Chapter 59 - Pages of the Soul

Yuzu hesitated as she held the illusory knot between her fingers. Her spiritual intuition told her that there was a large spiritual presence locked inside the book.

“What is this thread binding within the book?” She asked Argus.

His eyes were focused intently on her fingers. Though he could not see the threads, he could definitely feel that there was something there.

“I don’t know...” He said at first, then he corrected himself, “No, it’s more like, I can’t remember.”

He flipped through the physical pages of the book, trying to inject spirituality into it to unlock it himself, but the book did not react. The glowing illusory light coming off the pages really was something that only Yuzu could see and influence.

“When you touch the string, it feels like I can hear something familiar within the book calling out of me.” Argus said. “Please, release the knot.”

Yuzu grasped the end of the string in her hands. Her spiritual intuition triggered continually as her hands began to tremble in fear. There was incredible, mortal danger in this action.

“A..are you sure?” She asked, “Maybe we should research it before-“

“I said release it!” Argus yelled. His voice echoed off the curved walls of the room.

Yuzu didn’t respond as she watched the boy with quiet eyes. His entire body was trembling. His fists were clenched and his eyes lowered as he refused to meet Yuzu’s gaze.

“...Please.” He whispered.

Yuzu frowned, not taking her eyes off of the boy. After a while she quietly replied,

“Alright. I’m releasing it.”

With her intention set, the knot didn’t take any effort to undo. As soon as she thought of releasing the binding the golden thread disintegrated into the air and the pages of the book began glowing brightly. Argus’ face lit up as he stared directly into the white light.

A wild gale rose up from the floor, battering the two of them as the pages of the book shredded and flew into the air. Their hair and clothes fluttered wildly, and Yuzu had to hold onto the bookshelf out of fear of being blown away. Hundreds of pages soared around them in a sphere as the cover of the book flew straight up, glowing with a blinding light.

“It... It hurts!” Argus cried out suddenly as he buckled forwards, falling to his knees. His hands clutched at his ribs as his body began peeling into sheets of paper. Large chunks of his shoulder and sides began fluttering out into the air. The white parchment that flew out of him was thick with glowing, complicated runes.

“Argus!” Yuzu reached out to the boy whose eyes were wide and full of fear, watching as his left arm suddenly turned into paper and fluttered away into the wind. Below each page that ripped off of him were more pages, as if his entire body was made of paper instead of flesh.

“Yuzu! Help!” He cried. “Help me!”

Yuzu stepped forward to grasp the boy, instinctively wanting to hug him and try to keep his body from flying apart, but the winds closest to Argus were so strong that she flew off her feet, crashing into a shelf which was already half empty as the books within the entire chamber had been taken into the vortex of wind.

Yuzu skidded across the floor, her fingers grasping at the polished stone in futility as the winds ricocheted her off of a shelf, knocking it down. She grabbed onto the edge of the shelf with all her might as her body began to lift into the air.

She heard Argus scream, a high pitched, terrified scream that pierced through the winds that raged around her. As her head jerked over to look at him, she saw the final part of his torso and head separate into hundreds of pages and flutter away.

“Argus!” Yuzu screamed, “Argus!”

Thick geometric lines along the floor began to glow as the winds only increased in violence after the boy’s complete disintegration. A white aura expanded out from the book’s core, desaturating the colours of the room as even the shelves began to turn into paper and flutter into the vortex.

The handle of the bag hanging around Yuzu’s shoulders suddenly snapped from the whipping winds. Instinctively, Yuzu reached out to grab it, her hand gripping onto the leather base of the bag as she just barely stopped it from flying off. There was a ringing sound as the coins and items within the bag began falling out from the open bag, instantly turning into paper as it flew into the air. Then she felt a sudden release of weight as the largest item in the bag escaped.

The ornate chest had fallen out!

“No!” Yuzu yelled as she let go of the shelf and reached out to the chest. She intuitively understood that she absolutely could not let the chest fly off, but she missed it as it flew out of her grasp. As soon as the chest left her possession, her body began to turn into paper, as her and the chest were buffeted around the room in the chaotic cyclone.

The chest flew violently through the air, the only item in the room that was not disintegrating into paper. It flipped and spun far out of Yuzu’s grasp, however Yuzu didn’t need to grab it with her hands. Her eyes caught hold of the white illusory thread that extended out from it and with her spiritual body she grasped hold of it and yanked it towards her with all her might.

The next time the chest flew around, its fated trajectory brought it straight into Yuzu’s arms. Her hand made contact with the glowing emblem of five concentric rings inset on the top of the chest, and she activated it without hesitation.

Her body instantly disappeared from the physical world as the winds raged on.

~

“Argus!” Yuzu cried out into the sudden, vast silence.

A white circular room the shape of a half sphere filled her vision as Yuzu appeared in the white world, whole and unharmed. There were no winds here. No fluttering paper. No half-disintegrated shelves.

Around the room a pair of lights circled around each other in a silent, frenzied vortex. White strings of fate whipped around them, wildly grasping at each other in contradicting motions. One orb was trying to pull itself into the other, while the other was frantically expelling strings to push its attacker away.

Yuzu instantly understood that the light being attacked belonged to Argus as she rushed towards it. She reached out to Argus’ light, his cries for help resonating in her ears. She felt his fear and pain. His spirituality was being rapidly depleted. Once he ran out of strength, he would vanish completely and die.

She reached out to the attacking orb and discovered that the attacking light had no consciousness or intelligence. It only desired to meld with Argus’ light.

This was because it, too, was Argus.

A piece of his soul, long separated by unknown means, longing to be whole again.

“Argus!” Yuzu spoke to the dying light, “Stop fighting it!”

“I can’t! It’ll get me!” The boy’s voice cried as the light pulsed with his words.

Yuzu gripped Argus’ white light in her hand and held it up to her face. The white, brittle tendrils that flailed out of it gripped painfully at her skin even as they broke off. With her other hand she grabbed the second light and tried forcing the two together.

“Stop!” Argus screamed. “Yuzu! You’re helping it!”

“That’s the point, you egghead!” Yuzu yelled, “You and it share the same soul!”

There was a brief flicker of hesitation in Argus’ light, followed by a sudden void as it completely gave up all resistance.

The second orb instantly flew into Argus’ light and merged with it.

In the physical world the winds instantly died down as the light from the core of the book descended from the ceiling. An endless rain of papers fluttered around as the papers full of thick complicated symbols flew into the light. The shape of a boy formed from the papers as they melded together, becoming whole as the boy’s feet landed gently on the floor.

His eyes were lowered, gazing upon the golden watch in his hand with many strange engravings.

He stood alone and still in the silence, his shoulders beginning to tremble as tears poured down his cheeks. He fell to his knees again as he cried.

“Thank you, Yuzu.” He said, “You saved me.”

From within the white world the merged and now whole orb of light had calmed down and faded into a calm white thread. Yuzu grasped the thread, feeling Argus’ joy and relief. The smallest of smiles formed on her lips as she closed her eyes.

She reactivated the chest and returned to the physical world, her body congealing from a vivid white light that appeared in front of Argus.

“You were like an angel.” Argus said quietly with his gaze lowered. “Radiant and beautiful, with pure white hair.”

Yuzu didn’t say anything as she waited for the boy to recover.

After a while he slowly stood up, his limbs wobbling from weakness. He nodded to himself as he pressed his hand against his chest.

“There was a piece of me here, all this time.” He said quietly. “Waiting, just like I was...”

“...to be made whole once more.”