Intertwined Paths [Emi, Nadia]

[Slash]

It's nice up here, isn't it?

[/center]

This world had one great city, a city that went by the name of Paris. Jericho had been here seldom, but he knew it well. In fact, after he had taken his revenge against his family's killers, he had come to the cathedral known as Notre Dame, seeking guidance in a moment of weakness.

He found none, of course. But the great cathedral was still a beautiful piece of work.

Jericho sat silently against the inside railing of one of its towers, watching the sun set over Paris. Nadia was here as well. Later on, they would probably go through town. Jericho would go through the seedier sections, someone would attack or be forced into attacking by Jericho's Amplification, Nadia would perhaps kill them, etc. Really, he believed she wouldn't have a problem, if that...dream...shared...thing was any indication. Whether that was real or not, her attitude towards the subject had changed somewhat.

Right now though, he just wanted to watch the sun set. Perhaps it was his wound that made him want to sit down and rest so often.

[Aerith]

Let's stay here for a while
--------

It was a good thing Nadia wasn't afraid of heights. She would have missed out on this breathtaking sunset. The worlds they had visited so far all had considerable beauty to offer in their own unique ways. But she found it a little frustrating that all of that beauty came solely from the natural surroundings or lifeless architecture. They had yet to meet people who didn't want to beat her, rape her, sell her, kill her, or some combination of the four. It was odd to her. The people of Twilight Town might have distrusted her, but at least they had attempted to be civil.

Only Jericho had been kind. And she couldn't say that she didn't deeply appreciate that.

The sun was dipping behind the town, but pockets of humanity still milled about in the streets. What were the people here like? Perhaps they would be less harsh than those on other worlds. Something at the back of her mind denied this. It insisted that it didn't matter what world you were on. People were all the same. Selfish, vile, and disgusting.

She blinked, resisting the urge to settle on that thought. Although, it was tempting to wrap her mind around it for a while.

"Are you feeling better?" It had only been a few days since Jericho had been shot. She glanced at him. They had been taking it easy, but she didn't want him to push himself and aggravate the wound.

[Slash]

I think I'll be okay.

[/center]

Jericho looked at Nadia. She was curious about his wound, and he could see a flash of concern.

He was quite happy with her progress. She was learning quickly, very quickly. She hadn't needed all that much leading, even. Elliot had assisted him greatly. Any further interference was helpful, but not truly necessary.

She saw the nature of man now, and she wouldn't be able to unsee it. And he enjoyed her company all the better now that the light of hope had begun to leave her, replaced by something much more twisted.

But really, what had he done to her? He took away something that would have caused her great pain and gave her something greater in return. She would know the joy of mass death, the ecstasy of bending and crushing people's spirits at a whim.

"Yes. Don't worry about me. I'm fine." He smiled.

"The sunset is beautiful from up here, isn't it?"

[Aerith]

Isolation can be beautiful
--------

Satisfied, she returned his smile and looked at the sunset once more. "Yes, it is. I think it's one of the most beautiful sunsets I've ever seen. It rivals even Twilight Town."

Perhaps it was the presence of such rich scenery that made this sunset so special. In Twilight Town, there was nothing too special aside from the one clock tower. But here, there seemed to be works of art everywhere, not just as part of this cathedral. The fading light cast lengthening shadows of figures she had only ever read about. Some, she did not recognize at all, but that did not make them any less fantastic.

Or perhaps this one was so special because she had someone here to share it.

She knew they could not stay here forever. Eventually, they would have to descend back to the streets. Back to the rest of humanity. She grimaced a little.

"You aren't in any hurry, are you? I like it up here."

[Slash]

I agree.

[/center]

"No, I'm not in a hurry. We can stay here as long as you like." He watched the light in the sky beginning to turn from orange into a dimmer pink, which in turn would become blue. It was all very calming- from all the way up here, the noises of the town could only barely be heard.

"I prefer it up here, too. There's no other people, and you can barely hear the ones down below. Too bad there are so few places like it."

It was time to evaluate her condition once again, just to make sure that she had progressed as much as he had thought. If not, he might end up making a grave mistake along the way.

One had to be careful, after all.

[Aerith]

Oh, yes. I enjoy the taste of freedom.
--------

Nadia pulled her knees to her chest and nodded. Jericho understood why she liked this place. So high above everything else, they were like gods watching the ants below. Maybe they really were. There was a time when she would have been ashamed of such blasphemous thoughts. Now, she just found them fascinating and a bit amusing.

"Yes. People are everywhere, it seems. Ruining perfectly good spaces, filling them with annoying noise. Like a disease."

It felt surprisingly good to say things like that, as though this was the way she had thought all of her life. Her family had merely suppressed it. She was free of their shackles now and could say whatever she wanted to. A hint of giddiness blossomed in her chest.

[Slash]

Even better than I had thought!

[/center]

Nadia's face reflected a bit of the happiness that Jericho himself felt at her statement.

Yes, that's right.[/color] It wasn't just that she said what she said, it was how she said it. The emotions that she had shown. She didn't consider it primarily with sullen anger or depression- on the contrary, she seemed amused.

Time to go a little farther. He smiled. "A disease. Can't say I disagree. Are we the same as them, do you think?"

[Aerith]

Is this the part where I confess my desire to watch the world burn?
--------

Nadia played with the question inside her head. Closing her eyes, she sank into her thoughts, the one from earlier hovering close. She had resisted before, but now she reached out, touched it, let it envelope her.

Humans were like rats. Filthy, pestilence-ridden rats that marred everything good about the worlds. They destroyed beauty, and they destroyed each other. Cannibals, they were. All too eager to tear each other to pieces over worthless pursuits like cold riches or land or arrogant notions of personal pride. Barbaric and ironic. Humans could be so inhumane, no better than animals. It was disgusting. And at the same time, so very laughable.

Was Jericho the same? Was she?

She opened her eyes and shook her head, then looked at him. "No. No, we are nothing like them." There was a pause as she chewed on another thought that had surfaced. "We are better than they are. And they know it. That is why they seek to destroy us."

[Slash]

The time for concealing things is over, wouldn't you say?

[/center]

Jericho didn't respond. Instead, he pushed himself into a standing position and looked past the rail, watching the people move under him. His face showed some sort of emotion, but it was incomprehensible- for a while.

She had done so well, and he respected her for that. Although it needed some tuning, she had already grasped and accepted the basic concept.

The time for hiding what he was had ended. She deserved now to know what he was, and make her own decision about whether or not she would leave. That would ultimately be up to her. He had tilted the scales in his favor, but he would not brainwash her to the point where she couldn't leave if she wanted to.

That had been the original plan, though. But after a while, Jericho had found it distasteful. He considered Nadia a friend, and did not wish to make her something that was little more than a puppet.

Slowly, a malignant smile appeared on his face as he looked down, and was replaced with a caring one as he glanced at Nadia.

"In a sense, better. In another, worse. Depends on your viewpoint. Better in that we can see past the surface of humanity and see the animal within. But worse in that we've killed. Either way, we are different. Man hates that which it finds different or strange. Look at how they spread like a cancer, making everything their own."

He stared down at them again. "I hate them, Nadia. You may think differently. But I hate them."

[Aerith]

I agree... to an extent.
--------

Finally, she felt so liberated. Her breathing quickened just thinking about what she had said. She had been living with a dam around her heart and mind for so long. Now that it was gone, now that Jericho had helped her tear it down, she could see exactly who she was meant to be.

Her eyes were drawn to Jericho who was now standing up and looking over the rail. And now came the moment when she realized who her traveling partner really was. But the first words that sprang to mind were not "monster" or "demon."

Friend, yes. Kindred spirit, perhaps. And yet not quite.

She could feel hatred within her, feel it slinking along every extremity. But this was more of a general hatred, an acknowledgment that humanity as a whole was horrible. Surely, not every single human was that wretched. After all, there was Jericho. And herself. They couldn't be alone, could they?

Standing, she leaned against the railing, looking first down at the people and then straight at Jericho. "You hate all of them? Every last one? How do you know for certain that everyone is irredeemable?"

[Slash]

Every last one? Just about.

[/center]

He thought about her question for a while. "Well, if you had barrels upon barrels of apples, and all but one at the very bottom of each were rotten, would you consider the barrels worth keeping? I hate people in general, but specific instances have to be decided on a case to case basis. So far I've only found two that have proved my initial assumption wrong." One was Aerith, the other was Nadia. He was sure he didn't have to tell her that she was one of them.

"People tend to group together. And when they do, they become a single unit, worse than even the sum of its parts. These groups, these societies are irredeemable. The only way someone can even have a chance at being different is to be isolated, partially or completely, from society. And even then, I've noticed that many are still just as bad."

He enjoyed being able to talk so openly. It was liberating, to say the least, and he was grateful to Nadia for the opportunity.

[Aerith]

I love a good conversation.
--------

There was something so mesmerizing about Jericho's words, even if there was still a piece of her that denied them. She couldn't help but listen. "I don't know if people can be compared to apples. Disease can spread easily, yes. But..." She turned away from the view and leaned her back against the rail. "There have to be some who resist infection. Otherwise, wouldn't everything have died by now? Everyone would have just devoured each other."

A flicker of optimism remained. She recognized the depravity of men, but there was still hope that not all were mere ravenous rats. Not all deserved anything except extermination.

"And yes, when people group together like that, they become even more terrible. I know that from experience. The group mind becomes more important than individual feelings. Failure to comply with the wishes of the entire group ends in exile or even death. The only way to survive is to escape completely or be sucked into the system like everyone else."

[Slash]

Still just a bit of altruism left in you...but it'll leave eventually.

[/center]

There was still just the faintest trace of optimism in her. It was quite endearing, especially since Jericho knew it would leave of its own accord if she stayed with him.

"Ah, but you see, when people become groups they look out for their own group. In becoming this sort of mass thing, they consider defending the group as defending themselves. Therefore, they strive to protect the group and keep it alive. They don't think about the specific people, they think about the whole that they are a part of. They are so twisted that it comes full circle, and they protect each other out of their own selfishness. Not that it really helps. It's a fickle bond, and when they don't break themselves up and kill each other they're usually destroying some other group."

He hadn't had a discussion like this in...well, he had never had a discussion like this. He knew that trying to explain his views to anyone would result in the usual- they'd hate him, call him a monster, he'd prove them right and kill them, etc.

He never got to express his views fully to another party, one who neither hated him nor was clinically insane. It was incredibly cathartic, to say things which had stewed inside of him for so long.

"Yes, you understand. It's like being caught in an underwater tow pulling you away- you're most likely to get sucked in and lose yourself, but there's the smallest chance that you can maneuver your way out. There's also no halfway point. You can't stand in the tow without being pulled."

Jericho often used analogies when making his points. He wasn't sure exactly why, but he figured that it was a combination of simplifying things for better understanding, as well as strengthening his argument by adding the element of visualization.

[Oathkeeper Emi]

This looks very interesting...
--

After leaving Traverse Town, Emi and Castle had simply flown around looking for another place to land. Honestly, Emi's heart just wasn't in looking for Arc anymore. She didn't want Castle to suspect anything so she stubbornly turned her nose up at every suggested stop until Notre Dame. She couldn't explain it. She wanted to go there. She stared out of the small window and all she could see were clouds. The big puffy white kind, billowing everywhere. And off in the distance... two towers? Huh. Sinking below the clouds, she was able to make out a town. The onboard computer said it was Paris. Everywhere she looked, she saw crooked little buildings, chimneys, clothes hung out on the line.

They landed and she jumped out, landing firmly on the cobblestone street below them. She had made sure there was no giant bodies of water around. There was a river, but that was easily avoided and there were bridges. In her arms, there was a large canvas tarp. She'd found it shoved into a cupboard on board. Naturally, she couldn't afford a good cloaking device for the gummi ship so a tarp would have to do. She hoped the passersby would just think it was a pile of junk and leave it alone.

She waited until Castle was outside before covering up the ship. "Let's go look around,[/color]" she said when she was done. She could already hear the faint murmur of a crowd. "If what this place looks like is any indication, we'll probably stick out. I don't think there will be any problems though. They've probably seen visitors from other worlds before.[/color]"

She looked back at Castle. "From what I can tell, this is a really huge city. It's probably best if we split up,[/color]" she said. "Meet back here in an hour, okay?[/color]"

She didn't wait for an answer, just turned the corner and was met with a bustling, crowded street. She walked with the flow of the crowd for a little while, taking in everything. Before she could really get started searching for Arc in earnest though, she noticed something. She kept getting glimpses of the cathedral through spaces in the buildings.

Emi walked a little faster, suddenly very intent on seeing the whole thing. She rounded a corner and got her wish. It was right in front of her and she had to look up to take in the architecture. Without hesitation, she walked right inside.

The sounds from the street went silent as soon as the door closed behind her. Suddenly all she could hear was the distant sound of...singing? She was alone, walking up an aisle lined by stone columns and candles. Even though it was still barely daylight outside, it was dark in here.

She didn't know what she was looking for. She wasn't here to pray, obviously, and she'd never been one to appreciate architecture. In her wandering, she passed by a huge stained glass window. The outside light shone through it, throwing colored shapes on the floor. She stared at it for a moment and then just happened to look behind her and see a door. She looked around for a moment to make sure there was no one looking and took off running for the door. She walked up the stairs beyond and found herself standing on a bridge between the two bell towers, looking over the whole town.

She leaned against the railing and looked down. It was a long way down. She wasn't scared of it though. The view was too stunning to be afraid. She wanted to go higher, though, maybe up on one of the bell towers. There had to be a way to get up there.

[Aerith]

I can't say that I want to leave now.
--------

Nadia shifted her back against the railing, though she continued to look toward the scenery on the backside of the cathedral. Mostly, she saw sky painted in clouds and warm colors.

"People are fickle, yes. One minute, you're their pride and joy, and the next... heh." She looked down at her hands and idly rubbed her left thumb and forefinger together. "The next minute, they're picking up stones, ready to kill you for stupid reasons."

Even if there were unspoiled people out there, how long could they hope to remain that way? Sooner or later, the disease would get them, whether by turning them to the allegiance of the group or by killing them outright. Perhaps Jericho had not found many that contradicted his thoughts because he had simply been too late. He was behind the curve, too slow to keep up with the infection that ravaged the worlds.

So, then. Maybe there were none remaining unspoiled.

"No halfway point. I don't want to get sucked in. I don't want to lose myself. But it often seems the pull is too strong."

She finally looked again at Jericho. "I don't think I can fight the tug by myself."