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Chapter eighteen: Shattered. The bonds of brotherhood.

Shiro jumped back and drew Road to the Dawn. His sword was a pale flickering of its former self. No matter how hard he tried he couldn't find the resolve within himself to cut down the man who had called himself his brother.

"To think you would come looking for me here." Said Kurotama. "Of all the places in the empire. I suppose it must have been inevitable. You are the first in over ten thousand years to ever grasp the truth." He smiled a bitter mocking smile. "The pleasant lies, the sweet illusions. History is written by fools. They change it with every moment; with every breath they twist the past to fit the necessities of today. Heroes become villains, the oppressed become the oppressors, and ever anon it goes in an endless cycle. A serpent devouring its own tail. Those who struggle to decide what is right and what is wrong, have brought the world to the brink of oblivion countless times in the past. And in the end? History forgets them. Such is the fate of all civilizations. That empires should rise and fall, people live and die, but in the end, only the world endures."

Koji didn't hesitate. With a howl he launched himself into the air. His fist surrounded by an aura of power he sought to crush Kurotama into the dust of oblivion.

Kurotama raised his hand and without ever taking his eyes off of Shiro stopped him with his power.

Frozen in mid-air Koji was held suspended by thousands of invisible threads. "This is a private matter. Begone wolf."

He was sent flying with a mere gesture.

Shiro cast out his own web and caught Koji with his power. In essence duplicating Kurotama's trick. It was a spiritual tug-of-war. Shiro sought to bring him back, while Kurotama tried to send him away. There was a crack as loud as thunder as the two spells simply broke.

"Impressive." Said Kurotama. "So the legends are true in at least that much."

Shiro was finding it difficult to focus. There were so many questions he wanted to ask. He had come seeking answers. But now. "Why? What is it that you want?"

Kurotama seemed genuinely taken aback by the question. "What do I want? Why, I want only to make this world a better place." The sky spread out beneath them. Above was a reflection of the world with people moving along its surface.

Kurotama spread his hands. "Behold a people filled with corruption. Those who would take and give nothing back. Collectively they have given themselves a name."

"Purists." Said Shiro.

"Hateful, prejudiced towards all other races but their own. The Purists are merely the latest incarnation of that corruption which afflicts this world. They must be purged. Their taint cleansed from histories weave. Those they have touched. Those who have been touched by them."

"Enough!" Shiro couldn't take anymore. To just stand by and listen to the ramblings of a man who wished to commit genocide. It was too much. "Not everyone is like that! I've met people . . . good people. All they want to do is to live their lives in peace. Their hopes, their dreams. Do they really mean nothing to you?"

Kurotama smiled as he said. "Of what worth are a meager few, when compared to the totality of all existence?"

This is my brother? This is someone with whom I share blood? Shiro longed to reach out. To find some measure of connection to the brother he had never known. Everything else was forgotten, as he tried to lay claim to a past he could feel just beyond his reach. "Then. Is there nothing but evil in your heart?"

"Evil? A child's words. No. I have stepped beyond mere good and evil. Such concepts are only for the weak minded. A tool used to oppress those too afraid to seek real power." Darkness gathered around Kurotama. "This world cries out in agony, while endlessly awaiting the one who will bring forth sweet release. To free this world from its misery and pain. I will be the one to become its liberator. I will be the one to free it from the chains of hate."

* * *

Nelo was forced to watch as Shiro began his awakening. Unable even to warn him, both he and Kurotama began summoning incalculable levels of power.

It was all she could do to weave a barrier against the outpouring of raw magical energy.

The aura of power surrounding both of them was a palpable living thing. It twisted the very air with eddies and flows. Soon it would begin to warp even the fabric of space. This place is a spiritual construct, a world that both exists and doesn't exist. If they continue on like this. They're going to tear a rift between this world and the real one. If that happens.

"We have to help Shiro!" Koji pounded his fist against her shield. "Open this barrier right now!"

"We can't. The awakening has already begun, if you try and interfere."

"What happens." His eyes were filled with barely contained fury. "What happens to Shiro."

"He'll die." And that was the truth. She contented herself with the knowledge that she herself would not live long afterwards. "We'll all die."

"You know something about all of this don't you." He shook her. Hard. "Don't you!"

"Koji." Rosalyn placed a hand upon his shoulder.

His fists trembled. It hurt him to stand by and do nothing. "She knows what's happening to Shiro. She's known all along."

Rosalyn said. "Shiro is . . . a chaos mage."

The darkest moments in written history have been caused by a chaos mage whose power suddenly went out of control.

It hung like an unspoken omen between them, a portent of terrible disaster.

"Was I? Was I the only one who didn't know?" They refused to look at him. "My best friend. My only friend! He's fighting for his life." The signs were all there. Why didn't I see them? Why didn't I want to see them? "Why didn't he tell me. Why didn't he trust me."

"Because even Shiro himself didn't know." Said Nelo. "It is Arcadia's policy to execute all chaos mages on sight. Even those who show the potential to become chaos mages are eliminated upon discovery. That's why they send out hunters to administer their little test. People who will not hesitate when it comes to killing children. But what I still don't understand is, if they knew, then why did they let him live so long."

It was Rosalyn who refused to look at her. "It was . . . the decision the council eventually came to. Because even Shiro didn't know that he was a chaos mage. He . . . he was allowed to live, in the hope that he would never awaken."

"It seems that I wasn't the only one keeping secrets."

"So even if he survives. They're just going to kill him." Said Koji. "I won't let them! Even if I have to destroy of Arcadia to do it. Shiro. We made a man to man promise! You had better win!"

* * *

It was like staring into a dark mirror. Kurotama was a reflection of everything Shiro wasn't. Their souls, their lives, everything between them had been divided into black and white, darkness and light.

Love and hate.

He was struggling to find the will to fight. To have suddenly learned that he wasn't alone in the world. And now this.

"The feelings that surround you can be exchanged for power. Where is your hatred, your wrath, your anger! Do not think you can defeat me with mere compassion alone."

I sealed them away. So I would not become like you. "How?" Said Shiro. "How can someone like you be my brother! I won't accept that; I can't."

"And why should you? The so-called bonds of family, the ties of blood shared between parent and child. What utterly meaningless concepts. Matters of mere circumstance and nothing more."

It cut Shiro to the core. "How can you say something like that! All my life I've wanted to know what it was like to have a family. I've always wondered."

Kurotama interrupted him. "Did my parents love me? Did they want me? Do they still exist?" He mimicked Shiro's voice perfectly as he echoed his unspoken thoughts. "He knows the answers. I'll force him to tell me if I have to." A vicious grin split his face, a grim parody of Shiro's own. "You're just like an open book. With your thoughts written all over your face. What utter naivety."

Shiro lashed out with his fist. "Shut up!"

Kurotama wiped the blood from his lip. "Ah. Our parents. They were so happy to have twins, it was considered to be something of an auspicious event, celebrated by everyone they knew and loved. They even had names picked out for us. But they lived in dangerous times. Arcadia had already begun it invasion, and Honsho was among those caught up in the fighting." The ghosts of the past took shape around them. The dead and the dying, an endless sea of corpses. Those lives consumed by bloody and needless war. Kurotama reveled in it. "The borders of the empire must expand! Either through negotiation or subjugation, the result remains the same. Those who are weak will always find themselves swept away by those who are stronger. In life's grand design, they were simply too pitiful to exist."

Shiro considered the sword he held in his hand. Zeyd's long ago words echoed in his mind. To protect what is precious. Or to take it away from others. That is something only you can decide. He cast his doubt aside. "That doesn't justify anything! It doesn't absolve anyone from their choices." He tightened his grip and lunged. His strikes were being brushed aside by shields formed from the air around Kurotama.

"It is but nature's divine plan. People like you have merely forgotten their place in it."

Shiro drew more power into himself. Reaching deeper than he ever had before. "There's more to life, more to nature than who wins and who loses. History is written by more than just the winners."

"Life favors the victor! It rewards the survivors. Those who cannot accept this simple truth; have no place on the battlefield."

"Then I'll build a future that has no need of battlefields!" Shiro focused everything he had into the tip of his sword. A single strike to pierce Kurotama's armor. He prayed it would be enough.

"Such pointless idealism." Kurotama seemed to be considering something. "Very well, if I cannot convince you with words alone; then I will show you how they died."

A vision conjured from light and memory they stood before him.

Shiro had taken after his mother, but he could see traces of himself in his father. They stood the same way. Carried the same set to their shoulders. How much more of himself came from them he wondered.

He saw himself reflected in their eyes, their arms opened to welcome him. He felt himself falter, his steps grow unsure. To strike down their shades. Was a price beyond measure.

Two small children, too young to truly notice the world around them stood at their side. They were lifted into the air to the accompaniment of smiles and laughter.

It was the very thing he had always wanted. The secret desire buried deep within his heart. A return to the past. The longing for a place to call home. A family that he could truly call his own.

It was not to last.

Flames filled the vision.

Shiro could feel the heat on his skin. What tears he could shed were torn away by the searing wind. For theirs was a village trapped in a blaze of hellish fire. It was quick to spread from house to house. Men and women stood together, fighting a desperate battle to save their homes, their livelihood. It was a valiant but futile effort.

The wind carried it, leaping and dancing into the sky, as tongues of flame eagerly lashed out, claiming fresh lives as fuel for its fires. Their screams were a silent cacophony, joining together into one grand symphony of the night.

Shiro cared nothing for the nameless strangers, the faces he did not know, but once might have recognized. He could feel nothing for them. With his heart lost in the midst of his own silent turmoil, his sole focus was upon the blackening corpses of his parents.

They were holding each other. Even in death they had refused to be parted. Such love as their's was could never be sundered by mere mortal hands.

But all the happiness they had built within an entire lifetime. Erased; within an instant, as the flames of destruction consumed their world.

The rain came to late to save them, to save anyone. It was if heaven itself wept, as the ash that rose into the sky darkened the world forever.

Shiro had always hated the rain. And now, now he knew why.

Morning came and brought with it carrion eaters of the worst kind. Profiteers who fed off of the deaths of others. Scavengers who came only to loot the dead. Arcadian soldiers who had seen the flames but done nothing to stop them. Their only concern for picking through what could be left.

"Looks like we've got some survivors." Said a soldier, his pock marked face was worn by long years of marching through the elements. "Couple of brats by the look of it."

"Put a collar on them." Said another, he was digging grit from beneath his fingernails with a knife. "I've heard rumors of poor families around these parts who sell their children sometimes. They're young yet. But who knows. They might even be worth something."

The pock marked man slipped a collar from his belt and moved towards them.

Kurotama stood with a man's knowledge in a child's eyes and began to surround himself with power. The hand that reached out for him exploded into a bloody red mist.

The pocked man fell to his knees screaming.

Ignoring the sound Kurotama placed a hand upon Shiro's brow. "B-brother?"

Perhaps it was some small act of kindness, perhaps it was meant as a curse. But bane and benediction both were wrapped up in his final act.

"Forget this day. Forget about me. Forget everything." Kurotama simply left him there, his parting words a condemning farewell. "Do with him as you will. It matters naught to me." And vanished into a gate formed from shadows, leaving the soldier with a knife to lay claim to Shiro as his own.

Like the lost piece of a puzzle finally falling into place the picture became clear. Shiro could remember now. The ghost of that touch was no longer a faded memory.

He could lay claim to his past once more. And all the scars that came with it.

"How touching." Said Kurotama as he mockingly wiped away an invisible tear. "The way they died in each others arms. It seems that love, no matter how powerful some may claim it to be. Was not enough to save them."

Shiro clenched his fist, blood dripped from his palm where his claws had cut through his skin. "Bastard." He spit the word from between clenched teeth.

Shiro felt his soul cry out in agony as the pain of loss engulfed him, drowning him in feelings of regret and despair.

It was not to last.

Anger, white and hot filled him with a cleansing fire. It burned away the last vestiges of brotherly affection. Kurotama had become the target of his hate. The object of his wrath.

Shiro clutched his head with both hands as the pain threatened to tear him apart.

"Bastard!"

That he could do nothing but watch as history had repeated itself mattered little. He wanted the power to prevent such tragedies from ever occurring again. Wanted it with every fiber of his being. Moreover, the power that lay dormant in his soul rose up, and answered his call.

Shiro's screams of rage shook the very foundations of the world. His fury made even the heavens tremble. For he had come to exist at the center of an endless vortex, the silent eye of an invisible storm.

It was power without form, a maelstrom of magic unleashed without either intention or purpose. Shiro could feel it lashing out, striking at anything and everything within reach.

It felt as if he had been plunged into the sea, the waters of which were quickly rising over his head. He struggled to rise to the surface, only to discover that he was slowly being washed away.

He let go of the anger, the hate and the rage.

Without the violent emotions which were causing the maelstrom of uncontrollable power the sea calmed, and in the tranquility he found a measure of control. The power was still raw, elemental, but it could be shaped.

My friends.

They were safe behind a barrier.

Shiro pulled the power into himself, if he was to become a living vessel for magic, then he would use it even as it consumed him.

The power that couldn't be contained by his body manifested itself as pure light.

As light. It reached out into the world, and those who felt it would remember it always, for in its embrace they felt the warmth of comfort, and a knowledge that they were indeed loved. For those who understood it, they heard the whisper of friends, and knew for one brief shining moment, that they were not alone.

Shiro would give his life, His very being to rid the world of Kurotama. For he had shown that his was a soul truly beyond redemption. That, in his endless lust for power, he had cast aside the very things that made life life.

Shiro took one last look at his friends, engraving their memories forever within his heart, and whispered goodbye, as tears that shimmered like softly shining stars fell to earth.

Kurotama did not hesitate.

This was the very moment he had been waiting for, had spent centuries planning for, everything he had ever done had been leading to this moment, this point in time. He had started wars, at times pushing the world to the very brink of oblivion. And all to bring forth the one destiny named as the harbinger of the requiem. The one fated to stand at the hub of the wheel.

The one with the power to change the world.

"Magic is at the heart of existence." He said. "And those who come closest to that existence are called chaos mages." Blinded by grief and pain Shiro could do nothing to stop him. "Fate was cruel when it split my soul in two. Giving you the power that should rightfully have been mine." Kurotama reached inside his chest, his heart, his soul. And pulled. "Shiro. My other half. Become part of me once more."

It was a soft light. A gently flickering flame that Kurotama held in his hand. In it was reflected everything Shiro was, his hopes, and his dreams.

It was as vital and necessary to his existence as the very air that he breathed. But somehow, infinitely more precious.

Kurotama closed his hand. And the light vanished.

Shiro felt himself begin to fall.

And then he knew. That strength alone is not enough. For such power can bring upon catastrophes of its own as well.

He heard a voice. "Give it back!" It was Nelo and she was crying. "Give him back his heart!"

And that there are things . . . that strength alone cannot protect.

Shiro closed his eyes.

And heard nothing more.

* * *

Arrrghh! My project for art school is due tomorrow and I have no idea what to draw. Professor Kinley is going to fail me for sure.