Chapter #2:"Holding Hands With the Other Side of Eternity"

Tsukiko had lost track of the night, and abruptly found that the frame of artificial light she sat in had morning sun bleeding into it. She had been having trouble sleeping since her episode of fright in the woods, not fully shaking off the goosebumps it gave her even several days and a couple check-and-find-nothings in that spot later.

She pressed her back against her chair, stretching to try and smooth out the soreness she felt from sitting hunched over. She stared blankly at her computer, then out the window of her cottage, and finally towards Ririka, who lay sleeping sprawled out on their bed.

Tsukiko rubbed her eyes then held her own head up. “Starfall,” she muttered under her breath, sluggishly shutting the PC down, peeling out of her seat, and tip-toeing back into bed where she should’ve been for the past several hours. Slowly worming back under the blankets, she gingerly lifted up one of Ririka’s arms and let it fall back down around her, spending a few minutes playing with her love’s hair before she woke up.

Tsukiko and Ririka’s home was a Stellar Markert, christened by the KIBOU Nation as The House of the Valley of the Wind. There, y led what would look to be a very comfy, reassuring life. Spend a clear day working their simple little jobs, then hole themselves up for a night of cuddling, kissing, crouching over their TV and computer, and maybe an hour two of Tsukiko reading aloud while her Princess Lily knit. About every other week they went out on a nice date, but for the most part the world beyond the House of the Valley of the Wind may as well have not existed.

Sometimes, with Ririka’s head on her lap, Tsukiko would gaze out the window and feel a yearning, some purpose for her which had been carved out and needed reclaimed, yet she could never come up with any such thing to do, and decide against trying to find one.

She used to bothered by a constant discomfort. Somewhere along the way though, she realised she liked shutting out most things, enjoyed her inability to connect or feel at ease; she was but a woodland critter, scampering across the snow to tend to wild flowers and statues of revered matrons.

“Here, this will help you make it through the winter,” she explained to the flowers as she poured a bag of dry mulch over their roots. As she shook the last of it out, she found herself lingering over one impressive blossom that had lasted through the autumn. “My, how pretty,” she gushed, tracing her fingertips along the length of its stem. “You remind me of a girl I know, and I think you’d look at home pinned in her hair.” She pinched it between her nails and the crinkled bag and plucked it out of the planter.

She let herself smile about it as she walked away, until a dozen or so steps later she had her attention grabbed by another stride joining her from past the edge of the woods.

She steppd in through the treeline, and came face-to-face with a deer, which was studying the trunk of one of the trees, tilting its head up to point its antlers at the crystals of frozen fog that had planted themselves where its leaves had fallen off. Tsukiko traced her eyes along the path of the deer tines as they split off and blended with the low hanging limbs of the trees. Bone and wood became indistinguishable at the same rate as present and past did; Every branch and prong was a splitting river driving her away from reality, a rip tide of unforeseen darkness.

A drop of blood fell in the water.

Her flower fell on the grass.

Tsukiko’s thoughts were yanked back to the waking moment from noticing the fur around the deer’s mouth, which was being stained red drop-by-drop from above. Its tongue instinctively lapped it up bit after bit, until Tsukiko suddenly trembled forward and spooked it into running back to the forest. Her legs felt like cut away from her mind, moving forward simply because that seemed like the thing to do. They felt small and nervous, moving so gently that barely a blade of grass was pushed out of place by them. She had now taken the deer’s position, looking up as tiny drops of crimson dripped down onto the ends of her hair, polluting their huelessness.

Above her were the soles of boots, well worn and only ever cleaned by melted snowfall. Tsukiko exerted herself to reach up and touch them, jumping a bit to grab hold of the cold ankles they were worn around.

It was enough of a disturbance that the branches crudely holding the scene together gave way, letting the body hiding within them slide down the length of the tree, blood from its eviscerated back smearing across the trunk until it landed right before Tsukiko, smacking crystals of red-tinted snow across her.

The dead woman was dressed familiarly, a uniformed KIBOU Nation paladin, but her face was not seen in Tsukiko’s memories. Her curled hair’s brown colour was fading, and now it had been packed with cracklings of sticks. Her eyes had become heavily lidded by years of proud work, yet their final visage was spent dilated with fear.

Tsukiko’s heart quaked, twenty emotions trying to pour in at once and blocking each other from making it through. Her vision blurred and air swirled her inside her throat, but her tears and her scream were both too frightened to come out. She lifted the dead woman’s hand up, feeling an extra chill sent up her arm by the touch of something small, cold, and metal clutched in the dead woman’s palm. She thought to check her pulse, but as she took in more of her body’s condition, it was clear that there was no use to that. Instead, Tsukiko’s knees stiffened as much as the arm in her grasp had, and she collapsed kneeling to the ground.

She forced herself to make eye contact with the corpse, trying to ignore how cut up and mangled everything below the neck was. She stared close enough to see how a casing of ice - so thin it was barely there - had formed over her face, which Tsukiko broke by pushing her eyes shut. Still holding onto a lifeless hand, her fingers wrapped tightly around it. Tsukiko laid down, branches forsaking the sky from her vision. She didn’t know how long she was going to lay there. Her mind was not willing to process the prospect of stopping; of ever letting go of that hand. It was as if when she did the last little ghost of the person sprawled next to her would be carried away, and only then would somebody have truly died.

Maybe she was a corpse too, and now she could finally keel over and rot.

Time had made itself a stranger to her, but at some point she bit her lip, hearing footsteps not far away; the other housekeepers must’ve come looking for her. She stood back up and melancholically let the hand fall back to the ground. The little scrap of a bauble the dead woman was holding fell beside it, and - gut feeling overriding hesitation - Tsukiko picked it up to bring back with her as she limped towards the main shrine. Her vision felt like she was only looking at the feed of a faraway camera, view interrupted with flashes of pure white. Her legs were weak and her hands stayed clamped shut, the skin of her palms being pressed by stray twigs and the token she had taken from the dead woman’s grasp. She put on a face of fresh panic and approached the others, clinging to the thought that she might have made the whole thing up. That when she next turned around, there would be nothing there other than a stolen flower and a littered bag; that in a couple minutes Tsukiko would go see the head priestess and be politely ordered to lay down through the rest of her episode.

Once everybody entered her line of sight, she saw faces of confusion, then horror and panic. It must’ve still been there. The body, well and truly planted around the tree trunk just as Tsukiko had left it, down to the shape of the blood smear. Tsukiko hadn’t the will for another confrontation with death, instead casting her eyes straight to the ground as the panicked yelling of her cohort kicked up. Reality was shaking, and thinning out. A tall barrier of ringing walled out every noise, and light was siphoned from sight, casting darkness enough that shadows of times gone by manifested to claw towards her. There was a single drop of colour permeating through still. It was the flower she picked earlier, the brilliant natural ombre of its petals still catching light in full glory. Tsukiko leaned down and grasped it between her fingers again, carrying it away to escape with her.

“Tsukiko!”

“Tsukiko-Tsukiko-Tsukiko-Tsukiko!”

Sound came back to her in the form of pleading yells, each repeat of her precious name coming a little closer to her. Ririka ran towards her so frantically she nearly tripped in front of her. Tsukiko came back to her surroundings, seeing she had mindlessly crawled back to be seated on their porch, watching lily petals twirl like a ballerina by the will of her fingers.

“Hello my darling.” While her mouth formed into a tiny smile, her eyes were still locked on the flower, until Ririka grabbed her by the chin and gently forced her head up to hers.

“We heard yelling then like five people called Heraschel at once and he closed shop and we both ran back here and they told me to come check on you and I don’t know what’s going on but-” she shook her head, clearing off a bank of piled up thoughts, and focusing her eyes on making contact with her girlfriend’s. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine, sweetheart,” she shook off, making Ririka tenderly grab her by the wrist.

“Don’t lie if you’re not!” she begged. “I’m here for you.”

“I told you, I’m fine,” she reassured. “I…” She took a deep, troubled pause. “I don’t really… feel anything right now.”

Ririka’s lips trembled, unsuccessfully searching for words before she simply reached both her arms around Tsukiko and pulled her up into her embrace. Tsukiko’s eyes fell into the soft fabric over her shoulder.

She did not immediately return the hug; Instead, one arm grabbed Ririka’s wrist and squeezed it three times in the rhythm of a heartbeat, while the other guided its flower underneath one of the ponytails behind her ears, letting it join the cosmos coloured waves of her hair.

It had been around an hour since Tsukiko and Ririka retreated inside, or maybe it was two; neither were keeping track. In any case, a stern knocking on their door was letting the outside’s ugly head rear back at them. Ririka scampered up to open it, and it was only once she pulled it in that Tsukiko decided to look over. While the outside light made the tear rolling down her cheek sparkle like glitter, she met eyes with the person who had appeared in their doorway. A Supreme Paladin, just like the dead woman had been. He had an air of self-imposed authority, and a face with chiseled features but a ratty disposition.

“Good afternoon, girls.” He took liberty to step inside, scanning his eyes around the very cluttered and personalised decor. “Captain Mavor del Toro, of the Asaph Squadron,” he introduced himself.

His barging in had visibly upset Ririka, who remained silent towards him as Tsukiko softly stood up and approached the detective herself. “Welcome in, sir,” she growled, not feeling like being very receptive to his presence. “This is Ririka, and you’ll have to excuse her, she isn’t very good with talking sometimes.” Tsukiko gently pat her on the shoulder. “But, that’s alright, because I imagine I’m the one you’re here for anyway.”

“So, you’re the unlucky body-finder, then?” he asked insensitively, to which Tsukiko nodded in confirmation. “And what’s your name then, little lady?”

“Tsukiko,” she answered bluntly. “Kibou.”

Del Toro looked a little surprised at her answer. “That’s pretty old fashioned sounding for a kid like you; I haven’t heard a housekeeper taking the name of the Nation in years.”

Tsukiko rolled her eyes at his comment, or perhaps at his entire demeanor. “Hey, shouldn’t we be going to a police station for this, at least?”

Del Toro scoffed and waved his hand at the air. “Eh, big formal things like that aren’t really my style. There’s no need to interrogate you when you aren’t a criminal; I’m just in the business of asking you some questions about our unfortunate victim.”

For the first time in the encounter, Tsukiko felt genuine emotion as she looked up at him. “Who is she?”

“Hm, that’s something I was wondering about. Well, not who she is, but that you didn’t know her?”

Tsukiko shook her head. “No, I never saw her before.”

Del Toro scratched his stubble, “Right, that adds up. Her name was Sofia Sedna, and she was a Supreme Paladin, like me,” he explained, before throwing up his hands. “But the thing is, her being part of the KIBOU Nation is where her connections to this House begin and end. She lived two cities away, and so far it seems like nobody can figure a rhyme or reason why she ended up here.”

Tsukiko looked away from Del Toro, finding her own faint reflection in a framed painting hung on the wall.

“Do you two watch the news?” Del Toro asked as a way to continue, although he did not allow either to actually answer. “Lately my team and I have been investigating threats against people in the KIBOU Nation from people possessing illegal guns. Did you two hear anything last night that sounded like gunshots?”

Ririka merely shook her head, while Tsukiko’s breathing teetered.

“Are you kidding?” she slammed her hand on a table. “Did you see her? That wasn’t bullet holes, that was-”

“Riiiight then - I wanna hear it from you. About how you found the body, I mean.” Tsukiko hated the way this jerk seemed almost happy, pleased with his half-assed segues.

Tsukiko sat back down, hugging herself as she recollected, “She was strung up in a tree; I found her because of her blood dripping down…”

Del Toro looked on coldly, even him seeming a bit shaken by the image. “If she was bleeding, you know, that’s mighty interesting. From what I heard about that Sedna, she was the real top of the line in fighting. If someone like her died so suddenly, the only thing I could imagine happening is an even stronger Scene Star getting the jump on her… and yet, if someone is killed by magic, it should have cauterised all their wounds,” he rambled on, lording over the girls and talking as if they didn’t regularly pray to the champions of bloodless conquest. “Anyhow, you went for help right afterwards?” he assumed.

“Yes,” Tsukiko lied. “Just now,” though she hated to show any weakness, she gulp, “did you just tell us you think she was murdered?”

“Well, maybe not. What do you think?”

Tsukiko looked him in the eye, frustrated. “Don’t screw around; haven’t you seen for yourself? She was… torn apart; eviscerated! It looked like a wild animal did it. All her…”

“‘All her’?” del Toro raised his brow.

“On her torso, her ribcage…” Tsukiko was distressed to think back to it; she had tried not to look very hard to begin with. “I think her legs were like that too… Her bones underneath just- pulled out.”

Their cabin fell silent. Del Toro was listening with interest, but seemed oddly unphased by the report. Ririka had scuttled back over to Tsukiko, gently rubbing her hands up and down her shoulders like she was trying to wash the sorrow out.

“So that means,” Ririka began quietly talking in Tsukiko’s ear, barely audible to the rest of the room. “I mean, it had to be a Scene Star who did it, right?”

“Good guess, High Reacher,” del Toro responded loudly, looking up at Ririka before she shrunk back behind her love. “Though it’s frightening to think if some rando could have won a fight against a KIBOU Nation veteran... We’ll be able to do tests to tell for sure.” Del Toro chuckled, “Ah that’s for me to worry about, now isn’t it? You two cute things don’t gotta dwell on it.”

Tsukiko looked blankly, ignoring him outright.

“That’d be awful.”

Both the love of her life and that grating prick stared at her.

“Your power as a Scene Star, it’s the output of your heart,” she mused. “What kind of terrible heart would be able to do that to a person? I don’t wanna believe a person like that could exist.”

She sat straight up, tilting her head back and letting her eyes be concealed by the tips of her fox tails. “They would have to be something subhuman.”

“Here Tsukiko: I’d like you to have this.”

A few evenings later, Tsukiko was sat on a little loveseat, curling up against the gentle checkerboard cover. She lay with her face painted cobalt by setting sunlight passing through the mosaic ceiling of the head priestess’ room, while her reverence Luci Dash herself had been standing over her.

Luci pulled a small ceramic block from within her cornflower blue cloak and placed it in her hand, making it a point to let Tsukiko’s fingers linger on the warm firmness of her skin.

“It’s an incense holder I bought in The Grand Orrery. Can you tell me about what’s on it?”

Tsukiko held it up to the light. It was shaped like an open palm, and a series of pointed white dots were painted within the lines of the orange clay used to make it.

“I believe that’s,” she paused, taking a second to breathe deep and look at the room around her; the supernovas painted on every surface and the tranquil animals carved around the rim of wooden wheels which hung on the wall. “It’s Monoceros,” she answered back, identifying the constellation drawn of the stars in the hand.

Luci nodded, moving forward. “Would you like to help me make some incense tonight, Tsukiko? I think the smell of lavender and the chance to craft something yourself would both go a long way to helping get your mind off things.”

Tsukiko shifted up in her seat. “Do I… need to get my mind off things?”

Luci looked at her expectantly.

“What I mean to say is - like I was telling you earlier - I know I was bad the day of, but since then I’ve felt a little… reinvigorated. I get that I should feel scared, but… I feel like there’s a fire inside me now. Something ignited and it burned me, but now I can see a way forward.”

“Forward towards what?”

Tsukiko couldn’t think of a reply for a few minutes, but wasn’t prompted again.

“Answers, I guess? Something that’s been missing from me.”

Luci wrote something down in her notebook.

“You’re always very passionate, Tsukiko; it’s something I think should be admired about you. What I want you to do is take that passion - that fire inside you - and put it into something new. Ririka told me she’s been offering to show you her craft in sewing lately, right?”

“And you told her that’s codependent of her?” Tsukiko asked, although she felt it was a given.

“That’s not what I mean to talk about,” Luci recapitulated, “My point is that, much as the power of the Stars is in us and tells us to cast our magic onto this Knight of the Sun we call home, you should be using that virtue of yours to find something that can be a new space for yourself, instead of it making your ruminate on your past.

“Even something simple and playful, like sculpting and heating up clay, can let you make a mark as a person who brings beauty and faith and happiness. Don’t make a cage for yourself, Tsukiko. I know you can be someone who brings hope; onto yourself just as much as others.”

“‘Tsukiko the hope-bringer’, huh?” Tsukiko gave a despondent chuckle at herself, while she gripped the stick burner.

“You live with the name of KIBOU, after all. You can make her proud.” Luci encouraged her, trying to shove her out of hesitation. “I think she’d have been fond of you.”

Tsukiko’s free hand played around in her hair, flicking and curling its fox furred fluffiness. She made her bangs dance and get caught up around her nails, plucking a few strands out and letting them rest in her palm until they melted into radiant stardust.