Before the creation of the world, a whisper of malcontent rippled through the universe: an evil spirit was said to have wandered into the lower planes of Tengoku (heaven) and threatened to uproot a divine tree to harness the power of its fruit. In the hands of the depraved only destruction and death could follow such an act. And so, the call to war echoed through the galaxies like a cosmic hurricane.
Renai and Senso were called upon to enter battle on behalf of Tengoku in order to save paradise from sure-destruction. Gods of all creeds and powers were enlisted into the forces that would fight in worlds unknown and uncharted. There was a threat to their divine and magical way of life, a threat that, if not extinguished, would see an end to Renai and Sesno's world. But before any formal inauguration into the armed forces could be instigated, Senso forbade Renai from participating in battle.
Naturally, neither wanted the other to go for fear of losing them. But Senso, a grounded and rational warrior, warned Renai that if existence were to lose Love then there would be no hope, no care, no peace in the world. The goddess agreed and watched with anxious tears and a heavy heart as her beloved left paradise for war.
When the war ended Renai travelled to the gates of heaven, far from her home at the centre of paradise, in order to catch a glimpse of her lover as he returned home. With a bright smile and a garland of jasmine flowers hung on her wrist, waiting to be strung around the hero's neck, Renai went to the gates and waited for her beloved to return.
But Senso did not return. Centuries passed. All the while, Renai waited.
She watched from the gates and looked down into the universe to see new worlds created from the laughter of gods, from the sprinkle of stardust that fell from angels' eyelashes. She even witnessed the creation of the world we know and looked on in curiosity as these strange, inspiring creatures relished and loved and killed and cried and smiled through their mortality.
So bound to her belief that Senso would return, so curious about these creatures on Earth, Renai soon forgot her home in Paradise and she took up permanent residence by the gates of heaven. Her soul was permanently caught in one of two states: she would spend her days waiting in loneliness for her beloved to return or she would laugh at the foolish antics of the mortals in the world below.
She happened to be staring into a silvery star one evening, when the Creator stumbled upon her new hiding place. Amidst the tranquility of the space that the gates of heaven occupied, the power of the Creator rippled through the entire dimension, bending time and space, making Renai's entire being seize up for a moment in fear of what he would do when he found her hidden.
Needless to say the Creator did not take kindly to Renai's new found role; to sit idle, to not participate in the world of the gods was shameful. Especially since the Creator had granted her a position amongst the other kami (gods) following her being rescued from imprisonment. There was nothing that seemed to satisfy Love! One moment she would curse her beloved for all his temper led him to say and the next she would beg for his safe return. What a cursed love they shared! And now that Senso was lost to heaven, Renai refused to return to the centre paradise and instead awaited his return. The Creator cursed, screamed, fought, argued, pleaded, begged, dragged Renai to follow him back to their home. But she refused to leave the gates.
Upon seeing how stubborn she was, the Creator made a deal with her:
Do you know what lies between these gates? Life and death. Mortals pass through here when they wish to enter heaven. Souls leave this place when they are about to be born. I will relieve the guards of their work here and, if you are to remain here, you instead shall judge what passes through. From Love existence shall be granted and from Love existence shall be taken. Do you understand?
And so, Love was given a new task; to judge who entered and left this world. To speak to the dead and let them pass through the gates, to guard heaven, guide souls and welcome the lost. Content with her new role, Renai waited in solemn silence for the day her lover would return.
That was until the day she heard the thoughts of a poet as they drifted up to meet her between the stars….
He who walks in the shadow of love, will surely have heaven beneath his feet…
***
"When one enters this plane, they enter in peak physical condition. For example, although your sensei, Jiraiya, died at the age of 55, he entered this place aged 35. No cuts, no bruises, no scars. Itachi, though in death his eyes were damaged beyond repair, came here aged 22 with perfect vision. All wounds are healed, all breaks are mended."
Ai could feel herself lying on her back against a hard surface, wincing as her body found it difficult to adjust to this new environment. She could hear someone with a beautiful, melodic voice, speaking to her as though singing. Slowly, she opened her eyes.
"Ah!" And shut them tightly for all she saw as she looked up was a blinding whiteness. Breathing heavy, trying to slow her heart beat, Ai opened her eyes again, slower this time. The overwhelming feeling of emptiness engulfed her as she looked up into that whiteness. The tips of her fingers were tingling as though she were trying to come to life; as though she had been waiting centuries to move them. Turning onto her side, Ai propped herself up with her elbow and squinted into the distant whiteness. On the horizon, she could see the outline of a figure moving towards her.
Her mind was fuzzy as though she could not remember her own existence; her body felt heavy and weak, unable to move. Something had frightened her…what was it? It was as though she had been walking alone in the dark to have someone leap out and scare her and just as she had jumped back in surprise, she had jumped back into this world. But where was she? Who was she?
A vision of red and ocean green, the colours of love were floating around in her brain and it was almost painful to remember, but harder to forget, the man she left behind-
"There was only one man who came to me with a scar that even death could not remove." The dancer looked up as the figure walked into her line of sight.
Ai's heart stopped. Her entire being froze. Part of her wanted to scream, another part wanted to get up and run. But she was immovable by the sight of what was in front of her:
Red lips, blue eyes, hair in dark ringlets; in ivory silk and a gold tiara made for an empress, stood…Ai. She was looking at herself! As she lay on the floor of this horribly empty place, another version of her stood, watching her with a look of melancholy.
"Your name, our name, I suppose, since we are the same being. It remained cut into him so deep, it had became such an integral part of that boy that the rules of death were, for the first time in eternity, broken." The courtesan watched, entirely speechless, as this other version of herself fiddled with a gold bangle on her wrist. Looking more closely, Ai could see that this version of her was older, there were lines around her eyes, a more mature structure to her face. In fact, the more Ai looked, the more she looked less like the dancer and more like a woman Ai had seen in paintings.
The courtesan winced as memories came quenching back into her brain; you have become poetry…when we returned to the temple a year later, the child we found nestled amidst the lotus blossoms, floating in the temple, was you….your name took my last breath….the words of mortals she knew dearly were jumbled up inside her head, screaming, fighting to be heard, to remind her who she was, where she was supposed to be.
"And now you turn up with that," the woman gestured to Ai, catching the girl's attention, "scar," she shuddered slightly as though she hated the fact that Ai's beautiful face had been harmed."And you are just," the woman with the face of an empress sighed, "…just so ready and young and hopeful to deny the rules of death again. You and he are both so alike." Ai knew that laugh, that smile, that face. It was not hers but it was so familiar. It felt as though memories belonging to the goddess were somehow mixing with Ai's; she could see her father sat in the firelight, frightened at the image of Renai appearing on the page of his notebook. The sculptures of Renai in the gardens of the Marble Palace all seemed to come to life in her mind as though they were made of a life-giving clay. She could feel the loss of Senso, the heartbreak of his rumoured death.
Renai let out an airy laugh. Finally, the younger girl seemed to find her voice and sat up, pointing directly at the goddess.
"Y-you!" Renai frowned as Ai said this; suddenly the girl's age was apparent. She was scared and confused, utterly out of her depth and entirely lost. He mortality was showing in all its vulnerability.
"You?" Renai folded her arms; seeing as this girl was a part of her, she had expected more of an introduction. "Don't you mean me?" The goddess asked teasingly.
"I-I-" but Ai had no idea what to say, she simply babbled a few words, still unable to articulate what it was like to suddenly come face-to-face with the person you are supposed to be.
"Oh come now, Ai, you're more articulate than this!" The goddess encouraged her kindly; she took in that innocent face, the young, youthful glow and knew that Ai, although a part of her, was entirely different to her. Renai grew up among the stars, matured in the beautiful gardens of heaven. This girl had been raised to be a whore, had seen some of the evil the world of the humans had to offer. Her shock, her naivety, were mere reminders of a lonely existence Renai and her father had given her. "Your father was a poet, for goodness sake!" Renai smiled, her red, velvet lips curving perfectly, "you are Love incarnate sent to Earth to serve a purpose. Surely you can rattle off something a little more original?" But the girl was still speechless; she was looking around, trying to make sense of her situation. "No?" Ai's attention snapped over to Renai as the goddess spoke with a loud, commanding voice. "Too perplexed by the madness of your own existence?" Renai laughed as the dancer simply blinked up at her. "Very well. Answer me," Renai watched with slowly diminishing patience as Ai marvelled at the fact that she was somehow wearing very similar clothes to Renai. While the goddess was wearing a gold and ivory silk, Ai was in a simple ivory dress with a gold border. "Why did your scar not fade?" Ai looked up at Renai as the goddess asked the question, her voice suddenly becoming serious, "why did Gaara's not disappear at death?" Ai sat more comfortably, placing her hands together in her lap, unsure of what was happening or where she was. "Answer me, Ai," the goddess commanded again, earning a sweet frown from the girl.
"Because they are a part of us," Ai responded, finding the sound of her own voice odd.
"What is a part of you?"
"Our scars."
"Be more specific; what do the scars represent?" The two, human and goddess, mortal and immortal, two halves of the same person, one made of starlight, the other of poetry, looked at each other with sincere respect.
"Blood-love," Ai answered. The goddess nodded, a dark curl falling beside her face as she did so.
"The mark of the blood-love cannot be erased even in death; your love is who you are. Do you realise Gaara was the only one to ever state your origins to you without being aware of the truth?" The blue eyed dancer frowned.
"What do you mean?"
"The poem Love, I know how it ends. With you." Ai could hear Gaara's voice saying those words to her all those months ago on the rooftop of the palace in Suna. "In the end, what else is there? You are poetry. You exist beyond death…He said all of this to you months before you even came to know of it yourself."
"Why are you telling me this?" Ai watched as Renai's eyes misted over with tears and nostalgia. To Renai, it really was like looking at a younger version of herself; the one that fell in love, the one that experienced heartbreak.
"Because I saw the moment you realised you were not living until you met this person," the goddess gasped as a tear escaped her eye. She almost laughed, unable to remember the last time she had shed a tear. "I saw you, the moment your existence became explainable only by him. I watched the two of you fall so deeply, so quickly, in love with one another. Your story is truly heart breaking." Ai looked away; did the goddess not know the rest? Did Renai not know Gaara and Ai were now either side of a war? "Do you know why I wanted to live a life on Earth, dear one?" Renai asked, wiping her tear away with a finger. The girl knew the answer to this; Jiraiya had told her when he came to explain her origins.
"To know love as the humans do."
"Yes," Renai nodded again, smiling sweetly as though Ai had said something amusing. "I used to play tricks on those strange creatures; make them fall for one another by blinking my eyes. But I began to realise that there were those falling in love without my help. Those who could not live without one another for reasons I could not be the cause of. Do humans really know of a love the same way we gods do? I put myself in the care of the world to be able to understand the way humans think, the way they care for one another. I, as you, dwelt there for twenty years. So can you answer the question, Ai: what is love?" Ai jumped at being asked; she had not been expecting to have the kind of lesson Kai would give her! Was the goddess asking for a line of poetry like Kai usually did? An analogy from the Great Philosophers? No…that much was evident in the sincere tears in her eyes. So, Ai thought, what is love?
Ai thought of Gaara; how had she loved him? They had filled each other so full of love all the emptiness of being alone was suddenly gone. Was that it? No…there was so much more to it but in a way Ai could not articulate. She looked up at the immortal, older version of herself and shook her head.
"I cannot answer you, Renai."
"Then your work on Earth is not complete," Ai stood on shaking legs as Renai turned her back to her.
"What-what are you doing?" Ai asked and tried to follow as Renai took a step away from her, but Ai's body was still too weak, her limbs felt far too heavy to be able to walk in this world.
"Well, you know me, Ai," Renai called over her shoulder, "I am terribly mischievous. Awfully rebellious-"
"What are you doing?" Ai called out to her again.
"Your work on Earth is not complete. I cannot let you pass through the gates," Renai replied, her voice getting quieter the further away she walked.
"Why?" Ai tried to call out but her vision was blurring, Renai was fading away, the dancer's head was spinning, her mind was being torn from her body and out into the nothingness. Falling to her knees and closing her eyes tightly, Ai felt as though her whole being were breaking and tearing in two-
The spinning stopped. Ai felt a rush of blood coarse through her entire body as though she was just brought into existence: her skin suddenly felt everything all at once; the fabric of her dress against her shoulders, her own weight against the bed beneath her, the movement of someone beside her.
"Ai you're awake," she stirred upon hearing Karin's voice. "Here, you are weak," Ai felt the kunoichi put her wrist over Ai's mouth, waiting for her flesh to be bitten. "You must maintain adequate levels of chakr- hey!" Karin jumped back as Ai opened her eyes and jumped out of her bed.
Her body was still weak, she could feel the bandages around her chest and the wound begin to sting. She practically had to drag herself past Lena and the other girls who had no idea what was happening, before she reached her desk, pulled out some of her old notes and walked to the door of her bedroom.
"Lena!" Ai called to her and the blonde came running to support her.
Madara, Sasuke, Suigetsu and Jugo had all heard the commotion from another room and were walking towards Ai's bedroom. They saw her at the door to her room, holding on to a sheaf of papers. Her hands were shaking terribly, her skin was pale, blood was seeping through the bandages on her chest which could be seen as the ribbon holding the front of her blouse together was undone. The courtesan hurriedly separated a small piece of paper from the bunch and let the rest of the papers fall from her hand; they were caught on a breeze and swirled around the hall and out into the gardens. The blue eyed beauty swiped her thumb across her chest to take up some of her blood.
"Ah!" Ai fell to her knees as the group of men were fast approaching, Lena held her by putting an arm around her waist. On her knees, Ai swiped her thumb across the parchment in her hands and held it up against the wall beside her. "Kuchiyose no Jutsu (summoning jutsu)," Ai whispered. Suddenly, from beneath her hand, kanji, unreadable to those who did not know the dead language, began to unfurl onto the wall. As they spread out like a rosette against the marble, they became bigger and more animated as though they were going to jump off the marble and attack the men racing towards the door.
"Stop!" Madara held out an arm to stop the group in their tracks; they watched as the kanji spread out across the ceilings and walls, encasing the palace in a dark web. Madara's eyes narrowed on notes and scrolls Ai left littered around the palace and watched in shock as the kanji moving on the walls seemed to swallow up these notes and more kanji exploded from them. All of the walls, the ceiling, the candle holders, the floor, became engulfed in the dark ink of the old language. The Uhciha's mind was racing; what he had taken for Ai being a little untidy was actually him being naive to her intelligence. The girl had not left these notes lying around out of laziness; they were strategically placed so that this very jutsu could unfold; Ai had taken care to put a security measure in place.
"Keep all Uhciha's the hell away from me!" Ai shouted from her doorway, catching Madara's attention.
"Renai," Madara bellowed in the hall, "what are you doing?" Lena helped the girl to her feet.
"Every time I meet one of you damned Uhciha's," Ai shouted back, "I end up near dead! You are not to enter this part of the palace again!" Eventually, the kanji on the walls grew still and ended at Madara's feet. A thin film of chakra, invisible to the naked eye, acted like a wall only an inch away from Madara's face. It was a shield he could not pass though.
"You fortified the palace?" He whispered in disbelief, "without telling me?"
"I thought this girl knew nothing of ninjutsu?" Suigetsu whispered from behind Sasuke.
"Step into it, Madara," Ai hissed. "That's a dare."
"Ai," Sasuke spoke suddenly, "stop this." There was a moment were Ai and Sasuke stared at one another with confused and angry faces; neither knowing what the other was thinking. Ai leant against her friend for support before turning away to walk back into her bedroom.
"Ai!" Madara called to her, "who did you meet? Did you see yourself!?" Upon hearing this, Ai stopped. How did he know? What was happening here? Had it been real? It wasn't genjutsu?
But Ai knew it had been real; genjutsu cannot generate completely new memories, it can only tamper with them. But she had some of Renai's memories, thoughts, dreams, with her now. It was real.
The Uchiha seemed to know he hit a nerve; he waited for the girl to turn back to him, he asked: "did you meet Renai?"
"Yes," the girl said grimly. "That's what you wanted, isn't it? Proof," Ai laughed a sick, exhausted laugh, "well, now you have it," she said in defeat. "At the expense of my trust and health." Bowing her head, Ai had to finally come to terms with it and admit it to herself. "I am Renai." No one could see the small smile that cracked in the face beneath the mask.
"Aren't you happy?" The man asked softly, "your entire being has been explained to you!" He exclaimed as though this was something that should be rejoiced. Ai sighed and looked up at Sasuke.
"You almost killed me." The girl, the goddess, walked away.