*
Reach my body? Whose...? At this distance, and in my situation... I could only crawl to one of my fallen comrades before dying myself... One final gamble... And an unknown hope that awaits. There's a 50% chance to succeed, but there's an equally large chance to fail. That's fine, I'll put everything on the line for Myuu.
It wasn't anything nice to look at, but that was natural. I put all my remaining energy into crawling towards Myuu. Who knows long it's been since the battle ended, or if the progenitor would come back to retrieve our corpses or not. No matter what, I have to reach her... As fast as possible! I can't let anything snatch away this chance! The mixture of dust and debris on the floor grates against my pale skin as I draw my breath sharper and sharper each successive time.
Despite the evening weather, my body was caked in a layer of sweat and grime, a large discomfort eating away at my tolerance. I dont even have the leeway to twist my body and look back, my progress virtually unreadable. It felt like I was moving through a dark cave with no way to find the exit. My fingers tightly clutch at the ground in front of me, gripping the rough texture to lift my body forward as much as I can.
I lift my body by a few centimetres and fell forwards to move. Mustering my full strength, I could barely advance by only a few centimetres. Sometimes I can't even tell if I moved forward at all after falling. Nevertheless, I can still see her body. Paridia had wiped out all life and man made structures in a 100km radius. There would be no vultures around, so her body could only be decomposed by the bacteria and worms hidden under the ground. But the ground had also been hardened by the heat and radiation.
My only obstacle left would be the weather and the night. Right now... While I could still see her distant figure, I must crawl towards her... I have to reach her... Before I somehow lose her...
Gradually, I began to see progress. I was finally a quarter of the way there... And the skin on the underside of my arm felt like it was burning. Even the edges looked like they've been discoloured. So I dare not look at the underside. The skin but must have been eroded off, exposing pink flesh. I don't want to see that, so I continue crawling.
My fatigue began to catch up to me, I've been using all of my strength tk crawl after all. My breaths have grown shorter and my respiration sharper. It was getting difficult to lift my eyelids, I grit my teeth as I resumed my crawl. I could feel my lips drying up and my hungry stomach growling already, but I could do nothing to satiate myself. I would have to proceed while in the worst possible state a human could be in.
Starving, thirsting, gasping for air, exposed to the elements, completely fatigued, skin wearing off from the excessive crawling. In the first place, why is the ground so rough?! Or is it actually sharp, so it could scrape off my skin drastically? I don't know, I can't feel its texture anymore. Because my arms and legs are burning all over from the friction, my limbs can't feel much anymore. I could only feel whether my limbs are in contact with something or not by the amount of pain assaulting it. A hot prickling sensation constantly assaults my senses.
I don't know how much more my mind could endure, but I put all my trust in whatever Myuu has in stored for me. As such, I'll even die trying to reach her if I have to. I hold in the urge to puke, the sheer stress of the situation makes me want to hurl. I shut my lips tights, sucking my lips together as if I ate something sour. Move... Move... Don't stop moving... Stop thinking about anything but moving...
Move. Move. Move. Move. Move. Move. Move. Move. Move. Move. Move. Move. Move. Move. Move. Move. Move. Move. Move. Move. Move. Move. Move. Move. Move. Move. Move. Move. Move. Move. Move. Move. Move. Move. Move. Move. Move. Move. Move. Move.
.
.
.
.
My fingers twitched, my body is not injured, yet it is in the worse state possible. I feel like I lost some of my flesh along the way, my body feels lighter yet heavier. I am finally at my destiny's end, just a minute more of crawling... And I'll reach her. On the way here, I kept dreaming about the end. What would await me. Is it the key to our situation? Did she find a solution while I was gone? Or maybe... Were the words left by someone else instead... What if they were left by Paridia? Come to think of it, I didn't examine how those markings were left behind... I don't know... What to think of it anymore...
30 seconds, my eyelids feel heavier than ever before. I have to move forward, reach my destination. 20 seconds, I can only keep one eye open at a time, this might be the end... 10 seconds-
I reached my limit, I'm beginning to hallucinate. Her head wasn't there before, why is her corpse whole now...? I see, have I finally gone to the other side? I... I feel like there is something fundamentally wrong with me, a nagging thorn in my ego. It feels... Incomplete, that I'm not meant to be. I'm sorry Myuu, I can't join you on the other side.
After all... I'm not even sure if I'm Kaori. My memories are always riddled with holes these days, what's with that? They feel so superficial yet there is this sensation that there is more hidden somewhere away. In a dark corner that my fingers cannot reach. Who cares if my eyes are closed, she's right in front of me. I just need to move forward with all my faith thrown out of the window. A leap decided by fate... Well, a crawl.
10 seconds passed, 20 then 30. Did I overshoot by going into the wrong direction? No, I decided to stretch my hand as far as possible, that was the extra distance travelled now that I couldn't stretch my limbs... The heavy debris filled gale rushes by, I could hear its intensity but couldn't feel it. I see, even now Myuu is still protecting me. If I use my sense of touch and predict where Myuu is based on which direction the wind is blocked... She's right in front of me.
I put the final ounce of energy in this leap, leading to my death throes. But it matters not, as long as I reach her outstretched hand. The tip of my fingers lands on hers.
The page of reality turns, signifying the beginning of another long journey.
***
Another world of white, how many has there been? Perhaps it was the canvas that is to be painted upon. I've seen many unpainted canvas, as pure as pure could be. Then... I look down, observed. I was standing on a large plane of white, but there is a definitive edge. A horizon of grey. This place is simply too bright, but the land I am standing on is not connected to the sky.
Despite my eyes being where they are, for some reason it felt like I could perceive a birds eye view at the same time. The land was in a shape of a single petal, I cannot view the entire flower, but this much I am sure. It is in a simple shape like that of a lily's petals. It was empty in its vast expense, nearly removing any sense of direction I would have had. Was there anywhere that I needed to go? Why was I brought here?
Looking around a bit more, I finally laid eyes upon a single figure in the distance.
"Myuu!"
She was definitely here, I'm seeing her right now. She's real right? This is not some weird scene I'm seeing right before my death? Not a passing into the other side experience?
I ran forward, towards her distant figure. The closer I got, the faster my heart beats. The more I could see her, the more my body shuddered. I drove all of my newfound strength into running after her, as I attempt to get as close as possible. My lips quivered, and my sight blurred. Yet I pinpoint her location and continuously sprinted towards it. I can not stop, if I do I won't ever see her again. Such a notion engulfed my heart like a deep dark sea. I can't take it! This feeling of being so far away from her... After finding out she's dead, who could resist running after even a figment of someone they lost.
My moves as fast as it possibly could, imaginary wind rushes by, filling me with more and more vigour. I don't think I've ran this desperately before in my entire life. My legs take off and land, my arms desperately push back the air. My body takes off, and before I notice it I had already come close to her. 20 metres away...
I've realised, I had only been looking at her face. Her legs, they were no longer there. She didn't seem to be some kind of ghastly apparition either, her legs were replaced by something white. She was joint to the ground. I couldn't make sense of it, but seeing her alright brought tears to my eyes. When... When did I care this much about someone else?
After The Great Disaster, I felt like whatever I possessed could be lost at any time... So I decided to live my life to the absolute fullest and did whatever I felt like... I was hesitant on forming such a deep connection with my friends and kept all my relationships superficial for fear of losing them... That's what I did to Myuu the whole time... I've been keeping her at an arms length to use her combat power, while preventing us from going any further... I stayed transformed as a magical girl and never revealed my real self to make a similar secondary barrier for that.
I told myself that I wouldn't ever run again... That I would gladly die while living how I wanted to live. But I guess... I was more fragile than that... Before I am Kaori... I am the human Kaoru. Just an average guy who would sympathise with the ants he killed and feel guilty about it... So how could I not feel the torment when I led Myuu and the others to their deaths...
Even with everything going with magic, my memories and other related stuff, I still retained this friendship with Myuu and the others. They stuck with me all the way. Both as the Kaori before and the Kaori after the memory loss... The Eye God... She gave me my memories back, but I felt like something is still crucially missing... So much has gone awry...
"Before we explain my matter, perhaps you want an explanation to yours first? I can see it... The answer. It lies in your life force... Your soul." (Myuu)
She waited for me to cry my heart out and only began talking after. I wipe away my tears, nodding for her to proceed. Strangely enough, some hesitation welled up in her kind face. She was always so reliable as an ally and as a friend... I wonder if it was something hard to talk about...
"First of all... You are not Kaori. You have her memories, but because they were memories forged by the library of Akasha, they don't detail what Kaori actually felt and what happened before The Great Disaster.
It wasn't that the memories of Kaori before The Great Disaster couldn't be forged... But the forgery simply stopped there. " (Myuu)
"... Then... These feelings of mine, are they real? "
Her eyes closed for a moment, pondering intensely in a moment of her concentration. She organised her thoughts before opening them up again. A slight grimace was evident in her expression. Even if these memories of mine were forged... It seemed like my feelings for Myuu ultimately won out over the rational feeling of discomfort in my identity crisis. As long as she's here, it'll be okay.
"... Yeah, they're real. As long as you think it from the bottom of your heart. Before the body, there is the mind. Before the mind there is the soul. And finally before the soul, there is only an ego. Even if the memories that reside in the mind paint a person's personality, the ego that makes sense of it, experiences new feelings and reacts to it will always be real. " (Myuu)
"... Then, should I abandon whatever was my past self, in pursuit of this new self? "
"... Ultimately, your past self has already been painted over with your new self. Things will never return to the way it was in the past. You can be both. There's nothing wrong with being selfish like that... After all, I'm not actually Myuu either.
I am but a fragment of her, an ego born in her final skill [Grail of the centralised nebula]. Myuu died, I'm the dregs of her magic and my last mission was to save you. " (Myuu?)