the djinn didn’t look at him, eyes downcast. Eike threw a note off to his tired brain to remember it, until he could think clearly enough to realize what it all meant, doubting he would have the focus to ponder it again.
“How many other me’s did she kill, then?”
“Not many.” Yet again, Eike couldn’t measure if the djinn was telling anything remotely like the truth.
“Won’t she just go after another me, if I’m... here?” The blonde almost said safe, and was shocked to find he actually meant it.
“I don’t think so. For all her power, she’s still very much like a child. I don’t think this ‘Dopple’ can think like that. She’ll stay fixed on you, until she destroys you.”
“Lucky me.”
Homunculus smirked again. If he’d had a watch, Eike was sure he could have kept time by the expression. “It could be to our advantage, really. If she’s focused on you, she won’t try to destroy anything - or anyone - else.”
//Anything. Wait, why did he say...?// Eike groaned softly, bit his lip. It felt as if the contents of his mind had suddenly shifted, sending the room into a slow spin. “I felt a lot better the last time we went through this, and I was dead for a most of that.”
“The Digipad made it easier for me to move you through time. It also gave you the ability to see and equip some of the nodes, where time is linked, and more stable. It’s the reason you created it, you know.”
“I created... a future me?”
“Yes. You wanted to use it to find me, and destroy me - or you will. One of your alternate future selves. I took it away from you once you had it finished, of course.”
Eike winced, bitter amusement rising like bile in his throat, bringing his hand up against his now aching head.
“Should I be flattered, that we’ve apparently had such a long history between us?” He opened one eye slightly, staring at the djinn from between two fingers, couldn’t have managed more than a whisper even if his throat had been all right. “I’m Wagner, aren’t I.”
“Yes.” The answer came quickly, and so did the frown as he said nothing in response. “Oh, don’t look at me like that, Eike.”
The blonde sighed, green eyes glancing skyward, though he knew very well there was no sky. He would have been a fool to expect an apology.
“... and the reason I don’t remember this?”
Homunculus shifted. The djinn’s weight was nothing at all, really, more like a heavy blanket, or a large cat - not what he would have expected at all.
“You kept me from - /Wagner/ kept me from sealing the usual deal with that pentagram of yours. He received a free wish, and I didn’t get my end of the bargain. So I stole his... your memories.”
“Let me guess... you wanted his soul?”
//Wait, that would be my soul... oh, whatever.// At this point, the problems that had so recently terrified him now seemed all but inconsequential.
“I wasn’t about to let him get away with keeping it, not after I granted his wish.”
It was Eike’s turn for irony. “Oh yes, it’s been nothing but fun ever since.”
“How would you know?”
He glared at the djinn, who returned the ire, of course, with a patient, superior smile.
//He really ought to get that painted on.// Eike blinked as the world started to spin again, tried to focus on the floorboards, and realized he couldn’t quite bring them out of a blur. Oh boy, that probably wasn’t a good sign.
-------------------
Homunculus didn’t sleep. The closest he came was a voluntary preoccupation, reaching out to touch time until he couldn’t be quite sure where he ended and time began. It was relaxing, renewing him beyond even the mere physical replenishment, which only an extended period of remaining motionless would provide.
Eike, however, was in need of a very long rest, and just as valiantly fighting against it, determined to ask every question he could before - Homunculus supposed - he felt his window of opportunity would close and the djinn would answer no more questions.
“... I’m... remembering things, now... but I don’t think they’re memories.” His voice trembled with a soft premonition of fear. “I don’t think they’re from the past. Dopple, I don’t know what she...”
“Eike.” Homunculus frowned, tried again when the man seemed not to notice he had spoken, lips still mouthing the tattered ends of misplaced thoughts. “/Eike/.”
Hazy emerald eyes slowly focused on him, and Homunculus felt an unwelcome pang at the despair he saw in them, the fear and confusion and pain. The djinn knew he could feel emotion, nothing barred him from being sympathetic, but he’d be damned if he would let it happen so easily.
“Eike, you have to sleep. It’s all right, there will be time - trust me, we have plenty of that - for all your questions.” He pitched his voice into a gentle tone, couldn’t help it. He also couldn’t help the strange, momentary sensation in his chest as Eike nodded, and smiled. It was a guileless expression, so open and innocent, what was maybe even /trust/ sparkling in the emerald shallows, before he yawned, and closed his eyes.
//Damn you, human.// Homunculus ignored the fact that he immediately was changing his realm, softening and sculpting both pillar and floor around his unexpected guest, giving the human a more comfortable place to sleep. It took very little energy to mold the place to suit his needs. He could do it slowly enough, and it was certainly more interesting than just sitting there waiting to regain his strength.
Of course there was that little problem of /why/ he was doing it... saving the blonde was one thing, but these kindly ministrations?
//The devil’s in the details... so they say.//
The djinn sighed, refusing to answer his own question, propping himself up against Eike’s chest in a way that almost allowed him to maintain some semblance of dignity.
//Maybe you’re just bored, or maybe you /really/ do...// He found that his hand had unconsciously been toying with a piece of Eike’s hair, and stared at his traitorous fingertips in disgust.
//You, djinn, are an absolute ass. Getting fond of a human of all things. How pathetic.//
/I am not. ... and even if I was, would that be so bad?/
//YES.//
Insane impulses to the contrary, the majority of his mind was still working rationally, enough so to remember that humans were both inferior and very much his eternal enemy. Countless eons trapped inside the Philosopher’s Stone - being irrevocably attached to the damn thing, for god’s sake - enough for it to be fixed forever his corporeal shell.
//One of /his/ kind did that, trapped me here, kept me in this pathetic body.// It had happened so long ago, the djinn himself had trouble recalling the particulars. //Annoying mortals.//
Surprisingly, it was the only momentous event in his existence that Eike didn’t seem to be part of in one way or another... and who knew, with reincarnation the strange movement it was. Time was a complex tapestry, even for him, and Homunculus knew he understood it better than anyone else.
//... even that Dopple creature. Strange, that she hasn’t tried at least once, to break through.//
The shields would hold, even if she did. The pale-haired nightmare might have taken him off-guard at first, but Homunculus had recovered quickly, and every moment he had, especially now with Eike safely tucked away...
The reaction was swift, totally unexpected, Eike’s eyes snapping open the second he reached out, past his shields, gingerly testing the threads of time. Homunculus dropped the connection immediately, staring at the frightened green eyes that seemed to look right through him.
//Dopple didn’t...// He hadn’t considered the physical injuries might not be the only ones, that she might have attempted countless other attacks. The instant the djinn did look, the damage was clear.
//... clear, but how did she...? How?//
Memories were ordered somewhat like time, a series of events stored by the mind in a roughly linear order, and though Homunculus couldn’t study those snapshots in the mind as freely as he could examine time, he could see that Dopple had restructured Eike’s... in entirely unnatural ways. Dangerous ways.
//Past and future both, she’s tried to give him all those memories at once. He shouldn’t even have glimpses of this, it isn’t his world.//
It would never be his world, the djinn would make sure of that.
“... mm? Wha’s going on... where is she, where...?”
“It’s all right, Eike. It was only me.” He still wasn’t sure why the man even listened to him - from the blonde’s point of view, why couldn’t this all just be another one of his tricks?
//I certainly wouldn’t trust me.//
He felt another pang of disgust at his own idiocy, at how good it made him feel to know that Eike did trust him, green eyes half-focusing on him now, the panic fading as the man realized he was no longer in immediate danger.
“... k, ‘mnuclus. Wake me up if...” The rest of the sentence was lost as he dropped back to sleep, and useless anyway. The djinn may have had an overly fragile frame but Eike was by no means invulnerable simply because he was human.
//It isn’t the physical wounds that matter anyway, not when she attacked his mind. What does that bitch think... that I’d /ever/ let her get away with this?//
Tired as he was, there was no choice but to fix things now. Who knew what kinds of stress those sorts of incongruous memories could do if left where they were.
//Drive him mad, just like the Eike that killed himself to make you suffer.//
/... just like the Eike you drove mad, to turn him into that pathetic creature./
He could repeat that simple truth ad infinitum, it still didn’t make any sense, still would not connect to the man in front of him now. Eike /fought/ for life, always had, and for all his painfully good-natured bumbling, that determination had always been an impressive trait in the djinn’s eyes.
//Impressive. A human impressing you now? Oh dear, it’s all over, isn’t it.//
Ignoring the chiding voice, Homunculus leaned in a bit closer, until he could feel the human’s breath ghosting across his cheek. Carefully, he slid his hand beneath the blonde bangs, the backs of his pale fingers just touching Eike’s skin. It didn’t take all that much power, or very long... a few murmured words, and the little strength he’d managed to build up in the time he’d been resting. Eike sighed softly when Homunculus pulled his hand away, relaxing into a deeper slumber - without the fragments of Dopple’s half-truths, the splinters of the future she had tried to cripple him with.
It was all he took, only what the pale-haired girl had thrown at him and nothing more. He could have taken more, of course - he had taken Eike’s entire life once before, and all that he had built of it after that, every few years. The spell had worked as well as he ever could have imagined.
His revenge. He never thought he would come to care what had happened to Wagner, let alone...
//“Do you know what it’s like to go mad, Homunculus?”//
If it meant regretting what he had once done in vengeful delight, then yes. If it meant second guessing decisions that had once seemed as simple as breathing, then yes.
//... more than that, though.// He touched the blonde’s brow again, this time in only curiosity, fascinated by the softness of his skin, the differences between his human form and Homunculus’s created one, the djinn’s body more a vessel than a living thing.
//Eike... what are you to me?//
The djinn was suddenly very, very tired. He had never been surrounded by so many more questions than answers, and it seemed enough now just to tuck his knees up, curling catlike against Eike’s chest, smiling in bitter disbelief as an arm came up, gently cradling him, the blonde turning slightly as he slept.
//... and what am I to you?//
Homunculus gazed out into an imaginary horizon, reaching for his familiar comfort, now that Eike seemed unaffected, no longer sensitive to the pull of ages. If Dopple hadn’t attacked by now, it was unlikely... and time seemed to agree, howling its usual soft, sad cry. Thankfully, it seemed to be back to some sort of balance, a usual state he had never thought before to call peace.
//... but even if this is over, now that you are here, things will never be the same.//
Whatever happened, however shallow or fleeting it was, he couldn’t bear to see the madness of the Eike to come, shining from the eyes of the man who held him now.
Homunculus knew time, he was its intimate master, and for the first time all he had were questions without answers, and the future wasn’t clear. The djinn sighed, folding his arms up, and listened to the beat of Eike’s heart... and waited.
-----------------------
The pale girl had built her own sanctuary, though it was weak and without true form, nothing so steady as the djinn’s world. Dopple lay limply in a pile of threads cut and rewoven, gleaming beneath her curled form like a bird’s nest. A jumble of chaotic pasts, presents and futures and pasts all meshed into an impossible chaos held her trembling body. The girl lay carefully on her side, broken body exposed in so many jagged curves, sobbing into the silence at the end of time.
//Why... Why, I don’t understand... why...//
She would have brought him back if she could, at this moment, her Eike. He had taught her, and he lived in her still, his words, his revenge - but she needed /him/, needed new words, needed to know why it had happened, why she /hurt/, why it hadn’t turned out all right...
//I was supposed to kill him. He wanted... they’re all supposed to want... why don’t they want...//
/~He doesn’t understand. He is very stubborn, and refuses to give in to what he knows to be true.~/
Dopple looked up, red eyes flitting from point to point with a very primal fear as the voice rumbled over the waters of time, a dominant harmony in the haunting melody that came from all around her.
//Is someone there? Is someone there? Who are you?//
/~Such a good child. You tried so hard, didn’t you?~/
A figure appeared, or perhaps it had always been there, and Dopple gasped.
//Me.//
A mirror image of herself, but this Dopple was whole, and strong, and the memory of what she had been brought tears to the broken girl’s eyes now. She could sense the other her watching her own memories - Homunculus raising the iron bar, the incredible pain as it smashed through her side, her purpose lost as Eike was snatched away, and she was too weak to follow. The memories resonated inside what remained of her crystal form, a brutal discord almost as bad as the blow itself had been, until she had to curl up tighter to keep from screaming.
/~Yes. A horrible creature, a horrible nasty thing, to defile you so.~/
A hand touched her hair, caressed the painful, cutting edges that defined the end of her face now, a curve of broken porcelain. Dopple choked at the searing agony... but just as quickly it faded to a distant, soft ache. Time burbled beneath her like a stone-filled river, the chaos she had created suddenly smoothing out into perfect calm, those timelines that could not be reconciled simply erased from existence. Such was the way of Atropos, merciless in her duties.
The mirror image knelt, and Dopple leaned back, until her head was in her twin’s lap, gentle fingers stroking her hair in a tender, motherly gesture.
/~He is a beastly, disgusting thing. All his kind are, repulsive djinni - though it is true they are strong... too strong. The Homunculus is not an enemy I would see you face again, not as you are. But you will heal, sweet child. You will be whole again~/ The hand dropped again to her cheek, though not far enough this time to reach the edge, not close enough to hurt. /~You will heal, and I will give you what you need, to destroy them both.~/
She was not his creator, but her hands were kindly, and Dopple knew the words she spoke were right, and true... and the pale girl looked up into her double’s red eyes, and smiled a fractured smile.
//Yes... destroy them both.//