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SPLASH!

No longer able to stand on the water of his own accord, the Angaran would fall straight through into the pool of icy water, dispelling the illusion of the past and making quite a few waves in the process.

This time, rather than the sea parting or the world turning inside-out, Ryugi felt a strong hand grab him by the collar and lift him straight up out of the water again; a little cold, a little wet, but no worse for wear.

When he was set down again the water's surface seemed solid again, at least for now.

"She talks to everyone that way. Just because she's beyond comprehension and things like that."

"You're being as helpful as ever..." Standing calmly behind Ryugi with his arms folded over his chest, Joshua chided D for her ambiguity.

...but that was the way cosmic forces tended to work. Never saying anything in definites, never saying exactly what they mean, and not telling mortal men the kinds of things that they were never meant to know. There were certain rules, after all, about just how much information could be given to the living.

"Just give it to him already and stop confusing the kid."



"Aye, aye..." was his exacerbated response.



She did not make it to the surface, however. Within the blink of an eye water splashed around Ryugi as the man behind him rushed forward several steps across the surface of the pond and swung his sword in an arc that cleaved the girl cleanly in two and sent a diagonally sliced half of her torso spinning through the air for several seconds before it finally disappeared beneath the waves.

"Heh..." With a satisfied smirk the man in front of Ryugi flicked the blood from his weapon and laid it across his shoulder casually.

"I hear people dream about doing that to their bosses."

Joshua pressed the flat of the blade against the back of his neck and used it casually as a brace to pop the joints leisurely while Ryugi pondered his situation. Of course he didn't understand, that's why the b***h had left Joshua here to do all the dirty work of explaining things.


"To put it simply..."

He stuck out his right hand and pointed over Ryugi's shoulder.

"...she woke it up."

Looming over Ryugi's shoulder there suddenly appeared a set of jaws larger than his head. Following immediately behind them were scaled lips, slitted gold-flecked eyes, and flawlessly polished scales that ran down the length of the serpentine body that had already coiled itself once around at the Angaran's legs and continued on far further beneath the icy waters of the secluded lake.

With golden talons borne and wings spread wide, the silver scales coating its body shone white in the moonlight and illuminated the entire cavern with the radiance of celestial light.

"Ry... u... gi... Ka... za... ma... ru..."

Now towering overhead, the silver dragon stared down upon the Angaran with an unexplainable fascination.

"You should know," Joshua called out to him, "you've been with it for years now."

The dragon hardly moved, it hardly breathed, it simply sat motionless as it stared down the Angaran with an unwavering fixation. The creature's maw was so close that he could feel the gusts of warm breath on his face, but even though the breath was hot against his skin the ice in his wet hair and the snow clinging to his face did not release its grip upon him.

Before him now, Ryugi was not just seeing the arrival of a magnificent beast, he was baring witness to the spark of life itself.

"Master Ka... zama... ru... Rag... narok..."

And Joshua... laughed.

"Yes, yes," he said, waving a hand around like just that much would explain it all. "That... there... is the soul of your sword. Or... it's what your sword wished to be once it was able to take form."

"It's complicated," he finally said, as if that made it any easier for Ryugi to understand, "but souls do not last forever. Sometimes they become so tainted by life that there is no other option than to snuff them out, or they would just corrupt another life when they are reincarnated again. With these few, and those that choose to not come back from the spirit world, eventually the souls would run out, right? But new souls can be born, too. This is one way that a spirit is sometimes born."

Joshua waved the tip of his sword in the air above, gesturing towards the spiritual creature that towered over the two bodies that were truly there within the cave.

"Over time, with enough emotional and spiritual energy invested into an object, sometimes that object can form a new soul out of what it had received from others. It normally takes hundreds, even thousands of years... but sometimes it happens much faster. You've heard of idols coming to life when many people pray to them, right?

"So..." he cocked his head to the side slightly, looking fairly displeased that he was made to recite all that just so the Angaran kid would know what the hell was going on, "...that thing there... about half of it came from you."

(( Man, life's been pretty... I wanna say 'epic', but it's probably more like 'full of stuff'... for the last two weeks or so. Also: paper to write over the weekend. Lawlz. Need to try and keep to a minimum of one post a day, though, so I don't end up glaciering this thing.

...now what choice did I pick again? xp ))




As Ryugi stared in awe at the gleaming form of his spiritual companion, Joshua said nothing to interrupt his amazement. Though silent, he drew a knife from his belt and plunged the tip into his forearm; cutting a seam down the length of it until he twisted it in a hook at the wrist to sever an artery.


"Who knows."

Black blood ran down his arm and off of his hand into the water beneath Joshua's feet; staining it a dark color as the blood mixed with the clear pond. About a pint or so was bled out before it stopped. Joshua then used the edge of the knife to 'shave' off the majority of the blood clinging to his skin and flicked that into the water as well; clean, unbroken skin left in place of the cut.

"...but I suppose you're going to have to find out, aren't you?"

The Reaper looked up at Ryugi with a malevolent gleam in his eyes. There was a threefold warning... Ryugi's spiritual sense would light up suddenly to something that seemed directly opposite to Ragnarok's presence... he would feel a growing pain burning into the back of his neck again... and a crimson aura like wafting smoke began to rise off of the Reaper.

"Prepare yourself," he said in a voice much colder than he had used in a long time, "this time won't be about fun and games."

Then, like a bullet fired from a gun, the energy that had accumulated around the Reaper shot straight downwards into the lake surface and dispersed throughout the water with a dull red glow.