Chapter 239: Tenth Interlude - Metatron

Chapter 239: Tenth Interlude - Metatron

DISCLAIMER: This story is NOT MINE IN ANY WAY. That honor has gone to the beautiful bastard Ryuugi. This has been pulled from his Spacebattles publishment at threads/rwby-the-gamer-the-games-we-play-disk-five.341621/. Anyway on with the show...err read.

Tenth Interlude - Metatron

Even without looking, I sensed him long before he came into sight, the connection between usthe separated pieces of a billion soulsnaturally reacting. Figuring out what had happened was trivial, given what I sensed from him and past experience, but there was still the matter of deciding how to respond. I was many things to many people, after all, even as all of those things were me. I decided who I was, what I was, and manifested accordingly. I could be a friend, an enemy, a leader, a teacher, a student, or anything else I chose.

But this time, I approached Malkuth as 'The Brother.'

In that way, I felt myself change in a way that wasn't visible, wasn't even truly physical. Some of the powers I'd held in my previous role fell away, new ones arising even as others altered. A sensory ability that began providing more details, a defensive ability that could be projected and surround a distant person, an ability to shift damage onto myself, and many others besides. Things I was capable of, but altered in how they were expressed, just as a fireball might manifest as a conflagration in one role or a burning sword in another.

None of those things were what I was after right now, however, so I left them aside.

"Couldn't sleep, brother?" I asked, literally radiating a feeling of comfort and safety as I entered the room.

"When can I ever?" He said with a slight shrug, never taking his eyes off the symbols that filled the air before him. He was making adjustments every few seconds, altering the experiment he was working on to see how it changed the results. I could have become 'The Scientist' and unraveled it with a glance, but it could wait. "There's a reason I don't even bother trying. You should have just kept me awake."

"You were tired," I answered as I moved to his side and took a seat. "You stretched yourself too far in that last experiment, breaking down the barriers between matter and energy like that. I won't deny that the results were fascinating, but containing them the way you did"

I shrugged a shoulder.

"I thought you deserved the rest," I continued. "It has been most of a decade since you last slept. Even the others sleep now and then."

"Except for you," He noted with a snort and a glance. "The only times you ever sleep are when you want to walk through dreams. Don't think I didn't see you."

I smiled.

"But you didn't have nightmares, did you?" I asked. "I kept them all at bay. So why are you really up?"

Malkuth was silent for a long moment, lips pulled into a slight frown as he shifted his gaze away from his work and stared into space.

"It was odd," He said at last. "Sleeping. Being able to sleep without remembering the lives and deaths that made me. Odd, somehow. So when I realized what was happening, I willed myself awake."

At that, I sighed.

"Would you like to tell me why?"

"I would, if I knew," He mused softly. "But even I'm not sure. Maybemaybe I'm just not sure who I am without it. The nightmares and dreams, histories and tragediesit reminds me that I'm just the sum of my parts."

"I'd say you're more than that," I replied.

"Would you?" He asked me. "If you stripped away all the lifetimes I remember, all the people I know I once was, all the memories I havewhat would be left of me? From the moment I was born, I knew exactly what I was and where I'd come from, because I remembered every moment of it. Everything I did, I did for them. Because of them."

"Did you really?" I wondered, raising an eyebrow. "Is it because of them that you're here with us now?"

He was silent, expression briefly unsure and then blank.

"You remember countless lifetimes," I continued. "And most of them ended in tragic ways. You are, in a way, the sum of those peoplebut at the say time, there's more to people than simple math. What you remember made you who you were, but you've lived with those memories and created your own, same as I have. None of those people acted like you did, because none of them remember all the things you do. Those lives ended and continued in you, butyou're more than the sum of your parts."

He remained quiet for several more seconds before sighing.

"Maybe," He whispered at last. "Maybe. But sometimes, it's hard to believe. I joke and laugh and I remember Rahel doing the same. I make something and it's Urdu's work I see. Sometimes, I even feel like it's what I should see, what I should rememberbecause if I don't remember, who else ever will? It's been less than twenty years and I'm the only one who still cares. Who still even knows everyone who died."

"That's a hard way to live a life," I said. "As a memorial to something lost, instead of as a person. Is that what you want to be?"

"No," He answered at once. "I hate it. In fact, sometimes I think I even"

He cut himself off and looked down.

"It doesn't matter," He said. "It's stupid."

"If it worries you this much, it's not stupid," I replied. "And it seems to have gotten you working pretty hard."

Malkuth's eyes snapped back to the symbols in the air before he closed his hand and dismissed them all.

"That's something stupid, too," He said, looking embarrassed and guilty. "A dumb idea I had."

"About what?" I asked.

He hesitated for a moment before shrugging and admitting the truth.

"Nehemoth," He said. "And the Qliphoth."

I hummed in response.

'Qliphoth.' It was a word with many meanings. The literal translation of the word was 'husks', 'peels', or 'shells'things that concealed, contained, and protected, but which were inevitably left behind. In that regard perhaps 'Remnants' was a better way of thinking about the term. They were what was left behind.

In one sense, the Qliphoth was meant to be a hypothetical inversion of sorts, the shadows left by the Sephirot when they were imbalanced. Not the absence of them, per se, but perhaps more the singularity or corruption of themGevurah, untampered by kindness or restraint, became Golachab. They were untampered, wasteful, and incomplete.

In another, however, it was a theory. The Sephirot were considered to be the 'matter' of the soul and thus far, only those ten types had been identified. There were no Qliphoth elements or at least none that had been thus identified. Instead, they were considered to be something else; hypothetical states that the material of the soul could assume in the proper conditions. It had been an area of interest to the Angels, but not one that had gone very far. One of the Sephirot out of control was still itself, it didn't change in properties or nature. As a result, the Qliphoth had been more a matter of thought and philosophy than of science.

But then, someone had come up with a different way of pursuing the idea, altering their plan for going about it. Instead of focusing on the natural expressions of the Qliphoth, which seemed to do nothing if they even really existed, they chose to attempt to create such a thing for themselvestouching upon the divine with the physical, just as the physical was naturally touched by the divine, creating something extraordinary from base materials. To take the brief and momentary expressions and distill them down into a finished product, to see how it would take shape. It wasn't unprecedented, after all, for the Angels had done similar things before. Alchemy was one example, at least in terms of the end goal. Transubstantiation, the alteration of a physical objects inherent essence to create Dustit was difficult, something they did only rarely when they had easier methods of acquiring it. But it was most definitely possible.

One couldn't create something apart from the Tree of Life, of coursethat would, in a very literal since, be like trying to create something apart from existenceand that wasn't the point. All things took shape in Malkuth, the Sephirot above it flowing down and becoming something definite and defined. Some things could draw more from the spheres above then other; indeed, most things could be said to do that, even without taking into account Aura. But that was the point of the Sephirot, to establish boundaries, differences, and allow for things to exist in different shapes, as different people.

The Qliphoth, too, wouldn't be something set apart, but created from, and there were natural examples of that, as well. Things that go out of control, knowledge that was hidden, lies and deceptions, those were all supposed forms of the Qliphoth, they just weren't 'useful' forms, nor did they have interesting or meaningful applications. A parent lost their temper and screamed at their child, a man took a bribe or lied, people hurt and killed one another, and those things were badbut what did it really matter?

That was the actual, honest questionwhere was the line drawn between the body and the soul, a change in Gevurah and a simple loss of temper, and did it make any actual difference, in the end?

By and large, the answer was that no, it didn't, except in literal theorybecause that was what the Qliphoth were to the Angels, an attempt to further their understanding of the soul and it's pieces. There were countless theories about the soul, but none of them accounted for everything, even when the math said they should have and they broke the soul down to its most basic level. When all was said and down, he Qliphoth were the remainders, the errors that took shape in the system and needed to be accounted for; the reason why, even if you made two people with the exact same 'amount' of each Sephirot, the results would still differ wildly. In the end, people were separated by their differences and imperfections, their souls distinct no matter what said they shouldn't be. The Qliphoth were something even less 'physical' than the Sephirot and yet undeniably there.

I could see why Malkuth was interested in them, given his own situation. If one could theoretically examine those unseen pieces, if one could understand and prove and account for them, then they should be able to completely understand the nature of the soul. That was why the Angels had been so interested in the field, despite their meager results. In fact, one could even argue that it had been one of the reasons they'd created the Archangels, creating macro-souls to better glimpse the mechanics underlying it all.

A part of me wondered if that had born any fruit, before they all died.

"An interesting topic, to be sure," I allowed after a moment. "Have you made any progress thus far?"

"Only a bit," He answered after another moment of hesitation. "I looked into the information we took from the Angels, but it was difficult to find anything definitive on the subject."

"There hadn't been anything definitive on the subject," I said. "That was rather the issue, in fact."

"True, but I'd hoped there'd been a breakthrough of some kind, that one of them had figured out something before we killed them all," He replied, letting loose a quiet sigh. "Doesn't seem that way."

I nodded quietly, considering the matter carefully.

"Would you like us to help you?" I asked, meeting his eyes as he looked towards me. "I can't speak for the others, but I'm sure they'd agree to help if you asked them toand I know that I will, if you let me."

Malkuth hesitated again, looking at me uncertainly.

"I wouldn't want to drag everyone into my business," He murmured, looking down. "I know this isthat it would tread into uncomfortable territory for most of them. The experiments, the memories, the nature of the soulI don't want to do that to them."

I bumped my shoulder against his and smiled at him.

"I know you don't," I said. "But that's why they'd do it anyway. Come on, you look like you need so help. Even if it's just me, you know I'll be fine."

He bit his lip for a moment before nodding, at once seeming embarrassed and relieved.

"Okay," He said after a moment. "Do you have any ideas, then?"

"It depends," I asked. "What are you trying to accomplish?"

"I was thinkingand don't laugh, okay?" He interrupted himself to ask, continuing when I gave him a nod. "I was thinking that if souls could be gathered"

He gestured between the two of us.

"Can they be separated?" He continued. "I mean, obviously they can, because that's what the Angels did to make us. But instead of being reduced to pieces, could they become something separate and distinct?"

"Like the Preta?" I asked, thinking of the ruined spirits that the Angel's experiments had sometimes left behind. The hungry ghosts, complete enough to retain something of who they were and damaged enough that it only meant they suffered. So far, they hadn't found any way of fixing that and it wasn't the most desirable of fates besides.

"Sort of," He said. "But I was thinking still whole, justscattered. All parts of the same person, a single being, just with many bodies and minds."

"Distributing the memories?" I guessed. "Dividing the souls that created you to see what changed and what remained?"

He didn't deny it, so I fell silent for a moment.

"That sounds like it would be more my domain than yours," I said at last. "Not to mention the fact that none of the souls within you are complete any more. Even if you separated them, they wouldn't be anything like they were, even if they could exist separate from you."

"What if they had a physical form?" He asked. "A body to inhabit, even if they weren't completed souls."

"A physical form?" I asked, musing over the possibility. It was intriguing in its own way. What if I were to separate my soul in such a fashion and distribute it amongst something real? Ascribing roles to fragments of myself. If it was flesh used, it might be possible to create a Homonculus, but even putting a side the potential moral forms, why bother with something so limited? If I provided the power to give it shape, I could create a body foranything. The wind, the rain, fire and earth, maybe even greater things.

And if Malkuth did what he was suggesting and did it righttied the pieces to bodies and bound them to this world

Slowly, the connection with the Qliphoth became clearer. In theory, if they were too take shape anywhere, it would have to be in Malkuth. Most of them could only be differentiated from their corresponding Sephirot by thought or action; they had no meaning, otherwise. A common way of illustrating the Qliphoth was by setting it beneath the Tree of Life, in fact, with Keter at the uppermost point and Thaumiel at the lowest, implying that if the Sephirot covered the canopy and the trunk of the tree, the Qliphoth were the roots, hidden deep in the darkness. And the points where those two sides connected? In Malkuth and Nehemoth.

But what was Nehemoth? It was, if anything, the least defined of the Qliphoth, the hardest to graspbut what was the shadow of the physical realm?

The Qliphoth as a whole were like a second tree of life, one representing Sitra Ahrathe so-called 'Other Side.' But what was it? I had no idea, truthfully, but if Malkuth was the endpoint that resulted from the spheres that came before it, Nehemoth should be the same with the Qliphoth, the point where concepts became realities. And if no one knew what those realities were, if no one truly knew what Nehemoth or the other Qliphoth could bewhat did that imply?

I wasn't sure, but

"What did you have in mind?" I asked carefully.

"What do you think of reincarnation?" Malkuth asked, out of the blue.

I allowed my eyebrows to rise, but waited a moment before answering. They were working on altering states of matter, trying to create different things in pursuit of their more distant goal. It was hard to say how quickly they were progressing, simply because there was no way to know what the results would look like when they found them. Was creating semi-solid lasers a step in the right direction? Orbs that reverted into lightning bolts once a current was applied? Things that weighed more than their mass should have allowed or possessed strange properties?

Things had changed since they'd gotten started decades ago, grown. From the very beginning, all of them had been unprecedented and so knowing how to best use their own power was something they had been forced to find out for themselvesand so they had. Exploring new possibilities and venues, crafting new techniques and fields of study, and they'd built upon what they had and what had been left behind.

The place they were in now was somewhere between a laboratory and a factorythe place where we created wonders. Taken on its own, it was nothing, because it could not function without the power they worked upon it. But when they worked together, they could produce things that would have been considered impossible anywhere else.

Largely because they would have been impossible, anywhere else. Much of what we did required Malkuth's power to make the laws of physics more agreeable. Crafting materials that were simultaneously extremely rigid and supremely flexible was normally fairly difficult, but exceptions could be made by force, if necessary. Natural reactions delayed to see what occurred if something didn't explode when it was supposed to, tests to see what might happen if one forced the laws of geometry to make something that was both circular and triangular, if matter was made to occupy the same place. Different forms, hypothetical states, even the products of theories that were proven false, made correct for a time. What they'd learned in the process was almost impossible to describe outside of it, simply inapplicable in places where natural laws had no choice but to behave themselves, but here

The others got involved from time to time and always paid attention to the results and what we were creating, but by and large this was their lab, their work. The Archangel that governed this world and the one that was least attached to it, forcing it to stretch and conform to see what happened, where errors popped up and holes emerged.

Of course, the results were short-lived without Malkuth's power to sustain them and were quickly ground down by the basic laws of mathematics. I could adjust things somewhat myself, altering the state of myself and my power, but there were limits still, things we had yet to overcome. My power was more personal, a matter of definition rather than of being defined. Still, there were places I could reach and things I could do that even Malkuth could not, reaching above to add new factors and variables to the system.

That was what I was working on now, in fact; I was attempting to raise something above the realm of Malkuth, however slightly, and then draw it back. Ifor rather, whenwe managed it, we'd see what state it returned in and then if it could be brought back in other forms instead. Things could be hard to change in worlds of concrete laws and rules, but if you stripped them down to the most basic level, to thoughts and concepts and ideas, and then made them real again, there was no telling what would happen.

Sadly, it wasn't going well. There were rules and limitations they still hadn't mapped out and their progress was proving slow.

Still, it was rare for Malkuth to talk about something else while they were working and it was a clear sign that he considered the question important. I just wasn't certain how to respond. I rolled the question around in my head for a moment, trying to take it apart and see if there was more too it, but nothing I did found me answers. Truthfully, it wasn't something I spent a great deal of time thinking about, because death wasn't something I spent much time thinking about, for several reasons.

The first was fairly obvious. When I lifted my eyes to stare at my brother for a moment, he hadn't aged a day in all the years that had passedjust as none of us had. Whether that was a natural product of the amount of the Sephirot that had been gathered within us or how much Aura we possessed or something else, we still weren't entirely certain, but neither of us looked like anything but men in our early twenties. Never would look older than that, near as we could tell, because we'd never age beyond out primes, never die of natural causes. And given the power we'd learned to wield, the natural defenses we had in place, it was unlikely we'd die of anything but direct, personal action of another being and there were few that were up to the task. Really, our odds of killing one another were better than the chances of anyone else doing it.

And wasn't that a sobering thought?

"In what sense?" I finally asked, feeling concerned enough to ask for clarification. "Scientifically? Metaphysically? Personally?"

"Yes," Malkuth answered simply. "I just want to know what it is to you."

I pursed my lips for a long moment before answering.

"Scientifically, it's a proven process, more or less," I mused. "The Angels identified enough souls and later found ones that were exceedingly similar again that it's almost certainly real. There's still a great deal we don't understand about it, though, and answers weren't forthcoming."

"Because they don't remember anything," Malkuth replied. "Nothing of their lives, of the intervening time."

We both remember, in our own ways, I noted. In a technical sense, one might argue that we're both reincarnations, though I wasn't certain how applicable that was to this. As in many things, neither of us were standard or meant to be taken as the norm, so instead I nodded.

"Yes," I said. "And because there can be significant delays to the process, for whatever reason, it was hard to research in a controlled environment. Should someone die, it might be decades or centuries before they return, at which point they will inhabit completely different bodies, possess no memories of their past lives, and apparently be wholly different people. It is believed that certain personality traits remain, certain elements of the original life, but it is hard to prove such things definitively and it's possible that anyone who made such connections was simply projecting what they wanted to see. As will many aspects of the soul, nothing could be said for certain."

Malkuth nodded and went silent for a moment before speaking again.

"The Angels didn't see it as any different from ceasing to exist entirely," He stated. "Some even considered it a worse fate than becoming a Preta, given the choice."

"The Angels were afraid of many things," I answered, shrugging a shoulder slightly. "Death was one of them."

"Are you not afraid of death?" Malkuth asked.

I considered that.

"I'm not afraid of death, in and of itself," I mused. "Though I can imagine circumstances where I might be afraid to leave things behind. Nonetheless, given the unique state of my soul, it is likely that I would stand out from others and you and the others are immortal. Assuming you don't die along with me, it's likely you'll be able to find me again."

"You wouldn't be you, though," He stated.

"I wonder," I said. "Is that true? I am the Archangel associated with Keter, that which lies above the mind's comprehension, and I hold a concentration of it that's impossible to find anywhere else. When I was born, I knew who and what I was, even if I didn't remember it like you did. If I died and was reborn, would I truly be wiped clean, or would some things still persist? If anything should carry between bodies, wouldn't it be that which is contained in Keter? It's possible I'll still be myself, after."

"But what if you weren't?" He asked. "If you did forget?"

Ah.

"If you died, I'd find you, however long I had to wait," I stated simply. "Whatever happens, you're my little brother after all."

Malkuth made a face and looked away, but I saw him relax for a moment before tensing again.

"Would I be?" He asked. "Really? True, Keter might persist between lives to one degree or another and I might even be able to arrange something for myself when the time comes, but if I was reborn, lost everything, and became something new, in what way would I be me?"

"I don't know," I admitted. "No one else seems to, either. But I'd like to believe that something would remain, even if only through luck or our strange naturesif nothing else, I'd want to hold on to hope. If nothing else, however, perhaps we'd meet each other elsewhere."

"Where?"

I shrugged again.

"Souls remain somewhere when they aren't inhabiting bodies," I said. "Somewhere above the Tree of Life. Whatever process governs the laws of reincarnation, logic would dictate that there is some benefit to the process or why would souls even bother? As a result, even if we couldn't remember here, perhaps we might remember there."

"In Heaven?" Malkuth asked in a wry tone. "Do you believe there is one?"

"I don't know," I admitted again. "As it's usually portrayed? Perhaps not. I'm not certain what would qualify as an eternal paradise, especially for people like you and I. I don't have many good memories of people who call themselves Angels, either, and when it comes to Godtruthfully, I'm not certain I want to believe there's a being of such power, who could create a Universe as grand as this and yet still allow things like you and I to happen, letting countless souls be torn apart for someone's curiosity. With all you remember, do you feel any differently?"

"If there's actually a God, he owes everyone who became me an apology," Malkuth said. "But then what do you believe in."

"I want to believe that there's something beyond death, waiting to be unveiled," I said. "Or else death would so boring. Wouldn't you like to unravel the mysteries of what awaits us? We know that something exists, after all; it's simply a matter of finding it and understanding it."

"I think that would be more frustrating than anything else," He answered. "Those who reincarnate don't remember what happens between lives, after all. I have no use for mysteries I'm not allowed to learn the answer to."

"Perhaps so," I allowed. "But I would be a way to pass the time. And if possibleI'd like to meet you and the others there, should we all die together. Anything else would be saddening, so I'm willing to label that possibility 'Heaven.'"

Malkuth went silent again for a long minute before slowly cracking a smile.

"Maybe," He said. "Yeah, I suppose."

"What got you so interested in reincarnation all of a sudden?" I asked him.

"I was just considering something," He said. "What might happen if we succeed, if I separate myself while remaining connected? What would it be like? Like dying, perhaps, or being reborn?"

"We don't have to go through with it, even if we figure everything out," I told him. "We're just exploring the possibilities, still. If you're worried"

"I'm worried," He murmured. "Butmaybe a bit intrigued, too. It's strangeI don't know. But I want to know what we might find, where it might take us. Even if it takes a thousand years to figure everything outI want to know."

"Then we'll find out," I promised.

"Any progress?" Malkuth asked as he entered our lab again. Blue and yellow symbols fluctuated and glowed above his left hand, writing notes to one of his storage systems, but he hardly seemed to pay any attention to it as he entered. It had been some time since they'd last spoken, as they'd both been distracted by other projects and chosen to pursue their research separately for a time before comparing notes.

It probably said something about them that it had been several months since we'd last seen one another but we acted as if no time at all had passed. Immortality didn't make days pass any faster, but it seemed to give them less import after a while. Time flew when one was having fun and if a few weeks happened to pass by in the backgroundwell, what of it?

And I had certainly been having fun.

"Oh, quite a bit," I said, smiling brilliantly.

"Do tell," Malkuth replied, gesturing and causing the floor to ripple and rise into a seat.

"I think we may have made some faulty assumptions when it came to matters of the soul," I replied, raising a hand. At once, the air began to ripple and gather, swirling throughout the room centered on a space just above the palm of my hand. Slowly, a form seemed to take shape, shifting in and out of transparency as the edges of the winds took color and shape. Soon, there was a tiny figure, no more than six inches in height, floating just above my hand. "Malkuth, meet Stribog."

"Stribog?" He asked, blinking as he looked at the new figure before his eyes widened and he leaned forward in his seat. "You did it?"

"In a way," I said. "I had a bit of inspiration and an idea came to me, so I began an experiment that bore fruit. As you already know, I've been trying to empower something physical with a part of myself, to give it a role and place in its own right even as it remained a part of me, but nothing I did seemed to work even if everything we knew seemed to be correct. So finally, I went back to basicsbecause if the results don't match what we think we know, then there are only three possibilities; our results are in error, our observations are in error, or our knowledge is in error. So I threw out everything I thought I knew and started all over again."

"And you found something," He stated. "What?"

"We began with the assumption that whatever I did, I would be adding something new to the equation," I replied. "That I would be pouring a soul into an empty vessel, essentially. The air, the water, the windwhatever I chose. After all, only living things have souls, right?"

He frowned.

"Normally I'd say yes, but given the context of the conversation so far, I assume the answer is actually no?" He asked, sounding vaguely baffled.

"Exactly," I said. "When I started questioning the basic theories we'd built our assumptions on, I started to wonder exactly what separated things that had souls from those that didn't. Was it life? But when you got down to it, life is nothing but a biological process. So I began to wonder if that process was somehow key and examined a variety of different species, starting with the creatures most closely related to Mankind and diverging further and further. I tested fungi, plants, insects, fish, and more. By the time I got to algae and sponges, which I think we can agree are fairly different from humans, biologically speaking, and yet still proved capable of manifesting an Aura, I concluded that the only common denominator was that they were all organic. I even experimented with several kinds of single-celled lifeforms, just to be sure."

"That sounds like it would have been tricky," Malkuth noted. "I hope you took precautions, as well. I'd hate for you to have created some kind of magical super plague."

"No need to worry," I stated. "Wormwood is remarkably well-behaved and has promised not to plot against Mankind while I'm still alive."

"The sad part is that I don't know if that's a joke or not," Malkuth murmured to himself. "Pretending it is for my own sake, howeverwe knew this. Only living things can generate an Aura. Except maybe not?"

"Yes, yes," I gestured towards him, rolling my eyes slightly as I ignored that last part. "We 'know' that. But I was wondering why. It's not a matter of sapience, clearly, or even a matter of sentience once you get to a low enough level. What is it about a particular mixture of hydrogen and carbon that decides what does and doesn't have a soul?"

"I have no idea," He answered.

"Neither did I," I said. "And I couldn't find one, either, couldn't make since of why it was true when I chose not to accept it as fact. With the existence of reincarnation, we know that while souls may attach themselves to living things, they can and do exist outside and beyond them. One doesn't have a soul, one simply has a body. Is it a matter of choice on the soul's part then, a desire for a living and active form? But a variety of living species are scarcely more active than, say, water or air molecules. And because of the Sephirot, we know that all things come from the same source, the Light taking shape through the descent to Malkuth; that's as true for earth and steel as it is for human flesh and the soul. And if we're made of the same thing, with only a slight change in somethings molecular structure allowing for life, then what's the difference, really?"

"I still have no idea," He said again when I paused for him. "Are you going to explain at some point or?"

"What if there's no difference?" I asked him. "What if it's not a matter of presence, but of structure. Every person's soul is different and the souls of plants and animals differ in nature from those of humansand the further you get from a human in terms of biology, the more different the structure of the soul. Every species is unique, just as every organism differs if only in subtle ways. Some are extremely simple, such as microscopic life and hardly detectable without proper training. It doesn't feel like a human soul, either. But then, if that's the case for simple lifehow strange would something that wasn't alive at all?"

Malkuth frowned at me again.

"You're saying that everything has a soul then?" He asked. "Just that some are so different they aren't recognizable as such."

"Exactly," I said. "Or perhaps soul is the wrong word for what I'm talking aboutbut there's something there, some connection to the source if you reach back far enough. You've felt it too, haven't you? The massive currents of power that run through the world? What if they're like Aurajust from something a lot bigger than a human? What if, instead of trying to fill a void, it was a matter of connecting with and awakening something that was already there? A connection and an exchange?"

He was silent for a moment.

"Perhaps," Malkuth murmured at last. "Seeing as you produced results, I can't do anything but believe you. It's a bit odd, but that's us for you. But there's one problem with that theory of yours."

"Hm?" I wondered, tilting my head.

"You pursued the idea that everything had a soul, live or dead," He stated, lifting a hand and opening it. In the center of his palm rested a quivering lump of black material. "I went the other direction. If the nature of Nehemoth is that which isn't supposed to exist in Malkuth, if what we needed were empty vessels to fillthen wouldn't the logical assumption be to create something that was alive, but which had no soul of its own?"

I was silent for a moment, surprised. In a way, it was almost funny how our research had taken us in such similar yet different directions, but I didn't voice that aloud as I considered Malkuth's strange creation and sensed a strange sort of nothing from it.

"Much like you, I went back to basics and tried to figure out precisely how to do what I had in mind," Malkuth explained as things bubbled and writhed between his hands, black ooze growing. "But I went in a different direction. While creating life is relatively simple, that's not what I wanted, at least not entirelybecause if it was alive, it would have a soul of some sort, right?"

"I sent Gevurah to handle it," I said after another brief silence. "And he did. It's enough, at least for now."

He lifted his hand to look at me, eyes disbelieving.

"No," He said. "It's not."

He rose to his feet, standing until we were eye to eye, but his hands were clenched into fists at his side.

"These are stop-gaps, Keter," He continued. "They aren't solutions. This keeps happening, again and again and again."

I nodded quietly, sharing his feelings.

"I know," I said. "It's not perfect. But it's at least rare, now, something that only happens every few decades, every couple of centuries. It's not as bad as it could be."

"'Not as bad as it could be,'" He repeated, nodding but not in agreement. "Yeah, that's great. My life 'isn't as bad as it could be.' It's just, I was expecting a bit more than that."

"I didn't mean it that way, Malkuth," I replied. "You know that. Butit was this or disabling the Qliphoth, suffering occasionally or suffering constantly."

"I'd rather not suffer at all, I think," He murmured.

"I know," I said the same way. "II might have a solution."

At that, Malkuth seemed to perk up, eyes brightening as they met mine.

"You've figured it out?" He asked, phrasing the question oddly.

"It's something I've been working on, a barrier that should cut you off from this dimension and the people in it," I said. "I can show you the math, it's almost done, but"

"It won't work," Malkuth cut me off with a snarl, stepping towards me. "Do you think I haven't tried that? Cutting myself off from them? Don't you think that was the first thing I tried!? It doesn't matter. I'm the Kingdom, Keter, and I can see through the walls of dimensions like they're made of glassand so can all of my creations."

I fell silent at that, momentarily surprised before accepting his words as truth.

"Something else then," I proposed hesitantly. "It's something I've been working ona way to reach above this world, above Malkuth. Above time and space and distance and everything else. If I finish it, we"

"Could do what?" He asked. "Lock me away from the world? Lock me up alone in a hole for all time?"

"Not alone," I continued, still whispering. "You know I'd never do that, Brother. I'll go with you. And it won't be forever, either, justuntil we figure out a solution."

He was silent for a long minute at that, bowing his head until his hair hid his eyes.

Then his shoulders shook slightly as he laughed again, the sound barely audible.

"There you go again," He said. "You and your solutions, again and again. Every time, you tell me to suffer for a while, because things will be better, and when they aren't, you do it again, always trying. But there's only one answer and we both know what it is. The way you handle it, every time you fail."

This time, it was my turn to fall silent, and I bowed my head as well.

"What you're suggesting is monstrous, Brother," I whispered. "Understandable, given what just happened to youwhat keeps happening to youbut"

"But what?" He snapped. "Don't you get it? Can't you see what's right in front of your own eyes? We are monsters, Brother! Look at what we've done, the things we've created, how we act and view and think about the people we rule over! Don't you get it? We don't care. The others agreed to play their part for my sake, not for Mankind, and it's something they hate when there are so many things we all would rather do. And you, you sent out Gevurah again, to do your dirty workto kill people en masse that you wouldn't have to see die yourselfjust so you could keep your hands a little bit cleaner."

"That's not what I told him to do," I said.

"It's what you meant," He snarled. "It's what you knew he'd do. You could have stopped him, sent someone else, gone yourself, handled things differently, but it was the fastest way, wasn't it? The quickest way to help me. So tell me honestly, Archangel Keterwhy did you send Gevurah to do it?"

Slowly, I heaved a sigh and looked up at him.

"He's the best at such things," I answered. "The least affected."

"Because he doesn't care anymore, Brother. Go and ask him," Malkuth challenged. "I have and do you know what he said when I questioned him on how it felt, how bad it was? He shrugged and told me what he really believedthat people die all the time. They're nothing to him now, after all these years, if they ever were to begin with. But tell me, is he really the least affected? Tell me, do you really feel a thing for them, for the people you abandoned all those centuries ago? Have you ever really felt sadness for those who died because of us? Would you really cry if they all died? Would you even really care? Nothing ever hurts you, Keter. Nothing ever haunts you, ever leaves a mark. But you're telling me that this would?"

I couldn't say he was wrong or refute his demands, but I didn't flinch away from them either.

This time, I told him the truth.

"I don't think it would," I whispered. "But I think it should. I think that I should care, that I should be more than what I am, be kinder, that all of us should be. I know I'm messed upgiven everything, is that a surprise to anyone? But I already killed everyone who did anything to me personally. Why should I take my problems out on the innocent needlessly? Why should I let what was done to me make me a monster in turn? More of a monster, at least."

"And yet you still kill them," He stated. "Like you did today."

"For you," I said. "Like I would for any of us. I can kill when I have to, be a monster when I have to, if it means protecting my family. It's a compromise and still a sin, but that doesn't mean I should act that way all the time and kill whoever I want, whenever I want. If we did such a thing, we'd be no better than the ones who made us. Perhaps worse, at least in some ways. And we promised we wouldn't do that."

"We said some words," Malkuth said. "Caused some vibrations in the air nearly a thousand years ago. It was a promise, but guess what? Promises are broken all the goddamn time, Keter, and we broke this one. If I contacted Keter right now and told him to wipe Mankind from the face of the world, what do you think he'd say? 'Okay'? 'Sure'? Or do you think he'd demand an explanation or an excuse before doing it? We've held back from staying into the same experiments the Angels stated, but do you think we haven't thought about them? Haven't wondered about the mysteries contained within the soul, have never wanted to find out? Haven't you? We've toed the lines so often, haven't you wanted to cross them? How much longer until we do? We're not like the Angels, nobecause we're stronger. Because we won. Because we know what killed them and how to avoid it."

"Not the most ringing moral justification I've ever heard," I admitted, but couldn't deny what he said, which worried me. I'd wondered before and I suppose I'd known we all had, but I suppose I'd always figured that some things had never changedthat some things never would change.

Malkuth laughed again and I could tell from the cadence that it was directed at me.

"Look at you," He said, voice almost found. "You never were good at stuff like this. You change who you are at a moment's notice, can adopt new powers and faces in a second, but at the core of it all, you're still the same. You never really changed from that day, did you? From the day you were born. What was it you told me"

"If that even with all that's happened, who I am hasn't changed," I repeated quietly. "Then that must be strength."

He smiled at that and pointed at me.

"And maybe it is," He said. "But it's funny, too. In the beginning, when we were all children, you seemed like an adult, strong and calm and certainbut you're also static. The rest of us grew up and changed over these last thousand years, but you? You didn't."

I tilted my head.

"Right now, I'm not so sure that's a bad thing," I replied.

"Good or bad, it doesn't matter," Malkuth said. "It's just a fact. But what do you think the others would think if I told them what I wanted.

I went silent again, honestly considering it before answering.

"Gevurah might agree with you, perhaps," I said. "But not all of them. Netzach, Hod, and Yesod might go along with it, knowing it would help you, but Chesed? Tiferet? Binah and Chokhmah? You'd be splitting us in two."

"Perhaps," He acknowledged. "If it was just a request from me, perhaps you'd be right. They draw from the higher Sephirot like you and they're lessaffected by it. They're curious, still, and they restrictions imposed on them chaff, but they'll follow your lead if you say to refrain. But at the same time, they'll do it if you ask them to."

I closed my eyes for a moment.

"What would you have me do, Brother?" I asked him.

"Something painful," He said at once. "And it's awful and it's selfish and it's going to hurtbut it's for me. Everything I did, all those times I held back and suffered for people I didn't care for or about, it was because you asked me to. I want you to prove you'd do the same for me."

"And if you asked me to cut off my arms and legs, I'd do it," I said. "If you told me that the only way to help you was to flay my own skin off and gouge out my eyes, I'd have already done it. But this is"

"What's physical pain to you?" He interrupted, voice almost scornful. "You say you'd do those things and I believe you, but they mean nothing to you and me. You'd barely notice any of those things, much less be hurt by them. What I'm asking you to doI know it's bad. I know it's wrong. And I know it would actually hurt you. But I'm asking you to do it for my sake."

I took a deep, slow breath, dropping my gaze to the floor.

"You're my brother, Malkuth," I whispered. "I promised I'd protect you, no matter what. That I'd keep you safe, whatever the cost."

But I knew I couldn't do this. That this was a line I couldn't crossnot because of Malkuth or even because of the people who'd been hurt, but simply because of me. This wasn't who I was.

Of courseI could always change who I was, couldn't I? That was what all this boiled down to in the end, wasn't it? So I reached down inside myself, touching a place I'd hidden for so long, pushed out of my mind since the moment I knew it was there. The path not taken, but which had been there all along as a possibility.

The Adversary. The power of Thaumiel given shape within meand this time, I accepted it, embraced it, and let it come over me.

I expected the change to be something enormous, as ominous as the feeling I'd gotten when I first seen Thaumiel itself. I expected it to feel like darkness and rage and worse, to feel like a darkening of my soul, to feel evil.

But instead, I didn't feel different in the slightest. It didn't clear away the doubt, didn't show me the way, didn't give me anything that I could see. In fact, instead of giving me any new powers, I felt that had been bolstered dull and what had been lessened swell. My many masks and roles were still there, waiting as they always were, but I wasn't connected to any of them right now, wasn't wearing any particular face. In fact, it felt as though, for the first time in my entire life, I wasn't playing any particular role. That I was just me.

Had I failed or was this a sign that I'd already become what I'd feared, that I was becoming it on my own right now? Or perhaps, was this another insight into the nature of Thaumiel, something that stood apart from all else, that didn't touch my mind or incline me in any particular directionsomething that was opposed, yes, but more than that, was independent? That was wholly and solely itself?

I wasn't sure. Maybe it was nothing or it just took time to kick in. But somehow, it was that lack of anything that gave me strength. A lack of surety that made me certain. I let my senses expand to look over the world again, feeling my power come to life in a way that was entirely mine. I could feel Thaumiel reacting now that I'd made my decision, but it was hard to define or describe, nothing like what I was used to. It didn't feel like it was congratulating me for making the right choiceif anything, it just seemed pleased that I'd made a choice, for myself. It still didn't feel like much of a role or a secret weapon or a hidden power.

It just felt like me. As I could be, as I had been, and most of all, as I was.

And it was enough.

I looked back up at Malkuth and smiled as I saw him draw away from me, looking stunned. I suppose that was to be expected, seeing as he'd never seen me cry beforebecause I never had, until now, except when I was faking it. Nothing had ever hit me like that, but thisthis hurt. And it would hurt more.

But I'd made my choice.

"But I'm sorry, Brother," I said to him. "I can't."

He seemed frozen still, simply looking at mebut slowly, both his head and shoulders fell. His hands clenched into fists and his teeth grit even as he shook.

"Fine," He finally answered, voice colder than I'd ever heard it. "I'll do it myself."

As he made to leave, I lifted a hand and he paused by the door.

"I'm sorry," I said again. "But I can't let you do that either, Brother. If this is really the only way, if you really can't think of any other answerI'll stop you."

He looked at me and I almost marveled. Here we were, Malkuth and Keter. The two brothers that had stood against the world, now standing against each other.

Malkuth looked away first and stepped over the threshold before answering, silently making it clear that his decision was made.

"Go ahead and try," He said.

We went to war. It started slowly at first, simply because none of us truly wanted to hurt each other, but hesitation had soon given way to curiosity. In many ways, the battles had been like a game, a new experiment with which to test our powers. We would protect what they would harm, they would harm what we would protect. Both sides came up with measures and countermeasures, possibilities and alternatives, leveraging past research to new purpose and inventing new things.

Even I had to admit that it was exciting on a level. We'd never had much need for battle, having defeated the only people we'd ever considered enemies in the early years of our existence. We'd accounted for the possibility, of course, the idea that others might rise in the Angels place, but as our powers had grown over the years, it had been a relatively minor thing. Martial prowess or not, what was the enemy to do again an opponent that could rewrite the laws of nature? Swim through dimensions like a fish through water? Create stars and erase continents and twist time and space? We'd prepared for it, making sure we were aware and durable, but we'd never truly needed to fight. We'd done everything in our power to make sure that nothing could threaten us but one another and we'd succeeded.

So, in a way, it was fun. Fightingnot just as a spar that was stopped before anyone was hurt or confined by dimensions and rules and things that were not to be destroyed, but as something serious, with nothing held back. To innovate new means on the spot, to design weapons meant for practice instead of play, to pit ourselves against one another and drive ourselves to the limit. It was a call back to the days when we weren't certain of our power and safety, when we didn't know the results before a battle even started. It inspired us, motivated us, and brought out the best and worst, as though we'd all been sleeping in anticipation of this day.

But whatever it might have been, this wasn't a game. It wasn't a fight we could afford to lose, not for me and not for Malkuth. I think it may have taken time for that to become apparent to the others, but they realized it too, in time. Mankind was something so different from us, so distant from us, that it could be hard to recall that we were in anyway the same when we lived so far apart, but war has a way of breaking down barriers and opening doors. WeBinah, Chokhmah, Tiferet, Chesed, and myselfwe all that stood between Man and a force they could not survive or withstand, the only thing that could protect them when the world itself seemed to turn upon them. Man, woman, or child, it didn't matter; they relied on us, huddled closer when the skies turned to fire or the air to poison in their lungs, spoke to us and wished and prayed.

We'd always been figures of extraordinary power and authority, held up high above it all and far from the normal man, but that all vanished before the coming end. People came to us, spoke to us, asked for news and promises and hope. It's hard to think of them as anything but people then, when you could see them shaking in fear when a battle was about to begin. When you could see their corpses when a battle was lost. When you could feel the absence in those left behind, the effects of you failures on a person instead of a city or a nation. When you could fly and do battle around the orbit of the moon, it was easy to look down and see nothing, to consider the lives of the people so far beneath you as beneath you, but it was harder to do that when you looked them in the eye every day.

It wasn't a game and in time those who sided with me learned that. It was a war.

And we were losing.

It was an unfortunate fact, but not necessarily a surprising one. We, the Archangels embodying the upper parts of the Tree of Life, were less affected by the rigors of the physical world, but also less attached to it. We relied upon less physical means to manifest our powers, like I did with the roles I played, rooted in what could be, while the other side was tied more closely to what was. Our nature allowed us to ignore some of the rules that characterized Malkuth, but Malkuth could outright define those rules. The Sephirot were meant to be connected and all the things formed above where meant to be given shape below. Sadly, that gave them something of the home field advantage.

Added to that, Malkuth unleashed his creatures of Grimm in a growing array of horrific forms, some of them too powerful for even us to ignoreand there seemed to be no end to them. What started with just a few of us quickly grew into something enormous as the Grimm grew to number the millions, the billions, building off principles Malkuth had discovered and learnt to use and designed to learn. With only the five of use to stand against them, we had no choice but to draw on aid for our side as well, taking strength from the people themselves. The power of the soul had not been forgotten during our reign, becoming, if anything, even more common place, but some of its military applications had fallen out of favor with no one to war against. But as we relearned the arts of battle, so did Mankind.

It helped slow the fall, but it wasn't enough. Not with the Grimm growing ever stronger and Malkuth finalizing the details of projects we'd worked on, unleashing his RidersConquest, War, Famine, and Death. It was a joke, as I understood; things we thought we'd undone, made into our undoing. I didn't think it was very funny, personally, but I lacked much of a sense of humor at times like these. What mattered was that we began to lose more and more battles and we felt the losses much more sharply than they did theirs, because we had so much more to lose.

This had gone on too long. This world hadn't been made for battle on our scalehadn't been designed to allow it or survive it. Gevurah burning down nations, Yesod reducing all to nothing, Malkuth rewriting the rulesit was too much for the world to endure forever. Too much for Mankind to endure, with the Grimm eating away at them constantly.

So I'd decided to end it, on the same fields were we'd defeated the Angels. We hid what was left of Humanity away as best we could, planned for the occasion, and made our preparations. Just in case, I even took measures, in case we should fail. Truth be told, it was quite possible, even likely, so I did my best. But at the same time, I resolved myself for what was to come.

And then we fought. For our lives, for the lives of Mankind, for what we believed infor all those things and more, we burned down the field of Megiddo once more. Nothing remained in the wake of our battle. The land had been scoured of all signs of life almost before the battle began and then it had been used as a tool to wage our war. Parts of it had ceased to exist, while others had been reduced to shapeless primordial chaos. Others had been removed via more physical means, burnt away or shattered or shunted elsewhere. Some areas bore marks of effects that seemed frozen in time, while others continued as if holding their last note without end. In some cases, they even did both, such as with a lightning bolt that was utterly still on one end and writhed in the air on the other.

We'd divided the battlefield as we'd planned, facing our opponents on our terms, and things had gone as well as could be expectedwhich was to say that my brothers and sisters, the people I loved more than anything else in the world, all laid dead. They'd killed and died for me, except that wasn't quite the case; they'd done it for what they believed in, what they loved, and what they'd valued at the end.

Funny what a difference of opinion could amount to. Almost all of my family laid dead around me, a fact that I'd never be able to forgive myself for our forgetat least, not in this life, meaning it might not be a long-term issue for me. Not for the first time since this battle began, my thoughts went back to the conversation Malkuth and I had had concerning reincarnation and I wondered what it would mean for us. Would we remember? If we found each other again, would we know? Would we take the same path or repeat the same mistakes?

What a depressing thing to think about, here at the end.

"Keter!" Malkuth snarled, slashing a hand through the air, and a corridor of matter about the size of a building suddenly vanished as fundamental forces ceased to operate. I came apart and back together, focusing on the battle through my own musings.

I was losing, which was unfortunate but, again, not surprising. If anything, the way I was losing was a bit ironic. Malkuth had made himself untouchable, becoming a constant, something unchangeable. I, meanwhile, was ever changing, shifting roles with every second, often pausing only long enough to release a specific effect before moving on. I drew parts of surrounding dimensions into ours and then fired bolts of piercing energy. I switched places with those same bolts as they connected and struck Malkuth with a blow that was overlaid with a hundred thousand possible variations of itself, multiplying the impact accordingly. As I made contact, I tried to alter his position in space, pushing parts of him into other dimensions with severing force, and then I withdrew by becoming a part of the land beneath my feet and growing a new body from the earth even as Malkuth scattered the previous one. I marked out possible futures and moved to avoid them, not dodging attacks but preventing openings from appearing in the first place, and then I unleashed a reality storm, assaulting Malkuth with an area of violently alternating time, gravity, and space that could annihilate nearly anything. Nearly because Malkuth survived it.

Unsurprising. He'd seen it before, alongside pretty much all of my tricks; it was to be expected that he'd prepared countermeasures. It was sad that it stripped me of most of my best tricks, however.

Gesturing, I summoned my Elementals before closing my eyes. Letting my senses expand, I could feel lights dimming around the world despite my best efforts to protect Mankind, but I reached out to them now and drew them from their intended course to give them a chance to defend others. Their spirits took shape within my Elementals, bodies and faces rising from a colossus of moving earth even as spectral figures appeared on the wind. They stood tall, each dwarfing the tallest of mountains, and the others soon joined them, combining with a gesture. My soul took shape as a figure of light, as massive in truth as my soul appeared to onlookers, and I withdrew for a moment, bracing myself. I shifted us into another reality just before the first blast went off, minimizing the damage to the world around us.

"Keter!" Malkuth shouted again, pushing at my Elemental and forcing the giant back with a hand. He was multiplying and broadening the effects of physical force, I noted. "Is this what you wanted!? They're dead! They're dead because of you!"

Our siblings, he meant, but I couldn't see if he was crying in his grief for them. He may have been, but if so, the tears probably vanished in the bombardment centered on him. Either way, I didn't answer, instead choosing to consider alternatives. Using physical force was proving about as effective as I'd expected, even if it had kept Malkuth busy while the others fought. It was time to change tracks now, though, which meant choosing how best to do so. If I failed, I may not get another chance.

In the end, Malkuth chose for me. He unleashed a roar and the sound itself came alive, turning into a physical being that tore at my Light Elemental even as it became a resonance. Even as it did, however, Malkuth tore through both of them, black ichor forming around his hands into some kind of energy-annihilating field. He leapt at me, moving fast enough to outpace lightor else, altering the pace of lightto strike at me.

So I met his eyes and didn't dodge. I left myself open, lowered my defenses, and put my life on the line.

And in the end, it wasn't any of those defenses that made my brother falter and lower his hand a touch so that it only erased most of my remaining self. It was the same thing that had started all of this, something above the physical.

A thousand years and the memories that went with them. Even now, even with all this, we were still brothers. It was enough to make him stop, to make him hesitate, to make him wait just a bit too long.

I'm sorry, Brother. I win.

For a long moment, the battlefield fell silent as we stared at one anotherand Malkuth was the one who finally broke it, closing his eyes and dropping his head.

"Why, Keter?" He demanded in a whisper, drawing back a step before raising his hands once more. "Why? Look at them, Brotheryou killed them!"

"If anything, I'd say we killed them," I mused in reply, refusing to falter. "But I told them all what would happen today. They knew this would end with their deaths."

"Then why?" He asked. "Why fight? Why would you all sacrifice yourselves for them?"

"So it would end, Malkuth," I said. "We aren't the only one who've died for this. We're not the only ones who gave their lives for something we wanted or believed in. We're just the only ones that mattered to youso I suppose it had to be us. There's no other way to stop you"

Malkuth's hands twitched at his side and he grit his teeth.

"Because they can't reincarnate without Humanity?" He asked. "You bastarddon't you get it? Death is it. Even if they're reborn, it won't be them anymore."

"Maybe," I whispered quietly, unable to keep myself from mulling over the same possibility. "Maybe not. I guess we'll just have to wait and see."

"It doesn't matter," Malkuth insisted, almost taking a step forward as a growl entered his voice. "Humansthey're nothing. I can create and destroy them as easily as breathing. They aren't worth this, they aren't something you can hold over me; if I have to, once I find a real solution, I could grow men like grass in the summer. But our brother, our sistersthey're dead because of this fight. Because you made them give their lives for people who don't even matter."

"There's more to the value of life then how easily it is taken or given away, Brother," I replied, meeting his eyes calmly. I had to try not to sigh. "You of all people should know that. Wasn't it a matter of human lives that brought us here in the first place?"

"Considering everything that's happened?" He replied. "Not the most convincing argument for leaving them alive."

At that, I chuckled and exhaled slightly before looking up at the sky. Our battle had utterly ruined the world around us, but the skies remained largely clear and I could see the stars. It was a funny thing, really; watching them change their place ever so slightly over the years. I wasn't much for star-gazing except in the pursuit of science, but I could remember the day we'd first freed ourselves and declared our independence from the Angels, when we first felt the touch of fresh air and looked at the night sky.

Such a long time ago, now. It was a path filled with memories, from beginning to endmy story. Except, given the choice, I'd rather think of it as our story; the Kabbalah. There were good memories and bad memories, memories I'd thought good that were no painted in sadness and sad that I now recalled fondly. On the whole, however, it was something I remembered fondly, if now with melancholy. Given my nature, I'd always held a love for stories, or at least the idea of stories; the roles characters could play in a cohesive narrative, set against all the roles they could have played, the people they could have been.

As endings went, this seemed like a sad one, but it was the nature of people to be more than they were intended to be. I wondered if that applied to me in a way, too, or if I was still the same in the end.

I wondered if it made any difference, either way.

"Perhaps," I said aloud, deciding not to bore Malkuth with my final musings. "I suppose it doesn't much matter now."

A point of light appeared above and to the side of us, as blue as my eyes and shining with a brightness that couldn't be describedcouldn't be confinedto the purely physical. Although the point was indescribably tiny, it cast enough light to illuminate what was left of the lands of Grimm out to the lefts of my basic perceptions, casting the sky in odd colors in the process.

And no sooner had the light appeared than did it start to move. Like a blade being taken to the fabric of reality, the point was drawn into a line before changing directions and tracing a different path until it formed a perfect squareand it was perfect, lacking anything but length and width for a single, solitary instant.

Then, that instant passed and it continued to expand, new paths tracing from the corners to encompass us in a cube, sealing us within. Then, the cube itself grew, branching out along new paths to become a tesseract, something that couldn't wholly exist within normal space and so simply expanded beyond them. Moments later, it expanded to a penteract and then to a hexeract, multiplying in size each time yet staying confined to the same volume.

"What are you doing?" Malkuth asked, eyes widening. The process was occurring at speeds even he couldn't track and we were already sealed in. I felt his power try to resist my own, but it seemed to struggle as it did, power over the physical realm slowly losing meaning as we my 'cube' spreadand drew usinto higher dimensions. Already, things like sound were becoming distorted, the words impossible to speak and thus simply conveyed by intent and idea, and it was only just beginning.

Even so, I looked at my brother and answered.

"Previous, I was buying time," I told him without lifting my voice in the slightest. "Presently, I'm winning."

To his credit, that was all Malkuth needed to hear to start putting the pieces together.

"This was your plan all along," He said. "You could kill all the others, but you knew you couldn't kill me, so you decided toto trap me, like you said before. Lock me up alone in a box, far away from reality."

I was silent for a moment as I considered how to reply, what I could and should convey, but in the end I chose to go with the simplest explanation. He could put together the rest.

"No," I said quietly. "Not alone."

Malkuth's physical form was beginning tonot unravel, that wasn't the best way to describe it. Instead, it was more like it was simply losing meaning. It was there, but it didn't matter here. Even so, I could tell that he was surprised by my words and for a moment he seemed speechless.

"You'd lock us both in hell?" He asked. "Why?"

"Because you're my Brother," I answered simply. "And whatever you've done, whatever you've become, I had a part to play in it allso I'll help pay the price as well. Besidesit's better than being in hell alone, isn't it?"

He stared at me for a moment that I couldn't really define, since time was starting to breakdown, too. Instead of waiting, I decided to continue to speak, while I was still able.

"This is the end," I said. "You and I, locked up forever. The others will be reborn eventually and hopefully they're find each other againor, at least, find something like happiness and peace. They're strong and they'll be strong, perhaps strong enough to fix things, but who they'll be I don't know. ButI hope they'll be good people, that being born and raised among Humanity will ground them and help them. But you and I, we always we the strongest, too strong not to shape the entire world around us, solet's just fade away into the storybooks. Okay? Perhaps I'll never truly understand what you'd had to go through and live with, butI'm your older brother. I'll stay beside you until everything is over."

Our bodies were almost completely gone now as we ascended into the uppermost reaches of Malkuth and began to touch upon Yesod. But Malkuth hardly seemed to care about that now.

"You and me?" He said. "Trapped forever?"

"Hopefully not forever," I said. "Perhaps someday, we'll find a solution or perhaps even figure something out for ourselves. We'll still exist in some form; we might even retain ourselves to some extent or another. But if necessary, if this world is too painful, why not just leave it behind? Thisis the closest I can get to doing something that truly hurts, with a price I can pay. Isn't this enough, Brother?"

Instead of answering, Malkuth just seemed to look at me and then awayand then something pierced straight through me. I looked down at myself, startled for the first time in a long, long while, especially when I saw the source. A number of blades had impaled my chest, striking through me from behind, and the weirdest thing was that while everything else seemed to fade, they seemed utterly and wholly real. It pierced through the walls around us as if they weren't even there, slipping through the reality trap as though it weren't even there, as if there were no greater truths to trap.

It took me a moment to recognize it and only then did I relax. Something like that would have been impossible for even Malkuth, by design, but I knew of at least one thing that couldand though I'd planned for it to be separated by Malkuth, it didn't matter much at this point,

"Killing me won't stop this, Brother," I said. "It's already too late for that, bound to the two of us. If I die, it'll just leave you even more alone."

Even without touching the extension of Death, Malkuth seemed to draw strength from it, growing more real in its presenceenough that when he looked at me again, I could make out a smile and see that it looked sad.

"Who would want to be trapped with you forever, Brother?" He asked. "Such a thing would be a fate worse than death, so instead justjust die and forget everything."

I looked at him for a moment, not sure if this was meant as an act of kindness or of spite.

"Malkuth"

"You have plans, I'm sure," He continued, seeming to ignore me. "You always do, don't you? For what to do if this happenedif you lost or if I killed you. You'll be reborn eventually."

I didn't deny it.

"If Mankind survives, at least," I replied. "You won't be able to act on the world the way you're used to; that'd go against the entire point. If you kill them all"

"Of course you'd plan for such a thing," He said with a scoff, but didn't seem surprised. If anything, he seemed calmer than I'd seen him in a long, long time. "It doesn't matter."

Not the most assuring statement of Mankind's survival, but I felt confident that they'd remain in some capacity. That there would be hope, however slim. I hadn't wanted this to happen, hadn't wanted to shift my responsibilities onto others when I was supposed to be my brother's keeper, but I'd known I might fail. I'd taken precautions to ensure there'd be a chance to set things right someday.

But

"Maybe in my next life, I'll manage to be a better brother," I mused, thinking both of the brother before me and those who'd led the way in death.

"Dead is dead," Malkuth said, the words soft and sad despite their ferocity. "In your next life, you won't be the same. You'll be nothing to me, no one. I'll take what I need, rip you to pieces, and finish what I started. I won't hesitate or show you mercy again, Brother."

I wondered if that meant what I thought it did, if he planned to wipe me cleanif so, it wasn't unexpected. I'd suspected that would be my fate if I fell in battle, assuming I wasn't outright annihilated. I wondered, more than that, if anything would remain and what.

There were no answers, even as I was dragged back into the realm of Malkuth and caught in the hands of Death.

I'm sorry, I thought, not certain who I was apologizing tothere were so many who deserved it, after all.

And then, I closed my eyes.

I died.