aiko's otter den

from a compass rose - Katsuki Yuuri is never checking his phone again. He likes his past right where it is. Too bad it doesn’t give a hoot.

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Prologue - That Which Was Abandoned

Date: X/X/2005 Time: XX:XX

Yggdrasil, unlike Nishijima Daigo, did not go gentle into that good night.

Humans knew and avoided their deaths as long as possible. Survival was a will, an imperative buried in their psyche until the very last moments. Some accepted it, some fought it with all their will. But all fell in the end..

So Homeostasis retaliated, as it could only do. As the waters washed forth, it drew ultimatums towards children, pushed for change because they could create miracles if they really chose to, but it wouldn’t work without the choice. It would not decide without their decisions. Homeostasis believed without question in free will.

Perhaps, for those who were not gods, it didn’t seem like free will, but free will and second chances were often layered in reverse psychology at least by the goddess’ own standards.

And it was because she believed in those things that the barefoot girl, her form flickering from top to bottom, wandered through the monochrome ocean. Hackmon loped beside her, his armor clanking as he paused to shake himself free of grit every few meters.

“Milady, must we really?”

“They never found Gennai’s body,” she replied in that loose, lilting tone that she honestly preferred using. The regality was more for the humans’ benefit, they wouldn’t take anything seriously coming from someone (if they could hear her) like a small child grasping their vowels. She didn’t particularly care about the sand in her small toes nor the chill of the water lapping at her ankles. Perks of pretending to be human. “If we leave it without preparing it properly, or finding it, the data could be corrupted again, if it hasn’t been already.” As human data is so easily twisted. She knew from experience.

“Presuming he survived,” grumbled her servant.

The girl shrugged, lifting her hand. A silver orb floated just above it, cutting through the monochrome colors and revealing shades of green and blue around them, washing about in waves. “Then we recycle him. It won’t be the first time we recycle.”

Hackmon paused mid-step, staring at the tiny back of his master. “Are you… my lady are you pouting?”

She stopped, and her shoulders hunched. “He threw me away. They all threw me away. Again.” Her voice didn’t waver and she straightened her back as she walked, but there was a noticeable tremble in her outstretched hands. “I think… that a pout is the least of my transgressions, Hackmon.”

“You hurt them, milady.” Hackmon kept his voice steady and calm. “You left them a task of painful duty and walked them into the path without their consent.”

“You would see it that way,” she muttered, stepping forward faster and faster, almost a jog. “You sympathize with them. I understand how that child felt, imagine an eternity of that. An eternity of loneliness and destruction, when they killed their most loved. I could have been so much worse. That thing floating in the etherial sea, they are so much worse but I’m a terrible existence, unforgivable in every sense.”

Hackmon grit his teeth, plodding after her as her voice grew louder. “Perhaps if you spoke to them—”

“I’ve tried—”

“As yourself.”

She paused. “Then I’m just a mortal. Just a plaything.”

“Better than a shut-out scapegoat. For all that is and will be.” He felt more than saw the shake in her exhausted shoulders, saw the lines where blood should have seeped out of her clenched fists.

“Not really.”

Hackmon almost sighed aloud, but he didn’t dare. She was never a harsh mistress, rather the opposite. She sounded more like she was going to cry than scream in anger as her predecessor had. Besides, in a way, his master was correct. She could not cross the planes physically, not if she wanted to retain her sanity. Yggdrasil had made sure of that. Just as the host computer had made sure the goddess Homeostasis was friendless and alone. She could never truly act on threats, never speak to the creatures in her realm unless the balance was on a precipice or with an acolyte. And one of her acolytes was here somewhere.

The other was probably lost to her as well, thanks to Yggdrasil. It almost didn’t seem worth saving the first. And yet here she was, valuing life again and again and again, all while being damned.

And to think, he mused to himself. They mock her and call her weak.

“Hackmon!” Her voice was higher and faraway, down in a small pool. Something stuck out there, what looked like a human leg covered in thin netting (nylons, perhaps?) and a waterlogged foot with no shoes. He raced to his master, who was hovering about, Her fingers grew more translucent the further she reached. “She’s alive,” he heard his mistress say, all bad mood forgotten, voice full of relief and wonder.

Why did it matter to her? He approached the body and saw the crumpled form of Himekawa Maki, belly swollen through the stick of her clothes, skin pallid and a human gun ripped to pieces at her side.

“The failed acolyte.”

“She did not fail,” the goddess murmured. “There simply weren’t enough resources at the time.”

That was true, that was true but still here was the cause of so much, the puppet scapegoat fiend of a child.

No wonder his little mistress sympathized so.

His mistress floated the orb to him, patiently watching him claw over, mouth twisted into a grimace. “Keep this close. I will search for Gennai and then signal you.”

Hackmon made to protest, but she was already gone, wading into the water until she could dive in and never drown.

Hackmon, ever obedient, watched the woman’s chest rise and fall in slow, shallow turns. His claws ached to strike, to gouge out the human organs and see the difference between one and the other. The woman groaned into wakefulness, fingers twitching, the swell of her belly rent unmoving.

And Hackmon understood.

“You vile creature,” he hissed, so softly that the waking woman couldn’t have heard. “You are buying your life with that… that parasite, that abomination… that is the reason I cannot rend my claws through you, you traitorous—”

“How rude.” The words were low, hoarse, shattered. “Do you speak to your master with that mouth?”

Hackmon bared his teeth and shook himself, low growls leaving his gullet. It was this place, this ocean, this world. It fed on the baser instincts, the old ways. He was a knight. He could not, would not submit to its wiles, as many had done before it. If he did, he would lose his lady forever. And the Chosen, much as they loathed her now, would lose their only ally in another longstanding war.

“She would not,” he finally ground out. “As she should not suffer your existence.”

“But she will and does, little martyr.” She coughed, a rattling sound of pain. “As she hoped we would become.”

Hackmon’s armor began to quake, threatening to explode off with the force of his evolution as he ripped in—

Then his mistress returned, drenched in water and carrying something, a lump. No, not a lump, a human hand. He shrank at the sight of it.

The woman laughed until she cried. A ring was clutched in those fingers.

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