The approach of the Spirit of Conquest was met with much fanfare from the spirits inhabiting Ananzi's hotel. Even the worse-for-wear Kami of Idols came to thank him for his actions, but Avery insisted he didn't deserve praise for any of it.
He'd been high in the moment during his ascension, fueled by urges given to him by those who had backed him. Even though Avery knew it was necessary, his human side couldn't help but feel bad for what he'd done. Parties were going on outside and all he could do was sit in his room and stare at the ceiling, thinking about all he'd done.
Xanthe had been sure to explain it all to Avery, the folly of man. He'd been given visions throughout his entire life, pointed in the right way down this path. Was it wrong for him to feel bad about the feet he'd stepped on in the path to a 'right' world?
Avery brought his knees to his chest as he sat in the center of his bed, lost in thought as he stared at the darkness between his legs. His mind wandered, aimlessly. Thoughts became convoluted, almost sounding insane and indecipherable. But that was how most of his thoughts were. This constant rush of ideas and emotions that crept up in such a jagged wavelength everything looked smooth on the surface. How could his face match the sensation of wanting to slay all of his enemies in some righteous crusading fantasy to wishing he had someone to hold him in the bed. Even then, he would refuse their touch. It reminded him too harshly, the rough hands and the sharp nails that had taken away the idea of personal space and privacy from him.
The hedgehog's dilemma. He'd heard about it first through an anime and then a psychology class. Avery hated that an anime's plot point could describe him, but it wasn't a piece of his personality he could cut off and be rid of like the rest. Now he'd gone and done it though, the only way someone would ever want to touch him that gently was if he lied to them about who he was and what he'd done. Avery's fate was that of a martyr, and now he could only reminisce about the things he'd only fantasized about. Maybe under different circumstances, he'd have been the shy geek boy or something.
Then again, he'd been that way around DeMain initially, Ethel too. But it wasn't the same. When he put on the poor face of a lost dog not knowing any better, people folded like card towers in a breeze. There was some sick satisfaction in knowing how easy it was to just… lie. It was strangely easy to steamroll through someone's personal barriers and judgements if you knew what face they liked best. He had no face of his own though, that had probably rotted away a long time ago.
Anyone else looking at his life might accuse Xanthe of forcing him into it, of taking away what he had initially. Avery hated the idea that if someone were to examine everything that happened, he'd just be labeled as some cultist if he failed. What was he supposed to have done? Xanthe provided a way out and a life much better than the ones his mother's clients had. Was he not supposed to escape that? Was he just destined to be some fuckpuppet that'd hang themselves by 14?
It put him in a sour mood to think of the people who might even take his mother's side, or say that she didn't deserve what happened to her. He'd been dreaming of the day she died for years and when she finally did her memorial service was that of old clients wishing her farewell, even as the reporters dug into his story like gnats to fruit. Biting away at every word and eating at the nectar of his crocodile tears. He was never sad during the interviews, he just wished they'd shut up and leave him alone. Avery could smell on their tongues that they didn't care about him in particular anyway, they just wanted their cut of funds from the headline. Why not save us both time? Just admit it.
Avery sat back on the bed, gripping his pillows close. What he could have done to those people now was everything he'd ever wished for. To use the hooks of his tails to prolapse their soul from their body. They all wanted to ask the same question anyway.
Did it feel good?
There was no answer he had ever given that made people realize the weight of the situation. Oh sure, maybe a nice pedophile would come by every now and again, and she so happened to be a woman. From then on, it changed nothing. All his mom had ever asked for was no hospital visits. Or, if there were going to be any, to keep him alive and pay extra. Most of them came in the form of injuries, infections, or illnesses, and the only thing Avery could be thankful for was that his mom wanted a clean product to sell enough that she screened anyone for STDs. Maybe it did feel good once or twice, but Avery couldn't look back on those memories without remembering everything else. What was he supposed to say? Probably exactly what they wanted, what they always said back.
Man, I wish that happened to me…
You scored, why are you sad?
Damn, I can't even lose my virginity if I tried!
Idiots. It would take a lifetime to explain the ramifications of it, and they'd pull their dick out halfway through the lecture.
Oh well, he wasn't looking for pity anymore. Truth be told, after he realized he could affect dreams, he had started to force them to relive what he'd gone through in their sleep. It was a funny thing, to see how many of them dropped the argument once it happened to them. That was always the catch.
Maybe it was cringy for Avery to do that kind of thing to other people, but he just couldn't stand listening to people say they were like him or that they wished they could take his place. He was an awful person born from awful people into an awful life. Xanthe might as well have been his literal father, if his literal father wasn't just another one of his mom's clients. The people in Xanthe's sea of fetid yellow were the same as those he'd grown up with, no different from the type he'd serviced for years. The only reason Avery had been born was because one of those people had paid top dollar to watch his mom give birth. Perhaps that was Xanthe's doing too, one of his followers stepping in to save an unwanted child. That probably wasn't true though, Xanthe gained no power from that which had no life of its own to begin with. That was another Old Witch God's thing.
Avery was done with his useless mental tantrum now, staring up at the ceiling of his room with a collected tone. His leg was swung over his knee as it bounced. He had to do something, and yet Xanthe was clearly waiting until he was actually ready. He knew this because the presence which had surrounded him was still there, but less intensely more like a concerned parent looking into their child's room. Not that Avery would know about that.
He got up and adjusted the clothing he had to, opening the door. Avery had expected to see one of the waitstaff there for him, but instead he saw another real person who had their fist up. It looked like he was about to knock.
"Oh! Uh… hi. Are you Avery?" He asked, looking around nervously like he was about to sell crack in an alleyway. The guy looked like a weasel-turned-man, with a scruffy curly mess of dark brown hair and beady eyes just small enough that they looked more black than colored in any way. He was short too, shorter than Avery was, but Avery couldn't really judge him on any of these things. Genetics were a bitch sometimes, he knew that. The clothes though… basic office attire with suspenders and a dully-colored checkered button-up? Slack-fit jeans? Tacky. He looked straight out of an 80s ad for office supplies.
The guy looked somewhere about forty, but the small features of his face drew him back to his early thirties at best. Avery decided he wasn't worth his time.
"No." Avery responded.
"Oh, uh. Well if you see him somewhere, can you ask him to meet me downstairs?"
"He might want to know what for. That kinda also sounds like a proposition, man. Kinda gay." Avery said. He was acting like some stupid jock from his school now too, just enough asshole-ry to control this guy's visibly weak self-esteem.
"Haha, no. I just wanted to talk to him."
"About what?"
The guy went silent, and then sighed. His voice lost its wavering fragility, and his submissive smile faded as he spoke with a more matured conviction. Enough to make Avery give him a second look-over.
"Look, I know you're Avery. I saw you downstairs, and your name is being tossed around everywhere. I'm not stupid."
It had gone amiss to Avery before, but the man's voice had a much-altered accent from how his lips actually moved. It was definitely Asian somehow, but Avery couldn't actually pinpoint it. The man's lips never matched up to what he was saying— it was eerily close to a real-life dubbing, like someone was merely speaking over him. An initial reluctance gave way to interest.
"Fine." Avery relented. "We can speak. But not here, I want to leave my room."
"If you think I intend to go anywhere with you while spirits are around, you—"
"I don't."
Avery stepped out and looked around for a moment, finding a hotel attendant behind him as he looked over his shoulder the second time.
"Ah. Good. Could you clear out the theater house for us? Or, maybe put on a quieter show for the background?"
It felt a little overbearing to call the shots, but the attendant smiled and asked only for five minutes to prepare the space. Avery turned back to the shorter man.
"What's your name?"
"Yamamoto."
"Isn't… that a last name?"
"It is."
-
The theater house's show for the two was Etudes, a completely silent performance acted in part by a handful of nameless women with elegant movements and blurred faces. Avery and Yamamoto were placed in the upper echelon of the room overlooking everything. The lights were cut save for the stage, locking them both in complete darkness as they watched. As the dancers escalated, Avery found he was reconsidering how much he cared about what Yamamoto had to say. That was… nothing, so far. The man appeared to be waiting for the right moment to speak, or perhaps he was banking on the idea Avery would be more comfortable with him if they enjoyed something together. A third option presented himself as he heard Yamamoto clear his throat— the man could simply be nervous underneath his solid demeanor. Avery could use that.
With a rough clap, Avery's hand found Yamamoto's shoulder in the darkness. Yamamoto didn't jolt in fear, but Avery could feel a tense heart rate just underneath his skin.
"So, you gonna say anything? Wouldn't want the show to end and have to clear another time slot. I like this, but not that much."
Yamamoto swallowed and spoke, his tone adjacent to the blunted tone of someone with their dreams worn and grinded away by the machine of life.
"Is it really necessary?"
"Is what necessary?" Avery asked, his hand departing from Yamamoto's shoulder.
"You know exactly what I mean. The spirits talk. They may not all be autonomous, but they have eyes and ears. I was asked to come investigate while the rest of my sect attempts to fix your mistake."
Avery gritted his teeth. Mistake? That implied he had done it all by accident, or without the intent to do what he had accomplished.
"And I suppose I should believe you know I'm connected to any of this because…?"
"Look around yourself. Your Mr. Ananzi would not treat you so kindly if you were not of such high-value use to him."
"I haven't even seen someone he treats poorly in all my time here. The servants came into this willingly and they live happy— albeit sheltered— lives."
"He is the embodiment of modern media, the internet, and screens. Do not tell me you trust any of those wholeheartedly." Yamamoto asked.
"Well when you put it like that, it's hard to say I would. But I think he's doing all of this for a reason, regardless of whatever morals he might have."
"So it is faith that guides you? Are you even aware of what is to come in full?"
"Look guy, I was born in one of the worst situations possible. I'd say the few shitty lives I took initially weren't even worth what I was given back. Wouldn't you kill someone if it meant you could make a better life for yourself, maybe even everyone?"
"Kill to wipe away dust. There is always another way, especially in regards to what you've done and the lives you've taken most recently. I will excuse any you took as a child for your sake of argument."
"There isn't another way. Xanthe never gives me the harshest choices unless absolutely necessary. Most of my life has been sedentary."
"So you are working for him."
Avery gritted his teeth. He'd let that one slip a little too hastily, but it felt like he was trying to climb a wet mirror in this conversation. Oh well, the cat was out of the bag anyway. There was hardly a point to denying his role in the coming Armageddon.
"The collapse, the shifting of the Reikai, the real-world afflictions you have caused others. How do you feel about them?" Yamamoto posed.
"I wish there was a faster way to do any of this, but the clayheads on the other side are pretty resilient when they need to be."
"You do not regret any of what you have done?"
Avery stared back towards the performers onstage. "I would, but you and I know they're both not real people. Like us."
"And what do you mean by that?
"They're not Witchblooded?"
"But some of them are." Yamamoto responded. "Some simply have not had their Awakenings. And some are children, too young to fathom it. Others are old men and women who will live and die without knowing the nature of their heritage."
"I guess I do feel bad about those, but they pale in comparison." Avery relented.
"How would you determine their value then?"
He really wanted to shoot Yamamoto, mostly out of boredom, but that would probably just prove whatever point Yamamoto was attempting to make here. He laid still and played the scene out. The difficult questions towards Avery's entire lifestyle were becoming burdensome to deal with.
"I don't know, how does one determine the worth of a single soul, Mr. Yamamoto?" He chimed sarcastically.
"For me? It is easier than you would think. The problem lies not in determining the value, but in the fact that the value constantly shifts from moment to moment. A person willing to do anything in the name of their cause is incredibly valuable. And you, Avery…"
Yamamoto held up a set of scales, silver and with minimal detailing. The twin weights of each side shifted relentlessly before Avery, with a colorful sphere of indescribable beauty being weighed against a maggot-infested bird skull. Somehow, the skull came up as the heavier object.
"… Are incredibly valuable in this moment."
"If your task here is to convince me to stop, then it's not working." Avery replied. He knew the scales had been the man's soulform, but such a basic premise seemed like an indicator of a poor personality. Constantly comparing things, measuring their worth only against other, more or less worthy things.
"Stop? No. The world does need change, but your methods for it are hasty and juvenile. We could scout around, send in teams of our own to retrieve the Awoken before the end times. You could oversee it all, sending dreams and messages to the lost to guide them."
"How do you know any of this? I could excuse some as just perception or good guesses, but you're a little far-fetched on either of those."
"I see the value of all things. Only good. I know only your most prominent strengths. It works well back home for determining the roles of newcomers."
"…It would be too slow." Avery said, slumping in his chair and leaning away from Yamamoto.
"What do you mean?" The other man responded, leaning closer to Avery's dismissive posture.
"There will always be suffering and sadness for Witchbloods. By the time we rescue one, ten new Witchbloods could be born, and ten others may be dead already. You're asking me to dig a hole in a desert."
"I suppose it is true, then. So where would we draw the line?"
"You're attempting to get me to give you something to work off of, to delay all of this, Yamamoto. But I can't. It's already been set in motion. If you want to ridicule impatience and hasty plans, ridicule the Witch Gods who set me on this path."
"And those would be…?"
"One of my strengths isn't knowing everything."
"That is nobody's strength."
Yamamoto stood as the show below began to taper out, adjusting his clothing to look presentable.
"I came here hoping we could reach a compromise. I see now that is impossible." The short man said. "I had hoped you were being misled or manipulated, but I see now that your god has given you everything you've ever asked for. I will do you a good deed for your time and warn you that others will be hunting you down, myself included. The only reason I have not struck you down already is because such violence is not permitted to me here, and I think it is too late to try and offer you the protections I would have before."
Avery gripped his chair and stood up, looking down towards Yamamoto with malice.
"You people want change then, but as soon as someone comes along with the power to force it, you try to talk them into waiting a little longer, letting the flame die out-- or killing them altogether. Don't you have any shame?"
Yamamoto gave one last, dead look towards Avery.
"Good day. You must be tired."
As soon as the man got up and left through the door of the overhang, Avery could no longer remember his face. He could remember how he described the visitor initially, but his brain refused to conjure up the proper image. Avery's brain tried to no avail, then he gave up and walked out the same door of the balcony to find red-carpeted halls and nothing else. The man had already made his exit, and swiftly at that.
Avery shook off the interaction's weight and found one the attendant woman from before, quietly surveying the hall Yamamoto had vanished from. She seemed similarly unfazed, but she never was in the first place.
"I'd like to meet with Xanthe—if that's even possible here?" Avery asked.
"Certainly! I can show you to the elevator, if you'd like."
"There's… an elevator?"
"Of course. Xanthe's domain is deep, but not impossible to reach with the right methods. Shall we?"
-
The elevator itself was fancy, a two-door model with fine flooring and a mirror ceiling. Avery was not reassured that the doors were glass, but maybe it was a design choice.
The attendant stepped in with him and stood by a panel with no buttons or numbers. Instantly, the machine began to descend, playing classic pop music hits. Avery recognized some of them, though. It was a very surreal experience to see countless dredges of spiritual domains pass by to the sounds of Head Like A Hole by Nine Inch Nails, especially when some of those domains peered back at him with faces and eyes. Others were vast deserts, battlefields, and mass grave mounds. He didn't expect to see a brilliant lake of starlit water before the end, but the Reikai was nothing if not surprising in its inconsistency sometimes.
The elevator reached its final destination, slamming into a squishy bottom of mud and rot. The doors opened to the familiar yellow Hell, the unbearable stench only tolerable because he'd imbibed it before. The attendant waded forward through the muck of thousands, sinking until she was drowned to the waist by it. For Avery, however, the black rotted limbs of the domain's denizens rose and presented themselves as a makeshift pathway. The fingers and toes of the broken, offering themselves as mere footsteps in his name. Perhaps someday he'd join them, but trampling over them felt ungrateful. Still, they were doing this in respect, and it was this or change his clothes needlessly later.
His shoes found the surface of their palms and crooked soles, their posing sturdy enough as footing to walk across. Each step brought Avery closer to his god's form, revealing itself through the putrid yellow clouds which obscured everything.
The pathway ended abruptly, and Avery could not see his god save for the tattered robes which swept across the wastewater in front of him. He could feel Xanthe's presence, he needed no other indicators the Old Witch God was here. A strange place to link domains, but perhaps all domains eventually fed into Xanthe's after enough time. Ananzi simply had a pipeline.
"I.." Avery spoke up, his lungs burning not from lack of oxygen, but his body's own unwillingness to breathe it. "I need your gifts once more. Surely you are aware of the threats on my life."
Xanthe said nothing, the plastered, misshapen teeth of his jaw inexpressive through the veil of piss-colored air. Avery's worry began to rise. Was this it? Was his god ignoring him for refusing a simple task? It would explain the silence. The lack of the omni-present eye was comforting at first, but Avery could feel his mind slipping back into its scared and childlike state without it.
"Please! I'll do as you asked, just tell me what you want!" He pleaded to the motionless god.
The sky of Xanthe's domain split, cracking and peeling away like dried scabs falling from an old wound. Underneath the veiny clouds and clotted air, fresh, fatty skin revealed itself. The world boiled and pulsed around Avery, shedding from rotten skin to a fresh layer just underneath itself—all the while, the leftover remains piled upon themselves in mounds at the surface.
The realm shifted and shuddered, a dull, uneven heartbeat rocking it back and forth. As the beating of faded life began, the sea of rot and bodies began to drag itself downward away from Xanthe. But… no. It was not Xanthe. As the festering fluid drained away, his body began to crack and shed as well. The fabric of his robes slid off, his grayed skin becoming rubbery and unsupported. From within, his bones crumbled and cracked until his head careened forward, shattering like a planter filled only with dirt and worms. The filthy muck carried away even this too, revealing yet more steps for Avery to take. Downwards the hands crept, locking at the wrists and elbows where no fingers or hands could be had. A skeletal patchwork of pitch was laid before him, barely sustaining even its own weight from the depths of Xanthe's domain. The bodies laid and knitted together in putrescence lowered themselves with the falling tide of congealed refuse, bringing Avery in a gentle descent towards the bowels of the Xanthic realm. From here, Avery could see swollen and expelled innards, limbless corpses and mouths drinking and swallowing the fetid nectar like honey and wine. Their intestines swelled, nearly bursting as the living pumps distended like trash bags in a river.
Deeper and deeper Avery descended, until the blackened hands and feet sank into a mound of shed nails, hair, and skin. Rotten, yellow, frayed, and packed, his footing was solid on the dense underbelly's ground. Before him lay thousands of arms and fingers packed into the decomposing foundation. All of them reached towards a singular thing— a massive skeletal digit that protruded only slightly, the rest of its body buried and hidden from the world under discarded bodily debris.
Avery approached, and the mere ripple of his movement caused the skin of the finger to slough off from each side. The dermal layer hit the ground as the lengths of worms and maggots scattered into the porous shelter below, exposing a twisted and malformed bone underneath.
Strange meats pulsated within the hollowed, xanthous fingertip, bony protrusions shaped from decay like kidney stones and spurs. Avery could see it in the shape, an indent just perfect for…
His hand touched the space seemingly made just for it. Too small for a larger man to wield, and unevenly spaced for a smaller hand. It felt perfect, almost conforming to his fingers. It felt natural to pry the weapon free of its prison, a sickening crack and popping echoing through the domain as Avery slid it upwards.
Relinquished from its host, the leftover shape of the fingerbone was similar to that of a thin scimitar from how callous and cancered the tissue had been. It was sharp enough to cut at its strongest points, but Avery knew instinctively that it could do so much more.
Dragging the malignant growth swiftly through the ground beneath himself, the already-rotten limbs and remains were reduced to dreg and mush. Avery could see its purpose, smell it in the blade as he held it. The sun which baked bricks and guided with its light was the same sun which dried carcasses and poisoned skin. It could be felt from the blade, a sickening heat that surrounded it, threatening to invite vultures and birds of reaping. A desert god, watching ambivalently as the shadows circle above.
Names swirled in Avery's head. Now was the time when great warriors would give equally great names to their chosen weapon, but the Finger of Xanthe seemed almost unnecessarily poetic in itself. Still…
Avery rose the blade above his head, watching as all that fell under its putrid light withered and squirmed in their reduction to dirt. It seemed a simple ordeal in name, but against everything the simplicity felt correct.
Yellow Sun.
The name was whispered to Avery, the only other voice in his mind retreating soon thereafter. This gift alone could serve him well, but he knew that a blade alone was still of poor choice for the coming days.
Avery dipped the blade into the moldering mush beneath him, the liquid earth coalescing into a sheath of gray tar and glutinous skin as the blade cooked its own scabbard. With a relenting sense of completion, Avery raised the blade once more and fitted it around his waist with a length of hay-dry hair. He couldn't help but notice his own was still clean, despite everything. Were they doing their best to keep him as untouched, untainted as possible here? A thankless task, he was born tainted already.
There was one other thing, a nagging feeling that he was less than capable of traversing the Reikai alone. He was never alone in truth, but the fullness of mind could not account for the company brought by extra legs and eyes.
The black scabbard was brought down to the ground again, this time to dig a circled moat around himself. It was a bit foolish, but Avery realized afterwards his soulform could provide all the precision he needed. The hooked ends of its tails went to work, painting symbols and feeling from his mind onto the ground for him. Avery cared not what they drew, so he closed his eyes and focused intently on his desires.
Something strong, something powerful. Something which protects, and knows my struggle. A glorious spirit others have shunned. Avery echoed in his mind. The circle filled with a fetid yellow half-fluid, enlightening it by Xanthe's hand. Soon, the symbols he cared not for the writing of began to shift and warp with new energy to them. They reflected concepts in pictures and signs Avery could not even begin to understand-- some form of an ancient language, known only to the spirits themselves.
There was a crashing from above as the realm trembled, something immense coming this way. Avery could feel its presence before the tremors ceased, something so devout of pain and suffering it knew it more than he ever could. The Reikai itself seemed to shudder as a weight dropped into the rotten sea of Xanthe's domain, terrible and disgraceful in form. Yet, Avery could only look on in pity.
The creature was despicable, and should have been unable to stand by all accounts. Over flayed skin, stripped pelts had been nailed down to the bones as a quasi-coat, the hollowed eyes of the animals they belonged to still lit with defiant sparks of life. Each leg was formed of dozens of melded creatures, each emerging from the mouth of the next until they ended in bouquets of split hooves and dulled claws. The ears of dogs, the feathers of roosters, and the tails of cats and mice dotted the tortured spirit's body as trophies hanging from each stolen pelt.
Avery knew it immediately. Cruelty. Something he'd been well-acquainted with since his early days. Of course it was related most closely to cruelty towards animals, but Avery knew that deep inside it likely housed the unparalleled evils of man as well.
The beast's body shifted around as it rose, revealing a tail bundled together from dozens of other animals, all severed at uneven, unhealed angles. The same could be said for the creature's crotch and rear, where an endless slew of blood leaked from the crevice it had in place of genitals. Its multitude of mismatched eyes stared at Avery from the side, the neck mashed through a collar of meat grinders and the head itself trapped within a black iron cage that the ground fur and sinew bulged outwards from. Eyes, ears, mouths, and noses were also similarly jammed and strewn about the slurry of red and pink, with tusks, horns, and antlers jutting out from the front through the gaps in the metal. They weighed the creature's front down, all chipped to ivory and the raw layers underneath.
Avery could only stare, unsure exactly how to approach such a powerhouse of a spirit. It seemed he didn't have to, as the beast simply knelt before him expectantly. He was pretty sure it wanted him to mount it, but all Avery felt was condolence. Though he had defended himself to Yamamoto, Avery had still trampled on dozens of others on his path here. Such things would be inexcusable in the face of any god or goddess that ended up judging him.
"I don't need a steed. Perhaps you can rest your weary legs instead?"
The creature's head cocked to the side, and its form condensed into that of a small, one-eyed hamster with a missing toe and patches of scabbed skin. It reminded him of his own pet Char, who he'd not thought much of since his departure from his home. How sad was it that he felt more remorse and sorrow for spirits than the millions of creatures that littered the earth? How pitiful was his heart that it reached out only to the dying and those who were born against their will?
The small rodent perched itself on Avery's shoulder, and he held it to make sure it was secure before setting off. Up the blackened platforms and stairs, they left the xanthous underbelly together.