Ashura arrived in a frigid world, with blowing wind and snow. The sudden change from the heat of the Witch's home to piercing iciness jolted his system, and he was grateful for his warm clothes now as he had not been just a few moments earlier.

Ruins and broken stone blocks littered the area in which he now stood. Dust swirled in the air, as though the devastation had only recently occurred. And there was something else, a feeling of recognition that Ashura couldn't quite identify. Like the sense of direction the Witch had implanted in him, this new world felt eerily familiar.

Then he saw the child. The child the Witch of Dimensions had entrusted to him to raise, and had insisted would grant Ashura his death when that task was complete. Shock held him frozen for the barest moment. He knew exactly which world he stood in, and who he now faced.

These ruins were all that remained of the pit and tower, the place where time was confused. The place which held innumerable corpses that never decomposed, and where magic failed. This boy was one of the ill-omened twins of Ashura's dreams. One of the very children he had twice considered finding and claiming for his own.

At last he comprehended the Witch's promise, and the strange way she had phrased it. The Witch of Dimensions had, indeed, granted him his heart's greatest wish.

The child looked even worse than the last time Ashura had seen him. He clutched a broken, bloodied body tightly to himself. An emaciated corpse that wore the same hollowed face, the same straggly blond hair: the body of his twin. His brother must have fallen—or jumped—from the tower, and the remaining twin was now all alone.

With one twin dead, the curse of misfortune was gone, but that was no balm to the survivor. The living twin appeared defeated and bowed, and even more emotionally injured than the Witch had intimated.

A child so abused would almost certainly grow up to be a monster, utterly self-absorbed, totally lacking in compassion or care for others, should the damage not be corrected. Ashura understood the Witch's concern, and why she had deemed his appointed task commensurate compensation for the weight of his death. This would require many years of work and understanding.

Magic flowed in this place now, the destruction having freed it from whatever had bound it before. Through it, he could feel the magic that filled the child to the point of overflowing. The boy held more raw power than Ashura had expected, despite the Witch's warning. It dwarfed his own. The only beings he had encountered with greater power were the Witch of Dimensions, the sorcerer who manipulated his dreams, and the Dying God.

The child's power was untutored, but that was easily addressed. And it would have to be addressed, along with the boy's emotional problems, for that magic would only grow greater in the coming years. That much power, untrained and unrestrained, in the hands of an adult monster without empathy? It didn't bear thinking about.

There was a touch of dark sorcery on the boy, as well. Highly disguised magic, but Ashura knew it all too well. It carried the same stench as the veil that shrouded the paths to his dreams. The sorcerer had been here—and had left his mark in the form of two curses.

The first, to compel the boy to kill any mage stronger than himself, didn't matter. No one in Seresu was stronger than this child. No one even came close.

As for the second... Ashura felt his soul stutter when he understood what it meant.

This boy would become the one-eyed wizard, the royal wizard whose curse would destroy Seresu, sealing Ashura's world and crushing it into nothingness. For what reason did that deviant, twisted sorcerer hate him, his world, and this poor child so much, to make such a terrible curse?

Knowledge of the boy's curses brought Ashura inescapable clarity, showing him how everything came together, how destiny looped back on itself like the Ouroboros devouring its tail. At long last he understood his forewarnings of Seresu's fate, and his own. His dreams of the one-eyed wizard and this child finally made sense. He had sought answers and had been granted them all along, but he had been too blind, too obsessed, to see the truth—to see all the preordained truths.

Here was the threat he was destined to face; the threat that had already wakened his own curse and would one day drive him to become a ravening, bloodthirsty murderer who would destroy his own country. He would bring the threat to Seresu himself.

His own prophecies had foretold it.

There was only one way to win, only one blood sacrifice that could save his world...and his child.

—a river of blood—a river of blood—a river of blood to save his child—

His ancestors' writings promised that it was possible for a Sacral King to change the future when utter destruction loomed, to gain the power to stop the relentless march of predestination. It only took enough death.

There wasn't enough innocent blood in all of Seresu to defeat the second curse, not through any magic he would ever wield. But the first... The first curse provided an opportunity to eliminate the second. And his own curse was already active and unstoppable, no matter what he now did. Even if he risked breaking the Witch's contract, even if he returned home empty handed, he and his country were still doomed. If he had no choice but to become a mass murderer anyway...

He gazed forlornly at the boy, lost in that sad little face, those haunted blue eyes. This child of his dreams would, indeed, be the means to his death. For the sake of his whole world, this child must be the means of his death. He wondered if he was already insane, already a monster, to be considering such a reckless and cold-hearted gamble with so much at stake. But he couldn't give up the boy.

Even if he weren't bound to the Witch's contract on spiritual levels he could barely imagine, he knew he would never give up his child.

"I've come for you," he said, willingly accepting all the consequences of the terrible and unholy bargain he had made with the Witch of Dimensions. He already loved this child, had loved him from the very moment he had first seen the twins in dreams. Nothing else mattered so much. He would sacrifice anything, anything for this most precious of all people. Like the Dying God, he would sacrifice all to change the future...for his child.

The boy wavered, then said with a faltering, ravaged voice, "From Gehenna?"

Gehenna? The fearful way the boy uttered that name made Ashura think it wasn't a pleasant place. The child's face, his very posture, spoke of his misery and his dread of this Gehenna. Yet he also seemed horribly resigned, as though he believed he deserved such a fate.

Ashura's throat closed. He corrected the child brusquely, "From another world."

There was a long pause, while the boy simply hugged his dead brother tighter and stared at Ashura.

His silence worried Ashura. Was it possible the boy might refuse to leave here? Ashura had assumed he would want to escape immediately, but given his experiences, perhaps...perhaps he felt he deserved his punishment. And some monster of doubt inside Ashura wondered if that might not be for the best, but it was a very small part of him. The rest of him wanted to sweep the child up and fly away.

Ashura said, "Is this where you want to be?"

The boy stammered, "There is something... That I have to do... So I..."

So he didn't really want to stay, but there was a great conflict within him. He needed some encouragement that it was all right to leave this abyss of horrors behind, to move forward with the business of living. Ashura had to save him. He had no other choice. His contract, his curse, and his own heart compelled him to it. "If so, then you must not stay here. You must live."

"To remain unhappy?"

Poor child. He didn't seem capable of even conceiving that life could be something other than one long series of tortures.

Ashura shook his head. "To grant me a wish." He might as well start this relationship with honesty. Ashura already knew there would be too much deception in the coming years. He wasn't sure if it was his prophetic talent warning him or just mundane paranoia, but he knew life with this child would not be simple, and neither would the end of their time together. The boy might never offer forgiveness, but he might also survive his second curse. And if Ashura managed it properly, so might his world.

The boy looked shocked by that statement. He had been unloved and unwanted his entire life. Probably he had never considered the idea that he might have something desirable to give, that he might be able to do something for another and not be reviled for it. A rush of grief flooded Ashura's whole being. How could he ask this wounded child for the terrible thing the Witch of Dimensions had promised and the sorcerer's curses demanded?

How could he not?

"Shall we go?" Ashura said, mustering up a tiny half smile in an attempt to reassure his new charge. He was feeling none too steady, himself. He held out his hand. "This isn't the only world in existence."

The boy visibly shook, he was so afraid. But then something in him changed. Ashura saw courage lighting his eyes, firming his small form with resolve. It gave Ashura hope that the child had a chance to heal, that he was salvageable, that he could someday have a real life.

At least one of them could have a future.

The boy reached out, still trembling, and took Ashura's hand.

"What is your name?" Ashura asked gently.

The child hesitated a moment, then said, "Fai."

~ end ~

September, 2010