The Brighter the Light, the Deeper the Shadow

The room she was brought into was a cold, dark place, and cramped at that. A small chamber, one where the towering spirit needed to hunch over just to be able to fit inside. It was rather uncomfortable, an unpleasant experience she had not expected to live through any time soon. The air was unusually humid, despite the coldness, as thin walls separated her from Shinigami sleeping off long days of training and duties. Before her, sitting under her forcefully bowed head, was the one she called master and son both in the same breath, the one she would follow until the day he died, or he her. So long had the young Shinigami suffered, and yet not heeded her words, nor anyone else’s.

His suffering was his own doing more so than anybody else’s, and for as long as she could remember, the inconsolable youngster had avidly insisted that he was doing the world some greater good at his own expense. A farce, at best, a tale he’d like to tell himself, he was desperate to believe, but ultimately pointless and only harmful for himself. But now his words surprised her; was he actually admitting to his faults? Had he come to terms with them? Was this his way of vowing to move forward? Or was this only a momentary ray of light shining in the darkness that was swiftly enshrouding him? His life had become nothing but utter chaos as of late, and she had worried that it would swallow him up… as it seemed it would, if things did not change.

That was why she had appeared.

“It is good, Shio, to finally hear some words of sense and reason from you.” Her voice was silken and smooth despite her body and throat of wax, wings folded behind her back as her near-liquid body shifted in place. Tears of wax moved down her face, but her expression and voice betrayed no hint of emotion as the hot wax dripped to the floor. As she spoke, a flame sparked to life on the wick that stuck out from her tongue, softly illuminating the small room in a dim orange glow as she brought her large hands down and caressed Shio’s cheeks. “But it has been so long. Why now, after you have caused yourself and others so much hardship?”

She watched as the child pulled away from her, unwilling and uncaring to sink into her power as he ever was. Such was he, a dying flame on the edge of being blown out once and for all. For as long as he was a candle running down to the end of its wick, she could be no more than a fresh flame to try to light it; but this was not what she wanted. She wanted to grow and become a great wildfire that would burn the world anew for him, the greatest flame to come to this world, to walk upon. But now as ever he would refuse, and refuse, and refuse again, refusing to burn brighter than the rabble that slept all about in the rooms strewn about around his. And yet the boy spoke with confidence, arrogance even, in her presence, assuming before this night had even begun that he would get exactly what he wanted out of her.

“These ‘trials’, as you put it, go only as they need to go, and at a pace not set by you or I.” She would have stepped forward or leaned in more, but the tiny room gave her little space to move. Her wing shifted and knocked over a teapot in his room, causing a loud crash. She felt a Shinigami in the next room over stir, but did no more than that. Why had he chosen here, of all places? Did he not realize what would likely come to pass here? Did he mean to endanger the lives of his comrades he sacrifices so much of himself for? Or did he wish to hasten his demise, which already seemed to be well under way due to his willful ignorance? As if on cue, he explained that he had set the room up to be a prison, likely with some Kido. Pitiful. Feeling the area out, she could feel that the barriers he’d placed were already coming close to reaching their limits.

“So you mean to confine me as you do yourself?” She looked around the small room once more, a cage as much for him as it was for her. She could feel the few souls sleeping around him; perhaps luck would have it that they were adjacent mostly to Shinigami with duties mostly at night. Should it be necessary to expand, she would try to avoid rooms where others were. After all, she was trying to help him, not set him only further down the path to being executed by his allies. “Perhaps you are more the fool than I’d hoped. You summon me out into this realm in this tiny cell of a room, expecting to gain my favor through it? For a moment I thought you’d come to your senses, but perhaps you are only further lost.”

“No.” Her response came quickly after Shio’s description of his ‘world’, and his opinion of his place in it. “This is but a small part of your world, not its entirety. You speak of nothing but complacency in what you know. A cage for which you hold the key is still a cage if you lack the will or interest to leave it, and so far all I have heard of you are pretty words, strong words, but I have seen nothing to support them.” She raised her arms, stretching them out as much as she could within the confines of the room. “You speak of complacency as only a small shred of yourself, but until now it is the only part of you I have seen for myself.” She lifted her wings, the tips touching the walls as she felt the Kido barrier he’d had placed around the room fade away. She was free again, but she knew the consequences that would befall her little child if she were to go too far suddenly.

Now was a time for subtlety, though for how long she could not say. If he remained stubborn, she might have to get more… proactive… in her approach to make him see the err in his ways.

For now, she simply took the step or two to the door, opened it, and let her body fluidly squeeze through the door. The ceiling in the hallway outside was higher, allowing her to stand straight, and she spread out her wings, which stretched a decent length down the hall in both directions. She stretched her arms out with her wings, breathing in deeply, before turning back to look at Shio through the open door.

“Freedom is a thing only you can take for yourself, not by understanding your boundaries and accepting the potential of someday breaking them, but moving beyond them without care for where they once were.” She turned around, tucking her wings in to avoid collision with the walls. “You speak of wanting strength, but with every part of it you say you want you pair a condition on which you would limit it.” Her expression, usually stoic and unchanging, seemed to show something akin to anger, or disappointment. “Still you speak of wanting them to become what they deserve to be, of wanting to help them… and of wanting me to help you with that. I am not here for them, Shio; I am here to help you, and you alone. Can you not see that this complacency to push others before yourself is what brought you to this point in the first place?” She sighed, moving her arms to the sides, open, inviting. “Tell me, how do you intend to show me your resolve to grow, when your speeches all seem to point towards the same things you’ve been dealing with this entire time?”