Cinco Storia Book One: Awakened

Chapter 2

A voice was calling his name. Even in sleep there was no peace. He could see how vividly things exploded before his eyes: that one time before you die when everything paused, slowly, slowly reeling and then allowing you to literally review what you had done with your life. Though perhaps it's absurd that an android could have a similar experience. It happened.

He saw Jupiter scream, but heard none of it. He saw the super being melt, demolish, collapse upon itself. Then die. He witnessed the god who controlled Tanagura vanish, in pain, in shards shattering until there was nothing left but the very core that was so warm, so destructively intense the glare made him wince, made his skin ache terribly.

He had long lost his limbs. He would next lose his life as the said core was enveloping him, swallowing him, attempting to strip him slowly from clothes to artificial skin to flesh to bone to the very marrow where he once had pounded into his Pet the fact of his ownership. He thought he himself would die soon. But just when he did think so, just then...he didn't.

The core offered itself to him in the resounding voice of Jupiter: One wish my dearest. One wish I shall grant of you in my death...

A wish? He immediately saw Riki's face, his unmistakable smile. What a lovely smile. It reminded him that despite having everything in the world as an elite, the position was nothing more but a superficial fate. That after seeing it all, doing it all, the only thing that could make him really truly happy was a mongrel's smile, the challenge of his eyes, to be able to touch him, possess him, to be his everything.

"I think I love you," he heard Riki say, before the blast eclipsed that smile for all eternity. He then thought to himself how he could have wanted more to stay only in the presence of that single smile. But then it was over. He fought, despite confusion and near desperation. He lost. And still lost Riki in the end...

Jupiter read his thoughts, his longing. He had no need to conceal it. He never really wanted to if not for the threat of his former situation. No longer relevant at this point. For that the core glowed red, menacing, burning him through, except somehow, he had already accepted this judgement. He had accepted it the moment he had attached himself to a mongrel of the Slums.

"I suffer only for him," Iason closed his eyes.

Would you really chose a mongrel over me? I who had taken such care of you?

"Yes," it was the truth. "I would choose Riki over everything. Neither status nor grandeur nor position in the end could compare to the happiness he presents to me..." he had never been so sure... "He is the soul I've never had."

With that he wanted death, prayed as if he could that it came swiftly. He wanted to meet his beloved wherever he was. He wanted to be with the human he loved.

You are stubborn. Such madness. Throwing your life away for-

"-I never had a life," Iason gently argued. "Riki was my only freedom. He was my only escape..."

He felt this statement shake Jupiter to its very centre. It fell to silence, hearing those words coming from the very mouth of what was once his most heralded Blondie. Yet the latter was already dying, as Jupiter was dying, so whatever triumph Iason might take from this would be a hollow victory still. Riki was already dead.

Jupiter suddenly went cold. His presence slowly diminished itself into an insignificant spec, seemingly assessing, calculating, before gathering enough power to once more grow. The Blondie opened his eyes and wondered, "Why?"

Very well, said the core. You have won my arrogant creation.

This jolted Iason.