Ruin and Rebirth

The last things I remember is a flash of silver light somewhere behind me, Una's horrified face in front of me, and then there is pain. Pain enough to last a life-time.

I awaken to the feeling of a cold floor beneath me. I open my eyes. I am lying face down in a cold, concrete prison cell. It is functional. There is a toilet and a cot.

Movement.
'Holy shit. I can't believe I made it out of that alive.'
A mind.
'At least I did my job. She's safely captured. I suppose they'll probably dispose of her, soon.'
Thoughts of fear. Thoughts of relief.
I rise to my feet.
'Oh shit! She's awake!'
There are no bars, but only a brilliant blue barrier of coherent energy. I know better than to touch it. A Heishi stands just on the other side of the barrier, and I immediately know where I am, or close enough: I am in a Goshi prison. Somewhere. The cold chill in the air makes me think mountains, but the prison could also be refrigerated as a part of the effort to break down the will of prisoners to resist.

My gaze meets his, and I know him.
His name is Acid. He has served with the Heishi for three years. His favorite colour is orange. His lover's name is Sakura. She is also a Heishi, but he has not seen her since the... DisLocator? was installed...

His mind goes blank as he finally musters enough of a mental defense to keep me out. I could break through it if I wished, but I do not care. The Fire simmers there beneath the surface. The pain of Karia simmers there beneath the surface. I want it. I want it all. It frightens me. 'I wonder what your pain will taste like?'

"Do you know who I am?" I ask.

He flinches away from my gaze, and I briefly perceive him as a shimmering mass of fractals, floating in the air before me.

"You're a prisoner," Acid says. "And you'll be dead soon. Anything else doesn't matter"

I move up to the shield, so close that my nose is almost brushing against it. I can feel the static charge. "Wrong," I say. "I am the consuming fire." I feel it. Hunger. The need to kill. The need to drink in his suffering. The need to drink in the terror and agony of his final moments. My voice lowers to a whisper. "Burn with me."

A golden light fills the room, and there is a terrible roar and a rush of heat. I see the flames reflected in his eyes even as they widen in panic and horror. The barrier pops like a pricked soap-bubble, the walls of the cell explode, and for one brief, glorious moment, I am with him in his agony. His pain, his horror, his sheer terror floods through my mind, and it is beautiful, even as the sight of his flesh consumed in a matter of moments is beautiful. His charred body goes flying, smashes into a table covered in medical instruments, and breaks apart into ashes against the wall.

Silence. Beautiful, beautiful silence. I savor it like wine.

A groan. A moan of pain. "Oh God," comes a pained voice. Male. Middle-aged. I turn. The wall of the cell next to me is gone, and an Allskin man lies half buried in the rubble.

Alive.

My gaze meets his frantic, panicked, pained gaze, and I know him. A noble. A member of the house of Yamoto. He has been held here since... since... since just after Lord Tsuchinaga died. He was heir. Goshi decided otherwise. Imprisoned, beaten, tortured, but not broken. That gives me pause. Wasn't Tsuchinaga a Biomade? How... oh, I don't even care. Allskin houses becoming Biomade is probably the least interesting subject in the world.

"Help me!" he says. "Please... I think my leg is broken."

"Yes," I say pleasantly, walking across the rubble to reach him.

"There should be supplies in the main room. You can make a splint. Something."

His pain and his horror become my whole world. I feel drunk. How could I ever have thought this wrong? I want more.
More.

Hatred rises up in my chest like a burning fire, and I realize with a shocking suddenness that I hate this man. I hate this would-be heir to the Yamoto family. I hate him. I hate the TeeShee. I hate the Heishi. I hate Goshi. I hate them all. It's like a thick smoke in my lungs, and it's so... petty.

I don't even realize that I'm moving until the first splatter of his blood splashes against my leathers.

"NO!" he screams, but I don't stop. I can't. His agony is everything. Pain is everything. Hatred is everything.

The suffering of this Yamoto. The suffering of the Heishi. The suffering of Karia. The suffering of all my victims. The floodgates burst open even as blood begins to flow freely, and my whole world becomes a haze of joy in suffering, and then...

*FLASH*

"It is enough."
The voice is male, and warm, and vaguely familiar.

I look up, quickly scanning my surroundings. The cell is gone. The heir of Yamoto is gone. All is dark save where I stand. An empty void in every direction, save for the circle of light that I stand upon.

The empty void. A shudder of horror passes through me. Here I am. "Who...?" I ask.

There. He stands there in the darkness, his face faintly illuminated by the light upon which I stand: Inase Spark. I have never seen him before, but I know him. His thoughts are silent, but his voice is not. "Is this really what you want, Mikomi?" he asks. "Is this really the path you have chosen?"

Mikomi. The name tears through my heart like a bullet, though I can't say why. I stare at the image of my creator for a long, dumbfounded moment. "He can't be here," I say. "Who are you? What do you want?"

Spark smiles faintly. "Perhaps I am an hallucination. Perhaps I am the psychic imprint of Inase Spark left upon your mind by your telepathic contact with him as a child. Perhaps I am the conscience that you have ignored for too long; perhaps I know that the only way you will listen to me is if I wear this face, and bring you here. It doesn't matter. What matters is your answer. Is this really the path you want to walk?"

I look at my feet. After a beat, I glare at my creator. "I don't have any choice. I tried to choose something different, and it only made things worse. I saw her pain. The pain of all of Karia, and I..."

"And you liked it?"

"Yes. If I'm a monster, I should act like it. Stop pretending to be anything else."

Silence. And then, "Obsessed with death, with pain, with suffering. If death is all you can see, then death is all you deserve. But is this the path you want to walk, Mikomi?"

My heart clenches, and I look away. "Mama Pain started it. She taught me. Showed me how. Showed me how to like it."

"Will you continue it?"

"I..."

"It doesn't matter who started it. What matters is what you choose. What will be left for you, for anyone, if all of creation falls around you? No hope, no life, no future. Is this the path you want to walk?"

I shake my head, "I don't understand."

"I know. But you must see the battle for what it is, Mikomi. You are not alone. We are all fighting: we are fighting to save one another. All of us. Together. And you have a chance here, now, to become something better, something far harder than you were before, but you must choose it. The path you have walked, the path of death, of suffering, the path of hatred: is this the path you want to walk? I am not allowed to ask again."

...
...
...

"No." At first, I don't even realize that it was me that spoke, and it is barely more than a whisper, but it is there.

It is enough.

I look up, and he holds out his hand without a word, nodding encouragingly. I stare at the hand for a long time, then reach out and take it.

Inase Spark vanishes. The empty void vanishes.
I vanish.

... I come back to my senses with the suddenness of a swimmer who, lungs nearly bursting after a dive into the deep, dark depths, suddenly bursts to the surface and breathes as though she had never breathed before. I stare wildly at my surroundings, at the broken, battered body of the noble of house Yamoto as he sucks in breath after agonized breath.

I stare down at my bloody hands.

Shame.
Revulsion.
Sorrow.

Slowly, I bring my hands up to cover my face. What is this? What is this feeling? It hurts. It hurts in a way I've never... never...

He's looking at me, and I have never seen anything so terrible. I fall into a sitting position on the rubble.

"I'm..."

Sorry.

A great wracking, shuddering sob shakes me to the core.

---------------------------

There, with the sprinklers pouring water down all around her, surrounded by rubble and concrete, Rei brought her hands up to cover her face, and wept.