Brave Story (119 page)

So this is my fairy.

“You seem surprised, dear little Wataru,” the frog said, the loose flaps of skin at its throat trembling as it spoke. “Yet this is only what you asked for. This is the truth you dragged out of me. Look well, Wataru. For this is how I truly am.”

“Who are…”

“Did Wayfinder Lau not tell you? Do you not know of me? Yes, the very same misfortune you bore in the real world, the same sadness, I have borne here in Vision. My name is Onba.” A dark, heavy croaking sound joined the voice of the little girl, making every word a discordant harmony in two parts. “I am the manifestation of all that is ugly, all that is unwanted, all that was cut away as unnecessary by the Goddess at the time Vision was made. I am the darkness where there is light, the negative pole.”

The manifestation of everything unwanted…

“My sweet, young Traveler. You who have come this far know the meaning of unwanted. What is unwanted is everything that does not meet the hopes and desires of this world, that falls short of its dreams. It is ugliness where beauty is sought, misfortune where happiness is desired, injustice where justice must be done. All the anger and greed and regret for what might have been—that is me.”

Wataru stepped slowly backward, shaking his head, feeling Onba’s giant eyes burning into him. “No, I don’t understand.”

“But you must!” The thick, gravelly voice gained strength, dominating the familiar voice of the girl.
That’s what she really sounds like.
“Pitiful child of man. I know the bitter fate you were fed in the real world, I know. That is why I approached you. I knew an unfair fate would destroy what you held precious so that you would curse the real world and come here, to Vision. I knew.”

Indeed, the first time the sweet voice had talked to him, Wataru had been living in ignorant bliss, not even knowing about his father and Rikako Tanaka. He had no inkling that the fabric of his daily life was about to be torn in two.

“I pity you, Wataru, I truly do. That is why I wanted to help,” Onba said, her voice suddenly switching back to the little girl.

“Stop!” Wataru yelled suddenly. “Don’t talk to me like that!”

Then Onba began to laugh, her eyes rolling as her voice dropped two octaves. Soon her great mouth was opened wide, bellowing with laughter. “You should know! Why is one person blessed with happiness, while another must know misfortune? Why must you suffer when it is your parents who have failed? Why you? Why not somebody else? Doesn’t it make you angry? Don’t you want to use your rage to undo this injustice?”

Wataru merely shook his head. Onba took one lumbering step forward, closing the distance between them. “We are angry when others are given what is not given to us. We are jealous of what we possess when it is given away to others. Our bellies burn with desire and envy. This is our true nature. The negativity that is me should, by all rights, have been scattered throughout Vision, like the shards of the Mirror of Truth. We could have been broken into countless, harmless fragments living peacefully among the masses. Yet the fools wouldn’t accept the darkness in their own hearts, they wanted it out. They pretended we didn’t belong to them…that they couldn’t see us. Like the Goddess before them, they tried to banish us forever!” The great frog’s voice crescendoed into a primal howl. “Lost, wandering, we fell into the Dark. Yet the Dark gave us strength, and I was born. I returned to Vision.”

So Onba, like the demonkin, had come to Vision from that place, that Dark that hated Vision, and would devour it if it got the chance.

“That is why I wanted someone, a child of man. I belong in your heart. Your heart is my home.” Onba’s eyes stared at Wataru, her head tilting inquisitively. “Were you not my friend? Have you forgotten how much I helped you?”

Wataru tried to control his trembling, but couldn’t. He didn’t know if he was scared or sad. If he was sad, he didn’t know why—perhaps somewhere in his heart he knew, but he couldn’t put it into words. He shook his head, shut his eyes, and clenched his fists. “I didn’t know who you were, really. I didn’t know what you wanted.”

“Who I really am?” Onba’s voice was a low, guttural growl. “I am you. I am that unwanted thing, that dark negativity that crouches, hidden deep inside. It is only because I exist within you that you are able to talk to me in this way.”

Something unwanted inside me?
Wataru had never thought about it—he hadn’t really had time. But now that he did, he found that it
was
there. Deep in his heart, a part of him was furious at his misfortune. A part of him wondered,
Why me?

Just like his hate had become a double of himself, walking free, the negativity within Wataru had called out to Onba. She was the manifestation of all that wasn’t wanted, and she was coming home to him.

“Yes, open your eyes. Overturn this world that dealt you your fate. You came here to change your fate? Why not think bigger? Here you are in the tower! Why change only yourself when you could change the entire world?”

“And that’s what you want me to do?”

Onba’s massive head nodded slowly. “Yes, for that is our victory! The victory of everything unwanted, at last!” Words of rage spilled out of her mucusladen mouth. A dull black tongue darted between her lips. “We want. We will have our world. We will be God and make all those who hated us and pushed us away kneel at our feet.”

Ah, so that’s what you want.

“Traveler! I ask you. Do you not wish to destroy the Goddess, and reign together from this Tower of Destiny? Do you not wish to hold both Vision and the real world in the palm of your hand?”

“I do not.” Wataru’s voice was rock steady. He deliberately forced the chill running through his body to stop. “What you want is wrong.”

Onba’s large mouth opened even wider, swallowing most of her face, and she laughed from deep in her throat with a sound like rolling thunder. “My sweet, young Traveler. Do you not understand this is your last chance? Merely nod to us here and now, and you will not have to kneel at the feet of the Goddess. No—you will stand on the very top of this tower as lord of all you survey!”

“I don’t want that,” Wataru answered, his voice clear. “I’m sorry, but I can’t help you.”

Onba blinked, and her tongue swept across her face. “A foolish choice.” A swollen, green hand slid across the floor toward Wataru. Wataru leaped to the side.

“Why? Why do you run from us? Is it our body you hate? Is something so empty, so devoid of meaning more important to you than a chance to sit upon the throne of a god?”

“That’s not it,” Wataru said, shaking his head. “I don’t run because I think you’re ugly. I run because you tried to deceive me. You should have told me the truth from the beginning. You should have showed me who you were. Maybe I could have found a way to help you. Maybe we could have made this journey together.”

Onba’s mouth gaped. “Such sweet lies! Had I appeared before you as I am now, you would have run without so much as letting me speak!”

“I would have been surprised, sure. But if I had only known the truth earlier, if I had known how you truly feel, I wouldn’t have run.”

“You lie!” Onba spat, slapping the floor with her webbed hands. “Traveler! Betrayer! Your fate ends here! You wish to change your destiny? Fine! I’ll crush you into the very dust of the Dark! How’s that for a change?!”

With a tremendous roar, Onba’s grotesque body lifted off the floor and launched at Wataru. The demonkin in her wet skin rippled with a life of their own.

Wataru drew his sword, leaping to one side to strike at her flank.

Light blazed from the tip of the Brave’s Sword. For a second, it blinded even Wataru. The sword felt light as a feather in his hands.

Onba twisted and opened her mouth, releasing a blast of foul air. The force of it nearly knocked Wataru off his feet, and he found it difficult to breathe. His hands and face stung as if he had been burned.
Poisonous breath!

“How many Travelers have you tempted like this, Onba?!!” Wataru shouted, rolling across the floor to stand a short distance away. “How many Travelers have you stopped here, spouting the same pleas and offers of power? You pity me? No, I pity you!”

“What gives you the right, child of man?!” A sickly-green fist connected with Wataru’s side, sending him flying across the room. It hurt to breathe. It hurt even to open his eyes.
The poison is going to get me if I don’t do something quick.

“Your life is dust to me. I will swallow you whole!” Her tongue rose like an independent thing, darting through the air with a wet
thwap
to snake around Wataru’s body. He cut it away with his sword at the last moment. Onba screamed.

Light streaked through the air in the sword’s path. The power of the Demon’s Bane was guiding Wataru’s hand.

At last Wataru realized why he needed the Demon’s Bane to climb the Tower of Destiny and meet with the Goddess. He needed it to fight this last temptation that stood before him and the completion of his journey. He needed to defeat this unwanted thing that whispered to him of another way. This was the final trial.

Once he realized this, there was nothing to fear. Wataru jumped in front of Onba, feet apart, sword raised. “You cannot defeat me. You cannot defeat the sword.”

Onba howled like a wounded beast. The mottled demonkin pattern on her skin swirled like a portrait of madness. “Child!” she screamed, letting loose a blast of foul miasma.

“The time’s come to set right all the wrong you’ve done here, Onba.” The Brave’s Sword—the Demon’s Bane—shone brilliantly in his hand. “It is you whose story ends here! You will not return to the Dark, you will not wander the abyss. Vision is your true home. As you were in the beginning, so shall you return: to fragments, a memory in the hearts of men.”

Onba howled with rage and charged. Wataru met her head on, the point of the Demon’s Bane aimed at a spot directly between her eyes, which burned red with hate.

For an instant, Onba’s entire body gleamed as bright as the sun. The demonkin horde writhed in mortal pain.

And then she exploded into a thousand particles. The pieces scattered, swirling through the air like snowflakes. Not a trace of the giant frog remained. The particles seemed to melt in the air, fading into nothingness.

Only her scream lingered, trailing off through the air until the last particle was gone.

Wataru put the Demon’s Bane back in its sheath. He wiped the sweat from his brow with a hand.

“Thank you,” he said, though he wasn’t sure who he was thanking or why. The words just came to his lips.

Wataru walked across the chamber, stepping over the top of the glowing star pattern on the floor, and passed through the praying hands of the last arch.

Chapter 56
Wataru’s Wish

Another long staircase.
This time the stairs climbed not in a spiral but in a zigzag.

He could no longer see the walls of the tower around him. The reflections of images from his past were also gone. He was surrounded by a void—the color of the sky just before dawn. At the top of the stairs hung a circular platform that had to be the Goddess’s throne. It was like Wataru was floating in space, and the staircase touched the outline of some unknown constellation.

Getting closer, Wataru could see someone sitting right in the middle of the disk. He steadied himself.
Finally—the last step.

The seat of the Goddess.

A girl was sitting quietly in the middle of that crystal disk. She was wearing a long-sleeved dress of pure white, and she was looking down at her lap. Her long hair was tightly bound on her head, revealing the slender, graceful curve of her neck. An aura of pure light enveloped her body.

She lifted her face and a single curvy strand of black hair fell down upon her forehead.

It was Kaori Daimatsu. Again.

“Wataru,” she called. Her lips were the color of cherry blossoms. “You’ve finally arrived. This is the end of your journey. You have reached the Tower of Destiny.”

Confused, Wataru shuffled his feet. He didn’t want to step back, yet he was afraid to go forward. Kaori smiled brightly. “As it was with Onba, mine is also a borrowed form. I took her shape from among the people of the real world that you hold in your heart. But I am not Lady Onba. I do not wish to deceive you, nor harm you in any way. Be at ease.”

I am the Goddess of Destiny.

It was the same voice, yet filled with an incredible presence.

“Why…” Wataru opened his mouth. He felt like his soul was melting and running down his legs. “Why Kaori?”

The Goddess smiled again. “I believe you already know the answer to that question. Lady Onba told you.”

“Because…” Wataru put a hand to his chest. “Because she has been in my heart?”

The Goddess nodded. “She, like you, is an innocent soul who became victim to a cruel fate. As you traveled to save yourself, you wanted to save all those who suffered as you did. That was your true objective, whether you knew it or not.”

“‘Those who suffered’? Does that include Mitsuru?”

“Of course. He was in your heart as well.” Then she added in a whisper, almost too soft for him to hear, “From the very beginning.