#;journal

3年6月20日 (7AE)

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Well, a few moons isn’t exactly as long as I’d forgotten to write last time, is it? I’m getting better! I need to start carrying this with me...

First things first, where was I last I wrote...? Ah! Yes, it was before Omega resurfaced for the second time, and before...well, all that occurred in Doma. Mm.

The easier thing to summarize is Omega -- he woke for the second time, calling us in for our second set of tests: Nero recognized these as incidents from an old pre-Imperial Ilsabardian story, though at the same time it seemed...like it could be from a mirror of our world. The spirits upon the ghostly train mentioned a Doma unlike mine. Ah, what the shades are from don’t quite matter. Even the horrifying monster clown man. What does is that we won. Though at the price of our friend Midgardsormr (he sleeps again after saving us), and...Nero was badly wounded. I was afraid he would-- well, he is alright now. He’s just gotten off bed rest, the poor man, though he’s still not allowed to work. I try to keep him company so he won’t go mad, but I am still busy, so...I hope he keeps out of trouble. For my sake.

At least Cid seems to be finally dealing with the things he needs to deal with; he’ll have to if we’re to finish this with Omega.

As for Doma...

Gosetsu-dono lived! And he still lives now, a fact for which I am eternally grateful to the kami -- he lives by their grace, and by his own will, he walks on despite his sorrow. He is a strong man and a true samurai, and though he is old and he now walks the earth a ronin -- or at least on a pilgrimage of sorts -- he lives and I hope he will keep on living. Despite his grief...

He did not live alone, you see: Naeuri no Yotsuyu surived as well. I did not mention her last I wrote, I think -- I was too focused on the broad strokes to go into details. She was the acting viceroy of Doma, cruel and cold to her own countrymen, but beautiful, like -- and I admit that this metaphor is colored by recent events -- the cold moon of winter. I admit freely to having been awed by her beauty when I saw her; she reminded me of Yugao-dono. The same color hair and the same features, though her eyes were so much colder. But to see her cruelty, her sadism, that was...I could not condone it at all. Even when she described her past and I saw fragments with my own eyes -- perhaps because of that. I knew, in a way, what that suffering was like: to be treated like nothing by your own family, by your own people, everyone either contributing to or allowing your torment. My tribe did the same, though not quite to the horrors that woman lived through. I had no vicious drunk of a husband, and I was not sold into a brothel. Despite that, though, I did not...what she did was...

It tore her apart and rebuilt her into a monster, and she knew it well. Embraced it, even. But the woman who survived, at least for a short while, was not that woman. She was just Tsuyu-chan, without her memories, a sweet young child in mind that enjoyed sweets and games and saw Gosetsu-dono as a father. I did not trust it at first, but then I did, and...perhaps by the time we did, it was too late.

We were met by her brother, a vicious little viper named Asahi sas Brutus; Doman-born, taken in by the Imperials, crawling up the ranks and slithering his way into favor. Disgusting little toad, he was; that he loved Zenos, of all people, says much of him. Loved him...no, obsessed over him, an all consuming devotion that sent him worshiping the man like a god himself. Poor fool. Zenos would never care for that sort of slavishness -- all he seeks is the hunt. 

Her brother claimed to seek peace with Doma as an emissary, offered a prisoner trade -- it was a ruse, though. He lashed out at Tsuyu, forcing her to remember by presenting her with her disgusting parents -- she killed them when she regained herself, and I cannot fault her. If I were to be faced with my father, and if he were to even now treat me as less than dirt...I do not think I could keep my blades still. Could anyone, let alone a broken woman like her? And truly she was broken.

Broken and vengeful, and I cannot say why she allowed herself to be manipulated as she did -- though I perhaps think she knew what she was, and knew that she could never again have the peace and the happiness that came with Tsuyu, and that her only end was one drenched in yet more blood; but if she could, she would make that blood that of those who had destroyed her. We were...we were, I believe, there to give her that end once she was satisfied. Once the primal she allowed herself to become, the goddess, Tsukuyomi-no-mikoto, was slain as she knew we would slay her.

She killed Asahi in the end, with her last breaths, and I do think that she knew-- she knew redemption was beyond her (and it was; as much as I pity her sad fate, she still committed too many crimes for forgiveness), and she knew the life she could have had as Tsuyu was beyond her, though I think that Gosetsu-dono would have ever said otherwise. But she had killed all those who had shaped her into what she was, and...she had tasted sweetness in a life that had always been bitter and harsh, for a moment, and I think she took that and took Gosetsu-dono’s kindness with her across the river. At least I hope she did.

...I think I ended up sympathizing a little too much. But all the same, I planted some higanbana seeds I bought in the planter where I have moonflowers growing. She claimed a nightbloom would flower upon the site of her demise, and though nothing can grow within Castrum Fluminis, I would grow them for her. For my lady of the moonflowers, and for the lady of the spider lilies.

In any case, the man with Asahi, Maxima-san of the Populares faction -- the faction that truly does want peace -- believed us when we warned him of Zenos; he is alive! Yet he is not, because the man I saw in that vision was absolutely, in no way him. He is an Ascian now, more than that I do not know, but I know he is no longer human, and that is not the savage hunter I fought.

He agreed to make good on the prisoner exchange, and I know he is going to investigate further -- he and Alphinaud-dono, who accompanied him back to the capital! I would kill him for his recklessness if I were not also proud of his growth and his determination. He is right; this is his battlefield, politicking and being the diplomat. He can do this. I just hope he stays safe.

He and Thancred, who’s run off to the empire as well to investigate as well, the frustrating man! I hope he’ll be well. 

Then again, can we call their version a faithful adaptation of said reality, of that time and place that happened once in life? Can we call it a ‘rightful’ version? I ask myself every night since I remember that time, when the threads to such fate returned to my memory and dug up the pain, the sadness, the anger, the despair: the shadow inside every human’s heart.

What kind of testament we will leave if we end up winning, if we manage to turn the tide? I don’t know. Inherently, good and evil are simply two sides of the same coin, conveniently applied by the one preaching about it. Same goes with ‘hope’ and ‘despair’. Are we sure this is true despair or true hope? Are we sure that we are doing the ‘correct’ thing or are we being played in the same way they were toyed with? I ignore such.