Shattered Skies: The Morning Lights

CHAPTER 64: Inter-Mission III - Father and Mother

Chapter 64: Inter-Mission III - Father and Mother

-VERTEX ONE: 15.556984-

TSAB L-Class Inspection Cruiser Arthra

In Orbit of Io

Souichi Tomoe had no gods to pray to. Despite all the things he had seen and experienced, things which would drive softer men mad, the concept of almighty deities using their omnipotence to listen to one insignificant man on one insignificant planet in all creation was laughable to him. What others called "gods" were usually things they didn't understand. Absolutely there were higher beings out there with unfathomable powers that could be considered godlike, he couldn't dispute that... but he was a scientist. "Godlike" to him merely meant that it couldn't be understood yet. He didn't believe in gods.

He never used to believe in souls, either. Consciousness—human, humanoid, alien, or other—was contained within the brain or the closest equivalent organ, not in some glowing light or ethereal cloud. Only after the first time he held the tangible representation of a human's essence in his hands was he forced to accept evidence to the contrary: souls were very real. Not in the way human religions represented them, obviously, but they were real. Under the right conditions, they could even be taken, corrupted, or destroyed...

... or lost. He was quite familiar with the concept of lost souls by now.

When he asked the guards for one small request, they understood. After some time they came back with two candles, simple and straight and made of wax, like any one might find on Earth. They allowed him to keep them lit, the only decorations in his otherwise spartan cell. And in the hours since Hotaru left to join the battle once again, over and over he found himself staring at them and asking someone, anyone, for the souls those two tiny lights represented to find peace and happiness.

He was sure no one was listening, but still he asked.

In times past, he would have found the notion ridiculous. Even if he had been willing to entertain the concept of praying, he would have thought there was no need to pray for both of them. If you must do it, that version of himself would argue, pray for the daughter still alive, not the sad facsimile of one created to replace her. The other Hotaru was little more than a failed experiment. Nothing of hers was her own, not even her name... she was an artificial body with fabricated memories and a stolen soul. What time she had was laughably brief, her lifespan measured no more than fifteen minutes. And she was irrevocably gone, beyond even a fully-powered Silver Crystal's ability to save. In short, his past self would conclude, having any kind of lingering attachment to her was pointless. Why mourn her death when she was never even truly alive?

Yet still her candle remained lit. It seemed to him that the least he could do for someone who gave her life to save his was to pray for her, and to remember her.

Then there was Hotaru. How strange, to feel so conflicted when the sanest response to what she told him was abject horror.

He and his little girl, his treasure, had no sooner reunited and began the work to heal their relationship when the new threat appeared in Azabu-Juuban. It was a threat far worse than anything they had faced that night save Joker himself, she told him. To end it for good, she was prepared to use Messiah. Her AMP Device, she explained, was a weapon that would kill the unkillable and prevent it from ever returning... but only at the cost of a year of her life, a cost she was prepared to pay without hesitation.

To say that he didn't approve of this decision was an understatement, to put it mildly. To say that he was appalled that she had already used it once tonight...