Mhaieiyu

Arc 1-2 INTERLUDE

As the Tome Foretold

The courtroom couldn't be louder, but such was no uncommon feat during such times of swiftly-approaching war. The room had a truly royal theme to it; outfitted with marble floors, bleached wood desks, gold-sprayed curtains and patterns emblematic of the kingdom in red and bronze. The roof, which was lavishly decorated with glass chandeliers, stood ominously tens of feet above the nobles' heads, its colours indiscernible in the shroud of its unlit darkness.

The tables had been arranged in a semi-circle, and atop them were a myriad of documents and plans, all undisclosed to the public eye. Hands thrashed against the countertops as several white-gowned nobles disputed unrestrained of the many circumstances that flooded their nation. Some even argued of commonwealth matters, more concerned with the public and the economy than the forces of the outside.

In the center of this semicircle adorned a simple desk for four, and in front of it, at the back of the room, was a raised table for two that looked very much like a judge's bench. Seated atop the makeshift throne were two men: one scrawny with an official crown fitting his head even though it practically shrunk into place, the other a considerably healthy bulk at the cusp of militarising the entire court; tried as he might to silence their disputes with the thoughts in his head. The two men were leagues apart in appearance, and yet their status seemed so unreasonably matched.

The King looked pale, and such was not just due to their predicament. His eyes were a common brown, lacking will so severely it might even burn away the determination of those who stared. His hair was neither short, long nor extraordinary. The body of the noble was so thin he could snap like a twig at a wind's blow, and his stature was nothing to gawk at either. Despite it all, he wore the crown.

Just next to him sat a man who, judging by the iron eyepatch locked over his left eye, had long since tasted the dirt of war. Brown skin signified due exposure to the sun, for he was a working man. His arms, legs, chest and neck were fitted with a dashing bulk of sinew. His beard was black like the night, and hung proudly and densely by his neck; his right eye staring daggers into any and all who looked. Clear colours of authority. A sight to admire and respect. Yet naught but a steel circlet mourned his existence.

The ramblings of the aristocrats seemed to go on indefinitely. A full hour of this could drive anyone to insanity, especially when tasked with settling each of their trifles and scores. The upper crust was the worst, and even they seemed to agree. When all is at but a stretch of the hand's reach, your only concern is to bicker your hand to the prize. In truth, Yanksee had seen its unfair share of losses as of late. Hephaestus' position as Head of Arms 'cross country was nothing short of a miracle. The Syndicate's technological advances would only continue to develop exponentially otherwise.

The door to the courtroom creaked open, and thank the heavens it did, for the new arrivals would surely silence the squabbles for long enough to catch a moment's breath.

From behind this door stood four more men, all of which absolutely jaw-dropping in appearance. The first to step forward was also the sturdiest and most barbarian in features, showing the closest resemblance to the iron-patch militant. On his back, as though common weight to burden, was a stowed shield and sword.

"Lord Ace of Clubs, Auberon, has arrived at last!" a noble announced, to the immediate pleasure of the dames. A surge of compliments sliced through the previous arguments, praising the knight for his duties. And yet, even under the women's flattery, Auberon's gaze was fixed and stern, containing a smile as he made his way to his designated seat.

Soon after, a second man walked in. This one wore a thin yet powerful smile, his robes elegantly styled in a light red and glazed in a multitude of natural fur tufts. The most lavish looking by a mile.

"Lord Ace of Hearts, Arturius!"

His company was met with a few calls and appraisals, but a far cry from earlier. After a short walk that practically oozed in self fulfilment, auto-sufficiency and an ungodly ego, he too took seat.

Next in line was a man in deep blues, with a coat noticeably pelted in protective pads and a smartly designed bullet protecting vest on his chest.

"Lord Ace of Spades, Adolphus!"

To his presence, fewer people cheered. The noblewomen visibly cringed at the unsightly downward gaze of his. He hadn't gotten nearly as much attention as he once had little time ago, despite the recognition of his labour. Frankly, his tired, sunken eyes did little to inspire any kind of warmth. If anything, Adolphus looked utterly terrified, clearly having dreaded such a meeting for possibly the whole of his unrestful night. His entrance was quiet and uneventful. He merely walked up to his desk, beside Arturius, and sat.

Finally, the fourth man came in. The moment he did, people were screaming in delight, and with good reason. A more charming man might not exist in this generation.

His hair was immaculate, with a trim so delicate and a colour such a mild peach it could win over the hearts and minds of even the most loyal of spouses. His skin was fair and soft, entirely unhindered by blemishes or spots, yet still he assumed the lustre of a man most desirable. His clothes were a blindingly smooth white and dark hue of blue, adorned with a mirage of elegant golden ornaments.

With a raised hand, the bearded authority silenced the announcer as even his serious face was pulled away at the sight; his lips curling into a paternal smile.

"Lord Ace of Diamonds. My first and truest: Aneirin. It's always a pleasure."

To his father's beckoning words, Aneirin gave a simple yet brilliant grin, taking his seat at the end of his one-man march. With all four Aces in attendance, the real discussion could finally begin. And much to the seated powers' pleasure, the crowd of lesser nobles had all silenced, still in awe of the four's simultaneous arrival. The Aces were second only to the General's status, and it was no controversy that their presence was more appreciated than the latter's. The four were devilishly astute—save perhaps Auberon—and their service to the country was nigh-on unmatched. The King might as well have been a peasant in comparison, at least in the public's eye.

"My sons," the second seated power, Ducasse, spoke, "You were expected half an hour ago."

Raising from his seat to speak, Auberon explained. "We hath not the slightest desire to irk you, father. I was tasked with a duty most simple, but its time was wasteful so."

Barely raising an arm, the exotic Arturius added: "It's not like we can just pick off any in our quartet. Not at a time like this, anyhow. We had to wait."

"Your slothful nature is deceptive, my son," Ducasse scorned, his brows furrowed. In response, Arturius merely shrugged in his place, his body unfurling in his seat.

"May I speak, father?" Aneirin stood up to ask, his concern in speaking lacking in honesty. His charms would suffocate any who might ponder. With a newly found smile, Ducasse nodded.

"I issued an informant and a collection team to the Denizian domains in regards to the failed prisoner transference. Unfortunately, they have not arrived still, and the merchandise promised has not yet been returned. If my suspicions are true, I request for permission to correct the matter."

"Of course, my son. Don't let the bastards think lightly of us."

With no further comments, Aneirin sat down.

"So the enemy still has the Guardian?" a noble asked, sweating bullets at the thought.

"Indeed. I was present during the penitentiary breach," Adolphus remarked, standing up with an official salute. The noble clicked his tongue, dropping to the bench with a thud.

Arturius raised a brow.

"Did you shoot him?"

"His regenerative tendencies are incomparable. Firing at him would've been an assured death sentence. Besides..." Adolphus explained, closing his eyes with bated breath. "I allowed the breach."

Several nobles stood up in distaste. Even the King, who hadn't said a word, gasped. Ducasse stiffened his complexion.

"Lord Ace! This is no time for jests!" the announcer commanded, speaking only with the authority he represented. Even the runt of the Aces outmatched him by countless levels.

"I'm not joking," the Ace of Spades clarified, facing the court in full. Murmurs were exchanged in that instant as judgement was passed one to another without control. Auberon stood up.

"Brother, what are you implying?!"

Arturius hid a short chuckle. "You truly are looking for trouble, young man. Blurting that out at a time this dire? I say..."

The stick-thin King muttered a choked question, before being outspoken by Ducasse's thundering voice.

"Son. Is this true?"

"As true as the skies are blue."

"Did you assist the terrorists?"

"I couldn't slaughter my men. I didn't want them to fight a pointless battle either, so I delivered an unfit quantity to the slaughter——"

"Brother! You claim not to want to end your men, and yet you send a hopeless count to the butchers?! What has claimed you?!" Auberon shouted in protest, causing the Ace to flinch. The court loudened as the nobles started to uproariously mock and confound the officer's decisions. This inaction was entirely unnatural of him. For years he had committed to his duties — what on earth could persuade him otherwise? The father huffed deep, dropping his face into his palms.

Arturius seemed amused if nothing else. Auberon looked both furious and concerned, his gaze about as puzzled as it always seemed. Aneirin said nothing, keeping any and all thoughts to himself with a calm expression. The King looked pale. The nobles hollered and denounced all around him. His father looked so unmistakeably disappointed.

To their barrage of distaste, Adolphus stood strong and straight, facing the turbulence of the winds their poisonous mouths spewed. With a shaky take of air, clearing his throat, Adolphus started.

"As you know, little over a week ago, Fenicia Street was obliterated by a terrorist invasion. The entire road was raised and crumbled, the stores were blown away and the Lagahin Commercial Centre was sent to the ground. An action no doubt responsible of the Syndicate's wrath. At least, that's the story the public bought."

The General raised his head to meet his son's gaze. Arturius, knowing of the situation at hand, simply smiled in acknowledgement.

"Continue," Ducasse ordered.

"We all know this wasn't the doing of a Syndie, but a whole other force entirely. For a while we even considered the possibility of the blame being that of an unpredicted divergence of the Witch's path."

"The way you're saying this, brother... Do you mean to imply that the assumption is wrong?" Auberon asked, narrowing his eyes.

"Without a doubt. I witnessed the perpetrator myself."

Slamming a fist against the desk, a patrician shouted: "Then who?! Why would you keep this information away from us?!"

Glaring daggers at the aristocrat, the Ace explained. "It was a man with no name. He wore nothing but rags, and he used no explosives. I watched that man destroy an entire street like it were child's play. He swept the place in an instant, and among hundreds of civilian casualties, murdered six squads of my finest elites without breaking a sweat. He didn't even stop walking."

The quiet accusations were displaced with that of concerned theorisation and fruitless attempts at rationalisation. Neither Arturius nor Aneirin seemed fazed in the slightest.

"For some ungodly reason, he allowed me to live. I couldn't even pull my gun; I was in shock. By the time I had stepped out of my vehicle, the last of my men had been massacred. In exchange for my life, he made me promise three things: to deliver the information he had accrued to this very tribunal, to send him to a maximum security prison without legal judiciary action, and to not speak of his existence until he was outside of the country."

"Information? What kind?" Ducasse demanded, his tone heavy.

Turning his gaze toward the crowd, the Ace of Spades nodded. "Intel regarding the Syndicate's planned tactics during the war ahead."

"Do you mean to say that this man was, in fact, affiliated with the Syndicate?" an aristocrat queried.

"Impossible. No man would wish to be cast off to our penitentiary!" another noble exclaimed.

"This is folly——!" The Ace of Clubs protested.

"No, dear brother." The seriousness and emotional turmoil within Adolphus' cracking voice sliced through and silenced any and all voices. With a deadly stare toward the two powers, Adolphus proclaimed.

"I stared death in the eyes that day. The Syndie invasion took not only the prisoners, but the man responsible for such chaos with them. The man responsible for my destruction."

With a focused leer, pale skin and thin tears streaming down his cheeks, Adolphus smiled a spiteful, contemptuous grin.

"The Syndicate will surely burn to dust. For the man they took with them is no man. He is but the Devil in the flesh himself."

♦ ♥ ♣ ♠

The world and all that surrounds it is a material form. The earth limits passage with its firmness. The water slows movement with its encumbrance. The wind, albeit imperceptible, pushes back with its force. The world is filled with colours, sounds, tastes, feelings... a range of limitless perceptions. Life blooms on this earth. Waves forge and crash with this water. Storms brew with these winds. The world itself adheres to a long list of rules and guidelines unwritten but forever true, unbent by any, even the supernatural. What could be deemed as 'normality'.

By this accord, one could also deem this new space 'abnormality'. A place absent from common rule, defying the will of the unwritten laws; be it of physics or otherwise. Nothing existed here, and yet everything could. You could fall forever and never meet or see the ground. You could yearn for water and never find it. You could walk for an eternity and never feel the slightest brisk. In fact, the very hands of a clock would never move.

A place without borders or limits that lacked colour, sound, taste, feeling. A void of luminescence, where the only perception the eyes would be met by would be an unending, dazzling brightness. A white of whites, never ceasing to bloom its rays, as though one were standing directly next to the sun in every direction.

The only sound that could be heard for all eternity would be the idle flipping of pages and the gentle scribbles of a man invested in the world itself, seated atop a chair of nothingness that couldn't better accommodate him.

The man, when viewed from afar, up close or at modest distance, looked completely stunning. Straight moon-white hair coiled around his chest, over this invisible chair and flowing just above his ankles. His silk clothing was comprised of a religious gown of purple, black and white, topped off with unusual rounded scales of silver by the collar. It was primarily thanks to this coloured clothing that he would ve reasonably visible amidst such an environment. His skin was almost as white as the rest of his features, making him an eye sore to any trying to perceive him within the realm; his irises a zinc grey. Atop his head was a ring of brightness—hardly visible in the whiteness—which somehow radiated an even brighter light than that around him; his back complimented by two large feathered wings of similar off-white splendor.

To put it simply, much like this void, the man himself was a bold expression of the concept of white. A real archangel, one might even say.

In his lap sat a tome of considerable proportions, open by its midsection. In his hands, a smaller book and a quill. In this empty space, a small black jar appeared in the distant horizon, before approaching the angel with impossible speeds, stopping instantly by his unwavering hand as he plucked his pen over its contents for a swift fill. A simple ink pot.

In the endless silence, a clamour of quiet instruments permeated through, tainting the beauty of the void's nature. Looking up with a welcoming smile, the Celestial gave a soft wave to the intruder.

The noise—this bizarre appeal for a blend of violins, double basses and cellos playing in chaotic unison whilst idling freely from touch—marked the entrance of a particular other character; one that didn't quite share in the peacefulness of the silence to the extent that he did. The 'music' was ghastly — akin to an inadequate newly-deaf musician trying his best to impress his family in the midst of an informal meal. And yet, to the angel, this ruckus was a pleasure to meet each time. A rarity, in fact.

"Hello, Jack. Or is it Isosceles now?" the Celestial asked, closing his notebook and lending rest to his arms upon the large pages of the book to better attend his visitor. Unlike his own dazzling presence, the visitor's physique was eclipsed by the endless light — reduced to a living silhouette.

With a pig-like snort and an imbalanced, asymmetrical gaggle, the visitor blurted a reply.

"Ah, ooh, aye! Isosceles, Isosceles is right." His voice, much to his nature, was slurred, whimsical and shaky. Never mind his features; not even his gestures could be easily seen through the glaring white.

"You never did choose a name for yourself. Why don't you adhere to just the one? It would be much simpler," the being of light insisted, to which Isosceles only continued his rambunctious laughter.

"No, nay, naught. Squat to that. I give them freedom to please me as they name, and name me as they please. Indifference is irresolute!"

The shadow of the visitor inched closer, glaring down at the angel's possessions. "Still working on the old fable?"

With a raised, waving finger and a knowledgable smile, the Celestial corrected: "Fables would be of fantasy. For the younger litter. These are of no fiction, and they certainly wouldn't befit a child's entertainment, my dear acquaintance."

"Ah, of course, of course, of course!" Isosceles nodded, his presence inching well past the comfort threshold. Nevertheless, the angel remained indifferent. "Of whom do you write the pleasure of this time, hm?"

"The Fifty-Seventh." The angel clutched the notebook in his hands, pressing it against his chest in affection. "I'm quite proud of it. Though I do say, I'm not too happy with all the action I'll have to write."

"Hmhm? Is that so, chap? Then why on the Goddess don't you pick a less burdened one to work with?"

"I bore of the less impactful types... romance can only peeve one's interest for so long. I yearn for more emotion, see?" the angel explained, tapping the cover of his book.

While hard to see, Isosceles pressed a finger against his chin in thought, his body tilting more than necessary. "A reason to admire, ridiculous as it might be. Oh, but why that one? What's so bewildering of the old rust-bucket?"

Kicking his feet around, the angel, as though flattered, explained. "I write of which I deem most fascinating of this world's history, as you do know. The First, the Seventh, the Thirty-Eighth, Forty-Twos... All wonderful cases with much story to sponge up. I simply find the Fifty-Seventh tempting."

"Truly? He seemed most a slack to my eyes when we last faced..." the visitor complained, breathing a loud sigh. And in the next instant, a flood of energy rushed into his veins as he turned back to the angel. "What of I? I live during such era; where is my part of the scripture?"

"It's not quite your time yet. I'm still on the war between those two countries. You've been mentioned in passing, however."

"Oh, boo. Do tell me when I make my appearance, will you? I'd be lovely to fit in your assortment of history thievery~"

Frowning, the Celestial pointed the pen at Isosceles. "Theft isn't true. Recollection of data is no cardinal sin since last I checked..."

A teapot flew in from the horizon, much like the ink had. With it came two neatly crafted cups, both already filled with steaming hot water. The invisible smirk on Isosceles' face was noticeable just from the widening of his cheeks.

"Bah~ You must be exhausted! Do, mustily, you must well do to share a few leaves of Quesseltszbryne with me. It must do you well," Isosceles offered, already having poured in the leaves with much enthusiasm for the two as if consent had already been granted. While not the most spectacular of tastes, the bizarre orange-purple leaves did serve as this place's only source of taste.

Taking a cup, the angel took a sip. A disappointing flavour, as usual. It would do.

"I was thinking of giving this one a special name. To differentiate it from the other volumes."

"Hm, hm? Is that true?"

"Indeed," the winged being smiled, nodding. "It is a word of Sylvvean origin with a meaning unbeknown even to me."

Tilting his head, the visitor jested. "Unbeknownst to you? Anomalous!"

"Hm, quite," the angel laughed, clearing his throat.

"I was thinking I might call it ...

"'Mhaieiyu'."