Story:The End of Eternity/E5

 V 

Nothing seemed to had changed for Arend after he met Klaytaza, and yet to him it felt like his entire world had been turned on its head. The same feelings of nihilism and melancholy contemplation he always felt were still there, but they were constantly being spurred on by a rush of confidence and pride. What was before an eternal observation had become a plan of action with a clear blueprint, visible to all the world that once doubted his every move. There would be no doubting the power she had.

He took her words to heart after they eventually returned to his house and slept that night. They would be coming for her – and him as well, considering he was her host. The other Keys to Eternity, all 998 of them. (Despite the name, she asserted that there were only 999 shinra beings that were created at the dawn of time – perhaps God thought himself one of them, making the old “humans created in God’s image” adage one of unintentional accuracy.) Klaytaza had told him that every Key had their own unique ability, one that set them apart from the rest and had a crucial role in the death and rebirth of the world. They would no doubt be using them to not only save humanity but to eliminate the rogue Klaytaza and Arend, her master.

That was what the two of them had to prevent.

Klaytaza had never learned what the abilities of her other Keys were, and all she knew of her own was that it was related to time. Titled as the All-Seer, Arend theorized that perhaps she had been meant to endure all of time and would gain some sort of control over it as a result, but there was no possible way of confirming this. They would find out what it meant when the time came.

For now, he couldn’t think of any other possible path to walk besides continuing the empty existence he had going on now. Klaytaza had gone home with him, and slept in his bed, but he hadn’t the courage to take their relationship any further than that. He wasn’t even sure if her pseudo-humanoid body had the proper functions to relieve his teenage urges, and the fact that those desires existed in him only increased his self-resentment.

Neither his parents nor his sister had anything to object with her living with them; after all, she looked like a human, and after revealing that she could revert out of her slick black bodysuit and red armor, it was impossible to tell that she wasn’t. Klaytaza enrolled in the city’s school and the two went to the social construct together. She became his only friend, and every day after classes were over, she had him explore some part of the gigantic school grounds with her. The school and everything in it was pointless to them, completely irrelevant even, but just being together was enough to make living in the world somewhat tolerable for the two of them.

Their way of life continued in this fashion for a week before the Keys began to manifest themselves to the two.

*****

The two of them were sitting in Arend’s classroom, as they always did. School had been out for hours, and the both of them sat in desks next to each other, watching out the large window. In the horizon rose the cluttered cityscape, as dark and formless as ever, but from what they could see was a peaceful and empty courtyard flanked by the school’s constantly changing buildings.

She stood, silently but with enough tension to draw Arend’s attention to her. He knew what the reason for her haste was, and had been dreading the arrival of this moment since they met, but it was here and there was nothing he could do to stop it. Still, he asked her if his thoughts were true. The confirmation was pointless, but he needed it nonetheless.

“Yes,” she whispered. “I can feel my heart resonating. They come – one of the Keys have found a host, and are moving to our location now.”

“Well then.” He stood, removing his hand from his pocket and holding the pen in a tight fist. “It is time for us to prove our resolve. Come.” He walked out of the classroom with her following and the two went towards the stairs in the back of the hallway. It led them to the roof, and he continued to walk down a pathway connecting the top of the building to another. They walked silently through the hallways of more buildings, each different in size but identical in color and makeup, until finally they arrived at the observatory, the tallest part of the school. Any enemy that was looking for them would have a hard time finding them up there, if they didn’t have some way of honing in on Klaytaza’s location. Not only that, it would be easy for them to fight here, for it had no obstacles to clear and was a place that pleased him. If he had to die, he’d prefer it happened right here, at least.

Klaytaza and Arend stood at the tip of the roofless observatory beside each other. He looked to her and observed her crystal-esque features for what could have been the last time. She wore the school’s uniform perfectly, but instead of wearing the dark uniform jacket to round out her light blue shirt and matching skirt, she wore Arend’s uniform jacket over her shoulders. It was much too big for her, and floated behind her as a cape. As he didn’t wear the jacket anymore, Arend’s uniform was reduced to the dark pants and his grey undershirt.

Wordlessly, Klaytaza removed the jacket and handed it to him. Arend took it with a look of concern and put it on. “The time has come, Master,” she told him. Those orange eyes of hers, shimmering without an ounce of hesitation or fear, despite all that she had been through – they energized Arend beyond any prior feeling ever had. He nodded with a gulp and could only watch as the air seemed to crack and break around her.

The very next second, she had changed. Now she was back in her bodysuit, and her hair that he had cut after they met was back to its absurdly long length. It was jarring how quickly she had done that, but what baffled Arend was the fact that it felt like time had stopped, yet continued at the same time. Although nothing out of the ordinary had moved besides Klaytaza, he swore it felt like something had passed him by.

“What… What just happened?” He knew something had changed, just by the pressure in the air, even if all of his logic said otherwise.

Klaytaza looked at him plainly and spoke with not a hint of trepidation or shame. “I used my temporal abilities. Did you not notice?”

“No, I noticed, but… It felt like things stopped for a second. At the same time, I feel like nothing changed. How…?”

“It’s disappointing that you seemed to have barely felt its powers.” Although she was still speaking in the same obedient and passive tone that she always did, the content of her words stung. Arend looked down – perhaps it was her nonchalant tone that made the disappointment hurt that much more.

“I… Can we really win this if I’m so incompetent?”

“I have faith in you, Master. Our hearts synchronize with complete resonation potential. There is no enemy before us that can prevail.”

“You say that, but.” Arend looked down at himself. He was a skinny teenager with no muscle on his body from the years of just eating enough to survive. Most people were like that these days, but to him this only solidified his fear. No matter how he probed his heart, that confidence he was so proud to show off after they met was nowhere to be found. “It’s not you I’m worried about… I mean, it is, but…”

Klaytaza took his hand and pulled him close to her. It was a bold move when the two of them were usually so detached from each other. “Remember what you told me, my Master. The Thousand Eternal Annihilation must go on. And we must be the ones to perpetuate it.” For a second, the situation seemed so absurd, so fantastical, that Arend couldn’t believe any of it, and he only wanted to run from the insane android and everything she symbolized. But then his eyes lost focus, and he looked behind her, and he saw the dark fog haze that always floated around the atmosphere of the city. The fog clouded the blue sky from shining through, and to him it symbolized how the weakness and vices of humankind blocked the beauty of the world from shining in its full glory. He understood, and he looked back, and in Klaytaza’s eyes he saw true hope.

He pressed the pen in her hands, and in another instant, it had become the longsword. They both held onto it and would have continued staring into each other’s eyes if they hadn’t both felt an oncoming presence. They turned at the same time and watched the far away entrance to the observatory, marked only with a tall black gate with a clock on it.

“They’re here.”

Arend watched for a second, and then another, before a figure walked up the steps to the observatory and entered the gate. A tall silhouette stood behind the figure, and both of them were covered in shadow by a passing haze cloud. Once it cleared, he was free to see who their challenger was.

“So… you were the first one to oppose us.” Arend took a step forward, with Klaytaza behind him. Although he was still nervous, seeing who his enemy was and knowing he had the power of Klaytaza’s illogical sword behind him gave Arend the ability to at least speak with confidence.

“I knew you needed something from me that first day we met. I knew I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I let you continue living like you did… But I didn’t know it was this bad. That you had progressed to this level so quickly…” Arend’s homeroom teacher, his hair brown but his beard completely gray, loosened his tie and rolled up the sleeves to his white dress shirt. “It’s time you were taught how to live like a proper human being.” From behind the teacher stepped a tall, menacing man, shirtless and with tight white pants. That was probably his Key, Arend assumed.

“Do you even know what we are here for?” Arend put his hands back in his pockets and looked at the teacher with a nonchalant glance. “You won’t be able to persuade me out of my beliefs, but that’d be pointless if you didn’t know what I want…”

“Don’t talk to me like I’m dumb, boy.” Arend’s attitude irritated the teacher, whose hands curled into fists. “I know that you and your Key want to destroy the world and leave it as an empty husk – all of us know that. We’re going to reform you and bring you back to our side, but first… I think you’ll need a beating, first.”

“Oh? But there’s more than 1,800 of you against the two of us. Why bother with a little rogue problem?” Arend smiled and tilted his head to show that he wasn’t taking the confrontation seriously, when in actuality, these were all things he was legitimately concerned about. “It just doesn’t make sense. From my point of view, all of you are the fools.”

“I told you not to treat me like I’m one of your unintelligent friends!” He was becoming angry – just as Arend wanted. “We all exist for the finer points of human kind. All of us symbolize a part of the human psyche – an element of its advantages over a common animal. Something we all have in us is mercy and love for our fellow man, which is why we’re bothering to bring back trash like you and not just killing you on the spot! When humanity is to be reborn, every soul deserves a second chance!”

“So that’s what God believes, hm? And by extension, that’s what your Key told you when you two made your contract.”

“Of course it is!”

“I’m speaking on pure conjecture here, but suppose your Key was incorrect about everything. After all, it slept for more than four billion years. It hasn’t really seen humankind in action, right?” The teacher didn’t answer. “Right. So what if it’s wrong, and so are you, and so are all 997 of the other Keys? Don’t you think it’d be ironic if I was right all along?”

The teacher sighed and wiped his face. “I hate kids.”

“Hatred is supposed to be my attribute, sir. And I’m assuming ignorance is yours…?”

“Ramayana! To me!” The teacher seemed to have given up talking sense into Arend, and raised his hand into the air. A seal consisting of what appeared to be an unknown language appeared in the air behind his hand, and the same symbols glowed all across the Key’s body. The tall and muscular shinra being knelt to the ground, and from his back appeared a bright light. The teacher reached over and thrust his hand in the light; a second later he slowly began to pull his hand out of the light, and now it grasped a long spear made of a black wooden-like material. When the ritual was finished and the weapon was fully retrieved, the Key lay his hands out to the air and fell on his back, his eyes closed and his chest exposed.

‘So that must be the sort of rituals a Key and their host normally go through,’ Arend thought as he turned and looked to Klaytaza. ‘If I wanted to be ruthless, it would have been child’s play to have her kill the two of them when they were summoning their weapon. Perhaps her instant transformation was a precious gift, after all. And the pen…’

“Hey!” The teacher was advancing, and his yelp ended Arend’s reverie. “Aren’t you going to hold your weapon?” He stopped more than ten paces away and pointed his spear at the two. “Do you really know what you’re doing, kid?”

Arend smiled and nodded his head back towards Klaytaza. On cue, she stepped forward in front of him and raised the silver blade in a mirror pose of the teacher. “No, I’ll let her handle this. I have faith in our shared ideals. Besides,” he continued with a dirty smirk, “I know she’ll be enough to handle the likes of you.”

“Tch…” The teacher shifted his weight backwards before swinging his lance behind him. “I’ll finish this in one attack. Take notes, kid. Uttara Kanda… Banishment!” He drew a circle around himself with the point of the lance and when this was finished, he pointed it at Arend again. The circle he traced suddenly began to glow with a bright orange light, and various symbols could be seen materializing around the blade of his lance.

Arend felt fear.

He looked to Klaytaza, silently urging her to rush forward, to fight, and she looked back at him with that same nonchalant smile she had since they had entered the observatory. Just as she did so, a light flashed from the teacher’s lance, and drew closer to Arend. He wanted to dodge, but knew it was pointless, for he could never outpace the speed of light. He saw the light coming closer, closer, closer –

And it stopped.

He couldn’t move anything but his eyes. Every ounce of tissue in his brain raced for clarification. What was going on? Why was he frozen? How had the light ceased to destroy him? He no longer felt any air moving on his skin and he wasn’t breathing. The feeling, he realized was familiar – it was as if time had stopped. He looked up from the light, to the clock on the gate behind his foe, and saw that it wasn’t moving at all. Not the second hand, nor the minute hand, or even the hour hand. The clock was completely still, save for a crack across it that had never been there before. He hadn’t been able to explain it before, but as he looked across the observatory, he saw more of these cracks – spreading across the air and in multitudes like long, tiny spider webs.

Arend glanced at Klaytaza, and saw that she was moving. Leisure was the only word that could describe her steps, for she was stepping towards the teacher without a care weighing down her motions. She swung the sword around her in a dreamy dance-like action, moving closer and closer to the teacher, before she stopped and raised her blade into the air. Again without a shred of hesitation, she swung the blade once more, this time not cutting through air but right through the teacher. He was clearly bisected from the strike, but nothing moved, so his body was separated by a millimeter but remained in place. Just to be sure, Klaytaza shifted slightly and cut the man’s arms off with a simple downward slice of her sword. Finally, she flicked her hand in the air with a nonchalant wave.

Time began to flow.

Suddenly the light was moving again, flashing brightly right in Arend’s eyes, and he was startled and fell backwards. He clenched his eyes shut and held his arms in front of him, bracing for the impact of whatever the attack was, but it never came. He looked up to see Klaytaza walking towards him, and behind her, he saw the clock moving again. Its hands hadn’t moved from the position that they were at before, and the crack had disappeared from the face of the clock. He swore – he knew – that he had felt time passing when the clock was still. This time he was completely sure of what he felt, and what he saw. So how could absolutely no time have passed?

Klaytaza stepped in front of him, and her sword became the pen in another instant. She looked down at him with the same face of hers, perpetually still and somewhat dark, but offhand and relaxed. Juxtaposed with her blasé look was her black bodysuit, that was now covered in the blood of the man that she had just slaughtered.

“It is finished,” she said. Arend stood on shaky legs and looked at her with widened eyes.

“That’s it? You killed him, and it’s over? Just like that?”

“Yes, that is correct, Master. He was a fool, fighting by himself – a Key is able to regenerate as long as our Heart and Weapon Artifact exists, but a Master is vulnerable and ostensibly mortal. By choosing to fight us without the aid of his Key, his perishing was assured.” She handed the key to him, and although her hands were stained with blood, the weighty object was completely clean. Was this her own Weapon Artifact?

“I see. A pity he didn’t have all the answers I needed.”

“There will be more battles, Master. Perhaps you will learn all then?” She spoke innocently, but her words were cryptic and slightly irritating. This was her way of saying that he would have to learn what he wanted to know without her help, for there were some things she had not told him about this incredible situation. Such as her baffling mastery over time.

“So… How was it that you were able to kill him so effortlessly?” Arend started walking towards the entrance of the observatory, a weary feeling he hadn’t felt earlier now permeating his body. Klaytaza followed.

“Mortal bodies are weak and have no way of resisting our powers.”

“No, I meant… That thing you did. With the cracks. Time… I felt it stop. But I saw you kill him.”

“Oh, did you, Master? So your experience with my ability is improving, and only after one prior engagement with it. Unpredecented.”

“So it was you who did that. Was that the same as when you changed clothes? Last time, it was just an instant, but this time it was at least five seconds that you were acting.”

“Yes, my ability only compresses five seconds of time for my own use. The previous time I used it, you were just able to comprehend its effects, and this time your awareness has increased. Those are the benefits to being my host – with more experience, you’ll be able to move when I induce the effects, and perhaps you’ll even be able to erase time yourself.”

“Is that what it is,” Arend asked. “Compression? Or erasure? I’m afraid I still don’t completely understand. And how is it that you can even do that? To stop all of time – that sounds like an incredible feat. It’s like putting all of creation on pause. That’s… amazing.”

“Yes, you have it somewhat correct. I cause all of time to stop, halting everything in existence, and I move on the power of my own Heart. Us Keys don’t have hearts like you humans do; they’re more like celestial engines, allowing us to move on the will of our masters, even when the universe says otherwise. And when time resumes, all that I have done in its absence is compressed instantaneously, which is why the light effects that the enemy was using against you stopped, even though they should have obliterated you before you could blink. It is only due to my bond to you that I am able to induce the state and act within it, Master. And as it stands now, with so little time together, I won’t be able to erase time more than three times a day. We have one left.”

“Hm… That is amazing. Well, I hope we don’t have another enemy to battle.”

“No, I don’t sense any other Keys even remotely close to our vicinity.” Klaytaza’s fact was reassuring, and Arend nodded to end the discussion. He stopped walking where was and looked behind him. The teacher’s Key, still sprawled on the floor with its arms wide open, looked forward with empty eye sockets. Although the chests of the Keys never moved, for they never breathed, the extent to which the Key was not moving was unsettling. He knew it was deactivated.

“Did you know this one?” he asked Klaytaza. She stepped forward and went down to a knee. One of her elegant hands reached over the breast of the male Key, and the same symbols that appeared when its weapon was summoned appeared, albeit in a smaller scale and beneath Klaytaza’s hand. It persisted for a moment before disappearing, and she stood.

“No, but I have gained all of his abilities and knowledge. This was Ramayana, the Key that symbolized mercy and forgiveness.” She turned and looked at Arend with those same bright eyes of hers. They were unmoving, and so was she, but he could tell from looking at her that she was full of life. That much he would never forget.

Arend turned and walked out of the gate. Klaytaza followed after a moment, transforming and returning to her unmarred school appearance without the use of her time abilities this time. He wordlessly removed his jacket and passed it to her after the few seconds it took for her to morph back, and she put it back over her shoulders. As the two returned to the second years building, and then started walking towards the front courtyard of the school with intentions to leave, Arend spoke.

“With their deaths, we’ve proven that there is no mercy and no forgiveness to be had for the human race.”