“Remember, do not leave the Circle,” Belldandy repeated, “until Urd tell you to.”
“I remember,” Sakura said softly.
Belldandy smiled and gave her shoulder a reassuring squeeze. “Don’t worry. Nothing can harm you. At least, not in the past. What you will see are nothing but shadowy images of times long gone by. They will be phantoms of thought, wraiths of vapor, and ghosts long departed.”
“The past is boring!” Skuld cut in, “Now the future is really neat!” she said brightly, “I am the Goddess of the Future you know so I should know!” she said with an arrogant tilt to her head at Urd who merely grunted and continued scribbling some additional glyphs in chalk to the magic circles.
“Yeah, yeah,” Urd muttered.
Skuld stuck her tongue out at her eldest sister and at Belldandy’s gentle pressure, flounced off to one of the magic circles even as Belldandy took her own position. Urd gave the glyphs and runes and everyone else’s position a final check. She took a deep breath and looked upward. “Get ready. The stars are going to be alignment in three minutes.”
“Banpei is keeping lookout,” Keiichi reported as he hunkered down well outside the circles. The last thing that they needed was for someone unexpected to pop in and disrupt things. Keiichi adjusted the upside down pot turned impromptu helmet on his head and hefted the metal carpenter’s level like it was a club.
“Gee, if anyone does show up, you better hope they’re really unbalanced Keiichi,” Urd drawled.
Keiichi bristled and smacked the level in his hand to show it’s solidity and weight. “I couldn’t find my baseball bat OK?” he said defensively.
“You better not break my level Keiichi!” Skuld threatened, “If you do, you’re buying me a new one!”
“Yeah, yeah,” Keiichi muttered and consulted his watch. Two minutes. He managed to resist the urge to glance again at it for almost another minute before he stared as the seconds began ticking down.
Thirty seconds.
Twenty.
Ten.
Five. Four. Three. Two. One.
Urd’s arms suddenly snapped out to maximum extension and before Keiichi’s eyes as the entire engraved runes and circles began pouring out intense white light. Urd’s entire body began to glow as she began chanting. It was words that he didn’t recognize, words that he suspected were far older than Latin and he saw that both Belldandy and Skuld were both chanting as well, each of them radiating their own light as well.
“In the name of the Norns of the Past, Present, and Future! I call unto thee! Hearken to me!” Urd suddenly spoke in Japanese in a voice that caused the ground to shake and the wind to howl.
Lightning sparked and arced and thunder roared as a huge storm appeared right above the temple itself.
“In the names of the Norns of the Past, Present, and Future! I summon thee! I command thee!” Urd shouted as her arms wove patterns of light in the air. Glowing glyphs and runes and mathematical symbols spun and danced in the air in strange patterns.
“Show us the path we must travel! Illuminate our passage! Reveal yourself to us!” Urd snapped her head upward, beseeching, “In the name of the Norns of the Past, Present, and Future! Unlock the Gate!”
Then as suddenly as it all began, the wind died down, the lightning sputtered and fizzled out, even the storm clouds vanished leaving behind clear skies. Keiichi raised the iron pot serving double duty as his makeshift helmet cautiously. Then he heard a strange buzzing sound and he glanced at his watch and frowned as he suddenly noticed that it was frozen. The digital display was stuck. He tapped it curiously as the buzzing sound began louder and the air split apart and what appeared to be a black hole appeared. Keiichi tried to look at it but his mind veered away as though his eyes didn’t want to focus on it. It didn’t seem to make any sort of sense when he looked at it. Light seemed to be sucked into it, as well as all warmth.
Urd gestured, “Take my arm Sakura,” she said firmly. Sakura gripped the crook of Urd’s arm protectively as Urd gestured towards the doorway composed of inky darkness, “The Past awaits.”
Sakura gulped convulsively. Sakura bit her lip and ducked her head down and gazed at her feet. She shuffled them awkwardly. “I’m scared. Really scared,” she whispered.
“I know,” Urd said softly. There was a long moment of silence. “Do you want to go on Sakura?”
“Sakura … everything will be alright,” Kero added helpfully in her ear. Sakura smiled at the small plushie and reached up and stroked his head. “Thanks Kero,” she whispered and looked up at the white haired Goddess and her eyes clear. “I’m ready.”
They both walked forward into the portal and vanished.
It was cold was the first thing that Sakura noticed.
They seemed to be standing in midair and totally surrounded by darkness. Sakura blinked several times and tried to squeeze herself tighter for some warmth but to no avail.
She dimly remembered some school kids had once locked her in a closet to frighten her a few years ago. This sort of reminded her of this. The darkness of the closet. The stillness of the air. No light. Unable to see. She had been trapped in pitch blackness for several minutes before Tomoyo rescued her. It was a rather frightening moment for her to remember.
This was worse.
It was much worse.
She could hear sounds from outside of the door back then. Soft and muffled but she could still hear them. She could feel the pressure of her feet on the floor. Feel the rough surface of the wood door. Even see the dim outline of the door as light forced it’s way through the cracks.
Not now.
There was nothing. No light. No sound. She felt weightless as although gravity had cut her adrift. She waved her arms and legs.
“Wh—where are we?” she finally asked, somewhat startled at how her voice reverberated in the great darkness.
“I suppose you might call this place the Void,” Urd said from nearby although Sakura couldn’t tell for sure. Urd’s voice simply echoed through the darkness. “It is the Dark Abyss, the Eternal Silence, this is the Space Before Time and Thought and Motion. This is the Emptiness, the Forever Twilight, the Nothingness from whence All Began and All Became.”
Sakura tried to wrap her mind around that concept. We’re at the beginning of the universe?
“Before then,” Urd interrupted. “There is no Universe. No Earth. No Solar System. No Sun. This is before Time itself, before there was any when to travel to, much less any where.”
“No chance of finding a restroom here huh?” Kero inquired as he shifted position on Sakura’s shoulder, apparently looking around. “This place is sort of a fixer-upper.”
“The ultimate fixer-upper,” Urd remarked. Sakura could actually hear the slightly amused upward grin that came with that statement. Then Urd’s voice turned serious and she commanded, “Wait for it.”
“Wait for what?” Sakura asked but even as she asked the question, she felt a faint quiver in the deadness of the emptiness. It was like a rush of wind. A stirring. It ruffled through her hair and caused the tiny ones on the back of her hand to stand up.
Then there was another one. Sharper. Harder.
“What is—” Kero asked a split second before Sakura clapped her hands over her ears and bent over in shock. The entire Void trembled and shook in pain—the scream howled and bellowed across the dusty centuries. Sakura clutched her head, squeezing it hard as though she was trying to squeeze out the pain. Her entire body felt like it was on fire.
“Labor pains,” Urd explained calmly, “Birth is always an arduous and painful process.”
Then as suddenly and abruptly as the pain had started, it stopped. Sakura shakily looked up, “I felt…”
“Your pain is only the tiniest fraction of the pain that brought forth Existence itself,” Urd proclaimed and suddenly Sakura realized that she could see the Goddess floating nearby in the Void. But where was the light coming from—Urd waved her arm outward and commanded, “Look.”
Sakura looked upward and there—! She saw it. A tiny pinprick of light that had ignited. It glowed in the Void for a barest of moments before it mushroomed outward, a roiling wave of energy that erupted, spiraling forth. Sakura was so startled that she didn’t even have time to scream as the flash of energy enveloped her. She arced her back as she felt warmth flood her entire body as heat began. She saw the flash of light as bursts of color flared.
“This is the Beginning. The First Dawn,” Urd clarified. “What you know as Time began here. What you know as Reality was first cast into Existence with what you call Energy. With it came Light and Heat. And Magic.”
“Wow. That was like … totally awesome,” Sakura whispered awestruck.
“One thing about magic kiddo, you don’t need any special effects, Urd said with a grin.
“Too bad we didn’t bring any popcorn,” Kero muttered. “Hey do you think we could stop somewhere and get something to eat?” Kero asked curiously.
Urd snorted, “Nope.”
Kero tsked. “Guess there’s no chance for a bathroom break either then huh?”
“Where are we going now?” Sakura asked as she eyed the raw energy roiling around, surrounding them warily. Energy was rippling, seething.
“Just watch,” Urd urged. “What you are seeing is the Universe itself forming in the aftermath of what your modern day scientists call the Big Bang. As the Universality expands, it creates Space. As the Energy begins to cool and condense, Matter is created and with it, Gravity starts to shape and define it,” Urd reached out to cup a handful of energy, showing it to Sakura. Sakura watches fascinated. The energy was already beginning to dim and become less agitated.
Urd gestured to encompass the cosmos, “And ultimately Life itself was born.”
Sakura peers around curiously, hoping to catch a glimpse.
Urd smiles. “Try further back,” she suggested.
Sakura swivels around, looking.
“Perhaps you need a slightly different perspective…” Urd suggests and snaps her fingers and they are soaring through the glowing stars, the galaxies that are beginning to take shape. Then, they are standing beyond the edge of the Universe. “Look back,” Urd commands.
Sakura looks and gasps. The Universe … they seemed to make up the very fabric of the Universe itself. Their bodies were the very stuff of space themselves, their skin was fabric of glowing stars and forming planets and comets and more. It was as if their very bodies were the stuff of the Universe, as if the Universe were a part of them.
Urd explained, “They are the Choushin.”
“Chosen?” Sakura asked.
“Choushin,” Urd corrected. “They are the ones who came before. You might say that they are the Cosmos itself.”
Now that Sakura was looking at them, she could see that their hazy forms solidifying, becoming defined. There was three of them.
Urd pointed to each in turn, “They are known as Tsunami, Washu, and Tokimi. The Choushin.”
Sakura turned to look at Urd, “Ummm … are they … God?” she whispered.
Urd pursed her lips, “It all depends on your point of view Sakura. They were birthed out of Creation, but they did not have a part of making it. They are Beings of a much higher dimensional existence than even me. They are the Eldest beings in all of Reality, the First Ones. Many refer to them as the Trinity. They are as far above us as you are over a speck of dust.”
“Hope they don’t have a feather duster handy then,” Kero muttered sarcastically even though Sakura and Urd quietly agreed with him.
“Time to get moving again Sakura. History’s waiting,” Urd nudged Sakura’s shoulder and beckoned her. They began walking once more. “Things are still settling so to speak the Universe is still very young at this point. A mere babe, if you will,” Urd explained waving her hand around and then grimaced and pointed, “Here.”
“Don’t look Sakura!” Kero barked out.
Like every single person told that, Sakura immediately looked. She recoiled at the sight. They were hideous creatures, horrible monsters, fiends, beasts and other bizarre chimeras.
“I suppose you might consider them Precursors to my kind. Distant kin and all that. These are the Great Old Ones. Primordial Beasts and Forces of Nature, Lords of Chaos and Destruction, and Ruinous Destroyers.”
Urd paused for a moment before continuing, “You might call them Demons.”
Sakura swallowed and turned away, unable to bear looking at them.
“Their Names are still remembered and feared even though their Time has Long Past. Ogdru Jahad. Cthulhu. X’chll’at-aa. The Lord of Nightmares. And more. They existed and ruled over the Universe. But their time ended and they were forced to move on. Although a few still linger,” Urd warned. “and humans still remember them. Dimly. It’s called racial memory. These days, a courageous few of my own kinfolk try to emulate them but in truth, they are nothing but pale imitations of the real thing,” and here Urd shivered and whispered, “even Hild.”
Kero perked up, curious about what was it about that person who triggered such a reaction in the seemingly boundlessly confident Goddess but something in Urd’s expression forbade him from inquiring.
There was a long moment before Urd shook off her mood, “I am sorry for showing you those …” Urd searched for an appropriate word, “things,” she finally selected, “…but I would be remiss if I didn’t.”
They were silent for a long time as they continued to walk through the sea of stars. “No one is quite sure why the Great Old Ones left. And no one is quite willing to try and find one of them to ask,” Urd added with a slight smile before continuing, “Some believe that they sought new, more plentiful fields to conquer. Others claim that they might have grown bored with our Universe.
“And so it would come to pass that the last of these Great Old Ones would be forced out in the Final Hour of the Long Night when a new race emerged. One of them sought to end the Chaos and bring Order into the Universe. He met the Chousin Tsunami and begged her aid. She gave him a Seed that he nurtured and grew into a sapling which became a tree that was called Yggdrasil the World Tree and he became known as Kami-Sama, my Father.”
Sakura watched silently as the events unfolded. She blinked as she saw Yggdrasil, she swore she saw it composed of streaming lines of zeroes and ones when she tilted her head slightly.
“Yggdrasil helped Kami-Sama tame the wild forces and chain the raw elements. It is the Ultimate Program and the Ultimate Computer. It runs billions upon billions of calculations simultaneously and keeps the entire Universality running smoothly. With it, Kami-Sama gave Order and Law and Reason and Balance to the Universe.”
Kero abruptly leaned forward, studying the mammoth tree intently. “Wow!” he exclaimed rubbing his chin thoughtfully.
Sakura nodded, amazed as well. The big tree was some sort of bio-organic computer!
“Just imagine how many games I could play with that!” Kero proclaimed excitedly.
Sakura face faulted.
Urd gestured, “Let us turn our attention here. A solar system is forming here. One of particular importance.”
Sakura turned and saw the pocket of gas igniting and a brilliant star blossoming into being. Urd bent closer to Sakura to casually add, “You just witnessed the Birth of your Homeworld’s Sun.”
Sakura clapped her hands together, “That was so cool!”
“That must be Earth huh?” Kero inquired as the planetoid forming some distance away.
“No. Sol is still several millions of years away from even condensing at this point of time,” Urd clarified.
Sakura looked confused at Urd, “But I thought you said that was the Sun!”
“True. But I only said this was Humanity’s Homeworld where your species were born and evolved.”
Sakura’s brow puckered even further. “Wait, I remember from school about how Mankind evolved on Earth and—”
Urd smirked. “Ooohh. You mean they kept records about that did they? Video recordings, notarized texts and all that?”
Sakura opened her mouth to reply and then stopped. She tapped her fingers together and thought about it. “Er … well …”
Urd took pity on her and enlightened Sakura. “Humankind has forgotten it’s True Past. It’s History. They still do remember dimly the Truth. But it’s all obscured by folktales and myths and legends. Or considered religion in some cases.”
Urd broke off and leaned closer to Sakura to hint, “But every myth has a grain to truth to it. Every folktale and legend was based on fact.”
Sakura turned to examine the now blue-white globe.
“The First World has been called many names in many languages. But I think you would probably best recognize as Eden.”
“Wow, so basically humans are really aliens,” Kero remarked scratching his head, “That’s really freaky.”
Urd shrugged, “Well more like colonists if you will. But I’m getting ahead of the past.”
Sakura blinked, surprised at the sudden change. They were standing in a dark cave, flickering torches were the sole source of illumination. The air was filled with smoke and loud chanting. A man was standing beside a cavern wall, he was dirty and dressed in animal skins. In one hand, he held a bowl of some liquid and began painting crude figures on the canvas of the wall as he chanted. Sakura felt her skin prickling at the sensation and knew she was in the presence of magic, very old magic.
Stone rose before her eyes. Cut with ropes and bones. Monuments were raised with sweat and labor. There rituals and sacrifices were practiced and carried out. Magic.
The woman was adorned with paints on her face and her bare body and she bellowed a word and threw a handful of powder into the fire and it exploded. Spirits rose and howled as she gestured with a staff and shook it. Forcing them to obey her commands. Magic.
They were in the midst of a battlefield. Men wielded swords and knives, crossbows and axes, but at the rear, a group of men and women in robes stood, chanting and gesturing and lightning and flames and beasts of all kinds came, devastating their foes. But the other side had magicians too and they countered with shields of stone, torrents of water, and their own beasts. And it was all magic too.
The cities rose of wood, of stone, of metal, of crystal. Designed by man. Crafted by magic.
It was all too much, too fast. “Stop it!” Sakura screamed, closing her eyes. Urd made a gesture and the rapid-fire slideshow of imagery slowed and came to a halt. “Sorry about that Sakura,” Urd apologized. “You were lost in history, you were seeing too much, too fast,” she mused, “You must have a talent for Scrying.”
Sakura panted, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand. “I’m—I’m alright now, I think.”
“Good. Because we have more to see,” Urd said softly. And there was a flare of brilliant white light.
“What’s that?” Kero demanded.
Urd turned to look at the scene and made a grimace of disgust. “War.”
“Mankind has learned to harness Magic in many ways. They are it’s Masters,” Urd intoned solemnly, “Or so they think.
“They have used Magic to build great structures, to enrich their lives, and to take lives as well.”
Sakura shuddered as she saw gigantic objects, machines powered by magic floating in the air, unleashing brilliant white bolts of light. Men flew on huge dragons who breathed fire, lightning, and other destructive blasts at these machines. Then darkness fell and Sakura turned and gasped at the huge orb hovering above them.
“It’s the Death Star!” Kero shouted.
Urd shook her head, “They call it the Eye of God. It is a Doomsday Weapon designed to be a Destroyer of Worlds. But it is not the sole one capable of such a feat.”
A gigantic spinning discus came and crashed into the Eye, knocking it off course. The discus began to slow and then a pair of tree-trunk like legs emerged followed by a pair of similarly large arms and finally a blunt-muzzle with an impressive pair of tusks from it’s lower jaw. Sakura gaped at the sight even as she heard Kero mutter, “Looks like a turtle on steroids.”
“That is Gamera.”
The turtle shrieked and a gigantic mass of flames vomited forth from it’s maw to impact upon the Eye of God. Other orbiting installations came, unleashing blazing blasts that struck the gigantic monster who shrieked in pain as he sought to destroy his attackers. Even as he did, the dragonriders came flying to assist.
“This was the Fall of Eden,” Urd uttered coldly as dragons were knocked out of the sky even as machines were blown apart, “As Man built both Machine and Beast to fight for himself in their Great War. And as their conflict shook the planet and brought it to the brink of self-annihilation, many fled for their lives and safety,” she said and Sakura saw dozens of ships, some large, some tiny and many in-between departing for the safety of space even as she saw huge lines of refugees departing through gigantic portals.
“Who won?” Sakura asked quietly.
“Neither,” Urd said shaking her head sadly. “They had so devastated themselves that neither side could truly claim victory. Those who remained behind soon perished themselves.”
“That’s so sad…” Sakura said.
“War often is,” Urd agreed, “but humanity itself did not die out. Some sought sanctuary in the Other Realms. Others across the Void of Stars including a distant planet many light-years away called Earth…”
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(Posted Mon, 31 May 2010 23:24)
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